“A shame our wraps are back there,” Beth said, shivering. “I don’t suppose the police would be polite enough to return them?”
Ian didn’t answer. He pulled her through an open gate and hurried with her down an alley, Ian’s arm firmly around Beth’s waist.
Lightning flared overhead, for an instant illuminating the wet, refuse-strewn alley and the faceless walls on either side. Beth saw movement at the mouth of the alley, and Ian swung her down another, even darker passage. “That was the way out.” Her teeth chattered.
“Fellows and the Surete will have blocked it.”
“I do hope you know where you’re going.”
“I do.”
Beth went silent again. It was just like Ian to commit the maze of alleys of Montmartre to memory. She wondered if he’d explored them or simply looked at a map. “Fellows is quite a thorn in our side, isn’t he?” Beth said over the pounding rain. “Blast the man. This was my best frock.”
The narrow alley ended at another street, but Beth couldn’t say where they were. The crooked lanes of Montmartre ran every which way. Ian held Beth close as they hurried along the street, drenched in rain. Thunder rolled overhead, the lightning too close.
Ian knew they were on the opposite end of the town from Mac’s dingy studio. Fellows would look for them there, in any case. Beth was shivering, soaking wet. He had to get her out of the rain.
The word Pension caught Ian’s attention as they ran past a house. He grabbed the doorknob of a dusty glass door and pushed his way inside.
“Monsieur.” A man with lank black hair looked Ian and Beth up and down, took in their fine clothes, and straightened his shoulders. In a torrent of French, he offered them the best room in the pension, which he tried to tell them was superb.
Ian piled a stack of gold coins in the man’s hand and demanded the room plus a hot bath for the lady. Thunder rocked the house as they hurried up the stairs. The pension had no gaslights, and a maid hurriedly lit candles throughout the small bedroom, pinpoints of yellow in the gloom. Beth stood by the tiny stove, rubbing her arms. She shivered too much, Ian thought. Ian curtly reminded the maid about the bath, and presently two men came in lugging a large tub. Ian stripped off his coat while the maid and a younger girl filled the tub with steaming water. When they’d all gone, Ian turned Beth around and began unbuttoning her sodden bodice. Beth wiped rain from her face while Ian pulled off the bodice and unhooked her skirts.
Undressing her was a pleasure, even when he worried about getting her warm. She tried to help him strip off her petticoats and bustle, then the corset and chemise, but her fingers shook too much.
Ian went down on one knee to untie her drawers and slide them down her legs. Her stockings came off in clumps, heaps of wet silk on the floor.
Ian ran his hands up her cold legs, over her hips, and up her sides. As he stood he cupped his hands around her br**sts, then bent his head and kissed her. Her tongue moved in his mouth, and he circled his thumbs over her ni**les, teasing the points to stand.
Rain splashed against the bare window, coating the glass with water. Lightning flashed outside, followed by a boom of thunder.
Ian lifted Beth, still kissing her, and lowered her into the steaming bath. Beth’s eyes closed in relief as the warm water engulfed her. Ian stripped off his waistcoat and collar, then his shirt, letting them fall in heaps of wet fabric.
Beth opened her eyes as he kicked off his boots and stepped out of his trousers. He rubbed his bare skin with a towel the maid had left, then stepped into the end of the tub, sliding his feet on either side of hers. Hot water covered his calves, the bite of its heat soothing. He hadn’t liked hot baths as a child—he’d screamed that the water burned him, even when it was only mildly warm. His father had never believed him and shouted at the footman to plunge Ian into the water and be damned. “There isn’t enough room for both of us.” Beth gave Ian a lazy smile, her blue eyes slits.
“I just need to get my feet warm.”
Ian toweled his wet hair, and Beth leaned back against the curved end of the copper tub to watch him. He’d have to send word to Curry to bring them fresh clothes, but not now. None of the poor sods in this house needed to be running out in the storm.
“This hotel is rather seedy,” Beth murmured. She made little figure eights with her hands in the water, watching the ripples spread. “Not the sort in which respectable ladies and gentlemen stay.”
“Does it matter?” One room was much like another as far as Ian was concerned.
“Not really. It’s another wickedness in a night of so much wickedness. I never knew I’d like wickedness so much, Ian. Thank you for showing it to me.”
Her gaze roved his body and came to rest solidly on his erection. That organ pointed stiffly at her, and how could it help it?
Beth was beautiful. Her limbs were white against the tub’s copper bottom, her ni**les pinched tight with cold and desire. Stands of dark hair floated around her shoulders, and the twist of hair between her thighs was darker still.
Her face flushed with heat, her red lips curved into a smile, and her blue eyes gleamed. She lazily licked a droplet of water from her lower lip.
The storm raged through Montmartre like cannon fire. No one, not even Curry, knew where they were. Tonight, Beth belonged to him.
Ian’s life was dictated by other people—events and conversations swirled past him before he could follow them; other people decided whether he’d live in an asylum or out of it, whether he’d go to Rome or wait in London. Events flowed and ebbed, and as long as they didn’t interfere with his interests, like finding elusive Ming pottery, he let them happen.
Now Beth had landed in the swift stream of his life, and she’d stuck there like a rock. Everything else swirled past him, but like an anchor, Beth stayed.
He needed her to stay forever.
Ian bent and hauled her to her feet. Her body was slippery, sliding in a fine way against his.
“You’re still cold,” she said.
“You’ll warm me.”
He snatched another towel from the pile and wrapped it around her before she could start shivering again. The heat of her body was better than a fire, better than all the hot water in the world.
Ian lifted her, stepped carefully from the bath, and carried her to the narrow bed near the stove. The maid had and inserted hot bricks wrapped in cloth under the worn but clean linens.
Ian laid Beth on the warmed bed. She looked up at him, not in the least worried as Ian dropped his towel and stretched out beside her. He pulled the covers over them both, cocooning them in warmth. The heat of the bricks and Beth’s body permeated the bed, driving away the cold.