“Who was the new girl inmy dress, Pearl?” Murray rasped, his voice thick with an Irish brogue.
“New girl?” Agnes exclaimed as Marigold strode down the hallway, dodging dancers and stagehands, her vision focused on the stage door, her escape. “I have no idea!”
The dank, putrid summer air in the alley was the sweetest smell she’d ever known, and she filled her lungs with relish as she bustled towards the main street. If she could find the hack and Archie—
The door bounced open, and she heard Agnes calling. “I don’t know who she was, Murray!”
She was around the corner before she could hear the stage manager’s reply, her heart thundering so vigorously she saw spots in her vision. Panic gripped her throat as she searched the street for a hack, any sign of Archie.
“Marigold!”
There he was, striding from beneath the electric bulbs over the theater’s main entrance, his eyes blazing like a warrior coming to defend his village.
His hands circled her upper arms. “What’s happened? Are you all right?”
She shook her head. “I—Murray, he—” Her words stuck on her tongue, all of them, not just the stuttered ones, and frustration and fear tangled in her throat.
His nostrils flared. “Did someone hurt you?”
“No, b-b-but he’s trying to find me.” She swung her gaze to the alley in time to see Murray emerge, hands fisted, and she gasped.
Archie growled, balled his own hands, and made to move towards the stage manager, but Marigold stilled him with a hand to the chest. “Hide me,” she whispered.
He watched her for a beat before he nodded, crowded her until her back pressed against the theater wall, tucked partially into a shadowy alcove between two columns. The heat of his body scorched hers, her skin humming in the places he made contact.
His wide palm spanning her hip.
His fingers on the length of her neck, just below her jaw.
His sturdy thighs against hers.
She’d seen the way his gaze darkened, how he shifted on his feet when he saw her. His lust was a palpable thing, practically visible in the air between them, and now, with fear and adrenaline rushing through her, intoxicating her, she stopped thinking.
And kissed him.
Archie’s breath caught as her mouth pressed to his, the slickness of the rouge on her lips altering the taste of him only for an instant before the heady mix she recalled in her dreams rushed back, richer and sweeter than she’d remembered. He overwhelmed her senses, pushing out any lingering doubt or fear, anything that wasn’thim.
He hesitated only a moment before his tongue pushed past her lips, tangling with hers, and desire and power fueled her to meet him as an equal. The kiss was like being balanced on the head of a pin, the balance so fine and precipitous, the potential for harm inescapable but thrilling.
And she wanted to push them over into ruin.
She’s mine.
Lady Croydon would never kiss a lover in public, allow a man toclaimher, but Marigold? She wore a dancer’s costume, rouged her cheeks and lips, let her tongue tangle with a man’s, rocked herhips against the steel of his erection, now pressed against her lower belly, and she wanted more.
“Fuck,Marigold,” he groaned, pulling away and shaking his head before looking around. “He’s gone.”
Icy reality poured over her, making her shiver in the sticky night air. What Archie had done was merely to protect her. She was no more his than he could ever be hers. “I’m sorry,” she managed, her voice choking.
He didn’t meet her gaze, and she wished to collapse into herself, hide from him and everyone around them. What had she been thinking? What had sherisked? If anyone were to recognize her, had seen what they’d just done, the consequences would be unimaginable. Donning a costume wouldn’t disguise who she was, the scorned wife of an unfaithful aristocrat. The timid, pitiful woman destined to be forgotten and ignored.
“There’s the hack,” he said. She noted he hadn’t responded to her apology as they hurried across the sidewalk to the waiting carriage. “The train leaves in a quarter hour. If we hurry, we can make it.”
The train that would bring them back to Yorkshire, to her impending divorce and the uncertainty that plagued her.
Chapter 13
ThelightsofLondonhad stopped flashing by the windows when Marigold finally spoke. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her eyes focused on the back of the seat in front of them. “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
