He laughed, the sound bigger and bolder than she expected.
“It’s true.”
“No doubt you do. But you may have meringue anytime you like.” He stood back and indicated that she should enter the carriage.
She ignored the silent command, eager to make her point. “Not so. If the cook has not made it, I cannot eat it.”
A smile played on his lips. “Ever-practical Pippa. If you want it, you can find it. That’s my point. Surely, somewhere in London, someone will take pity upon you and satisfy your craving for meringue.”
Her brow furrowed. “Therefore, I am not tempted by it?”
“No. You desire it. But that’s not the same thing. Desire is easy. It’s as simple as you wish to have meringue, and meringue is procured.” He waved a hand toward the interior of the carriage but did not offer to help her up. “In.”
She ascended another step before turning back. The additional height brought them eye to eye. “I don’t understand. What is temptation, then?”
“Temptation . . .” He hesitated, and she found herself leaning forward, eager for this curious, unsettling lesson. “Temptation turns you. It makes you into something you never dreamed, it presses you to give up everything you ever loved, it calls you to sell your soul for one, fleeting moment.”
The words were low and dark and full of truth, and they hovered in the silence for a long moment, an undeniable invitation. He was close, protecting her from toppling off the block, the heat of him wrapping around her despite the cold. “It makes you ache,” he whispered, and she watched the curve of his lips in the darkness. “You’ll make any promise, swear any oath. For one . . . perfect . . . unsoiled taste.”
Oh, my.
Pippa exhaled, long and reedy, nerves screaming, thoughts muddled. She closed her eyes, swallowed, forced herself back, away from him and the way he . . . tempted her.
Why was he so calm and cool and utterly in control?
Why was he not riddled with similar . . . feelings?
He was a very frustrating man.
She sighed. “That must be a tremendous meringue.”
A beat followed the silly, stupid words . . . words she wished she could take back. How ridiculous. And then he chuckled, teeth flashing in the darkness. “Indeed,” he said, the words thicker and more gravelly than before.
Before Pippa could wonder at the sound, he added, “Trotula, go home.”
The dog turned and went as he returned his attention to Pippa, and said, “Get in.”
She did. Without question.
The alley behind the Angel looked different at night. More ominous.
It did not help that he punctuated the slowing of the carriage with, “It is time for the mask,” before he opened the door and leapt down from the conveyance without aid of step or servant.
She did not hesitate to do his bidding, extracting the slip of fabric and lifting it to her face, filled with excitement—she’d never had cause to mask her identity before.
The mask promised equal parts excitement and edification.
Her first foray incognito. Her first moment as more than just the oddest Marbury sister.
In the mask, she imagined herself not odd, but mysterious. Not only scientific, but also scandalous. She would be a veritable Circe in the making.
But now, as she attempted to affix the mask to her head, she realized that imagination was not reality. And that masks were not made for spectacles.
On the first attempt, she tied the ribbons too loosely, and the mask gaped and slipped, sliding down over the lenses of the glasses, blocking her view and threatening to fall past her nose and to the floor of the carriage if she moved too quickly.
On the second try, she tied the ribbons with a much firmer hand, wincing as she captured a few stray hairs in the messy knot. The result was not much better, the mask now forced the spectacles against her eyes, warping the thin gold rims until the nose and earpieces dug into her skin, and making her feel decidedly un-Circe-like.
Committed to soldiering on, she slid across the seat to exit to the carriage, where Mr. Cross stood waiting for her. She would not allow a little thing like poor eyesight to ruin the evening. The mask perched haphazardly on her spectacles, she stepped blindly from the carriage, her slipper finding the top step by some miracle other than peripheral vision.
Not so, the second step.
Pippa stumbled, emitting a loud squeak and throwing her arms wide to somehow regain her balance. She failed, toppling to the left, directly into Mr. Cross, who caught her to his chest with a soft grunt.
His warm, firm chest.
With his long, capable arms.
He sucked in a breath, clutching her tightly and for a moment—not even a moment, barely an instant—the length of her was pressed to the length of him, and she was looking directly into his eyes. Well, not precisely directly, as the dratted mask had of course shifted during the journey, and she was left with a fraction of her usual visibility.
But had she full use of her faculties, she was certain she would discover him laughing. And there it was again, embarrassment, hot and unavoidable in the instant before he set her down.
Once on terra firma, Pippa lifted one hand from where it had been desperately clutching his wool coat and attempted to right the mask. She succeeded in upsetting both it and her spectacles, which tumbled from their perch.
He caught the frames in midair.
She looked from the spectacles to his face, its angles stark in the light from the exterior of the carriage. “This was not how I expected the evening to proceed.”
He was not laughing, she would give him that. Instead, he seemed to consider her carefully for a long moment before he stepped back and removed a handkerchief from his pocket. “Nor I, I assure you,” he said, cleaning the glasses carefully before returning them to her.