He took her hand off his sleeve and threw it away from himself.
Lazarus turned swiftly, but Temperance and Sir Henry had vanished. Goddamn it! He began weaving through the ballroom, making for the far corner where he’d last seen her. He should never have left her alone with the man. Should never have let himself be distracted. Someone caught his arm as he passed, but he shook off the hand and heard an exclamation of surprised displeasure; then he was at the corner where he’d last seen her. He shoved aside a pyramid of dying flowers, expecting to find a passage or nook for lovers. But there was nothing. Only the blank wall behind the flowers.
Lazarus turned in a circle, searching the ballroom for a flash of turquoise, the proud tilt of her head. But he saw only the idiot faces of the cream of London society.
Temperance had disappeared.
* * *
TEMPERANCE KNEW ALMOST at once that she’d made an unfortunate mistake in judging Sir Henry’s character. As he led her into a darkened room, her pulse beat with alarm, but hope died hard. If she was mistaken, if he really was interested in the home, she’d be a fool to insult him. On the other hand, if his interest wasn’t in the home at all, she might be in very grave danger indeed.
Which was why she made sure to put a large armchair between herself and Sir Henry as they entered the room.
“I sympathize with Caire your need for privacy, sir,” she said as sweetly as possible, “but might we want to find a better-lit room at least?”
“Can never be too sure, my dear,” Sir Henry replied, not reassuring Temperance at all. “I dislike to discuss my business where others might overhear.”
He closed the door behind him, making the room quite black.
Temperance inhaled. “Yes, well, as to that. The Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children has only three staff at the moment: myself, my brother, Mr. Winter Makepeace, and our maid, Nell Jones.”
“Yes?” Sir Henry said, his voice sounding nearer.
Temperance thought it prudent to abandon her armchair and shift a bit to her left and closer to the door. “Yes. But if we had sufficient funds, we would be able to hire more staff and thus help more children.”
“You’ve fled, my little mouse,” Sir Henry singsonged in a nauseating voice.
“Sir Henry, are you at all interested in my foundling home?” Temperance asked in exasperation.
“Of course I am,” he replied, much too close.
She made a startled movement to her right, and male arms immediately closed about her. Horrid wet lips slid across her cheek. “The home will be a perfect cover for meeting you.”
And then his lips were mashing hers against her teeth.
Sadly, the first thing Temperance felt at this assault was disappointment rather than outrage. She’d spent the time since the musicale imagining how the home could benefit from Sir Henry’s patronage. Now she’d have to start the whole bloody process of finding a patron over again. In disgust, she shoved against his chest, but naturally he didn’t give an inch. Instead he attempted to insert his thick tongue into her mouth, a truly revolting prospect.
Temperance had been disciplining males for a half score of years now. True, the males she dealt with were usually much shorter and less hairy than Sir Henry, but the principle, surely, was much the same.
She reached up, took a firm hold of his left ear, and twisted hard.
Sir Henry screamed like a little girl.
At the same time, the door to the room crashed open. Someone moving low and fast rushed in, shoving Temperance aside and slamming into Sir Henry. The two men went down. Temperance squinted in the dark. She heard the thud of fists, then Sir Henry’s choked-off scream.
There was a pause.
Caire took her arm and escorted her roughly out the door. Temperance blinked as he began hauling her back down the passage. As they neared the ballroom, the sound of the crowd inside grew.
She attempted to withdraw her arm from his grasp. “Caire.”
“What the hell were you doing going to a dark room with that ass? Have you no sense?”
She glanced at him. There was a reddened spot on his jaw, and he looked livid. “Your hair has come undone.”
He stopped suddenly, pushing her up against the wall of the passage. “Never go anywhere with a man not of your family.”
She arched her brows up at him. “What about you?”
“Me? I am far, far worse than Sir Henry.” He leaned close, his breath brushing against her cheek. “You ought never to be near me again. You should run right now.”
His bright blue eyes blazed and a muscle in his hard jaw twitched. He was truly a frightening sight.
She stood on tiptoe and brushed her lips against that tic. He jerked and then stood still. She felt the muscle jump once more beneath her mouth and then subside. She slid her lips toward his mouth.
“Temperance,” he growled.
“Hush,” she whispered, and kissed him.
It was strange. Another man had just kissed her on the mouth, but this pressing of lips with Caire was entirely different. His mouth was firm and warm, his lips stubbornly closed against hers. She placed her hands on his wide shoulders for leverage and leaned a little closer. She could smell some kind of exotic spice on his skin—perhaps he’d rubbed it on after shaving—and his mouth tasted of heady wine. She licked the seam of his lips, once, gently.
He groaned.
“Open,” she breathed across his lips, and he did.
She probed delicately, licking the inside of his lips, across his teeth, until she found his tongue. She stroked across it and retreated. He followed her tongue into her mouth, and she suckled him softly, raising her palms to frame his lean cheeks.
Something in her shifted, crumbling apart and re-forming into a new and wonderful shape. She didn’t know what that shape was, but she wanted to keep it. To stay here in this dim hallway and kiss Caire forever.
The murmur of voices came from the far end of the passage, drawing nearer.
Caire lifted his head, looking toward the ballroom.
A door opened and closed and the voices stopped.
He took her hand. “Come.”
“A moment.”
He turned to look at her, one eyebrow raised, but she darted around him. His black velvet tie was nearly out of his hair. Carefully, she unknotted it and combed through the silver strands with her fingers before retying the ribbon.
When she came back around him, he still had that eyebrow cocked. “Satisfied?”
“For now.” She took his arm and he led her back to the ballroom.
“I’ll need to begin anew,” she said as they began circling.