Page 26 of What Happens in Hedone

Effie glanced up with a shy, pleased smile. “Dine with you? Where?”

“My friend, with whom I am lodging, would like to meet you. You are welcome to bring a guest, of course.”

That smile was another snare, the way one side of her mouth seemed to quirk up. He was caught in it. She was dressed in some adorable riding costume meant to look vaguely military, the stern cut of her coat, a neckcloth billowing above her bosom and a jewel winking from the white folds. A warning, late and dim, tugged at the back of Jay’s mind.

“Why should your friend wish to meet me?” she asked.

Good God, he had lost all subtlety with her, if he’d ever had any. “I may have spoken of you to him.”

She glanced back at their captive seal, her smile fleeing. “I hope you are not trying to arrange a marriage for me.”

He felt he’d taken a blow to the head. “No, of course not.” Not when he wanted her for himself. “Why—are you not thinking of marriage?”

“I told you. I am already promised,” she said.

She’d never said such a thing. If she’d pushed him with a finger at that moment, Jay would have fallen like a stone. His sight narrowed to a pinprick. A roar sounded in his ears. The world was collapsing around him, the shingle disappearing beneath his feet, the earth opening to swallow him whole.

She was not his. She was to marry another.

“You…you had not said,” he stammered.

She glanced up again, brows pulling together. Such elegant brows. Such an elegant line to her face, that straight nose, those lips—those lips that were so familiar⁠—

“I told you,” she answered, “last night.”

“Last…night?”

He focused on the pin at her neckcloth. “I have a cravat pin exactly like that. With a ruby at the tip.” Actually, he had worn it to Hedone last night, but had not returned home with it, for when he undressed in a daze of sensual memory, there had been no pin, because Erato had undressed him and…

He gaped at her, and all the puzzle pieces snapped together, this time in a coherent whole.

That mouth. Only one woman he knew had that precise shape to her mouth, those full lips that looked puckered in a tiny, secret smile as if she harbored mischievous thoughts.

That nose with the pert tilt at the end. Those arched brows and wide, expressive eyes.

Effie had the same birthmark. A small brown mark beneath her ear, as if the fairy kind she came from had marked her with a tiny kiss before delivering her to the human world.

“No,” Jay said in disbelief.

Effie rocked back on her heels. “I did tell you. Last night, when I— Do you honestly not remember?” A tumult of emotion crossed her face: puzzlement, crimson shame, and then, finally, comprehension.

“You didn’t recognize me? Jay!” she cried. “How could you not know?”

How could she accuse him? “She has brown eyes!” he exclaimed.

“I do not. An effect of the candlelight.”

He stared at her light brown hair, several curls beneath her hat stirred by the endless breeze. “Darker hair.”

“Candlelight, again.”

“You have freckles.”

She rubbed her nose, crinkled into a rueful expression. “Paint.”

“She smells of vanilla. You smell like the sea,” Jay said stubbornly. This was the sticking point. The two women had completely opposite scents, one smoky and seductive, one fresh and bright. Two completely different personalities. Erato was headstrong, intelligent, a bit fierce in her opinions, and confident around men. Effie was an innocent.

Or had been until last night. When he’d despoiled her. Jay’s heart raced.