Allegra was lucky, in an odd way. She perceived in her mother – her sisters, too – a slight tendency to handle her with kid gloves, since Lord Milton’s proposal. The girls just wanted something positive to happen, she thought, and were made uneasy by this limbo that she’d placed them all in. They’d seen two offers of marriage before, two acceptances, two weddings shortly after. This was what was supposed to happen, in this house, at the endof a Season. This lack of a resolution was new, and perhaps also Leontina had told them not to pester her, and decided not to do so herself either. If everyone kept very quiet and calm, maybe Allegra would decide of her own free will to accept the handsome offer she’d been made. If her relations bothered her, there was no knowing how stubborn she might become. She’d always been awkward and disobliging.
At any rate, when she asked if Polly could accompany her on a short shopping trip next morning, Mrs Constantine raised no objection. They were even allowed to take the carriage, which was by no means usual. She gave their coachman the direction; it could not have been easier. Perhaps her mama meant her to reflect that such ease and freedom would be an everyday thing for her, if she said yes.
Her heart was pounding as she and her companion – who was delighted not to be on her hands and knees scrubbing the stairs – made their way up a couple of steps into a tidy little establishment in Grafton Street. It was pleasing to the eye, the woodwork being freshly painted in glossy dark green, setting off a plate-glass window that was currently displaying a selection of bright, eye-catching gowns and elegant accessories. She couldn’t possibly afford to shop here. But then, she hadn’t come for that.
A bell tinkled over their heads as the door opened, and a tall, elegant woman moved forward to greet her. ‘May I help you, mademoiselle?’
‘Madame Lisette?’ she asked with as much composure as she could manage, and the woman nodded. She was beautifully though soberly dressed in indigo silk, and much younger than one would expect the owner of a thriving shop to be – perhaps in her mid-twenties. Allegra was aware of shrewd blue eyes, running up and down her frame – mostly down – and pricing every stitch she had on. Mostof her clothes were homemade and repurposed, which this woman would be able to tell in an instant, but despite that she didn’t push Allegra and Polly out of the door and down the steps into the street, but continued in her slight, musical French accent, ‘Miss Constantine? I am happy to see you. Come with me – my servant will give your maid some tea and sweetmeats. I expect she will be glad of a rest. Pass through into my changing room, won’t you, mademoiselle? I am certain we will findsomethingthere to please you.’
Was that a wink…?
Allegra found herself on the other side of a thick velvet curtain. Madame Lisette smiled conspiratorially at her, and said in very different tones, with no trace of her former accent whatsoever, ‘I don’t make a habit of this sort of thing, you know, Miss Constantine. This really is a very good modiste’s, and not a house of assignation. But I was told it was an emergency, and I must admit I was curious to see you. Through there… You won’t be disturbed for an hour or so.’
This place was a warren of little panelled rooms. There was a door, and on the other side of it a cosy parlour, with a brocade sofa, a couple of chairs and a small table, a pile of sketches lying upon it, and scraps of fabric. More drawings were pinned to large cork boards hung upon the walls – gowns, of course, beautifully rendered, finished in delicate watercolour. Other than that, it was empty, apart from Mr Severin, large and masculine and gloriously out of place.
‘I wasn’t entirely sure you’d come,’ he said, rising to his feet.
‘I told you I wanted to see you.’
‘Or did you sayneeded?’
She might have said needed. ‘Whichever. Here I am.’ She wanted to ask him about the woman who had brought her to this room, with whom he must surely have a peculiarly intimate sortof a relationship. But her pride would not let her, and besides, what did it matter?
‘You are not easy in your mind.’ She shook her head wordlessly. ‘What do you want, or need, from me, Allegra? You know I will give it to you if I can.’
‘Well, I didn’t come to be measured for a gown.’
‘A pity, perhaps.’
She shivered. ‘Undress me,’ she said on a sudden impulse. Her breasts were heavy, and her clothing chafed her in unaccustomed places. Heat pooled between her thighs. She wanted to do something dangerous and wanton that had nothing in the world to do with the demands that others made upon her, or the hard and irrevocable decision she would soon have to make.
‘You would like to be naked, in this room, with me?’ His voice held no trace of mockery now.
‘I think I would.’
She was still wearing her bonnet and pelisse, and even her gloves. He untied the ribbons and set the hat carefully aside, then his too-clever fingers unbuttoned her coat and slid it from her shoulders. Very meticulously, he unfastened the tiny buttons of her gloves and peeled the soft kid leather back over her hands, dropping a kiss in each palm, his breath caressing her sensitive skin. She was trembling, but not in fear.
Her gown fastened at the back, and he turned her gently and undid her. She stepped out of it, along with her soft slippers, turning wordlessly back to face him, and he pushed the straps of her petticoats off her shoulders, so that they pooled about her feet. She stood in her chemise, stays and stockings, and he asked, ‘Enough?’
She liked the fact that he asked; it gave her courage. ‘No,’ she said.
They did up at the front, her stays, and he unlaced them andthrew them aside. He did not let his hands linger, as he might have done, but he was a little less controlled now, she thought, and breathing harder. She liked that too. Her chemise came over her head, and was also discarded. Just her stockings now, and her garters – perhaps they could remain.
‘Sit down,’ she said. He sat on the sofa, looking up at her, his face unreadable beyond the ever-present hunger, and she came to stand before him, very close. Their mutual craving was an honest thing, she thought, when so much else in her life was not. ‘Don’t ask any questions, but tell me frankly. If I married a man who just wanted an heir from me, who didn’t desire me at all apart from that, he wouldn’t wish to see me like this, would he?’
‘I don’t suppose he would,’ Max Severin told her gravely. ‘I expect he’d come to you in the night, in the dark, and do what was needful, and then go. It wouldn’t be necessary for you to be naked, Allegra. Or him. May I touch you? That’s a question, but I hope it is permitted.’
‘I wish you would. I didn’t mean that sort of question. That’s allowed.’
He put his hands on her, on her hips at first, and very slowly caressed her. He traced the skin at the tops of her stockings, and then ran his fingers up across her belly to stroke her breasts, to cup and hold them. ‘I see you, Allegra Constantine, naked and unafraid as you are,’ he said unsteadily. ‘I love to touch you. Your skin is like velvet. You have the body of a goddess. I could worship you. Any man who would not do so is an utter imbecile.’ He added almost reluctantly, as if determined to be fair, ‘But he might still seek to give you pleasure, you know, your fool of a husband. It is widely thought that women are more likely to conceive if they experience release. God knows if it’s true. So he might do that.’
‘Let’s not talk about it any more,’ she said, and leaned forward to kiss him. This at least she could choose for herself.
He pulled her closer so that she straddled him, and they began to devour each other, mouths hungry, limbs entangled, breath coming fast. She found that she enjoyed the peculiarly intense sensations that came from being naked in his arms when he was still fully clothed. The leather of his breeches was slick beneath her hot skin, and the wool of his coat slightly rough where it rubbed against her taut nipples. His cheeks were slightly stubbled – perhaps he had not shaved – and felt deliciously rough against her breasts, and on the tender skin of her neck, and wherever else he kissed.
‘I don’t know what’s going to happen to me,’ she told him, held tight in his arms, her body covering his, suddenly close to tears, ‘but I am afraid. Being naked here with you is far less frightening than my future. Do something to me, with me, for me, that nobody else will.’
‘Do you mean that, Allegra?’
