“I think perhaps we’re done for today, anyhow?” Errol suggested, looking for all the world like a man trying to swallow his amusement. “I think we’ve got the gist now, anyway.”
“Until the dress rehearsal,” Monica put in. “We can do that at the house, I suppose.”
“Which does have walls, you know,” Malcolm said with a grin.
“Does it?” Ruby replied, already packing up her things. “Oh, Hattie, come here. I’ve something for you.”
She withdrew a strip of linen, waiting for Hattie to draw close enough, and tipped a vial of pale-blue liquid over to dampen the edge of it. She waved it in the air for a moment, then turned and passed it under Hattie’s nose.
Immediately, the world swam a bit. Hattie could feel her pupils flaring, her skin prickling with sensation at the gust of clashing scents that hit her all at once. Salt, smoke, rain.
“How?” she whispered, staring at the dancing motes of color in the sky. “Ruby, how?”
“Excellent,” said Ruby, grinning like a cat. “And look at this.”
She produced her hand, holding it open with a delicate wrought-metal charm in her palm, shaped like the number eight.
Hattie stared at it, still dazed.
“It will go on the vial,” Ruby announced, closing her hand and pulling away all of her surprises, dumping them into theleather bag she’d brought with her. “I’ll bottle it up tonight. You can give it as a wedding present if you wish, though of course, I demand credit.”
“Of course,” Hattie said, still a little stunned and resisting the urge to reach out and snatch the scent from Ruby. “Yes.”
But Ruby was already gone.
It wasn’t until later, watching the last of her things get moved out of her bedroom en route to the master suite, that she realized why it had affected her so. It was the maids pulling her linens loose and, in so doing, dislodging the two little port glasses, stained with dried-up wine, that had been hiding under her bed.
They’d rolled out, knocking against Hattie’s feet, and with them, a flurry of memory had hit her in exactly the same register of color and scent as that wave of doused linen under the pavilion.
Elias here in her bed.
Elias digging his hands into her hair.
Elias’s tongue in her mouth.
She shivered.
He hadn’t kissed her again, had he?
Not like that.
Why hadn’t he? Why not?
She had followed the maids closely, wanting to seal herself in the master suite the instant her things were deposited there so she could dig out the red dressing gown and hold it to her face. She wanted to wrap herself in it and ponder these questions.
She wanted to, but she could not.
She was forced to address other duties. The paintings. The pianoforte. The showcase. Dinner.
But the scent still clung to her, haunting her in wisps around her person.
And when he began his ritual with the crystal wineglass at dinner that night, it was all she could do not to throw her plate aside and crawl across the table to claim him.
“First night in the baroness’s chambers, I hear?” Mal said to her, as though he could not tell she had gone half-rabid by his side.
Perhaps he was attempting to quell the madness.
She turned her head in a snap, trying to process what he’d said.
