A Bride Unveiled (10 page)

She mirrored him move for move. Their bodies pressed back-to-back. His blood surged at the fleeting contact.

Touch. Tease. Withdraw.

The quick nudge of her shoulder against his hinted she hadn’t become as demure as she appeared. It required all his concentration to stay ahead of her.

She bent her arms in an arc, staring up at his face. She flowed from one step into another. Pliant but straight. Erect from the waist to the shoulder.

A dangerous exuberance coursed through his veins. If they moved this well together during a dance, he thought they would set any bed they shared on fire. It was a shame he would never know.

Her eyes shone in the candlelight. He wanted to pull her into his arms and ask everyone else in the ballroom to go away for a few hours. He wanted to ask her what had happened to Eldbert and Ambrose, and did she know that Miss Higgins had settled down here in London as a seamstress and that she and Kit often reminisced about Monk’s Huntley?

But he realized that the dance was ending and that another man was waiting to claim her in the formation of dancers. He stepped closer to Violet, hoping to keep her to himself for just a little bit longer.

He reached for her shoulder and stopped.

She looked up again. What could he say? He could hardly whirl her off the floor and into his half world.

“I had hoped you wouldn’t grow up to be a rogue,” she said quietly.

“Which implies that I wasn’t one before. But I was.”

“No, you weren’t. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“But it’s true,” he said, grinning. “I was on my best behavior around you. What I did at the workhouse is—Well, those aren’t stories for your ears.”

“I don’t think you were ever that bad.”

“I stole Ambrose’s trousers. I lied when I said I had found them in the grass. I deceived you the day we met. You defended a liar. And I let you.”

Violet’s expression did not change. In fact, Kit questioned whether she’d even heard his confession, until she shook her head and smiled. “They looked far better on you, anyway,” she said, and a moment later another dance began around them, couples taking their places in the line. They drifted to the edge of the floor. “Fine, then. You always were a rogue. I knew you had stolen the trousers all along.”

“But you liked me anyway?”

“Yes. I did.”

“Why?”

“You were alone like me, and adventurous, and even though you didn’t want it to show, you had good in you.”

He stared at her, his smile impudent. “Is that why you flirted with me in the hall before you recognized me? For the good in me?”

She flushed. “Not exactly. The way I remember it, you flirted with me first.”

“But you flirted back,” he retorted. “And I could have been anyone, for all you knew. I had a mask on. You didn’t.”

She shook her head. “No. There was something different about you. I couldn’t think what it was. It didn’t occur to me that I might know you.”

“You do know me.”

“Not really.”

“Well, we could renew our friendship in private, if you’re willing.”

She smiled reluctantly. “I don’t think so.”

“You’re tempted. I can tell.”

“Maybe I am. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, or that I will act on it. My aunt has a positive phobia of rogues.”

“I promise I won’t ravish her. Or steal her trousers.”

“Don’t make fun of her, Kit.”

His eyes darkened. “I’m not. I wouldn’t. But—does she still remember me?”

“I’m not sure how much she remembers, but as you and I didn’t recognize each other right off, I doubt she’ll place you.”

“All right.” He shook his head, letting her think he’d given up. “I understand. There are too many people here tonight.”

“I’m sorry, Kit. It’s—”

“When
can
I see you again?” he asked her softly. He thought that if he had more time he could spin it out into a possibility—of what he didn’t know. She had given him a chance before. Perhaps it could happen a second time. But he knew he couldn’t lose his dream again without at least a kiss between them.

“Don’t ask,” she whispered. If he asked her to meet him again, she wouldn’t be able to refuse. “Not now.”

“Five minutes, that’s all,” he went on, completely ignoring her reluctance. “In the room off the hall where I saw you earlier.”

“I don’t think I even remember where it was.”

“Ask a footman to show you to the rose reception room. Only five minutes. I beg you.”

“I can’t ask a footman to . . .” In her mind she pictured herself walking straight there. Walking straight into trouble’s arms, her aunt would say.

He straightened in a masterful stance. “There’s so much more that I want to know about you.”

 

 

He waited and decided that she would not come.

There was more to it than that. There were more things than he could possibly explain in one evening, but it was a place to start.

He didn’t want her to think he was a rake, but that was what he looked like. He merely wanted to see her without an audience. A kiss could seal the past, or it would open an endless avenue of doors for the future. Violet would forbid it, of course. He wouldn’t force her to kiss him.

But already he knew he couldn’t let her marry the haberdasher. Hadn’t the man confessed he desired Violet’s inheritance as much as he did her love?

Damn the past, he thought as he waited for her in the rose reception room, where only a soft lamp burned. Damn the future, too.
Give me a kiss, Violet, and let the present take us where it will. Refuse me, and I won’t ever ask again. But don’t pity me. Don’t kiss me because you felt sorry for me once.
He wanted anything but her pity now.

The instant she appeared at the door he took her by the hand, closed the door, and swept her up against the wall. Her skirts rustled in the silence until she stilled. For several moments neither of them said a word. She stared up at him as he outlined her cheek and chin with his fingertips.

She laid her head back against the wall, as if offering him the hollow of her throat. He bent and pressed his mouth to her throbbing pulse. He touched the tip of his tongue to it and felt her quiver. “I must be in shock,” she whispered unevenly. “I wouldn’t be letting this happen otherwise. Meeting each other here tonight was such a . . . surprise.”

He gave a low rumble of laughter. “That’s rather like saying that the Great Fire of London was a surprise.”

Her eyes danced with irony. “This is a very different reaction from the one you gave me when I first offered you friendship.”

“I buried that boy in the vaults ten years ago when I left. He’s dead.”

“He isn’t dead to me,” she said, her voice deep with emotion. “Nor does London seem to think so. And you know it.”

He smiled. She was still a passionate supporter. “The problem,” he said, “is that London doesn’t know me. Not like you do.”

“Nobody knows about your past?” she asked after a pause.

“There are some people, yes. The Boscastle family, for instance. I couldn’t in good conscience work with Lord Rowan without being honest about my life. For most people it’s enough to know that I was Captain Charles Fenton’s son, and that we were two headstrong swordsmen who respected the blade and our bond.”

“It isn’t a sin to be born in poverty.”

“Haven’t you heard? The destitute deserve to suffer. But there’s something
you
have to know. It wasn’t my choice to leave you.”

“I understood that later,” she said. “I wish I could have done something to keep you there.”

He shook his head. “I’d have gone wild. I might have hurt you. I might have gotten involved with some very nasty people, indeed.”

“What really happened after you left?” she asked, regarding him with the smile that made him forget she was forbidden to him. Her smile used to calm his temper when they were younger. It still affected him, but nothing about her calmed him now. She was voluptuous and bewitching; she was waking up all the demons he had put to rest. “All I remember is that you were apprenticed to a cavalry captain and that Ambrose said he drank because his only son had been killed at war.”

“It was true,” Kit admitted. “He became something of a recluse after his son died. He drank and went out only when other people weren’t about. He used to watch me through the woods at times when he was foxed and think I was his boy’s ghost. Then I met him in the woods one day and he knew I was real and from the workhouse.”

Violet frowned. “Did he turn you in?”

“No. I got caught because I was careless. He went to the parish board and asked if I was up for sale. The bill had already been posted on the gate. He saw it and bought me.”

“Oh, Kit. Please say he was kind to you.”

He shook his head, not looking at her. “I expected more of the same treatment from him that I’d had at the workhouse. I planned to steal his money and run away at the first opportunity. Before it came Fenton adopted me. Overnight I was not only a swordsman’s apprentice; I was his son.”

“Then he
was
kind,” she said in relief.

His eyes glittered. “The first thing he told me the day he brought me home was that if he could train a regiment, he could train a rat.”

“A rat? I suppose you got in a fight.”

“Of course we did. I ran away that night.”

Her eyes widened. “In Monk’s Huntley? Where did you go?”

“To Eldbert’s house, but he was asleep. His father’s groom took me back to the captain in the rain.”

“I wish he’d told Eldbert.”

“I made him swear he wouldn’t. I didn’t want to look like I was desperate. I did have some pride.”

Violet breathed out a sigh. “And everything went well after that?”

He laughed. “Hell, no. I mistrusted the situation. He was an officer, a master-at-arms, and a lonely man who was haunted by the happiness he’d once known in Monk’s Huntley. I, as you know, was a little swine. When we set sail from England, I knew I’d been bought cheap to be resold to foreign pirates.”

She raised her eyes to his. “That’s what Ambrose said had happened. And that the pirates would auction you off.”

“I never saw a single pirate. If I had, I’d have probably asked to join them.”

“Ambrose also predicted you’d be made into a eunuch.”

He lifted one brow. “I can prove that prediction false if you’re curious, but it wouldn’t be a gentlemanly act.”

She blinked. “I think I’ll take your word on it. Where did the ship take you?”

“To Majorca.” He grinned. “When we reached port I spotted a bearded man in a scarlet cloak standing on the dock. I said, ‘I’m not getting off the ship. Drown me like a cat for all I care. But catch me first.’”

“You were difficult to catch in those days,” she said, shaking her head.

He smiled grimly. “Well, he did, but it took him three hours. That night we rode on donkeys over cobbled streets and up into winding hills to a hut where I watched how a sword was made. Soon after that we went to France so that I could study for my diploma.”

“A sword master,” she mused. “I should have thought of that. How many duels have you fought?”

“To the death?”

“Oh. Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked. I don’t want to know, do I?”

“The answer is none. I’m not saying there haven’t been times when I came close. But I made a promise to my father that I wouldn’t go off half-cocked at the least offense. He had a falling-out with a friend in France when they were brash students of the sword. It ended in a duel.”

“He killed his friend?”

“No. But he severed the man’s hand at the wrist so that he could never be the swordsman he was. My father was drunk and regretted it all his life. The chevalier never forgave him and called him a coward for not killing him instead.”

“But he treated you well.”

“So did you,” he said.

He studied her face and fought the hunger that he felt. If only she wouldn’t look at him like that. As if she believed in him. As if perhaps, secretly, she believed that their old friendship could be revived into . . . an abiding passion? Love?

Her vulnerability must have drawn many suitors. She had the beguiling gift of being a good friend. She listened and even now she didn’t judge him. Oh, how pleasantly sweet it felt to be himself again.

He smiled. “And what have you been doing in the last decade or so?”

“Nothing as exciting as you.”

“No? I doubt that.”

She laughed. “Well, I’ve never left England, for starters. My aunt and I have been traveling for the last year. I’ve done charity work, and I have you to thank for opening my eyes to a world I didn’t see before we met. And . . . I learned how to dance and how to use a fan to discourage advances.”

His gaze held hers. “My compliments to your dancing masters. I assume you went through a battalion of them. You had me breathless in the ballroom, but then I can’t blame all of that on the dance.”

“I
was
breathless.”

“Where is your fan to discourage my advances?” he asked slowly.

She glanced past him to the floor. “It’s hard to see when one is pinned to the wall. I have a feeling I dropped it when you took me in your arms.”

“My apologies.”

“And my compliments to you on a painless disarmament.”

He was surprised at the force of desire her artless words unleashed. “It isn’t painless from my viewpoint.”

“Your weakness doesn’t show,” she whispered innocently.

He gave a laugh. “It’s all in the training. I hide it well. A sword master learns to manipulate those around him.”

“I have heard that some ladies practice a similar technique.”

“Which is?”

“I think it’s provocation.”