The Spring Bride (21 page)

The masks encouraged gentlemen to flirt ridiculously—leering extravagantly at her sewn-on sheep, and saying things like they wished they'd come as the big bad wolf. Most of them were boys not much older than Jane and not to be taken seriously. And because she wasn't Miss Jane Chance tonight, but a simple shepherdess, Jane found herself able to flirt back quite unself-consciously. It was all the most delightful fun.

Piracy is our only option.

—JANE AUSTEN,
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

I
t was the last waltz before the unmasking. A shadow fell across her. Jane glanced up and there stood a tall, dark stranger, a pirate by his dress. His eyes glittered through the slits of his mask, not a proper mask, just a ragged strip of black velvet that covered half his face.

She tensed. There was something about him . . . the way he stood there, the shape of him . . . the way he held himself.

His breeches were black and tight and hugged his long, powerful thighs faithfully.

Jane wanted to look away. She couldn't.

His boots were high and black and reached to mid-thigh. A bold red sash cinched his lean waist. Beneath a black leather waistcoat, his shirt was loose, white and flowing, and laced carelessly almost to the throat. Almost. Shockingly, it lay open at the neck.

She could see the faint beat of a pulse in his throat. His naked throat. Tanned and strong-looking and masculine.

She swallowed. It couldn't possibly be him. He would not dare, surely . . .

All she could see of his face—apart from those intense, unreadable eyes—was a clean-shaven jaw, and a square,
chiseled, freshly shaven chin. She'd never seen him shaved, but still, she was sure it was him.

His mouth was stern, unsmiling, beautiful—and where did that thought come from, she wondered feverishly.

“My dance, I believe.” His voice was low and deep and came straight from her darkest, most turbulent dreams. Zachary Black.

“What are you doing here?” she hissed.

“I came to dance with you, of course—what did you think?” The devil danced in his eyes. White teeth gleamed briefly beneath the mask. “I told you it wasn't good-bye.”

“Don't be ridiculous. This is a private ball—a very exclusive private ball! You cannot be here!”

“And yet I am.” He gave her that slow, lazy smile.

Zachary Black the gypsy was a handsome, intriguing ruffian, but this man . . . this man was beautiful in his lithe piratical arrogance. She forced herself to concentrate. “You should not be here. You are trespassing. And I am already engaged to dance this waltz.”

“Yes, with me.”

She checked her dance card. “No, it says ‘Radcliffe,' and I know Mr. Radcliffe and you are not he!”

“I'm here in his place.” Through the slits in the mask, his eyes gleamed. Did he think it was amusing to be here, an impostor, dressed as a pirate? If anyone realized that a gypsy had somehow managed to gain entrance, there would be a fearful scandal. And Zachary Black would be—she wasn't sure what would happen—a beating, arrest, some kind of trouble anyway.

“This is a private ball. Invitation only. How did you get in?”

He smiled, a flash of white, wolfish beneath the velvet mask. “Purloined one.”

“You mean you
stole
an invitation?”

His eyes gleamed through the raffish velvet mask. “Pirate, remember?”

“But why would you do such a mad, risky thing? If you're discovered—”

“Stop worrying.”

The orchestra played the opening bars of a waltz and he stepped closer, and reached out lazily. She took a hasty step backward. “No, go away. You must leave. My partner will be here any minute.”

He took her hand and swung her out onto the dance floor.

“Stop it! Mr. Radcliffe—”

“Isn't here. I am.” His arm was an iron bar encircling her waist, and before she knew it, she was twirling around the dance floor. Being held scandalously close.

She would have to dance with him. She had no choice. She couldn't escape him without making an embarrassing public scene.

He drew her even closer. She could feel the heat of his body, his tall, powerful body, smell the faint tang of his masculine cologne.

“Don't think about the future,” he murmured. “Don't think about anything. Just close your eyes and give yourself up to the music.”

And to the man.
The temptation was irresistible. It was just one dance. A few moments where she could indulge her fantasies. A harmless dance in public. What could it matter? Jane stopped fighting him—and herself—closed her eyes and let him twirl her around the dance floor.

In his arms, she danced in a way she'd never experienced before. She didn't have to think, to remember her steps, just obey the silent, delicious command of this masterful, infuriating, insanely audacious man.

Delicious?
She batted the thought away. But oh Lord, he could dance.

So this was what the waltz was all about. It was not at all like her lessons; this was like floating, like a leaf being swept into a swirling wind and whisked off to . . . who knew where.

A dance of pure, magical enticement . . .

The last strains of the waltz faded away.

Jane stood in Zachary Black's embrace, his arm wrapped around her waist much closer than was proper, her hand firmly enclosed in his. She was breathing fast, and not just from the exertion of the dance. Her heart thudded madly in her chest; her mouth was dry.

The dance was over. She wanted to lean against him, to keep her eyes closed and press her cheek against his broad chest and just pretend, for a few more minutes. Her own private fantasy. Cinderella at the ball. She wanted it to go on forever, not caring who he was, who she was. To be just a man and a woman
floating in a dream, a blissful dream she didn't want to wake up from.

But in the distance she could hear exclamations and laughter. The unmasking had begun.

Slowly, reluctantly she opened her eyes.

And looked straight into his, gleaming and intense through the slits of the ragged black velvet mask.

“It's time to unmask,” she whispered. “People will see you. You have to go.” She raised her hands to remove her mask, but he was there before her, his long fingers nimbly untying the strings of her mask and dropping it carelessly, all the time devouring her with his eyes.

She didn't move. She couldn't, couldn't bring herself to move an inch. It was all she could do to breathe.

He remained masked, his eyes glittering in the reflected light from the ballroom. A faint shiver thrilled across her skin as the night air cooled the skin that her mask had kept warm. With a small shock she realized they were outside, on a small balcony, one of several that led from the ballroom, overlooking the terrace a dozen steps below, and beyond that the garden.

A quick glance around revealed that they were alone. The French doors that led back into the ballroom were closed, and the balcony was small and made private by the darkness.

The
darkness
? When she'd arrived at the ball, the whole place—the terrace, the gardens and, of course, the ballroom—had been a blaze of light. The gaily colored lanterns that had been placed along the terrace and strung between the pillars had, in this one small balcony alcove, been extinguished.

Here, where she stood with Zachary Black, there were only shadows, made deeper by the brightness outside. Nobody could see them.

The situation shocked her back to reality. She was no longer an anonymous simple shepherdess, free to flirt and dance and have fun, but Jane Chance, a girl with obligations. And expectations. And a betrothal.

And he was an impostor, here by stealth and dishonesty. There could yet be a scandal if he were found out.

He must have prepared this earlier: extinguished the lanterns, planned every move. It was a scandal waiting to happen.
His presence—his uninvited presence—could compromise her badly. She needed to return at once to the main ballroom.

“You have to leave,” she repeated. “It's dangerous to be here. If you're found . . .” There would be unpleasant consequences for both of them.

He made no move. “I came here to talk to you, as well as dance,” he told her. “You wouldn't meet me in the park, wouldn't respond to my note—did you read it?”

“Yes.” She glanced at the doors back to the ballroom. She was getting anxious. Lord Cambury would be looking for her. “I have to go.” She moved toward the door. He stepped in her way, blocking her escape with his big, strong body. “So you know I am a gentleman, but there are other things I need to explain—”

“I said, I have to go!” She tried to push past him but he caught her by the arm and pulled her back.

“I came here tonight to talk to you.” And in a low, rapid voice he explained that he was a gentleman with a large estate and a fortune—“not as large as Cambury's but substantial enough.” He told her that he'd been away for twelve years, that he'd left England as a boy of sixteen, and had only just returned the day he met her. He explained that while he'd been abroad, he'd been working in various locations, gathering intelligence for His Majesty's government, that he'd become skilled at deception.

As he talked, her temper slowly mounted. To think she'd been having dreams about this man! How could she have let herself fall for this . . . this
charlatan
?

At the end of the recital, he paused. “I suppose you're wondering why I continued to give the impression I was a gypsy.”

When she didn't respond, he went on, “I am on the verge of claiming back my inheritance, but there is a . . . an obstacle, a legal impediment—all nonsense really, but I was advised to lie low until the matter was sorted out, and not use my correct name or my title. It's rather delicate and I would ask for your discretion—”

“No need, because I don't want to hear it. And you want to know why?” She tossed her head. “
‘Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief'
—how many of those are you, Mr. Zachary Black? First you say you're a gypsy, then a pirate, then a spy—and you stole your invitation tonight, so you're definitely a thief! And now you claim to be a
gentleman
? A
gentleman
with a
title
? A lord in hiding because of some mysterious
impediment
that requires you to dress as a gypsy?

“How gullible do you think I am? This is just another one of your wonderful tales.” She snorted. “You're nothing but a big fat liar!” With each word she poked a finger into his broad, hard chest. “You seem to think life is nothing but a game, but my future is not a game to me! It's a very serious matter, and I'm not prepared to listen to any more of your lies, so let me pas—
mmph!
”

She found herself being ruthlessly kissed, pulled hard against him, wrapped in an iron-hard embrace.

She pushed against his shoulders, once, twice, trying to shove him away, but the taste of him, the intense, masculine onslaught of his mouth, ruthless and utterly dominating, slowly sapped her will. His tongue traced the seam of her lips, pressing between them and she gasped. Her mouth opened beneath his and he took possession, his dark, male taste flooding her senses.

Duty warred with desire, and desire won.

The longing for him, so long denied, swelled within her. Intoxicated by the flood of sensation, she gripped his shoulders tighter, pressing herself against him.

He moved, and she found herself sandwiched between a cold stone wall and a hot, hard man. Shivers rippled through her and her grip on him tightened. With a deep moan he settled his big, warm body over hers, pressing her firmly against the cold wall, dominating her effortlessly. Masterfully. Any desire to escape had evaporated long since.

She could taste the hot, hard need driving him. The intensity of it was almost frightening.

Almost. After the first shock of his possession, and as the smoky, dark taste of him entered her blood, she gloried in it, this ravening passion, this seething need for her, for Jane, for the thing inside her that leapt to life at his touch, causing this . . . this firestorm of need to rise within her.

She met him kiss for kiss, a desperate, demanding urgency released within her, driving her to want more, crave more—of him. He made a sound deep in his throat, a growl of hunger, and approval. She pressed herself against him, needing to get closer. His lips were firm and sure, his tongue as darkly velvet as his mask, as he stroked, enticed, aroused . . .

The kisses deepened. She clung on. There was a leashed
power in the way he explored her mouth, feathered kisses across her cheek, her eyelids, her throat, all the while returning to plunder her mouth in an insistent rhythm that called to something wild and primitive inside her.

She could feel the hunger in him, firmly controlled. She was ravenous; without knowing it, she'd craved this all her life. This. Him.

She slid her hand into the open neck of his shirt, the fine linen weave cool against her feverish fingers, and then the warmth, the heat of his skin. Man skin, so different from her own.

Man smell. She breathed in the scent of him, the scent of clean, fresh linen, and underneath the scent of man, a faint musky scent of desire, and some crisp-smelling cologne.