Free Elisabeth Fairchild by Provocateur Page B

known this day would come. Since Carlton House. Since Hatchard’s Book Store. Since the night she heard his brother play a sad cello. And yet, now that the future arrived, all that is good, and obedient, and well-mannered within her, hesitated.
    Violins sang high and sweet, like the lure of temptation. Dulcie took a deep breath, loosed a breathy sigh and set off after him, vowing to remember how this fateful, rebellious moment felt--the sound of ballroom slippers against the bricked walkway, the breeze cooling heated cheeks and throat. Breathless, she caught up, knowing all that she risked, knowing it was not the unknown that lured her into the darkness. The feeling of certainty deep within heart and soul led her after him.
    Roger Ramsay reached out unerringly to tuck gloved hand into arm’s crook, fox mask inscrutable, his purpose unknown. Tension ruled her hand as it rested on the arm of London’s most notorious rogue.
    The smell of the Thames filled the garden, cool, musky, faintly malodorous, a snake in the moonlight, unwinding like pent feelings, like the provocative, pulsing heat coiled deep within. Nature’s perfume fills her lungs in a rush. The future raced toward her, an earthy darkness, Ramsay and Dulcie, together at last.
    A weasel and a goose went before them. A hedgehog and a horse stood star-gazing. Her foxy companion skirted them, tucked her more closely to his side, as if afraid she might slip away. He led her onto the garden’s chessboard, into a knight’s dangerous shadow. She, his pawn.
    Dulcie’s pulse thundered. Fear and anticipation gathered like a storm. Her breath came fast. Father would not approve. Certainly Lydia would throw a fit. She had never allowed any gentleman to lead her astray, and yet she did not stop Ramsay, nor the future she so long awaited--a fox in the moonlight.
    She broke the silence, words racing. “What would you have of me, Sir Fox, or should I call you by your rightful masquerade?”
    The fox head turned. The man’s legs stopped. He drew her closer, to study her, while she read none of him through the foxy mask.
    She kept her voice low, an owl’s wisdom. “ Monsieur Gargoyle.”
    His breath hissed, he lets go her elbow as if stung, and wrenched off the fox head.
    His eyes, twin moonlit flashes, the set of his mouth serious, he seemed at a loss, jaw rigid, a nerve ticking beside lips that would not smile. The river’s musky breath flirted with red locks gone sable. The crown of his head shimmered, rivaling the moon, displacing darkness.
    “You see right through me, Miss Selwyn,” he drawled, low-voiced, concern masquerading as nonchalance. “You are the only one in seven years to do so.”
    He does not know the half of what she saw.
    Through fox-red hair, a fur-backed glove passed. The glossy sheen of his forelock swung into his eyes, as it did in her dreams, where he bent to brush her cheek and temple with kisses--their glow warming her--igniting her--moonlight in the darkness.
    She wanted to smooth his hair. Was it as warm and silken, as it looked? Of course, she cannot be so brazen. Dulcie turned her back on temptation, and plucked a handful of leaves. Sweetbriar perfumed the air.
     “How do you know me?”
    “Your voice.” She wafted the leaves, breathing deep their sweetness. She could not admit how much his touch affected her, his light, his presence.
    “At the hospital?”
    She shrugged, lied. “Your posture.”
    “And the Prime Minister?”
    The leaves slipped her grasp, catching the moon, flickering downward in darkness. The Prime Minister! She closed her eyes, wishing she saw more, or less. It would be easier.
    “Lions!” He circled her slowly, a fox hemming in its prey. “There were carved lions on the table where he bled to death.” Light bloomed above his head, intensifying with each word. “You knew! How?”
    His bitterness backed her into the prickly wall of shrubbery. The thin wail of ballroom strings built to a bright and blinding