The taste of the strawberry sweetened the kiss, which was not at all sweet, but wet and deep and passionate, and seemed to last an hour. I was very glad I was not a harlot, I thought as I worked at the buttons of his shirt and opened it to bare his chest. They had no idea what they were missing.
“I like this lingerie,” Dredmore mentioned as he tugged the knickers out of the way and found the open crotch with his hand.
“So do I.” As his fingers breeched me I arched up, catching my breath when I felt my body receive him with a soft slickness that should have been embarrassing. “What if someone comes in?”
“I am a deathmage.” He shifted over me, reaching down to open the front of his trousers. “I’ll kill them.”
“Lucien, you can’t, ah.” Words deserted me as he worked the swollen head of his penis past my folds. Nothing had ever felt so good, or so right, as the way he came into me. I found my voice somewhere. “You’re determined, then? I cannot persuade you—”
“Charmian.” He penetrated me with a single, forceful movement. “Be quiet and think of England.”
As I relished the stretching sensation his shaft created inside me, his advice made me frown. “God, why?”
What followed was, like our first time together in his gardens, utterly astonishing to me. Dredmore moved in me with what should have been the most basic of motions, pressing deep, dragging out, and then forging back in. Magic was made from the delicious friction involved, perhaps, or the way my body responded, rather like a mad creature on its own. I could not keep my hands from him as the pleasure built between us, and the damp sounds of our coupling grew louder and faster and wetter.
Dredmore seemed equally undone; he bent his head to alternate between kissing my mouth and sucking at my breasts, while I scored his shoulders with my nails and pressed my lips to his chest. The room seemed to dim as the ache inside me swelled, tormented now by the hard thrusts of his shaft into me. I could feel the heat we stoked growing liquid and spreading out, melding us in our frantic movements.
I found I could not wait for him as I hurtled through the dark and shattered under him, my whole being consumed by the delight of it. Distantly I heard his voice, rough and shaking as he jerked atop me, and the luscious pulse of his seed jetting and flooding my clenching sheath.
I murmured some nonsense, holding him fast to me as we drifted together, bound by body and heart. Now I understood why women could not resist men; they were our physical completion.
Dredmore eventually withdrew from me, turning onto his side and gathering me against him. He seemed to take quite a long time studying my face. “What are you thinking?”
“If someone had come in,” I answered truthfully, “I think I would have killed them. That and we should never play cards.”
He nodded slowly and brushed some hair back from my eyes. “I should like to spend the next week in this bed with you, but we must go.”
I recalled the unfortunate aftermath of our first lovemaking and gave him a narrow look. “To where, exactly?”
“A place safer than this.” He propped himself up on one elbow. “There is something I have to show you.”
I glanced down. “I believe I have seen everything you have now.”
“This you have not.” He rose from the bed and offered me his hand. “Come.”
I went to the armoire and found a reasonably decent dark blue gown with white braided trim, and after washing up at the basin in the corner I dressed in it. Dredmore came to button up the back for me and draped his cloak over my shoulders, pulling up the hood to conceal my head. “Stay behind me on the way out, and don’t say a word to anyone.”
“If you’re thinking of imprisoning me again,” I told him, “you’ll lose more than a horse this time.” Which made me think. “Someone will see us leave the house. Walsh will know you have me.”
“Of course he will,” Dredmore said as he led me to the door and opened it a gap to look through and check the hallway.
I frowned. “You want him to come after you for saving me.”
“I want him to believe I did my job.” He glanced back at me. “Last night he hired me to kill you.”
“I see.” His confession struck me hard, and left me feeling numb and daft, as if he’d already shoved a dagger between my ribs. “Why didn’t you?”
“I was too busy making arrangements to get you out of the country.” He saw my face and took my cold hands in his. “I intended to tell you when I returned this morning, only to find you’d escaped right back into Walsh’s hands.”
“You might have said something last night.” But I’d barely given him a chance to tell me anything before my temper had gotten the best of me. “How much am I worth dead?”
“Twenty.”
I felt a little miffed. “Surely I’m worth more than twenty pounds.”
“You are. He gave me twenty thousand.” He checked his watch. “Connell will have the coach out back by now. Come.”
Still reeling from the thought that my death would be worth a small fortune to Nolan Walsh, I followed Dredmore out into the hall and down the back stairs. Almira intercepted us by the kitchen.
“You sneaking away without paying, milord?”
Dredmore placed enough coin in her hand to make the cook gasp aloud. “If anyone asks,” he told her, “please tell them that you saw me leave with Miss Kittredge, and that she was fighting me.”
“Miss Kit?” Almira peered round him. “You’re not fighting this gent.”
“Tell anyone who asks that I did.” I pushed back the hood enough so that she could see my face. “And please, do tell Rina I’ll be in touch when it’s safe.”
Dredmore hustled me out into the side alley, where Connell was waiting with the coach. I peered up at him, hoping to see a hint of Harry in his face, but the man ignored me. Dredmore retrieved a woolen blanket from the rear-facing seat, wrapping it about me before he scooped me up and placed me on his lap.
“I can sit over there,” I told him.
“This is warmer.” He glanced out through the side window before clamping an arm round my neck. “We’re being watched. Struggle.”
Out of reflex I did, and then I caught a glimpse of two nobbers trotting toward the coach. “Let go of me, you bastard,” I cried out, loud enough for them to hear before the horses were slapped and the coach took off.
Dredmore released me as soon as we were out of view and called up, “Go to the blackstone, Connell. Stay to the alleys.”
I slid off his lap as soon as he removed his arm, but stayed close to him. “You have a house in the city?”
“Several.” He tucked in the blanket round me before leaning his head back and closing his eyes. A shaft of light from a gaslamp we passed briefly illuminated his weary features.
“You haven’t slept.”
“I imagined I’d find you in some gutter today,” he said, his voice low. “With your throat cut and your blood draining into the sewers. It was not an image I found conducive to slumber.”
“As if your beheading that snuffmage should give me sweet dreams?” I pulled the blanket up under my chin. “Maybe it would have been better all the way round if I’d ended up in the gaol.”
“Better.” He turned his head to regard me. “Walsh’s consortium controls most of the city, including the police and the courts. You’d have been found dead in your cell within an hour of your incarceration.”
“Speaking of murder for hire, why would Walsh offer you twenty thousand, simply to kill a nobody like me?” My feet were freezing, so I tucked them up under me.
“He’s frantic to see you dead, but I can’t fathom why,” Dredmore admitted. “It’s gone beyond the truth behind the attacks on his wife. Something happened last night that made him terrified of you.”
“What?” I thought back over the dinner. “I know I spoke out of turn a few times, but he mostly ignored me. The only time he became really agitated was when I challenged him.”
“Lady Walsh is a pawn in a much larger game.” He felt me shivering and pulled me closer, lifting one side of the blanket over him in order to share his body heat. “When you spoke of the wound paste, he reacted strangely. He stared at you for several moments.”
I remembered that look. “As if he were seeing me for the first time. But that old trick isn’t anything important. Other than it’s being used to drive his wife mad.”
“I think it’s something else.” He looked out as the coach came to a halt. “The snow is knee-deep. I’ll have to carry you.”
I pushed off the blanket. “Should I struggle again for the benefit of the neighbors?”
“I have no neighbors.”
I saw why when he helped me out. “Dredmore, this is Feathersound.”
“It is.” He swung me up into his arms.
I linked my hands behind his neck. “The lord mayor allows you to make use of his private residence?”
“His former private residence.” He carried me up the steps and through the door Connell had unlocked and held open. “He signed the deed over to me for services rendered.”
“Does the governor know about this?” I frowned as I saw his driver lighting a candle to illuminate the dark hall. “No servants?”
“Officially the house has been closed for two years.” He set me down and instructed Connell to light the fires before taking my hand. “Unofficially, it’s haunted. Legally, it’s mine.”
Dredmore guided me into Feathersound’s library, which appeared to be as large as my entire flat. Every wall had been fitted with shelves from floor to ceiling, save the center of one where space had been made for a massive cherrywood secretary. “You cheated the mayor out of his home by telling him it was haunted?”
“No. I saved his life from what he believed was the vengeful spirit of his former business partner.” He went to the hearth and lit the kindling under a large stack of split seasoned oak. “The specter turned out to be the gifted and rather resourceful aide of the mayor’s opponent, who had hoped to frighten away his competition before the election.”
