Jem broke the kiss and regretted doing so when he saw Lucasta’s face, dazed, soft, touched by wonder. Her lips were red and full and her eyes smoky, and he wanted to kiss her endlessly. He wanted to unwrap the fabric that enclosed her and kiss the dusky skin beneath.
Control, man.He cleared his throat and with both hands set her away from him, holding her steady as she blinked. She swayed but then found her feet, and he lifted the green brocade from around her, trying not to touch her skin. When his thumb grazed the smooth swell of her bosom, they both sucked in a breath. He pulled the fabric away and saw the small hard peaks of her breasts beneath the bodice of her gown, and he had to turn away to hide the evidence of his own arousal.
“Oh, the robing room is so tidy and delightful,” came Bertie’s voice from the next room, again overly loud. “I shall linger here a moment and take everything in.”
Lucasta wrapped her arms around herself and carefully wiped her face clear of its dazed, soundly kissed expression. Jem attended to rewrapping the brocade, wishing he had the same self-command. The blood still pounded in his ears, leaving him dizzy.
Everything he’d thought about his life, his future, had just been torn up by the roots and turned widdershins, settling into a new place. One that had this woman at its foundation.
“Satisfied that you’ve seen every corner, Bertie?” His voice came out low, hoarse.
“Oh, very.” Bertie entered the show room with a sunny smile. Her shawl was still damp, the clever fixings of her hat sadly bedraggled, but she looked none the worse for wear. “I see you started tea?”
“Perhaps you could take Lucasta—Miss Lithwick back to the kitchen and pour her a cup.” He turned to face the women, his lower half hidden behind the counter. “I’d like to finish up here. Take a look-through. You know.”
“Brr! Let’s do warm ourselves before the fire. You’re shivering like a leaf, Lucasta.” Bertie drew her away, and Lucasta followed.
She didn’t glance back at him, and Jem was glad of it. He might have done something ridiculous like leap after her, grasp her hand, and beg her to stay with him always.
He had kissed her. A gentleman would do something about that.
He pushed the bolt of brocade back in place and then surveyed his shop, this space as familiar to him as his own bedchamber. Everything—the shop, his business, the world—looked new-made.
He was an outsider to this world he’d been invited to enter, the world of thebeau mondewhere address mattered more than intelligence, breeding more than skill. Where people who hadno need to strive for resources or self-support competed to gain admiration and display their wealth. He’d hoped that his step into the fashionable world would elevate his business, expand his clientele, ensure an income that would support his family.
But he was aware every moment that he didn’t have the innate training of those who had been bred to it from birth. He didn’t know the proper degrees of bowing, how a gentleman entered a room, how to hand a lady to dinner. He’d survived this far by aping his blooded friends, Ashley and Plimpton, but he knew the eyes watching him sharply noted every flaw.
It was the latest fadto admire Jeremiah Falstead, Lord Rudyard, yet he had no doubt that laughter and snickers spread behind him every time he left a room. He’d begun to wonder where he belonged, whom he could trust. The draper’s world was the world he knew, but the aristocratic world would be his, like it or not, when—many years hence, God willing—the marquessate of Arendale passed to him.
He’d never once imagined he would be fortunate enough to find a consort like his mother had been to his father, someone who could navigate both those worlds with him, with the style and poise to pass among wealthier circles, but the wit and sense to remain amused by the ostentatious display.
He’d never imagined there could exist a woman with passions that matched his, with the same love of beauty and a generous heart for the less fortunate, who would embrace his family as they were and never feel ashamed of his upbringing or his tastes.
He’d not thought the woman existed who could rouse his mind as much as she fired his blood. Whom he could imagine as a companion through all of his days, facing the world together, his world improved by her humor and warmth.
And now, suddenly, here she was.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“But of course we must be Greek goddesses,” Annis declared. “Why would we dream of being anything else?”
“How about saints? Famous female scholars? Medieval queens?” Lucasta asked. The Gorgons were gathered in Annis’s parlor this time, keeping away the chill of the glowering spring day with a fire and an endless supply of tea. “That dress, at least, would provide more coverage.”
“If you’re to be out and about all the day, then we’ve to choose your costume when left to our own devices at Mlle. Beaudoin’s,” Minnie answered. She shook out a sheer length of linen that gleamed like a pearl. “You’ve never touched anything so fine, and we’ll feel queenly wearing them.”
Lucasta passed a length of the fabric between her fingers. She supposed, if it came from Mlle. Beaudoin’s, the linen was from Jem’s warehouse. She had indeed felt something this fine—the silk brocades Jem had wrapped her in that day in his shop. She’d reveled in the luscious weave sliding over her skin.
And he’d kissed her.
She hadn’t yet managed to tell her friends about that.
“Which goddesses are we to be, then?” she said.
Annis nodded her head at the smallest girl. “Selina is to be our Aphrodite. Goddess of love.”
Selina dimpled and giggled, which made Lucasta wonder if she had missed something. Why was Selina claiming the realm of love? Lucasta had been out so often, on calls with Cici, seeing to lessons with Judith and Bertie, that she’d neglected her friends. They’d chosen their costumes for the masquerade ball at Ranelagh Gardens without her.
“Annis, naturally, is Artemis, goddess of the moon,” Minnie said. That made perfect sense for Annis, their astronomer.
