After the Kiss Read online

  “Then I’m sorry. I gave you a chance.” She drew a breath.

  Moving fast, Sullivan closed the distance between them. Grabbing her shoulder with his free hand, he yanked her up against him, then leaned down and covered her mouth with his.

  She tasted like surprise and warm chocolate. He’d expected the surprise, counted on it to stop her from yelling. But the shiver running down his spine at the touch of her soft lips to his stunned him. So did the way her hands rose to touch his face in return. Sullivan broke away, offering her a jaunty grin and trying to hide the way he was abruptly out of breath. “I seem to have gotten everything I came for after all,” he murmured, and brushed past her to unlatch and open the front door.

  Outside, he collected his hammer and then hurried down the street to where his horse waited. Closing the paintings into the flat leather pouch he’d brought for the purpose, he swung into the saddle. “Let’s go, Achilles,” he said, and the big black stallion broke into a trot.

  After ten thefts, he’d become an expert in anticipating just about anything. That was the first time, though, that he’d stolen a kiss. Belatedly he reached up to remove his mask. It was gone.

  His blood froze. That kiss—that blasted kiss—had distracted him more than he’d realized. And now someone had seen his face. “Damnation.”

  “And what would I do at home, Phillip?” Lady Isabel Chalsey asked her older brother as they descended from the family’s coach. “Cower beneath my bed?”

  Phillip, Earl Chalsey, frowned at her, tugging at his sleeves as he always did when he was distracted. “You came face-to-face with a burglar, Tibby. The Mayfair Marauder, no doubt. That is not an everyday occurrence.”

  “Precisely. I can’t wait to tell absolutely everyone about it. Which is why you should be taking me to Bond Street and not to look at silly horses. None of my friends will be here, because they are shopping.”

  “When you jumped into the coach you knew I was going to Tattersall’s. You didn’t have to join me.”

  “Yes, I did, because I think Mama wants to send me to a nunnery now for my own safety.”

  “You’ve being overly dramatic again. And I wonder if you would be so flippant if it was your things that went missing instead of Mother and Father’s.”

  For a moment she considered informing him that her virtue had nearly gone missing, but she didn’t want a reputation for kissing intruders. Or Marauders, rather. “Hardly anything went missing at all. And truthfully, I’m not a bit upset that that silly dove of Mama’s is gone. But I’m not being flippant. Or dramatic.”

  “Do tell. Next you’ll be saying that the Marauder had you at swordpoint or something.”

  “Ooh, that does sound terrifying, doesn’t it?”

  “Tibby.”

  Isabel took Phillip’s arm as they entered the grounds of Tattersall’s. Ordinarily she would have preferred to remain home rather than attend the horse auctions, but after hours of listening to her mother bemoaning the loss of her various trinkets and growing faint every time she thought about the danger her daughter had been in, Isabel had had enough. Thank goodness she hadn’t mentioned that the thief had kissed her, or she wouldn’t have to imagine her fate. Her parents would have sent her back home to Burling in Cornwall for her own safety—or her virtue—and she would miss the rest of the Season.

  She should have felt terrorized, she supposed, and she had been frightened half out of her wits when she’d slipped downstairs for an apple and he’d been standing there in the middle of the hallway. In that dark coat and black half-mask he’d looked like a demon—but he’d sounded like something else entirely. Not a ruffian, certainly. And his eyes had glittered green in the moonlight. His face when she’d removed his mask…No, not a demon at all.

  “I’m not being dramatic,” she said again, when she realized her brother was expecting her to feel chastised. “Not terribly so. I know I might have been injured. But I wasn’t, and if I wish to talk about it with my friends and if it makes me feel braver to make it into an adventure, then I suppose I have that right.”

  “Yes, I suppose you do,” he conceded grudgingly. “I only wish something more useful than a topic of conversation had come from this calamity. If you’d seen his face, Bow Street might finally be able to stop these thefts,” Lord Chalsey commented. “You know we’re at least the tenth house in Mayfair to be robbed over the past six weeks. The Marauder has everyone panicked.”

  Men. “Now you want me to have seen his face?” she returned. “I thought I was supposed to close my eyes or faint.”

  Phillip slowed, bringing her to a stop beside him. “I do not understand you, Tibby,” he grumbled, his brown eyes somber. “This was serious. Confronting a thief in your own home—”

  “It made me angry,” she interrupted, beginning to wish that he would change the subject, after all. “If I’d been a man, I would have shot him or something, I’m sure. But since I wasn’t armed, all I can do now is turn it into an amusing tale and pretend it didn’t bother me. It’s over, anyway. Crying now seems like a waste of time.”

  Her older brother patted her hand where it lay over his arm. “You’re correct. And you’re safe, while we’ve lost nothing but a pair of paintings and a few trinkets, however much Mother may claim to cherish them. If you hadn’t awakened when you did, we might have lost more. So if you want to go to Bond Street to gossip this afternoon, I will escort you. But I only say that now that you’re safe.”

  Safe and a little befuddled. No, her thief hadn’t spoken or looked like a ruffian, nor had he kissed like one—not that she’d kissed any ruffians before. And there had been something else, as well. The way he’d so carefully wrapped one of those paintings, as though it were a Rubens and not a minor work of a minor artist. As though it were precious to him.

  “Ah, there he is,” Phillip said with a smile, increasing his pace. “He’s absolutely champion.”

  Isabel shook herself and looked out at the teeming crowd of horses, breeders, trainers, grooms, and hopeful buyers and spectators. “Who is?”

  “Not a person who. A horse who.” Phillip pointed. “Over there. The bay. Sullivan Waring’s stable. Bram Johns is there. Oh, by Jupiter. He’s standing with Waring himself.”

  She spotted Lord Bramwell; in his typical stark black attire with his coal-black hair and eyes, the Duke of Levonzy’s second son would stand out anywhere. He was now looking over a small paddock, an equally tall, lean man beside him and several horses, including a very fine-looking bay stallion, beyond. “He’s huge, Phillip,” she exclaimed. “I think he may be carnivorous.”

  “I am,” Lord Bram returned with a lazy smile, turning around to take her hand, “but never fear. I don’t bite unless asked.”

  “Mind your manners, Bram,” her brother said a little abruptly. “My sister had a scare last evening.”

  “Did she, now?” Lord Bramwell said, straightening. “Do tell.”

  “We were burgled. Isabel came across the brigand in the middle of his pilfering. We’re certain it was the Mayfair Marauder. She might have been killed.”

  So much for her telling the story. She was not letting Phillip take her to Bond Street.

  The second man, the one beside Lord Bramwell, stirred. “I hope you’re well, then, my lady,” he said.

  She looked over to find ice-green eyes gazing at her, the left one obscured by a stray lock of brown hair interlaced with strands of gold. Good heavens, he was handsome. And…familiar. Her jaw dropped, and all the blood left her face. Him. “You—”

  “Apologies, Lady Isabel,” Lord Bramwell began at the same time. “Have you met Sullivan Waring? Sully, Lady Isabel Chalsey. You know her brother Lord Chalsey, I believe.”

  Before Isabel could draw a breath to shriek or to protest that this man was the brigand who’d kissed her and stolen their things, her brother stepped in to shake Waring’s hand. “Mr. Waring. Last time we met I didn’t have the chance to welcome you home. I’m pleased to see you’ve returned safely from th
e Peninsula, sir.”

  “So am I.”

  Phillip grinned. “That’s the bay I’ve heard about, isn’t it? By Jupiter, he’s grand.”

  Waring turned his gaze from Isabel to look over the paddock fence. “Yes, that’s Ulysses,” he said, a note of pride entering his voice. “He just turned three.”

  “Is he broken to saddle?”

  “He is.” Waring gave a low, two-toned whistle, and the thoroughbred tossed his head and trotted to the fence. “And despite appearances he’s actually a good-tempered fellow,” he continued, sending Isabel another glance before he produced a slice of apple for the bay.

  He handed the rest of the apple to Phillip and moved back from the fence. Lord Bramwell and her brother began a conversation about the rarity of good-tempered stallions, while Isabel kept her gaze on Waring as he stopped beside her.

  “I suggest you hold your tongue, my lady,” he murmured.

  “You already attempted that on my behalf, I believe,” she said stiffly. “And do not threaten me. You are a common thief, and I will see you arrested.”

  “Common, am I?” he murmured. “I’ll see you ruined if you speak a word about me. I could tell such tales about us, Isabel. You and a common thief.” With a slow smile that didn’t touch his ice-green eyes, he returned to the conversation about horses.

  Isabel clenched her fists. How dare he threaten her? She’d spoken nothing but the truth. He was handsome, yes, but he was also a burglar. She spent a moment considering whether she would have been so…discreet if he hadn’t looked like a tall, lean Greek god, or if he hadn’t kissed as sinfully as the devil himself.

  Her brother had said that she liked to overdramatize events, and she would agree with that. There was nothing wrong with giving happenings a certain flare to make them seem more interesting in the retelling. And she definitely, emphatically didn’t like being told what to do, or being threatened when she’d done nothing wrong. And Mr. Waring had befuddled her, when she didn’t like feeling confused. She’d concealed parts of the truth on his behalf—and hers—and now he threatened her?

  “So you wish to buy Ulysses, then, I assume?” she asked her brother, wrapping her hand around his arm.

  “I’ll offer you fifty quid for him right now,” Phillip said with a nod, “if it will save me the bother of having to bid for him.”

  Waring gave another cool smile. “Make it one hundred, and I’ll be more amenable.”

  “A hundred pounds? That’s—”

  “What about that mare?” Isabel interrupted, pointing at the pretty gray in the adjoining corral.

  “She’s not saddle-broken,” Waring said, not looking at her, and apparently confident that his threat had cowed her. “I’ll sell her for brood.”

  “I want her.” Ha. She didn’t cow easily.

  “Tibby,” Phillip said in a lower voice. “Firstly, declaring you want a horse is hardly the way to get the best price. And secondly, an unbroken mare? For you? If you want to learn to r—”

  “I want that one. I’m certain if you give him the hundred pounds, Mr. Waring would be happy to throw in the mare.”

  Mr. Waring pulled in a breath, then gave a short nod, his gaze still on Phillip. “I would agree to that.”

  “But—”

  “And,” she continued, as though her brother hadn’t begun speaking, “I’m equally certain Mr. Waring would be willing to saddle-train her for me.”

  “No.”

  This time he looked directly at her. Apparently he didn’t like being dictated to, either. But he was the sinner; not she. He merely needed to be reminded who had the advantage here today. She took a step closer. “A hundred pounds, Mr. Waring,” she said with a smile. “Surely for that you can break one mare to the sidesaddle, especially if she’s pure-blooded enough to be bred.”

  He gazed at her evenly. “Very well. I’ll have her delivered to you in three weeks.”

  “Oh, no. I want her now. You may train her at our stable.”

  “Tibby,” Phillip broke in with a frown, “Mr. Waring is a very sought-after breeder. He doesn’t have time to—”

  “A hundred and twenty pounds, then. Surely twenty pounds would compensate you for your time.” Isabel deepened her smile. “Then you wouldn’t have to go marauding about Mayfair looking for buyers.”

  His jaw worked, fury in the straight line of his spine. Every instinct for self-preservation she possessed screamed at her to back away at once and tell her brother precisely what had transpired last night. Just as strong, though, was the wish to turn this to her advantage. She’d never had her hands on a secret of this magnitude before, and it excited her enough that she didn’t want to let it go. Not until she could show him she would not be intimidated because of a kiss and a threat.

  “Sully?” Lord Bramwell drawled, and Mr. Waring visibly shook himself.

  “I’ll bring the pair to Chalsey House this afternoon,” he grated. “Pray give me your address.”

  As if he needed that. With another smile she waved her fingers at her brother. “Phillip will see to that. Does my mare have a name?”

  “Zephyr,” Mr. Waring returned, his voice curt. “But I call her Brat.”

  Humph. He would regret that. “Well, as you will be working for me, from now on you shall call her Zephyr. Phillip, when you’ve paid Mr. Waring, please help me purchase an appropriate saddle.”

  “You don’t ride?” Waring asked, lifting an eyebrow.

  “Well, I do now. Or I will, when you’ve finished your work.”

  Deliberately turning her back on him, she walked over to take a look at her new horse from the safety of the other side of the wooden rails enclosing her. Whether she learned to ride or not, at least she would know where Mr. Sullivan Waring was spending his days until she could decide what to do about him. And to think, she’d wanted to go and tell her friends about last night’s excitement. She’d never reckoned that that would only be the beginning of the tale.

  Chapter 2

  “You might have mentioned that someone saw you.” Bram opened his monogrammed handkerchief and spread it over a loose bale of hay before he took a seat.

  Sullivan didn’t want to sit. Pacing seemed to be the only thing that would take the edge off his frustration. “I never expected to set eyes on her again,” he growled. “How the bloody hell was I supposed to know that her brother would be here today?”

  Bram twirled a stalk of hay in his fingers. “She didn’t have you arrested. That does make one curious.”

  It made Sullivan curious, as well. “I threatened her.”

  “Apparently she realized that you have more at stake in this than she does. Because you, my friend, would now seem to be her slave.”

  “Nonsense. I’m delivering a pair of horses.”

  “And helping your pretty miss learn to ride.” He gave a lazy smile. “That’s usually a metaphor.”

  “Not this time.” Sullivan bent down to pick up a clod of dirt to hurl it against the wooden side of a watering trough. It exploded into dust. “Damnation.”

  Bram lifted an eyebrow. “You might leave London for a time.”

  “I have four more paintings to recover.”

  “If she carries your tale, Sully, they’ll hang you at Tyburn Hill for stealing from aristocrats.”

  Sullivan shrugged. “If I was arrested, Dunston would probably see to it that I was transported. A hanging in the family tree is a bit messy.”

  “You’re not in his family tree. Not according to his…well, his family.”

  “Do you really think I need to be reminded of that?”

  Bram sighed. “No. But I didn’t think you needed to be reminded not to be seen, either. Wear a mask from now on, for Lucifer’s sake.”

  “I do wear a mask.”

  “Then how did Lady Isabel recognize you?”

  Yes, how had that happened? Oh, yes. He remembered. “I don’t know,” he muttered aloud, turning as one of his groomsmen appeared. “Samuel, take Zephyr out of the paddock.
She’s already been purchased. And have Halliwell take the mare and Ulysses off the docket.”

  “Aye, Mr. Waring.”

  Sullivan pulled out his pocket watch. The other four mares he’d brought today would be going up for auction in fifteen minutes or so; he needed to be there. “I’ll see you at Jezebel’s tonight, yes?” he asked, glancing at Bram as he retrieved his paperwork.

  “No. I have plans to seduce a pretty young thing tonight.”

  “Ah. And who is it this time?”

  Bramwell stood, pitching the stalk of hay onto the ground and heading to where he’d left his own horse standing. “I haven’t decided yet.”

  With a quickly covered frown, Sullivan glanced at his friend and then away again. “I kissed her,” he said shortly.

  He felt rather than saw Bram pause. “Beg pardon?”

  “I kissed her, and she took my mask off before I’d realized it. That’s how she recognized me.” Sullivan kept his back to his friend, but it didn’t help. He didn’t need to see Bram eyeing him to know that he’d been an idiot. “I never expected her to appear at Tattersall’s, and it’s not as though we’d ever meet at Almack’s.”

  “What? Apologies. I’m still at the part of the conversation where you said you kissed her.”

  “She stumbled across me.”

  “And onto your mouth?”

  “I couldn’t think of anything else to do to keep her from screaming.”

  “You were distracting her, then.”

  Sullivan shook out his shoulders, trying to relieve the tension in his muscles. “Yes. I was distracting her.”

  Bram approached him again. “Having distracted several women myself,” he said, placing an arm across Sullivan’s shoulders, “all I can say is that you, Sullivan, are a complete nodcock.”

  With a glare, Sullivan broke free of the embrace. “I’m aware of that.” Very aware. Not only had he accosted the virtue of a lady who outranked him socially, but he’d put himself, his freedom, into her hands. And from what he’d seen this morning, she was nothing but a spoiled, headstrong chit who liked to play games.