Silk Is for Seduction (The Dressmakers 1)

She’d deal with this latest aggravation later.

Clevedon first.

She turned to face him, bracing her hands against the edge of the disgracefully cluttered worktable.

She took pride in the neatness and order of her shop, a stunning contrast to life in her parents’ household, or what had passed for a household. But it didn’t matter what he thought of the disarray, she told herself. How would he know the difference between how a workroom ought and ought not to be maintained? And what did he care?

“You’re not to come here again,” she said. “Ever.”

“That suits me,” he said. “This is the last place on earth I’d wish to be.”

“You’re not to buy my daughter any more gifts,” she said.

“Why did you think I would?”

“Because she’s a conniving little minx who knows how to wrap men about her finger,” she said.

“So like her mother,” he said.

“Yes, I connived, and I wrapped you about my finger. But now I’m done with that. What did I ever want of you but your betrothed?”

Liar, liar.

“We’re not betrothed,” he said, “thanks to you.”

“Thanks to me?” she said with a mocking laugh. Mocking him. Mocking herself. “You’re not betrothed because of you. Why didn’t you make your so-carefully-rehearsed speech to that beautiful girl? The speech to which you devoted a mere half hour for the most important question of your life—”

“Clara doesn’t need—”

“But why should you take any trouble, when you take for granted everything you have? You’re used to getting whatever you want and losing interest as soon as you get it.”

“I love her,” he said. “I’ve loved her since we were children. But you—”

“It’s my fault, is it?” she said. “I’m the demon destroying your happiness? Only look at yourself and listen to yourself. Like every other man, you want what you can’t have. Like every other man, you’ll stay interested—even obsessed—until you get it. You came here this evening because you can’t think straight—because it drives you mad not to have something you want.”

His color darkened, and she saw his hands clench. “If you think that something is you, think again,” he said. “I don’t want you. But you want me, and I feel so sorry for you.”

Inwardly, it was as though she’d walked into a wall. Her head pounded and pain shot deep, deep inside.

She wanted him. She wanted to be the heartbreakingly beautiful girl he loved. She wanted to be someone else: a woman who mattered to him and to all those who mattered, instead of a nobody to be used and discarded. She wanted everything her family had taken away: every opportunity they’d squandered and all the damage done to her future long, long ago, generations before she was born.

Outwardly, she didn’t blink. “Then send me more customers,” she said. “I find money a great comfort in any calamity.”

She heard his sharp inhale. “By gad,” he said. “By gad, you’re a devil.”

“And you’re an angel?” She laughed.

He crossed the room, and in that instant she knew what would happen. But she was a devil and so was he, and she only stood there, gripping the table, daring him, daring her own destruction.

He stood over her, looking down into her dark, brilliant eyes. They mocked and taunted, as her voice had mocked and taunted him with the ways he lied to himself and everyone else.

The truth was, he was no angel. Three years ago, he’d abandoned his responsibilities, gone abroad, and found himself. He’d settled in Paris because he could be free there as he could never be in England. In Paris, his hunger for excitement and pleasure could do no damage to those he loved.

She promised nothing but damage, everywhere.

She was wrong for him in every possible way, and especially wrong at this time. Why couldn’t he have met her a year ago, three years ago?

But when he looked down into her eyes, right and wrong meant nothing. He and she were two of a kind, and like called to like, and he wanted her. And she, who read him so easily and so well, had spoken one needle-sharp truth after another.

Yes, he’d go on wanting her until he had her.

Then it would be done, and he could be free of her.

He cupped her face and tilted it upward and brought his mouth to hers and kissed her. She turned her head away, breaking the kiss. He trailed his mouth along her cheek, to her ear and down. Her scent rose from her neck, and all the air he breathed then was her and all he knew then was her.

“Fool,” she said. “Fool.”

“Yes,” he said. He wrapped his arms about her and pulled her away from the table and dragged her up against him.

That was right, no matter how desperately wrong it was. It was right, the warmth of her back against his forearm, and the way her supple body fit to his, as though it had been tailored special in some infernal shop where Beelzebub presided.

He was done for, caught. Heat pumped through him, fever-fierce, and scorched his reason.

This was all he’d ever wanted: possession. Images burned in his mind—the cool way she’d taken her leave of him in the opera house . . . men colliding with one another or stumbling over their own feet when she passed . . . the way she had of turning her head . . . the graceful arc of her fan, sweeping over her dress . . . the light movement of her hand touching her shoulder in the place where he’d touched her. All this and more—every moment in her company—all of it was swirling in his mind and racing through his veins when he took her into his arms.

This was what he’d wanted. To hold her. To keep her.

Mine.

Unthinking, like a brute.

With one arm he swept the table clear. Pieces of cloth, bits of lace and ribbons wafted down, while spools of thread, thimbles, and other bric-a-brac clattered to the floor.

He lifted her onto the table.

She set her hand against his chest, to push him away. He laid his hand over hers, and held hers there, over his pounding heart. He lifted her chin and dared her, his gaze locking with hers. Her eyes were wide and so dark, as dark as night. That was where he wanted to be: lost in the darkness, the unknowable place that was Noirot.

Noirot. That was all he knew. He didn’t know if that was truly her name. He didn’t know her Christian name. He didn’t know whether she’d ever had a husband. It didn’t matter.

She brought her hands up and grasped his head and pulled him to her. She wrapped her legs about his hips and kissed him in that wild way of hers, holding nothing back, and demanding the same everything from him.

He gave it, too, in a mad, hungry kiss, while his hands moved greedily over her, wanting and wanting, endlessly wanting. He’d stored it up for so long. Mere weeks had passed since he met her, yet it seemed forever that he’d wanted her. It seemed an eternity he’d lived in dreams and fantasies and the memories that came unbidden, haunting his days and nights. Now he wasn’t dreaming. Now he was alive, finally, after sleepwalking for a lifetime.

Under his hands, silk and muslin and lace rustled, the sound so intimate, inviting possession. But everywhere he found obstacles, layer upon layer of her curst fashion between his hands and her skin. He slid his hand over her bodice, seeking skin, remembering the velvety miracle of hers, and its warmth. The memory was maddening, because he couldn’t touch her in the way he wanted, lingeringly. For all his demented heat, he knew they had little time, no time, only a moment. They’d met at the wrong time and they were not meant for each other and this was all he’d have.

No time.

He dragged up her skirt and petticoats and slid his hand up over the fine muslin drawers. Awareness crackled, electric: of the smooth flesh under his hand . . . its heat warming the thin fabric . . . the sweet fullness of her thighs . . .

But they had no time. He found the ope

ning to the drawers. He heard her sharp inhalation as his fingers slid over the softness there. Then, as he stroked, she gave a little, unwilling cry, which she quickly smothered against his mouth.

He knew what he was doing. A part of him knew where they were and how mad it was. A part of him knew he’d closed the door behind him, but hadn’t locked it. A part of him knew this was a room anyone might enter at any moment. All this was in his mind, in the smallest part of his mind. The awareness hovered and nagged, a low, urgent warning: Make haste, make haste.

He was a fool and he ought to be mortified. After all this time, to be no more than a schoolboy, wanting a girl, and stealing a moment for a furtive and hurried coupling.

But he couldn’t stop.

She reached down and unbuttoned his trousers, and he gasped against her mouth as she touched him, her hand grasping his swollen shaft, and sliding up and down, and his mind went dark, and there was only need and heat.

He pushed her hand away, and pushed into her. She gave another little cry, again quickly stifled, and then there was only the sound of their breathing, ragged and harsh, as he thrust again and again, merely a brute, possessing, mindless.

Mine.

He felt her nails dig into his arms and he felt her body shudder as pleasure caught her, but that was all. She didn’t cry out. He heard only the sound of her breath, quick and shallow.

He wanted more, endless more, but he’d waited too long, wanted too long, and when her muscles contracted about him so fiercely at her climax, his control shattered. Pleasure pounded through him like a live thing, dragging him to a precipice, and over. And down he went, in a surge of triumph so ferocious that he never thought of pulling away. It was too late, too late. He felt her spasms as her pleasure peaked again, and he heard her hoarse cry, damning him to hell, and happiness flooded him, and he spilled into her, in a fiery rush of relief and raging joy.

Marcelline did not want to cling to him, but she had to, or she’d slide off the table and slither to the floor in a limp heap. Her heart had slowed from its frenzy, and now beat slow and fierce, a sledgehammer at her ribs.