Prologue
December 1821, Paris, France
In his dreams, she fled from him always, and tonight proved no different, though he did not dream.
Miss Gwendolyn Smith ran down the narrow hallway, her black-as-night gown flying behind her. The gown folded into the shadows, showed her for what he’d always known her to be—a creature of secrets. But flickering candles ensconced on the wall on either side of her flight transformed her yellow hair to glittering gold, a shade that could never be hid, could only ever throw the sun into shame. Gold and space-deep black blended together as she hitched her skirts and ran. From him.
Jackson Cavendish did not run. He took each step purposefully and with a soft tread, knowing he would catch her. Eventually. Inevitably.
Theywere inevitable. Always had been. And he’d been patient. But the champagne singing through his blood and buzzing his senses turned patience into tiny bubbles quickly popped.
He was a researcher and an academic and knew the value of a slow rhythm of observation and thought over action and impulse.
Not tonight, though. Usually when she fled, he watched her go. He waited. Tonight, he gave chase. He felt like one of the huge cats he’d once witnessed in the jungles of South America—sleek and dangerous with killer intent.
At the end of the corridor, the masked woman in the midnight gown cut in the previous century’s style—a costume for the night’s masquerade events, and one that looked damn good on her—encountered a staircase. He’d known she would. She’d likely known it, too. Her fingers pressed into the cold stone of the wall, she paused, glanced at him prowling toward her with hot intent. Through the holes of her plain black domino, her sea-blue eyes glinted. With what emotion?
If only he were close enough to tell. His steps never hitched, his destination her lithe, familiar form. Her foot hovered above the first step, and the closer he strode, the more he could see the details of her body—the tensed muscles and chest heaving with exertion, the sumptuous, parted lips.
He grinned.
She bolted up the staircase.
He followed, taking the spiraling steps slowly. He knew what awaited at the top of the stairs—a single room, and in that room, a bed. And…her. Unless a single glass of champagne had sent her senses and her sense reeling out of control, a heady waltz that demolished time, space, and reason.
No. She knew.
Then why lead him on a chase to where he most wanted to be and where she did not?
Yet… perhaps he should revise that assumption. She had kissed him in the garden but half an hour ago, chest to chest, lips to lips in the moonlight. He’d poured himself into it, and thought she’d poured back. For an instant only, a breath where she forgot herself and let him in.
Then she’d fled. Always fleeing.
He reached the top step only to see her skirts disappear behind the door.
He followed.
The door handle was cool to the touch, and it gave easily. He knew the hinges creaked. He’d entered the room often enough in the last month to access the trunks of old papers stored there. She had as well. They’d spend hours up here, poring over the observations and longings of the dead, asking questions, taking notes for the next treatise on Saxon-Norman history.
And ignoring the bed.
The squeak of unoiled, ancient metal against wood announced his arrival.
She sat on the bed, turned away from him and looking out the only window. Her shoulders heaved as she caught her breath, and the steel-stiff state of her posture could not entirely be attributed to a corset. She knew he’d entered.
“Good evening, Mistress Midnight,” he said, sliding the door shut behind him.
“My Lord Mischief. I did not ask for your company.”
“Did you not?” He placed one foot in front of the other, a slow but purposeful trajectory. “That kiss in the garden, then… was your way of telling me to bugger off?”
She turned swift as a snake about to strike. The domino hid her expression, but he could read her well despite it. Anger fit her as true as that gown, made her eyes glitter. She sighed, the sound of a weary woman. “We are at a masquerade, are we not? Tonight is about… impulse. The unusual. Besides, your kiss was not the sort to lead to a liaison.”
Like hell it wasn’t.
Jackson stepped closer, his thighs now only a few inches away from the bed, from her. “I did not please you. A horrid mistake. You must let me show you I can do better.”
“No. I grow fatigued. Good night, Lord Mischief.”
