“Because I am just like you, my sweet.”
She nearly laughed at how wrong he was. How shocked he would be if he understood what that truly meant—that she came from a poor family with no property, no prospects. “Catholic, you mean? You’ve already said so.”
“I am anything you want me to be. What do you want, Kate? What do you want?”
Every word dried, unspoken, on her tongue. Every thought flickered and disappeared like the sparks flying through the night sky. It was extraordinary. In all her life, no one had ever asked Kathleen O’Leary what she wanted. She was told with great frequency what she should do or must accomplish. But never had anyone posed the simple, straightforward question to her. No one waited so avidly to hear her answer.
And she discovered, in the long breathless moments that stretched between them, that she did not know the answer.
Until now, her life had been about what she didn’t want. She didn’t want the hardscrabble workaday life her parents endured. She didn’t want to marry a dockyard clerk and crank out baby after baby, year after year. She did not want—and saints in heaven preserve her—to be ordinary.
Now here was this extraordinary man, promising her anything.
“You haven’t answered me, Kate,” he reminded her, gently prodding. “What do you want?”
“For this night to go on forever,” she blurted out, and even as she spoke, she realized it was the most honest thing she could have said. From the moment she had donned the Worth gown, she had felt like a different person. Someone better, more important. Of course, it was all an illusion. She knew that. But the magic was as strong and seductive as Dylan Kennedy himself.
“I like that answer.” He whispered the words into the shell of her ear.
He was going to kiss her, she realized. He moved slowly, deliberately. Not with the clumsy urgent hunger of other men who had tried to kiss her. He knew what he wanted and took his time getting it. He placed his knuckles softly beneath her chin and directed her gaze to his. Then he bent from the waist, almost formally as if making an elegant bow. His lips touched hers lightly, so lightly she wasn’t sure she had felt it at all. She sensed the subtle warmth of his breath, scented with brandy, and an exquisite intimacy thrummed between them, so poignant that all of their lighthearted banter could not mask the fact that she grew suddenly thick-throated with yearning.
He kissed her as though nothing existed but her. As though she were the only other living soul on earth. As though he existed for the sole purpose of kissing her.
She had never believed she could be moved by a man’s touch, or even by his kiss. Certainly on rare occasions there might have been a flash of excitement when a suitor stole a peck on the mouth, but what she experienced in Dylan Kennedy’s arms went far beyond mere titillation. Her heart was engaged by this man, and he roused emotions more poignant and moving than anything she had ever felt. A longing seared her, and even as she reveled in his kiss, she knew why this experience was so overwhelming.
He was showing her, in this single, perfect crystal of a moment, all that she wanted, and all she could never have.
She surrendered to him utterly, softening and growing pliant in his arms. Here was a man who had probably held royal princesses in his embrace, handled blooded horses and business deals worth a staggering fortune.
In one single moment she wanted it all. She wanted to experience his life of bold, glittering excess. She imagined awakening in an airy, light-filled chamber with a gentle swish of organdy curtains. Breakfast would be served on bone china by white-gloved servants, and they would spend the day surveying their beautiful estate. In the evening they would attend a musicale, visiting with friends who laughed easily, made lighthearted conversation and admired the famous Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy.
Long after he stopped kissing her, she kept her eyes closed and her face angled toward his. Only the silken rustle of his laughter startled her back to reality. She blinked like a dreamer, awakening to find him laughing down at her.
“Where the devil are you, Kate?” he asked.
“Why should I tell you?”
“Because I want to go there.”
Feeling sheepish, she stepped away from him. He tilted his head, peering shamelessly down her bodice. She smacked him on the shoulder.
“Sorry,” he said, though he didn’t sound at all contrite. “I was just checking.”
“Checking what?”
“To see where that blush of yours starts. I’m having all sorts of ideas.”
This was how wealthy, privileged people behaved. This delicious flirtation with an edge of the forbidden. And she wanted it. Oh, how she wanted it.
A spark drifted past, alighting on her bare arm, and she brushed away the hot sting. A frisson of fear touched her like the ember. “I don’t think that strayed from a chimney pot,” she said.
“Could be a leftover from last night’s blaze at Conley’s Patch,” he remarked.
She frowned. Conley’s Patch was known as the devil’s acre, a lowly ramshackle neighborhood of saloons and brothels on the south side. How would a man like Dylan Kennedy know the first thing about the Patch?
Disconcerted, she turned to look out at the city. The sun had set hours before, but an orange glow painted the sky to the west.
“I think the fire’s spreading fast,” she said, worried.
At that same moment, the French door banged open. The wind slapped it against the building and one of the panes shattered. Lucy blustered forward and grabbed Kathleen’s arm.
“We’ve got to go,” she said. “We must get back to Miss Boylan’s before the bridges get too clogged with traffic.”
Kathleen pulled her arm away, and the cord of her reticule slid off her shoulder. “But—”
“There are rumors of a fire.”
“The fires aren’t just rumors,” Dylan said calmly. “There’ve been six a day and more because of the drought.”
Lucy regarded Dylan with narrowed eyes.
“Don’t worry, Miss Hathaway,” he said smoothly. “I was not behaving offensively.”
“Why not?” she asked. “All men do.”
Kathleen guessed she’d had a run-in with Mr. Higgins. “We really must go,” she said, reluctantly agreeing with Lucy.
“Yes, we must be getting back. Miss Boylan was quite insistent,” Lucy said. “Our curfew is ten o’clock.”
Even Cinderella had her midnight, Kathleen thought. But Cinderella was nothing but a story in a book, a dream of a magical evening that could never come true. Kathleen lived in Chicago, fires were troubling the city and it was foolish to cling to the masquerade any longer.
But she did have her private fantasies. She wanted Dylan Kennedy to think back on this night and remember the mysterious, sophisticated young woman who had kissed him with forbidden intimacy.
And so, in full view of Lucy, she wound her arms around his neck and planted a long, impassioned kiss on his mouth.
Chapter Three
Just like that, she was gone.
But Dylan could still taste the phantom sweetness of her, lingering on his lips. He could still detect the pliant warmth of her mouth pressed to his.
He could still feel the hard heat of the passion she inspired, and he was compelled to wait out on the balcony until he was fit for mixed company. Blowing out a breath of exasperation, he ran his finger around his collar, yearning to loosen his cravat. He couldn’t, of course. A gentleman never appeared with a less than perfectly tied cravat.
It