“The same reason that Barnstable did. I told him I was writing a book about an astronomer, that I needed a little experience.” Stephen shrugged.
She straightened and glanced at him. “When are you going to tell him that you were using that as an excuse to try and seduce a woman? I would not think that a man of the cloth, no matter what his denomination, would acquiesce in such a scheme.” Her words were severe, but her tone was light and teasing.
“I told you already. I’m not trying to seduce you.” But he couldn’t help but smile. “If it happens, it will be a happy side-effect.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“But he’ll find out when he hears my next confession.”
She shook her head, and leaned down once more. “I can’t do what you do, you know.”
“What do I do?”
She waved a hand—a very general hand-motion that he decoded as I don’t want to say, and I’d be obliged if you inferred it without any more effort on my part.
“Do you mean that you couldn’t write novels?”
She snorted.
“That you couldn’t write my columns? You’re right, Miss Sweetly. I think you’re a little too earnest for them.”
“No. You know that’s not what I mean. I mean, how do you…do the things you do with women and not fall in love?”
“Ah.”
He pushed away from her and looked out the window. The sun was a dusky gold; with his naked eye, he could see no hint that anything extraordinary was taking place.
“That’s easy enough to answer. The first time, I did.”
She did look up from the telescope at that.
“I was nineteen, which according to some, is rather late to start on such matters. But I’d been concentrating on my studies, and, well…” He shrugged. “I had just started writing for the Women’s Free Press, and there was some gala event that I was invited to. I met this woman. She was ten years my elder, widowed, and absolutely lovely. I was charmed, delighted, seduced, and I promptly fell head over ears in love.” He put his hands in his pockets. “I think it took me a week to propose marriage. She kissed me on the cheek and laughed at me. You see, I was not the sort of man that a woman like her would marry. And she told me why in great detail. I hadn’t any money, any station. I was Irish and Catholic. I was too young and far too radical. Women would adore me, she said—and I could offer them a great deal—but I shouldn’t expect to marry them.”
She did not look up from the telescope. “Mr. Shaughnessy,” she said slowly, “that sounds suspiciously like a hidden depth.”
He let out a gasp. “You’re right. It is!” She wasn’t looking at him, but still he played it for all it was worth, setting a hand over his breast. “I do have a secret trauma—my many prior love affairs. There can be no sharper pain then to make love to a vast number of women—but I have masterfully accepted it as my due. I soldier on under the burden.”
She shook her head. “Are you ever serious?”
“I suppose some other man might have been wounded by that. But I’m like a cashmere jumper: comfortable, soft, and as fabric goes, not much given to wrinkling.”
“No wrinkles? Not over even one of them?”
“Aside from the obvious, it was all to my advantage. If one wishes to be a grand, outrageous name in society, one must do a few grand, outrageous things. Absinthe is too dangerous; gambling is too expensive. Opium is a dreadful habit—one has only to look at those in an opium den to know the effect. No; if I was going to be an outrage, I wanted the safest, least expensive vice I could find. So women it was.”
Rose inhaled. “Are you telling me that you seduce women as a calculation?”
“It’s been mutual. And I don’t seduce women—at least not the way you mean it. The Countess of Howder wanted an affair with me to let everyone know she was out of mourning and didn’t intend to be a pattern card of propriety. I’m an outrage, and the women who are so placed as to wish to be outrageous, well…” He shrugged. “And besides, I like women. I like them a great deal.”
She straightened. But instead of upbraiding him, as he’d expected, she gestured to the telescope. “Come take a look.”
He did. It was unnerving to not be able to see her—not after what he’d confessed. The dark spot had begun to traverse the sun’s disc.
“Aren’t there dangers in using women that way?”
“There are. There are also ways to minimize those dangers. Technically, they’re also forbidden to me, but…”
A longer pause. “Do you confess those ways to Father Wineheart as well?”
“I confess all my sins.”
He could hear her behind him, but with his eye on the disc of the sun, he could not see her. He had no idea if she was outraged or interested, if he’d disgusted her forever or set her mind at ease.
“I can’t imagine that. You tell all these salacious details to Father Wineheart, and in turn, he lets you put a telescope in the spire.”
“I only moved to this parish three months ago, Rose.” He shrugged. “I met you almost the first day I was here. I’ve had nothing to confess since that moment.”
She inhaled behind him, sounding almost shocked. “Nothing at all?”
“Nothing but lust, which he rather expects from a man my age.” He straightened, gesturing her back to the telescope. “You’d better take it back, Rose. The clouds are coming in—I’d hate to have you miss anything.”
She held his eyes for a long moment. He didn’t know what she was seeing, didn’t know what she was thinking. She bent back down.
She had to adjust the telescope yet again to track the sun in its descent. She didn’t say anything for a while, but he could see her hands nervously tapping against the optical tube. Her breath was uneven.
“Tell me, Mr. Shaughnessy. Is that what you had hoped for from me? To…” She stopped briefly, swallowing, and then continued. “To seduce me and then not fall in love?”
“No,” he told her. “I’m tired of having to remind myself that the women who are after me wish only an experience or a reputation and not a lifetime. I’m tired of holding myself back. I’m tired of having to flatten all but the barest hint of affection.”
Her breath caught.
“I’m tired,” he said, “of not letting myself fall in love.”
She didn’t say anything for a long time. “They’re idiots,” she finally said. “Complete idiots, the lot of them.”
“No,” he replied. “They aren’t. I don’t tend to hold idiots in affection.”
“No?”
“Of course not,” he said. “Why do you think I like you best of everyone?”
She didn’t say anything. He could see the clouds coming closer now, dark swells creeping across the sky.
“I am not outrageous.” Her voice was small. “I don’t wish to be outrageous.”
“I know,” he said. “And I’ve forgotten how to be anything but the most flagrantly outrageous man ever.”
She drew in a breath. “This was supposed to be the last time I saw you.”
“It’s the only sensible thing to do. We sound like the most ridiculous match; I know we do. But I can’t help but think, Rose, that if we could get over this awkward beginning bit—if we could just get to the part where you tell me about mathematics over breakfast and I buy you telescopes and we spend half the evening kissing—”
She made an annoyed noise.
“Too much? A quarter of the evening kissing?” he amended.
“No.” She straightened from the telescope. “The sun’s gone behind the clouds.” She glanced at him. “We’ve lost it for now. Maybe the weather will clear up.” She glared out over the city.
He didn’t put the chances high. The clouds had gone even darker; they stretched as far as he could see. She rubbed her gloved hands together briskly, and he realized that she was almost certainly cold.
He was, too—his hands and feet were uncomfortably chilled. He just hadn’t noticed, because…he’d been wa
tching her. Hell, he’d been spilling his heart out to her, such as he did these things. He’d just told her he hoped to marry her, and he wasn’t even sure if she had noticed.
“An eighth of the evening kissing?” He looked over at her. “I can go lower if necessary.”
She shut her eyes. “Stephen.” That single word, long and drawn out. It was neither yes nor no; he wasn’t sure what it was.
“Every time I’m with you,” she said, “I tell myself I must beware. That this is what you do—make women comfortable, make us forget ourselves, principle by principle.” She rubbed her forehead and slowly opened her eyes. The light in the spire was waning even as she spoke, and yet for some reason, it seemed to find her, glinting in her eyes, reflecting off the warm brown of her skin. It caught a faint tilted smile on her mouth.
“So why is it,” she said, “that I have just now noticed that you’ve only ever come to me about me? You’ve asked about my work, my thoughts, my wants. You set this up for me, and when I balked, you handed me the keys and walked away. If you wanted me to forget myself, you wouldn’t keep reminding me of who I am.”
“Rose, love,” he said in a low voice, “I think you know why that is.”
She inhaled and spread her hands against her belly. Then, very slowly, she walked closer to him—close enough that her skirts touched his trousers, close enough that he could have drawn her to him. She swallowed; he could have set his fingers against the hollow of her throat and felt the movement, so close was she.
She looked up into his eyes. “I don’t want to dream timid dreams.” Her voice was soft, with just a hint of a catch in it. “I want to dream large, vivid ones. I want to dream that you’ll fall in love with me. That…” She bit her lip, but continued on. “That I could dare to reach out to you, that I needn’t fear what would come.”
She lifted her hand tentatively. He had thought that she might brush his cheek. But she didn’t. Instead, she took his hand. They were both wearing gloves; he should not have felt a thrill at the brush of cloth on cloth. But he did, and it swept him from head down to toe, settling particularly in his groin, warming him in the cold air.
“But I do fear.” Her hand clasped his. “You’re clever and never off balance around others. You’re handsome and sweet and outrageous. You could hurt me so badly, and I’m afraid to let you do it.”
He swept his thumb along the side of her hand. “Sweetheart, if you don’t trust me yet, there’s no assurance I can give you that will put your mind at ease. All I can do is keep on not hurting you, and keep on, until you know in your bones I never will.”
Their fingers intertwined, their hands coming together, palm to palm. He was enchanted, enraptured. She let out a long slow breath and slowly reached out with her other hand. This one she set on his shoulder. His skin prickled through his coat, his whole body tensing with her nearness. She drew a finger down his collarbone and then laid her palm flat against his chest.
He couldn’t move.
“I trust you.” Her voice was low, so low. “God knows I shouldn’t—but I trust you.”
She stepped even closer, skimming her hand down his arm, his elbow, and then bringing it back up to his shoulder. She took another step in, now, bringing her body even closer to his, warming the channel of air between them. He could feel the heat of her breath, the tension in her hand against his chest.
“Truthfully?” Stephen leaned down to whisper in her ear. “I can’t pretend I’m fit for a decent woman—but if the question is whether I’ll hurt you? No, Rose. Never. I adore you.”
She took another step in, ducking her head as she did so, as if she did not want to look into his eyes. But her hand slid around his shoulder, drawing him full-length against her body.
Cold? It wasn’t cold in the spire. How silly of him to think it had been. The air seemed almost hot around them. His whole body was coming to life with her against him. He put his arm around her—it seemed fair game, as she was pressing against him, and it was either that or hold it out awkwardly to the side. But she didn’t protest at all. Instead, she set her forehead against his chest. Her hand slid down his back; his arm came around her shoulder.
She lifted her head. They were both breathing heavily.
“I don’t think I should have touched you,” she said shakily. “It’s—it’s…“
“It’s nice.” His own voice came out like gravel.
“It’s too nice.”
“It gets nicer.”
She leaned against him. “How is that even possible?”
“Ah, well. I promised not to importune you, or you’d discover it. If I hadn’t, this might be a little less chaste.”
“Chaste?” She let out a shaky breath. “This isn’t chaste. It’s utterly wanton.”
“On a scale of wantonness that ranges from…” He paused, trying to think of a suitable analogy. “From multiplication to astronomical parallaxes,” he said, “embracing someone you care about while fully clothed ranks at about the arctangent level.”
“Oh, dear. And I’m already so overheated.”
A wave of his own heat washed over him at that, and he groaned, pulling her closer. “God, sweetheart. You’re killing me.”
She reached up tentatively, and set her fingers against his cheek. He stilled.
“May I slay you further?” she whispered.
“By all means,” he replied, unable to move. “Kill me now.”
His breath stopped. He couldn’t do anything but watch her. She stood in place, her hands on him unmoving, as if gathering up the courage to move forward. Then slowly, very slowly, she came up on her toes. Her weight shifted; he could feel her hand against his jaw, her other hand against his chest, pressing all the harder.
Then her lips brushed his. She was kissing him—lightly at first, just sliding her lips against his, then pressing with greater firmness. He set his hand against the base of her spine and kissed her back.
There was nothing else, nothing but her, the weight of her in his arms, the warmth of her breath, the soft press of her mouth.
“Rose,” he said against her lips. “God, Rose.” He shifted so that he could gather her up, so that the curves of her body slid against him.
She must have been able to feel his erection pressing against her, must have felt the tension in his arms as he held her close.
Usually at this point for Stephen, matters would have easily, swiftly progressed beyond a mere chaste close-mouthed kiss. But he’d promised Rose not to importune her—and no matter how urgently his body responded, there was something delicious about the slowness of the pace. He reveled in the sure knowledge that this would not be the last and only time he tasted her. He could slow everything down, enjoy the electric build-up of desire, delight in every gasp she gave.
“Have I earned a quarter of your evening yet, Miss Sweetly?” he murmured against her lips.
“I don’t know.” Her voice still had a quaver. “I need a little time to decide.”
She kissed him again. He could have fallen into a trance, kissing her. Feeling her lips against his, awakening her first ardor with brush after brush of the lips. He wasn’t sure when the kiss deepened, when he began taking her lips in his, when he first slid his tongue along her bottom lip. She responded with all the enthusiasm he’d ever hoped for, her tongue meeting his, tentatively at first, and then more boldly. He was lost in the feel of her. The space was close about them, warming to the point that the window nearest fogged over with condensation.
He wiped it clean, verified the clouds were still out in force—and then began kissing her again.
At some point, he simply lost his mind. Her hands had begun to roam and his had, too, cupping her breasts—which fit, so nicely rounded, in his palm. A kiss was one thing; running his thumb along the neckline of her gown, undoing buttons halfway down her bosom, sliding it down and then leaning over and nibbling…that was another thing entirely. A lovely, delicious, wonderful thing. She tasted faintly sweet.
Maybe t
hat was his imagination. Maybe he only thought so because she was making the most captivating noises, little moans in the back of her throat halfway to purrs. He let his other hand drift down, cupping the juncture of her thighs over her skirts.
She made no noise of protest, not when he pushed harder, not when he pressed the ball of his hand against her, rubbing in a slow circle. He took his time about it, easing off and then coming back harder, pulling away and then returning, until she was almost as desperate as he was, until her hips were pressing against his hand, until she came apart against him. He felt her orgasm shudder through her, her limbs trembling. It was an almost electric sensation for him, too, watching her eyes flutter shut, watching her give herself up to him.
Her breath slowed after. She opened her eyes, looked up at him.
“Half the evening, do you think?” He gave her a long, slow smile.
That was when he realized that darkness had fallen while they’d been kissing. From the window, he could see a few beginning flurries falling to the ground, scarcely visible in the lamplight from the street below. He had no idea how long they’d been engaged in such pleasantries.
“Rose?” he said. “Are you…?” But he didn’t know what to say beyond that. Are you in love with me? seemed too soon. The other words he burned to say—touch me here, do that to me—were too brazen. She was still dazed, unsure of herself, and slightly unsteady on her feet.
She still hadn’t said anything.
“Right, then.” He touched his thumb to her forehead, sliding it down the bridge of her nose. “Well. That settles that.”
“Settles what?” They were the first words she’d spoken in God knew how long. He couldn’t decipher the tone of her voice.
“We need more astronomical events,” he said. “Because I am not waiting until the year 2004 to do this again.”
Chapter Six
HE KNEW IT WAS A MISTAKE as soon as the words were out of his mouth. As soon as he heard himself and realized that it sounded like an invitation to tryst with him, rather than an offer to spend her life with him. She straightened, pulling away from him.