Page 46 of Forgery, Love, and Other Lies
He snorted, but then he stroked the side of her neck, waking her up, muddling her mind, though she needed to be sharp. His knee seemed too close to her body. It pressed her skirts up between her legs, and—mercy—she wanted him to press more, ached for some greater pressure she could not describe.
Each word difficult because breathing was a difficulty, she thought. “We should return to the auction room or…” A risk. She’d take a risk. “I begin to doubt this ruse of lustful abandon is necessary for a private conversation. There are doors outnumbering us on either side of this hall, more than enough to slip into and—”
“Discover others further along than we are and less fully dressed.”
“Ah. I see. Either way, I do believe you’ve pinned me here not to speak with me, but to… touch me.” Her hands clawed into the lapels of his coat, and she pulled him tight against her until his hard chest crashed into her soft breasts. Aching again, too. My what a world the body could learn in a small hour. Breathless, anticipating, careless of the conversation, she just wanted him closer, all of him, arched against her and into her.
He flattened his palms on the wall on either side of her head and dipped in low for a hard kiss, wild and wanting and too, too short. He pushed himself away from the wall, from her, and offered her his arm.
She almost melted. Only the wall held her up, but she launched herself toward him, grabbed for his arm to steady her legs, and somehow they found the door to the auction room.
And found it blocked.
The woman in the deep-purple gown took up the entire space, her feathered turban waving about like an excited child bidding for attention. She blinked up at them with oddly familiar eyes, her mouth partly open, her skin flushed. Had she been watching them? Fair. They were in public pressed against a wall, after all.
Why were her eyes so familiar? That gray-blue… They widened. She gasped and covered her mouth with a black-gloved hand. And then she ran, twirling and twisting between the prospective buyers in the auction room and disappearing behind a glass case.
“The dowager?” Fiona’s voice scratched a hoarse whisper up her throat.
“Precisely.” Zander’s voice held the predatory growl of a jungle cat, and he pulled her into the room, after their prey.
Fiona ripped from his grip. They’d never weave through the crowd together successfully. Better to part ways. Where was the purple silk? Where was the feathered turban? She was so cursed short! Everyone towered above her, and she had to go up on toe, then jump, just to see.
“Where,” she growled, pushing between two men, “is that woman?”
The dowager was short, too, though, and even with her towering headgear, the tall black-and-white columns of gentlemen would hide her well. But Fiona had her own column, and he chased ahead of her toward the ballroom, after—yes, there—a flash of purple skirts.
Fiona followed. People were looking now, though, and while no one here knew her well, what if her mask slipped? She hitched up her skirts and ran, eyes on her be damned.
Ahead of her, Lysander slipped out of the auction room and into the ballroom, and she lost sight of him for several breathless seconds while she scrambled to keep up. When she tumbled into the drawing room, out of breath, gaze darting every which way, she found him. Alone in the middle of the dance floor, arms limp at his sides.
She hurried to him. “Where did she go?”
He shook his head, the lines of his face grim and heavy. “I don’t know.” He pointed toward a series of doors that opened up into the gardens. “Could have gone that way.” He pointed toward the stairs. “Or that way.” He swept a hand toward those shadowy alcoves that had hidden them earlier. “Or in any one of those. The problem is if I choose wrong we lose her. Damn. We’ve probably already lost her. The slippery thing.”
She tugged his arm then darted off toward the alcoves. “I’ll search here, and you search upstairs. If she’s slipped into the gardens, she’s likely already darted off toward a carriage and is gone.”
“No.” The single word echoed, resolute in the air like a heavy fog.
“What can you mean ‘no’?”
“I’ll not leave you down here alone, a room away from a horde of lascivious men too deep in their cups.”
She could not argue that point. “Let us search the alcoves first. Quick. Then go into the gardens.” They were too close to answers to stall. She rushed to the curtained-off corner and threw the draper back. Empty. And the next and the next—the same.
He searched the other side, calling out, “Empty!” as he went. They met near the doors that opened out into the gardens, and Fiona eyed the stairs that would take them to the upper-level balconies of the ballroom. Were they making the right choice?
His hand cupped over her shoulder. “I do not think she would have gone that way. She’s agile for her age, but those stairs and that gown and turban? It would have taken her longer to ascend them, and I’d have caught her. Much easier to hide or escape out the back.”
She inhaled, the air filling her lungs deep but shaky. “Yes. Let’s go.”
They pushed into the cool evening, the night an inky black that swallowed them whole. He grabbed her hand and tugged her toward the front of the house.
“This way. Toward the carriages.”
They ran, and she had to crush her skirts in one hand so she did not trip over them. The coaches waited before Currington’s home in a long line, like giant frogs on lily pads, squat and sluggish except for the restless horseflesh reined to them.
“Which one?” Fiona gasped.
