“That is regretful. Lady Lillias, I’ve an honest question. Are you quite mad?”
“No,” she said, after some thought.
“Why. The bloody hell. Are you on the roof?”
There was another silence. They had a half of a moon to light things. Below, not everyone was sleeping. Sounds echoed. Coughs. A laugh. A snatch of an argument, complete with oath.
“It’s your fault.” She said it shortly. Resigned.
“That you couldn’t sleep?”
Because why should he mince words?
She turned to look at him. Whenever their eyes met, neither seemed able to look away. It was some combination of dare and the sort of fascination one experiences stumbling upon an exotic landscape that offered endless vistas. They’d seen each other in all lights now.
Except perhaps firelight, in bed.
He could reach over, draw a finger lightly over her lower lip. He knew he would feel her breath sigh out. The sweet beginnings of surrender.
His head felt tight in solidarity with his groin.
Her gaze dropped, flicked across his torso. A frown flickered. And then she gave a restive head toss and turned away from him. Perhaps she was alarmed by her own directness. She didn’t answer.
Seconds later, he watched her throat move in a swallow.
“I notice you’realsoawake rather late,” she said somewhat stiffly.
“Yes. Would you like to guess why?” He said this dryly.
Apparently she hadn’t the nerve to pursue the same line of questioning.
Perhaps she suspected he would tell her the truth about why she kept him awake at night, and guessed rightly that it would be more potent than she was prepared to hear.
“Well, I’ll get to the reason I’m up here. You can’t stay here. It’s self-indulgent and reckless to climb out on the roof in the middle of the night just because you took a notion.”
She ignored this and settled on the edge. “Fancy you having an opinion about what I’m doing. Who would have thought? I take it you’ve never been self-indulgent or reckless in your life.”
“It requires the opportunity to be bored and I can’t say as I’ve often had the pleasure.”
“No? What sorts of pleasures have you had, Mr. Cassidy?”
He drew in a long breath. “Let me put it this way. I’ve never before been alone in the dark with a woman who wasn’t beneath me, begging me to take her faster and harder. That, Lady Lillias, is a singular pleasure. You shouldn’t be alone on a roof in the dark, let alone in a night rail, let alone with me.”
The breath audibly went out of her in a gust. She jerked her head away again.
It was ruthless. He didn’t apologize. He was certain she could take it. And if he could shock her sufficiently, perhaps they’d both be spared wherever this thing between them was headed.
She said nothing for a time.
The sweet breeze that had earlier circled his neck returned, and this time it was cooler. It filled his shirt, and he knew if he closed his eyes hecould imagine he was on the porch of his cabin in New York.
“I have an honest question foryou, Mr. Cassidy. Is it that you thinkI’ma weak, naive fool requiring constant shepherding, or do you think all women are?”
He drew in a long breath and blew it out. Resigned, he settled at a safe distance from her on the roof edge, where they perched like the world’s most attractive gargoyles.
It was yet another world, like swimming or sex, the immersion in the night with the stars above them woven into the mist like diamonds in a woman’s hair. He was suddenly glad to be a part of it.
He carefully settled the lamp down between them.
