Vixen in Velvet (The Dressmakers 3)

“And someone gets not enough sleep, I can see,” he said, advancing on her. Of course she didn’t retreat. Her chin went up and her blue eyes grew brilliant, challenging. Yet they were shadowed, and her face was taut.

“You’re working too hard,” he said. “What you need is a fortnight away from the shop. With me.”

“The unlikelihood of that occurring increases by the day,” she said.

“Don’t get too excited about Bates,” Lisburne said. “He hasn’t a feather to fly with, which disqualifies him from the marriage stakes.”

“But he likes Lady Gladys,” she said. “He qualifies as a follower. Furthermore, he stands to inherit an earldom.”

“Only if two healthy young male relatives of his, one recently wed, take it into their heads to die early and childless.”

“I’ll admit he makes poor odds as a marital candidate,” she said. “Still, he’s a follower.”

“You need only five more. Half a dozen, you said. I have it in writing.”

“I’m not in the least anxious,” she said.

“You needn’t be,” he said. “You’ll find me generous—to a fault—in victory.”

“And in defeat?” she said.

“Defeat is highly unlikely,” he said.

“Yet not as unlikely as you originally believed,” she said. “Admit it.”

“I’ll admit you’ve exceeded my expectations regarding Gladys,” he said. Since he’d expected a catastrophic failure, it hadn’t taken much.

She smiled a deliciously self-satisfied smile.

“I’ll admit to a concern, not previously existing, regarding our fortnight together,” he said. “But it’s merely the smallest quiver of uncertainty. Only enough to lend a degree of excitement to the intervening days. The faintest hint of suspense where before there was none.”

Her smile only broadened, and he became aware that he was starting to lean in toward that wicked curve.

He walked away from her and back to the shelf of ledgers.

He didn’t trust his hands to stay where they ought, which was provoking. He disliked, immensely, the ease with which she eroded his self-control without losing her own.

Those were merely his own difficulties. More troubling was how ill and tired she looked. He wanted to do something about that, but there was nothing he could do at present, only observe and fume.

“I know I’m not to keep you,” he said more briskly. “Gladys had an appointment, and I doubt you have time to spare between clients. I only wanted to let you know what the arrangements are for Monday evening. For a number of reasons I won’t waste your time with, we’ll have to start at ten. But we’ll have the small theater for a full hour, and since we won’t be competing with any major social events elsewhere in London, we ought to fill the seats.”

He went to the desk, removed a folded sheet of paper from his breast pocket, and tossed it onto a pile of papers there.

She hurried to the desk, snatched up his addition to the heap, and neatly rearranged the others. Then and only then did she unfold his document and read it.

He swallowed a smile. “The program,” he said. “For Monday night. All that remains is to make Swanton stop changing his mind about the order in which he’ll present his new works. Too, he keeps adding stanzas. Since our time is limited, and we need to leave room for speeches and pledges and such, we’ll either have to cut them or eliminate at least one poem.”

She looked up at him. “Speaking as one who has two artistic sisters, I recommend you not leave it to him. Steal one of the poems, and don’t let him find out until the event is about to begin, then push him out onto the stage.”

He thought of all the swooning girls to whom each word was sacred, and he laughed. “Merely steal one of the poems,” he said. “How do I judge which one?”

“Does it matter?” she said.

“No, my dear, it doesn’t, but only you would say so.”

He saw her face change, but it was only for an instant—the smallest flicker of emotion—before she was businesslike again.

She folded up his note and set it on the desk. “Very efficient and orderly,” she said. “For a gentleman who claims to live in a sort of chaos moderated only by secretaries and men of business, you have a remarkable grasp of logistics.”

“When there’s a real prize in sight, I can set my mind to anything,” he said.

A hint of color came and went in her too-pale face. “Improving the lot of unfortunate young women is a worthy goal indeed,” she said. “I’m happy to know you’ve exerted yourself on their behalf.”

“Right,” he said. “Them, too.”

“Well, then, if that is all, my lord.” She came out from behind the desk, and folded her hands at her waist. The wicked smile he’d seen before had vanished without a trace and the curve of her mouth now was the professional one: amiable, patient, polite.

“Nearly all,” he said. He crossed the room to her in a few quick strides. “One last thing I forgot to write down.” He made to reach for the program. She put out her hand, instinctively, to protect her neat heap of papers. He caught her hand and brought it to his mouth and kissed it. She inhaled sharply, but before she tried to pull her hand away he’d let it go, and wrapped his arms about her waist and lifted her onto the desk.

“Don’t you—”

He cupped her face in his hands and stopped whatever she was going to say with one long, fierce kiss.

Then he backed away and turned away and strode to the door. “On second thought,” he said, “best not to write it down.”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” came her voice from behind him.

Leonie leapt down from the desk and ran across the room. Before Lord Lisburne could walk through the door, she slammed it shut.

He turned to her, surprised, for once.

She took hold of his lapels—never mind damaging their perfection—and pulled.

“Come here,” she said, face upraised. “I’m not done with you.”

She saw the wa

riness in his green eyes, and knew she ought to be wary, too, of what she was doing, but she was too angry. She pulled, and he bent his head. She reached up, caught his face in the way he’d caught hers, and brought his mouth to hers.

My dear, he’d said, so casually, and her heart had tied itself in knots.

She kissed him as fiercely as he’d kissed her, holding nothing back. He’d made her hot everywhere, inside and out, in an instant. She would not be casually set on fire and made to ache for more, then be cast aside, so that he could make a pretty exit.

My dear, he’d said.

She’d make him pay.

This wasn’t the best reasoning Leonie had ever done, but it was all she had at the moment.

Then he wrapped his arms about her, and reasoning no longer mattered. His arms were strong, holding her tight, and he was warm, and these were simple things that couldn’t explain the soaring happiness she felt, like being drunk, but better and more. He smelled like himself, like a man, but clean and crisp as so many men were not. Under her hands, his jaw was smoothly shaven, almost like marble, like a perfect sculpture. Yet it was warm and alive, carrying the masculine scent so unmistakably his own, tinged with hints of shaving soap and clean linen.

It was nothing, merely the scent of a man, but it made her drunk in this not-drunk way, and so happy, even while she raged.

He kissed her in the way she wanted him to do, the real thing, not a tease. His mouth pressed to hers, slanting, coaxing, demanding. And she yielded, of course, to get more, and to give more, and . . . to show him. She could tease, too, and play with him, and recklessly provoke him further. If she couldn’t keep herself under control, she’d make sure he couldn’t be in full control, either.

He wanted her. It was no secret. And if he was determined to make her want him, then she would make him want her more.

He’d thought he could walk away so coolly, but she wouldn’t let him. She goaded, urging him to kiss her more sinfully. She slid her hands to his neck, then wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and her body lifted with the motion and pressed closer to his.