Page 24 of To Steal a Kiss

The answer surprised her, more so by the realisation he was surprised at having admitted as much.

“Well, there’s nothing to see here,” she said, putting up her chin. “So, go away,” she added, waving her hand up and down the corridor, indicating he should take his pick of destinations.

Not so much as a flicker of anger or irritation crossed his austere face. “I am unaccustomed to being given orders,” he replied, his tone as indifferent and emotionless as ever. Did he ever get angry? She had the sudden urge to make him lose his temper, to fluster that unshakeable calm.

Matilda wondered how he was with a lover. Was he even capable of pleasure? His reputation certainly suggested so, one of wickedness and depravity, of the kind of pleasures no good girl would ever understand, even a married one. She’d heard the whispers as women talked. He rarely took lovers, which perhaps increased his appeal. The arrogant air of unattainability was a lure of its own, and because of rather than despite his cruelty, by all accounts. Matilda couldn’t understand that in the least. She tried to imagine how he might act in the throes of ecstasy and couldn’t. Then she blushed furiously as she wondered with horror why on earth she’d even considered the matter.

To her dismay, his eyebrows drew together as that unnerving, icy stare hit her again, no doubt taking in her heightened colour.

“What?” he asked, and for the first time he looked something other than proud or aloof as curiosity glinted in the grey.

“Nothing,” Matilda said, turning on her heel and leaving him where he stood. She hurried away, not looking back.

***

Still the night of the 24th June 1814. An inadvisable rendezvous, the Eversley’s’ Ball, Regent’s Park, London.

Nate was beyond sanity. Drugged, bespelled, caught in Alice’s lovely snare.

She had seduced him with her sweet barley sugar kisses and her freckles, and her soft, teasing words.

A voice in his head kept urging him to take her back, now, this instant. He should heed it; he knew he should. Alice was not for the likes of him, he knew that. No doubt her parents would marry her off to some titled fool, and then he remembered Mr Bindley. She was practically engaged, Matilda said.

Something in his chest lurched. It was the strangest sensation, akin to fear, panic even. He drew back from the kiss, breathing hard. Alice sighed and looked up at him. Her eyes were dark with desire, her lips reddened from his kisses. She smiled up at him, hazy, as if she’d just woken from a lovely dream. There it went again, that sensation in his chest, urging him to do something, say something, anything, to make sure this woman couldn’t leave him. He had to make sure she was his. Losing her to another man was not an option.

“What is it?” she asked, reaching up to stroke his face.

Nate sighed and turned his face into it, kissing her palm.

“Alice,” he said, his heart thudding as the enormity of what he was about to do hit home.

Once he’d mourned the loss of his dreams, but he’d spent so long telling himself he was a lucky dog—that every man in the country envied him—that he’d begun to believe it. He’d sworn this would never happen to him, sworn he would never, ever lose his freedom, but he’d risk losing everything else in the world before he lost Alice.

It was insanity after such a short acquaintance, he knew that. He knew it and he didn’t care. This was real, this was honest, and he’d find no one else like her if he lived to be a hundred. “Alice,” he said again, breathless now. “I….”

Alice jolted in his arms as the sound of the door opening stopped the question before he could voice it. Instead another voice asked a question of its own.

“W-Well, well, A-Alice. Who w-would have thought it?”

***

Matilda was frantic. Picking up her skirts she broke into a run, and as she recognised the figure walking ahead of her, she knew her fears were well founded.

“Wait!” she called, trying to still the hand that reached for the doorknob. “Wait a moment.”

The man just turned and smirked at her, before pushing the door open.

No. No. No.

Matilda prayed, prayed he’d got the wrong door, prayed it wasn’t Nate behind that door, that it wasn’t Alice in his arms.

The familiar stammering voice was filled with self-satisfied contempt and confirmed her worst fears.

“W-Well, well, A-Alice. Who w-would have thought it?”

She wanted to weep as she hurried into the room after him. Nate had obviously leapt away from Alice, putting distance between them, but it was evident what they had interrupted. Alice looked thoroughly kissed. Her skin was flushed, her hair coming loose, lips red and swollen. She’d never looked lovelier. Matilda’s heart lurched. Oh, God. No.

“And with your b-b-brother, Miss Hunt.” Mr Bindley turned to smile at her, a reptilian smile that set every sense on alert. “I can s-see where you get it from.”