The Marquess of Cake (16 page)

She took a step forward. “But I am not a man.”

He lifted her hand, touched her cheek with one finger. “I know that.”

Time seemed to have stopped. Her lips parted instinctively, even as her brain screamed, “This is a marquess! What are you thinking?”

“I’m a woman,” she whispered.

One finger became a palm against her cheek. It slid down along her jaw, then caressed the back of her neck. He drew her toward him.

The side of her arm touched the wall, underneath a painting of Jupiter seducing a maiden.

“Alys, you are lovely.”

Her breath caught. His fingers had found her back now, made circles on her skin. His other hand reached out to her free arm. It moved down her arm and found her gloved fingers. He tugged until her hand was on his chest.

“Are you real?”

His mouth quirked. “Oh yes, Alys.”

He tilted toward her, until she could feel his warm breath on her cheek. She kept her eyes open, saw the way his eyebrows fanned out at the edges, how the tip of his nose was just a little crooked. He had a tiny mole high on his left cheek. His upper lip, slightly shorter than the lower, had a prominent bow. He smelled like gingerbread.

She felt the tips of her breasts harden. The unfamiliar sensation made her want to press herself against him. He seemed to feel the same way, because his hands linked behind her, pulled her forward.

“You’re very warm.”

“You’re very pretty.”

Then, they were much too close not to kiss, even she knew that, who had not been kissed in more than a decade. Her lips moved toward his, his head dipped to her. Breath met, then soft skin. Her hand crept to his neck and her fingers clasped him, clung.

She felt the moist tickle of his tongue at the corner of her mouth.

Surprise opened her lips and he swept in, bringing ginger and cake and something unfamiliar, so male, so foreign, yet so enticing she felt her legs quiver.

Her other hand moved inside his coat, inside his waistcoat, until all that was between her and his warm flesh was a thin shirt and her glove. How he radiated heat. The muscles of his shoulders moved under her other fingers as he toyed with her mouth.

Then, suddenly, he was no longer inside her mouth, against her.

He moved her hand from his neck. Had she done something wrong?

“Yes?” Hatbrook asked.

Fingers of shock danced down her back when she realized someone else had come into the corridor. She dared not extricate herself and reveal her face.

“Your mother sent me to ask after you?”

She recognized the footman’s voice and sagged with relief.

“I’ll be right down, James. Thank you.”

She kept her face to Hatbrook’s shoulder until the footsteps died away. A moment later, she felt his finger under her chin, lifting. His gaze found hers.

“We should have expected that.”

“It’s the middle of a ball.”

His lips brushed the tip of her nose. “Thank you for everything tonight, Alys.”

 She nodded, robbed of speech.

“You’re all put to rights? Your hair is pinned securely.”

She touched it. “Yes, I don’t think I’m mussed.”

“Then I must offer you my arm. I’ll take you to your family.”

“I think I’ll go alone, once we’re downstairs. You should get back to your responsibilities.”

His sea-glass gaze didn’t falter. “Very well.”

They went back down in silence. She had no idea what to say to him and was afraid if she opened her mouth, she’d beg him to take her back, kiss her again, and she couldn’t ask for that. So instead, she curtsied very slightly when they reached the front hallway. She went into the ballroom and he headed for the prince.

“Did you bolt into a corner like a mouse?” Matilda asked the next day as they were seated in the back parlor, sipping tea with Lady Lillian.

Alys could hear wind in the chimney, though she still felt unaccountably warm, as if Hatbrook’s kiss had the effect of an invisible fur blanket wrapped around her.

“Miss Redcake?” Lady Lillian asked.

She blinked. “Sorry, no, woolgathering. Actually, I had a most eventful evening.”

“I don’t see how that is possible. Father brought some man to meet you and you weren’t even in the ballroom!”

“I couldn’t find you and so I went to look for Gawain.”

“So you spent the evening with our brother?” Rose asked. “When you might have been dancing?”

“I went outside during my hunt and things became complicated after that.”

Matilda’s eyes narrowed. “I was right. I knew something had happened. You seemed so flustered.”

Alys’s mind went to the kiss. But no, surely she had composed herself sufficiently to hide her emotions after such an experience.

She’d schooled herself in front of customers regardless of her mood for years. “I had to replace my gloves. Lady Elizabeth, the marchioness’s daughter, lent me a pair. I suppose I should return them.

Or purchase her another pair?” She looked to Lady Lillian for guidance. “Oh, but they are French. I couldn’t replace them.”

“Simply have them cleaned,” said the earl’s daughter.

“Thank you. I’m so relieved that will be sufficient.”

Lady Lillian reached for a third biscuit. “How did you meet her?

She isn’t out yet.”

Alys recounted witnessing the fight and getting blood on her hands. She let the girls believe a footman took her to the daughter of the house. Her time with Hatbrook felt too intimate to share. With difficulty, she kept her fingers from creeping to her lips as she remembered. Indeed, she had barely slept all night for remembering the feel of his mouth against, inside, hers.

“You really do need to become engaged to someone,” Lady Lillian told her. “You need not marry to open the field for your sisters.

Just give your parents hope so they will stop focusing all their attentions on you and give your sisters a chance.”

“That is why I was upset with you,” Matilda agreed. “When you hide away, you ruin things for us.”

“Perhaps Lewis?” Rose asked.

Alys shook her head. “I couldn’t pretend to love him properly.”

“Father would go insane,” Matilda said. “Besides, I happen to know he’s bringing another possible suitor to dinner tomorrow night.

That was agreed when he couldn’t be introduced to you at the ball.”

“Excellent.” Lady Lillian clasped her hands together. “You just need to have him propose, then if you don’t suit, you can break it off in the summer after the Season has ended.”

“Do you think we can find husbands in one Season?” Rose coughed daintily into her handkerchief.

“With your looks and money? Of course.”

Alys expected her father to demand they pack for the country, but instead, the next night, he came home with another bachelor dinner guest as Matilda had claimed he would. Were they going to stay in London until she’d made a match?

Rose had stayed in bed much of the day, pale and racked with coughs. She waved away cigar smoke, saying the treatment made her dizzy, but the lobelia tincture helped enough that she was able to dress for dinner after a cup of coffee.

Alys walked in front of Rose down the stairs, so she could break her fall if her unsteady sister lost her balance. Matilda walked behind. They were both wearing new dresses, wheedled out of their mother the day their reception gowns were ordered. Alys wore her old green sateen, which she’d thought very nice until she saw her sisters’ new gowns. Since sateen was more durable than satin, the dress had been in her wardrobe since and was not in the newest style.

It had a short, draped apron front that no longer looked fashionable next to Rose’s sashes and Matilda’s flat panel of rose-bedecked satin.

“You really should have something new,” Matilda said, echoing her thoughts. “You are the one on display tonight.”

“Who is the gentleman?” Alys asked when they reached the bottom of the stairs.

As they walked into the drawing room, Matilda said, “Theodore Bliven.”

Alys also said, “Theodore Bliven,” recognizing the wavy, almost curly chestnut-brown hair and dimpled grin, currently being used on their mother.

“You remember meeting him at the musicale?” Rose whispered.

“We met at Redcake’s.” She remembered him as a tease.

“They say he is dependent on an uncle for his allowance,” reported Matilda. “So a rich wife might be just the thing.”

“How does he spend his time?”

“You’ll have to speak to him.” Rose gave her a little push.

“Ah, my daughters,” Sir Bartley said, gesturing them over.

Mr. Bliven bowed slightly as they walked forward. “Yes, I had the pleasure of meeting the young ladies shortly before Christmas.”

“We met in November at Redcake’s,” Alys said.

He nodded. “Of course.”

She couldn’t stop herself from continuing, despite Matilda’s horrified stare at her. “You were with the Marquess of Hatbrook.”

“Indeed, one of my oldest friends. Your father brought me to your delightful sisters last night at the ball, but I missed you.”

She nodded. “Perhaps the marquess explained what happened.”

“I did call today,” he admitted.

At least he didn’t smile at that. Surely Hatbrook hadn’t told him about their kiss, just about the fight.

“Dinner is served,” Pounds said, coming into the room.

Mr. Bliven offered Alys his arm and they walked into the dining room together behind her parents. Her mother managed to seat him next to her, across from Matilda.

“You thought quickly,” he said, after the mock turtle soup had been served. “I believe most women would have run screaming, rather than possess the self-control to get help, but I suppose you are used to drama in the tearoom.”

Alys dropped her spoon into her soup. It clattered loudly, spraying the broth across the white linen tablecloth. She checked her dress but thankfully it hadn’t been stained.

Mr. Bliven cleared his throat. “Or perhaps you like drama in general.”

Matilda tittered. “You are such a rogue, Mr. Bliven, I do declare.”

He nodded modestly, his mouth twisted up on one side.

Alys found she quite disliked this friend of Hatbrook’s. “You said you are an old friend of the marquess?”

“Yes, at Oxford together. He never came to London before that and I’ve always lived here, but we see each other frequently now.”

“Belong to the same clubs and all that?”

“No, actually. We have different political leanings and our clubs are slanted along those lines. I belong to White’s and he belongs to Brook’s.”

Alys thought that meant he was a Tory, a conservative, which meant Hatbrook had liberal leanings, but her newspaper reading tended to focus on personalities more than politics. “I see, so it is the past that binds you together?”

“I like to think we share a sense of humor,” he said blandly.

She realized she was spending far too much time discussing Hatbrook and not enough time discussing Mr. Bliven. The fact that she’d rather discuss Hatbrook was beside the point.

“A sense of humor is so important, I find,” Matilda said.

Alys thought her sister had developed a rather stuffy manner of speech all of a sudden. Her cheeks were pink as well. Did she find Theodore Bliven charming? “I believe gentlemen make the most amusing bets at clubs. Do you like to make bets?”

She heard a squeak and glanced at Rose, afraid it had really been a wheeze, the start of an attack, but realized the noise had been a horrified one and came from her mother. “Not that I mean to imply you are a gambler, sir.”

His dimples showed. “Once again I am the source of your discomposure, Miss Redcake.”

“I was merely attempting to ascertain your type of humor, sir.

Everyone at this table enjoys a good laugh.” Except Gawain, perhaps, though that wasn’t always true.

 “I did witness a three-thousand-pound bet once, between two young gentlemen.”

“Good heavens,” Rose said, “it must have been very important.”

“Only in the financial sense. The bet was over which of their sisters’ cats had the most whiskers. Emissaries were sent to do the counting. I remember it most particularly because one of the sisters in question ended up marrying the man who counted.”

“Oh dear,” said their mother faintly.

Sir Bartley chuckled loudly. “Capital fun! I cannot say my club gets up to such hijinks.”

“Not every day is such fun, I admit. I prefer a greater variety in my dining options, for one thing.”

“Alys is a wonderful cook,” her mother said.

“I don’t cook at all, actually,” Alys said. “I bake.”

“But when you were younger—” her mother said, then stopped, perhaps because her father narrowed his eyes.

Alys supposed wealthy young ladies never saw a kitchen, much less learned to cook.

“I did know you baked,” said Mr. Bliven in an ostentatious tone that made clear he knew he was being gracious. “I’ve had the honor of tasting your cakes a time or two. That chocolate cake last night was quite deliciously rich.”

“Are you a fan of chocolate, Mr. Bliven?” Matilda set her spoon to the side of her bowl. “I find many gentlemen are not.”

“I like it excessively,” he said, patting his waistcoat.

“What other enjoyments have you?” Alys asked, then realized that could be a very improper question.

He dimpled, but took the high road. “I enjoy riding and a variety of outdoor pursuits as well as reading and talking politics. Hatbrook would call me a gossip, but that’s a rather womanish term, I think.”

“I expect I like gossip too,” she said, “but not so much about people I know, as people who are in the news, that kind of thing.”

“I like both,” he said decidedly, as the fish course was brought in.

“Ah, sole. I do love a good fish.”

“You enjoy food,” Matilda said.

“Why wouldn’t I? Though not so much as Hatbrook. He leans to the pastry line, but he’s quite an aficionado.” He winked at Alys.

After that, she gave up and left the floor to Matilda. Mr. Bliven clearly knew, or thought he knew, that she was more interested in his friend. Sadly, Mr. Bliven was apparently within her marital prospects while the marquess was not. And Lady Lillian had said she should at least become engaged to smooth her sisters’ paths, even if she broke the engagement off later. Theodore Bliven would probably not have minded a broken engagement very much, but she could see Matilda was genuinely intrigued by him.