A Masquerade in the Moonlight(81)
The beautiful shoulders shrugged eloquently. “I don’t know, Donovan. I’ve never dosed anyone with laudanum before tonight. Several hours, I suppose. You can’t know the bother I’ve had keeping her awake until you could bear to pull yourself away from Ralph. What was he so earnest about, anyway? For a moment, I almost believed I saw him smile.”
“Now, now, aingeal. I think we can agree we are both to keep our own secrets. I won’t tease you any more about what you’re planning for Harewood and those other Methuselahs, and you won’t ask me about my business. Besides,” he added, stepping closer, so that he could smell the scent of crushed roses emanating from her hair, “I believe we have, without speaking, already agreed on our activity for this evening. The rubies were an inspired touch, by the way. No one save myself has come near you, and no one will be surprised to find you have gone missing, although I imagine there will be more than a few wagers as to just who is tumbling the outrageous Miss Balfour in the bushes.”
Her smile faded, to be replaced by a steely glare. “Of all the cork-brained things I have attempted in my life, this one surely bears off the palm,” she said, trying to disengage her hands from his. “And it’s not as if I didn’t know this is nothing more than a game to you. Just another silly debutante with more hair than wit who is willing—nay, eager—to disgrace herself with a handsome rogue with nothing save his own pleasure on his mind. Let go of me, Donovan.”
Thomas continued to hold her hands, his thumbs moving in small, tantalizing circles against her palms. He knew she wasn’t being coy, trying too hard to show she was not a common wanton. She was frightened, and he didn’t blame her. He was frightened himself, for they were about to take a step that could not be undone. “Handsome, is it, Marguerite?” he asked teasingly, attempting to stoke her temper. “Thank you. I’m flattered. Then you’ve begun to favor my mustache?”
“Only if I could make soup of it!” she countered, this time succeeding in freeing her hands, and then rushing over to the balustrade to look out over the rapidly darkening gardens.
He followed after her, laying his hands on her shoulders, to find that she was trembling even though the night was warm, almost hot. He didn’t know what to say, what to do. He had planned it all out, instinctively knowing he had her cooperation, her assistance—knowing that this evening was as inevitable as the morning’s tide.
But now he was unsure, clumsy, as if the fine art of seduction were a mystery to him. “You know this is no game we’re playing, that what we’re contemplating is not any sort of conquest, but a declaration of our feelings for each other. I love you, aingeal. And yet, Marguerite—if you’ve changed your mind, if you’ve realized, as I have, that there are more problems than easy solutions in our being together—” For once his glib Irish tongue deserted him, and all he could do was lower his head and place a kiss against her nape, wanting her with all of his being, yet loving her enough to let her go.
He felt her melt against him, her soft body pressing back upon his chest, and he was undone. “Ah, Marguerite,” he groaned in very real pain as she turned in his arms, and a moment later their lips were pressing together hungrily, the fire that simmered between them whether together or apart once more springing into a raging inferno of passion.
Her hands grasped his shoulders convulsively, even as he crushed her against his chest, frustrated that he was so close, longing to be closer, holding on to her as if she were the only solid thing in the universe and he might go spinning off into the stars if he were to release her.
He heard her whimpers, small and low in her throat, and his blood sang with the realization she was as shaken as he—and the knowledge only added to his passion, his longing.
But then sanity, in the form of voices coming from somewhere in the gardens below them intruded, and he pulled away, breathing heavily as he strained to recover his equilibrium. “Come with me,” he whispered, taking her hand and leading her toward a narrow set of stone steps that descended into the gardens. “Don’t talk, don’t say a word—and, Marguerite, don’t think! If we think, if we stop again to consider what we’re doing, we’ll never be able to forgive ourselves.”
She slipped free of his grasp just long enough to pull her gold-spangled shawl up and around her head, concealing her face as the fading light of evening turned to deeper night beneath the shade of the tall, sculpted evergreens. And then they were running, like naughty children escaping their governess, stealing from one concealing shadow to another until, at last, Thomas saw the closed coach standing at the end of the gardens.