She had no inkling, no real idea, what she did to him.
He turned her, now being the one to press her against the wall with the weight of his body. He waited for her to move, but she kept still, breathless the way she had been that night in her bed. Waiting.
But the day closed in, dawn light filtering through the windows, the dome. The night was at an end.
As he met her gaze, he expected her to pull away, to hide behind the walls she’d erected before they’d even married. Instead, she met him with an expression so fierce, it should not have been so lovely.
Perhaps instead of Circe, his enchantress, he should have named her Boudicca.
“It’s almost time,” he said, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “My night is at an end.”
She closed her eyes, nostrils flaring. “We only promised each other one night.” It sounded almost like a curse.
“We did.” He stepped back and bowed. “Allow me to take you home.”
For a moment, he thought she might ask for something else—something more. Instead, she nodded slowly. “Keep your mask on,” she said, and he understood her meaning.Keep pretending.
“Of course. Tonight, I am nothing but a hero of legend.”
The smile didn’t reach her eyes. “A philanderer.”
“NowthatI cannot agree with.” He touched her chin with the tip of one finger, and her eyes met his, open and searching, thefierceness fading into vulnerability that made his heart ache. “Not all legends are true, sweet Circe.”
She took hold of his wrist and brought his fingers to her lips. A gesture that she had never bestowed upon him before. But when she looked up again, all he could see was resignation across her face. “Call your carriage. I think it’s time for us to leave.”
Cecily kept silent on the carriage ride home. Their pretence was unravelling, thread by thread, with every yard they travelled. All she had were questions.
Had it always been like this with Percy?
Back when he had first started to court her, she couldn’t remember it ever feeling likethis. Butterflies and flirtations and . . .
They’d talked. Of course they had, when they’d first met. He’d been a friend to her, and music had drawn them together—and even then, she had loved the duets they sang, as though time paused whenever his voice joined hers, and her heart ached, and she felt that wanting inside herself formore. But once the song ended, she had gone back to pining over William and thinking of Percy as a friend. A father figure, almost, showing interest in her because he wanted to encourage her interests, not because he was in love with her.
Now she wondered if she had ever known what love was. Being with Percy did not make her heart yearn with the same desperate intensity as it had with William when she was nineteen. He was not a firework but the steady burn of a coal fire, all embers and occasional flame.
And she had kissed him.
The memory of it brought a hot flush to her cheeks. An ache between her legs that she didn’t remember feeling before. Vainly, she rubbed her thighs together, only stopping when he glanced down at the movement. If anything, that only made the aching worse.
She’d never wanted like this before. And especially notPercy. Silver-haired, patient-eyed Percy, who had spurned her not hours before, and who had danced with her as though he could not stop himself.
Percy, whom she had long ago resolved never to want. All those years telling herself that she could never forgive him, and here she was, allowing the press of a hand, the touch of his mouth, to vanquish all of that.
She wished she had done it sooner.
She didn’t know she’d been crying until she put her hand to her cheeks and felt the tears.
Percy produced a handkerchief from somewhere. “Was it so very bad, sweet witch?” he murmured, his words a drug.
Cecily reached for the anger that had sustained her through four years of matrimony, only to find it was a storm that had blown itself out.
“No.” She hated the way her voice cracked a little. No, it had not been so very bad.
He reached for her hand, taking it in his. Although they had held hands all evening, this felt different somehow, when their bodies were otherwise so far apart. His skin was warm against hers, the callouses on his palm rough against hers. She recalled the way his fingers had scraped against the page of his book as he concentrated, and her stomach fluttered helplessly.Howsuch an act could be so seductive, she didn’t know, but she couldn’t deny the heat that corkscrewed through her body, ending between her legs at the thought of those hands on her.
Stomach, breasts, lower. Lower.
It had been an age since he had last touched her there. Even then, the encounter had been short-lived, because she had not wanted him to be in her bed, so before anything of that nature could happen, he had left.
