She pressed her trembling hand against his chest. “But you do not yet know if we are engaged to be married.”
“Kiss me, Dr. Lane. As my future bride, or with a last touch of grace before I pledge myself to another, give me this kiss to remember you by?” The bulk of him hovered above her hand. Giving no quarter, but gaining no ground.
He could have. So easily. It would have been nothing for him to thrust her arm aside and invade her space. Her mouth.
Her body.
But he didn’t. He remained where he was, a tide of seductive grace and masculine desire controlled only by the feeble blockade of her quaking palm.
“If I decline?” she whispered.
He looked down at her hand, covering it with his own before he lifted it to his lips, pressing the ghost of a kiss to her knuckles. “You’d send me away a bleak and forlorn man.”
His back was to the moon, casting his features in shadow. She yearned to ascertain if his gaze was as playful as his voice had been. “If I sent you away … you’d go?”
She sensed rather than saw his frown. “If that is your wish, I will trouble you no more.”
“One kiss. Nothing more?”
“One kiss.” His head tilted, and the moon shone on his wound. His tongue touched the ridge of the scar, as though he hoped it might have disappeared. “One taste. That’s all I ask…”
“Ask?” He was asking for a kiss? Which meant she could deny him.
She readily understood that in order to grant him the heirs she’d promised, she’d have to do a great deal more than kiss him. Her head swam, as if a fog had rolled in from the sea. Thinking beyond the powerful shadow in front of her became as difficult as swimming against the tide.
She couldn’t think of that now, or she’d do something ridiculous.
Like run.
“All right.” She couldn’t decide where to put her hand, so she gently rested it on his shoulder. “Just one k—”
His mouth was upon hers before she could think, before she could react, or respond, or change her mind.
She’d expected to tolerate his kiss like a maiden subjected to an acute torture. She squeezed her eyes shut, drawing her lips tight against her teeth.
But his kiss wasn’t torturous at all. Merely a brush at first. With no more pressure than a hummingbird used to land on a lilac bush.
A confusion of sensations paralyzed her. How could she feel both panicked and protected? Both delicate and desirable? His shoulder beneath her palm was tense. Unyielding. But he didn’t grasp at her, or draw her in, or press her close.
He didn’t touch her with any part of his body but his lips.
His mouth was infinitely gentle as it did little better than hover above hers in the merest caress of a kiss. A soft warmth suffused her, one she expected had nothing to do with the whisky. It drove the cold fingers of dread to release her lungs and rescued her heart from its panicked stampede.
Only when she allowed herself to exhale did he press his mouth fully to hers, coaxing it to soften in sweet, aching drags. She felt the impression of his scar. Sensed his hesitation as it caught against her lower lip. And in that moment, she felt the need to encourage him more urgently than she required reassurance.
She lifted her hand from his shoulder to shape it over his jaw. The hair there was wondrously soft, and she tested it with questing fingers as she turned her mouth to press against the tight stratum where his scar interrupted his lip.
At this, he went impossibly still. His own breath catching as he awaited her next move.
She didn’t have one to make. She enjoyed the feel of the bristles above the fullness of his lips. The square rigidity of his jaw and the angle at which it filled her palm. His profile was so male. So abstractly dissimilar to her own oval features.
His breath faintly smelled of whisky, and she thought she might taste it as she breathed it in. Just as her insides melted into a liquid puddle, his tongue slid along the seam of her mouth.
Alexandra reared away from him, breaking their kiss. She pressed her fingers to her lips, as if she could keep the sensation trapped there. Attempting to reject the bile rising in her throat. Pushing away the memory of another man’s tongue.
Running along her face as he pinned her down …
“Forgive me.” Redmayne’s voice was colored with an indulgent fondness she’d not expected to exist among the darker shades of desire. “You’re so fascinating. So intelligent and straightforward, I forget that you’re also—untried.”
“I’m—”
“Until midnight, Lady Alexandra.” He pressed his lips once more to her knuckles before releasing her. “I’ll leave you here to consult with your friends and make your decisions.” He cast a pointed glance at his mother’s room before collecting his mask. He only paused for the space of a breath in front of his mother’s chamber before donning the mask and disappearing around the corner.
Alexandra gaped after him in sheer amazement, her fingers still pressed to her mouth.
He’d known. He’d known they were there the entire time.
Alexandra lurched over to the door and placed her hand on the latch. Her arm was nearly wrenched from its socket as Francesca yanked it open and barreled into her.
“Alexander, no!” Francesca gasped, shaking her none too gently. “What could you be thinking? Have you gone mad?” She pressed her hand to Alexandra’s cheek, then her forehead, shifting the mask out of place as she checked for a fever.
Cecelia swatted at her hands, the peacock feathers in her mask glinting vibrantly in the moonlight.
They reminded Alexandra of his dramatic eyes.
He’d kissed her. Only once. He’d taken no more, even when she’d pulled away.
“Let me do this,” Alexandra said resolutely. “My mind is made up, Frank. Marriage to Redmayne solves nearly all our problems.”
“Oh, horseshit,” Francesca cursed. “This is tantamount to you falling on your sword for the sake of—”
“I can’t have any more attempts on your lives because of me!” Alexandra wailed. “If I lose one of you because of what I’ve done—”
Cecelia stopped her with a hand on her arm. “I thought we were under the impression that yesterday was an attempt on Francesca’s life.”
“Are we? Whoever is blackmailing me has made it painfully clear that if I couldn’t pay in funds, and soon, they’d take everything else from me. Including those I love.” A familiar ache tightened her throat, and fear unsettled her stomach, replacing the warmth left by a singular kiss. “Even if the shot was aimed at Francesca yesterday morning, it could have been a warning to me. We simply don’t know.”
“Alexander.” Francesca struggled to retain her composure. “I know we’re both in a great deal of trouble at the moment, but that is no reason to marry a man.” She said the word as though it tasted foul. “When has the addition of anyone of the opposite sex ever improved one of our situations?”
“Now wait a moment,” Cecelia said defensively. “Jean-Yves has been a great help to me for several years. I take him with me everywhere.”
“He doesn’t count. He’s too old to be any trouble,” Francesca snarked.
Cecelia ceded the point, redirecting her regard. “One of you needs to climb those stairs tonight and accept the duke’s proposal…” She rubbed at the back of her neck, breaking away to pace a little. “I can’t think of an outcome where marriage to Redmayne would be anything but a disaster for either of you.”