“If I can’t be there . . .”
“You’ll be there.”
“Yes.”
He swept her up in a hard, passionate kiss. She kissed him back without hesitation. She tasted of tears and desire. She tasted like everything he’d ever wanted.
Before the kiss took fire, he dragged himself away. The effort nearly killed him. He hated that they parted now, although he knew there was no choice.
Then tomorrow. . .
He raised her hand to his lips in a final kiss. “Go to the retiring room and wait for Cassie.”
She nodded and slipped out without a backward glance. Ranelaw left the library and located a footman, pressing the note and a coin into his hand and requesting that he find Miss Cassandra Demarest. He sent another footman to arrange for the carriage to wait at the back gate.
How bizarre for such a disreputable rogue as he to protect a woman’s honor.
Don’t get used to it, man. You’ll be her ruin before you’re done.
The churchyard was empty when Antonia slipped through the gate, wearing a black hooded cape that turned her into just another anonymous female figure on the crowded streets. The evening was gray and cold, discouraging anyone from dawdling in the tumbledown graveyard. Even the weather conspired to grant her one last glimpse of ecstasy. She felt like a thief, stealing this single night of rapture before she returned to life as Antonia Smith.
After tonight, she’d go back to Bascombe Hailey and stay
for as long as Mr. Demarest cared to employ her. Once he no longer had a use for her, she’d endeavor to find a position as companion to some reclusive old lady in the provinces or a middle-class family with aspirations to gentility. Somewhere that promised no contact with high society, including the decadent marquess.
She’d spent last night tossing in her bed, tortured by how quickly her restricted but safe little world unraveled. Tortured by whether she could risk meeting Nicholas. Now when Johnny’s return made the possibility of her unmasking loom ominously close.
Eventually, weary of chasing grimmer and grimmer forecasts around her troubled mind, she’d risen to write to Cassie’s father about Johnny’s arrival. Once Mr. Demarest sent instructions for Cassie, Antonia would leave London. If she didn’t hear quickly, she’d make arrangements on her own.
She’d devote the rest of her life to being good. Tonight she would be wicked.
Perhaps that was why she’d succumbed so swiftly to Nicholas’s blandishments in the library. Or perhaps it was that he’d rushed to her rescue with a chivalry she still found difficult to credit.
When she realized he knew about Johnny, she’d wanted to crawl into a ditch and hide forever. His personal connection with her seducer made her stomach heave. She’d braced for Nicholas’s contempt, but he hadn’t played the hypocrite. Her heart had fisted with emotion when he’d so immediately taken her part. That heart had finally broken when he’d drawn her into his arms and held her while she cried for all the vile mistakes she’d made.
For a brief interval, he’d made her believe she was no longer alone against the world. That she had a stalwart and formidable ally in the Marquess of Ranelaw.
The memory of his strength shoring up her weakness had fundamentally changed the way she thought about him. And made it impossible to deny him—or herself. He’d made her believe that her reputation was secure with him. Not just hers, Cassie’s too.
She was here now because Nicholas had kept her safe, because he’d been kind.
Don’t lie, Antonia. You’re here now because you want him and you always have.
She was half an hour early, which was dangerous. The longer she remained in public, the more likelihood of someone noticing her, remembering her. But she couldn’t bear to loiter around the house any longer, awaiting the fateful hour.
Seeking the peace she usually found here, she glanced across the unkempt churchyard. She often took the short walk from the Demarest house to this haven of greenery. More often since she’d become entangled with Lord Ranelaw.
She missed Somerset’s rural quiet. This hidden corner of London behind the beautiful little Christopher Wren church had become a refuge. She rarely encountered anyone. Even on a Sunday, the small, mainly artisan congregation wasn’t inclined to linger among the memorials. Now she met Nicholas here, this wilderness would no longer offer sanctuary. Hardly important when she left for the country so soon.
Antonia wandered across to sit on a stone bench under a cherry tree. Inevitably she remembered the night Nicholas climbed through her window. She’d never understood why he hadn’t seduced her then. Her resistance had been as flimsy as rice paper, they’d both known that. His abstinence made her wonder yet again if he was a better man than he admitted.
The lie a woman always told herself when she surrendered to a Lothario.
“Antonia.”
The low rumble of Nicholas’s voice behind her made her start. She turned around. He leaned against the tree trunk, watching her under lowered lids with a concentrated regard that shivered awareness across her skin.
“You sound surprised.” She rose on unsteady legs.