He stared at her for a long moment, as if waiting for her to continue. And then, when she didn't, he gave a little shrug and said, "I know how that goes, believe it or not. Being boxed in."
She attempted a laugh. "You? What can't you do, Sanburne? You act on your whim all the time."
"And you fight yours," he said. "But not happily, I think."
Panic fluttered in her breast. The strength of it seemed out of step, illogical. He was turning her own trick back upon her, and getting better results for it than she had. She could not stand to be laid bare. Not by him. Not like this. There was no way to escape him—she didn't even have the room to lift her hands to cover her ears. "You don't know me. Don't presume to think you do. I am
not
a romantic, Sanburne. Unlike you, I face consequences if I'm caught."
He leaned very close, and his words came out like a dare.
"What
consequences? Here, on the rooftop? What are you so afraid of, Lydia?" He paused. "Are you afraid that I'm right? Or are you simply afraid of me?"
I
am afraid of what I will do with you, if you keep encouraging me.
She turned her face back to the skyline. Enough of this. Enough of it!
"Nothing to say? Very well." He rose to his feet.
"Where are you going?"
He reached down for her hands. She let him draw her up, simply for fear that his pull would send her lurching over the edge if she resisted it and he then let go. "Words are all very nice," he said, "but I agree with you: there are more powerful ways to make a statement. Close your eyes."
"What? Why?"
"Close them," he repeated calmly.
"I will fall!"
His hand slid down to her waist. "Have a little faith in your body for once. Your brain will forgive you for it."
"Faith? You don't believe in faith."
"Not true. I said it had to be earned. And I will earn yours, Lydia. Close your eyes."
Oh, she knew what he was about. And she would not do it. She would be the woman she had described to him: a woman of dignity and restraint. Dignity was a cold word, perhaps. She had liked once to think of herself as passionate, in love with her books, drunk on history, enamored of the wide world, of all the peoples within it. To be studious was to be the opposite of boring, she had believed; it was to be so interested, so madly curious, that one simply could not wait for the answers to arrive on their own: one had to go chase them in the only manner available.
But her
eyes
had closed. Just once, then. On the roof. It was easier like this—as if she were dreaming. He was right: no one watched, so far from the ground. No responsibility for her actions, here, only this submission to imagination. She could believe this was a fantasy, his lips on her throat, his tongue tracing the curve of her jaw. It had been so long since she'd done something rash and selfish. If she did it once now, it did not mean she would do so again. The nip at her jaw made her gasp and tighten her hold on his shoulders. She could not imagine why cold baths might be more appealing than his touch on her breast. She wanted to admit that to him. She knew what his reaction would be: he would laugh, and praise her. He was a mad creature, who no doubt said
up
when everyone else said
doum,
just to be contrary. But he liked this side of her—he
liked it,
this side she tried to put away, which produced words she should not think, much less speak.
Could
not speak, except in the company of someone like him. George had asked her to speak freely, but he had not really wanted to listen to her. Sanburne did. And that was what made him such a danger.
That was what made him so attractive.
His hand pressed against her thigh. He was pulling her skirts up, his fingers looping into material, inching it upward bit by bit. Through her stockings, she felt a cool breeze wash over her calves. "You really
must
let me seduce you, Miss Boyce." He spoke against her lips, in a voice that had gone hoarse. "We would have such a good time of it, you and I."
She knew a brief puzzlement. "What is this, if not seduction?"
"A very pleasant overture."
Her lips curved. "Are all rakes so punctilious with their classifications?"
"I expect they lack the scientific inspiration for it." His mouth settled over hers, his tongue playing at the seam of her lips. She let him coax them open. His tongue tasted sweet, not at all like a mistake. His body shifted, to pin her bunched-up skirts against the wall, and his fingers skated past her garter along her thigh, a hot, delicate pressure through the thin fabric of her drawers. She had never felt another persons touch in these places; she had barely touched herself there. Such parts were allegedly inviolable. But her body did not object. It was greeting his strokes with a more than friendly clamor.
His fingers found her where she felt most liquid: they cupped her between her legs and gave her another source of balance. With the roof at her back and his hand between her thighs, she felt firm, grounded, free. Her hips pushed forward; his palm pushed back harder.
Wanton,
she thought distantly, clinically. And then, as he found the slit in her drawers, and his fingers touched her bare flesh, an ache moved through her that redefined her idea of wantonness: he had found the source of it, there. In another moment—if he kept rubbing her like that, his finger so insistent, prodding at a part of her whose name she could not even bring herself to speak, but which he
touched,
which he apparendy knew even better than she did— "Ah," she gasped.
"Good," he whispered against her mouth. "Louder."
His fingers pushed
into
her now—a slight burning, the smallest discomfort, which somehow lent the stroking of his thumb, higher up, a delicious edge. Her body bucked once, as a great rush of feeling came over her, pure feeling, untainted by any thought that could be framed by language. And then everything in her, caution, concern, it all splintered, and her hips were lifting in a contraction that made her knees go. He caught her on his hand, his other arm wrapping around the back of her hips, holding her as she bit into his shoulder.
I am undone.
After a long minute, in which her breathing began to steady, it came to her that she would have to pull away eventually. The prospect of meeting his eyes loomed before her, horrifying, humiliating. But . . . was it? To learn a secret about oneself—a secret like this, so basic and elemental, but powerful enough to knock her sideways and leave her shaking—and at her age. Had she played the coward any longer, had she decided to turn away from him, she never would have known it. Strangers, men behind pulpits, scowling grand dames, the whole proper, polite world would agree: her body should remain a stranger to her. But his body had been responsible for introducing them. He was not proper, and thank God for it.
Tears pricked her eyes, and she drew a shuddering breath. No, she would not regret this.
He nudged her, a soft suggestion. His hand detached itself from that tender place—drawing an unwilling gasp from her—and then came to her shoulder to push her gently back. "Lydia," he said. "You're going to believe me now, when I tell you you're beautiful."
She sucked in a sharp breath. She would look him in the eye, she thought. She would ask him to tell her again, as she watched his eyes. And then, maybe—
A scream came from below.
She jumped. "Was that Mrs. Ogilvie?"
Sanburne turned, his face in profile to her, his focus on the direction they had come. "I think so."
Another scream came. Now the sound of something breaking in the garret. What did Mrs. Ogilvie have to break? So little.
"Stay here," Sanburne said. In one long stride, he crossed to the ledge, put his hands to the dormer frame, and swung out of sight.
She started after him, only to abruptly remember that she was far above the ground, with no wings to catch her. On a shuddering exhalation, she stepped back against the dormer. Her limbs hummed and quivered, as if she were some wind-up toy slowly dwindling to a stop.
Well.
With shaking hands, she smoothed down her skirts. She would have thought a rake might understand there were better ways to woo a lady than to seduce her, then strand her on top of a building.
She focused on the curtains across the way and counted her breaths. Quick, shallow. The sky was darkening now, the light dimming as clouds moved in. He had touched her
there.
She had let him. It had been— glorious.
When wet, the roof would probably make for very tenuous footing.
She had reached the count of twenty when another yell came, shrill and feminine. "You'll kill him!"
She bit down on her knuckle. Her future flashed before her: a skeleton scattered across the eaves, dead because the viscount had been foolish enough to get himself killed in the garret, while she remained stuck here in fear. A very fitting end to seduction: no doubt the moralists would approve.
"Stop it!"
All right, that did it. She forced herself to take one step forward. At the next, her joints congealed. She'd had so many nightmares in which she was falling, falling, with nothing to stop her, hands reaching out from darkness but curling shut as she grabbed for them. She could not walk toward the edge. Trying to fly would have been easier.
Coward.
A gust of air escaped her. Very well. She could crawl, then. She lowered herself to the warm slate and inched forward, little by little. It seemed to take an eon to reach the edge.
If I die in St. Giles, Sophie will never forgive me. George will be horrified.
She Startled herself by laughing. What an optimist she was, finding cause for cheer in the prospect of her own death.
Once at the roof's end, she turned herself around, struggled to her feet, took hold of the edge of the dormer, and stepped onto the narrow ledge. Five steps to the window, if she could take them. Her fingers felt rigid where they clutched the wood frame.
A pigeon landed near the space she'd only recently occupied. Its beady
eyes
fixed on her as it strutted about. She wanted to flap her hand at it, but her hand would not loosen its grip. So what if the bird jumped about like an acrobat? It should not feel superior. She was bigger, and well equipped to give it a scare.
The thought was so ridiculous that it loosened her limbs. She sidled very quickly along the ledge, but the sight through the open window stopped her dead: Sanburne had Reggie up against the wall—one hand at his throat, the other pushed over his nose. Reggie was making wheezing noises, and Mrs. Ogilvie was clawing at Sanburne's arm to no apparent effect.
The woman spotted her and came hurtling across the room to yank her inside. Lydia landed on her hands and knees; Mrs. Ogilvie grasped her by the waist and pulled her up. "Stop him," she said hysterically. Her face was bloodied and her eye was swelling from the impact of a fist. "He's killing Reggie!"
Lydia cleared her throat. Sanburne's face was perfectly expressionless, but his outstretched arm trembled with the force he was exerting to crush the other mans throat. "Sanburne," she called sharply.
He did not seem to hear. His silent, flat focus made a chilling contrast with Reggie's dwindling gasps. Mrs. Ogilvie moaned and shoved her forward. She stumbled on the hem of her skins, her
eyes
on the viscount. He had a fresh cut on his cheekbone, but the other man's shirt was covered in blood, and his nose sat oddly askew—broken, no doubt. "Sanburne, stop it." Her throat felt very tight. "Let him go!" She lifted her hand to his arm.
At her touch, his elbow bent quite suddenly, like a snapped wire. The other man thudded to the floor. Mrs. Ogilvie knocked past her, falling to her knees by her husband's side. As a retching gasp burst from his throat, she said to Lydia, "He's mad!
Mad!
I told him I didn't need any help!"
"He hit you." The viscount spoke the words with no intonation.
"It's not your concern, is it?" the woman cried. "Oh, get out of my place!" She wrapped her arms around Reggie s torso and pulled his back to her chest.
The corner of Sanburne's mouth quirked, like a man confronted with proof of his most cynical predictions. He drew a long breath, his nostrils flaring with the force of his exhalation. Lydia felt numb. How had she ever thought him shallow? No man with two faces could be counted a simpleton. If anything, it was the classic mark of a villain.
His attention turned to her. Whatever he saw caused that peculiar smile to shift. The curve of his lips assumed a spiteful edge. "Speechless," he said. "That's a first. Feeling a bit of sympathy for Moreland now, are you?
The tone of his voice intended no kindness. He spoke as though
she
were to blame. A sick feeling rose in her throat. He had touched her so gently. He had spoken as though he understood her, appreciated her. She had been so sure, for a few minutes, that her instincts were right about him—Sanburne turned on his heel. "Come," he said over his shoulder, as if calling a dog to heel. A springer spaniel, in fact. She followed him slowly out the door, batding a mounting sense of humiliation.
I did not reveal myself to him.
Had she? No. She had not admitted herself enamored of his attentions. And if he had been able to tell—as surely he had—then what of it? Her flesh was only that: dumb matter. She could not control its response.