Page 56 of The Subtle Craft of Courting Kate

“No, not at all,” Mrs. Littlefield sighed. “Truth to tell, I’d welcome a bit of time to sit quietly while Kate is off to the retiring room.” She gave a weak smile. “These late nights, you know. I’m lucky to be holding my feet.”

Elliot offered her a bow and waved her off to the row of chairs reserved for the chaperones. Better still that she was seated; she would not see him through the crowd as he made his way toward the door through which Kate had exited only a minute or two ago.

The hallway was deserted, and the lively chatter emanating from the crowded retiring room disguised the sound of his footsteps. He’d have to move quickly; there was no telling how long it would be before someone emerged. Had Kate made it safely? There was no sign of her in the hallway; he could only assume she had.

The door opened smoothly at the press of his hand, and he slipped into the darkened room. Murky shapes swam around him; the looming towers of bookshelves arrayed in a vaguely mazelike pattern. The quiet intensified as the door shut behind him, with just the tiniest dregs of sound slipping in beneath the door, the faintest reminder that the retiring room was just down the hall.

Elliot moved through the web of shadows, finessing his way around the shelves. “Kate?” he whispered into the all-encompassing darkness. A stray beam of moonlight pierced the gloom as he made it through the tangle of bookshelves and reached the furthest edge of the room, with its wide wall of windows.

“I’m here.” The answering whisper caressed his ears, muted and soft and intimate. A lover’s whisper, which conjured up images of soft pillows and smooth sheets. It prickled the fine hairs at the nape of his neck and made his heart race in his chest. With some effort, he shook off the sensation, quelled it with the press of his blunt nails into the flesh of his palms through the fabric of his gloves.

Kate had had the foresight to hide well away from the door, tucking herself into a little alcove against the far wall, behind the shield of a tall bookshelf. Only a sliver of her silver skirt peeked out of the shadows in which she had cloaked herself. Probably he would not have spotted her if she hadn’t spoken—but then, no one else would have, either.

The rug spread across the floor muffled his footsteps as he moved toward her, crossing the space that separated them with quick, purposeful strides. “Katie, what is it? Has someone offended you in some way?” Lord Shaw had been present this evening. Had he failed to take Elliot’s stern lecture to heart and redoubled his insult?

She gave a little shake of her head and clasped her hands before her once again. “No. No, nothing—nothing like that.”

Then what on earth had gotten her so agitated, so bloody nervous? Surely something had happened. “You do know,” he said, “that you can tell me anything. Don’t you?”

“Yes, of course, but—but some things are more difficult than others.” Her shoulders rolled as if she sought to relieve the strain within them. Her breath came in swift little catches.

“It can’t be so difficult as all that, can it?” Elliot’s brow creased in confusion. From childhood, they had been one another’s closest confidants. It was a kind of familiarity, of intimacy, which surpassed even the bounds of family. But for a few precious secrets held close to his chest, he’d always told her everything—and he had thought she had done the same.

“Once more,” she said abruptly, her strangely fraught voice slicing through the still air.

“Once more?” She had said it like it was meant to be somehow significant, like it was meant to convey some sort of understanding to him.

Her breath shuddered out of her lungs on a sigh, and she worried her lower lip between her teeth. “That evening in Richard and Rebecca’s drawing room…do you recall it?”

Recall it? He would never forget it as long as he lived. He could still feel the touch of her lips to his, the needling of her nails upon his shoulders. It had been the most incredible few minutes of his life. He took a step toward her as if some invisible thread that stretched between them had been plucked taut, and she—she did the same, easing out into the careless spill of moonlight from the depths of the shadows she had sheltered herself within. “Yes,” he breathed. “Yes, I recall it.”

The moonlight draped itself across her, limning her hair in silver and washing her skin in a pale milky glow. She gave a shy little shrug of her shoulders and swiped her pink tongue across her lower lip as she ducked her head. “Once more,” she said, more to her toes than to him. “Like that.”

∞∞∞

Just once more. Just once more, and—and she would live on it forever. Just once more and she would do her damnedest to see him married with a smile on her face. Just once more, and she would somehow make her peace with losing him a piece at a time to another woman who would hold the whole of his heart.

A soft, rusty chuckle rippled the edges of the silence which surrounded them. “Do you know,” Elliot mused, his voice deep and low, “I could not even begin to count the number of illicit assignations I helped to arrange between Richard and Rebecca. And yet despite that, there was not one single moment this evening where I had even the slightest suspicion that I was arranging one of my own.”

Embarrassment crashed down upon Kate in a smothering wave. “It’s not an assignation!”

“Shh. You really do have to be quiet. We are too damned close to the retiring room.” His low, warm voice trickled over her ears like honey, thick and sweet. The chill of the library air vanished as he stepped closer, guiding her back into her quiet corner. “For future reference,” he said, “when a woman lures a man to a private location for such purposes, that is an assignation.”

“Well—well—” A gasp crept out of her throat as her back touched the shelf behind her, and his hand slipped around her to cup the nape of her neck, fingers hot on her bare skin. Hot and gloveless. When had he removed them? “How was I to know that?” she asked.

“You might have asked.”

She drew in a sharp breath as his cheek touched hers, the faint stubble that had shadowed his jaw since his last shave grazing her tender skin. Her heart beat out a rapid tattoo against her ribs. Could he hear it racing, as close as he was? Kate slicked her tongue across her dry lips, struggling to hold any one single thought in her head. “Is it the sort of thing one is meant to ask?”

“It’s the sort of thing you can ask me. But it would not be the best of ideas to ask anyone else,” he allowed with a chuckle. “You can ask me anything, you know. Tell me anything.”

Could she? Once, she would not have hesitated. Once, she had known exactly who she was, known her place in the world. She had been so certain of herself, so certain of the course her life was meant to take. She had never allowed herself to want more than that for which she had been destined.

She simply had not realized how fragile that constructed version of herself had been. How dependent it had been upon the familiar, reliant upon the patterns in which she had entrenched herself. Only weeks in London, and that façade she had built around herself had crumbled utterly. Not the sturdy foundation she had thought it to be at all; only a listing tower of blocks which had so swiftly been knocked askew. Somehow, she had become someone else entirely in these last few weeks. Someone who had learned not only to want more for herself, but have dared to want the impossible.

The whole of her body flushed with heat and pleasure at the brush of Elliot’s lips against her jaw. He’d drawn her into a world she’d never dared to dream of, revealing a side of himself that she had never had occasion to see. And in the doing of it, he had revealed to her facets of herself she had never imagined existed. At her sides, her fingers curled, itching with a sudden sharp longing. Furtively, she wrenched off her gloves and stuffed them into her reticule. “Could I—touch you?”

He sucked in a breath, the fingers of his left hand clasping her nape. “Yes,” he said in that low, nearly guttural voice. His lips brushed hers at last as he seized her hand in his right and brought it to his chest, pressing her palm over his heart.