a perfect gentleman, no matter who or what demands his attention.”
“There,” the gentleman said, and at last his hands fell away. The front of the smock sagged loose. I shrugged out of it as fast as I could, wadding it up into a ball.
“Excuse me.” I ducked a curtsy and began my escape to the hamper, but Mrs. Westcliffe cut me short.
“A moment, Miss Jones. We require your presence.”
I turned to face them. Armand was smiling his faint, cool smile. Mrs. Westcliffe looked as if she wished to fix me in some way. I raised a hand instinctively to my hair, trying to press it properly into place.
“You have the honor of being invited to tea at the manor house,” the headmistress said. “To formally meet His Grace.”
“Oh,” I said. “How marvelous.”
I’d rather have a tooth pulled out.
“Indeed. Lord Armand came himself to deliver the invitation.”
“Least I could I do,” said Armand. “It wasn’t far. This Saturday, if that’s all right.”
“Um …”
“I am certain Miss Jones will be pleased to cancel any other plans,” said Mrs. Westcliffe.
“This Saturday?” Unlike me, Chloe had not conceded an inch of ground. “Why, Mandy! That’s the day you promised we’d play lawn tennis.”
He cocked a brow at her, and I knew right then that she was lying and that she knew that he knew. She sent him a melting smile.
“Isn’t it, my lord?”
“I must have forgotten,” he said. “Well, but we cannot disappoint the duke, can we?”
“No, indeed,” interjected Mrs. Westcliffe.
“So I suppose you’ll have to come along to the tea instead, Chloe.”
“Very well. If you insist.”
He didn’t insist. He did, however, sweep her a very deep bow and then another to the headmistress. “And you, too, Mrs. Westcliffe. Naturally. The duke always remarks upon your excellent company.”
“Most kind,” she said again, and actually blushed.
Armand looked dead at me. There was that challenge behind his gaze, that one I’d first glimpsed at the train station.
“We find ourselves in harmony, then. I shall see you in a few days, Miss Jones.”
I tightened my fingers into the wad of the smock and forced my lips into an upward curve. He smiled back at me, that cold smile that said plainly he wasn’t duped for a moment.
I did not get a bow.
• • •
Jesse was at the hamper when I went to toss in the smock. Before I could, he took it from me, eyes cast downward, no words. Our fingers brushed beneath the cloth.
That fleeting glide of his skin against mine. The sensation of hardened calluses stroking me, tender and rough at once. The sweet, strong pleasure that spiked through me, brief as it was.
That had been on purpose. I was sure of it.
Chapter 11
I was dreaming. It was a good dream, one I’d had nearly every night since coming to Iverson, and I liked it.
In my dream I was heavy at first, heavy as one of the massive rocks that made their rough stair steps down the cliffs of the island to the sea. I felt the weight of me sinking into the earth, and it was as if I would sink forevermore.
But then I changed. I became buoyant—immediately, fantastically buoyant, without any weight at all. I rose in a mist, in smoke, silvery curls that shone translucent in the moonlight, rising, rising. Free to flow beyond windows and walls. Free to descend into the unknown depths of a very dark woods.
I was in flight. The air pushed by an owl’s wings, the breeze off the sea that ruffled bracken and oak leaves. I could go anywhere, high or low or as far as I wished, but what I wished was to float through the open door of a cottage nestled in those woods, a place that was also dark. Also unknown.
In the cottage was a bed, and in the bed was Jesse.
His eyes were closed; his lips were parted. I sank closer to him, to the heated contours of his uncovered skin, his chest, his shoulders, up to his peaceful face. I touched him, and his hands lifted to touch me back. He inhaled deep and I became the oxygen that nourished him. I was inside him. I was outside him. My lips were on his and our kiss pulled me back into weight, but not as a stone.
As me. As Lora with Jesse in his bed.
Our arms locked, our bodies pressed into one. His hair a golden sift against my throat, his unshaven cheek on mine, deliciously, wonderfully rough. The sheets knotted around