Free Love, Unmasked by Vivian Roycroft Page A

lips turning up. Fidelity’s breathing stopped, her heart a second later. They were alone, in the back garden’s farthest corner, just as she’d planned for the evening to end.
    Had they done that deliberately? Those little minxes.
    She should follow them. Right now, without delay. Really, it would be for the best. But her feet disliked the idea. They refused to budge and before she could convince them, he touched her arm with his fingertips and every thought dissipated from her head.
    Her heart resumed, with a strange, too-slow thudding. Still she couldn’t move, and so his hand trailed up her arm, the gentlest of pressure along her glove’s outer edge. For a moment he touched bare skin, between glove and sleeve, and she quivered. The touch removed itself immediately and she wished it back — oh, she wanted it back — but it didn’t return. Instead, she felt the very air move as his fingers continued their path, a half-inch from her arm, up to her shoulder, up—
    And suddenly she knew his intention. Her heart leaped, but still she couldn’t move. So she stood like a statue, like a useless lump of shivering marble, as his fingers curled around the edge of her mask and lifted it up, not off her face but past her mouth—
    He eased close, closer, until all she could see was him, his green eyes intense behind his half-mask, cheeks darkened with a beard’s early shadow, straight nose, soft lips. The slow thumping of her heart accelerated. Cold drove out her lingering warmth then in turn it surrendered to more warmth as he came even closer, then he leaned forward and she closed her eyes.
    Soft and gentle, the touch of his lips to hers. The cold vanished again and a heated flush spread from his kiss, from some hidden place deep inside her. The two heat sources met in her chest and exploded like a supernova. Stars fell around her, behind her closed eyelids, stars shooting and burning, blinding galaxies and zinging comets, and he wasn’t even kissing her hard. He was holding back, letting her set the pace.
    Fidelity leaned in and grasped his arms, turning her head and deepening the kiss instinctively.
    There, the pressure she’d wanted, the delicious warmth spreading to her restless hands. Solidity behind her, the spicy sweetness of begonias falling around them; he’d backed her into the freestanding brick wall, pressed her there gently, and the softness brushing her ear wasn’t her hair but a thick, furry leaf. She opened her mouth, ready for more—
    —and someone giggled. No, two someones.
    Little minxes .
    Aggrieved, Fidelity disengaged and glanced back along the path. Two squirming shadows leaned together beside the preening peacock topiary. Well, perhaps the situation had progressed far enough. For the moment, at least.
    But there was one question which had to be answered immediately. She swept off his mask. He didn’t try to stop her.
    And she realized she should have known all along. In all honesty, part of her had known; hadn’t she thought of him, not as Blue Tailcoat but by his proper name, as she and Georgette had raced through the garden’s secrets to Jessica’s rescue? Hadn’t she yearned then for him to see her need for him, to follow and rescue her, as well as the girls? Hadn’t he always been the answer she’d sought, the one she hadn’t recognized even when he stood before her?
    Grey cleared his throat. “I’ve been waiting for you to notice me.” The mask slid from her face the rest of the way, and he leaned his forehead against hers. “Instead of him.”
    Fidelity caressed his cheek, the hint of stubble scraping beneath her gloved fingertips. “I should have worn this dress sooner.”
    His eyebrows crinkled. “Well, it’s — it’s a beautiful dress, one of the loveliest I’ve ever seen, but I don’t quite see—”
    She shook her head. “It was meant to hide my identity. Instead, it set me free.”
    “From Brightenburg’s influence?”
    “From my own.”
    The little minxes