Shana Abé - The Smoke Thief

“Stay,” urged Melanie, in a throaty tone Clarissa envied down to her toes. “Just a while longer. I promise . . . you'll appreciate it.”

“No doubt of that.” And Melanie giggled.

Silence, or near silence, and Clarissa wished she could shut her ears as she could her eyes and not hear the muffled whisper of kisses, the stir of bodies against grass. Her cheeks began a burn against her palms.

“But I can't,” said Christoff after a few more minutes of this torture. She heard him stand. “We'll meet up soon, Mel.”

Clarissa peeked through her fingers. Melanie, still on the ground, was stretching her arms above her head; she was half nude and not at all dying of shame, the way Clarissa would be.

“I don't know what your father could possibly say that could compare to this .”

Christoff was lacing up his shirt. “As a matter of fact, he wants to talk about marriage. My marriage.”

“Oh? Are you engaged, my lord?”

“Not yet.”

“Hmmm. Not yet. But who will be your bride, I wonder?” Melanie lifted a leg, flexing her toes in the silky light. “You can only wed another Alpha. And we all know who that is.”

“Do we?”

Melanie smiled up at him, arching her back, and Christoff's hands fell still. His hair was a golden dark tangle down his shoulders.

The twig at Clarissa's nape pulled harder. She reached up, very carefully, and began to work it free.

“Perhaps you'll be surprised,” he said, but he didn't sound as though he meant it.

“I think not. I'm the dominant female. Everyone knows it. Besides,” Melanie laughed, throaty again, “I have reason to believe . . . that you quite like me.”

The twig in Clarissa's hand snapped.

Her body clenched, instant horror. She couldn't move to save her life—and she should have, she should have, because Christoff was there in a second, a swift shadow and then a hand slamming down. She was jerked to her feet, sending leaves and twigs scattering.

“What the hell?”

He had her lifted in the air by one arm, a painful grip. She dangled there helplessly with her heart strangling her throat.

“Kit!” Melanie's voice broke behind them. “What is it?”

And he looked down at Clarissa with his head cocked, frowning, his eyes alight and thoughtful.

“I fell asleep,” she said stupidly.

He lowered his arm, and her feet found the dirt again.

“You!” Melanie was at his side, her gown clutched to her bosom. “You, again! You filthy little spy!”

“No,” said Clarissa, “no, I wasn't spying—”

“Haven't you learned your lesson yet?” She took a step forward, her fingers knotted in the cloth. “I'll teach you to keep following me—”

“I wasn't following you! I wasn't spying! I was here and I fell asleep—”

Melanie's hand cracked across her cheek.

“Jesus, Mel, leave off.” Christoff pushed between them, forcing the other girl away. Clarissa turned her head aside and worked her jaw. Her ears were ringing. She tasted blood.

“But she was here, Kit, here the entire time, watching us!”

He threw a green-eyed look back at her, half masked by his hair, then shrugged. “She said she was asleep.”

“She's lying!”

“I wasn't lying.”

“Be quiet!”

Clarissa touched the blood on her lip. “Anyway, I don't have to lie. I would have left if I'd known you were out. Everyone in the shire knows you come here with any man who'll bother to have you.”

She couldn't believe she'd said it. For the space of a heartbeat there was an awful, massive silence; all she heard was her own breath, ragged in her lungs, and the slow falling drift of a leaf from the bush beside her to the ground.

Melanie opened her mouth. Christoff clapped his hand over it.

“That's enough. For God's sake, Mel, she's just a child.” He glanced at Clarissa once again, his expression oddly severe, as if he were caught between anger and laughter. “Go home. Now.”

Her feet moved. She began to back away from them, her gaze not on Christoff but dead-still Melanie, who had pulled his hand from her face and was following her retreat with terrible eyes.

Her lips formed soundless words: I'll get you.

“Besides,” said Christoff, stuffing his shirt into his breeches, “what do you care what she says? She's only a halfling, after all.”

Melanie's laughter pealed in her ears all the way home.

The Morcambre Courant

Saturday, March 28, 1742

Young Woman Lost to Thaw

Mistress Clarissa Hawthorne of Darkfrith, Durham, has been Lost and presumed Perished by Drowning in the River Fier. Mistress Hawthorne was knowne to be in the Habit of strolling alone along its banks.

A shawl of Rose Poplin and cap of French Biscuit Lace were discovered. Savage rents in the Poplin indicated the Peril of Dangerous Animals about. The River Fier and its Woods were once known to be thick with Wolves and Other Beasts, although vigorous Hunting has well reduced their numbers.

Mistress Hawthorne was the only childe of the Widow Hawthorne and was to have reached her Eighteenth Year on the very day of her Loss.

Let us learne a Valuable Lesson from this unhappy Event, and keep our young flowers of English womanhood safely indoors during this spring thaw, tending Hearth and Home in the Tender Manner by which they will most Naturally come into full Blossom.

St. James's Square, London

April 1751

Letitia, Duchess of Monfield, felt very fine indeed.

Her soirée was coming off particularly well. She had guests of the highest calibre circling and chatting round her table; she had shrimp and roast figs and Spanish sack; she had a freshly snared husband not yet in his cups. She had the envious looks of all the other ladies present, and several excellent young noblemen vying for her attention. Most wonderfully of all, she had the Monfield gemstones.

Letitia was exquisitely aware of them, the tiara, the necklace and bracelet and heavy long earbobs, all newly secured through her marriage to the duke. She had posed with them and paraded in them alone in her chambers for weeks in anticipation of this evening, her first significant dip into society as a hostess. Her wig of rolled curls had been specially constructed for the tiara, the better to display the flare of blue and white above her smooth brow, the tide of diamonds and sapphires that sparkled in the candlelight like, she knew, raindrops against the sun.

The sapphires rather matched her eyes, she thought, and could hardly repress her delight when the Comte du Lalonde put his lips to her ear to say so himself.

“ Je suis aveugle,” he breathed, his accent rasping her skin like lovely, raw silk. “Your Grace carries the stars and the night as her crown, and still she outshines them both. Your very gaze shames them to sorrow, I vow.”

Letty lifted her chin and smiled. She had chosen her favorite for the soirée with great care, and he had yet to disappoint. Despite his youth and Continental ways, the comte was quite the most comely fellow here, far fairer than her own dull, fat Ambrose. The boy's looks—the dark eyes with such incredibly black lashes, the sweet willful mouth—were a perfect complement to her own delicate features.

They sat together on the chaise longue by the bay window, her silver robe a la française a pale match to his gray satin waistcoat and breeches: a pair of splendid creatures, she thought happily, framed in a splendid moment.

The duchess made of show of tapping her suitor's shoulder with her fan. “My dear comte, have a care. You will have all the gossips tattering.”

He leaned back, those long lashes lowered. Really, he was so very pretty, with his rouge and lace and bright laughing eyes. She'd been quite charmed by him the moment they'd been introduced. Why, was it only a fortnight ago? How astonishing—it seemed ages past. Perhaps it was because she'd seen him so often since: whist at Sophie's, Vauxhall Tuesday last, that amusing little weekend at Therese's in Suffolk. .