Page 24 of What Happens in Hedone

He was to be married. He had already fixed on another. Whatever invisible hand was toying with her yanked Effie’s heart clean out of her chest. She felt the wrench of it.

“If you see me again, you must pretend you do not know me.”

“I cannot do that. You have left a mark on me, Lady Erato.”

“Then you must pretend this never happened.”

“Of course I will pretend.” His fingertips on her arm were a burn, a brand. “But I will remember,” he said softly.

“Thank you,” she whispered, fastening up her gown. Tears stung the corners of her eyes. How she wanted to hear that he would take a piece of her away with him. Just as she would carry a part of her heart that was his, only his, for always.

He rearranged his clothes, tucked in his shirt, buttoned his coats. The cravat gave all away, but he simply bunched it into his waistcoat and reached for her. She kissed him back, knowing this must end and unable to bear it. His kiss was tender and consuming and a promise made without words, and Effie just managed not to cry out when he let her go. He lifted the curtain and stepped beyond, and he was gone.

And the dream was over.

Chapter Six

Effie wasn’t where she’d said she would be.

A fitting answer to his betrayal, Jay supposed, though how could she know he’d betrayed her, and why did it feel a betrayal at all? Plenty of men took their pleasures where they could before marriage, and some of them during, as he knew. Jay’s father, though, had never looked with interest upon another woman from the moment he met Leda Wroth at an assembly in Bath, so perhaps it was only Burnham men who were peculiar in that respect.

As he circled Adelaide Crescent, examining the Athaneum from all angles while convinced all over again the builder hadn’t put in enough iron supports to hold up the dome of glass, Jay had to face the truth. He was here, and Effie wasn’t.

He was wild to see her again, and she didn’t feel the same.

He’d met obstacles in his life before. He’d met plenty of women who turned him down, who didn’t want a tradesman, or didn’t like his rough edges. He’d had problems on projects, customers who didn’t pay, prospects that didn’t go through, projects that folded when an owner ran out of money or inclination. But he’d been so certain this was something he was meant for. Effie Stanier was a like soul.

He’d been convinced that, despite all his flaws, all the drawbacks, she would say yes.

Though he was coming to her bearing the imprint of another woman. The scent of Erato still filled his nostrils, even after washing. The taste of her still teased his tongue, her eager kisses and the nectar of her womanhood. She tasted like clay pulled from the sea, sharp and sweet at the same time.

What an astounding privilege that she had chosen him for her awakening. He hoped he’d done a decent job of it. He hadn’t been a tutor with her in his arms. He’d been lost to everything but her scented heat, the unbelievable softness of her skin, the music that filled his head when she put her mouth on him. God. He would be sporting a cockstand all about the half-built Adelaide Crescent if he didn’t bring his thoughts under control.

But how could he not be aroused by the memory of her kneeling between his knees, not because they’d made a transaction, not because she expected something of him, but because she wanted to touch him. As if he, his own self, was a pleasure to her.

He hoped his wife would feel the same way.

There would be no more visits to Hedone. If he saw Lady Erato, passed her on the street on another man’s arm, Jay would do as she asked and pretend not to know her. Theirs had been a stolen moment, perfect, a memory he could cherish and revisit to the end of his days. An unlooked-for connection, a pleasure he’d found tucked away when he had needed a distraction from the dull round of his life. When he knew he wanted something more but could not say what that looked like.

He turned toward the beach and saw two shapes on the shingle, one a woman in a broad-brimmed hat and the extravagant silhouette of current fashion, the broad sleeves and skirt nipped in by the tiny waist. As if a woman were a toy one could pinch with one’s fingers and fly through the air.

It was Effie, and he knew now what that more was he’d been craving. He’d been searching for her.

The second shape was a seal, he saw as he neared. A common seal, gray with white spots, turned on its side. Two sets of eyes regarded him as he approached, one set large and brown and mournful, above a set of drooping whiskers, and the other an anxious midnight blue. It was the blue eyes that set grappling hooks in his chest and pulled.

He felt the same hunger that gripped him last night when he’d fallen upon Erato. He wanted to set his palms on either side of Effie’s face and pull her to him and kiss her until the world fell away.

How very out of place, to have a rush of raw desire here, on this exposed beach, oddly empty. The pleasure seekers were all down by Chain Pier, where the entertainments could be found.

“I’ve sent Heddy to get help,” Effie said, eschewing a greeting. “I think we need to return her to the water.”

“She could be molting. The seals at Hunstanton do that this time of year.”

“I do not think that is the reason. She has only just begun to shed her fur, see?” Effie swept her hand, ungloved, along a patch of the creature’s back where what Jay had thought spots were tiny openings in its coat, the old beginning to give way to the new. “And that is her seal pup out in the channel, crying for her.”

On the word a small yip, eerily like the cry of a child, came from a few yards out in the water, where a sleek tiny head, possessing another set of huge dark eyes, bobbed above the waves. The seal on the beach turned that way and struggled.

“She hauled out on the tide and now she cannot get back,” Effie said. “She might be injured. We have to help.”