Page 43 of Forgery, Love, and Other Lies
“Oh. Yes. Right.” The reason they were there. Not for kisses but for intrigue and discovery.
He righted his cravat and coat, and the thick muscles in his thighs flexed as if to stand.
She laid a hand over the one closest to her, almost melting into nothing at the feel of the hard muscle. “Wait.”
He stood slowly, letting her hand slip to her side, and peered down at her. “Yes?”
“I’ll climb over that wall you’ve erected.”
He blinked, shook his head as if he did not understand.
She stood and, with tentative hands at first, lifted her fingers toward his hair, smoothed it back away from his temples. Then she met his gaze with more confidence than she touched him. “I am not a woman who will claim a man’s forever because of a kiss—”
“That”—he pointed hard toward the couch—“was more than a kiss.”
“I will not tell a soul, Lord Lysander Bromley. But I will not be shut out either. I will climb whatever walls you build. Do you understand?” She poked him in the ribs. “And explode that one you’ve currently shoved up between us. I’ll not have it. So do not even try.”
He swallowed hard, his jaw tightening. “I have no clue what this is. It’s the damn truth, Fiona. I’m laid flat, and I… but you know my reasons.”
“I expect nothing from you. I’ve never expected to marry, and—”
“Why the hell not?”
She shrugged, smoothing the wrinkled damage he’d done to her skirts, unable to meet his gaze. “I’m not entirely certain. There have been no suitors. Perhaps that fact… stuck with me, molded my expectations early on. And I do not expect you to be my suitor, but…”
“Yes?” he prompted, running one finger down her cheek.
She wanted to banish those gloves keeping his skin from hers just as she’d banished the walls between them. “But…” But she did not have the words. There were few options for women—wife or whore or spinster. There should be a few more. She’d like something outside of those, something that allowed for touch without ruination. “I do not expect you to be my suitor,” she repeated, waving away the growl that rumbled from his throat, “but I would still, while we are connected, like to kiss you.”
“Fiona.” Her name almost a curse on his lips.
“If I never marry because my life ends short at the end of a rope or because I’m taking care of my mother for the rest of my life or working secretly for my father or because I’m just plain and unremarkable… for any of those reasons, if I never marry, there is no one to know I once met a man who saved me from my innocence, who taught me the beauty of imperfection.” Yes. That was it.
She searched for her mask as she thought through the new truth blooming in her breast. When she found it, he took it from her and tied it on, and she freed his domino from her pocket and did the same for him.
All the while, she considered the new truth, spring green and certain. She was supposed to remain perfect for her husband, perfect innocence, pristine and untouched. All women were. But she’d never been perfect, so why try now? And why not sink into that imperfection in the arms of a man who understood its value?
Her voice stronger than before, she said, “I will never marry because I cannot be the type of woman a man will want. I will always have forgery attached to my past, and marriage would align and endanger any man with that crime. But I still want to know, to feel, to touch and be touched, and—”
His hands wrapped around her upper arms like lightning, and his lips lowered to hers just as quickly, and in a flash, he kissed her again. A kiss blinding enough to cast the meager candlelight in shadow. When he lifted from the kiss, his eyes lit with the dark flames of hell, and a new desperation clung to him. Then he took her hand and led her out of their hiding place. The crowd in the ballroom streamed toward a pair of open double doors at the opposite end of the dance floor, and Fiona and Zander followed. His hand held her like a manacle, his arm a chain that bound them together. Here. Tonight.
But did the chain mean agreement?
She pressed close to his side and popped up on toe to reach his ear and whisper, “Teach me, Zander, for no one else ever will, and I’ve always loved to learn.”
He hissed a curse, but he did not say no. Indeed, his hold on her hand increased, crushing, possessive.
She liked it. She’d not drop the conversation. She wanted to have him as long as their association lasted, and that might not be very long, so she held on just as tightly as he did and promised herself that after the auction, they’d continue what they’d started with a kiss.
Fifteen
The room the guests filed into was scarcely smaller than the ballroom they’d left, but this one was filled ceiling to floor with paintings of all sizes. On small tables throughout the center of the room, clear cases sat squat and shining, jewels glittering beneath their glass, and statues clustered in corners. A small army of masked footmen handed out more glasses of champagne. Fiona took one from a passing footman but put it back down on another footman’s tray when Lysander did not do the same.
“Shall we abstain?” she asked, leaning in and reaching up so her whisper could reach his ear.
“Yes. We must keep our wits about us. We should not have had some earlier, but I meant to cool us off.”
She chuckled, squeezing his arm closer to her side. “Cool? I’m a fire. A furnace. The very sun. If I were Icarus, I’d be in terrible danger.”
