Unfinished (Historical Fiction) - By Harper Alibeck Page 0,35

forge a new social strata. Wracking her brain, she searched her social inventory for poor men married to rich women.

She knew none.

Perhaps she should settle for a chihuahua and dress it in little overcoats.

She could name it James.

Or John.

Esther's butler stepped into the room as if conjured by a spirit. “Miss Stone? You have a courier visit from your father's law firm. A Mr. Hillman.” The butler glanced at the clock. It read 10:22.

“Please send him in.”

The man who entered Esther's parlor was more Yeti than human, with crisp frost on his whiskers. Lilith nearly laughed and cried out in disbelief all at once. “James! Whatever happened to you?”

He seemed surprised by her question, then reached up to touch his mustache. A chiding laugh filled the room. “I didn't think, Lilith. I just started walking and – ” he caught her eye, exhaling slowly, an unbreakable look piercing her and filling her with warmth and expectation. “Here I am.”

“Here you are, indeed, half frozen. You look like a sideshow spectacle.”

“You've attended sideshows?” he mocked, eyebrows nearly to his hairline.

“I've – oh, stop. Get yourself before the fire. Reeves, please fetch Mr. Hillman some tea.”

“I'd like something stronger, if you have it,” James asked, now shivering as he warmed. Lilith poured him two fingers of Scotch and handed him the highball glass, which he drained in one gulp.

She wanted to throw her arms around him and warm him, but he would just as likely chill her. Scotch and a roaring fire would do more for him now than she could. As James crouched before the fire, Lilith arranged her thoughts and emotions, knowing exactly why he was here but uncertain how the next few minutes would – or should – unfold. How a hostess ought to behave with a man she’d invited to her friend’s home to make love was not a predicament she had read about in any of mother's etiquette books.

And “predicament” was hardly the correct word.

Reeves entered the room, deposited the tea tray, and left quickly. Had Esther told him of this tryst? A small chill of shame shot through Lilith. The servants would gossip. Word would get back to her own home's crew, and perhaps one would snitch to her father. Earlier in the evening, she might have cared more. James would depart tomorrow and by the time idle whispers reached the Stone home he would be boarding the train, off for a steamer journey to a land that might as well have been the moon for all Lilith cared.

Watching James sip the scorching tea and warm his hands on the porcelain cup, Lilith cleared her throat nervously and asked, “Are you ridding yourself of the chill?” Formal, as always, her voice and words felt so stilted, yet she could not break out of her habit. Even with this man, who opened her heart and teased her mind and who would leave her for a life's journey that could kill him.

All they had was this. She needed this night, needed the memory they would create, to feed her for the coming months, or keep her sane and even and to give her strength as she moved forward.

More than that, though, she craved him. A tight, polite shell so carefully cultivated by her father and her mother's mores, social graces ingrained in her, served no one in this moment. Yet there it was, suffocating her.

He nodded. “I'm getting warmer.” Smoldering eyes met hers and the heat that radiated through her was unconnected to the fire. Breath quickening, Lilith's hand floated to her collarbone, not to quell a pattering heart but, instead, to calm a flush of lust that screamed within her, willing her to kiss him, to push him back on the ground and take him within her, a compulsion she could see played out in her mind's eye. That the scene was only in her imagination—and not on the carpet under their feet—was thanks to force of will and the gracious training that apparently served her somewhat, after all.

He stood and closed the distance between them with two large steps.

“Lilith.”

He whispered it like a prayer.

And their kiss was the answer.

The room was white. Each blank wall offered freedom and virginity. A new beginning, a blank slate. Lilith could be anyone tonight, anyone including herself. Shocks of excitement and need took the place of fear and doubt. She took James' hand and led him, wordlessly, to her private room.

Cherry furniture filled the latter half of the room, opposite