A Rogue Walks into a Ball Read online

  A whish of laughter escaped her. “How can it be yours? It’s on my body.”

  He nibbled slowly in a line heading toward the plain, utterly alluring edge of her sage-colored gown. “Oh, it’s mine. As I’m the first one to notice it, it’s mine by right of claiming first sight. Rather like explorers who plant flags to signal being the first to discover something.”

  “Mmm,” she said, sliding her arms around his waist and standing on her tiptoes to brush her lips along his jaw. He closed his eyes with the pleasure of her touch and knew that the hours until midnight were going to be long. “I don’t think I’d like it if you planted a flag there.”

  “I haven’t got any need for flags, sweet, on my explorations.” He traced the beautiful curve of her waist and cupped her breasts and groaned, dropping his forehead to rest against hers. “Sarah, we need time alone.”

  She drew in a shaky breath. “We are alone.”

  His lips traveled to the alluring swell at the top of her bosom. “More time alone. My mother is allowing us a few minutes, now that I’ve reminded her how she’s had us rushing here and there—”

  Sarah leaned away and gave him a stern look that was somewhat spoiled by the just-kissed plumpness of her lips. “That was rather awkward. I don’t want her to think I was protesting, because she’s been lovely. It’s incredibly kind of her to want to make sure I’m welcomed by your friends and family, even though this engagement is only a half-step up from a sham.”

  “It’s not a sham at all.” He sucked lightly on a sweet patch of satin skin and contemplated the many things he wanted to do to her. With her.

  “Jack,” she moaned, “I can’t think when you’re doing that.”

  “Exactly the idea.”

  She shivered in his arms for a few moments longer, but then stepped back, and he let his arms fall.

  “Really, though,” she said, tucking a loosened strand of hair behind her ear, “what is so important that you can’t go to this musicale?”

  “Do you want to go to the Taylor musicale?”

  “Well, no, but I also don’t want to disappoint your mother.”

  “She’ll be fine.”

  She nodded slowly. “I just wonder sometimes what else it is that you do.”

  “Do?”

  “It’s just that you seem a little mysterious now and again. For instance, I thought you would be at tea yesterday and the day before.”

  “Didn’t you get my notes?”

  “Yes, and I’m absolutely not suggesting I need to know everything you do. It’s just that, well, I suppose I want to know more about you. If we are to be married.”

  “We are to be married,” he said firmly. “We’re engaged, and we’re going to be married. You need to stop behaving as though our marriage is an event that might or might not come to pass.”

  She didn’t reply to that, but instead said, “My point is that I don’t really know you.”

  He snorted. “I actually think you know me a great deal better than most people.”

  “But I get the sense that you have a whole life about which I know nothing and that this is completely fine with you.”

  He frowned. “It’s not as if I know everything about you. I don’t know what you were doing this morning, for example.”

  “I went shopping with Aunt Louise. She felt the need to buy a new umbrella, even though I happen to know she already has two. But the house is suddenly quieter with Annabelle gone for her visit home, and though Aunt Louise doesn’t want to admit it, she misses her. See? I’ve painted you a picture. I’ve shared a little of my day, my impressions. Now it’s your turn.”

  “I ate breakfast and dealt with some papers.” He gave her a devilish grin.

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  The sound of the front door knocker could be heard, reminding them that his mother’s sitting room was a space of only temporary privacy.

  He held up a hand. “We can talk later. My mother will be back any moment to make certain we’re not getting carried away in here, so I want to be sure you have your instructions.”

  “Instructions for what?”

  “For our escapade. Around midnight tonight, as soon as I deem it safe, I’m going to throw a few pebbles at your window so you’ll know I’m in the garden waiting for you.”

  She gave him a look. “Pebbles at my window? Are you mad?”

  Footsteps sounded distinctly in the corridor outside the door, drawing pointedly closer with the kind of noise meant to alert anyone in the sitting room that the door was about to open. Jack put a finger on her lips and dropped a quick kiss on her nose.

  “You’re marrying a rogue, sweetheart. What did you expect? Just come down to the garden tonight when you hear the pebbles at your window.”

  She just had time to nod once, though with an air of skepticism, and they both moved a few steps farther apart as Fiona opened the door to the sitting room. She was beaming.

  “What luck! Lord and Lady Trevlock were passing through London and heard of your engagement. They’ve stopped in for a visit!”

  Chapter 15

  Sorella Teresa: Love is hard.

  Mother Superior: Yes. And also easy.

  Sorella Teresa: Sometimes when you say things, I just feel more confused.

  Breaking the Habit, Act 3, Scene 2

  Sarah did, in fact, appreciate a night off from the duties of being Jack’s fiancée. After years of being her parents’ only child and someone who was used to relying on herself for company, she hadn’t exactly been prepared for sudden popularity or the fact that the people the Hallaways knew had accepted her and considered her an interesting and appealing person. Suddenly, she didn’t know what had happened to the girl who’d been mocked and rejected for her appearance, because she was certainly accepted now.

  She knew that most of this acceptance had to do with being Jack’s fiancée, but it was also true that many of the people she’d met were nice people. It seemed that not as many people as she had once thought were as small-minded as Gideon Grant.

  She missed Annabelle, who wasn’t due to return to London for another week or so. Annabelle was the only person with whom Sarah could have discussed her reservations about her engagement. Though, even if Annabelle had been in London at that moment, Sarah wasn’t certain she would really have told her everything. She still blushed to think of what she’d done in Aunt Louise’s sitting room with Jack, who “quite liked” her. In the heat of passion, that had seemed like almost enough.

  But as they’d circulated in Society and made polite conversation together, her heart had begun to sink. After all the time she’d spent with Jack, she knew a great deal about him. She knew what made him laugh, how he treated people of every station (with the same considerate courtesy, no matter their rank), and how he liked his tea.

  But there was a great deal about him that she didn’t know and that he didn’t seem at all inclined to share with her. She hadn’t missed how deftly he’d deflected her attempts to find out what he did when he wasn’t with her, those times when he disappeared, and she couldn’t let go of the sense that marrying Jack wasn’t going to change that. The plain fact was that she adored him and was utterly fascinated by every little thing he did, and he... liked her.

  Sarah was far too sensible to believe that such an uneven state of affection promised happiness, for her at least.

  So it was with very mixed feelings that she sat at her desk late that night with one ear cocked for the sound of pebbles on glass while she wrote a letter to Annabelle. She wondered idly if anyone had ever cracked a window in such circumstances and decided it must surely have happened, given the fragile nature of glass and the force needed to reach a window. She supposed Jack being Jack, this would not be the first time he’d thrown pebbles at someone’s window.

  She didn’t want to think about Jack’s past exploits, but she did need to talk to him, so it was just as well he’d arranged this nighttime meeting. Besides, if she was going to be engaged to a rogue
, even if only for a little while, she might as well have the full experience.

  And there it was, a little ping, followed quickly by another. Expert pings that gained her attention, but were far too light to so much as scratch the glass.

  She crept quietly through the silent house to the garden, which was, naturally, very dark. As she emerged from the house, she heard a soft whistle, then a low voice said, “Over here.”

  She followed the sound to a rose-entwined trellis.

  “Put your hand out,” he said.

  She put her hand out in front of her. “I can’t see a thing.”

  “I know. My eyes adjusted a bit while I was waiting for you.”

  He took her hand and guided her through the garden and along the mews to the back of another garden, presumably his, since he lived around the corner from Aunt Louise. The night was very quiet, save for the occasional sound of a cat screeching or a carriage rolling over the roads beyond the houses.

  Before she knew it, they were inside his house, and the scandalousness of her being there was truly brought home to her.

  “I must be insane, going along with this scheme,” she muttered as they crept up the stairs.

  “Shh,” he said in a barely audible voice. “And keep to the inside of that stair—it creaks.”

  What they were doing was as far from sensible as anything Sarah had ever done, but it was also the most exciting thing she’d ever done, and by the time he guided her into his bedchamber and pulled the door closed behind him, her heart was skipping giddily.

  “Well done,” he said in a more audible voice. The room was softly lit with a few sconces and a candelabrum on a table. “We don’t have to be so quiet now. There aren’t any servants on this floor at night, and besides, no one is going to inquire into what a bachelor is doing in his bedchamber.”

  “Yet more of life’s inequalities.”

  He chuckled. “Come here.” He tugged her hand gently, pulling her close to him.

  “Why am I here, Jack?”

  “Because we’re engaged, and we’ve hardly had a minute to benefit from it.” He kissed her, and as his lips beguiled her senses, she saw how easy it would be to give in to the pleasure and not talk about what was on her mind.

  “I thought you said we were going to talk,” she said around kisses. His fingers slid along her shoulder, their warmth awakening her senses. Forming cohesive thoughts was becoming challenging.

  “We will,” he murmured. “Just let me...” His hot mouth burned a trail down her neck, and she knew she’d be lost in another few moments. She put her hands on his chest and pushed to put some space between them.

  “Wait, Jack, I want to talk.”

  He sighed, looking like a boy whose favorite toy had just been denied him. “Very well, let’s talk. But let’s sit down.” He led her over to his bed. “This is the only spot in here we can sit,” he said with a mock-sincere smile of apology, “since I have just the one chair.”

  “It’s fine,” she said, perching on the edge of the rather high bed, her back straight and her hands folded in her lap. “Jack, we need to end the engagement.”

  His face clouded instantly, and he paused as he was about to join her on the bed. “End it? I know my mother has kept you fantastically busy, but has the experience really been so bad for you?”

  “No, of course not. Your mother is a completely dear woman. It’s not the duties of being part of a recently engaged couple, it’s the fact that we were never supposed to be a couple at all.”

  “But we are engaged, so that doesn’t matter now.”

  “It does matter, Jack.”

  He crossed his arms. “I like you. And you like me, admit it.”

  “Yes, Jack, I like you.” What a joke this was. She liked him? She wanted to drown in him and have his babies. How could she possibly say what she knew to be true—that she loved him while he merely liked her, that such an unbalanced relationship would make her unhappy in ways she never would be if she chose another path, such as becoming a governess to a nice, quiet young lady?

  “But?” he prompted.

  “But I had plans for myself before we got engaged, and I don’t see that I should abandon them.”

  He laughed and took her hand. “Now you’re just funning me.” He turned her hand over and kissed her pulse, his lips warm and tempting. She forced herself to focus.

  “I’m not funning you, I’m talking about something that’s important to me: How I’m going to be able to use my particular set of talents.”

  He paused as he was about to kiss the sensitive underside of her forearm. “You’re serious? You don’t want to be engaged because it would interfere with your plan to be a governess when you don’t need to?”

  “Well, maybe not exactly that plan,” she allowed. “But I’ve discovered I’m good at guiding young ladies.”

  He gave her a dry look. “Has it occurred to you that you’ll soon have children of your own to guide?”

  The thought of having children with Jack stabbed her with longing, but she forced herself to focus. “Perhaps I might like to teach.”

  “Teach?” he repeated in a puzzled voice. “Teach who?”

  “Teach young ladies somehow. I don’t know how, specifically. But my experiences with Annabelle have made me discover skills I’m interested in exploring, and I don’t want to simply abandon all that. Don’t you have anything that you feel is unique to your own set of talents, that gives you satisfaction to do that nothing else does?”

  He arched his brows at her and stepped closer. “You could say that.” He leaned toward her and kissed her cheek, then inched, with nibbling kisses, near to her ear. “I’m very, very interested in what gives you satisfaction.”

  Her eyes closed as his insistent mouth blazed a hot trail along her jawline. He hadn’t responded to her question. He was a rogue, and she was pretty certain it was a terrible idea to marry him, but his kisses promised heaven, and she wanted to go there.

  His hand found the edge of her gown. Lightly, he rubbed her bare skin before pushing his fingers under the fabric and sliding it down her arm.

  The ragged sound of his breath as he lowered his head caused a hitch in her chest. “I want to kiss you everywhere,” he murmured. “Do you know what that means?”

  Her face burned as his words seeped into her barely working brain. He couldn’t mean what that sounded like, but just the thought of him kissing her there stirred an ache deep within her, an ache that was as much in her heart as it was in her body. She managed a nod.

  “Good, because that endless round of proper visits with polite people gave me quite a few improper ideas about you.”

  “They did?”

  “Mmm,” he answered, apparently too busy with the short row of buttons on her gown to reply. A moment later, her dress pooled at her hips, and he nudged her just enough to pull the gown all the way off. She felt him tug expertly on her corset strings, and then that was gone as well.

  “Sarah,” he said in a husky voice and cupped her breast through the fine lawn of her chemise. “You are perfect.” Before she could even speak, he gave her a stern look. “And I don’t want to hear anything about any imperfections you believe you may have. I’m the one giving the compliments.” And he followed his words with a tweak of her nipple that made her purr with pleasure.

  “Yes, sir,” she murmured.

  “That’s more like it,” he said, grinning wickedly. He gathered the fabric of her chemise in his hands and worked it slowly up her thighs until it came free at her waist. She raised her arms and he pulled her chemise over her head. His eyes traveled greedily over her skin, as though he couldn’t get enough of her. Reaching out to caress her bare breasts, he groaned.

  “God, Sarah, how I want you.”

  “I want you too,” she said, her face burning at the boldness of the words, but it was only the truth, and if he could speak boldly, so could she.

  He kissed down her neck and dragged his lips along her skin until he reached t
he tip of her breast. He took her in his mouth, and the gentle suction nearly made her breath stop.

  He made short work of his clothes as she sat on the edge of the bed watching him, feeling far less self-conscious than she would have expected to feel. But he’d left her in no doubt that he desired her. When he dropped his breeches, she had further proof.

  “Oh,” she whispered, awe and a little horror mixing in her voice. “I don’t know about this.”

  He chuckled and nudged her legs apart, then stepped between them. The bed was high enough that she felt the hardness and heat of his arousal brush her leg. “I do. And I can’t tell you how happy I shall be to show you.”

  The warmth of his body spread into hers. He took her mouth in a searing kiss as his hand slid down her stomach and inched lower to intrude among the patch of curls that hid her most private place.

  His finger slid among the delicate pink pleats.

  “Oh, Jack,” she murmured as his fingers played, teaching her new things about her body. She pressed against his fingers, desperate for more.

  “Patience,” he whispered, but she didn’t miss the ragged note in his voice.

  But she had to have more of him, and she placed her palm on his arousal. His breath hissed out at the contact. His skin was satin-soft, but the flesh under it was hard as marble, a fascinating combination, and she wrapped her fingers lightly around him and stroked her palm over him. She heard the sound of teeth grinding.

  “No more of that, sweet,” he said, gently moving her hand, “or this will be over all too soon.”

  He guided her backward onto the bed so that she lay with her legs bent over the edge. Nudging her legs wider, he leaned over her to kiss along her stomach, and then lower, and lower still. Surely, Sarah thought with a little stab of panic, he wasn’t going where it seemed he was going. But he kept moving lower.

  “What—what are you doing?” she gasped.

  “Hush,” he said, and he knelt down and kissed her. There.

  She ought to have been mortified, and she was a bit mortified, but the rest of her was melting. He kissed and he licked, and Sarah lost all sense of making decisions or thinking about anything but Jack and what he was doing to her. She moaned and she whimpered as the pleasure built in her, until suddenly—much too soon—she cried out his name and shattered.