To Catch a Flame Page 11

  ... there are those amongst us "aristocrat curs" who take it seriously when someone thrusts a pistol into our faces.... that mocking deep voice rang in her memory, and Beau felt a bittersweet wrenching in her chest. For while Griffin Stone mercilessly mocked the world around him, he mocked himself as well. Not with the brutal, sneering, cynical scorn of Judith Stone, but rather with a genuine amusement and acceptance of the world and all its foibles.

  Bile rose in Beau's throat, at the thought of the dowager duchess's raking claws. How had he survived her cruelties as a boy and become the man he was? Not bitter, not hardened by rejection and life. But rather a proud man, a giving one.

  A strong man, but a gentle one. A man with a temper as daunting as Isabeau's own, yet with a very real sense of justice.

  "Thunderation, next thing I'll be nominating him for bloody sainthood!" Beau groused to herself. "It is just that he is able to laugh... to see the absurdity in it all."

  But how? The question again reared its head. "Madness. The man is either too mad to be miserable, or he is just plain stupid."

  The door latch clicked, and Beau wheeled around. She almost tripped on the trailing sheet, and the swath of fabric slipped from her breasts. With a curse she yanked it up again, her face burning with embarrassment.

  Griffin stood in the doorway, resplendent in amber velvet. His coat glowed like an ancient crown; his ivory breeches molded to his heavily muscled thighs. The candlelight from inside Beau's chamber picked out the golden threads in his rich brown hair. In his arms he carried a bundle.

  "Isabeau. I'm sorry. I should have... have knocked before I flung open the door."

  "Where I come from we're somewhat lacking in the amenities," Beau said with forced lightness. "Everyone barges in whenever they want. I barge in, too. With great regularity."

  "I imagine you would," he said with a smile. After a moment he cleared his throat.

  "I needed to speak with you about what happened tonight," he said at last. "It was unforgivable of me to leave you stranded beneath your coverlets without a stitch to wear. It was thoughtless and rude and unconscionable, even for one as churlish as me. I wanted to beg your pardon."

  His eyes glowed softly as he watched her. "Of course, I wouldn't blame you if you told me to go to the devil."

  "It would not be the first time," Beau said, but there was no edge to her voice. "And it will probably not be the last."

  "No," he chuckled softly. "I suppose not."

  "But I must admit, I so enjoyed seeing that rabid old witch near faint into her pudding, I can almost find it in my heart to forgive you, Stone. I've been considering adopting a sheet as my permanent wardrobe while I'm a guest here. I shall trail about, endeavoring to cross the hag's path. Her bellowing should prove most amusing."

  She had hoped to see a twinkle of amusement in his eyes, but he sighed. "Believe me, Isabeau, you needn't go to such lengths to court my grandmother's wrath. The mere sound of my name has the power to make her face turn the color of blackberry jam."

  He turned, walking to the open window as if he, too, felt the pull of the night. "It is beautiful," he said. "The sound of the wind, the stirrings of the night creatures, and the shadows of the trees reaching up toward the moon. It is as if the branches are trying to grasp something they can never have. And it's sad, because they don't know it is impossible."

  His voice trailed off, and for a long moment they were both silent. "My mother was like that, I am told," he said softly. "Always wishing, dreaming. I often think of her on nights like this."

  "Your mother?"

  His voice held a forced lightness. "Contrary to your belief that I crawled out from beneath some rock, even blackguard scoundrels like me had mothers."

  "I know that, you dolt." Isabeau looked away. "I was just curious, I guess. Wondered how... why... you became cursed with that harpy grandmother of yours."

  "My mother died when I was six, and there was no one else to care for William and me." He chafed his thumb across the silk he held. "She was good and kind and beautiful, my mother. I miss her still." He hesitated for a moment. "This was hers. It would please me greatly if you would wear it."

  Isabeau gasped as ever so gently he unfurled folds of peacock-blue satin, silver tissue, and ecru lace embroidered with gold thread. It was a gown. A gown so beautiful Beau couldn't keep her fingers from stroking one tantalizingly rich frill.

  Surely he could not mean for her to don this treasured keepsake he had of his mother. It almost seemed blasphemous for him to give such a wondrous gown to her. She who was accustomed to swaggering and stomping and swearing.

  "N-nay," she stammered. "I... thank you. But I—I cannot. I'd snag it or tear it or dump a vat of sauce on it the moment I put it on."

  "I much doubt that. You move more gracefully than any woman I've ever seen—even in your breeches." The slightest of twinkles showed beneath Griffin's lashes, and Beau was shocked to find herself drinking in the sight. "I would like to see you in this, Isabeau," he said softly, extending the garment toward her. "Please."

  Beau's pulse lurched, and her fingers trembled. She felt herself drowning in his sea-blue gaze, and she found that she could deny this solemn, sad Griffin nothing. She reached out tentatively, her callused palm snagging on the elegant cloth as she took it from him.

  The dress was warm where it had pressed against his taut body, and it smelled of dried lavender and lemon blossoms. Beau suppressed the childlike urge to bury her face in the sweet-scented cloth. He must have treasured it, cherished it all these years.

  And now he was giving it to her.

  There was an odd pricking beneath her eyelids, and she turned away from him, hurrying behind a wooden screen to slip the garment over her head.

  For some reason she could not name it was suddenly vitally important that she don Griffin's mother's gown, sweep out before him with the beautiful silver tissue molded about the bodice, the peacock silk draping elegantly down to the floor. But donning women's garb was far more complex than putting on simple breeches and sensible waistcoats. After a leviathan struggle with corsets and ruffles, lacings and tight sleeves, Beau felt her frustration expand until she allowed herself to mutter one particularly colorful curse.

  She heard the quiet tread of boot soles on the floor, sensed rather than saw Griffin behind her. Then his strong calloused hands deftly tightened her laces, and untangled the fabric until it drifted down about her like the petals of some exotic flower.

  When Beau's head emerged from the melee of silver tissue she caught her breath. She found he had shifted to stand before her, his face bare inches away from her own. His breath was hot, sweet as it touched her skin, and his fingers were gentle as they tugged her tumbled curls from beneath the fabric.

  Did she imagine it, or did his hands linger in the coppery waves, as if savoring their texture?

  She felt hot blood surge to her cheeks, the flush spreading to where the tops of her breasts were exposed by the low-cut bodice.

  Wordlessly he worked the intricate fastenings of the peacock silk stomacher, his knuckles brushing the fragile swells of her breasts as she struggled to steady her ragged breath. And her memory taunted her with vivid images of the way he had felt the night he had tumbled her back onto the bed to subdue her after her bath.

  She remembered how heavy and hard his body had felt as he lay on top of her. And she knew the mere feel of his body could be more dangerous than any Bow Street runner.

  Her heart skipped a beat, and she was suddenly, agonizingly aware that his hands had stilled. The gown swirled about her as though it had been created for her, the old-fashioned lines delightful. It was as if she had shed a chrysalis and was suddenly a jewel-bright butterfly in some kind of fairy-spun finery.

  She saw her reflection doubled and redoubled in the polished windowpanes, but even so Beau could not believe what she saw—in those mirrored images or in Griffin Stone's dark-lashed eyes.

  "My God." His voice snagged low in his throat. "Look at y
ou, Isabeau. Look at you."

  Beau held her breath, suddenly willing to endure forever the pinching stays, the binding sleeves, even the unsettling sweep of the low bodice to see Griffin Stone stare that way.

  He looked at her with wonderment. Almost reverence. But most of all hunger.

  Beau's stomach fluttered, her lips parting with a shaky laugh. "Th-thank you. I—I'd have been buried in silks forever if you hadn't... helped me. It was like a labyrinth in all those flounces and such, and I'm far more accustomed to dealing with the fastenings of breeches." Of their own accord her fingers brushed the creamy fabric encasing Griffin's thigh. A muscle jumped beneath her hand, the careless gesture and her bumbling words suddenly taking on an unexpected significance.

  Her face flamed as she snatched her fingertips away. She turned, needing to put distance between herself and the dauntingly masculine figure before her. But her bare foot snagged in the underpetticoat, and only Griffin's firm hand saved her from crashing into the wooden screen.

  "Perdition!" she blustered. "It's like walking among tree roots at midnight!"

  His rich, welcome laugh rang out. "You'll grow used to it," he said. "In fact, soon you'll be sweeping gracefully about ballrooms."

  "The devil you say," Beau grumbled, intensely aware of the heat of his hard palm burning through the thin silver tissue of the gown. She drew away from his touch, tossing her head with a carelessness she did not feel. "I've never even been able to learn to wield a sword. If I couldn't master something I needed to learn—something useful—how the blazes am I supposed to school myself to—to flit?"

  "Flit?" Griff formed his lips into a censorious line, but his eyes brimmed with amusement. "Milady, a member of the ton does not flit. "

  "Well, they look like bloody grasshoppers the way they skitter around, waving their snuffboxes and their fans and their infernal ribbons in a body's face. Makes my brain ache just to watch 'em."

  She pursed her lips and fluttered an imaginary fan in the sugary-sweet way of the schoolroom misses she had seen about the confectioners' shops. "Lud, sir, you fair take my breath away," she gushed, then dropped her voice into a stage whisper. "Mayhap it is because you reek of Hungary water."

  Griffin strangled a laugh as he battled to capture the aura of a stern guardian. "Your manners, milady, are appalling."

  "You flatter me, sir." Beau flashed him a smile and plopped into an awkward curtsy.

  "I'd like to flatten you most of the time. But maybe it would serve us both better if I were to teach you to curtsy in a way that would not inspire one to knock you into the next county for your insolence."

  "Insolence?" Beau pressed her hands to her heart with an expression of feigned injury. Griffin dissolved into laughter. "Are you accusing me of insolence?"

  "Aye. And I am accusing you of the far greater sin of having the most disreputable curtsy I've ever seen. A lady does not fling herself upon the floor like a squashed pumpkin. She holds her gown thus." He curved his hand over hers, demonstrating the proper manner in which to sweep up the voluminous petticoats. "And thus." He settled her other hand into place. "And then she drifts down gracefully, regally."

  "I might have a bit of trouble being regal, Stone. It is my red hair, you see, and—"

  "Try it," Griffin urged, his eyes dancing. "Once you master curtsying with the proper respect, I shall show you how to do it in a manner that will show your enemies that they are well beneath your notice."

  "You mean you will teach me how to insult."

  "How to insult someone most elegantly," Griffin agreed with a nod. "Think of the fun you could have."

  "It would be more fun just to dump a keg of ale over their heads." Beau sniffed. "But if my lord insists..."

  "He does." Griffin sketched her his most dignified bow. "Now, to curtsy properly you will need to know the rank of the person to whom you are being presented. If that person is a lord you would dip down so." He demonstrated.

  Beau pressed her fingers to her lips, giggling at the sight of Griffin's muscled body moving in such a feminine gesture.

  "If you are confronted with a duke or a duchess," he continued, patently unruffled, "you will sink down farther still. You find this amusing, milady?"

  "Nay, it is just that I cannot wait to discover how one insults a duchess. I plan to do so with great regularity." Beau muttered the last words beneath her breath, but Griffin heard her, and his blue eyes softened.

  Beau felt the bounding sensation in her middle again, and she clutched up her skirts in her fists, hastily flopping into a curtsy in an effort to diffuse the tension. "L-like this?"

  "Isabeau." Griffin caught her stiff hands in his, smoothing over the taut tendons until they felt soft as butter, her fingers seeming to melt into his callused palms. "Look at me," he said, his voice low, compelling. Her knees felt as wobbly as the day she had rolled down Tower Hill in a barrel, but Griffin only continued smoothing his thumbs over the vulnerable pulse points at her wrists.

  "Isabeau, you look so beautiful here... now... garbed in my mother's gown. You should be proud, milady Flame. Show me."

  Laughter had fled the room, leaving only echoes. Beau gazed into the compelling eyes of Griffin Stone, and slowly, with a grace she had not known she possessed, she sank into a curtsy.

  Perfect it was not, and yet, as the flowing yards of her petticoats pooled about her in glistening waves, she looked to Griffin for approval.

  Their eyes locked for long seconds that seemed to spiral into eternity—an eternity of swirling heat, secret need. Beau drew nearer the flame, her breath catching in her throat as she drank in the scent of him—fine leather, blooded horses, hot passions. Passions that flooded Beau, enveloped her.

  She had scoffed at the tales Nell's girls had told of such soaring emotions. She had jeered at Molly's beloved stories of knights so bold and their ladies fair. And the more earthy side of sensuality... that had seemed to her at best an embarrassing inconvenience. But this... this need that flowed through to the very tips of her fingers, this vast emptiness filled with heady-sweet anticipation was a wondrous surprise. And a frightening one.

  "Isabeau..." Her name rasped from between Griffin's lips. Then, as if he, too, felt the shattering temptations, as if he, too, held no power to resist, he groaned and pulled her into his arms.

  She had not known what to expect, but whatever fleeting thoughts she might have entertained could not even touch the reality of Griffin Stone's kiss.

  His hot mouth fixed upon hers as if he were starving for the taste of her. He crushed her against the unyielding plane of his chest, but this time it was not to bend her to his will; rather it was as if he were trying to draw something from her, something he needed with a desperation that stunned her.

  Beau gasped, and her fingers clung to his shirtfront, her knees weak. And as her lips parted, Griffin's tongue plunged past their trembling barrier, delving deep into the secret recesses of her mouth.

  Beau couldn't breathe, couldn't think, mesmerized as she was by the power of his hunger. Of their own volition her hands moved up his chest, along the corded muscles of his throat. The honeyed satin of his skin tantalized her, tempted her.

  Strands of his dark hair brushed against her hands, and she buried her fingers in the midnight-hued locks at his nape. The black ribbon that had bound the thick waves loosened beneath her hands, and the length of satin drifted unheeded to the carpet.

  She ached to have him touch her, touch her in ways that made blood rise hot to her cheeks, touch her in a way that would ease the fierce questing that knotted in her secret places.

  His hands moved over her back, restless, seeking, and though she had never known the touch of any man's hands in the confines of Blowsy Nell's, she had witnessed enough to enlighten her despite her innocence.

  He arched her neck back, his lips taking nips from the smooth curve of her throat, the creamy skin of her shoulder. Stinging with embarrassment, yet devoured inside by her own raging hunger, Beau shifted in his arms so tha
t his moist, fervent lips skimmed the tingling swells of her breasts.

  Her lips parted soundlessly, and her nipples puckered in desire as Griffin's hand swept up her ribs to cradle and caress her breasts beneath their veiling of silk. And Beau held her breath, waiting, wanting that first brush of his lips on the aching crest. But suddenly Griffin grew still, and he slowly raised his head to look into her face.

  "Did I—did I do something wrong?" She whispered the words, catching her lips between her teeth. "I've had about as much practice at this as I have at—at doing curtsies, and—"

  "Nay, you are... sweet. Tasted so sweet." There was a tremor in his voice, and his fingers reached up to trace the vulnerable curve of her lips. "But I... we shouldn't. Can't."

  "Why the devil not? If we bloody well want to." Beau suddenly looked away from him, remembering who he was, what she was. But she couldn't keep herself from whispering, "You did... want to. Didn't you?"

  His laugh was harsh in his throat, but it held no amusement. "Aye, Isabeau. I wanted to." He smoothed the tumbled curls away from her kiss-dewed cheek. "But ladies... ladies do not allow gentlemen such liberties."

  "I'm no lady! And you're sure as hell no gentleman. Stone, I—"

  "Griffin. Call me Griffin. And you are wrong, Isabeau," he said earnestly. "You will prove to be a most formidable lady one day if you will but allow yourself the freedom to be one."

  "I can't, Griffin. Even if I wanted to, I—"

  "Promise me."

  She was taken aback by the sudden solemnity in his voice. "Isabeau, promise me that you will at least attempt it." He looked away from her, his expression touched with a sudden melancholy that made her ache for him. "I've not done much right in my life," he said softly. "Not done much to be proud of. Of all the men in England, I am probably the least fit to be your guardian. But I vow I'll try to do my best by you. I'll try." He caught up her hands in a silent plea that humbled her, hurt her.

  "Stay with me, Beau. For one month. Let me give you the life you were born to as a Devereaux. Let me prepare you to take your place at your grandmother's side. If you find you hate society's strictures, I promise that I will release you. Unconditionally, without saying a word to your family. And if that is your decision, I'll give you a purse full of gold that will keep you from having to dare the High Toby for the rest of your life."