Make a spring of your body to propel him into the air.”
“Don’t listen to her. Don’t fold at the waist,” Jack murmured into Marianne’s ear as they sat at the edge of the mat. “Don’t place a foot in his middle and propel him into the air. Let him lie on top of you instead.”
She snorted. “That wouldn’t be much of a defense, would it?”
“And why would you defend against me?”
“Many reasons,” she said with a sigh.
That didn’t sound like a bad thing, but he stood and offered Marianne a hand to help her up. Instead of rising to her feet, she took hold of his hand, then his arm at the elbow, and pulled him down again. One of her feet came up to catch his belly, not as a kick but as balance, and instead of his body flipping over hers, they again collapsed in a heap.
“N-not quite how I meant it,” said Miss Carpenter.
But if their instructor said anything else, Jack didn’t notice as he looked into Marianne’s face. He noticed only the swiftness of Marianne’s breathing, the wicked curl of her lips. The softness of her breasts beneath his chest and the length of her limbs entangled with his.
And she thought she had to defend against him.
“Had we best be done with today’s lesson?” he asked, addressing his words not to Miss Carpenter, but to the lovely woman who had tugged his body against hers.
“I think we had, yes,” Marianne replied, a hitch in her voice.
That was that. And a wise thing, too. Regretfully, slowly, Jack levered himself up from their prone position and helped Marianne upright. After he thanked Miss Carpenter for her instruction and bade good night to the others, he and Marianne exited the ballroom. “I’d best be off to my hotel, so I can be ready to work at first light.”
She didn’t quite look at him. “Not yet. There is more work I need of you here. Tonight.”
“Truly? There cannot be a vegetable in London left unchopped.”
Still, she didn’t look at him, and the candles in the corridor sconces left her face in shadow. “It’s not chopping vegetables I have in mind.”
Oh. Oh. He thought he understood her meaning, but decided to toy with her a bit. “Indeed? Could you be more specific?”
“Come on, Jack,” she said with some impatience. “I know you liked lying on top of me. I—could tell.”
“Of course I liked lying on top of you. Remember? Manly urges.”
“Are you still having them? The manly urges?”
She tipped her face to look up at him, and he couldn’t be flippant anymore. Not with her eyes on him, so beautifully familiar in shape, so vulnerable and seeking. They’d grown apart; she was offering them a chance to be together again.
Even if he hadn’t had manly urges—which, by God, he did—he’d be a fool to say no.
“For you?” he replied, smoothing back a wisp of her dark hair, loving the feel of her, real, here. “Always. Forever.”
She laced her fingers with his, then, and pulled him through quiet corridors and through the door that separated the main part of the academy from the servants’ quarters below. They descended the narrow steps to the basement kitchens, silent under the weight of wanting that filled the space between them. Every stride was too short to cover the distance remaining; every breath was too long to wait to touch her more.
When they reached the kitchens, still and empty for the night, Jack was following her blindly, his eyes wide against the pressing darkness. His footsteps rang heavily on the flagstone floor, obvious and blundering. Marianne guided him through the warren of small rooms, through a doorway, then closed it behind her. She struck a flint and tinder, then lit a lamp to reveal a tiny chamber beside the butler’s pantry.
“What room is this?” Jack asked, eyeing the simple bed, the screen, the washstand on which Marianne had replaced the lamp.
“It’s mine,” Marianne replied. “I’ve this chamber, and the housekeeper and butler have a great large room at the other end of the basement. The other servants are up in the attics.”
“This is where you live?” Curious, Jack studied the space. There was nothing to show this room belonged to Marianne, or indeed to any particular person. Besides the clothes hanging on hooks behind the screen, it might have been a bare chamber left unused.
“No. The kitchen is where I live. This is where I sleep.” She reached her hands out to him. “And where we