Page 49 of The Siren of Sussex

Some of her excitement dimmed. A week seemed a very long way away. She’d grown accustomed to her time with him. The talks they’d had during her fittings, and the way he touched her, with such care and confidence.

And what about today?

What was it he’d been about to say to her before Agnes had interrupted them?

Evelyn prided herself on being practical. Nevertheless . . . Her mind conjured a dozen different sentiments he might have expressed to her, each more devastatingly romantic than the last.

What a moment to succumb to girlish daydreams!

It was bad enough that she’d accidentally kissed him. Now she was imagining that he felt something for her, too. That when he’d gazed down at her so intently, his hands circling her waist, he’d been about to declare himself.

Foolish.

She was on the cusp of realizing her ambition. Of solving all of her family’s problems. She could think of nothing more ill-advised at this juncture than indulging in silly fantasies about the man who made her riding habits. It didn’t matter that he was a genius with a needle and thread. Or that he was handsome and kind.

Or that he had the most sensual pair of lips in Christendom.

No, no, no. She gave herself an inward shake. It simply wouldn’t do to fixate on him this way.

Better to keep her attention on her plans. On her official debut in Rotten Row.

“Next week, then,” she said.

A great deal could happen in a week.

Ten

The following morning, Ahmad packed Miss Maltravers’s finished habit into a tissue paper–lined dress box and sent it off to Russell Square in custody of Doyle and Heppenstall’s ginger-haired delivery boy.

Ahmad would rather have taken it to her himself, but after what had happened yesterday, he dared not risk it. Being around Evelyn Maltravers conjured too many emotions. It affected his composure. Made him think things he shouldn’t. Feel things he shouldn’t.

How couldn’t he? By God, the two of them had kissed each other. And it had been a kiss. It didn’t matter how inadvertently it had begun or how short its duration. What mattered was that her lips had clung to his, sweet and soft and trembling. A blazing heat had torn through him like wildfire. It had taken every ounce of his control to draw back from her.

And what about afterward?

He’d come dangerously close to saying something. He didn’t know what. Some manner of foolish declaration, no doubt. He hadn’t been thinking particularly clearly at the time.

It would do him good to have a week to cool off. A week without seeing her or talking to her. It was time to refocus his efforts on Viscountess Heatherton.

Unlike Miss Maltravers, Lady Heatherton demanded that her order be delivered in person. He’d finished her evening dress last night and boxed it up this morning. All that was left was to put it into her hands.

Arriving at the Heathertons’ town house at half past eleven, he was met in the kitchens by her ladyship’s maid, Crebbs.

“You’ll mind your manners if you know what’s good for you,” she warned as she escorted him up the servants’ stairs to Lady Heatherton’s chamber. “My lady may think you good enough to dally with, but I see you for what you are.”

“And what’s that?” Ahmad inquired.

Crebbs only scowled. When they reached the viscountess’s wood-paneled door, Crebbs opened it to admit him. “Mr. Mah-leeky, my lady.”

Ahmad gave her a dry glance. English people were often inclined to make an exotic mincemeat of his name. In his experience, it was done as much as a sign of dominance as of genuine misunderstanding. Another way of illustrating that he was different—foreign, and thereby inferior.

In the beginning, it had grated. As a boy, he’d wanted so much to belong. Now he found such thinly veiled aggressions merely tedious. Tedious, and wholly unoriginal.

“Come in, sir,” Lady Heatherton called out from her dressing room. “And Crebbs? See that we’re not disturbed.”

Crebbs’s scowl deepened. “Yes, my lady.” She stood by, glaring at Ahmad as he entered, and then she withdrew, shutting the door firmly behind her.

Ahmad came to a halt inside the door. The viscountess’s boudoir was abnormally dark for this time of day. On his previous visits, the drapes had been opened. But not today. They were shut tight, blocking out the midmorning sunshine. What light existed was provided by a branch of candles on the mantel and a fire crackling in the grate below.