Page 45 of Forgery, Love, and Other Lies
He dragged her away from the icon and toward the jewelry at the center of the room, and the first piece they passed was a ruby necklace.
A familiar ruby necklace. Fiona gasped. She had not meant to, but the sound of surprise broke free before she even knew of its existence. What else was she supposed to do?
Lysander stopped, looked at the necklace, then at Fiona. “Recognize it?”
She nodded.
“Has it been brought into your shop to be fixed? By its owner?”
She shook her head. My, the heat had risen in the room. Insufferable, it was, and pooled almost entirely in her cheeks.
“Do you recognize it for some other reason? Because you’ve seen it on the owner’s neck in public?
She shook her head once more.
Lysander stared hard at the necklace, then shifted quick as a breeze, and wrapped tight fingers around her wrist. He pulled her toward a pair of doors at the side of the room that opened into a hallway. Soon, the dim light of the hall surrounded them, and he surrounded her, her back pushed against the wall, his body pressed close, his knee splitting her legs and nudging them apart.
His head dipped and his breath whispered in her ear, “You made a copy.” A lover’s embrace meant for, it seemed, hissing accusations.
Correctaccusations.
She swallowed hard. “Yes.” She pressed her palms flat against his chest. “You know this about me. I’ve stopped. But… that one is real, so you need not let your anger consume you.”
He growled. “Hell, I’m not angry.”
She cocked her head to the side. Even her heart seemed to stop its hammering to listen. “You certainly seem enraged.” Or in lust. One of the two. Both perhaps.
“I wanted to speak, and this was most expedient. A moment of privacy gained through the appearance of uncontrollable ardor.”
Ah. Now she understood. “Pretending a… a sudden bout of lust?”
He rested his head against her shoulder, bringing the entire length of his body closer to hers. “Forgive me.” Waves of his warm breath stole across the skin above her low, low bodice, and her body tightened. Her breasts ached.
“Are others looking?” She dared not look left or right.
“No. All others in this hall are… as we are.”
She did look right then, the only way she could look with his head resting on her left shoulder, and yes—there, a bit down the hallway—another couple embracing, a woman was pinned to the wall as Fiona was by a man as dark-haired as Lysander. Hopefully the woman enjoyed the pinning as much as Fiona was.
“How clever of you,” she said, breathless. And meant it.
“How did you come to have the Currington bridal gems?” His voice was a harsh, heavy rasp as his hands lifted to her bare upper arms, stroked up and down in that sliver of a space between her sleeves and the tops of her long gloves.
“The what? Oh, the rubies.” Was that what he wished to speak of when the couple just down the way was not speaking at all? Oh, wait, the other woman did mutter something—please—and then she uttered a few more words—God yes. Well.Theirconversation seemed preferable. She looked to Zander, who still rested his forehead on her shoulder, his eyes clenched closed, his jaw working as if he were a cow chewing cud. He likely would not be amenable to such blasphemous conversation.
“I, ah, the dowager has a particular fascination with bridal parures. You did not know?”
“No,” he hissed.
“Had we more time when I took you to her secret gallery, I would have shown you the room she keeps them in.”
“How did she procure them?”
“I did not ask. She provided the set, and I… um…”
“Yes, yes, I am aware of what you did.”
“She promised that the originals were going back to their owner, and that she would have the fakes destroyed when she died. It is good to see she kept her word there at least.”
