Chapter 17

If someone had drawn the dreams straight out of Tristan's head, they could not have come closer to this night. The fairy-tale ballroom, the shadowy corners, the woman who looked like a damn princess poised at the top of the steps descending into darkness. In the stories, the women always fled, whether from men cursed with beastly bodies or from prying men who wanted to know and have everything belonging to them, even their secrets.

If Andromeda were just such a figure, then that made Tristan the prince, the beast, the son trying to make a name for himself. He felt more like a pretender. Because he was going to take her secrets and take her and take what such an alliance gave him—respectability. Hopefully.

More than that, something deep in his bones growled at him. You know it's more than that.

What more existed other than the scent of her, the feel of her surrounding him. The taste of her on his tongue as he lifted her legs to wrap them over his shoulders.

"Tristan," she moaned into the dark, her hands clenching hair. "Tristan."

She did not seem scared or unsure. She understood what he was doing and welcomed it. Her hand on his neck urged him on. Her desire, her willingness, fired his own, made every bit of him impossibly harder than before. In need of relief, needing her hand, her body to relieve him.

Not tonight.

Tonight this. His tongue finding the hidden bits of her, his hands wrapping around her hips, stroking down her thighs. Laughter seeped through the ceiling from the ballroom above, as did the faint strains of violins. In the ballroom, the ton danced in heady whirls with giddy grins, and not a one knew that beneath their feet he kissed Lady Andromeda beneath her skirts. Fairy tales happened in the golden glow of ballrooms, yes, but more often in the dark, unseen corners where monsters lurked, where only the brave dared to tread.

The wine cellar—their corner, their tale, their secret beautiful thing. A moment out of time during which the skin of a woman's thighs felt softer than the silk of her stockings. Her gently rounded curves were a perfect fit for his hardened hands. The indentations of her waist the perfect method of holding her while she rocked with need, while he kissed, licked, and sucked. Discovering how she moaned and moved, how she arched her back and clenched her legs tightly around him when, finally, she came, ecstasy washing over her with a cry and a shudder. He shuddered, too—his body and his soul shivering into a new rhythm.

In the years he'd spent at sea, he'd known much darkness, but also light. The stars had always led him home, celestial breadcrumbs showing him the way.

Andromeda.

Not just a star. A constellation.

What the hell should he do with that?

Gather it closely, that's what. So he did, standing on shaky legs, his cock still hard and needy for her. He pulled her off the barrel and into his arms and sank them both to the floor, held her on his lap in the darkness and listened to the steadying of her breaths as if it were the very minutes of life. He kissed her ear and her neck and her jaw and teased her artful ringlets until she gave a gusty chuckle. He ran his finger down the bridge of her nose and, in the shadows, reveled in the warmth of her body pressed against his. The inky black held them both like a story holds a promise, yet he could not turn the page to see what happened next. He'd always known how to build the future he desired, but he could no longer see it clearly. In the darkness. She'd changed the story.

She did not remain still, perched on his lap, entirely unaware of his growing crisis. She spun so she could kiss him with all the softness she possessed, more softness than he'd ever felt before, and she let her hands wander where they willed—across his shoulders and up his neck, over the planes of his face and down the length of his arms, pressing gently against his chest, his abdomen.

And then flirting with the waistband of his pants. Lower. Pressing lithe fingers and curious palm against his aching cock.

"May I?" she asked, her hand stilling.

He grunted. "No." A hellish word. The very worst.

"But I know you need release. I know it is not comfortable, and I—"

"No. I must walk out of here without the evidence of our elicit actions worn for all the world to see. For Lady Eldridge to see." He shivered. That went a long way to curbing his desire.

"Ah. Yes. I see."

"You see quite a bit, don't you?"

She stiffened.

And he became… less stiff. "I don't mean that as an insult. Only… The Shadow of the Cockerel? I found the note the lady tried to slip you in Hyde Park. And I saw your little book club. You have naughty reading tastes, don't you?"

If she'd been stiff before, she became marble now.

"I don't mind if you're worried." He tightened his grip around her.

"You don't mind that I… like to read… erotic novels?"

He kissed the top of her head. "Not at all. I find it… arousing. If I were not worried about Lady Eldridge discovering it, which is a significant danger since so many others seem to know, then—Andromeda, are you well?"

Her breaths came ragged again but without the previous husky pleasure. She pried herself out of his lap and stood, and the damp cold of the cellar swooped in to take her place. He jumped to his feet and groped for her in the dark, found her, wrapped his hands around her elbows.

"Have I said something wrong?"

"No." A laugh, a light thing in the heavy dark that had swallowed them. "I should also tell you about Bashton."

His jaw clenched. He'd developed an uncontrollable tick at any mention of the man's name. "You've written to him, I hope," he grumbled, "to end it." After this, after tonight, he'd accept nothing else. She gave him everything. Or he took it. He could not see the future so clearly as he had always been able to do, but still knew what it took to get what he wanted—raw determination.

She found his hands, held them tight. "I have. But he's not answering my letters. I'm worried. He's never gone so long without answering before. But I must tell you—"

Several sounds strung together stole her words—a cough, feet stumbling in the distance, fingernails against a wall.

"Someone's here. Stay," he commanded. Stay in the darkness, in the silence and safety of secrecy. "I'll go see." He bounded out of the room as quickly as he could in the dim light. He peered down the hall—nothing but shadows. The faint fall of a footstep near the butler's room. The slamming of a door. He ran and threw open the door to the butler's room, expecting to find someone inside. No one. He lurched for the staircase that led to the entry hall and took the steps two at a time until he stood in the open of the glinting bronze forest Lady Charlotte had created for the evening. No one… but for a woman's form, skirts hiked, fleeing up the stairs to the ballroom.

Had she seen anything? What could she have seen in such darkness, though? She'd likely been looking for her own place to meet a gentleman in secret, and though she might have heard their voices carry up the wine cellar stairs, she could not have known their identities at such a distance, with such lack of light.

He descended the stairs and returned to the wine cellar. "Andromeda?"

No answer, and he could feel the solitude of the empty room pressing into him.

Where in hell had she gone?

"Andromeda?" he called again, just in case. Then, "Damn." She had to have gone toward the kitchens, so he followed. She'd been about to tell him something about that cursed Bashton. A faint melodic sound rose from the back of the house, a mere whisper on a wind, and he followed that, too, to a door only partially closed, a haze of candlelight spilling into the hall. Not knowing what would be on the other side, he pressed his back to the wall beside the door and listened.

First, he heard a woman's voice, clear and rhythmic, reciting… poetry? Yes. But below that, and closer, he heard the whispers of two women. One of them whispered in a voice that had recently been in his ear, rumbling through his chest. Andromeda.

"I agree," she said.

"She's perfect," the other woman said. Lady Charlotte, perhaps?

A pause in which the poetess's voice rose high and sensual, gathering the sighs of others like a storm wind gathers flower petals.

Then, "But what about Bashton? He is not answering my letters. How can I choose a different direction if he does not—"

"Do you wish a different direction?"

A pause, then Andromeda answered, "Yes."

Purpose ripped through Tristan. If Andromeda wanted something, she'd have it, and no damn baron would stand in her way, in Tristan's way. A sliver of light opened up in the darkness, and it led all the way to Cornwall.

* * *

Andromeda had thought to feel fear when she finally found Lady Aphrodite, the unease of being replaced, the grief of losing her calling.

But what if peddling forbidden books to the ton's matrons was not her calling? What if she wanted something else—a home, a husband, new books, a new story of her very own. Naughty books now and then, naturally, but… what if she wanted to live now instead of keeping secrets like dried leaves pressed between book pages?

Lady Aphrodite stood still—a statue draped in pink with a white, feathered domino hiding her face—in the middle of the room. Only her mouth moved, shaping words of love. Not happy ones, though. Between the sensual descriptions and elicit metaphors lurked a shadow of grief, of loneliness. Perhaps that attracted the women here as much as the story Lady Aphrodite told. Many of the women knew love to be a fickle thing, soft one moment, sharp the next.

"Do you hear that?" Lottie asked. "Footsteps."

Andromeda spun and opened the door, slipped through but met no one. The hall was empty. If anyone had been out here, they were gone now. She returned to Lottie's side.

"Was likely a servant," she said. But Tristan's visage rose before her. He'd been down here, too, would likely be looking for her after that… interlude.

Lottie did not acknowledge her words, caught up in Lady Aphrodite's hypnotic web of words. Andromeda let herself be caught up, too, finding herself in the middle of a sunlit bedroom as a man pinned a woman against a window and did to her what Tristan had done to Andromeda earlier. But the sunlight limning their bodies did not last. When a storm rolled through, the lovers were ripped apart, separated, and every heart gathered to hear the tale that sank to the floorboards until a salt-scented wind ripping in from off the rushing ocean waves brought the lovers together again. Running feet kicked up sand, arms tangled, and hearts beat as one, and Andromeda wiped away a tear rolling down her cheek.

Silence settled around them as Lady Aphrodite stopped. The women parted, and the pink-garbed lady walked through them like a queen, straight toward Andromeda and Lottie.

Andromeda shot an arm out. "Pardon me."

Lady Aphrodite stopped, and her gaze behind the mask floated to Andromeda, but she did not speak.

"We need to speak with you," Andromeda said quietly. "My sister and I."

"We have a business proposition for you," Lottie added.

The lady considered Lottie, but still she said nothing.

"Someplace more private," Andromeda said, and she slipped through the door, finding her way once more to the cellar. She stole a candle from a wall sconce and brought it with them, closing all three of them in.

Still Lady Aphrodite chose silence.

"My sister and I run a lending library," Lottie said.

Lady Aphrodite tilted her head, and behind her mask, her eyes narrowed.

"For… inappropriate books. Erotic books," Andromeda clarified. "Something we tell you only because no one in this room wishes to lose their secrets."

Lady Aphrodite inclined her head, her lips whispering into a smile. "But I know who you are, and you—"

Lottie rolled her eyes and jerked forward, grabbing the domino and ripping it off.

"Lottie!" Andromeda cried. "Quite beyond the pale. Rude!"

Lottie shrugged and held an arm out toward the gaping Lady Aphrodite. "It worked, yes? And she was being smug. I hate smug. And I know her. Don't you?"

Andromeda peered through the dim light and gasped. "Miss Eastwood. Yes, I've seen her about. We were introduced during my come-out, I think."

Miss Eastwood scowled. "Very well. Now we're even. Now we hold each other's secrets. What is this about a business proposition? I'm a poet, not a businesswoman."

"It's the library," Andromeda said. She took a deep, heavy breath. "We can no longer run it."

"And why not?" Miss Eastwood crossed her arms over her chest.

"Because we both must marry," Lottie said, "and that complicates matters. As keepers of the lending library, we hold other women's secrets, as do you when you gather them all together, maskless, to listen to your recitations. Like you, we grant them a bit of levity, a chance to expand their understanding of the world in taboo ways, and while we can no longer risk being discovered, we do not wish the library to end."

"Our mother began it." Andromeda spoke to the candle, to the burning center, the soft glowing halo surrounding it.

"And you want me to continue it?" Miss Eastwood said.

"Yes." Lottie and Andromeda spoke together, and Andromeda felt no doubt about her answer, spoke with no hesitancy.

Miss Eastwood paced away into the shadows.

"Well?" Lottie said.

"I must think on it," she said from the dark. "You know who I am and how to find me now. As I do you. Give me time to consider."

"A reasonable request," Andromeda whispered.

"We'll share all the details with you," Lottie added. "You'll receive the books—"

Andromeda nudged her elbow into her sister's ribs.

"Ow." Lottie rubbed her ribs. "You'll receive most of the books. Since they belonged to our mother, we reserve the right to keep what we wish."

Andromeda nodded, satisfied. "But we will give you the contact information for a man who will be able to help you acquire more, should you wish. Should the ladies wish you to."

Miss Eastwood appeared within the corona of light the single candle threw off, her face pale and sharp. "‘Tis not a bad scheme, I suppose, and a natural extension of what I'm already doing."

"Exactly," Lottie said.

"Hm." Miss Eastwood tapped her bottom lip with one pink-lace glove. "An interesting proposition indeed." She eyed Lottie and Andromeda. "I thought the Duke of Clearford's sisters were green girls at best, but… it seems you have potential."

"Potential?" Lottie scoffed. "We've been running our library for years. Without being caught, you have only just—"

Andromeda clapped a hand over her sister's lips. "We'll contact you. Within a fortnight."

"Very well." Miss Eastwood swept from the room, and Andromeda dropped her hand from Lottie's mouth before her sister bit it. She'd not done such a thing since they were in the schoolroom, but Lottie still had it in her, no doubt. She'd always had sharp teeth, too.

"That could have gone better," Lottie said, instead of biting Andromeda's palm.

"I agree. I rather assumed she'd jump at the opportunity."

Lottie sighed and left the cellar. "She's high in the instep."

They climbed the stairs leading first to the hall and then to the ballroom. The second waltz would start soon, and Andromeda would need to find Tristan. She followed Lottie into the swirling couples beyond the double doors and, as if by some magnetic force, immediately found the man she wanted. Tristan stood at the back of the ballroom, speaking with her brother and Noble. The American stood with them, and frankly, someone should break the group up, spread the obscene good looks out a bit so all that masculine beauty did not put the room out of balance. Surely Lottie considered such things during the planning process.

Noble and Clearford were classically attractive. But Tristan and Mr. Bailey were rough-hewn and weathered. More dangerous than dandy. More beast than gentleman. Tristan's lack of polish appealed to her. There were other ways he drew her to him, as well. He made her feel desired and desirable. He trusted her with important matters. Though he had no polish, he shined, nonetheless. In every right way.

She wanted to be with him, to have a future with him, and she wanted that future to begin now. But to be the kind of proper wife he needed to secure Alex's guardianship, she needed to put her old life behind her. A reluctant Lady Aphrodite and a silent Lord Bashton kept that from happening.

Tristan caught her eye with a hungry gaze and left Clearford and the others behind. He parted the crush, moving determinedly toward what he wanted—her. That she admired most about him. Coveted it, too.

She wanted to be like that, to grasp her future with both hands and part the obstacles before her to take it. To do that, she'd have to take risks, she'd have to put safety behind her.

Impossible for a woman. She could not very well… hie off to Cornwall and demand an answer from Bashton.

Could she? Tristan would do it, but she—

She was changing.

And if a flight to Cornwall could speed matters along when letter after letter had not worked, then she'd not just do what Tristan would do… she'd do what Andromeda would do. Take action to bring the desires of her heart to fruition.