Lord Mantaigne boxed and fenced with the best; rode the finest horses as hard as if the devil was on his heels when the mood took him and famously drove to an inch. He was a Corinthian and, if he cared enough to lead anyone, he could lead his chosen pack wherever he decreed they should go. Reminding himself of his usual light-hearted indifference to the world, he still felt the warmth of Polly Trethayne’s hand in his as they stole up the marble stairway together and was grateful not to be alone here this time all over again. Over the smell of long years of neglect he caught traces of soap and woman and fresh air, as if she had brought the scent of the spring itself here with her.
With his other hand he trailed an exploring finger through twenty years of dust and found finely tooled mahogany under his fingertips. It felt smooth and oddly warm under his hand, as if the old place was wistfully welcoming him home despite all he’d had done to it since he came of age.
On the top step they paused to gauge the silence. Tom felt her brace as if ready to rush into whatever trouble might be waiting, but he tried to convey the fact he was listening intently and they needed to gauge the dangers ahead before they dashed towards them. There; he heard a faint creak of distant movement on the other side of the state rooms from where they stood. He frowned into the darkness, knowing from bitter experience it was impossible to creep down the oak-boarded enfilade undetected.
‘The back stairs are made of stone,’ he murmured, as close to her ear as he could get so nobody could overhear.
He felt her nod, the whisper of a fine curl against his skin, and could picture her as vividly as if she was lit by half-a-dozen flambeaux. Despite the old clothes and her impatience with all things feminine she would look magnificent in her outmoded gown, but he was the Marquis of Mantaigne and she was a beggar-maid. He would have to fight his blazing attraction to a reluctant goddess and get on with whatever he had to do here, then leave.
Knowing his way by the uncomfortable memory of all the times he’d crept in and out of the servants’ hidden passageways about the house, he pulled her away from a board that always creaked and wasn’t sure if he was glad or disappointed when the door to the servants’ stair swung silently on its hinges.
‘We’ll have to go down to come back up,’ he warned her, so close to temptation he could easily breach the fractions of an inch between them and kiss her, if he wasn’t such a noble man and didn’t know he’d get his face slapped if he did.
‘Hurry up, then, we’ll die of old age before we get there at this rate.’
Fighting the seductive feel of her breath so near to his own ear, he could sense her lush mouth close enough to set about a sensory exploration. He’d not dreamed how much he’d like his lover to embark on such an intimacy until tonight and ordered himself to forget it again. He went down the steps in front of her, to stop her dashing into any trouble she found at the bottom of them and leaving him behind.
They were at the foot of them now and in the dark and echoing passage, built broad enough to get a horse and cart through to the vast kitchens and storerooms a great household once needed. Miss Trethayne gave a small sound of impatience and softly muttered, ‘Shame on you’, as their steps were softened by years of dust and detritus. His feet seemed to slide out from under him as he turned to listen to her in the darkness and whatever he’d slipped on shifted and tumbled him in a heap with Miss Polly Trethayne dragged on top of him by their linked hands.
‘Oof!’ he barked involuntarily and managed to shift her weight slightly as he got his breath back, hoping she wasn’t aware how delightful he found the feel of her curves against his winded body.
Not even the listening silence all around them could divert him from the delicious feel of nigh six feet of Miss Polly Trethayne lying prone on his torso. For a long moment it seemed as if she felt it too; a breath-stealing anticipation; an odd belief she was uniquely right in his arms. He heard an unsteady sigh, felt her heartbeat thud against his own ribcage. He reached for her, cupped her head with reverent hands and drew her down until their lips met in a breath-stealing, open-mouthed kiss that made his world shift and left him desperate for more when she raised her head and made a soft sound halfway between a mew of protest and a regretful moan for more, then she was wriggling frantically to get up and he must act the gentleman again, somehow.
Her mouth had been so wondering and curious, then eager on his in those few moment that he felt a new world open up, then be snatched away. ‘Be still for a moment,’ he murmured, certain he’d embarrass them both by acting on this foolish urge to keep her here if she kept thrashing like a captured mermaid in his arms.
‘No, let me go,’ she demanded breathlessly, and he hastily opened his arms as soon as he caught a note of fear in her whispered voice, shame rising in a mortified flush he was glad neither of them could see in this musty gloom.
‘Precious little point in us going on now, I suppose,’ he observed as carelessly as he could while counting his bruises as he tried to calm his errant body.
‘Thanks to your clumsiness,’ she informed him crossly.
‘Indeed, I’m sorry my foot slipped in the dark. You would have done better without me,’ he admitted grumpily, wishing she seemed as deeply affected by that hasty kiss in the dark as he had been, and frustration thrummed through him like a fierce gale.
‘Nobody else knows this place as you do,’ she said as if she had to give the devil his due, even when she didn’t want to.
‘A misspent youth,’ he replied as lightly as he could. In truth, he used to creep down in the dead of night to sneak food, hoping his guardian’s lackeys were too drunk to drag him upstairs for a beating.
‘I heard you were just a boy when you left, so you hardly had time to indulge in one here,’ she argued softly.
He really didn’t want to talk about this when he already felt so vulnerable to her, as if he’d had a layer of skin peeled off him and had let her too close after that unwary kiss to fend off her questions as he’d like to.
‘I was eight,’ he admitted flatly.
‘Poor little boy,’ she murmured.
‘Not as poor as Lady Wakebourne’s waifs or even your own brothers would be without their fierce protectors. Do they know how lucky they are?’
‘When we march them to their lessons every day and they have to do without the ponies they want to pay for them? What do you think?’ she whispered.
It seemed education came before riding for boys lucky enough to live under this roof nowadays and yet he didn’t hear a hint of self-pity in her tone. Tom felt something heavy threaten to move in his chest and remake him. Simply being here had threatened to un-dam a torrent of feelings he’d kept to himself since leaving twenty years ago and now this.
Appalled by the idea this woman might come to mean far too much if he let her, he did his best to wall that wild notion up behind my lord’s facade of careless man about town, for her benefit as much as his. She was the oddest sort of lady he’d ever come across, but didn’t deserve to be shackled to a fool like him if they were discovered lurking in the dark. He scrambled to his feet, brushing down his once-fashionable attire and wrinkling his nose at the feel and smell of dust and dirt under his touch once again.
‘Dashed midden,’ he muttered grumpily, then tensed as stealthy footsteps sounded on the stairs from the other side of the building. Grabbing Polly’s hand out of sheer instinct and a worrying urge to protect her at any cost, he dragged her behind one of the great pillars that held the weight of the cantilevered stairs above and whispered to her to keep quiet. He felt her fury at his presumption and squeezed her hand in what he hoped felt like an apology as well as a plea to do as he asked for once. His pulse raced at the contact of her skin against his once more, even as he wondered at himself for not feeling on edge