She gave a short snicker, which died with the minute widening of her eyes. “You’re serious,” she said, her voice had gone breathy and low.
“Quite serious, yes.”
“You want to—to—here?” It had ended in a scandalized little squeak, which Thomas found rather amusing, given that nothing he had ever known or learned of Mercy had thus far indicated shecouldbe scandalized. But scandalized she was—and titillated, and intrigued, and fascinated.
He leaned close, closer than was proper, and whispered in her ear: “I want to take you out to the gardens, find a secluded spot within that hedge maze, and do what I told you I would that first night in your bed.”
A shiver raced down her spine; her fingers clenched upon his as if she feared wilting to the floor without the support of his hand in hers. “I don’t know that I could keep quiet,” she admitted in a raw whisper, nibbling at the lush swell of her lower lip.
“The grand virtue of a hedge maze,” he said, “is that you must be foundto be caught.”
A whisk of a laugh puffed over her dry lips. “If you had been watching instead of entertaining lurid thoughts,” she said, “perhaps you would have noticed just how many people have already slipped out into the gardens ahead of us.”
His brows lifted. “I hadn’t, really. Were there so many?”
“Oh, yes. I made a game of it in my head for a while. I counted at least twelve, and only four have so far returned.” She canted her head, reflecting upon it. “I suppose the hedge maze must be a favored rendezvous spot for lovers?”
“I haven’t the faintest. I’ve never been out to see it myself.”He bit off a sigh. “Too crowded, then?”
“With eight still remaining at last count, notwithstanding any who might decide to try their own luck after us? Yes, I should say so.” She wrinkled her nose, a charming expression of mild distaste.
“The terrace?” he suggested. “I grant you, it’s likely not the most comfortable—”
She shook her head. “Too confined,” she said. “And too visible besides. There must be doors and windows. We’d have to dodge notice.”
A quandary. But he had been an invited guest of their hosts a few times before, and was not entirely unfamiliar with the house itself and what rooms might be within their reach. Tentatively he ventured, “There is a salon just down the main hall. You won’t rouse suspicion by approaching it so long as you are not observed entering. It’s a large room, lots of convenient furniture”—and therefore many equally convenient hiding places—“but you will have to be quiet. It’s just before the ladies’ retiring room.”
“Hmm.” With a purse of her lips, she truly seemed to be considering it. “Do you know,” she said. “It’s really quite loud in the ladies’ retiring room, with so many ladies chatting whilst repairing their hair or attending to their toilette. Unless we are veryindiscreet, I think it is likely we won’t be noticed.”
Yes. His heart escalated to a rapid patter, thrumming with an illicit thrill. “We’re agreed, then?”
“Oh, yes,” she sighed as the dance concluded at last, and he kept hold of her hand a few moments longer than was strictly proper. “The salon, then. I’ll meet you there in ten minutes.”
∞∞∞
One more occasion to be wicked. She would have agreed to any of it, really, just for the sake of savoring that wickedness while it lasted. But she was glad that Thomas had bargained with her anyway. It was a memory that would persist; stern, proper Thomas debating the advantages and disadvantages of various locations for an amorous tryst in the middle of a crowded dance floor, as if he hadn’t anything more than a passing interest in whether or not he would be overheard.
Thomas had gone on ahead of her, and since the hallway was deserted except for two ladies chatting with one another on their way back to the ballroom, Mercy assumed he had made it safely and unobserved. She kept her steps slow and meandering, waiting for the ladies she had passed to proceed back into the ballroom, and darted for the door the moment they had, lest anyone else emerge from the retiring room before she could make it inside.
The door opened into the room, without a sound from the hinges. Mercy squeezed herself through the crack she’d opened. The tiny sliver of light that had followed her in extinguished itself the moment she closed the door behind her. That light had revealed little before the room had been plunged once more into darkness, and she paused there near the door, her chest heaving with a sort of frenzied energy, willing her eyes to adjust.
A burst of laughter from the ladies’ retiring room next door—loud enough to shear clear through the wall which separated the rooms—startled her enough to make her jump. Perhaps they ought to have risked the hedge maze after all, she thought, as her heart pounded through a few harried beats.
There was a muffled laugh off to her right.
“Thomas?” she whispered into the darkness.
“Here.” He’d been lingering there close to the wall, had probably watched her come in. Invisible upon entry, because he’d been so perfectly concealed behind the door as it had swung open to admit her.
The room itself seemed a maze, clustered with nebulous deep shadows that she assumed must be furniture of some sort, but Thomas had had several more minutes than she had for his eyesight to adjust itself to the darkness, and he seized her hand in his, navigating toward the right side of the room.
“Has anyone come in?” she asked in a murmur. “While you were waiting?”
“Yes,” he said. “Once. Not to linger. It was only a gentleman searching for the card room, I think. He didn’t see me waiting.”
Trepidation lifted the tiny hairs at the nape of her neck. “We can’t be caught,” she whispered. If they were—if they were, he would feel honor-bound to marry her. Even if she ruined him. Even if she ruined his entire family. Even if all that would ever come from it was resentment and, eventually, loathing for what she had cost him.
“We won’t be. Because when he came in, I saw this.” He stopped, lifted their joined hands, and pressed her fingertips to—
