After the Kiss (7 page)

When she came to Babby’s house to sell the
Journal
, he was also going to be present. Perhaps when he saw her again, the riddle would be solved, the attraction dissipated. It would be over once he saw her in the sunlight. She would be another attractive woman. Nothing more.

He smiled, and toasted Robert with his brandy. His old friend gazed at him quizzically, but raised his own glass in salute.

B
ecause Silbury Village was of some repute due to the skill of its craftsmen, it was not entirely isolated; the London coach stopped here twice a week. A convenience, since it meant that she didn’t have to walk to the nearest crossroads.

The journey from her cottage had been short enough, the walk easily passed in appreciation of the spring morning. Even the village seemed touched with the magic of it. The air was clear, almost crisp. Windows sparkled and flowers bloomed and the people she passed nodded and exchanged smiles. She gripped the wrapped book in her arms and responded in kind.

Before she reached her destination, the inn that served as a post house for the coach, she was hailed by the two women she’d wanted most to avoid. She
sighed inwardly, turned and waited for them to approach her.

“My daughter tells me that you’re off to London, Mrs. Esterly.”

Sarah Harrington beamed at Margaret, her face wreathed in a look of approval. Anne Coving stood beside her. A casual observer might take them to be no more than friends. But they were sisters, for all their disparity in appearance.

Sarah was tall and slender, and favored dark colors. Anne was short and plump and tended to wear bright fabrics. Sarah’s face, while narrow and thin was almost always graced with a smile. The expression on Anne’s plump face made Margaret think she’d recently smelled something vile.

“Abigail says that it is an adventure of sorts,” Anne said, her eyes narrowing.

“I’m going to visit a friend,” Margaret explained. A lie by only the most strict interpretation. She had planned on staying with Maude and Samuel Plodgett overnight after transacting her business.

“It will be the second time you have returned to London since the fire, won’t it?” Sarah asked.

“Such a terrible thing,” Anne said, “to lose a husband that way.”

Margaret nodded, but did not comment. Anne seemed to take great delight not only in tragedy, but in the repeating of it. If there was a tale to be told, the woman would be happy to relate it, the more sordid or distressing the better.

“Dorothy is progressing quite well in her reading,” she said to Sarah. An almost desperate diversion. “I’m sure you are very proud of her.”

Sarah’s smile broadened in pleasure.

“Abigail has a great talent in drawing,” Margaret said, turning to Anne. What she did not say to Abigail’s mother was that her daughter was also most unpleasant. If one of the girls began to cry, it was because Abigail had pinched her. If an inkwell spilled, Abigail was the cause. The child also emulated her mother in that she was quick to spread tales, true or not.

Out of the corner of her eye Margaret saw the coach approaching from the end of the street. She bid farewell to the two women and walked to the inn with a sense of welcome relief.

Her traveling companions to London were a varied group. Two men dressed as gentlemen, an older lady who smelled of camphor and a young woman and her little boy whose antics were charming for the first hour but grating as the journey went on.

Margaret wrapped the ends of her shawl around the
Journal
to further camouflage it. Her hands clasped it tightly as if the secrets contained within its covers would seep out into the air around her if she did not. She smiled at her own whimsy, and concentrated on the view outside the window.

When Margaret arrived at the Earl of Babidge’s house, she was led to the same room where she and the earl had transacted their business previously. Instead of asking her to wait, however, the manservant simply tapped once and pushed the door open. She entered the library, expecting to see the affable earl.

A small fire was laid against the early spring chill. A man sat in one of the burgundy wing chairs facing the hearth. At her entrance, he stood and turned. Not the Earl of Babidge after all, but the man who had occupied too many of her thoughts for the past weeks.

Montraine.

Her heart seemed to stop and then lunge forward as if making up for its laxity. Even her breath was uneven, coming in short, choppy breaths. She had gotten her wish, then. To see him once again. She’d not thought that the sight of him would be so startling, however.

She had thought him captivating in moonlight. It was nothing to how he appeared now in the light of day.

Beautiful.

What a silly word to use in conjunction with a man like him. Yet
handsome
seemed too feeble a description to contain his dark good looks. Perhaps she was destined never to think of a word suitable enough.

“Hello again,” he softly said. “I have been waiting for you.”

She halted where she was, gripped the book in her arms tightly.

Had Lucifer been a golden angel, crafted of sunlight and radiance before being cast from heaven? He should, instead, have possessed black hair and sapphire eyes, been blessed with a smile that hinted at wickedness. And graced with a voice that promised sin and absolution in its dark whisper.

“Were you?” she said shakily. “How did you know I would be here?”

“Babby is my friend,” he said, “and eager to assist me in finding you.”

“You looked for me?” How odd that her mouth was dry, and her breath seemed caught in her chest.

“Oh yes,” he said, walking slowly toward her. “I have. You are a woman of great mystery, Mrs. Esterly. Tell me, does your husband know you’re here?”

Run, Margaret. Take the
Journal
and leave this place. This man is a danger. Or a delight
.

“I’m a widow,” she said, her voice more tremulous than she wished.

“Are you?”

She nodded, feeling the caution vanish in that instant she looked at him. It faded beneath a greater fascination.

He met her gaze with his own intent stare. His look was one of speculation and curiosity. She did not fault him for that. She had enough of her own about him.

“A widow,” he said, repeating it. “Your name?” he asked, with a smile that did not quite reach his eyes.

“Margaret,” she said quietly, responding as if she were in a daze. “Who are you, then?”

“Michael Hawthorne,” he said, bowing slightly.

“A duke?” She tilted her head.

“Alas, only an earl,” he said, smiling sardonically.

“I would have thought you a prince,” she said, startling herself with the admission. He only smiled at her comment.

“It seems we know little enough about each other.”

Silence was the best recourse to that statement. She stared at the carpet between them.

“A few moments upon the terrace should not be so easily recalled. I wondered if you were shadow or substance. Or perhaps a ghost of my imagination.”

“I am very real,” she said, his words coaxing forth her smile.

“But more circumspect than before.”

“You were only a shadow yourself,” she whispered. “Now you are only too real.”

He strode forward until he stood in front of her. He reached out his hand, pulled the book and her reticule gently from her grasp, set them down on the side
board. She said nothing in response or protest.

Something was happening to her. Her mind was clouded in alarmed wonder. Her heart, already beating fast at his appearance, began to escalate, her breath tightening in her chest. This moment replicated that night of violins and breezes. A moment of sorcery so strong that she trembled in its spell.

“Come,” he said, taking her hand and leading her to the fire. His hand held hers in a gentle restraint, much as he had that night on the terrace. But here there were few shadows, only the orange glow of a fire, and through the windows the gleam of sunlight breaking through the clouds.

“Have you traveled far?” A commonplace question, but his touch on her hand didn’t seem at all ordinary. She could feel the warmth of his hand even through her glove.

“Not far,” she murmured, wishing that he wouldn’t stand so close. She could feel his breath against her cheek.

Suddenly, his hand reached up and brushed a tendril of hair back from her cheek. A lover’s touch. Too intimate. Gentle, almost tender. His knuckles stroked down the edge of her jaw.

No one had ever touched her this way.

She reached up and stayed his hand, held it with hers. He studied her face as if he had never seen a woman before, the intensity of his gaze almost burning.

Run, Margaret. As fast and as far as you can
.

She heard the admonition of her conscience, but another voice intruded. This whisper belonged to her and yet was someone just now discovered. This woman of secret dreams and hidden wishes slipped atop the person Margaret knew herself to be. This
shadow spoke and moved and thought with her own will.
Stay. Touch him. Reach out with your fingers and trace the line of his jaw, that unsmiling mouth
.

She took a deep shuddering breath, dropped his hand, and stepped back from him. He, too, seemed to feel the need to separate himself. He walked to the sideboard, turned, and faced her. The width of a room was between them, yet she felt his presence as if he touched her still.

“You interest me too greatly,” he said, “and I cannot afford distractions at this time in my life.”

A statement so arrogant that it had the welcome effect of dissipating the strange spell entwining around them.

“How am I a distraction?” she asked, suddenly amused.

“First, by having a curiosity that equals my own,” he said.

Her cheeks warmed. Did he know she’d read the
Journals?
How could he?

“I don’t understand,” she said carefully.

“You stood on the terrace, spying on a ball.”

“Yes,” she confessed, relieved.

“And today. Why didn’t you leave the moment you saw it was me and not Babby?”

“I have business to conduct with the earl,” she said in her defense. Not quite the truth.

“You stayed because of curiosity, Margaret.”

She looked away, wishing that he would not speak her name in quite that fashion. It was almost a caress.

Perhaps he was correct. She should have left when she’d first seen him. Or when he’d touched her cheek. Drawn up her dignity, her pride, and departed the room. Perhaps scourged him with a look first, so that
he knew she was not the sort to be enchanted with words and masculine perfection.

But it seemed she was not wise after all. Perhaps curiosity was a good enough pretense.

“Secondly,” he said, smiling softly. “You are a distraction because you possess a mouth made for kissing.”

She stared at him.

Her blood felt hot, as if it flowed through her body carrying fire. Her breath was captured and held in ransom for her good sense.
Leave this room, Margaret. Leave him
. It seemed as if the ghost of her Gran reprimanded her for her hesitation.

“It is better, perhaps,” she said a moment later, still rooted to the spot, “to be congratulated for ordinary virtues. Neatness, some accomplishment.”

“Kindness,” he contributed with a smile.

She nodded.

“Are you kind, Margaret?”

“I believe I am.” She studied the carpet beneath her feet again. “Are you?”

“Some would say I am not. Otherwise, you would not still be here. I should have allowed you to conduct your business and left you alone.”

“Why didn’t you?” She glanced up and discovered him watching her so intently that it felt as if he touched her with his gaze.

He walked back to where she stood beside the fire.

She looked away. The room was suddenly too warm; she felt almost faint.

“Because I want my kiss,” he said flatly.

Margaret jerked her head up to meet his look. Her eyes widened and she licked suddenly dry lips. The words settled in a hollow spot inside her.

She turned and walked to the window, concen
trated upon the view. Desperate in a way she had never been before to find herself in the flurry of her thoughts.

She marked the journey of a carriage, then focused upon a bird flying to the roof of a house. The morning sky had been gray, a dismal London day. She had often seen such. Yet now the sun was shining brightly. A transformation. Not unlike the one she felt within herself.

She turned and glanced back at him.

He had not moved, a statue of restraint, a muscle flexing in his cheek. He neither smiled nor eased the words with charm.

It would be unwise to allow the boundaries between them to be lowered, even for a moment. She knew that without understanding why. Yet she wanted to touch him. What sort of woman did that make her?

“One kiss,” he said, as if he knew she wavered.

She should have left the moment she saw him in the room. Instead, they flirted with danger, and with each other.

“I don’t know you,” she said almost desperately.

“What do you need to know in payment for a kiss?” he asked, impatiently, frowning.

“Why me?” A question to hide the unsettling truth. Both the pragmatic, demure, quiet, and proper Margaret and this woman she had become upon meeting him wanted to kiss him. So deeply and completely that she could taste the flavor of it when it was done.

“I don’t know.” His scowl deepened. “It’s a question I’ve asked myself for too many weeks.”

“Have you come to no satisfactory answer?”

“Yes. One kiss.”

“That’s all?”

“Yes. When it’s over, the bond will be severed, the fascination will ease. I will, blessedly, be able to concentrate upon my work and my marriage.”

She glanced at him, shocked.

“I’m not married yet,” he said, one eyebrow arching. “Nor affianced. You are a distraction to that also.”

She turned back to the window. “So this might be an act of charity on my part, to enable you to continue your life unfettered by diversions,” she said, unexpectedly amused.

“Margaret.” His voice was so close to her that she jumped, startled. He stood behind her, his finger trailing at the collar of her spencer, barely touched the nape of her neck. Her indrawn breath was captured, held, then released on a sigh as he trailed a delicate pattern inside the material, against her skin. She shivered in response.

A taboo, that touch.

“Margaret, say yes,” he whispered.