chapter Thirteen
Miranda put the unpleasantness of murder out of her mind. She would enjoy herself with Archer, if not for her sake, then for his. And surprisingly, they did enjoy the day. The museum was enormous, its collection of wonders vast.
When the hour grew late and most patrons made for home, Archer slipped an obscene amount of money to the guard to allow them to stroll the upper floors uninterrupted. Miranda was glad for it. A day spent in public with her husband made her painfully aware of how life was for him. Her heart filled with tenderness when she realized what this day out cost him.
They stopped to study Greek sculptures in one of the upper galleries, and she turned to him, intent upon offering her gratitude.
“Why haven’t you left me?” Archer interrupted, scattering her thoughts.
“What do you mean?” But she knew. Her throat went dry and sore. How could she tell him, when she hadn’t truly admitted it to herself?
They stood alone in a small alcove facing an ancient frieze. He gestured toward the stairs where the sound of patrons leaving the museum drifted up. “All of them think I am a killer.”
He ran a finger along the balustrade at his side, watching the movement. “Morbid fascination compels society to tolerate me. But you…” Archer lifted his head, yet would not turn to face her. “Why haven’t you left? Why do you defend me? I… I cannot account for it.”
“You cannot account for a person coming to your defense when it is needed?”
“No. Never.”
His quiet conviction made her ache.
“I told you, Archer, I will not condemn you based on your appearance alone.”
His stillness seemed to affect the air around him, turning their world quiet. “Come now, Miranda. You heard all that Inspector Lane had to say.”
Caught, Miranda’s breath left in a sharp puff, but he went on.
“Sir Percival called my name moments before he was murdered. Another servant saw someone dressed like me leaving the grounds. All very damning. Why did you not leave then?”
Miranda’s heart pounded loudly in her ears. “How did you know I was there?”
He made a soft sound, perhaps a laugh, and fell silent. So then, he would not answer unless she answered first. So be it. She would say it. “It was you. That night. You are the man who saved me in the alleyway.”
Stillness consumed him, as if he’d frozen over. “Yes.”
She released a soft breath. “Why were you there?”
Archer studied her quietly, a man of stealth waiting to see which direction she would bolt. “It was as you guessed those years ago. To kill your father.”
She knew it, but still the admission shocked her. “But why? What did he do to you?”
“Damage enough.”
She bit the inside of her lip to keep from cursing his reticence.
The silence between them stretched tight until Archer spoke, low and controlled and just a bit bemused. “I admit the desire to kill one man, your father. Yet you do not question that I might kill another?”
She met his gaze without falter. “Capable, yes. But you did not. Just as you did not kill my father when you had the chance.”
He blinked. Surprise? Or guilt? For an endless moment, she waited.
“You have given me your word, Archer, and I will believe it.” It was a true answer. But not the whole truth. “I will not run from you.”
The wool of his frock coat whispered against marble as he turned to fully face her. She stared back, unguarded for a pained moment. Warmth filled his eyes. He understood. He took a quick breath, and his voice dropped. “You’ve no notion of the effect you have on me.”
The words gave a hard tug to her belly. She closed her eyes and swallowed. “If by effect, you mean finding yourself in uncharted waters, wondering whether you are coming or going…” She stared at his shirt, watching his breath hitch. “Then I fear you have the same effect on me, my lord.”
Cool quiet surrounded them, highlighting the soft rush of their mingled breathing. Slow as Sunday, his hand lifted, and a wash of heat flowed over her. But his hand moved to the hard mask at his face. The mask came off with a small creak and a burst of Archer’s freed breath. Light hit his features, and Miranda froze.
“Has my face gone blue?” he asked softly when she stood with her mouth hanging open like a haddock.
His lips curled as he enjoyed his joke.
Lips. She stared at them in shock. She could see his lips. Behind the carnival mask, he wore a black half-mask of smooth silk. It molded to his face like a second skin, revealing the lines of a high forehead, a strong nose, and a sharply squared-off jaw. The mask covered almost all of his right side, down along his jaw to wrap fully around his neck. But the left side… The tip of his nose, his left cheek, jaw, chin, and lips were fully exposed.
The shock of seeing all-too-human skin upon his face rendered her nearly senseless. His complexion was olive toned, showing some Mediterranean origin in his background. How on earth the man could have sun-bronzed skin was a mystery to her. He must have shaved before they left, for his cheek was smooth. Grooming his face for a world that would never see it. A pity.
A small cleft divided his square chin. But his lips called her attention once more. They were firmly sculpted; a sturdy bottom lip that almost begged to be bitten. The upper lip was wider than the bottom and flared gently in perpetual humor. Roman lips. She hadn’t thought…
“You keep gaping like that, and the flies will come in.”
She watched in fascination as the lips moved, amazed to hear his familiar rich voice coming from them. One corner lifted. “Are you going to stare all day? Should I have a self-portrait done for your contemplation?”
She looked up into his eyes, heavily lidded and deeply set, though covered with some sort of black cosmetic, kohl perhaps. Not an inch of his true skin color showed around his eyes. Even so, there was kindness in those endless gray depths. His eyes drew a person in and kept one wondering.
“Yes,” she said.
Archer’s jaw twitched. “ ‘Yes,’ you are going to stare? Or ‘yes,’ you would like a portrait?”
Despite his teasing, he was uncommonly still, poised as though she might bite.
“Yes, I am going to stare,” she said crisply.
“Why are you cross? You said you didn’t like my other masks. I offer you a different view.”
“You walked around wearing those terrible masks, filling my head with all sorts of horrible visions and… and…” Her hand flailed in front of his face. “And all along, you could have worn this.”
His lips compressed, but they couldn’t thin entirely. “What makes you think that there isn’t a horror lurking still behind this mask?”
“It isn’t the horror,” she retorted. “It is the subterfuge.” The line of his brows rose beneath the mask. “Those carnival masks must not be comfortable in the least. Blast it, you can’t even eat or drink wearing them!”
He crossed his arms over his chest and looked away.
“Why, Archer? Why shut the world out?”
For a moment, she thought he might not answer.
“I don’t want pity.” He glared at the stern visage of the Greek centaur before them. “I’d rather have fear.”
His voice was a phantom, haunted and alone. Miranda’s fingers curled into fists to keep from reaching for him. But she understood him. Deep down, she knew she would rather the world see her beauty and overlook the pain. It had stung when he had called her a false front, because he was right.
“And me, Archer?” she whispered. “Would you have me fear you as well?”
“No!” He stopped and stiffened. “I’d rather have you imagine all sorts of horrors than study my face and believe that there is a chance a normal man might be hiding underneath.”
She flushed hotly. It was the very thing she’d started to imagine.
Light from a flickering gas lamp caressed the sharp angles of his jaw, the high planes of his cheek as he lifted his chin. “Because there is not. I am not so twisted as to wear this thing if I were whole and untouched.”
He glanced at the stairwell as though he’d like nothing more than to flee. “Perhaps we should go. It is getting late.”
He moved to put on the mask once more, and her hand flew to clutch his arm.
“Don’t,” she said gently. The muscles beneath her hand hardened like granite yet he did not pull away. He loomed over her, his newly revealed features inscrutable, all the more because she did not yet know the subtleties of them. Without the warm rumble of his voice, he seemed almost a stranger to her for a moment, but for the scent of him and the familiar lines of his form.
“You startled me, Archer. That is all. I had no right to rail at you.” Absently, her thumb caressed the fabric of his coat. She forced it still. “Thank you. It is a gift you gave me, and I am the richer for it.”
Flushing and unable to meet his eyes another moment, she let him go. His silence was almost unbearable, but she could not turn from him. She had promised to stay. She gripped the cool balustrade and hoped it might keep her in place.
On a sigh, his stiffness released, and his hand came down to rest next to hers. “I felt you,” he whispered. “That is how I knew.”
She raised her head, and the world seemed to fade down to a narrow focus of just him, just her.
“I feel you,” he said, “whether stalking me through the streets of London, or hiding behind a screen in my library.” His words were soft as bunting, buffeting her skin, shivering inside of her.
Her hand opened on the balustrade, fingers stretching toward his. The very tips of their fingers met, the touch sparking between them like a current.
Archer’s finger grazed hers. “I feel you. As if you were connected to me by an invisible string.” He touched his chest. “I feel you here. In my heart.”
She couldn’t think past the mad pounding of her blood. She swallowed painfully. “I feel you too.”
He sucked in a sharp breath.
Miranda stepped closer, closer to the heat of his body, to the place where her senses came alive—toward him. Her hand trembled as she touched her breast. “I feel you here,” she said, both an admission and the true reason she could not leave him.
The corner of his lush mouth quirked. His legs moved into the folds of her skirts, and they were standing but a handbreadth apart. She felt his legs tense, a gather of his resolve. His hand lifted.
She watched it come, his broad shoulders blocking out the light from the windows at his back. The swells of her breasts rose and fell over her bodice with a rapid rhythm. Gently he touched her, his fingertips brushing the upper curve of her left breast, and she gasped.
“Here?” he asked thickly.
A tremulous smile touched her lips as a sudden weightless anticipation filled her, making her head spin. “There.”
Smooth leather burned a path to her neck. Archer watched his fingers, the line of his mouth stern, the look in his eyes almost angry. Then, as if in answer to a challenge, he lowered his head. Miranda’s breath ratcheted in her chest, became trapped by her corset. Unable to bear it, she closed her eyes.
Soft lips pressed against her breast, barely a touch that sent a bolt of feeling through her heart.
“Archer.”
“Miri.” His breath steamed against her fragile skin. “Sono consumato.”
Slowly, oh so slowly, his lips took the path his fingers made. Up, up, over the curve of her breast to the indent just above her collarbone. Not quite touching her, but skimming the surface. Hot breath ebbed and flowed in waves over her skin as he explored with unhurried languor.
“I am consumed,” he whispered against her ear, and she shivered. “By you.” Soft lips grazed her jaw in an agonizingly slow trail toward her waiting mouth. Her eyes squeezed tight. She could not bear it. The heat in her was fever bright. No part of him touched her, except that mouth. But oh, that mouth. It destroyed her composure as it moved with steady deliberation toward her lips.
The tip of his nose brushed against her hair as his lips touched the corner of her mouth. A universe of nerves occupied that small corner of her mouth. One touch was enough to leave her dizzy.
Archer held still, trembling as she did. The tips of her breasts brushed against his chest as she struggled to gain equilibrium. Liquid lust surged through her veins like wildfire. She wanted to move, do something rash, crush her lips to his and simply take, press herself against him and ease the heated ache between her legs. She did none of those things, only clutched her skirt like a lifeline as he moved his open lips just above hers.
His breath left in a pained rush that flowed into her. In, out, in. Still he did not kiss her, but let his lips brush against hers as if he knew, just as she, what would happen should their mouths truly merge. She wanted more. She wanted a taste. Her limbs quivered as she let her tongue inch forward, slip out between her parted lips. Of a like mind, Archer did the same. Their tongues touched.
A choked cry broke from her, the silken wet tip of his tongue sending a bolt of heat to her core. Archer made a sound close to pain. For a moment, their tongues retreated. And then.
She flicked her tongue, a small lick. And found his again. The sound of their breathing filled her ears as their tongues caressed, retreated, and met again, learning each other. Every flick, each wet slide of his tongue felt like a direct touch to the center of her sex, until she throbbed there, grew so hot she feared she might combust.
Their lips never melded, only danced with the possibility of it. It was not a kiss. It was something infinitely worse. It was torture. And God help her if she didn’t want more.
Their breathing became pants. Her fingers fisted her skirts with near violence. His tongue slipped deeper, lighting across her lips, invading her mouth for one hot moment. Miranda moaned, her knees buckling. Archer’s big hand clasped her nape, hard and impatient. Now he would kiss her, take her. Now. Her body screamed for that sweet release.
He wrenched his mouth away even as his arm crushed her against his hard chest. Her heart leapt to her throat, her senses jumbled and confused until she heard the strange thump of something hitting the wall behind her. She froze, panting softly, her nose buried in the black folds of his suit coat for what felt like an eternity but was at most a moment in time.
Archer swore sharply and then moved, leaving her teetering on her feet. She righted quickly and found him glaring around, his frame held tight as a spring. But the long hall behind them was empty. Slowly he turned his attention to the wall before them. The silver hilt of a dagger embedded deep in the plaster still quivered from the impact.
Archer’s breath hitched visibly, his eyes narrowing to slits. The force of the throw was unmistakable. Had he not acted quickly, the wicked dagger would have now rested deep within Miranda’s back.
“What the devil?” she hissed, disbelief and sheer terror making her voice unsteady and her heart pound.
A mad cackle echoed in the empty corridor behind them, and Miranda started. The voice was neither feminine nor masculine—only evil. Footsteps sounded in the far end of the gallery, near the end of the corridor where shadows dwelled.
Archer squeezed her shoulder. “Stay here.”
He took off running. Grabbing her parasol with one hand, and her skirts with the other, she followed. The long corridor veered right, opening to a larger hall and the stairs to the lower exhibits and great court. There the devil stood, paused at the top of the marble stair. He lifted his head, and her heart skittered. Were it not for the man’s smaller size, one might have thought him Archer’s twin. The villain wore a suit of black and a matching carnival mask that covered his entire face.
“Hell,” Archer said.
The man gave a mocking salute and then turned to fly down the stairs. A dash to the high marble balustrade found the stairwell empty; the villain vanished as if by illusion.
“Hell and damn.” Archer’s hand came down upon her wrist. “Stay here. I will come back for you.” His tone brooked no argument, but his touch was gentle. “Stay here.”
She hadn’t the time to protest before he took hold of the railing and leapt over it, straight down the stairwell.