A Secret in Her Kiss (10 page)

“That this is the one event I know my father will attend.”

Bennett’s eyes were shadowed blue and he studied her without speaking.

Confound it. Why hadn’t she laughed him off with a silly comment?

Another gentleman in the set took her hand.

Bennett didn’t need that tidbit about her life. His poems might have burrowed into her heart, but letting in the words and letting in the man were two very different things.

The dance brought them back together. She spoke before he could comment on her prior statement. “How are you enjoying the evening?”

“I’m sure you can guess.”

Wonderful, now she imagined intimacy in his blue eyes. It was simply camaraderie brought on by the shared situation.

She dropped her gaze to his lips. Her decision to seduce him into breaking his promise now seemed as juvenile as her stunt with the food.

Yet the desire he inspired was anything but.

His hand skimmed down her spine as he led her through a promenade. Could she entice him to break that promise, not for revenge, but for a pleasure?

“So is there an equivalent of this ball in Turkish culture?”

She couldn’t resist. “No. Most Ottoman women don’t mingle with men not of their families. They dance, but only in private.” It was wicked, but she loved the way his eyes darkened. She lowered her voice. “And it involves veils.”

He pulled her closer than was proper in the next turn. “Have you witnessed these dances?”

She cast him what she hoped was a seductive look as she switched partners. “I’ve danced them.”

The music hummed with the final chord, but Bennett didn’t release her hand. In fact, he forgot to bow to the other couple before dragging her from the floor.

“Where is your father?” he growled.

But of course, her father was nowhere to be seen, having disappeared to the card room after they greeted their host.

“You will stay within my vision.”

“You are my chaperone then?” she asked with a laugh.

But rather than dispute her lighthearted comment, he inclined his head in agreement.

Soon Mari found herself in the novel situation of attracting male interest, but her glowering chaperone rejected most of them. Tension built in him as each new man approached, and ebbed as they scurried away.

“He’s far too shifty,” he whispered as another gentleman approached.

“He’s a rector!”

Bennett frowned. “Then he should know better than to look at you like that.”

Instead of asking her for a dance, the good rector asked one of the neglected women near Bennett.

“So am I going to dance with anyone else this evening?” she finally asked, hiding the secret thrill his possessiveness sparked.

Bennett’s hand slid down the back of her arm to the edge of her glove. His breath tickled her ear. “We don’t know who we can trust.”

“Mr. Tomosap was hardly a threat.”

“He’s an archaeologist, is he not?”

Mari nodded. “Yes, but if you think I am in any danger from one of my father’s rivals, he’s deluded you. He hasn’t had any rivals in a long—”

A woman careened into her.

Mari’s foot snagged on the hem of her dress, tearing the flounce and entangling her feet. Bennett’s fingers wrapped around her waist before she could fall.

Miss Suzanah Potts, however, wasn’t so fortunate and tumbled to the ground. A glare marred her horsey face before it melted into a mournful pout. “Oh dear, how clumsy of me.” She held out a hand to Bennett and waited.

Bennett’s hands remained on Mari’s waist. “Are you all right?”

Mari nodded.

His thumb rubbed a tiny circle on her back before he released her and hauled Miss Potts to her feet with a quick yank.

Miss Potts sputtered, then straightened her dress and stalked off.

Mari grinned. “Miss Potts’s father is an extremely wealthy shipping magnate.”

Bennett frowned at another approaching male. “I hope her father has a better grasp on steering.”

A small bubble of laughter escaped before she clapped her hand over her mouth.

“Thank you,” Mari whispered, distracted by the novelty of having someone defend her.

“My pleasure.”

His words danced along her spine, warming her body. “I should go pin this hem before I trip all over myself. Or all over you.” She swallowed at the thought of being splayed over him. Her breasts pressed into his chest. Her lips inches from his.

Perhaps she shouldn’t pin the dress.

Bennett frowned. “Or fall all over the next man you dance with.” He offered her his arm.

She rested her hand on his sleeve, trying to ignore the corded muscles beneath. “You needn’t accompany me. I doubt villains are lurking in the ladies’ retiring room.” And she needed to cool off before she made a fool of herself. Her flushed cheeks could be attributed to the heat in the room, but the thrust of her nipples against her bodice might need more explaining.

He shuddered. “I have no desire to be left to the tender mercies of that school of piranhas.”

“So now we will disappear together. At least after you leave Constantinople, the women will have something new to torment me with.”

“Does that bother you?”

She tossed her hair and grinned. “Never.” Yet she couldn’t ignore the lie in her words. If she didn’t care what these people thought, why was she wasting her time with Bennett in a stuffy ballroom? Perhaps the retiring room would be deserted and she could coax him into kissing her.

Or she could kiss him.

But then she remembered the strength in his poems. What would she do if he rejected her? What if she threw herself at him and he kept his promise and didn’t respond?

Mari sighed. It appeared she wouldn’t have the chance to find out. A solid wall of satin, taffeta, and silk blocked the designated room. Some women had given up entering altogether and tugged on their hair and bodices in the hall.

Bennett glanced down, misinterpreting her sigh. “Make it a simple extraction mission. Retrieve the pins and retreat. I’ll wait for you around the corner where I won’t be spotted.”

“Then what?”

“We can slip into the ambassador’s study down the corridor and you can pin your hem there.”

“Isn’t that cowardly?”

He stared down his nose at her. “No, simply superior enemy avoidance.”

She chuckled. Oh, it was far too easy to become accustomed to this friendship. She sobered. Even if Bennett had some interest in her, he intended to return to England.

And she refused to go back there.

She weaved through the women and retrieved a dozen pins. She kept her head down and no one even noted her presence.

“Success?” Bennett asked.

She bowed and displayed a handful of the shiny pieces of metal. “Mission accomplished, Major.”

He opened a door and led her into the study. No lights had been provided in the large room, no doubt to discourage wandering guests. Bennett strode over to the mantel and lit a few candles. A far too lulling glow filled the room. Several of the more dramatic strains of a Scottish reel survived the trip up the corridor to linger in the room.

She stared as Bennett leaned against the mantel, the candlelight smoothing the hard planes of his face. Suddenly, it was far too easy to see the man from his poems. A man who’d once been challenged by his sergeant to a chicken-plucking contest. A man who had given his own horse to pull the cart of his company’s women and children when their mule had died of exhaustion.

“Pins. I need to pin,” Mari said, redirecting her thoughts to safer things.

The right side of Bennett’s mouth quirked. “That is the plan.”

His plan, perhaps. Hers currently involved stripping entirely.

She laid the pins on a table and bent to begin repairs but didn’t make it more than a few inches before her undergarments jabbed her in the ribs. She came up coughing. “Confounded stays.”

Bennett folded his arms across his chest. “That’s always been my opinion of the garment.”

Her only other option was to hike her skirt up about her knees so she could reach the tear. “Perhaps we were a bit premature in discounting the services of a maid.”

Bennett frowned severely, but his eyes twinkled. “Nonsense. My plans never go awry.” He reached past her and plucked a pin from the table. He dropped to one knee at her side and lifted the hem of her skirt.

“Eek.”

He glanced up, his expression mischievous. “Eek? I haven’t even jabbed you with my poor tailoring skills.”

Her legs throbbed, but not from any pin. “Do you have much experience repairing women’s clothing?”

He slipped the pin into the edge of the tear. “No, but on campaign I think I repaired everything else a time or two.” He selected another pin. “No, come to think of it. I have repaired a dress. There was this little girl we discovered outside of Arroyo who’d had a doll with a torn dress . . .” He mended her flounce with a series of quick jabs.

His poem about fields of broken playthings. “You fixed it for her?” Mari prompted when he failed to continue.

“Yes.”

The poem had not been a cheerful one. Dread filled her. “What happened to her?”

“She was too near starvation when we found her. Her heart had grown too weak.” He didn’t look up.

Tears for the little girl and for Bennett clogged her throat. Dirt had smudged that page. She suddenly had a clear mental image of a lone Bennett digging a grave. She threaded her fingers through his hair. “You tried to save her.”

He stood. “
Trying
to save someone doesn’t count for a whole hell of a lot.”

“It does to the person you are trying to protect.” She rose up on tiptoe and kissed his chin.

His chest rose and fell with a tortured breath. “Mari, I gave my word there would be no repeat of what happened at the inn.”

But now she was certain that he wanted her and just as certain that she wanted him. He was noble, brave, and ruthless. Hardened in a way that begged her to try to soften him.

“And I remember disagreeing with that vow. Why do your desires count more than mine? For once, I’m giving the orders.” She traced her finger over the furrows on his brow.

She had learned from drawing that the essence of a subject lived in the details. Where some artists saw a butterfly, she saw intricate patterns, complex combinations of colors, bold configurations of beauty and strength.

In this case, blond hair highlighted by long marches in the sun. A silvery scar on his cheek. A mouth that thinned or quirked more on the right side than the left. Bennett was all details, details which curiosity and desire compelled her to explore.

“Mari—”

She covered his lips with her hand. “I didn’t ask you to speak.” And if he said anything she might lose her nerve.

She slid her hand down his cheek and neck, slowing at the clean line of his jaw. She examined the breadth of his shoulders and the contours of the muscles corded beneath his wool coat. When her fingers brushed the collection of medals on his chest, she paused. She tapped each one. What had these cost him?

He caught her hands. “Foolish military nonsense.” The rough tones of his voice rumbled in his chest. “A bunch of generals who thought inventing medals more important than seeing to their men.”

He actually believed that. And she might have yesterday, but no longer. “I’m sure you did something bullheaded and brave for each one.” She tugged her hands free and backed him against the wall, summoning her daring. “Now if you move again without my leave, there will be consequences.”

The side of his mouth lifted. “Consequences?”

She continued her downward exploration over the hard planes of his stomach, her new feeling of power and sensuality growing with each caress. “Terrible ones.”

“Ah, then I had better behave.”

She rose on tiptoe and gently nipped his ear. “My thoughts exactly.”

He shuddered as her fingers passed the waistband of his trousers and caressed the front of his thighs. Emboldened by his reaction, she circled her arms around his hips and skimmed her fingers over the forbidden planes of his backside. She trembled at her audacity but couldn’t stop.

Each ripple and swell on his back fascinated her—the long valley of his spine, the hard angles of his shoulder blades. Her breath stuttered in her lungs. Heavens, she’d thought this exploration would assuage her curiosity? Now she wanted to give the same treatment to his arms, to his hands, to his sides, his legs . . . to that entirely too tempting bulge straining against his breeches.

She laced her hands around his neck to remain upright.

“There cannot be a repeat of last night.”

Mari growled.

“But there are quite a few things we didn’t try, aren’t there?” Bennett’s voice was half laugh, half groan.

“Kiss me,” she whispered.

“I distinctly recall doing that at the inn.”

“But there are at least eleven different kisses that we have not tried.”

Bennett caught her waist. “Eleven?”

Embarrassment heated Mari’s face. “I read it in a book.”

“A book. What book?”

Had she really just confessed to reading naughty books? “I don’t recall. I read so many books.”

His fingers danced across her ribs and she squirmed. “No tickling.”

“Fine.” His fingers lightly stroked the swell of her breasts above her neckline. He paused at the cleft between them. “What book?”

“Some old Indian text,” she managed.

He leaned back so he could see her more clearly. “The
Kama Sutra
? You’ve read the bloody
Kama Sutra
?”

She blinked in surprise. “You’ve heard of it? I studied it in Sanskrit.”

“A few passages made the rounds while I was at Oxford. And what do you mean studied?”

“There were some things that intrigued me.” She summoned her courage. If she was going to seduce him she intended to hold nothing back.

His finger resumed tracing the neckline of her gown. “Such as?” His finger dipped past the edge of her dress, passing a scant half inch from her nipple.

“It lists several places where one lover should kiss another.”

“Did any in particular interest you?”

Even with her new determination, there were some things she’d never considered saying out loud. “You mentioned one yesterday on our way to sketch.”