Heather and Velvet (20 page)

D
ead silence hung over the ballroom. The apparition on the steps might have sauntered straight out of one of the handbills nailed on trees all over Northumberland. From buckled shoes to belted plaid, the Highland costume was complete. Sebastian’s tartan socks clung to slender calves. The wood-grained butt of a pistol protruded from the scarlet sash.

A low murmur rippled through the crowd, then Squire Blake’s voice boomed out as he picked his daughter up off the floor. “What a splendid costume! I wish I’d thought of it myself.”

The murmur deepened. Jamie began to clap. Squire Blake joined in, bouncing Devony’s wig askew. Like lemmings, the other guests followed suit until the room rumbled with the thunder of applause. As Sebastian’s gaze found him, Jamie ducked behind a nude statue of his cherubic namesake.

Sebastian shot through the crowd, neatly and with one purpose. He stopped on the step below Prudence and caught her wrist in a bruising grip.

“Are you asking me to dance, sir?” Her voice brushed him like velvety wings, yet her soothing tone had the opposite effect on Sebastian. He glanced over his shoulder, noting the curious gazes fixed on them. He did not dare speak, so he contented himself with jerking her into his arms.

Her feet left the floor as he swept her from the steps in a dizzying circle. The orchestra limped through a handful of false notes before soaring on the joyous chords of a waltz.

Candlelight deepened Prudence’s hair to burgundy wine. The sausage curls Jamie had wrung from her stubborn locks flowed down her back with a life of their own. Sebastian’s own black silk mask caressed cheeks as fine as alabaster. An excited whisper arose from those nearest them and sped around the ballroom as the crowd realized Lord Kerr’s partner was not only undeniably female, but very attractive.

More than one pair of eyes slid to Tricia. Her thoughtful frown quickly shifted to a dazzling smile. Sir Arlo fingered his chin, his own eyes narrowed with puzzlement as he watched the graceful pair circle around the room.

Even through the folds of tartan, Prudence could feel the biting warmth of Sebastian’s fingers splayed against the small of her back. He held her dangerously close, pressing against her, and the cold pistol in her waistband dug into her belly.

His breath was hot and angry against her ear. “Didn’t Tricia teach you proper etiquette? You should never tuck a loaded pistol into your drawers.”

She smiled sweetly. “They’re not my drawers.”

They were only three turns from the terrace doors when a tug on Prudence’s plaid brought them up short. Sir Arlo stood behind them. His genial smile sent prickles of warning down Prudence’s spine.

As Sebastian murmured an excuse, his steely gaze promised her retribution. Then he was gone without a backward glance, moving deftly through the crowd, smiling charmingly as he plucked a glass from a maid’s tray.

Sir Arlo fingered the tartan. “Amazing reproduction. So very authentic.”

Prudence gathered the plaid tighter around her. “I’ve always had a hand with a needle. A tuck here, a tuck there.”

Arlo pulled an incongruous quizzing-glass from the folds of his toga and studied the brooch at her shoulder. “Utterly fascinating. Such a delicate filigree. It’s French, you know. I would have sworn there was only one like it in all of England.”

Flirtation did not come naturally to Prudence, but she felt compelled to try. She disengaged the tartan from his fingers, smiling brightly. “Imagination, Sir Arlo. You simply have to use your imagination.”

His keen gaze did not ease her fears. “Oh, I am, Prudence. I am.”

The shrill coo of Devony’s laughter broke the awkward silence between them. Prudence glanced over to see Sebastian’s head tilted near to Devony’s, his graceful fingers draped over her bare shoulder. Tricia swept toward him with yet another guest in tow.

Prudence could no longer bear Arlo’s inquisitive scrutiny of her face. She should never have let Jamie talk her into this madness. The entire charade had been a fool’s game. And she was the fool.

She touched her fingertips to her temple. “My head is pounding. I must beg you to excuse me.”

She slipped through a cluster of chattering, linen-draped Muses, praying she could make it across the ballroom and out the doors before she was stopped. Still, she could no more keep her eyes from seeking a last glimpse of Sebastian’s elegant form than she could have halted her breathing. The sight of him jerked her to a waiting stillness.

His stance was rigid, his brows lowered in a forbidding line. But the sulky cast of his mouth warned her that his anger with her was a mere shadow of what touched him now. It amazed her that no one around him was aware of his turmoil. A trill of laughter rose and fell. The harpist plucked a melody comforting in its funereal blandness. Tricia clung to Sebastian’s arm. And Prudence knew enough about gunpowder to sense that if someone struck a flint near him, he would implode, leaving only a pile of smoldering ash on the marble tiles.

She inched nearer.

“… and Viscount,” Tricia was saying, “this is my soon-to-be husband, Sebastian Kerr. Perhaps you can return for the wedding Saturday.”

An urbane, French-accented voice prickled the tiny hairs at the nape of Prudence’s neck. “I had no inkling you were engaged, my dear. What a delightful surprise.”

“The night seems to be rife with them,” Sebastian said.

Prudence peered over Sebastian’s shoulder and realized she had been wrong. Someone else
was
aware of Sebastian’s seething emotions. Either she was a poor judge of character, or the viscount’s murky eyes fairly glistened with suppressed glee.

The old man’s thin lips pursed in a bemused smirk as he gestured to the ballroom with a flutter of his elegant fingers. “I was traveling in the neighborhood upon my return from London. I should never have intruded had I known the countess was entertaining.” He indicated his impeccable breeches and frock coat. “I fear I am not suitably attired for such a fete.”

“A pity,” Sebastian said. “You would have made an admirable Cerberus.”

Tricia tapped her ruby lips. “Was he one of Zeus’s sons?”

Prudence spoke up without thinking. “Cerberus was the three-headed dog who guarded the gates of Hades. Whenever anyone entered Hades, he would fawn upon them, but if anyone tried to leave, he would devour them …” Her voice trailed off as she was suddenly aware of everyone’s eyes upon her. Sebastian’s angry gaze was tinged with reluctant pride.

Tricia dismissed her with a chiding cluck. “Oh, pooh! Who wants to be costumed as a dog? We have Boris for that. Did you know, Sebastian, that I met Viscount D’Artan during my stay in Paris? That was before those horridly rude peasants confiscated his estate. I was still wed to Pierre at the time.”

“Raynaud,” Prudence corrected her aunt absently. Only Tricia, she mused, would equate the volatile revolution in France to bad manners.

The viscount’s eyes were still fixed on her, and their tarnished gray depths disquieted Prudence. He found her hand among the folds of tartan and lifted it. His lips were surprisingly warm, but she suppressed a shiver.

“My niece, Miss Prudence Walker,” Tricia said as an afterthought.

The viscount stared at her as if mesmerized. “Charmed. I had the pleasure of attending one of your father’s exhibitions in London once. The man was a genius.”

“I thought so.” Prudence withdrew her hand, fighting the urge to wipe it on her kilt.

“I was intrigued by his work with fulminics,” the viscount went on. “Having once had a laboratory in Varennes, I fancy myself as something of a chemist.”

Tricia looped an arm through his. “That dreadful rabble forced the poor viscount to flee his own country. They burned all of his holdings.”

“How unfortunate,” Prudence murmured.

He shrugged.
“C’est la vie
. Your countrymen have been more than kind to me. I have just returned from London after accepting a post in the House of Commons. I should love to call on you next week to discuss your father’s work.”

“If you’ve been traveling,” Sebastian said coldly, “we shouldn’t wish to detain you.”

The viscount gave Prudence an elegant bow before meeting Sebastian’s eyes. “I trust we shall meet again. Very soon.”

“Tell me, Viscount,” Tricia said, jealously capturing his attention again, “is it true they serve no tea in those dreadful prisons of yours? I shudder to think of what Marie and Louis must be suffering. They are such a delightful pair. Pierre took me to visit them once.” She began to draw him away. “Or was it Raoul?”

The viscount’s reply was a silken murmur as they melted into the crowd. Prudence turned to Sebastian. Her question died on her lips as his icy gaze raked her from brooch to stockings.

“I believe you owe me a dance, Miss Walker. And an explanation.”

Before she could protest, he swept her into his arms once more.

Prudence could feel every shift of his muscles as he spun her in an ever widening circle. His gray eyes had gone from smoldering ash to molten steel. She had never dreamed a man could look so attractive and so given to murder at the same time. She threw back her head, fighting to catch her breath as the gowned figures blurred to milky fog. She could no longer tell which gods were real and which were marble. They all had the same sly expression, like gloating Heras waiting for an omnipotent Zeus to cast her from Mt. Olympus.

Prudence’s toes only grazed the floor as Sebastian danced her out the doors and onto the flagstoned terrace.

She stumbled when he abruptly released her, then his roar shattered the night. “Och, lass, ha’e ye no’ a wee brain in yer puir, daft head?”

She blinked up at him. “Pardon me?”

“I said Och, lass, ha’e ye no’ a wee—’ ” He turned his back on her, flexing his hands on the stone balustrade in an obvious struggle to regain some control of his temper and restore his command of the English language.

After the blazing light of the ballroom, the terrace enveloped them in cool darkness. The music and laughter seemed only a brittle echo. The fountain at the bottom of the stairs tinkled a melody of its own.

After a minute Prudence spoke, her voice musing. “It has suddenly occurred to me, Sebastian, that I’ve never seen you truly angry.”

He swung around. “They don’t call me Dreadful,” he said, backing her up with each word, “because I’m a clever whist partner.”

Her back hit the opposite balustrade. She swallowed hard. “Perhaps it’s your skill at faro—”

She gasped as he jerked the pistol out of her waistband, then threw up her arms, forgetting it wasn’t loaded.

He checked the weapon with brisk competence. “Contrary to what the good sheriff may have told you, I’m not given to murdering unarmed women.” He shot her a look from beneath his lashes. “However strong the temptation.”

She lowered her arms, feeling like an idiot. He handed the pistol back. “It completes your ensemble quite nicely.”

She turned around and laid the gun on the balustrade, desperate to escape his accusing gaze. She had miscalculated. Sebastian was not angry. He was furious.

“I’d like to know one thing, Miss Walker.” He grasped the balustrade on either side of her, effectively barring any attempt at escape. He did not touch her. “Are you threatening me?”

She forced a light shrug, remembering Jamie’s advice. Duplicity and half-truths did not come naturally to her. “That would be unwise, would it not?”

“Not if you thought you were safe with me.”

She gathered her courage and turned to face him. “Am I safe with you, Sebastian?”

Warmth emanated from his lean body. She could sense the fury that tensed his muscles abating into something softer and far more dangerous. The night breeze stirred her hair, untwining the scent of jasmine from the loose strands.

Sebastian’s nostrils flared. He drew one finger down the lacy jabot at her throat. “You fill out my plaid quite nicely.”

His silky tone mesmerized her, and his compliment took on a new bite as he lowered his head. The heat of their breath mingled before his mouth touched hers. His tongue traced the outline of her lips, then dipped inward with a tantalizing stroke. Her fingers clutched his coat as the steady, lingering pressure of his mouth on hers paralyzed her.

His lips traveled across her cheek to her ear, each kiss a separate entity, as rough and tender as his gruff whisper. “In the Highlands, when a woman wears a man’s plaid, it means only one thing. She belongs to him.”

His mouth closed over hers with a fresh heat. His teeth scraped her lips as his tongue sought out the honeyed mysteries of her mouth. Wrapping an arm low around her back, he pulled her against him, rubbing his chest to hers. He groaned at the feel of her soft, unfettered breasts. Too late, Prudence remembered he knew all the secrets of her attire.

When his hand slipped beneath the plaid and between
the buttons of his own shirt, there were no corset or stays to separate his seeking fingers from the buoyant curve of her breast. He caught the aching bud of her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, teasing it with a skill that drew a whimper from deep in her throat.

Her legs threatened to fold, but with a dangerous dip, Sebastian was there, his palm a searing heat against the scandalously bare skin behind her knee. His hand began a maddening ascent up her thigh, pushing the kilt ahead of it, then sliding beneath. Her pulse thundered a warning as she recognized for the first time the wisdom of stockings and garters, chemises and petticoats. Sebastian’s fingers stroked the sensitive, trembling flesh of her inner thigh, moving inexorably toward the worn trews tucked between her legs.

With a frightening shock, Prudence realized she wanted him to touch her there. What sort of wanton had she become? But her shame melted in the bracing warmth of his kiss. Her hands cupped his strong neck, feeling his convulsive swallow as his fingers continued their hungry quest.

His palm cupped her, rubbing blindly against the softness beneath the trews. She threw back her head, stifling a gasp as his thumb brushed her in a deliberate caress, setting off a quaking explosion. She could feel her body opening like a flower, slickening with the dew of an aching emptiness she’d never dared acknowledge. She entwined her body to his, looping her arms around his neck, pressing her lips to the delectable throb of the pulse in his throat.