Page 81 of Dukes All Night Long

He let her set the pace while he walked nearer the street. Many shops, like grocers and booksellers, were dark for evening. Seamstresses and tailors displayed closed signs, though dim light filtered from back rooms where they worked to fill orders.

“Do you enjoy being a tailor?” Zara asked. It was difficult to imagine him, with his strong jaw and thick hair, bending over hems and buttonholes.

“It’s better than that,” Silas said as he indicated a butcher’s shop. “Especially since all my education centers on performing. What of you? Is your family on stage elsewhere?”

Cats stalked mice in the alley near the butcher’s shop, keeping to the shadows to avoid dogs growling over bones. If she were back in Hampshire, on her brother’s estate, those animals would be well fed and cared for—but they would be in a cage.

“No.” She forced herself to share with him as he had with her. “My mother hired a tutor to improve my speaking voice. He began by teaching me to sing. Then he introduced me to opera, and…” She waved her hand to encompass the rest of the story.

Silas covered her hand with his. “Do they come hear you sing?”

“No.” The memory stung, but his quiet presence made the story easier to tell.

“My father died, and my brother wished me to marry a man who was wholly unsuitable.” One sentence summed up months of ugly fights and threats.

The present glossed over her past and the very real possibility that she would have been bartered to a man who was wealthy and titled, yet still an ogre. “My tutor helped me escape.”

“Edgar,” Silas said.

“Yes.” Edgar had risked his reputation to carry her away to France for a dockyard wedding, meant to save her. “We spent the next year in Italy with his friends while I improved my voice.” When they returned, she was a worthy soprano—and disowned by her family.

As they reached the halfway mark across the bridge, strains of a familiar folk tune wrapped around Zara’s shoulders in a friendly embrace. She didn’t realize she’d quickened her pace until Silas began laughing.

“I’m sorry.” She didn’t bother hiding her grin. “This has always been one of my favorites.”

The street buskers were performing for a small crowd, all lit by candle-lantern footlights. She and Silas arrived for the last verse, which still gave her time to tap along to the melody. Her mother would be horrified at how her skirts swayed.

Mother would be horrified by many things in her life.

The song ended, and Silas guided her to the front of the crowd. “Let’s see what they do next.”

The players broke out in another lively tune.

The young violinist’s bow skipped over the strings, and the accordionist stomped his foot so that it served as a drum.

Another young gentleman played spoons in rapid-fire accompaniment.

The singer managed to rattle the lyrics in tune and in time while keeping rhythm on his guitar.

After a moment, Silas bent and whispered to the spoons player. The man nodded and smiled a wide, gap-toothed smile. In response, Silas removed his cravat and shoved it into his coat pocket before shrugging out of the garment altogether.

He offered it to Zara. “Would you?”

She draped it over her forearms, grateful for the warmth. Even with her cloak, the night was cool. But there was something else. The wool carried his scent, a mix of green forests and summer rain.

She’d first noticed during their rehearsals. The smell of him teased her closer and made it easy to fake a romance. It also made it difficult to remember that their connection wasn’t real.

Warmth bloomed low and deep in her belly and curled upward and outward until her fingers tingled and her toes curled in her shoes.

She knew what it meant. Her marriage to Edgar may have been unconventional at first, but love had developed between them. Sex had been often enough and satisfying enough, but this feeling had always required coaxing. She’d enjoyed his touch, but she’d never ached for it.

Not like she did now.

A cheer rang out, and Zara pulled herself from her reverie and watched as Silas found the rhythm and began to dance. As he grew more confident, he rested his hands on his waist.

His broad chest didn’t hold her attention for long. His feet clattered against the pavement. Heel. Toe. Heel—heel. Toe. Cross. Toe. Switch. Repeat.

The crowd clapped in time, laughing as the band played faster.

Silas matched them each time. His legs swung like a marionette’s, but his shoulders stayed straight—at least until the last turn, when he stretched his arms wide for balance as sweat darkened his hair and steps matched the spoons rattling in the background.

Her heart beat to the same tattoo.

The music slammed to a stop, and so did Silas. Zara shouted and clapped, at one with the crowd, seeing little but his charming smile and the mischievous glint in his eyes.

He bowed both to the crowd and to the performers and then returned to Zara.

She returned his coat. “I had no idea you could do that.”

“Traveling performers learn all sorts of crowd-pleasing skills.” He mopped his brow with his cravat, then draped his coat over his left arm and offered her his right. “Shall we?”

“Just a moment.” She opened her purse and removed a respectable number of coins, which she dropped into a hat on top of an already sizable collection.

“You tell your man he’s welcome anytime, lass,” the grizzled guitar player said. Wispy curls of gray hair escaped in clumps from under the brim of his hat. “He helped feed us for the week with that jig.”

“He isn’t—” The rest withered on Zara’s tongue. “I’ll let him know, sir. Goodnight.”

It wouldn’t do any harm for the old man to believe she and Silas were more to each other than they were. The trouble would come if she began to believe it herself.

Silas was waiting near the road, and she took his arm as they resumed their walk home. His muscles shifted in enticing ways beneath his shirt sleeve. “They would happily take you away from me.” She heard the words and realized too late how they sounded. “From the opera.”

“Why would I move to Bath only to do what I’ve already done?” he said.

Zara was embarrassed to admit she knew little of his background. “I knew you performed with your family, but you traveled?”

“Archer’s Players.” He winked. “Original, isn’t it?”

“I guess take a bow takes on a different meaning.”

Silas barked a laugh. “It does at that.” He stared into the darkness, his face soft with memories. “We traveled to the country villages in the northern territories while the weather allowed, and when we wouldn’t interfere with harvest.”

“And in the winter?” Zara hated thinking about him freezing in a draft caravan.

“We’d rent rooms on the coast, or we stayed with Daisy if she had room.”

“Is Daisy your father’s sister?” she asked.

“Mother’s. She always made our stays an adventure for me. I came to wish we could stay forever.”

They were two blocks from home. Her tower pointed toward the stars.

Silas checked the street before they crossed. Halfway across, thundering hooves and rattling harness drew Zara up short. A coach careened around the corner, threatening to topple. Giant horses bore down on them.

They ran to the other side, and the heedless driver continued his reckless journey.

“Blasted, bloody fool,” Silas shouted after the driver. “Goddamned reckless bastard.” He gathered her to him and continued swearing, stringing together nonsensical curses.

Zara’s fear subsided. She was warm and safe, circled by his strong arms and cradled against his muscled chest. His scent was stronger and mixed with the earthy smell of sweat from his earlier exertions.

He drew a deep breath and leaned back without releasing her. “My apologies.” He caught his bottom lip between his teeth. You must think me worse than common for using that language in front of a lady such as—”

At this moment, the last thing she wanted to be was a lady. “I think it was well deserved, and I’m grateful you care for my safety.”

He leaned closer by increments, offering escape should she choose it. It was a waste of effort. She couldn’t have moved if her life depended upon it.

Silas’s breath warmed her cheeks. “I care more than I should.” His nose brushed hers, coaxing her to tilt her head.

Her lips shaped beneath his into a kiss that deepened until their tongues were teasing each other. He tasted of mint and sin, and she resented the need to breathe.

“We shouldn’t be doing this here,” Silas rasped.

Zara’s corset tormented her breasts as his breath teased her skin. Proper women, especially those barely out of widow’s weeds, didn’t kiss men on street corners, and divas never entangled themselves with their leading men. It was neither sensible nor proper.

His groan traveled to the most scandalous parts of her body. She didn’t want to be sensible, and she hadn’t been proper since she’d left her family behind.

She wanted this man.

Grateful that the night hid her blush, she drew a deep breath. “Then perhaps you should take me home.”