Page 30 of A Game of Scandal

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“You don’t need to be exposed to the gaming hall at this time of the night, my lady,” Davey muttered, guiding me through a service tunnel towards the back of the building. “Wouldn’t be proper.”

While I appreciated his concern, I was also disappointed. I wondered what sort of debauchery was taking place and if I could talk Ash into letting me see it some time. He and I hadn’t had a chance to say much of anything to one another before Davey had shepherded me from the room, a ludicrous amount of money held safe in his enormous hands. It was three o’clock in the morning and I was to go to the Aviary to report to Mrs Finch and – thankfully – to deliver my winnings.

“I’ll have the carriage brought round,” Davey said. “You wait here.”

No sooner had Davey departed than the door behind me, the one we had just come through, swung open hard enough that it banged loudly against the wall. I spun round, heart thumping – then I realized who it was.

“Ash!” I exclaimed, taking an impulsive step towards him, but there was no need for me to bring myself any closer… The man was striding towards me, a look of great concentration on his face.

He barely slowed down as he reached me, and heat leaped in his expression, a candle flame of desire that I felt flickering inside my own body. For half a heartbeat, he paused in front of me, a question in his eyes. There was only a breath of space between us, and I tipped my face up, closing it, my hands winding round his neck as he drew me hard against himself, with a groan that tasted like relief against my lips.

Instantly, my entire body lit up like one of the firework displays over Crystal Palace. It turned out that kissing Ash was worth the wait.

In my brief but enjoyable kissing career, I had never been kissed like this before. This kiss was a rush, a demand, a tease, and then it slowed, deepened into something else, something slow and ripe and luxurious, like warm honey running through my veins. His mouth slanted over mine, firm and demanding. His fingers tugged lightly on my hair, pulling my head back further so that he could take more, give more. It was a pirate kiss, a plundering.

My own hands were on his shoulders and I clutched at the fabric of his shirt, drawing him tighter against me, thrilling at every inch of his body pressing into mine. I was no passive prisoner in this kiss, and I bit down lightly on his beautiful bottom lip. I slid my fingers to his chest, and felt his heart beating wildly under my touch. He murmured endearments against the curve of my mouth, trailed his lips along the side of my jaw. My own heart clattered. I felt powerfully, utterly alive.

Finally, we broke apart, and I stared up at him, air sawing in and out of my lungs.

“What was that for?” I managed, straightening my mask and waging an internal war with my knees, which seemed to have forgotten their only job in the moment was to stop me from melting into the floor.

In response to my question, he lifted me by my waist and swung me round in a circle.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for hours!” he said, and his eyes dropped to my mouth. “Well, I’ve been wanting to do it for over a week, but the last few hours have been particularly unbearable. You were staggering, Felicity Vane. Watching your brain work is the most attractive thing that I’ve ever seen. It was torture not to be able to haul you across the table and kiss that beautiful, clever mouth of yours.”

“Oh.” I felt colour rush to my cheeks. That compliment ranked fairly high on my list of romantic moments. Right below the kiss we’d just shared.

“I have to get back to the club, but we’re not done. Do you hear me?” He reached for my chin, tipping my face so that I was looking deep into his eyes. For once they were utterly serious. “You and I have unfinished business.”

The words were a promise. Something shifted inside me, an insistent awareness that I was playing with fire, that whatever this was, it was no simple flirtation, that it never had been.

“Yes,” I breathed, because why would I argue when I wanted him so badly, when I could still taste him, cool as peppermint, tingling on my lips.

“Davey, you see that Lady Felicity gets safely to the Aviary with her winnings,” Ash said, glancing over my shoulder, and I realized, dazedly, that my giant friend had returned.

I swung round in time to catch Davey trying to hide his grin behind his hand. “Right you are, boss. Precious cargo.”

And with that, Ash turned and left the way he had come, hands in his pockets, whistling something jaunty, excessively pleased with himself.

That was when I remembered the letter he’d received, the news that was surely about his brother, and I felt another rush of surprise. He seemed so untroubled. I cast my mind back to the conversation I’d overhead between Ash and his father three months ago. It had seemed there was no love lost between Ash and his brother, but still…

“Ready to go, my lady?” Davey asked, still grinning at me, presumably because to his eyes I was standing frozen like some sort of lovestruck fool.

“Oh. Yes.” I cleared my throat. “Yes. Let’s be on our way.”

With that, we made our way out into the cool of the night. A carriage had been pulled up into the alley behind the club, and I took in my surroundings with interest. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to see. It appeared to be a dingy storage area of sorts.

“Owner’s entrance,” Davey said grandly. “This is how Joe and Ash come and go, bit more clandestine.”

“And they often need to move about in a clandestine fashion, do they?” I asked.

Davey only gave an eloquent shrug and greeted the driver. He clambered up behind me into the carriage, before hitting the roof with one of his dinner-plate-sized fists. With a rocking motion, the carriage began to move, and we continued the journey in silence.

I didn’t mind. Between Laing, the poker game, Peregrine Archer’s death and Ash’s kiss, I had quite a bit to think about.

At this time of night, it didn’t take long for us to reach the Aviary. The traffic that typically choked the city streets was absent, and we passed quickly along the empty roads, lit dimly by the streetlamps, hazy ember-orange smudges struggling against the blanket of smog. It was a new experience for me, seeing London like this – it felt like a secret, an eerie, atmospheric secret.