Ways to Be Wicked (19 page)

“Josephine,” Tom barked.

Startled, Josephine and everyone on stage stumbled to a halt.

All eyes were on him, wide and expectant, waiting for the suggestion or reprimand.

“
She
—” Tom pointed with the gold top of his walking stick at Sylvie.

“Sylvie?” The General queried carefully, staring at Tom as if he’d gone mad.

“Sylvie needs to be smiling.”

In contrast to his orders, Sylvie found herself glaring at Tom.

Who was studiously avoiding her gaze.

“It’s really not that difficult, Sylvie.” The General jammed two of his fingers into the corners of his mouth, pushing it upward. “It looks like
this,
a smile does. Give it a try. I assure you, the gentlemen who attend our entertainments don’t want to see a...a...glowering stick.”

Giggles tinkled, as surely as if Josephine had run a brisk hand over the pianoforte’s upper registers.

“Nor do they want to see a pack of females entirely bereft of grace.”

This came from Tom, and so sharply it surprised everyone, including The General, if the abrupt elevation of his eyebrows was any indication. The girls onstage froze in astonishment, whirled as one to stare at him, all lower lips dropped wonderingly.

And Tom wasn’t finished. “Some of you have decided you needn’t try anymore.” He landed a distinctly uncharitable gaze on Molly.

It occurred to Sylvie, with a peculiar warming of her cheeks, that the man had, in the span of a minute, singled her out for a picayune criticism, then promptly and vehemently come to her defense at the expense of someone else.

And he was still studiously refusing to look at her.

Tom Shaughnessy was
rattled.

“Wot’s ‘
beref
’?” Rose whispered to the girl next to her.

“‘Avin’ none,” Lizzie clarified on a hiss.

“As in, ‘Mr. Shaughnessy is nivver beref’ of someone to warm ’is bed,’ ” Jenny elaborated, to show off her vocabulary skills.

More giggles.

Not from Molly, however. Molly was absolutely rigid— and magenta—with outrage at Tom’s implied reprimand.

The General silenced all the girls with a potent saturnine glare.

“You are pirates, ladies, dangerous and
desirable
pirates.

And capable of dancing without colliding with each other or otherwise disgracing me.” Tom’s voice entirely lacked the glib lilt it normally had. He sounded decidedly peevish. “I’ve seen you do it. Please do it again.”

He turned toward Josephine, who was watching him with mouth dropped. “Josephine?”

Josephine gave a start and all but fell on the pianoforte, fingers flying with more than her usual vigor, as if the rare reprimand from Tom Shaughnessy had been all for her.

The girls obediently glided down the gangplank brandishing their cutlasses, snarling charmingly, hips swaying.

Tom lingered for a moment, watching; he lowered his walking stick to the ground, twisted it idly about. Looking at, but not seeing, the stage. He gave one absent, half-hearted sort of thump, then stopped, as if his mind was too full to allow him to both thump and think at the same time. He lingered a moment longer.

And then he turned abruptly and strode toward his office.

Through the pianoforte music they all heard the sound of a door being shut a bit harder than necessary.

Sylvie could scarcely get through the rest of rehearsal without thoughts of what Tom Shaughnessy might do. Would he. . . “turn ’er off”? Would he “sack her” and leave her to her own devices in London? Would she have the nerve to blame The General?

And so when The General gave them leave to go, she lagged behind, watching the other girls vanish into the dressing room. She saw Molly cast a glance over her shoulder, toss her head again, murmur something to Lizzie.

And then, her heart thumping as surely as if Tom Shaughnessy were marking time with his walking stick, Sylvie made her decision.

She turned and marched stoically toward Tom’s office.

He was shaking off his coat when she appeared in the doorway. He froze midmotion, one arm in a sleeve, one arm out, when he saw her. His cravat had already been tossed over the globe in the corner, as though he’d entered the office and violently rid himself of a noose at once.

It occurred to her then, very suddenly:
He wears a costume, too.
The man she saw leaning over his desk at night, shirtsleeves rolled up, two buttons open to free his movements—the stripped-to-essentials Tom was the real Tom Shaughnessy.

They stared at each other, frozen in an indecipherable moment, trying in vain to ascertain what the other was thinking.

“I saw you.”

They both said it at once, in a rush. Both faintly accusatory. Faintly apologetic.

Tom’s face was difficult to read. He turned from her and finished getting out of his coat, draped it over his chair carefully. Absently unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt, then rolled them up, and she watched every motion, and watching him reveal his arms seemed somehow as intimate as watching him undress completely. It wasn’t at all what a gentleman would have done in front of her during the day. She could not for a moment imagine Etienne rolling up his sleeves in front of her, though she had of course seen every inch of Etienne uncovered.

Tom looked down. He fumbled with the papers on his desk, then appeared to realize he was fumbling and stopped. He let his eyes wander over to the window, over to the bookshelves, back to the desk.

In other words, to anywhere she wasn’t.

“Well, then. Did you come to see me for a reason, Sylvie?” Stiffly said, and formally. It sounded like a foreign language coming from him.

She watched him, unfamiliar with whatever this mood happened to be. She sensed he was unfamiliar with it, too.

“Are you...angry?” It was at least a place to begin asking questions.

He looked toward the bookshelf and appeared to consider this. As though he was having difficulty deciding precisely
what
he was.

“No,” he finally said. To the bookshelves, not to her.

An awkward silence.

“All right,” she said softly. “I’ll go.”

“There’s no money in it,” he said quickly. Abruptly. Almost as though trying to convince himself of something.

She remained where she was.

Which was when he did finally look at her. He nearly blinked when their eyes met, as though receiving a tiny shock. His expression was oddly...defiant. Uncertain. As though, for heaven’s sake, he was being required to defend himself and didn’t know quite how to go about it.

In short, Tom Shaughnessy was for some reason decidedly
uncomfortable.

Not angry. Not glib. Not amused.

Not even flirting.

Sylvie stared at him, fascinated. She’d watched him gracefully and adeptly field highwaymen and earls and frightened women and incensed husbands with scarcely a ripple in his authority and good humor. And now . . .

Me,
she thought.
I did this to him.
With her dancing, her own form of brilliance, she’d shifted his balance. She’d made Tom Shaughnessy feel. . .

Vulnerable. Ah, yes, that was it.

It pleased her inordinately. Particularly since this was a man who had made the ground beneath her feet feel nearly as wobbly as the deck of that ship that brought her across the Channel. From the very moment she’d clapped eyes upon him.

She suspected her eyes began to glow a bit, because that’s when his eyes went dark and something like firm resolve crossed his face. He took two decisive steps toward her.

Which made her suck in a nearly audible breath and take an almost imperceptible step back.

Which made his mouth twitch just a little.

It took every bit of her courage to hold her ground as he slowly closed the distance that remained between them, until he stood so close that the heat of his body and the singular scent of him wound her in a cocoon. She should have known a man this wicked would smell like paradise: tobacco and soap and some hint of spice. Sweat, just a little. Clean linen.

And the unmistakable, most singular, subtle scent of all—desire. She knew the scent. For she was not, as he had guessed right from the start, an innocent.

It was the first time, however, that she had gloried in this.

Words. I need words.
Words to parry with and to build a net of safety with. “Do you see something on my cheek, Mr. Shaughnessy?”

The words were, unfortunately, a nearly breathless rush of sound. Her speeding heartbeat was making her blood ring in her ears.

It didn’t appear as though he’d even heard the question.

“I believe I mentioned that I’m not obliged to play fair, Sylvie.” He said it softly, his voice low and level. It was a warning. An apology.

And a dare.

And it was the last that made her determined to stand her ground.

Even with her speeding heart sending the blood whooshing in her ears and all but freezing her lungs. Even as the intent became very clear in the set of his jaw, in the heat of his eyes. Even as the want in her rose so fiercely that she thought she would simply die if this time he didn’t. . . if he didn’t . . .

And now he was so close she could see the facets of silver in his eyes, the fine creases at the corners of them, like the rays of stars.

But when his lips touched hers she saw nothing more. Her eyes closed as the kiss detonated in her.

So very nearly painful in its sweetness. As though she’d been cracked gently open, only to discover she was full of nothing but brilliant light.

And then it was over. Her eyes fluttered open to discover why.

She saw that Tom had taken a step back from her. His silver eyes had gone pewter-dark, stunned. For an instant, they were motionless together. Assessing. Reassessing.

For with one near-chaste kiss both had managed to strip themselves of pretense and combat and flirtation and all the other little things they used to defend themselves against each other. They were suddenly equal. And equally uncertain.

A moment later, one of them became certain, and naturally it was Tom.

He stepped swiftly toward her; his hands came up, held her face lightly. A statement of intent. And like this, for the span of several breaths, he waited.
Not obliged to play fair,
he’d said to her. And even now, she knew he wasn’t playing fair: For he was forcing her to choose.

And she could have twisted away from his touch, or taken a step back. It would have been such a simple thing to do, a wise thing, perhaps.

Instead, when his face at last came to hers again, she exhaled softly, in relief or pleasure, she knew not, and angled her head to meet his lowering lips with her own.

Sylvie hadn’t known a kiss could begin like this: as scarcely more than a sigh of a touch, as another pair of lips brushed soft as breath across her own. But this was how they learned the shape and texture of each other; this was how, this was why, little by little, her bones became molten, and she murmured his name.

And then Tom nipped very softly at the lush curve of her bottom lip, brushed, lightly, lightly, with his lips, the corners of her mouth. Mesmerized, caught up in the delicacy of it, Sylvie at first allowed him to lead this dance, to caress her with his lips only, until the tension in her pulled tight as a crossbow, and she could no longer bear it. It was she who parted her lips, who touched her tongue to his lips, inviting him in.

He made a sound low in his throat when she did, and his hands stroked over her cheekbones, trembling, coaxing her head back just a little so he could take the kiss deeper, the pads of his fingertips rough, his touch gentle against the skin of her jaw. Dizzying, the taste of him, the textures of him, the heat and velvet of his tongue and lips. She fumbled for fistfuls of his shirt for balance, pulled herself closer; beneath her hands his hard chest rose and fell swiftly, and she felt against her thighs the hard, hard swell of his erection. She shifted herself to fit herself tightly against him, heard the sharp intake of his breath when she did. Excitement spiraled drunkenly in her, demanding appeasement. She was of a mind to satisfy it; she thought, in that moment, she would have done anything at all to satisfy it.

It was then the kiss grew fierce, each of them battling to give and take more. Tom’s palm drifted down from her cheek, spread wide; brushed against her breast, lightly, lightly across her already achingly taut nipple. His touch split through her like lightning. She arced from it, her breath caught, jagged in her throat.

And as though they had both just received confirmation of potential grave danger, they went still. His hand risked nothing more; he dropped it to his side. And the kiss ended. Not abruptly, but as though it had come to its choreographed conclusion.

Leaving behind the harsh rush of breathing, the musk of desire fanned, interrupted. Confusion.

In silence they regarded each other across this new and treacherous terrain they had created. And they didn’t speak, but Sylvie wasn’t conscious of the stretch of time; it could have been an eternity; it could have been mere minutes. The kiss had upended the universe, and she seemed no longer ruled by time at all.

“You have another rehearsal, Sylvie,” Tom’s voice was a little hoarse. He cleared his throat, and added, “If your legs will hold you up.”

Said as if mundane words could restore things to the way they had been.

She could still only gaze dumbly back at him. Rendered entirely new by one kiss, she had no language yet with which to speak.

When she said nothing, his faint smile faded completely, and he ducked his head, looked at the floor. His shoulders were still moving, his breathing still unsettled, as surely as if they had indeed danced a whole ballet together. She watched him, bereft of speech, both gratified and a little frightened that he was so clearly shaken, too, this man who had no doubt partaken of a veritable pageant of lovers from all walks of life from the time he’d been able to...thrust his sword.

It merely proved there was something between them that would demand resolution, regardless of what was wise or safe.

And then Tom looked up, as though he’d found a decision on the floor.