“Don’t count on that, my lord.”
It is an incredibly stupid game. We both know it. We also both know that the true game is not in the cards, but in the coquettish removal of each subsequent article of clothing. Jeanne slides off one of her many rings; I remove my shoes in what can only be described as the most sensual display any man has ever made with his footwear. I’m more liberal with the undressing—by the time I’m in nothing but my breeches, she’s still peeling off jewelry one excruciating piece at a time. Under her powder, her cheeks are pink, but she’s keeping her wits about her admirably. Were our situations reversed, I would have lost my mind by now.
The lead-up is fun, but I’m starting to grow restless to be done with this, like downing a sour drink fast, which is not the sentiment I’m accustomed to accompanying earthly delights of this variety. Out on the veranda, a bit of a romp seemed like an unbearably magnificent idea, but as I wait for Jeanne to make a theatrical show of flipping her next pair of cards, my mind is stuck on the image of Percy and that lad standing beside the dance floor and wondering what it was that Percy said that made him laugh. And then I am thinking about Percy’s fingers threading through my hair as I leaned in to him and him pressing our mouths together. The flutter of his breath passed between us, a feeling like a pulse point, and I’ll be damned if one stupid kiss with Percy has ruined me.
The next time Jeanne loses, she removes a single pearl-drop earring and sets it on the table, but I place my hand over hers before she can deal again. “One moment, my lady. Earrings come in pairs.”
“So?”
“So they come off in pairs too. No protesting, I took my shoes off together.”
“I’m beginning to think it doesn’t take much to get your clothes off.”
“Well, I don’t want to deprive you.”
“Thank you, my lord. You are indeed a fine specimen.”
She touches her top lip with the tip of her tongue and a soft shiver of desire goes through me, chased with relief that Percy has not wrecked me after all. Perhaps this can still be exactly what I intended when I followed her from the gardens, and it is with that hope buoyant in my heart that I lean toward her. “Here, let me help you with that other earring.”
I reach out. She leans in. Time turns slow and delicious, seconds rolling forward like sun-warmed honey. I put my mouth much closer to her skin than it needs to be as I unclasp the pearl. My fingers trail down her neck—the ghost of a touch—then I waft my lips across her jawline.
And, as I knew would come to pass, she puts a finger beneath my chin, tips my mouth toward hers, and kisses me.
But my first thought is not how absolutely gorgeous it is to have this pretty thing at last putting her lips upon mine. It is how much better it was the week previous when it was Percy doing the same.
I nearly swat the air, like that might clear Percy from my head as though he were a gnat. Instead, I put my hands on those two magnificent breasts that have been staring me down the whole evening and distract myself with the business of freeing them from their casings, and I am not thinking about Percy, not even a bit.
Aristocratic ladies, it should be noted, wear a beastly lot of clothing. Particularly at parties. I could strip to nothing in twenty seconds if given adequate motivation, and she’s more than adequate. But undressing Jeanne is not as easy as it was when I imagined it every time she removed another piece of jewelry. My mouth is still on hers as we stagger to our feet, so I haven’t even got a good view of what it is I’m meant to be ripping off. I take a guess and tear at the laces until something snaps and the stomacher falls away, which at least pops her breasts from their breast prison. But then there’s a ghastly cage around her waist, with petticoats and corsets and a chemise and I swear to God there’s another corset under that and then a whole creative other layer of who-knows-what but I’m certain it’s there simply to keep me from her skin. Perhaps fashion is just a reinforcement of a lady’s chastity, in hopes that the interested party may lose interest and abandon any deflowering attempts simply for all the clothing in the way.
In contrast, Jeanne only needs undo four buttons on the flap of my breeches and then slide them down my hips, which is just unfair. Her fingers wend their way up my spine, and I’m shocked suddenly from the moment by the memory of Percy’s hands there, his palms parentheses around my rib cage and a touch that made me feel hungry and breakable. His legs wrapped around me. The sound of his short, sharp breath when I put my lips to his neck.
Goddammit, Percy.
I let go of Jeanne just long enough to unfasten the buttons at my knees and get my breeches around my ankles, then I kick them onto the sofa in a high arc. She traces my lips with the tip of her tongue, talc from her skin coating my mouth, and, hellfire and damnation, I am not thinking about Percy. I put my arms all the way around her, jerking her toward me.
Then, from behind us, the door latch snaps and someone says, “What’s going on?”
I whip my hands out of Jeanne’s dress, nearly losing a finger in the process since somehow I’ve gotten tangled in the back lacings of her corsets. The Duke of Bourbon fills the doorway to the room, two more lordly-looking gentlemen at his sides, all of them with their mouths gaping, like beached fish.
I let fly a choice four-letter word and try to shield myself with the massive cage Jeanne has strapped to her waist.
The duke squints at me. “God, Disley?”
“Um, yes. Evening! Bourbon, wasn’t it?”
His face sets. “What the devil are you doing here?”
“To be clear . . . ,” I say, edging toward the sofa where my clothes are piled and cursing myself for having made such a dramatic show of flinging them away. I have to drag Jeanne with me to be certain I stay concealed. “Here as in Versailles? Because I was certainly invited.”
“In my apartments. What are you doing in my damned apartments?”
“Oh, you mean here as in here.”
“You vile little rake, just like your—” His face is going red and I brace myself, but his attention is commandeered by Jeanne, still standing bare-breasted at my side. “Mademoiselle Le Brey, cover yourself, for God’s sake,” he snaps.
Jeanne starts tugging at her corset, which does less to cover her and more to emphasize the fact that she’s not. The two other men are gaping at her chest and Bourbon looks like he’s about to commit homicide upon anyone within an arm’s distance and I am well versed in seizing the moment, so I snatch my clothes off the sofa and make my escape straight out the open window.