“I’m Atropos. You recognized me earlier, did you not? You called me Mistress Fate.”
His shrug was fluid, and now the crinkles at the corners of his eyes belied a near-smile. “I didn’t know which of the three you were. The gown gave you away, despite the fact that you chose black instead of the common white. It’s fortunate for you, apparently, that you were Atropos, for I don’t believe a mere length of thread and a measuring rod or spindle would have been much assistance to you.”
Relieved that his intensity seemed to have eased, she gave him a demure look. “No, I do believe you are correct, my lord.”
But his face darkened again, the crinkles next to his eyes smoothing as the groove between his brows became more pronounced. “And the man who assaulted you? What happened to him?” He hadn’t released her, and, in fact, she was aware of his shoes brushing hers. Warmth and awareness filled the space between them, and she realized her fingers had curled into the edge of his cloak. She loosened them.
“I don’t know. He ran off. He didn’t return to the party, I’m certain, for surely all the blood would cause comment.”
“The condition of your gown didn’t,” he reminded her.
“But no one can see it,” she said. “I don’t know how you noticed. You said yousmelled blood.”She sniffed, but scented nothing but him. Spicy, masculine and arresting. Very close. She felt a bit lightheaded.
His lips flattened. “Does Corvindale know?”
“No one knows but you. The earl isn’t here this evening.”
Now he smiled, but with that false edge. “As much as I’m certain you believe that, I know better than to assume otherwise. He’s here.”
“As you wish, my lord,” she said, suddenly feeling lighter than she had since arriving at the ball. “I suppose we shall find out when the unmasking takes place.” She cast a look beyond his shoulder, through the filter of hanging vines. It was rather cozy back here in this little corner.
“But our unmasking has already occurred.” Voss’s voice dropped to a purr, and Angelica flashed a quick look at him. He was looking at her in a very different way than he had only moments before. Much like the way he’d been looking at her when their eyes met across the room.
Her heart pounded, hard, as he lifted a hand to skim a gloved finger along the side of her neck. Little prickles of awareness followed, and Angelica found herself hardly able to breathe. She could be affronted at such a liberty, but the touch felt oddly chaste. Yet at the same time, the way he looked at her, leaning in closer, felt very intimate.
“I cannot decide whether to be annoyed or gratified,” he said, stroking along beneath her chin, holding her eyes with his.
“What do you mean, my lord?”
He withdrew his hand and adjusted a camellia on her shoulder. “Well, my dear, I could be annoyed and affrontedthat you mistook another gentleman for me. Apparently I hadn’t made enough of an impression upon you. Or I could be gratified that, thinking he was I, you agreed to walk in the moonlight with him. As unpleasant as that occasion might have turned out to be.”
A little stab of pleasure startled her. “Such a difficult decision you have, my lord. I cannot even pretend to assist you.” She looked away in all demureness, and realized with a start that she was well and truly, no doubt about it,flirtingwith Viscount Dewhurst. And managing quite well.
Maia would be proud. Or…perhaps not, if she knew it was Dewhurst and not Harrington with whom she was being coy.
“What was it you thought might happen, walking in the moonlight with me?” he asked. His voice was very near her ear, smooth and low, its very timbre somehow discernible despite the dull roar of music, rushing water, and revelry around them. “Perhaps the experience of your first kiss?”
“Oh.” Her breath was gone again at the dark light in his eyes. Yet she managed to say, “I’ve already experienced my first kiss.”
Those glittering eyes narrowed with pleasure and he whispered, “I’m rather pleased to hear you say that. Now, let us see about making you forget it.”
He moved, his mouth covering hers as the wall reared up behind her. He eased—pushed—her back against it, his somehow gloveless hands settling: one, warm, to cup the back of her head, and the other sliding around her waist.
Angelica couldn’t have been prepared for the rush of heat and pleasure from the touch of his lips. Neither tentative nor rapacious, they fit to hers deliberately, without apology—molding and tasting, coaxing…demanding hers to respond. And she did, following his lead, aware of the bare touch of his fingers on the underside of her jaw, of the warm mouth, delicious over hers, and the heat of his body pressing her into the wall.
An explosion of pleasure rushed through her—warm and bold, tingling low in her belly and down…farther. Angelica needed to breathe but she forgot how, sinking into the sleek, sensual rhythm of mouth sliding against mouth.
His tongue surprised her, slipping briefly along the half-part of her lips in a heated little tease, and then his mouth crushed over hers again as his arm tightened around her waist. Voss’s breath buffeted warm against her skin as he shifted away, coming low and unsteady. Along her cheek he smoothed his lips, nibbling, pressing gentle kisses that left tingles in their wake.
She’d tilted her head back, unable to hold it up any longer, and the fountain of hair at the back of her head was smashed against the wall, the pins driving into her scalp. His hands drew her closer, his face buried near her ear, his lips moving along her hairline and down to the curve of her neck.
Angelica gasped and trembled; she was sensitive and a bit ticklish there, and the light movements of his nose and mouth buried in her neck’s crook made her want to squirm away at the same time as press him closer. She wanted him to kiss and nibble, to taste as he’d done her mouth—not to feather-lightly touch, and she grabbed on to his cloak, pulling him closer, only half aware of what she was doing. She wantedmore,something more.
“Voss,” she whispered to the ceiling, planting her hands on his chest, curling her fingers into the fabric, not sure what she was asking for. But she needed something to release the tightening coil inside her.
She became vaguely aware of the activity beyond the curtain of vines behind him, and that the music seemed to have started again. Or perhaps it was that the fountain had been turned off or had run out of water, and now the sounds of the jaunty three-step dance tune more easily reached her ears.
The dull roar of people laughing and talking filled the air, filtering through the music as the two of them stood in the dark corner. Her hands settled on his chest, his covering her upper arms, something stretching and shimmering between them.
