Scandalous Desires (26 page)

“Can I?”

“Yes,” she said firmly. “No matter what you were in the past, what you are now, you can
choose
to change,
choose
to indulge only your better desires, not your basest ones.”

He stared at her and she wished that she could see his eyes clearly. Would a devil lurk there—or a militant archangel?

She opened her mouth, but the carriage shuddered to a halt at that moment.

“We’re here,” Michael drawled.

He pushed open the carriage door, revealing blazing
torches in the night, and jumped down before setting the step and offering his hand to her for assistance.

Silence took her skirts in one hand and carefully stepped down. She wasn’t used to such an abundance of skirts and she rather feared she’d drag her hems in something awful.

“Come,” Michael said and set her hand upon his arm.

She finally looked up and saw a lovely classical building. Lanterns lined the steps leading to the doors and streams of ladies and gentlemen were entering the building. At the edges of the crowd were hawkers calling their wares: oranges, walnuts, flowers, and sweetmeats. Michael led her up the steps and into the doors.

Silence looked up at the vaulted ceiling, lined with sparkling chandeliers. “Where are we?”

“Ye’ll see,” he said and mounted a curving stair.

The upper level held a corridor with doors along one side. Michael opened one and ushered her inside.

“Oh!” Silence exclaimed. “You’ve brought me to the theater.”

“Not quite,” Michael said from behind her. “This here is an opera house.”

Silence looked about excitedly. She’d never been to either the theater or the opera as Father had rather frowned upon such things as frivolous.

They were in a luxurious box with several plush chairs and a table. Velvet curtains lined the box and could be drawn to give the occupants privacy. But beyond the railing the stage blazed with lights. Below a crowd milled in the pit.

“Let me take yer cloak,” Michael said, lifting it from her shoulders.

Silence hardly noticed. She was busy peering into the pit and across the theater to the boxes on the other side.

“Take care,” Michael warned. He placed his hands on either side of her waist. “Lean too far over and ye’ll tumble out.”

“I won’t,” Silence said, blushing. She must look a rustic country lass in her excitement. She sat on a chair with careful dignity, but then couldn’t help putting a hand on the rail as she hissed, “Isn’t that the king?”

Michael had taken a seat beside her and he casually turned his head to look where she indicated. “That’ll be the king’s son, the Prince o’ Wales. He does bear a fair resemblance to his da, though ’tis said the king hates his son most strongly.”

“The king hates his own son?” Silence felt incredibly naïve. How did Michael know this and she did not?

He shrugged. “The king and the prince are never seen together.”

Silence tried not to stare at the florid man with the protuberant eyes. “Oh! And what about the lady beside him?”

“His wife, I think,” Michael murmured. “ ’Tis rumored that he’s devoted to her.”

“Really?” Silence examined the princess. She wore a very elegant silver and white gown, but she was little more than a girl.

She craned to see who was in the boxes on their side of the opera house. “Do you come here often?”

Michael shrugged. “Once or more a month.”

Silence looked at him then. She’d not thought when she asked the question that he would answer in the affirmative. “You do?”

He smiled, his face in profile to hers. He didn’t lean
forward eagerly as she had done, but his attention was most definitely on the crowd, the stage, and the atmosphere of the opera house itself. “Aye, and is it that startlin’ a savage such as m’self can find pleasure in music? Or is it the elegance o’ the music I like that surprises ye?”

“I am surprised,” she admitted. She was fascinated by the beauty of his profile, the severity of the straight lines of his forehead and nose, the sensual curves of his lips, and the arrogance of his chin.

He turned and caught her watching him and the smile left his lips. His eyes grew intent, his eyelids drooping, his eyebrows looking quite satanic and a little frightening.

She found him so tempting that she pressed her hand to her chest without conscious thought.

He followed the movement.

A corner of his mouth kicked up as he stared at her exposed bosom. He reached out and trailed his finger lightly across the upper slopes of her breasts. “Ye have no idea how long I’ve waited to see these.”

She caught his hand in her trembling fingers, uncertain if she was thrilled or mortified.

He didn’t try to pull away. “If I knelt right now at yer feet no one would see.”

“I…” She glanced at the low wall in front of her. It hid her from the waist down to anyone looking at the box. An image of him kneeling at her feet popped into her head and she suddenly stopped breathing. “What?”

“I could kneel there and lift yer skirts,” he murmured. “Ye’d have to be very still, mind. Very quiet. And no matter what I did ye couldn’t let it show on yer face.”

She stared at him, mesmerized by his deep, slightly
rasping voice as he told her his wicked thoughts. She blinked, unable to resist asking, “What would you do?”

A corner of his mouth curled and his black eyes were intent. His hand left her lax fingers and trailed over her bosom, down her stomach, to her lap. “Do, love? Why, I’d fold yer skirts up, careful like, a little at a time, until I could see yer sweet cunny, hidin’ there between yer thighs.”

He pressed with his palm on the place that he described and it seemed to burn right through the layers of cloth.

She bit her lip, unable to look away from him.

His nostrils flared as if he could scent her arousal. “I’d part yer sweet thighs and touch ye there, where yer pink and wet. I’d slide me finger through yer softness, up until I touched that little spot at the top.” He tilted his head, watching her. “D’ye know the spot I mean?”

“I…” She swallowed, feeling the heat rising over her throat. She knew, of course.

“Tell me.”

She closed her eyes. “Yes.”

“And have ye touched yerself here?” He spread his fingers wide as if claiming possession of her femininity. “Tell me, Silence me love. Have ye touched yerself and thought o’ me?”

She drew in her breath—to deny or confirm, she didn’t know which—but a squeak came from the orchestra.

Michael lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed the palm, his lips warm and intimate.

Silence stared at him, her heart fluttering in her chest.

He smiled into her eyes, placed her hand gently back on her lap, and turned his gaze to the stage. “Hush. It begins.”

M
ICK SMILED TO
himself as he turned to watch the stage. He could hear Silence’s quickened breathing, still saw in his mind’s eye the pink tingeing her lovely chest. He was rock hard from their play and were she a doxie he might’ve pulled the curtains and taken her there.

But she was a lady true and he had no intention of making her flee. No, he’d take this slow, seduce with voice and imagination, and when he finally took her to his bed, well then, the victory would be all the more sweet for the anticipation. He sat back and swiftly made his breeches more comfortable as the music swelled.

The
musico
stepped out on the stage to calls of approval from the audience. The opera singer was Italian, well known, and had quite a following in London. He was unnaturally tall and a bit fat and he stood woodenly on the stage, his body ungraceful. But when he opened his mouth… what delight!

Mick closed his eyes as the mezzo-soprano voice flew, high and precise, confident even when the notes were rapid and complex. Mick had come to the opera a little more than a year ago on a whim and had been instantly enthralled. That a man could produce such a wonderful sound almost made him believe in a God.

Almost, but not quite.

Mick opened his eyes and turned to watch Silence. She was leaning against the rail, her expression utterly rapt. Her lips were slightly parted, her eyes wide, and a curl of her hair drifted against her fair cheek. It occurred to him that he was very content thus, watching Silence and listening to the opera. Was this what happiness was? Strange thought. He’d never considered happiness before.
That kind of prosaic life was not for him, he knew. But here, now… he had a glimmering glimpse of what happiness might be.

At the intermission he left her and fought through the crowds to a certain hawker he’d seen outside the opera before.

“What’s this?” Silence asked when he returned with laden hands.

“Cream cakes and wine,” he drawled, and felt the warmth light his chest at her delighted gasp.

He watched her eat the pretty cakes he’d found for her and drink the sweet wine and the satisfaction was so pure that it gave him pause. Was this all an illusion? Could he trust her as he’d trusted once before, long ago?

That time had ended in tragedy. Would this?

She glanced up at that moment, licking the cream from her sweet lips, and frowned. “What is it?”

He sat back, looking away. He’d break in half and die if she treated him as the other had. “Nothin’.”

He felt her gaze for minutes that seemed to drag like an hour, but then, thank God, the orchestra began.

Mick hardly paid mind to the second half of the opera. It was time. Tonight he would take her to bed and end his restlessness. Once she was his, he’d no longer have this womanish worry that she’d betray him.

The decision made, he waited out the rest of the opera impatiently. Silence was hiding a yawn behind her hand by the end, so Mick gave her his arm and led her into the night air.

The carriage was around the corner and he was conscious as their footsteps echoed off the buildings on either side that this would be a grand spot for an ambush. He
breathed a sigh of relief when they made the carriage and he grimaced ruefully to himself as he followed her inside. He was becoming a silly old woman it seemed.

He settled beside Silence, very aware of her smaller size and of the delicacy of her profile. Tonight he’d have her in his bed. Tonight he’d discover all that smooth, soft skin, and the woman beneath.

“Thank you,” she said sleepily. “That was the most delightful thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Ye liked it then, m’love?” he murmured.

“I did.”

He smiled in the dark. He’d had years of practice with seduction, but this was different somehow. Final and just. After tonight he’d have no need to seduce any other. “What did ye like the most?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I liked the lady singer and the dancer—imagine dancing without stays!” She stifled a yawn. “So scandalous, and yet she was terribly graceful as well, like watching swan’s down float on the wind.” She was quiet a moment. “It must be nice to see the opera or the theater whenever you might wish.”

He tilted his head toward her. “Perhaps I’ll take ye again.”

He waited like a lovesick schoolboy for her reply and it took several moments for him to realize that she’d fallen asleep. He smiled in the dark. Best she get her rest now. Still, he could not help the impulse to carefully put his arm around her and gently tilt her head so that it lay more comfortably on his shoulder.

She murmured something and snuggled into his chest.

They rode thus through the night, she fast asleep trustingly against him, he with the smell of her hair in his
nostrils. He was erect and throbbing in anticipation, but oddly he was content to sit thus with her.

More than content, if truth be told.

The ride must end at last, though, and the carriage shuddered to a halt before his palace.

She stirred and looked up, her eyes suddenly wide. “Oh! I’m sorry. I must have been a terrible weight.”

“Not at all, m’love,” he murmured. “Not at all.”

He bent his head toward hers, drawn by her plump, parted lips, but the carriage door opened.

Immediately she moved away from him and he sighed. “Come inside and I’ll give ye a taste o’ some fine Spanish wine.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said as he handed her down.

“Naught but a sip, I promise ye,” he whispered into her ear.

He was so wrapped up in their gentle flirtation that it took him a moment to notice what he should’ve seen at once.

There were no guards outside the palace.