The promise in a kiss

Marjorie peered up the table. “Who is it from?”

Helena turned the package in her hands. “It doesn’t say.”

“Open it.” Marjorie set down her cup. “There will be a card inside.”

Helena tore open the wrappings and reached in. Her fingers touched the plush cover of a jeweler’s case—a frisson of presentiment raced over her skin. She stared at the open package, almost afraid to draw out the contents. Then she steeled herself and pulled.

A green leather case. She set aside the paper, opened the case. Inside, on a bed of deep green velvet, nestled a very long double strand of the purest pearls. The strands were interrupted at three points by single stones, each a perfect rectangle, cut very simply to showcase their color. At first she guessed peridot, but as she lifted the necklace and draped it between her hands, the stones flashed and the light caught them; their depth of color was revealed. Emeralds. Three large pure emeralds more vividly green than her eyes.

Earrings, each with a smaller emerald set above pearls, and a matching pair of bracelets—miniature versions of the necklace—completed the set.

Of the king’s ransom she already owned, no piece appealed to her half as much.

Helena dropped the necklace as if it had burned her. “We must send it back.” She pushed the case away from her.

Louis had been examining the packaging; now he glanced at the case. “There is no card. Do you know who sent it?”

“St. Ives! It must be from him.” Helena pushed back her chair; some impulse was urging her to run, to flee from the necklace—from her wish to touch it, to run her fingers along the smooth strands. To imagine how it would feel around her throat, how it would look.

Damn Sebastian!

She stood. “Please arrange to have it returned to His Grace.”

“But,ma petite. ” Marjorie had searched the packaging for herself. “If there is no card, then we cannot be sure who sent it. What if it wasn’t monsieur le duc?”

Helena looked down at Marjorie; she could almost see Sebastian’s smug smile. “You are right,” she eventually said. She sat again. After a moment of staring at the pearls lying like temptation on their velvet bed, she drew the case closer. “I will have to think what is best to be done.”

“Y

ousent me these, did you not?”

The fingers of one hand caressing the pearls encircling her throat, Helena turned to face Sebastian. The silk of her pale green skirts swished sensuously; she let her fingers trail lovingly over the pearls, following the strands over her breasts.

Lips lightly curved, Sebastian watched every move. She could tell nothing from his face or his eyes.

“They look very well on you,mignonne .”

She refused to think how well, how they made her feel.

As if she weredangereuse, too.

Only he could have delivered the ultimate temptation to play his game. Never before had she felt so powerful—powerful enough to engage with a man such as he.

A thrill of excitement, of insidious attraction flared; she turned, paced, unable to keep still.

When he’d appeared by her side in Lady Carlyle’s ballroom, his eyes had gone straight to the necklace, then he’d quickly noted the other pieces she’d also donned. She’d acquiesced readily to his invitation to stroll the room. Sure enough, he had, as only he could, found an anteroom giving off the ballroom. An empty room, poorly lit by wall lamps, with a tiled floor and a small fountain splashing at its center.

Her heels clicked on the tiles as she paced before the fountain; she threw him an openly considering glance. “If not you . . . perhaps it was Were? Perhaps he is missing me.”

Sebastian said nothing, but even in the weak light she saw his face harden.

“No,” she said. “It was not Were—it was you. What do you expect to gain by it?”

He watched her—whether considering his answer or merely stretching her nerves tight, she could not tell— then said, “IfI had sent such a gift, I would expect to receive . . . whatever response you would naturally give to one who had so indulged you.”

She let her eyes flash, let her temper show. She’d grown accustomed, over the weeks, to letting him see it. Even now there seemed no reason to hide her feelings from him. With a swish of her skirts, she swung to face him and lifted her chin. “The thanks I would give to whoever had so indulged me . . . that I could give only if I knew who that gentleman was.”

He smiled. With his usual prowling gait, he closed the distance between them. “Mignonne,I care not, in truth, whether you judge me the one deserving of your gratitude.”

Halting before her, he raised one hand and tangled his long fingers in the strands below her throat. He lifted the pearls; fingers sliding, he gathered the lengthy strands in his hand until the slack was locked in his fist, poised above her neckline.

“I would much rather be assured,” he murmured, voice deepening to its most dangerous purr, “that every time you wore this piece, you thought of me.”

He opened his fist, let the pearls fall.

Weighted by the largest emerald, the strands dropped down her cleavage, slithered between her breasts.

She gasped at the heat—the heat of his hand held trapped in the pearls.

“I would much rather know that every time you wore this, you thought of us. Of what will be.”

He hadn’t completely released the necklace; one long finger remained hooked in the strands. Watching the strands, he raised them, then let them slide and slither down, around, caressing her bare breasts in defiance of her gown and chemise—her completely clothed state. Deliberately, he made the pearls rise and fall to a slow, sensuous rhythm, one she could all too readily imagine his fingers themselves following.

Her lungs had locked; she dragged in a shuddering breath, briefly closed her eyes. Felt her breasts rise, swell, heat.

He shifted closer—she sensed rather than saw or heard it, felt him like a flame on her skin. She opened her eyes—and fell into the blue of his.

“Every time you wear these,mignonne, think of . . . this.”

She hadn’t meant to let him get so close. Hadn’t meant to tip up her face and let him kiss her. But with the intoxicating warmth of him so near, the murmurous sound of his deep voice in her ear, the sense-stealing sensation of the pearls, still warm, still shifting provocatively between her breasts, she was lost.

His lips closed over hers. At the first hint of pressure, the first demand, she opened to him, not submissively but defiantly, refusing, even now, to surrender.

She could kiss him and survive, let him kiss her and still not be his. If he thought otherwise, he would learn. Reaching up, she slid her fingers into his hair and boldly kissed him back. Surprised him for a second, but only that.

His response was unexpected—no suffocating rush of passion, of overwhelming desire. Instead, he matched her, gave her all she wanted, hinted at more. Lured her on.

She knew it, but resistance was impossible. The only way she could hold on to her self, retain some semblance of awareness and self-will, was to immerse herself in the kiss, give herself over to it and follow his lead, noting each step along the way, knowingly taking each one.

Within seconds he had taken her from this world. Only he could lead her back.

Sebastian released the pearls, left them to lie, a faint memory between her bare breasts. Closing his arms about her, he drew her to him, until her soft flesh was once again pressed against his much harder frame. Desire swelled, gnashed like some ravenous beast, wanting more—much more.

Wanting her beneath him, sheathing him.

He knew it couldn’t be—not yet. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. He didn’t even dare caress her more definitely, his rake’s instincts warning not yet, not yet.

She was driving him slowly, steadily, mad. If he didn’t have her soon . . .

Never had he waited so long; no other woman—none he had desired—had ever denied him. Had ever refused