A Passion for Pleasure(5)

A prickle skimmed up her forearms, tingling and delicious.

Sebastian kept looking at her, then reached into his pocket and removed a silk handkerchief. “May I?”

She shook her head, not certain what he was asking. “I beg your pardon?”

“You have—” He gestured to her cheek. “Dirt or grease.”

Before she could turn away, the cloth touched her face. She startled, more from the sensation than the sheer intimacy of the act. Sebastian Hall’s fingers were warm, light, and gentle against her face. She wondered, with a suddenness that made her heart throb, what his fingers would feel like on her skin.

He moved closer, a crease of concentration appearing between his dark eyebrows as he wiped the marks from her face with the soft handkerchief. Clara’s breath tangled in the middle of her chest. She stared at the column of his throat, bronze against the pure white of his collar, the coarse stubble roughening the underside of his chin.

She didn’t dare raise her gaze high enough to look at his mouth, though she wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to. The urge made her fingers curl tight into her palms, made a strange yearning stretch through her chest.

The muscles of his throat worked as he swallowed, his hand falling to his side. He stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket.

With his attention turned away from her, Clara noticed the weariness etched into the corners of his eyes, the brackets around his mouth, the faintly desperate expression in his eyes that had nothing to do with drink and everything to do with fatigue.

Fatigue. That was it. Sebastian Hall was bone-deep exhausted.

He met her gaze.

No. The man was exhausted past his bones and right into his soul.

Why…?

Before she could speak, Sebastian stepped back, turning toward the front of the room. Tom pushed open the doors and maneuvered a trolley loaded with four crates. He glanced up, his face red with exertion. “Almost done.”

Clara hurried to meet him. They conferred briefly about how best to organize the various parts of the machine, then Clara turned back to the stage. Sebastian Hall was gone.



The evening following his encounter with Clara Whitmore, Sebastian stood in the crush of yet another ballroom. Voices rose around him like flocks of multicolored birds. Gentlemen and ladies in their finest evening clothes circled the dance floor, gaslights shining against expanses of silk and satin. A fire crackled in the massive hearth at one end of the room. Music wafted from the quartet seated near the windows.

Sebastian shifted his weight, resisting the urge to tug at the knot of his cravat. The music reached his ears in streams of pallid, muted colors. A drop of sweat trickled down his spine. Beside him, his father, the Earl of Rushton, leveled his dark gaze on the crowd like an archer seeking a bull’s-eye.

“Lord Smythe,” Rushton said, nodding to a lanky gentleman standing near the fire. “Recently appointed by Her Majesty as Ambassador to the Spanish Court. I believe his daughter has returned from a school in Paris. She might be present at Lady Rossmore’s charity ball. You are attending, yes?”

“Yes.” Sebastian thought of Clara, with her strange eyes and voice flowing with blue and gold. He would see her again at the ball six nights hence, but he hoped she would be at her uncle’s museum when he visited the following morning.

“Lord Smythe is also involved with a report on the defects of patent laws and suggestions for reform, both of which you ought to know about,” Rushton continued. He drew his eyebrows together, an expression that enhanced the severity of his features. “Since it seems you will be in London for some time now, you must focus on a worthwhile pursuit. I’m glad to see you’re finally coming to your senses about what is expected of you.”

Of course Rushton was glad. Music had never been a worthwhile pursuit, not in Rushton’s eyes. His father didn’t even know the truth of Sebastian’s resignation from the renowned Court of Weimar. No one did.

If Sebastian didn’t tell anyone, perhaps it wouldn’t be real.

Not that there was anyone to tell, even if he’d wanted to. Aside from Rushton, their entire family was away from London. Alexander and Lydia now lived in St. Petersburg not far from their younger brother Darius’s own residence on the Fontanka canal. Their sister Talia had gone to St. Petersburg to visit and assist Lydia, who was expecting a child in the spring. Nicholas was…well, no one ever knew exactly where Nicholas was.

Maybe Sebastian ought to find out. Nicholas would know of a good place to escape.