Page 58 of The Lady is Trouble
With a whistle-sigh, she perched on the edge of the mattress, took his hand in both of hers and closed her eyes. The initial rush of emotion sent the air from her lungs in a burst. The images were so disparate, she couldn’t credit them. Shadowy, vague, engulfing. Each a split-second review before another crowded in and knocked that one aside. She stepped into none, held herself from delving too deeply. A skill she had recently mastered, one she called skimming. A way to heal without leaving her shattered. She couldn’t follow the plan Julian had developed to grow the League, participate fully as she wanted to if she didn’t learn to manage the process.
To control the process.
Julian’s hand flexed, his fingers tightening around hers. “Piper…stop,” he whispered with what sounded like the last of his strength. “It’s starting to hurt.”
She blinked to find his gaze fixed on her, a drowsy, adorable—though she would never admit this—expression on his face. His cheeks were glowing with a healthy color.
She frowned. “Hurt?”
“Feels wonderful, like a warm bath. Cleansing. Then…too much.” He swallowed, his lids drifting low. “Like being tickled.”
Tickled?
A wry smile that let her know he was going to recover twisted his lips. “Forget I said that.”
“So, you like being tickled?” She clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Shall I add this to my list of items?”
“List?”
“For our night.”
He linked his fingers with hers, but his eyes remained closed, so he missed the scorching blush that hit her face as she imagined his naked body and what she would like to do to it.
“There’s a festival in the village. In two nights.”
And?
“Go with me,” he murmured, his voice on the buttery fringe of sleep.
She waited for him to say more…but moments later, he was lost to the world.
Crossing to the lone window in his room, she blindly searched the night sky. She was stunned. For the first time in memory, Julian had asked her to accompany him to an event. Nothing to do with the League. An invitation apart from the night she’d secured by twisting the proverbial arm behind his back.
He wanted to be with her. There had been a sincere timbre to his words, a tone he was too exhausted to hide.
Wrapping her arms around her body, she swallowed past the sting of tears and reminded herself of Julian’s words:one night, then you must let me go.
Heavens, how was she going to follow through on her promise?
Chapter 15
Nothing ever becomes real until it is experienced.
~John Keats
Piper suppresseda sigh and glanced at the hulking, straight-from-the-rookery types on either side of her. Finn lagged just behind, his demeanor as vigilant as she’d ever seen it. His dreams were troubling him.
She chased away the nip of fear and marched forward, a circle of torches, their glow a stain against the darkening sky, acting as her beacon. The village celebrated on the grounds of an abandoned chapel sitting atop the highest hill in the shire, whispered to be the birthplace of true love. The surroundings were what poets envisioned, and she wasn’t going to lethertrue love and his overly protective protestations ruin this night. Julian’s note telling her he’d meet her as he had to help prepare for the festival, was tucked in her corset, pressed quite inappropriately against her wildly beating heart.
After her return from London, erotic imaginings had begun to plague her dreams, nothing so melancholy as Finn’s. She woke with sheets twisted about her ankles, skin damp, lungs churning. She wanted to unleash her passion in a fury, knock Julian from his feet with the force of it. No matter their conclusion, no one could take her delicious memories from her. Julian’s lips grazing her nipple, finger delving, eyes locked on her as she glided over the precipice.
She returned welcoming smiles as she made her way into the boisterous crowd, vastly disparate from the leering ones in Ashcroft’s ballroom. A feast of cakes, pies, cheese, and bread covered a long table placed before the highest chapel wall. Barrels of ale, bottles of brandy and scotch kept company on the other. A trio of musicians sheltered beneath a towering oak played with abandon, to the delight of those dancing in a style Piper imagined best described by Jane Austen. Nothing so refined as a waltz in this delightful setting beneath the trees. No one was waiting for scandal and ruin, waiting for her to make a horrendous mistake.
Piper turned in a languid circle, the auras of the townsfolk transcendent, more beautiful than she ever recalled them being.
Then she saw him, and her heart melted, a soft cascade of emotion flowing through her.
Julian was settled on his knee next to an ale barrel, shirtsleeves rolled to his elbow, a waistcoat of the somber variety he favored clinging to his chest. He held a mallet in one hand and with the other, gestured for the barrel to be positioned on its side. Looking over his shoulder, not in her direction, he called out to someone standing at the edge of the forest. Simon stepped shyly into the circle of men. Her breath caught at the boy’s expression: equal parts hope and resistance. Julian beckoned him near, his smile tipping at the edges. Not until he extended the mallet, a peace offering, did Simon move close enough to take it.