A Masquerade in the Moonlight - By Kasey Michaels Page 0,51
matter how important you think your mission in England is to your government, I suggest you leave here at once. Pack up your belongings and stow yourself away on the next ship heading to Philadelphia. It served you once, it may save you now.”
“Run away? And leave you, my darlin’? Impossible.” He began to steer her toward a narrow, twisting corridor, away from the crush of bodies.
“Wait!” she protested, realizing what he was about. “We can’t leave Lord Mappleton and Georgianna.”
He continued along as if her words had meant nothing, taking her farther from the light of the chandeliers and the safety of numbers. “Why shouldn’t we leave the two lovebirds alone? That is what you’re doing tonight, isn’t it? Setting his lecherous, money-mad lordship up with your little blond beauty—not that I can say I’m overly enamored of her eyebrows. You see, I already know you invited him here this evening. Quite the matchmaker, aren’t you?”
Marguerite planted her feet firmly, refusing to move another inch. She was human enough to acknowledge she was thrilled Donovan was handsome, intelligent, and exciting—but did he have to be so bloody smart to have immediately seen what Lord Mappleton could not? “You are one for imagining things, aren’t you, Donovan? Why ever would you think that I would have any interest at all in throwing Arthur and Georgianna—a young woman who foisted herself on me for the first time only this evening, by the way, and whom I am not quite sure I like—at each other’s heads?”
“I don’t know, darlin’. For the sport of the thing?” Thomas suggested coolly, stepping closer to her as she backed up until she was against the wall, figuratively as well as literally. He tipped up her chin with his crooked index finger, then rested his other hand against the wall beside her head, effectively blocking her only avenue of escape. “There couldn’t be any other reason, could there?”
Another reason? Damn him! Another man—any other man—would be content to see her as a silly matchmaker. Why did he have to look deeper? Marguerite suppressed a shudder born in reaction to Thomas’s closeness—both to her and to the truth. “You can be excessively disagreeable, Donovan,” she told him, shifting her eyes rapidly from side to side as she attempted to look into his without allowing him to see into hers and read the sudden apprehension she felt.
“But you love me anyway, don’t you?” he drawled, his teeth very white beneath his mustache.
He was so close to her. So very close. She was having trouble thinking, difficulty pretending. Was that what happened to people who wove a web of deceptions—they reached a stage where they could no longer recognize or remember the truth? “On the contrary. With very little urging, I could learn to loathe you with some intensity.”
“Liar,” he said, his voice husky as he lowered his head toward hers. “We’re alike, you and I, so I know when you’re not telling the truth. From that first night, Marguerite, we’ve known each other, been drawn to each other. Why don’t you simply admit it? I have. You couldn’t wait until tomorrow night to see me again, any more than I could wait to see you. And now that we’re together you can’t wait for me to hold you, to kiss you, to—”
“Of all the conceited, insufferable—” Marguerite dislodged his finger with a defiant toss of her head. She looked both right and left, assuring herself no one else was in the hallway, and they were not in danger of being discovered. And what if they were drawn to each other? He was right. She had lied to him earlier, lied to herself, believing that she hadn’t been longing to see him, to have him near her, mouthing blatant lies telling of his “love” for her, even allowing him to glimpse her as she went about her business—and glorying in the risk of discovery.
Was that so terrible?
No.
It was exciting.
He was exciting, and she may as well admit to it.
“Well?” she questioned him in exasperation when he continued to stand there, grinning down at her as if he knew just what she was thinking. “I don’t have all night for this nonsense, Donovan. Are you going to kiss me—or are you merely going to talk about it?”
“Patience, aingeal.” She watched, entranced, as Thomas’s smile disappeared, leaving his expression solemn, his eyes heavy-lidded and intense. “‘Though I am always in haste...’” She heard him through the rush of blood in her ears