“That was because I was getting stuffy, as stuffy as those swells mincing about my lawn.”
She laughed and when he spun her about in another slow, languorous circle, she felt absurdly happy. She scarce knew when the band finished up its last melody, or how Zeke guided her from the dance hall back to the street.
To her astonishment the sky over the city was already lightening to a hue of pearly gray.
“The sun’s up,” she crowed. “Zeke, we made it. We danced all night.”
“So we did.” His voice was laced with indulgence as he handed her up into his awaiting carriage. The landau was one of those open sporting vehicles, but Zeke had the folding top raised into position.
Rory settled back gratefully beneath its shadowy depths. Zeke vaulted inside, but he did not sit decorously opposite as he had earlier. He squeezed beside her, and she was glad of the warmth emanating from his long, muscular frame. Even with her cloak, the morning air was chill and her head suddenly felt so heavy.
Zeke’s shoulder was just the right height for nestling, and she didn’t even try to resist. As she settled against him, he wrapped one arm about her.
The carriage sprang into motion, and swayed by the gentle rocking, Rory closed her eyes. She sang snatches of My Wild Irish Rose, only stopping to murmur, “Dawn comes too soon over New York.”
“Yes, it does,” Zeke agreed. He gathered one of her hands into his own. “Rory, there is something I want to say. I have a proposition to make to you.”
Proposition? The word sounded so businesslike. Vague remembrance drifted through Rory’s head of her original purpose in coming out with Zeke tonight. But she had spent verylittle time talking about her company. She supposed she had tossed away any chance to recruit him as an investor. Therefore he surprised her by saying, “I am willing to make any settlement upon you that you would name.”
“Settlement?” she repeated. “Is that the same as money?”
“Well, yes.”
Money? Money for her balloon company? It would seem she had made an impression upon Zeke after all. Despite the champagne still fuddling her brain, she pulled herself into an upright position.
“Oh, Zeke,” she cried. “You’ve made me so very happy.”
Overcome with her joy, she flung her arms about his neck. Zeke was not slow to respond, straining her close.
“Not nearly as happy as you have made me, Aurora Rose,” he murmured, pressing light kisses against her hair.
It came as a shock to Rory when his lips found hers. She stiffened at first, startled by the contact, the unexpected kiss tearing through her like a flash of lightning. His mouth tasted of wine, so seductively sweet. Then what was sweet, what was gentle became fire, the dammed-up passion she had sensed in Zeke breaking free.
And God help her, the fever seemed to have spread to her, licking through her veins with tongues of flame. She had buried her fingers in Zeke’s hair and caught herself returning the kiss with equal fierceness when she broke off, panting.
In some dim corner of her mind, it occurred to her that this was not the usual handclasp with which business contracts were sealed. But it was difficult to reason anything clearly with Zeke continuing his assault. His lips grazed against her temples, her cheeks, her chin, moving down to caress the column of her throat,
“Oh, Rory,” he said. “I’ll give you anything you want. A flat in Morningside Heights, your own carriage, a box at the theater, an account at Bloomingdale’s.”
“I don’t need all that. Just enough to keep me from being evicted from the warehouse.”
Zeke paused, his lips a breath away from hers. “Warehouse?”
“Yes, but Zeke,” she managed to say somewhat unsteadily. “I’m not sure prospective business partners should behave this way.”
He frowned, drawing back. “Warehouse? Business partners? What are you talking about?”
“Why, I’m not so sure. What are you talking about?”
“I am asking you to become my mistress.”
His mistress! Rory jerked away, bumping her head against the back of the seat.
“We did agree that neither of us is the marrying kind,” Zeke said.
Rory rubbed her eyes, feeling as if she were groping her way through a fog. “But what about my balloons?”
“You don’t have to bother about them anymore. I wouldn’t want you to keep on risking that beautiful neck.” He stroked his fingers through the fall of her pair, brushing it back from her face. “Look, Rory, I know I’m no good at saying all the words a woman needs to hear. I guess I’ve been too blunt. All I can tell you is that I want you, possibly more than I’ve ever wanted any woman before.”
