Read Online Gossamer Wing by Delphine Dryden - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Delphine Dryden
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pretend.
* * *
HE’D THOUGHT HER an angel in the sunlight. Now, Dexter saw that he had been wrong.
Charlotte was a creature made for night gardens. She bloomed in the starlight and moonlight, opening like a sweetly scented white blossom under the indirect glow of the night sky. She was too subtle to need anything so blatant as sunlight in order to shine.
He wondered if she had chosen the color of the dress on purpose to tease him. Palest blue silk with an opalescent shimmer in the mesh overlay, the blue that melted into a cloudless sky, rendering her invisible on her airship. She was the opposite of invisible in the ballroom, wearing this blue. It matched her eyes, set off her hair . . . and the décolletage was inspired, more daring than a young unmarried woman was allowed. The prerogative of a young matron. Or a young widow who was finally out of mourning.
Dexter wanted to run his finger along the edge of the silk, push down the little extra rim of net that pretended at modesty to reveal another inch or so of peachy-soft skin. He scooted a few more inches away from her, lest he forget himself in the moonlight and give in to that temptation.
If he had been courting her in earnest the past month or so, he would have risked placing his lips just there at that moment, right on the soft rise below her clavicle. She was a widow after all, not a green girl. If he were a real suitor, he might well have dared far more than that by this time. Would she, he wondered, taste faintly of tea and lemon?
It was business, Dexter reminded himself. Charlotte had lost a husband, one she’d loved enough to want to avenge at the risk of her own life. She was no sophisticated companion to spend a night or two with and then leave after presenting a costly bauble. Nor was she an accommodating barmaid with a playfully liberal interpretation of morality and no illusions about his intentions toward her. She was a lady. And he, curse it, was a gentleman. According to the briefings he’d received from Darmont, aside from supporting Charlotte’s mission, his interest in the matter was supposed to be confined to the undersea station and the need for seismic monitoring given the frequency of earthquakes in the English Channel.
If he were really to get into the spirit of the thing, he sighed to himself, then the delectable Charlotte, Lady Moncrieffe, would probably toss him on his arse. Petite she might be, but he knew she’d been well trained for her assignment and he had little doubt she could flip him onto the ground as easily as he flipped a hot cog out of a mold.
So he remained where he was, as far as possible from her on the tiny bench, feeling as though the weighty matter between them might shove him straight off his perch at any moment.
At that moment the universe, in its capricious whimsy, decided to intervene.
A gaggle of three chattering maidens and one married pseudo-chaperone came prancing along the path, and among their number was a young lady who had done everything in her power to gain the newly socially inclined Baron Hardison’s attention that month. Never mind that the man was clearly attached to Lady Moncrieffe, and that rumor had them nearly engaged already. Either the girl herself or her mother was dead set on catching the elusive Baron’s eye. There were not so many single, eligible young men this season that any of them could shake this sort of pursuit, except by engagement or marriage. Even a few broken engagements had been engineered as the Season neared its closing month and the young ladies grew more desperate. It was nearly May already; by June it would be too hot, and too late by far, to find husbands for all the wilting flowers.
The tittering group drew abreast of them with a fresh spate of murmurs, giggles and apologies when the trysting pair was spied. Then, bowing and glancing over their shoulders as they drifted away, the girls launched into an analysis that was not entirely as sotto voce as propriety
* * *
HE’D THOUGHT HER an angel in the sunlight. Now, Dexter saw that he had been wrong.
Charlotte was a creature made for night gardens. She bloomed in the starlight and moonlight, opening like a sweetly scented white blossom under the indirect glow of the night sky. She was too subtle to need anything so blatant as sunlight in order to shine.
He wondered if she had chosen the color of the dress on purpose to tease him. Palest blue silk with an opalescent shimmer in the mesh overlay, the blue that melted into a cloudless sky, rendering her invisible on her airship. She was the opposite of invisible in the ballroom, wearing this blue. It matched her eyes, set off her hair . . . and the décolletage was inspired, more daring than a young unmarried woman was allowed. The prerogative of a young matron. Or a young widow who was finally out of mourning.
Dexter wanted to run his finger along the edge of the silk, push down the little extra rim of net that pretended at modesty to reveal another inch or so of peachy-soft skin. He scooted a few more inches away from her, lest he forget himself in the moonlight and give in to that temptation.
If he had been courting her in earnest the past month or so, he would have risked placing his lips just there at that moment, right on the soft rise below her clavicle. She was a widow after all, not a green girl. If he were a real suitor, he might well have dared far more than that by this time. Would she, he wondered, taste faintly of tea and lemon?
It was business, Dexter reminded himself. Charlotte had lost a husband, one she’d loved enough to want to avenge at the risk of her own life. She was no sophisticated companion to spend a night or two with and then leave after presenting a costly bauble. Nor was she an accommodating barmaid with a playfully liberal interpretation of morality and no illusions about his intentions toward her. She was a lady. And he, curse it, was a gentleman. According to the briefings he’d received from Darmont, aside from supporting Charlotte’s mission, his interest in the matter was supposed to be confined to the undersea station and the need for seismic monitoring given the frequency of earthquakes in the English Channel.
If he were really to get into the spirit of the thing, he sighed to himself, then the delectable Charlotte, Lady Moncrieffe, would probably toss him on his arse. Petite she might be, but he knew she’d been well trained for her assignment and he had little doubt she could flip him onto the ground as easily as he flipped a hot cog out of a mold.
So he remained where he was, as far as possible from her on the tiny bench, feeling as though the weighty matter between them might shove him straight off his perch at any moment.
At that moment the universe, in its capricious whimsy, decided to intervene.
A gaggle of three chattering maidens and one married pseudo-chaperone came prancing along the path, and among their number was a young lady who had done everything in her power to gain the newly socially inclined Baron Hardison’s attention that month. Never mind that the man was clearly attached to Lady Moncrieffe, and that rumor had them nearly engaged already. Either the girl herself or her mother was dead set on catching the elusive Baron’s eye. There were not so many single, eligible young men this season that any of them could shake this sort of pursuit, except by engagement or marriage. Even a few broken engagements had been engineered as the Season neared its closing month and the young ladies grew more desperate. It was nearly May already; by June it would be too hot, and too late by far, to find husbands for all the wilting flowers.
The tittering group drew abreast of them with a fresh spate of murmurs, giggles and apologies when the trysting pair was spied. Then, bowing and glancing over their shoulders as they drifted away, the girls launched into an analysis that was not entirely as sotto voce as propriety
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