Forbidden. Nicola Cornick
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moons. For a moment Margery raised it to her cheek, enjoying the soft caress of the material against her skin. She had never owned so luxurious an item in her entire life.
With an envious little sigh, she tucked the scarf under her arm and went out along the corridor and down the servants’ stair. She hesitated before pushing open the green baize door that separated the servants’ quarters from the hall. She was not quite sure why. Her mysterious gentlemen, whoever he was, would be in the ballroom by now with the skinny woman in the elegant gown. There was no chance of meeting him.
Sure enough the hall was empty. She felt a slight pang of regret.
Mr. Soames was waiting for her in the parlor. She handed over the shawl and he took it as reverently as though it were a holy relic. Margery tried not to laugh. Mr. Soames was always so serious about everything, but then a butler’s job was a serious business, the very pinnacle of a male servant’s ambition. He had told her that, if she was lucky and worked hard, she might reach the top of her profession, too, and become a housekeeper one day.
Mr. Soames went out carrying his precious burden, closing the door softly behind him. Margery waited for a moment in the warm, silent confines of the parlor.
Margery had a hundred and one tasks waiting for her. Lady Grant’s dressing room needed to be tidied. Her nightclothes needed to be laid out for the moment, several hours ahead, when she finally retired from the ball. In the meantime, there was a pile of mending to be done, invisible work that required Margery’s keen eyes and nimble fingers. Her head ached to think of peering over tiny stitches in the pale candlelight.
On impulse she released the catch on the parlor door instead and stepped out onto the terrace. The mending could wait for a few more minutes.
It was cool outside, so early in the year. The air was fresh, the sky blurred with mist and scented with the smoke of all London’s chimneys. Beneath that was the sweeter smell of flowers mingled with perfume and candle wax. Margery drew in a deep breath. She could hear the music from the ballroom. The orchestra was playing the opening bars of a country-dance. She could picture the scene, the candlelight, the jewels, the vivid rainbow colors of the gowns. It was a world so close and yet so far out of reach.
The music called to something long lost inside her. In her memory, she could hear an orchestra playing and see an enormous ballroom stretching as far as the eye could see. Light sparkled from huge mirrors. The swish of silken gowns was all around her.
Her feet started to move to the music. She had not danced in years. She usually sat out the servants’ balls that employers insisted on holding each Christmas. She had no desire for her feet to be crushed by a clumsy coachman who fancied himself a dancer.
She twirled along the terrace, feeling lighter than air. It was ridiculous; she smiled to herself as she imagined quite how ridiculous she must look. It was also the sort of thing she never did. She was too serious, too sensible, to indulge in such a frivolous activity as dancing alone on a misty moonlit terrace.
The music changed, slid into a waltz, and Margery spun up against a very hard, masculine chest. Arms closed about her, steadying her. Her palms flattened against the smooth material of a particularly expensive and well-made evening jacket. Her legs pressed against a pair of very hard, masculine thighs encased in particularly well-made and expensive trousers. Margery noticed these things and told herself it was because she was a lady’s maid and trained to assess fashion, male or female, at a glance and a touch.
“Dance with me,” her dark gentleman said. He was smiling at her in exactly the way he had smiled in the hall of the brothel before he kissed her, that wicked, provocative smile. “You were meant to dance with me.”
Margery faltered. He was holding her in the way a man held his partner in the waltz, but suddenly she wanted to twist out of his grip and run away. She felt breathless and trapped and excited all at once.
“I cannot waltz,” she protested. It was a modern dance, new and more than a little scandalous. At least, it was the way that he was holding her. She could feel the heat of his body and smell his lime cologne. It made her head spin, which was a curious sensation.
Once she had drunk too much ale at the fair. This was similar, but a great deal more pleasant and a great deal more stimulating. The brush of his thigh against hers made her skin tingle, even through the ugly black wool of her gown. Oddly, it also made her feel very aware of the latent power in him, a strength and masculinity kept banked down under absolute control.
“You waltz beautifully,” he said. They were already moving, catching the beat of the music. “Where did you learn to dance like this?” His breath feathered across Margery’s cheek, raising delicious shivers deep within her.
“I learned to dance as a child,” Margery said. She frowned, reaching for the memories. It seemed ridiculous to think that in the rough-and-tumble of the Mallon household she had learned something as refined as dancing. She could not place the memory precisely. Yet she knew it had happened. Dancing was instinctive to her.
“This is very improper,” she said uncertainly.
“And completely delightful,” he said.
“You should be in the ballroom.”
“I prefer to be here with you.”
It was, indeed, delightful. Margery was forced to agree. His body was pressed against hers at breast, hip and thigh. His hand rested low in the small of her back in a gesture that felt astonishingly intimate. Heat flared through her, the sort of heat one simply should not be feeling on a cool April evening.
“Good gracious,” she said involuntarily. “Is this not illegal in public?”
She saw amusement glint in his eyes. “On the contrary,” he said. “It is positively encouraged.”
He drew her closer. His cheek grazed hers. His scent filled her senses. The warmth of his hand seared her back through the woolen gown and the cotton chemise beneath. Another shiver chased over her skin at the thought of his hands on her. She felt feverish, aware of every little sensation that racked her body. She felt as voluptuous as the nudes she had seen in the paintings in great houses, languid and heavy with wanting, her body as open and ripe as a fruit begging to be plucked and devoured.
It was shocking, it was delicious and it was wanton. She was tumbling down a helter-skelter of forbidden pleasure.
“You make me want to be—” She just managed to stop herself before the scandalous words came tumbling out.
You make me want to be very, very wicked….
He laughed, as though he knew exactly what she had been going to say and exactly how wicked she wanted to be. His lips touched the hollow at the base of her throat and she felt her pulse jump. Then they dipped into the tender skin beneath her ear, and this time her entire body twitched and shivered. She could not prevent it. She was helpless beneath the sure touch of his lips and his hands.
His shoulder brushed a spray of cherry blossom and the petals fell, the scent enveloping them. Somewhere deep in the gardens a nightingale sang.
A stray beam of candlelight from the parlor fell across them and in its light Margery saw that he was studying her face intently, almost as though he was committing it to memory. She felt disturbed. The mood was broken. She slipped from his arms and felt cold and a little bereft to have lost his touch. The music continued but he stood still now, his face in shadow.
“I should go,” she said, but she did not move. Suddenly she was scared; she wanted to beg him not to tell Lady Grant what had happened at the brothel but she was too proud to beg for anything. She always had been. Her brothers often said that pride and stubbornness were her besetting sins.
“Wait,” he said. “I wanted to ask you—” He broke off. It was too late. Some of Lady Grant’s guests spilled out onto the terrace, chattering and laughing. Margery knew that in a moment they would see her; see her with a gentleman, a maidservant caught in a guilty tryst.
“I must go,” she whispered.
He