A Masquerade in the Moonlight - By Kasey Michaels Page 0,68
could feel the heat of her through the fine lawn of his shirt. “I have better questions, Donovan. What are they to you? Why are you so persistently seeking them out when there are much more important lords and ministers lying thick on the ground all over London who might better assist you in your mission of peace between our two countries? Why, Stinky isn’t involved in government at all. What do you have to gain that you’re so worried for the welfare of these five men? What secrets do you wish to keep hidden?”
He slid his hands onto her waist, slowly drawing her closer against him, his passions fueled by this game of cat and mouse they were playing, the realization that, in this one young woman, he perhaps had met his match in the fine art of the double-deal. “I give up, Marguerite. You keep your secrets, and I’ll hold fast to mine. Just, please, have a care before you go too far.”
She released her hold on his cravat and slipped from his grasp before he could respond. “Agreed! And now, Donovan—if you don’t mind—I will leave you, and this time I have no intention of being distracted. You may merely bow to me in passing if we should happen to meet again, but it will not be necessary for us to converse. Do you understand?”
“You’d like me to pretend you don’t exist,” Thomas answered quietly, recovering his composure as rapidly as she. “Somehow, as we’re both moving in the same very limited circle, I believe your request impossible. Besides,” he added, winking at her, “you don’t want me to, do you? You can deny it, you can even shout from the rooftops how much you loathe me, but your heart won’t be in it. Will it, Marguerite?”
She drew the hood back up over her hair, the material throwing her face into shadow. “Again you’re wrong, Thomas Joseph Donovan. You see, I have no heart. I did once, but it was broken some time ago and proved impossible to repair. Perhaps, if we had met at some other time, some other place? Well, it might have proved interesting.”
Thomas slowly advanced toward her, one small step at a time, unwilling to let her leave him, unwilling to lose what he had not yet quite found. “Interesting? Oh, yes, my little Marguerite. And exciting. And pleasurable. Meaningful. Even lasting.”
“No more lasting than a spring snow.”
“Ah, aingeal, how you wound me. Aren’t you the least bit curious?”
“Not in the slightest.” She backed up another pace.
“Really? Haven’t you lain awake, like I have, wondering what we would be like, you and I? Two rogues, who might tame each other.”
“Heyday. Listen to the man. He calls himself a rogue. I call him a cork-headed, delusional blockhead.”
“Two like spirits,” he continued just as if she hadn’t spoken, still advancing toward her, “delighting in the foibles of our fellowman and daring enough to defy any rule in order to get what we want.”
“I know what I want, Donovan, and it isn’t you.”
He went on, undaunted. “Two hearts, two minds, two bodies that fit together like a hand slipping into a custom-designed glove—”
She glanced behind her, measuring the space between herself and the shrubbery. “Stop this, Donovan. I swear to you, if you don’t stop I’ll do you an injury.”
“Naturally. We’d fight, Marguerite,” he pushed on, “bite and scratch at each other like cats in a sack, but our loving would make it all worthwhile. Think about it, aingeal. Think about it. God knows, I have. Think about the loving—the chance of love.”
She held her hands out in front of her, as if warding him off, warding off his words. “I have no time for this, Donovan!” she protested, shaking her head as she continued to back toward the shrubbery and the safety of her grandfather’s mansion. “I have no time for you. Don’t you understand?”
Thomas went very still, his ears attuned to a movement some twenty yards away, at the end of the drive that led to the street, his every sense—formerly directed toward Marguerite—now alerted to the threat of discovery. Without a word, he motioned for Marguerite to be silent, his eyes narrowed as he attempted to pierce the darkness for the revealing outline of a body.
“What is it?” Marguerite whispered, laying a hand on his arm. “What did you hear?”
And there it was, the human shape he had been looking for. Pressing a hand over Marguerite’s mouth, he grabbed her at the waist