Romancing Lady Stone (A School of Gallantry Novella) (12 page)

He was glad she approved. Because after counting out what he could afford, knowing that they were leaving to Saint Petersburg tomorrow, he only had enough to purchase another meal and two tankards of ale. If they were lucky.

Even though he was hungry beyond breath, Konstantin nudged the bowl closer to her. “When you are done, I will eat whatever is left.”

She paused in between another mouthful, then swallowed and lowered the spoon quickly back into the stew, leaving it. “Forgive me.” She slid the lone bowl back to him, licking her lips. “You should eat.”

She was such an angel to him. He smiled and slid the bowl back toward her. “No. I am fine. Finish as much as you can.”

“After you have some.”

He shifted against the bed they sat on, knowing full well it was the only bowl they would have until evening. “I am not hungry.”

“Are we back to arguing about the chair?” She pursed her lips, took up the other spoon and scooping up a heap full of vegetables and meat, held it out to him. “Open your mouth.”

Now he felt like he was two. Why did he have to like her? “I will eat
after
you finish half the bowl. Agreed?”

“No. Not agreed. By then it will be too cold for you to enjoy,” she pertly returned, still holding out the spoon. “Now eat.”

“You barely had a few bites.”

“Whilst you had none.” She held the spoon closer to his mouth. “Do it knowing I want this for you more than anything in the world. Knowing I want you big and strong so you can rescue me from more garter stealing thieves.
Pleeeeease
?”

He sighed. This woman was going to take over his entire life. He leaned in and pulled the offering into his mouth. The savory, thick saltiness of chewy meat, potatoes and peas made him melt and half-nod in appreciation. “That is good,” he said in between chews.

She grinned, a dimple appearing on her left cheek and quickly re-immersed the spoon into the bowl, filling it again. She held it out, her dark eyes brightly searching his face. “More?”

He held her gaze, glimpsing what she might have been like at twenty. Bright-eyed, ambitious, kind and daring despite her station in life. She was going to make him kneel to her. Never mind the Midnight Bane, she was going to make it impossible for him to walk away from whatever was happening between them. He could feel it in his chest. It was something he’d never felt in the presence of a woman.

He slowly took the spoon from her hand and returned it to the bowl. He tugged her fingers loose from it. “Kiss me.”

She paused.

He leaned in. Brushing aside her long hair from her bare shoulder, his fingers skimmed the softness of her skin. “What is happening between you and me?” he whispered. “Is this even real?”

Her lips parted. “It feels real,” she whispered back. “I want it to be real.”

He heatedly searched those dark eyes. “Good. So do I.” He gently captured her lips, giving into the idea that this could be the beginning of something incredibly special.

Too special to even try to name.

Evening

They had only left the room twice throughout the day. Once to share another meal and a tankard of ale at one of the wooden tables downstairs and the other time to soak in the bathhouse together, where they washed each other’s hair and lathered each other in soap in between ardent kisses and sex. The remainder of the day, they lounged in each other’s arms and talked like friends of old, discussing their childhoods, and how life had not exactly turned out the way they had hoped. They laughed at the words Cecilia couldn’t pronounce in Russian as Konstantin playfully traced Russian words onto her bare legs. They also made love. Repeatedly.

Getting robbed was the best thing to have ever happened to her.

Cecilia nestled against Konstantin’s nude warmth as she watched the last of the light fade from the lantern with the curling of smoke, leaving them in complete darkness. Tomorrow evening, when they arrived into Saint Petersburg and called upon the theatre for her son’s address, everything she had shared with Konstantin would shimmer away into a dream. She would have to return to being what she really was: a titled lady and a mother.

It wasn’t fair. For the first time in her life, she wished she hadn’t been born a lady.

Konstantin brushed a finger across her arm in the darkness. “After we find your son, I will not be able to stay in Saint Petersburg. I have to leave for London.”

She swallowed against the tightness overtaking her throat. Even he knew their time together was at an end. Although a part of her ached, she had to cease pretending she was an ordinary woman. She wasn’t. She had a duty to her title, the estate, to her daughters and to her son and all of their respectable names. What
she
wanted did not exist in the realm of the
ton
. It never had and it never would. She had known that since she was fifteen.

He smoothed her hair away from her throat. “I would like to see you again in London. As soon as you return from Russia. Is that possible?”

She paused, her heart pounding. “You want us to continue this?” she whispered against him in disbelief. How could they?

“Of course I want to. I…” He paused. “Are you telling me you are no longer interested?”

She pressed her cheek harder against his chest, cherishing how genuinely distraught he sounded. Maybe this didn’t have to end. Maybe they could quietly meet on the outskirts of London from time to time. No one needed to know. Men of the
ton
did it all the time. What made them special? She wanted him. She wanted this. He made her feel beautiful. He himself was beautiful. “We will find a way to see each other. I promise.”

A smile appeared in his voice. “Good.”

In the darkness, between her own pulse and his, the words ‘
Eternally yours at midnight’
popped into her head. She sat up against him in the darkness. “I forgot to ask. Your watch mentions the hour of midnight on the casing. Is there a story behind it?”

He shifted her body better against his own. “The watch belonged to my father. It was given to him by a woman he was supposed to have married. Unfortunately, she died before that happened.”

Her stomach dropped to her knees. “I’m so sorry to hear it.”

“Her name was Miss Bane.”

“She was English?”

“Yes. My father’s family thought her beneath his status, given he was the son of a well-known merchant, but he always financially struggled. Miss Bane was a governess from London, visiting her brother in Russia when my father met her at a festival. She was older than my father by about ten years. Much like…” He stilled, his fingers suddenly digging into her skin.

She swallowed. He didn’t have to finish. She knew exactly what he was thinking. She blinked up at him, making out the shadowed outline of his face. “Surely, it is a haunting coincidence.”

He hesitated. “I do not believe in coincidence.”

Curious, she set her chin on his chest and ventured to ask, “What do you believe in?”

“Destiny. And that love can go beyond death.” A breath escaped him. “My father eventually moved on, many, many years later, and married my mother, but even my mother often told me that the largest part of my father’s soul always belonged to Miss Bane. My mother simply learned to live with it. Apparently, my mother lost every child during the first five years of their marriage until I was born. Unlike the others, I chose to arrive into the world during the annual festival of Maslenitsa at exactly four minutes to midnight. Eerily, it was the same festival and hour my father had met Miss Bane. It haunted him. Growing up, I could sense whenever he looked at me, he expected me to announce that Miss Bane sent me with a message.”

He fingered her skin gently. “My father and I were very close. I idolized him. Despite his profession, he was a very good man. He taught me everything. From pulling out a chair for a lady to breaking a man’s nose.” He nodded. “He always claimed incredible things happened at midnight and that I was proof of it.” His voice cracked. “Deny it as I may, you and I met at midnight when you opened your eyes to me for the first time.” He slid his hand down her back. “’Tis fairly obvious what Miss Bane and destiny has in mind for us.”

Her heart squeezed.

He tightened his hold on her. “As my father always used to say, even if you do not believe in destiny, you will in time. Because everything happens for a reason. Which means, we will not be able to escape whatever destiny has planned. Even if we want to.”

She pressed herself harder against Konstantin, closing her eyes in an effort to memorize the sound of his heart and the feel of his skin against her own. In that moment, she wanted to believe destiny was real and that
nothing
would keep them apart. Even though she knew, once they were both in London,
everything
would.

The following morning

Life had become so bizarrely perfect. It made a man wonder if something was about to go wrong. Not that it would. He had destiny and midnight on his side.

He stretched himself fully awake and dragged Cecilia’s warmth closer against his own body. He kissed the curve of her throat, noticing he left amorous marks all over her skin. Half of which he didn’t even remember making. It was a long night. “’Tis morning,” he murmured against her skin, trying to wake her up. “We should peer in on the time. Our stagecoach leaves at noon.”

She stirred and suddenly tightened her hold on him, digging her chin into the crook of his arm as if unwilling to let go.

He nuzzled her throat again before slipping his arms out from around her. He sat up. “We should get dressed.”

“No. Wait.” She scrambled up and out of bed, her bare feet thudding against the floorboards. She turned toward him, completely naked and announced, “I need you to dance with me. Before we do anything else.”

His brows rose as he perused her nudity. “I think I have corrupted you beyond measure.”

She leaned over the bed and grabbed at his bare arm, shaking it. “I once read that the women in France dance in the arms of their lovers naked. I want to try it.”

He never saw
this
coming. Not from her. Pushing himself off the bed, he landed before her naked and held out his arms. “If it were any other woman, I would have said no.”

She grinned. “Thank goodness I’m not any other woman.” She reached up and primly set one hand on his shoulder and took his hand into hers and pressed herself close.

He lowered his gaze to her face, trying to focus on her and not that they were naked. He curved his other hand around her waist and set it against the middle of her smooth back. Dragging in a breath, he whisked her to their right and felt his cock swing with it. He cringed. “Pardon my friend.”

She giggled. “It’s incredibly awkward dancing naked, isn’t it?”

“Very. It loses its grace. Clothes keep everything in place.”

“Why do you think the French do it?”

He smiled. “Maybe we should go to Paris and ask them.”

They turned and stepped as if dancing to music.

Cecilia searched his face, tightening her hold on his hand and shoulder, her long dark hair swaying against their movements over her bare shoulders. “You make me want to dance naked, Konstantin. Do you know that?”

His lips parted as he continued to quietly dance with her around the room, their bare feet now being the only sound. It was a moment that he, as a man, would remember for the rest of his days.

This was not the same, panic-stricken woman he’d first met.

This was a woman who had discovered she had been in control all along.