“It’s how I keep you with me when I need to be away.”
She was, indeed, touched.
“I have an idea now... it could be a little risky... but nottoorisky...” He arched a brow.
Suddenly a little risk seemed precisely the thing to offset worry. “Tell me. I trust you.”
“Come with me.” He seized her hand, snatched up a folded coverlet and an unlit lantern, and led her downstairs, through the passage that led to the annex, and right into the ballroom.
She laughed as he led her up onto the stage that their former guest Mr. Hugh Cassidy had built, and pushed aside their beloved green velvet curtains, the ones they had wrangled out of an earl who had tried to steal their cook. Mr. Hugh Cassidy had gone to fetch them. And Mr. Hugh Cassidy and Lillias, Lady Vaughn, had met their destiny behind them.
Suddenly the stage felt like their own secret, dark little cave. Laughing softly, they felt their way in the dark to the wall, and then sank down against it. He settled the lamp down near them. Lucien usually had a flint and steel stashed in his pocket. But neither one of them wanted to interrupt the sawdust-scented darkness just yet.
“Here,” he said softly. He opened his arms, and she leaned back against him, snuggling in. He wrapped the two of them in the coverlet. They just enjoyed closeness for a moment, letting their eyes adjust to the dark. They were surrounded by props from the Night of the Nightingale, the event featuring opera singer Mariana Wilde: the stained glass moon, rolls of stitched green felt that had represented carpets of grass, folded fishnets dyed blue they had swagged across the ceiling in order to create a night sky, little crates full of the spangled stars they’d hung from the nets.
“What do you suppose he’s doing to elicit sounds like that?” Lucien mused.
She didn’t need to ask whom. They might not actually be ghosts, but Corporal and Mrs. Dawson were positively haunting The Grand Palace on the Thames.
“Maybe it’s the Vicar’s Wheelbarrow,” she suggested.
They laughed.
“I wonder... is it a sequence of events? Is it the same every time? One to go with each ‘oh’? Is it different every time?”
“Are you feeling inadequate, Lucien? Because, I assure you, you are not.”
“Huzzah for me and my adequacy,” he exulted.
She laughed again.
“Perhaps he knows unusual positions?” he suggested. “He doesn’t look the adventurous type, but people will surprise you, as you know. Because his wife seemedveryquiet.”
“What sort of unusual positions? I only know forward, backwards, standing, sitting, kneeling... have I left any out?”
Lucien grinned at her recitation. “Oh, there are all sorts of acrobatic things one can do. Swings and special chairs...” he said vaguely. “I know I tell you nothing you don’t already know when I say that men are ridiculous creatures, Angelique. We will try anything, particularly if it’s dangerous. It’s a wonder there are any of us left.”
She snorted softly.
It was lovely and strange to lean against him in the dark, behind the curtains on a stage. Somehow both illicit and cozy.
“Areyou...interested in that sort of thing, Lucien? Er, swings and chairs. That sort of thing.”
“No.”
“My goodness. You said that a little quickly.”
“Well, I cannot say this will be true forever. People do change in surprising ways for surprising reasons, yes? But now, you see, it’s very strange. I’m so in love with you, it’s like being under the influence of a beautiful drug all the time. Better than anything in Mr. Delacorte’s case. I can do this...”
With one finger he drew a semicircle about her breast. She sighed, her body stirring.
“And just like that, I am on fire for you,” he murmured.
They sat together, quietly burning. They knew each other’s rhythms now. They knew they had the luxury of time, of heightening anticipation, of making love however they chose. And they wanted to heighten anticipation.
It was such a pleasure to just be alone and talk to each other.
“Literally everything about you excites me, Angelique. I think of something new all the time. There is a freckle behind your right knee. Perhaps you’ve never seen it. It is my new obsession.”