longer than he thought—never long enough, though. Her gloved hands came to his, clutching them on her cheeks, and he wanted to tear the fabric from their hands, to feel her heat.
He almost did. Might have, if she hadn’t whispered at his lips, her tongue coming out in a little maddening lick, as though she couldn’t stop herself from taking another taste of him. “You always taste of lemon—even when there are no candies in sight.”
He groaned, going hard as steel and pulling her tight to him, aching for her to be closer, loathing her voluminous skirts and the cage of her corset beneath the fabric of her gown—if he had his way, she’d never wear a corset again. She wouldn’t wear anything that kept him from her softness, from her curves. In frustration, he lifted her up onto her toes. “You’re wrong. It’s you who tastes sweet.” He caught her tongue and gave it a suck before releasing it and adding, “Everywhere.”
He kissed her deep, rewarding the way she slid her hands over his shoulders and down his chest, exploring him. Her fingers traced over the leather straps of his knives down the quartet of blades like stays over his ribs and she pulled back, just enough for her eyes to meet his in the darkness. “You came armed.”
He grunted. Then, “Attacks come from everywhere.”
One of Hattie’s blond brows arched. “Even in Mayfair ballrooms?”
He hauled her closer, knowing it was mad. “Especially in Mayfair ballrooms. Seeing you in this dress was an assault.” His fingers curled at her back, clutching the edge of the wine silk, and for a wild moment, he considered what might happen if he ripped this dress from her and laid her down in the crisp leaves at their feet and gave her everything she’d asked of him.
His cock throbbed its approval as she said, uncertain, “You like it?”
I like you.
The thought shattered him, as devastating as the dance had been, and he released her as though he’d been singed. Her eyes went wide, and he loathed the surprise and fleeting disappointment in them as they backed away from each other, extricating themselves from the touch.
He watched as she shook out her skirts, pretending not to notice the swell of her breasts, even as he felt like a proper ass.
After a long while, he said, “I owe you another waltz.”
She shook her head. “I think I shall be done with waltzes for now.” She paused. “And it seems, perhaps, you should be, as well.”
It wasn’t a question. She didn’t expect him to answer. He didn’t expect to answer. And still, for reasons he would never understand, he did. “The man who sired me insisted I learn to waltz.”
She straightened slowly, carefully, as though she had just discovered she was in the presence of a rabid dog. And perhaps she was. “The man who sired you.”
“I didn’t know him,” he said, knowing he couldn’t tell her everything and wanting to tell her everything just the same. “Not for the first twelve years of my life.”
Hattie nodded, as though she understood. She didn’t of course. No one did. No one could—except the two other boys who had lived the same life. “Where were you—before?”
The stilted, careful question came as though she’d wanted to ask a thousand of them, and that one had been the one that had fought its way out. It was an odd question, one Whit hadn’t expected. He’d always thought of his life as being split in two—before the day his father arrived and after. But it hadn’t simply been the day he’d met his father. And he didn’t think of the time before. He didn’t want to remember it.
So he would never understand why he told Hattie the truth. “Holborn.”
Another nod. As though it were enough. But suddenly, it didn’t seem that it could ever be enough. He reached a hand into his pocket, extracting one of his watches, the gold warm at his palm as he added, “My mother was a seamstress. She mended the clothes of sailors coming off the ships.” When there were clothes to be mended.
“And your . . .” She hesitated, and he knew the dilemma. She did not want to say father. “Was he a sailor?”
What Whit would have done for his father to have been a sailor. How many times had he dreamed it—that he’d been born of his mother and a man who’d left to make his fortune, with a miniature of his wife and