“Henry,” she whispered, and her breath heated his mouth. Her tongue tapped his, a teasing dance.
They were entwined, her legs over his, his arm around her. Such closeness was a strange sensation, as fizzing and frantic as the first time he’d kissed a woman. Every movement was a question, every feeling a revelation: the delicate spring of her ribs, the slickness of silk over the yielding curve of her breasts. She gasped and worked herself closer to him when his hand grazed her tight nipple through her clothing. When his fingers brushed it again, she caught his eye and gave her own naughty smile.
“Don’t start what you don’t want to finish,” she murmured, and her hands found the fall of his snug trousers.
“Believe me, I want—” He choked as she slid her hand across his erection. Some sensible part of his mind said, Stop, anyone could come in.
Don’t stop, said his body. Never stop.
“—this,” he finished, hooking his forefinger under the edge of her bodice. Knuckle by knuckle, he worked it under the snug fabric, relishing the way her shoulders shuddered and the movements of her hands grew spasmodic. His questing fingertip stroked the velvety top of her breast and grazed the edge of her nipple.
She sucked in her breath, hard. “My damned stays are in the way.”
Henry laughed. “You like this?” He knew the answer, but he wanted her to say it.
“Of course I do, you tease. Shall I tease you in return?” She wriggled against his fingers. Her own hands spanned the bones of his narrow hips, again a flicker away from the fall of his trousers.
“If you wish.” His smile felt crooked, self-conscious; oh, how he hoped she would.
Her wicked hands danced upward, teasing him just as she’d promised. She stroked his chest, grazed his neck with her nails. Only his arms remained tactfully untouched.
Part of his mind was still drumbeating, This can’t be real, not now, not after Quatre Bras, as a more hopeful part gulped in the evidence of his eyes, the sweet citrusy scent of her, the electrical vibrancy of his skin, every fiber awake and alive. Popping like fireworks of Paris Green in this blue room.
Paris Green. Treacherous and bright, the shade of Caro’s eyes.
Thoughts flickered: the influential countess, the secret letters. The deliberate courtship that, right now, seemed to be nothing but a chore.
Quickly as that, the spell was broken. Henry’s fingers pulled free from Frances’s bodice with a faint shup against the rich fabric—a sound almost like the defeated pop of a cork being forced back into a wine bottle.
Swiftly, her hands lifted and wove together demurely in her lap. “What happened? Did you hear something?” she whispered.
“No.” Henry raked his hand through his hair, taming and flattening the wild peaks she’d made with her eager fingers. “No. I shouldn’t have done this.”
Frances’s proud posture sagged. “You shouldn’t have… what? Met me alone?”
“Yes, and—and touched you.” He stammered, hating his own uncertainty. None of the social rules he remembered had prepared him for this: seeking advice about courtship, then mauling the advisor.
Carefully, she pushed away to a respectable distance. Her face fell into shadow against the deep blue of the wall. “I touched you too,” she said in a bland voice. “Do you want me to apologize? Should I be ashamed of having kissed you?”
“I hope not,” Henry blurted. He pressed his hand to his temple. It was far too hot in here suddenly; he wished he could lie down on the plush-carpeted floor and wait for his shuddering limbs to return to normal.
“You hope I won’t apologize.”
“No,” he barked. “I hope you won’t feel ashamed. That’s not why I stopped.” He drew in a hesitant breath, focusing on the minute physical sensations of his body: the soft abrasion of starched linen around his neck, the tight embrace of snug-buttoned waistcoat around his torso. His clothing kept him from pulling in a deep, down-to-the-toes breath. It also reminded him where he was.
“I… liked… kissing you.” The words fell from his lips haltingly, as though it was the first time he’d translated such sensations into speech. “Very much.”
“Oh.” She bent forward, her long body folded up. Those tip-tilted hazel eyes wouldn’t meet his, but at least he could see her face again. “I suppose that’s something to be glad for.”
“Is it?” He let out a harsh laugh. “Where can it lead us? Nowhere. You deserve better than…” He gestured wildly with his left arm, not knowing if he meant himself or something clandestine or something that wasn’t completely wholehearted. Though it had felt awfully wholehearted for a few free, unfettered minutes, until he remembered the world outside.
“You have no idea what I deserve,” Frances said with a wry smile. “None at all.”
“We should go back,” he said in a voice thick with thwarted arousal, sorrow, pain. He swallowed it all, and it stayed within him, deep and hidden. Deep enough that he could muster a smile, a courteous bow, and a graceful offer of a hand.
She took his fingers in hers, and he ignored the quick squeeze of longing. The light of the chandelier glossed her eyes with gold, and he could not see their true color.
So. That was that. He tugged her to her feet and escorted her to the door.
When they opened it, they were hit by a tidal wave of sound and heat. Stomping feet and shrill laughter and sawing strings and the light of a thousand candles.
This was reality. The blue room was nothing but an illusion of peace.
He could hide from the world for a few minutes, but eventually he had to live in it, to conquer it. And so he would have to keep his guard always up, more than ever before—because now he knew he could not ask Frances to help him. He could not be trusted to take from her only what he ought to take.
And he still didn’t know what to do about Caro’s letters, which might never come again.
Damn and double damn. He was more alone now than ever.
So it had come to this: he would have to ask Jem for advice.
Eleven
“Jem? Why did you choose to marry Emily?”
Henry supposed he should have knocked at the door of his brother’s private study before he blurted out the words. Jem was startled; his hands jerked, and he nearly dropped the quizzing glass he was using to study caricatures in a society paper. “Gadzooks, Hal. Didn’t see you there.”
His surprise was understandable. Henry rarely entered Jem’s study for any reason at all, much less to ask him questions about his choice of a wife.
Henry knew Jem did not mind the intrusion, though. He was always willing to talk, especially if he thought Henry was making a rare request for guidance. He set down the paper he’d been scrutinizing and drummed a hand on his wide mahogany desk, flexing his fingers in the circle of light cast by a bronze and glass Argand lamp.
“Come in. Sit, sit, sit. Does this have anything to do with the ball yesterday? Are you thinking to marry, Hal?”
Henry suppressed a sigh at the old nickname and dropped into a chair opposite his brother. “No, not exactly. I am simply wondering how one knows how to choose a lady. Or how one ought to choose.”
This afternoon, a messenger had at last brought another letter from Caro, a quick note of apology for her silence. But with the Blue Room holding Henry’s thoughts like a firefly in a jar, he had not known how to answer it. It lay hidden under a book on the ink-spattered desk in his bedchamber, still awaiting a reply.
He was torn, more torn than he could ever remember feeling before. He had wrung intimacies from Caro on paper; he had stolen them from Frances in a hushed room the color of rain. He’d remembered the desire of the flesh, not just ambition—and ambition seemed a cold, lonely promise compared to the warmth of a woman.