He grabbed her other wrist and struggled with her, losing his hat and pulling her closer and closer until her body was flush against his and their faces were only a hair’s breadth away, the need burning in his eyes.
‘How do you explain this, Flynn?’ Her voice shook. ‘I am not throwing myself at you now, am I?’
He did not release her right away, but held her, his breath rapid, his flesh so hot it seared her senses. Then he released her and ran a ragged hand through his hair.
Rain battered their uncovered heads and streamed down their faces. Slowly, however, the flames of their anger and passion fizzled in the damp air, as if turning to ashes. To gloom.
Rose whispered to him, her words competing with the rain. ‘What are we to do, Flynn?’
He did not answer, but his eyes shone an intense blue in the dim light, and the rain curled his usually neatly combed hair. He looked boyish. Vulnerable. He reached for her hand.
‘We left our gloves back in that room,’ he said, rubbing his bare thumb against her palm.
‘Oh.’ Rose closed her eyes at the exquisite feel of his touch ‘.I must retrieve mine. I have no other pair.’
He nodded and they started back, trudging through the puddles forming in the gravel of the walk. When they reached the small structure, he entered it alone and came out with both pairs of gloves.
They walked back in silence, Rose holding his arm.
‘‘Tis odd the orchestra is not playing,’ Rose said as they neared the gazebo. The paths were deserted. The supper boxes empty. ‘Everyone has left.’
They hurried to the gazebo door. Inside the servant was sweeping the floor.
His broom stilled when he saw her. ‘Miss O’Keefe, your father told me to tell you to ask the gentleman to escort you home, for Mr Hook told everyone to go home because of the rain and so your father did.’
Rose nodded. ‘Thank you, Mr Skewes.’
The thin wiry man grinned. ‘He said as long as it was the fellow that was here before—’ he nodded to Flynn ‘—he’d not worry about you and neither was I to worry.’
‘You are kind,’ she said. ‘We had better be off, then.’
She and Flynn walked back out into the rain.
There were a few other stragglers walking to where the hackney coaches waited beyond the gate. Rose’s cloak felt heavy from the soaking rain, and she shivered.
‘You are cold.’ Flynn started to unbutton his greatcoat.
‘No.’ She put up a hand. ‘Your coat is as soaked as mine. I will be fine once we are in the carriage.’
They waited in a queue until it was their turn. Flynn lifted Rose into the hack and called out her direction to the jarvey.
They sat closer together than was wise, given how easily passion had sprung up between them. Rose shivered again, more from frustration than the chilling damp, but he unfastened her cloak and bundled it out of the way. Then he shrugged out of his greatcoat and wrapped an arm around her to warm her.
She snuggled close to him and rested her head on his shoulder. The passion that had nearly driven them to a frenzied coupling had settled into something more intimate and infinitely more sorrowful. In silence they held each other all the way across the new Vauxhall Bridge, up the roads skirting the river to the Strand, and into Covent Garden.
When the vehicle stopped on Langley Street, Flynn wrapped Rose in her cloak again and helped her out. Asking the jarvey to wait, he walked her inside her building.
‘Will you be all right?’ He put his hand on her arm as they reached the top of the stairs. ‘Your father will not be angry?’
Rose shook her head. ‘Remember, he said he would not worry if I was with you.’
His fingers tightened around her arm.
He dropped his hand. ‘I must go.’
She did not move.
He started to turn away, already grasping the banister, but he suddenly turned back to her. She ran to him, and he caught her face gently in both hands, kissing her, a slow, savouring kiss more steeped in sadness than in the fires of passion that had earlier burned them both.
Without speaking another word, he released her and hurried down the stairs.
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