The Slightest Provocation Read online

  Her eyes must have adjusted to the room’s dimness. She could make out a few more details, even in the flickering light of a few low candles.

  His chair was tipped back against a plastered wall, but even so, she could see thick black hair curled charmingly over his forehead. The sharp edge of a high, white collar, under a well-tied, almost dandyish cravat.

  Perhaps she should have let Peggy brush out her hair. It usually fell into a fetching enough mop of ringlets, but with today’s rain and that awful wind…

  The food the serving girl was setting down in front of her looked wonderful. A large leg of the chicken and a slice of the breast as well, hot and glistening from the spit.

  She took a bite-oh, Lord, she was sad to be leaving France. The sauce especially, made with apple brandy… she hadn’t realized quite how ravenous she was.

  Was he smiling over the rim of his glass?

  She’d probably wolf down the food without doing it justice.

  On the contrary. She felt herself eating it most extremely slowly and deliberately, under the steady greenish gaze from next to the fireplace.

  His eyes were still in shadow. She’d felt their color rather than actually seen it. Lichen on rock, under a brook’s swift-moving water. Winter barely turned to spring.

  He must have finished his supper. But he didn’t appear in any hurry, refilling his glass now from the pitcher in front of him and evidently content to watch (certain things, it seemed, remaining quite unchanged. She’d been so interested in the ways he’d changed that she’d quite taken for granted the ways he hadn’t).

  Well, then. For she still had a pretty mouth, with gracefully bowed lips, a single dimple in the right corner, and small, even white teeth. She looked well when she was eating, even something as dodgy as spaghetti. She remembered a midnight supper in Italy, with a highly amused Lord Byron and his glowering Venetian mistress.

  Very quickly, she flicked her tongue over her lower lip to catch a stray bit of carrot. A sip of wine, to cut the food’s richness. A long swallow, dark perfume swirling at the back of her throat.

  The sauce was splendid. She mopped up a bit more of it with a crust of fresh bread and ate it slowly.

  Her belly was starting to feel full-the next few bites would be for the pure pleasure of it. Just one more mouthful now; she needed to save some room. One wouldn’t want to come through Normandy and not sample every inn’s own particular apple tart. Especially an inn that Lady Rowen had recommended.

  Though this wasn’t exactly the moment to be thinking of Lady Rowen.

  The serving girl had returned to see if she wanted any dessert.

  Oui, s’il vous plait, mademoiselle.

  With sauce Chantilly? Sweetened fresh vanilla whipped cream sauce?

  Bien sur. And, um, beaucoup. Lots of it, s’il vous plait.

  A bit embarrassing, to be so straightforward about one’s greediness. But not so embarrassing that she’d do without the extra sauce.

  He’d put down his glass and made a quick, almost peremptory gesture-no abashed, tentative s’il vous plait for him. The girl hurried to bring him his own large slice of the tart, with its proper little dab of cream. Placing it on the table in front of him, she twisted her sharp gamine face into an expression compounded of admiration (for monsieur, at least) and impatience, it being all too clear that this wearisome pair of anglais were going to be taking their time over their tarte tatin, and that it would be far too long before she herself could quit work and get to bed-alone, hélas.

  Yes, it is rather a pity, Mary thought. But that should teach you, mademoiselle, even to think such thoughts about my monsieur.

  If so he could accurately be called.

  The morsel of tart passed through her lips in a cloud of fluffy whipped cream and dispelled the little moment of pique. The food deserved her full attention. Or as much of her attention as she could spare from the sight of his mouth moving slowly above that dazzling high collar.

  The food and wine’s taste, texture, and perfume melded perfectly, sliding past her tongue and down her throat. She paused to watch him bring his fork to his lips again; he’d moved closer to the table now, and she could see, rather than guess, that he was looking into her eyes.

  She felt herself tempted to eat more and more slowly. To flirt with downcast eyelashes from behind a napkin pressed to her lips, as though from behind a painted fan in a box at the opera. And then, almost as an afterthought, to bring another bite to her mouth, sucking sweetness from the apples and raisins, sinking her teeth into buttery crust, licking up any unctuous morsel of cream that might have stuck to her lips.

  At this rate, they’d be here all night.

  Which would be unfair and rather cruel to the serving girl-even if she had been a bit impertinent.

  She put a few sous on the table, took a candle to help guide her way back upstairs, and rose slowly from her seat.

  He caught up with her at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Mary…” She’d been trying to imagine what it would feel like to hear him speak her name. It was more difficult than she’d expected. As though in a dream, she turned to face him.

  “… Wollstonecraft’s Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.”

  Book in outstretched hand, he looked cordial and entirely at his ease. “Splendidly composed by an eminently reasonable creature. And an excellent choice for a lady traveling alone.”

  “Yes,” she heard herself say. “Yes, I admire the author excessively. I was named for her, you know.”

  He bowed slightly. “Indeed,” he said. “And are you an equally reasonable creature?”

  If she were, she wouldn’t be speaking to him.

  But the best means of self-defense were to take the offensive, wasn’t that so? And just as well, because she had a question of her own.

  “Is it a coincidence,” she asked, “that we’re both here tonight?”

  “Alas, it isn’t. I planned it when I heard you’d be traveling through here. Not the least bit coincidental… what say we call it fate instead?”

  She laughed, in part with relief-surely she could manage this sort of nervous chatter. “All right. Certainly. Let’s agree that we were fated to meet here. Because if it’s fated, we’re hardly responsible for the consequences.”

  He nodded. “Exactly so.”

  They were silent for a few instants now, considering each other from a shorter distance than across the dining room.

  “You kept your hair short,” he said. “I should have thought you’d go back to those elaborate braids and coils you were so fond of.”

  “They never really suited me; this is so much easier. And I’m a bit surprised at the dandy you’ve become.” He’d also put on about a stone of muscle; the clothing he wore tonight would have overwhelmed the raw-boned young man he’d been, all sinew and nervous energy.

  “The French have very clear expectations of what an English gentleman should look like. Mustn’t disappoint ’em while we’re occupying their country.”

  “No, I suppose not. I’m a bit disappointed, however. I should have liked to see you in your uniform.”

  “Sorry, too late. Cashed out quite suddenly.”

  She supposed she should ask about his plans. Or tell him of hers. She found that she didn’t wish to have that conversation at the present moment. Nor did she wish that anything existed outside of the present moment.

  “Do you think this is wise?” she asked.

  But he also knew how to parry a question with one of his own. “Were we ever wise?”

  She reached to take the book from him.

  “I’ll bring it,” he said. “And look.” He raised his other hand. “I’ve got another bottle of the Calvados, too, that you liked so much in the sauce. You manage the candle, Mary, and lead us up the stairs.”

  It seemed a very long way to her bedchamber. Long enough to convince herself that a certain giddiness was entirely to be expected, with all that food and drink in
her. She wondered what Thomas would think, when she arrived at the door of her room with him at her side.

  Not that it mattered. “Go to bed, Thomas,” was all she’d need to say.

  But Thomas was nowhere to be seen. Nor, when she threw open the door, was Peggy waiting to help her to bed.

  Her companion nodded. “I told Thomas you wouldn’t be needing either of them tonight.”

  “You spoke to Thomas?”

  “When I called on my mother in Paris. The day after she promised you the loan of her coach. And then again just before you came down to supper.”

  She opened her mouth indignantly.

  “No, don’t blame her ladyship. She had no part in it; she was angry enough at me that I hadn’t gone to see you. As for tonight, well, I worked the whole thing out with Thomas. He’s a good, loyal fellow.”

  An angry pounding started up from one of the neighboring bedchambers. They shouldn’t be disturbing their fellow lodgers by talking out here in the corridor. Kit turned a dour, puritanical-looking face in the direction of the noise and put a finger to his lips.

  She thought of the tiny gesture he’d made downstairs and how it had brought the serving girl running. At Rowen, the servants were equally attentive, as though honored to feed and dress the neighborhood’s first family. Most natural thing in the world, she supposed, for him to describe it as loyalty.

  But she wasn’t as loyal as that. Nor as complaisant.

  He was speaking so softly that she found herself obliged to lean forward in order to hear him. “A pity,” he said, “to pull little Peggy out of bed at this late hour, wouldn’t you agree?”

  As though it were all a rather bouncy bedroom farce.

  For what if she’d demurred back there at the bottom of the stairs? Hadn’t he considered that she might have murmured a polite “No, thank you”?

  Of course not. He’d taken it all as rather a lark-this business of men and women, of urgent desire, and of a stupid, passive, even servile eagerness to forget the wrongs of the past. As though it should be an easy, rather jokey matter for her to fall back into bed with him.

  She shrugged.

  It had been an exhausting, confusing day. It was her last night on the continent.

  “Indeed,” she replied-a little too loudly; the pounding started up again. She found it difficult to control her voice; at this moment she was finding it difficult to control-or even to comprehend-a great many things.

  She whispered, “Quite unnecessary to fetch Peggy, now that I’ve got you to undo my stays for me.”

  Her mouth had taken an ironical curve, but her hand was firm around her husband’s as she drew him into the room and shut the door behind them.

  Chapter Three

  The pounding had ceased. She folded her shawl over a chair by the window while he prowled about the room, picking up stray items and laying them down again. The air seemed to hum. His nervous energy had a familiar resonance; they might have been back in her bedchamber in Curzon Street. He’d deposited the bottle on the dressing table and was fiddling with the books atop the bed stand.

  “Diderot, eh? Lying supine beneath the witty lady who wrote Pride and Prejudice. An excellent arrangement, don’t you think, for the both of them?”

  If she weren’t careful, she’d laugh along with him.

  “Come here,” she said, “so I can look at you more closely.”

  In truth, to do more than simply look: she’d have to employ all her senses, to encompass the fact of his presence. Her lips trembled, parting to take a deep, heady breath of him. As once she’d taken greedy, icy gulps of water from the brook at the border of Rowen and Beechwood Knolls.

  He’d taken hold of both her hands. Holding them down at her sides, his own large, strong hands about her wrists. They exchanged a tiny, conspiratorial smile; she gazed serenely upward, to take his measure.

  The curtains stirred in a sweet salt breeze. A serene, temperate night; one wouldn’t guess at the ferocious weather they’d been having just a few hours earlier. The fire burned low and even, its mellow warmth spreading upward around their legs.

  Time was when the two of them would fall asleep like puppies on the floor, in front of just such a low, comfortable fire. Sated by some newly discovered pleasure, exhausted and beguiled by some elaborately contrived private diversion, congratulating themselves on one or another highly athletic position they could almost believe they’d invented. Housemaids and butler would have gone to bed long before, or might even be beginning their workday, if Lord and Lady Christopher had made a really late night of it.

  Shaking her hands free of his, she lifted her fingertips to trace the lines of his face: curl of lip, bump at the bridge of a nose broken so many years ago, swoop of eyelid fringed with straight, thick black lashes.

  Difficult to cease her explorations, even more difficult to turn away. “I meant it,” she said, “about my stays.”

  “I’m quite at your service,” he replied, “but we’ll have to start with your dress, won’t we? Such a sweet pale green… it’s very pretty on you.”

  She turned to allow him to get to the hooks at her back.

  “Pistachio green, it’s called.” Uttered so softly that she doubted he’d heard her.

  A ridiculous state of affairs in a civilized nation-how had it come to pass that a lady was unable to get out of her clothes without assistance? If assistance was what you’d call what he was offering.

  Peggy would have had the buttons and hooks undone in a trice. But Kit wasn’t bad at it. (Of course he isn’t bad at it, she reminded herself. It’s not as though he hasn’t unhooked a lady’s dress during the past nine years.) He fumbled now and then, cursing good-humoredly at the dress’s formidable array of hooks, the buttons being more for show than function. Still, he had marvelously deft hands for a gentleman. When he’d been bored, he’d sometimes amused himself by carving little birds or animals out of wood.

  She’d burned all the ones he’d left behind.

  His breath-slow and warm on the back of her neck-came more quickly now, a low, cool whistle of triumph at getting through all those fastenings. She glanced sideways at the window, at their reflections against the black night sky. He was grinning, a slightly chipped right front tooth catching a ray of moonlight just an instant before he bent his lips to trace the curve of her nape. The tip of his tongue, rough as a cat’s, began its nimble descent down the bumps at the top of her spine.

  Her dress would have slipped down around her if she weren’t holding it up, her hands on her breasts, the chambray falling in uneven folds-high around her shins in front, drooping down to the floor behind her, from the V it made, open to the middle of her back.

  He’d lowered her shift around the tops of her arms, his lips continuing downward to her shoulder blades at the verge of her corset.

  Her wings, he’d once said. If she’d had fairy wings, they’d have sprouted right there. Like water lilies, from those pads of bone and muscle.

  You’re a poet, she’d exclaimed, like Ovid. Don’t tell my brothers, he’d responded-so quickly that they’d both laughed at how scandalized he’d sounded.

  He must be surprised, she thought, at how primly she was holding the dress about herself. The two of them had been so careless back in Curzon Street. Returning home late at night, you could trace their path through the house by a trail of discarded garments-coat and waistcoat, cloak and lace mantilla… Neckcloth and petticoat like snowdrifts on the entryway’s black marble floor.

  His hands had crept around her, to grasp hers, prise them open and cause her to loose her hold on the fabric. Oh, all right. She sighed, and so, it seemed, did her gown, expelling a puff of air as it fell to the floor about her feet. Impatient and untidy as she’d ever been, she kicked the heap of cloth out of their way.

  He cupped her breasts through the stiff fabric of her stays… No, wait, there’d been a sudden loosening-he’d taken a lucky tug at the drawstring; his inquisitive, leisurely fingertips moved closer to her skin
, taking the time, she thought, to remember the shape of her nipples, which were stiffening at an alarming rate. Caressing her through her shift-she was wearing an old one; damnable to be so short of clean undergarments; the silk had once been very fine but now it was almost threadbare-he could be touching her through a cobweb.

  She must have leaned back against him. Her naked shoulders chafed against his coat; she could feel his hips, his belly-no use denying it, she could feel his cock-hard against her, through her petticoat.

  “My stays,” she repeated, in a more temperate voice than she’d have thought she could manage. “Please, they’re awfully tight about my waist. The… supper I ate, you know.”

  Forcing herself to take a step forward, she put an inch of space between their bodies to stop him, in any case, from continuing to press himself, in that disreputable, near-irresistible way, against her arse. Arms akimbo, she pushed her hands hard against the sides of her waist to relieve the tension of her flesh against the laces up her back.

  “Ah,” he murmured. His fingers had crept upward from her breasts to the shoulder straps, held fast with ribbon. No, not held fast, not now. She wiggled her shoulder blades, but he wouldn’t be distracted from unknotting the strings at her waist.

  “Ah yes, the supper you ate. I’d forgotten-no, in truth I’ve never forgotten-what a picture you make while you’re enjoying your food. Press a bit harder for a moment, will you, so I can get a little slack on this loop… Much better, thanks… do you know, Mary, that watching you eat, I found myself envying the capon?”

  She smiled despite herself. “I expect there’s rather a smutty witticism to be made from that.”

  “I should have thought you’d have made it by now.”

  “But you see,” she told him, “what a staid, well-governed, and circumspect lady I’ve become.”

  Or at least a less vulnerable one.

  He snorted with laughter and then took a breath-“Ah, got it. No more need of your help, thank you, Lady Chris…”

  But she could already tell that he’d gotten it, by the sudden easing of pressure about her torso, not to speak of the impatient breaths he was drawing while he waited for her-to? Well, that was rather the problem, wasn’t it? She’d hoped that this step of her hastily conceived strategy would have become clear to her when the need arose. Though in truth she remained unsure…