Something shifted in his expression. “Penelope–”
“Close your eyes, Your Grace.”
He paused and exhaled slowly. Then, after a moment that felt like eons, he closed his eyes.
She blew out the flame and set her candle on the stone bench and stepped back, and then – with her heartbeat echoing loudly in her ears and her dignity somewhat overtaken by something bolder than she had known she possessed – she began to undress.
The sound was very small in the stillness of the garden, but she could see from the line of his jaw that he heard it. His head turned very slightly, instinctively, before he stopped himself.
“That is not fair,” he said, in a voice that was not quite as steady as usual.
“I have not yet decided to be fair.”
He laughed – a short, slightly pained sound. “You are cruel.”
“You said I should punish you.”
“I had something considerably less effective in mind.”
When she had finished, the night air was cool and very still, and she was acutely conscious of everything – the grass beneath her bare feet, the whisper of the breeze, the way the moonlight lay across her skin. She felt, improbably, extraordinary. She was not entirely sure where this version of herself had come from, but she was disinclined to question it.
She crossed the small distance between them and took his hand.
She heard him exhale.
She brought his hand up slowly and drew one of his fingers to her lips.
The sound Cecil made – quiet, involuntary, an almost imperceptible catch – was worth every moment of the anxiety that had preceded this evening. Even his breathing pattern had changed, much to her hidden glee. She could see his jawworking, the contained effort of a man exercising extraordinary restraint.
“Let me open my eyes.” His voice was low around the request.
This was perhaps the closest a man like him had come to asking for anything in his indulged life.
“No,” she murmured, against his fingertip.
“Penelope.” The way he said her name threatens to undo the foundations of her composure, but she held firm.
She released his hand and stepped back.
“Count to ten,” she told him softly, still walking backwards. “Then you may open your eyes and come and find me.”
At first, he was silent. Then, in a tone that carried an unmistakable undercurrent of warning beneath its admiration, he replied,
“You have gotten far too good at this, far too quickly. Challenging me is not a punishment, Penelope. Challenging me is an invitation, and I intend to accept it. I will be making you pay for this later.”
“Count,” she instructed, her voice reflecting the arrogant coy streak she had embodied for the evening, and moved away intothe shadow of the hedgerow, her heart hammering in a way that was entirely and inexplicably joyful.
She heard him begin, in a measured voice that was almost – almost – steady.One. Two.
She found a space between the roses and the stone wall, where the shadows were thickest, and pressed herself against the cool surface and tried not to smile.
Three. Four.
His voice, when he spoke into the dark, was low and deliberate and entirely too composed for a man who had been anything but composed sixty seconds ago.
“You know I am going to find you,” he said, not as a threat but merely a promise. “And when I do, I am going to–” and then he said something, quietly, in the dark, that she would not repeat to anyone living, which set her face aflame and weakened her knees considerably, making her thankful that she wasn’t standing.
Five. Six.
