A Passion for Pleasure(34)

The words crumbled beneath the weight of sorrow. Sebastian pulled her into his arms, breathing in the sweet smell of her hair.

“The days following were horrible,” Clara continued. “The grief tore us apart. My mother refused to leave her room. I developed a terrible pain in my ear and a ringing noise that wouldn’t cease. I didn’t tell anyone. I…I wanted to hide. I knew they all blamed me for William’s death. By the time the inflammation was treated with poultices and tinctures, my hearing was already damaged.”

Sebastian touched the delicate shell of her ear. He brushed his lips across her temple, across the soft strands of hair that had escaped their pins, and to the black birthmark at the corner of her eyebrow. Then lower, down to her cheekbone, before descending to capture her mouth.

Clara murmured his name and turned her head to meet him in a kiss that quivered with suppressed longing. He covered her lips, heat blooming in his blood as she opened for him without hesitation. He probed the warmth of her mouth, slid his tongue across her teeth. His damaged hand stiffened against her hip as her body curved against his.

He wanted to crush her to him, to pull her clothes off so he could touch the bare smoothness of her skin. Urgency pulsed through him like a heartbeat as Clara’s hands came up to cup his cheeks, angling his head to deepen their kiss.

A vibrant energy crackled from her into him, searing him with pleasure and something remarkably akin to happiness. Like cool, fresh water she poured into his desiccated soul and brought him to flourishing life again.

With her, he almost felt as if he could be himself again. As if he could reclaim everything that was pleasant and joyous of his former life.

Clara moved her lips to his jaw and gave a husky laugh, her breath fanning against his skin. “You never imagined this would happen, did you?”

“Did you?” Sebastian flexed his fingers against her waist.

“Oh, yes.” She parted from him, her hands sliding down to his neck. Warm amusement creased her eyes, bright above her flushed cheeks. “When we were in Dorset. When I watched you weave your music while surrounded by beautiful, admiring women….Oh, I imagined it. I hoped for it.…I wanted you to look at me, dance with me, speak with me.”

Sebastian lifted his good hand to her face and rubbed his thumb across her full lower lip. When he first encountered her in the Hanover Square ballroom, he thought he didn’t remember her.

He had been wrong.

Her revelations brought an image to the surface, like the burn of a constellation in a night sky. She’d been a quiet, pleasant, young woman who hovered on the periphery of the crowds, circling the ballrooms and parlors. A sparrow, yes, but one whose plumage shone with colors of rich brown, ocher, snow-white.

He turned toward a birdcage automaton resting on a workbench and found the key at the base. With a few twists, he wound the machine and released it. A metallic but pleasant tune drifted from the mechanism.

Sebastian lifted Clara’s right hand and placed it in his. Nerves tightened in his chest, but he curled his fingers around hers and willed his hand not to falter. Then he slipped his other hand around Clara’s waist and pulled her closer.

“May I have this dance?” he asked.

Clara smiled, her eyes sparking with colors as she put her hand on his shoulder. “I’d be delighted.”

Sebastian guided her into a slow waltz. Although they were hampered by the scattered tables, she followed his lead with ease, matching her steps to his in time to the thin music and the chatter of the automated birds.

Sebastian turned, drawing her to him. His apprehension faded into the pleasure of the simultaneous movement, the ease of letting the music be his guide, the sheer enjoyment of holding Clara in his arms.

“You’re a wonderful dancer.” She looked up at him. “I remember that too.”

“I haven’t danced in months.”

“I haven’t either,” Clara admitted. “Not in the last year.”

Her eyes skimmed across his face, down to his mouth and lower to his neck. Sebastian’s blood warmed at the caress of her gaze. The automaton music wound down, the final strains filtering into the dusky air. He drew Clara to a slow halt. She remained within the circle of his arms, her hand still clasping his. For the first time in months, Sebastian realized he had forgotten about his disability.

An emotion tugged at him that he didn’t recognize, something rich and saturated with all the colors of the rainbow. His breathing shortened.

He stared at Clara’s lovely eyes. Eyes of a witch. Surely they had beguiled him into considering her proposal, for he could have conceived a dozen other ways of obtaining the cipher machine plans. Yet when she had laid out the terms, he knew it was the quickest way to obtain her assistance, to appease his father, to settle with Darius.