his treasonous activities if such they are.”
“I will see it as well. I will be there tomorrow morning too.”
“I cannot allow that,” he said firmly. “These men are not playing games.”
“Kitty? Douglas?” Her mother appeared beside her. “The two of you have the appearance of plotters. I hope I am not interrupting.”
“Not at all, Mama. We were saying good night. I have danced myself into exhaustion and cannot remain a minute longer. Will you find another way if I take the carriage?”
Her mother regarded her through wise brown eyes and finally said, “Yes, dear. Of course.”
Kitty fled from the drawing room into the ballroom. But there she found no respite from her tumult of feelings either. Pressing through the crowd of guests merry now with wine and dance and the wee hours, she made her way to a parlor filled with revelers, then another chamber, and another. She descended the stairs of the mansion into the cool lower story. What had she done? Why had she trusted them? All she had truly wanted was to see him again, be with him, and now this dishonesty, this pretense once more.
She came into a corridor behind the stairwell, empty of all but a maid rushing from one place to the next. The girl passed by with a swift curtsy and Kitty pressed her back against a wall, trapping her unsteady hands behind her, and drew slow breaths.
A door opened at the corridor’s opposite end and the Earl of Blackwood came through it. Music trickled down the stairs from above, but the beat of her heart drowned it out. They looked at each other without moving, his eyes darkly shining.
“It—” The words tumbled from her lips. “It is my birthday today.”
He smiled, a sort of lopsided smile not entirely in control that turned Kitty’s insides out.
“Aye,” he replied in a low voice. “That i’tis.”
He did not move. She did not.
“They told you about the plan, didn’t they?”
“Aye.”
On the stair just above, voices sounded and feet descended. She had many questions, and unspoken needs better left unspoken. Tearing her gaze away, she went across the landing to the front of the house, to the foyer and out, to her carriage and home.
The footman greeted her with sleepy eyes. She told him to turn in and went to the parlor to pace.
She could not rest, not anticipating the morning’s assignation and what it could mean to her mother and to Leam. He would spend the night making a pretense of drinking and playing cards somewhere with Mr. Yale for the benefit of anyone who might be watching. Then in the morning he would go to the rendezvous place to await Lord Chamberlayne.
Stomach tight, she descended to the basement and set a pot of water on the kitchen stove. Better to await her mother’s return alone and confront her with the truth without fear of being overheard by curious ears. For she must tell her tonight.
The knocker clanking on the front door made her jump. She set down the teapot and went to the stair, nerves on end. The footman appeared.
“I said you might turn in, John,” she murmured as he moved toward the front door.
“Yes, mum.” He wore a nightshirt, and a wig dropped over both his hair and nightcap. He threw back the bolts and opened the door. A boy stood on the stoop.
“From milady,” he piped cheerily, as though it were broad daylight. John took the missive, dropped a coin into his palm, and bolted the door once more.
“Milady, can I be making you a cuppa?”
“No, thank you.” She unfolded the missive. “I can do so my—” A knock sounded on the tradesman’s door at the rear of the house. Kitty and the footman looked at each other, then she shrugged. He passed her on the stairs and moved along the basement corridor lit only by a single candle in a sconce. Peering into the gloom, she read the note. Her shoulders fell.
Apparently her mother would not be returning tonight. Mere weeks from her confinement, Serena felt unwell again; the dowager would stay at the other house.
Kitty could not bear it, this waiting
She put her hand to her face, closed her eyes, and when she opened them again Leam stood in the doorway, the sparkling dark of the rain-speckled night casting him in silhouette.
“Milady?” John asked, presumably surprised to find an earl standing in her basement corridor in the middle of the night. Perhaps not quite as surprised as Kitty; John hadn’t any notion why the earl should not be there, after all—except for the most obvious reasons.
“Please close the door, John. Then you may go to bed.”
Momentarily they were once again alone at opposite ends of an empty corridor. This time the light was barely sufficient for her to see his handsome face, to discern the glimmer in his eyes, and to imprint the image of him upon her memory before she had to make him go.
“This is not a good idea,” she said. “Someone might have seen you come. Everything could be ruined.”
“True. But it might well have been ruined if I hadn’t come. I couldn’t think straight. Nearly ran my horse into a lamppost. Not the best state in which to work.”
“You are not—you are not drunk, are you?”
“Not in the usual manner. Now come here. Or would you be wishing me to come over there?”
She caught her breath. “We could meet halfway?”
He nodded. “Fair enough.”
The floor was crossed. She was in his arms. He clamped her tight to his chest. She pressed her face to his lapel, her body to his, spreading her hands on his back and sinking her fingers in.
“Why are you here?” she whispered.
“I came to deliver your birthday gift.”
She turned her head up. He loosened her, and when she looked into his eyes, what she saw there pressed her breath into submission—need, and vulnerability so raw it hollowed her within.
She tried to smile. “Then what was the beautiful music I received only yesterday, if not for my birthday?”
His hand came up around the side of her face, the pad of his thumb passing roughly across her cheek into her hair. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because I am the most suitable person for the job. Really, I could not be more suitable.” She ran her palm across his smooth jaw, loving the feeling of him. She could touch him forever. “You shaved before coming here.”
“A gentleman canna pay a call on a leddy an he’s shaggy as a barbarian.”
“Leam—”
“Kitty, I did not come here to talk.”
Her throat closed. Still she managed to croak, “Leam, I live with my
“She has gone to your brother’s house for the night. Your sister-in-law is feeling unwell.”
“How do you know that? Mr. Grimm?”
“Little is sacred to the below-stairs set when gossip and guineas are involved.”
“Oh, my. I shall have to tell Alex to turn them all off—”
“Actually, I heard it at the ball.” The corner of his mouth quirked up.
She laughed.
He covered her mouth with his, and his arms pulled her off her feet. Barely breaching the seam of her lips, he kissed her, satisfying and stoking her hunger for him at once. He tilted her face up and kissed her jaw, his fingertips straying along her throat and neck as he returned to her mouth. Ever so gently the tip of his tongue brushed along the edge of her parted lips. She sighed, clutching his coat in tight fingers. He broke away to draw off his greatcoat, then surrounded her face with his hands and kissed her anew.
“I cannot get enough of your mouth.” He stroked her lower lip with his thumb, making her tremble, and followed it with his mouth. His hands, large and strong, surrounded her shoulders and she felt held, treasured.
