Page 12 of Seducing a Stranger
Another astonished sound broke his intent concentration, this one behind him. From his crouching position, he turned his neck to watch a woman’s windmilling arms fail to balance her before she crashed down upon him like a felled tree, toppling them both to the grass.
Morley swam in a sea of skirts and petticoats, taking a slap to the jaw for his troubles, though he was fairly certain she hadn’t meant to strike him.
The woman draped across his lap writhed and wriggled, apparently as surprised as he. He attempted to gather her up as one might a child, one arm behind her shoulders and the other beneath her knees, but she didn’t seem capable of holding still enough for him to manage.
“Upon my word,” she exclaimed from behind mountains of silk. “I’m frightfully sorry! Are you hurt?”
Morley opened his mouth to assure her he was unharmed, but she didn’t wait for a reply.
Her next sentence was spoken in one breath. “I’m forever ungainly, clumsy, my sisters call me, and in a place such as this it’s rather impossible not to look everywhere at once and I was honestly attempting to look nowhere at all and you’re rather dark—” She finally crested her skirts and wrestled them beneath her arms to look at him. She took a breath to amend… “No, not dark. Dazzling.”
Morley blinked down at her, suddenly wishing he’d ever thought to steal a moment from crime reports and newspapers to crack the spine on a book of verse.
Because the woman in his arms was a poem, and he hadn’t the words to describe her.
His hold of her became suddenly very careful. Delicate, like one would hold a teacup in a lady’s parlor rather than the tin mugs at the Yard.
“Oh,” she said breathlessly, as if discovering clarity. “It’s you. You’re who I’ve come looking for.”
Even through his building confusion, some strange part of him wasas gladshe’d—quite literally—stumbled upon him as she seemed to be.
He shook his head, trying to dislodge the sensation.
As Morley always did when out about his nocturnal business, he adopted a bit of his childhood cockney accent. “Do I know you?”
The lanterns painted the shadows of her ridiculously long eyelashes across cheeks that could have been chiseled from the whitest of Roman marble. Those lashes fringed wide, dark eyes two sizes too large for her delicate features. The effect intensified her dramatic expression as she seemed to take him in with identical wonder.
“Yes, you’ll do rather nicely, I think,” she breathed, apropos of nothing. Her voice, alternately husky and sweet, seemed incongruous with this place. There was temptation in it, but no sin. Innocence, but also desire.
She leaned forward on his lap, and he became very aware that he held her like a man held his bride when crossing the threshold.
The thought terrified him, and yet he couldn’t seem to let her go.
“Which one are you?” she asked as though to herself as she conducted a thorough examination of his features. “I can’t think of any biblical hero you’d resemble…and none with a mask, besides. I like a bit of mystery.”
He cocked his head at that. Biblical? This was all lunacy. He neither knew this woman nor did he want to. If she was a prostitute, she was a bloody good one, but he was no customer. He should lift her to her feet and send her on her way. He’d work to do and—
The soft scrape of her fingers against his shadow beard froze him in place. She watched her own hand with a dazed, almost unfocused gaze as she discovered the line of his jaw with a featherlight touch before cupping it in her small palm.
The tender curiosity demonstrated in the motion unstitched something hard within him.
“No…” she whispered. “No, you’re no hero.”
He could do little else than hold his breath, his every sense hanging upon her next words. What would be her verdict, he wondered? Would she compliment or condemn him?
“You’re an angel, aren’t you? An archangel, perhaps. Or a fallen one? A warrior…” she decided. “But… for which side?”
“I’m no angel,” he warned. “I’m nothing but a shadow.” Morley hated to disappoint the fanciful woman, hated to dispel whatever magic she was weaving through him with her touch. But it was better he told the truth. Better for them both.
“How ridiculous of me, I beg your pardon. I’d like to say that I’ve been caught up in all this fantasy, but it’d be a lie. I’m like this all the time.” At this she gave the ghost of a giggle, and the sound was more pleasant than the rush of the fountain beneath which they’d fallen. “You’re a very solid shadow, sir, if I may say so.” Her gaze finally focused to resolute. “How much?”
He frowned. “How much?”
“How much?” she encouraged meaningfully with a thrust of her sharp chin. “For you? The—er, footman told me to select any one of the Stags of St. James who were not previously engaged. And I’ve decided upon you. I want to make love to you—or rather, I want you to make love to me. But only i-if you don’t have other women—er—plans. I mean, that is, prior engagements.”
“Prior engagements?” he echoed.
Her hopeful features fell into a petulant pout. “Did someone already make an appointment at Hyde Park for tonight?”
