Last Night's Scandal (The Dressmakers 5)

“What is this? he said.

“That is a ring,” she said.

“The stone,” he said.

“That is a scarab,” she said. “You sent it to me. You probably don’t remember.”

He remembered. The scarab he’d sent with a letter, ages and ages ago.

“I had it made into a ring,” she said.

“When?”

“Right after I decided not to set it in a necklace or a bracelet,” she said. “A ring, I thought, I might wear all the time.”

He stared at the ring.

All the time.

For all this time.

Dozens of broken engagements and Episodes ending in exile. How many letters had she written that began I am in DISGRACE again or They have sent me to Rusticate again until the Furor dies down.

Olivia, careless and reckless and living by her own rules. But through it all, she was true, in her fashion, to him.

“Were you wearing it at your great-grandmother’s party?” he said.

“Of course I was wearing it,” she said. “I always wear it. It makes me feel you’re always . . . at hand.” She laughed.

“Awful,” he said. “An awful pun at a time like this. There you are, stark naked—”

“Yes, it’s amazing. I never sat naked in a window before. What a refreshing experience, in every way. You’re so inventive.”

Only she would sit there laughing, naked in the window of a cold room in a cold castle. That was a sight to carry back with him . . . to Egypt.

It was a sight, however, he’d rather not share with the world. Fortunately, the castle’s windows were in recesses. This one, though shallow, was small. Otherwise they’d have given the workers down in the courtyard a fine show.

She probably wouldn’t mind that, either.

“Yes, well, it seemed like the right thing to do at the time,” he said. “The only thing, actually. That’s the trouble, you see, once one starts these things.” While he spoke he dug out her shawl from the heap on the floor and wrapped it about her. He tucked his shirt into his trousers and buttoned them.

He gathered up her clothes, resisting the temptation to bury his face in them. He pulled her chemise over her head. “Try not to develop a lung fever,” he said.

“It would be worth it,” she said. “Are you going to dress me?”

“I took it off,” he said. “I can put it back on.”

He went to work on her corset. “Would you turn around? It’s much easier to deal with these things face on.”

“Even Bailey can’t get it off without turning me about,” she said. “How amazing that you got all those hooks and tapes undone.”

“I’ve been studying the construction of your clothing,” he said. “Your clothes have changed so much since the last time I was here. Every time I come home, they’re more complicated.”

“And you need to solve them,” she said, “the way you need to solve a puzzling line of hieroglyphs.”

“It’s not purely intellectual,” he said.

He took up the stockings and garters.

“I can do that,” she said.

“I took them off,” he said. “I’m putting them back on.” He’d never before paid close attention to women’s clothes, and really, it was a lot to pay attention to, layers and layers with their complicated doing and undoing mechanisms. But hers had fascinated him. He’d been studying them without fully realizing it.

He drew a stocking up over her slim foot and the delicate turn of her ankle and up the gentle swell of her calf and over her knee. Something pressed on his heart, squeezing, squeezing.

He tied the garter. He followed the same ritual with the other leg.

It was, perhaps, a kind of torture, but that was nothing to the pleasure of it, of undressing her and dressing her, as though she belonged to him.

“You worked out my clothes in detail,” she said.

“I’ve a knack for details.”

“And you still had sufficient thinking ability to unlock the secret of the Mystery Paper,” she said.

He paused in the act of retrieving her drawers. He’d forgotten about the paper.

But it was only a bit of paper, an intellectual puzzle.

She, though—the way she looked and the way she smelled and the color of her eyes and the way the pink washed up her cheeks and the way the faint freckles seemed like golden dust sprinkled over her skin. If he had been an ancient Egyptian, it was her image he’d have painted on the walls of his tomb, so that he could look at her for all eternity.

She’d set the scarab in a ring and she wore it always.

He lifted her down from the table and helped her into the drawers. He tied the fastenings. He got her into the petticoat and the dress, and tied and hooked and buttoned everything he’d untied and unhooked and unbuttoned.

“There,” he said. Done, all done, everything as it ought to be—except for her hair, coming down, catching on her earring, dangling against her neck.

She stepped close to him and put her hand on his chest. Then she slid it down, and down farther still. “Lisle,” she said, “That was unbearably exciting.”

“I think,” he said. But he couldn’t. The palm of her hand rested over his cock, which was rising and swelling hopefully. The way she looked and smelled and the sound of her voice and her laughter.

He didn’t wait to hear what his conscience had to say.

He pushed her against the wall and lifted her skirts and found the slit of her drawers. This time he didn’t undo anything.

Later

Olivia pulled up the stocking that had worked itself loose during the frenzied lovemaking, and retied the garter. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Lisle button his trousers.

“We need to get out of here,” he said.

“We do,” she said. “This is getting out of hand.”

She might lack practical experience in Affairs of Passion, but she could calculate odds. The more often they did this, the greater the odds she’d conceive.

Although the odds were always the same, when you came down to it. And if he did get a child on her—

She looked at him, tall and strong and golden and not entirely civilized. If she became pregnant, she wouldn’t be sorry. She’d find a way to deal with it. She was good at that, at finding ways.

He pulled the chair out from under the handle of the north-facing door.

She looked out of the window. “We’re not goi

ng to have much daylight for investigating the entresol. The sun’s going down.”

He paused in the act of unlatching the south tower door and followed her gaze. “How long have we been here?”

“A good while,” she said. “There was all that unbuttoning and unhooking and untying, then all the buttoning and hooking and tying. Then the second time. That was more direct but I think we actually did it for longer—”

“Yes.” He opened the door. “Time to go.” He made a shooing gesture.

Yes, it’s time to get out of here.

She was starting to question herself. Nagging questions:

What will you do when he goes again?

Is it so bad to be second—or third or fourth? Is it worse than being nothing at all, living continents apart, waiting for the letter telling you he’s found someone there, and married her, and he’s never coming back?

Would it be so terrible—would it be the end of the world if you agreed to do what all the world believes is the Right Thing?

It would be terrible for him, she told herself.

She hurried through the door and started down the stairs. After a moment, she heard his footsteps behind her.

“I wonder if tea is ready,” he said. “I’m famished.”

She was, too, she realized. She’d eaten nothing since her late breakfast. “We can have tea served in the entresol,” she said. “I should hate to lose the daylight.”

“We can’t investigate the room now, while the men are working,” he said. “If they see us peering at stones and waving an ancient piece of paper, they’ll wonder what we’re looking for, and it won’t take them long to put two and two together. Then it won’t be merely a few numskulls looking for treasure.”

She hadn’t thought. How could she? “You’re right,” she said. “The whole village would hear about it—and the next one, and the next one.”

“It’ll be all over Edinburgh in no time,” he said. “I’d rather not complicate matters.”

“We’ll have to wait and do it in the dead of night.”

“Ye gods, what goes on in that brain of yours?” he said.

She turned and looked up at him.

“The dead of night?”