There Will Be Phlogiston Page 3

  If she married the Marquess of Pembroke, perhaps he would take her to London. Perhaps the balls would be different there. Perhaps life would be different.

  She glanced up at him from beneath her lashes. He was young, and handsome she supposed. Certainly younger and more handsome than the Phlogiston Baron.

  Who had stood up with several, less discriminating ladies after she had turned him down. Not that she’d been watching.

  He danced well. Unexpectedly so for such an impertinently large man. With ease rather than with grace, but there was something just a little thrilling about the way he moved.

  Or not.

  No. Certainly there was not.

  But would it make one feel fragile to be held in such powerful arms? Or powerful too?

  And fuck. The marquess was talking to her.

  “Oh yes,” she breathed. “I am enjoying the ball so very much.”

  “Quite,” he returned.

  After a moment or two, she offered, “I think it is not too warm tonight.”

  “Quite,” he returned.

  That would probably do. She let her gaze slip past him to the other dancers, noting with some pleasure that Lady Mildred (Lord Copper’s second daughter) was wearing a deliciously ill-advised gown: blue silk taffeta trimmed with so much Chantilly lace that her bosom looked like a badly iced cake.

  There was, however, no sign of Anstruther Jones.

  Only his friend, Lord Mercury, who was standing by a potted palm, looking as bored and miserable as Rosamond felt.

  Men were so fortunate. They could do that sort of thing, and everyone admired them for it. A grumpy-looking woman, however, was inelegant and inappropriate, and nobody would want to marry her.

  Rosamond adjusted her smile. Deployed it briefly at the marquess.

  Most of the other debutantes were in love with Lord Mercury. He had a lineage as old as Gaslight, and he was beautiful. Too beautiful for Rosamond’s comfort. What control could she possibly maintain over a husband who surpassed her?

  When the dance was done, the marquess thanked her for the honour, and asked if she would like to walk with him a little.

  “Oh yes,” she said again, “I would like that so very much.”

  They walked.

  “You dance divinely, Lady Rosamond.”

  She had perfected several useful social arts over the years. She could cry prettily and swoon on demand, but she had never quite succeeded in mastering the blush. She dipped her head as though she were, which was almost as effective. “You are too kind.”

  They walked a little more.

  A breeze from the terrace rustled her flounces.

  The marquess paused by the open doors. “Would you . . . It’s terribly forward of me . . . but would you care to take the air?”

  It was, indeed, terribly forward, but the marquess’s attentions towards her had been quite marked. He always made a point of dancing with her, and he had called upon her twice. Twice. She couldn’t remember a single word he’d said—or anything she might have said back—but they’d been seen together, and that was the important thing.

  She cast a swift glance round the ballroom, wondering if her absence would be noted. She knew she shouldn’t dally (or at least be observed dallying) with gentlemen on moonlit terraces, but she wasn’t going to let a marquess slip through her fingers for the sake of propriety.

  That was how spinsters happened.

  She faux-flushed—faushed, as they’d called it at Miss Githers’s Finishing School—again, and pretended to hesitate. “Perhaps . . . perhaps just for a few moments? It is rather stifling with so many couples . . . and I am a little faint.”

  “Please, let me help you.”

  Solicitously, the marquess guided her outside, and Rosamond took the opportunity to cling to his arm, allowing the edge of her skirts to brush very lightly against his legs. Once outside, however, she quickly revived. The line between sensitive and sickly was itself rather delicate, and men did not marry inconvenient women.

  “That is much better.” She presented a dazzling smile, hoping the marquess would be able to admire it properly in the uncertain light.

  “Quite,” returned the marquess.

  Rosamond stifled irritation. Truth had lent her words an unseemly fervour, something she would have to be more careful with in future.

  But it was much better. The ballroom had been hot and crowded, loud and bright, and it had reeked of sweat and phlogiston. The night was cool and empty, and smelled of jasmine and wood smoke. She stretched her neck—largely to demonstrate its swanlikeness—but was surprised to see a couple of brazen stars floating in the oily Gaslight haze.

  “May I say,” went on the marquess, “how beautiful you look tonight?”

  She did something charming with her fan. “I suppose you may.”

  “You look very beautiful tonight.”

  “Thank you, my lord. You are very kind.”

  “Your gown is most becoming.”

  “Oh . . . this little Parisian trifle? My dear mama picked it out for me.” Like hell she did. “I would not dream of having an opinion.”

  He gazed at her, and she suddenly realised she had no idea at all what he was thinking. That she never had any idea what he was thinking.

  It was . . . disconcerting.

  She peered back at him, trying to see past the pattern of shadows that fell across his face, but his composure was a wall she couldn’t breach. His eyes revealed nothing except that he looked at her. His mouth was the place that dispensed his words. Perhaps it was simply the lack of the light, but just at this moment, the set of it troubled her. There was something not quite . . . kind about it.

  “If I were to speak to your father, Lady Rosamond,” he said, “do you think you could perhaps rouse yourself to an opinion of my suite? I know it is a little precipitate, but you see, even in this short time, I have come to adore you. If you were to do me the honour of accepting my hand in marriage, you would make me the happiest of men.”

  The dallying strategy had been far more successful than Rosamond had planned for.

  She felt a little dizzy—genuinely dizzy. Surely she was supposed to feel joyous, or at the very least relieved. This was, after all, the moment she had been raised to engineer. This was the point of . . . of . . . well, everything.

  The point of her.

  He had said all the right things. Adore, honour & etc. He hadn’t knelt down, but his trousers looked expensive and the flagstones were probably cold.

  Then why this . . . not even disappointment. This nothing.

  She had prepared a speech. It was perfect.

  And now she couldn’t remember any of it. “Y-yes.” She swallowed. “I will marry you.”

  “I am delighted, Lady Rosamond.”

  He stepped close and kissed her. Afterwards, he seemed to be expecting something, so she said, “Thank you. That was very nice.”

  And, in response, his mouth did the thing she didn’t like.

  He offered to escort her back to her mother, but she told him she preferred to wait a moment, so he bowed and withdrew. It was a little bit improper to be without a male escort at a ball, but she was afraid of drawing too much attention if they returned to the ballroom together. Of course, soon hers would be the name on everyone’s lips. She would be the future Marchioness of Pembroke, after all. But being the subject of gossip and the subject of attention were quite different things, and only fools didn’t recognise it.

  And, truthfully, she wasn’t quite ready to smile and be perfect.

  It was difficult to breathe, her corset pressing hard into her ribs with each too-shallow inhalation, and she felt achy, like she was coming down with a chill, except on the inside.

  Just for a moment, she wanted to be alone in the darkness and the silence.

  She gulped at the flower-scented air. Then she heard a rustling noise and spun round just in time to see Anstruther Jones emerging from the bushes, brushing leaves from his jacket, and holding a cheroot
in one hand.

  Her undergarments seemed to tighten round her like iron bands.

  “Sir,” she squeaked, “a gentleman would have announced his presence.”

  “And interrupt such a romantic scene?”

  She had the distinct impression she was being mocked, but there was no malice in Jones’s eyes, nothing unreadable or confusing about his mouth. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I can see that.”

  He came towards her across the terrace, his long shadow looming. For some reason, it didn’t frighten her. Perhaps she was simply too unsettled. She had thought him plain in the ballroom, and the moonlight did nothing to mask or gentle the irregularities of his face. It was confusing. Unhandsome men should surely repel attention, not arrest it.

  And yet . . .

  Or perhaps he was simply so ugly, she could not look away.

  That did not entirely explain why she wanted to press her fingers to the cleft in his chin. Feel the bump at the bridge of nose. Slide her cheek against the rough edge of his.

  She scowled. “It was a very creditable proposal.”

  “It was. And a very nice kiss.”

  “I would rather a nice kiss, than an un-nice one.” She wished she had something for her arms because his closeness was making her skin feel strange and prickly.

  He relit his cheroot, cast the match aside, and blew a cloud of smoke into the still air. “No kiss should be nice.”

  “And I suppose,” she asked with the haughtiest head toss she could manage, “you think you know all about kissing, do you?”

  “Enough.”

  A single word. And she couldn’t think of a single answer. After a moment or two, in which she felt hot and cold and cross all at once, she tried, “You know, you shouldn’t be smoking in front of me.”

  He started guiltily. “Sorry, do you want one?”

  “I don’t smoke.”

  “Do you want to?”

  Nobody had ever asked her that. She wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to smoke—it looked odd and it was assuredly pungent—but the opportunity to do it was exciting. And still more exciting was the sweet, sudden liberty of being with someone you didn’t care about. Like her queer half brother, Anstruther Jones was beneath her and irrelevant to her. She didn’t give two hoots about him, and she wasn’t expected to. She didn’t have to think about pleasing him or impressing him or acting in a proper and ladylike fashion.

  She could be whomever and do whatever she wanted. And right now she wanted to smoke a vile-smelling artefact. Because she could. “Yes,” she told him, and, without hesitation, he passed the cheroot to her. It felt unwieldy between her fingers, and even stranger against her lips.

  “Don’t inhale.”

  “But if I am not to inhale, what am I to do with it?”

  He made an odd sound, not quite laughing, almost like a gasp. “Pull the smoke into your mouth, then let it out again.”

  She did as directed, cheeks swelling and tongue burning as she struggled not to breathe or swallow. But it was worth it when she finally surrendered and the liberated smoke burst from between her lips in a thick, manly billow. She watched it dissipate into the night, felt oddly accomplished, and returned the cheroot to her mouth for another puff.

  “Take care,” said Jones, smiling, “it’s a bad habit.”

  “You mean unladylike?”

  “No, just bad for you.”

  “Then why do it?”

  He shrugged. “Because it feels good.”

  She handed back the cheroot, muttering, “Now I see why you have such extensive experience with kissing.”

  But that only made him laugh. “Kissing is never bad for you.”

  “What if you’re engaged to someone else?”

  “Then—” he cast the smoking remains of the cheroot to the ground and stamped it out “—it’s their responsibility to kiss you properly.”

  He was standing close enough to her now that the scent of wood and smoke and jasmine was drowning in the scent of him. Nothing she could quite describe—just the purity of skin—but somehow it made her tingle in unsuitable places. She tried to distract herself by looking at his lips instead: their generous, mobile curve, harsh and tender at the same time. “How will I know when I’ve been kissed properly?”

  “Miss Wolfram—”

  Heavens, but the man had no idea at all. “Lady Rosamond to you, sir.”

  “Do you want me to kiss you?”

  Her gaze swept up slowly to meet his eyes. Absurd, appalling creature, with his too-wide mouth and his too-long lashes, sun-streaked like his hair. “And what if I did?”

  “Well,” he said slowly, “Arkady told me it was bad etiquette to ever say no to a lady.”

  She didn’t really have time to wonder what it meant that he called Lord Mercury by such an intimate diminutive, because suddenly his body was pinning her against a trellis, and his frankly unnecessarily large hands were cupped against her jaw, his fingers sliding behind her ears into the tiny, shivering hairs left exposed by her clustered ringlets. Pleasure slid all the way down her spine, hot and cold and bright at once, and she heard herself make the oddest noise.

  Strange things, in general, were happening to her body.

  She felt heavy and light at the same time. And oddly . . . awake. As if every single bit of her was coming slowly alive, filling her with wildness and wild things, hissing snakes and clawing cats and hunger. Her hands reached for him almost instinctively, and so she rested them against his hips, relishing the taut, angular line of his flanks and waist. Her boredom-driven experiments at Miss Githers’s had lent her some appreciation for softer bodies, but this hard strength, she decided, was more to her natural taste.

  Lifting her chin, she leaned all the way up his body—close enough to feel the hot, heavy thump of his heart through his clothes—and put her lips against his. His fingers tightened in her hair as though he couldn’t help himself. What a mess she was going to look when he was done, and it felt so good.

  Power over a man. This man. So tall and strong and free.

  Though his mouth was surprisingly gentle, sweet beneath the last traces of smoke.

  The marquess had kissed her swiftly and quite hard, stamping her with his seal of ownership. Duty done.

  But Anstruther Jones was in no rush to claim her.

  He was . . . simply exploring her. Not conquest but seduction. And it was working.

  She could feel the seam of her lips surrendering to nothing at all but the desire to draw him deeper, to have more of this. This and him, and everything. This spangling, restless joy that made her bold and rough and eager.

  Things she had sensed, but only playacted at Miss Githers’s.

  His tongue, at last, entered her, warm and supple and not invasive at all, but when she pushed back, he yielded back, and suddenly she was deep in his mouth, and oh, oh, it was hot in there, hot and soft, all clinging velvet. This secret, waiting place inside him, like delving into the heart of a fig. So different to his body, which was nothing but hard lines pressed against her, and his hands, one tight in her hair, the other splayed possessively over her back.

  The width of his palms, the strength in his arms, the slowly developing crick in her neck all reminded her how big he was, how small she was in comparison. But she had been right in the ballroom: it didn’t make her feel fragile at all.

  Especially not when he gasped. Then groaned. This deep, harsh, entirely unabashed sound. Lust and longing and all for her. Because of her. And she was left shivering like a harp string, tuned to a perfect note.

  She never wanted it to end. Never wanted to play any song but this.

  They kissed like signalmen, messages written in flame passed back and forth between them. And when at last they stopped, surely hours or possibly days later, it was all Rosamond could do not to dig her fingers into the top of his buttocks and drag him back for more.

  Damn the man for being right.

  Kissing was not supposed to be nice.


  She drew in a few sharp, shallow breaths. She felt hot and squashed and dishevelled and . . . wonderful.

  And she had left his lips all wet and shiny—hers hers hers.

  He stepped away, leaving deep creases in her skirts, and smiled. Eyes never leaving hers. The dark slashes of his brows lifting devilishly. “You kiss by the book.”

  Laughter—utterly unladylike, utterly unnecessary—burst out of her before she could moderate or suppress it, and she clapped a hand across her mouth, banishing the last traces of his taste, the echo of his stubble. “If that is true, sir—” she gathered what was left of her dignity as she pushed past him “—you must favour exceptionally improper literature. Good night.”

  His answering laugh, just as warm as his embrace had been, curled around her as she made her escape.

  Anstruther Jones was in a queer mood that night.

  He accepted an invitation to Lord Mercury’s bed willingly enough, but once there, his behaviour was erratic at best. He was unnecessarily touchy, unnecessarily talkative, and kept trying to have Lord Mercury in positions in which he didn’t want to be had.

  It was increasingly hard to tell if they were fucking or fighting. And, while there was something a little thrilling about being overpowered and wrestled onto his back by Jones, there were some kinds of surrender he absolutely could not—and would never—allow himself to give.

  Jones’s grip tightened around his wrists. “Won’t you even look at me?”

  Lord Mercury shook his head as best he could with his face hidden against his upper arm.

  A sigh, and Jones let him go, cold spaces on Lord Mercury’s skin where his fingers had pressed. The bed springs creaked as he rolled away, and Lord Mercury opened his eyes to find the man sprawled out naked, his usually rather impressive cock limp between his legs.

  “I’m done,” said Jones.

  Lord Mercury groped for his dressing gown. He kept it close to the bed on the nights Jones visited. It was one thing to be naked when one fucked. Very much another to stay that way voluntarily, vulnerable and intimate with another man. “I thought you might be.”

  “Why?”

  “I saw you on the terrace with the Wolfram girl. Quite a seduction you mounted.”