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JACK HAD LOOKED FORWARD to one of Miss Carpenter’s lessons that evening. It would be interesting, he thought, to learn her methods for flipping grown humans over one’s head.
Interesting? That was putting the matter mildly.
Within three minutes of entering the ballroom for the lesson, Jack had seen enough to realize Marianne had let that thief’s accomplice off easy by only tossing him to the pavement.
Within another two minutes, Jack had been volunteered—though not precisely voluntarily—to play the part of an attacker toward Marianne, and he himself had been heaved through the air and onto a sawdust-stuffed mat that wasn’t nearly thick enough.
“One can use the human body as a l-lever to move much larger masses,” explained Miss Carpenter, a square-shouldered, freckled young woman with red-blond hair and a deceptively sweet face. “A-as the Greek scientist Archimedes is thought to have said, ‘Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand and I can move the earth.’ But in Greek, of course.”
She regarded Jack, still prone on the floor, with approval. “G-good, Mr. G-grahame. You l-landed just r-right.” Her stammer came and went, present when addressing Jack but almost absent when speaking to the others in the room, whom she clearly knew well.
Besides Jack and Marianne, six others were present for the lesson. Jack recognized one as the art teacher, Mrs. Lavery, who’d inspired the colcannon the servants had enjoyed for their evening meal. The teacher of history and geography was there too, a pretty widow named Mrs. Chalmers who had light brown skin and alarmingly intelligent eyes.
Also present were two students who were almost grown and preparing to become teachers themselves and a pair of footmen who looked visibly relieved that Jack had joined the group tonight. Miss Carpenter had introduced them as her assistants. Jack guessed they usually played the part of attackers being slammed to earth, or otherwise having the large masses of their human bodies used as levers against their own safety.
Jack groaned and stood, rubbing his shoulder. “It didn’t feel like I landed well. Mrs. Redfern heaved me like a sack of cabbages.”
Marianne beamed at him.
“You w-weren’t hurt,” said Miss Carpenter. “N-not r-really. Kn-knowing how to fall is as important as kn-knowing how to get away.”
“Or attack,” he grumbled. Yet he felt lifted by the response, as if he’d somersaulted over Marianne’s head with skill rather than landing by ungraceful chance.
Miss Carpenter then broke the group into pairs to practice holds and escapes, settling one of the footmen with each of the students and the two other teachers with each other. As this left Jack with Marianne, he stood by her side and murmured in her ear, “Turnabout is fair play. I’ll have you on your back in a minute.”
She choked, covering a laugh. “Presumptuous, aren’t you?”
Jack realized how his words had sounded. “Hm. More like loose-tongued. No, that’s not any better, is it? You’re still laughing.”
She pressed a hand to her mouth and nodded.
He folded his arms, but completely failed at sternness. “Fine, then. Laugh. I’m a man with manly urges, and I’m not ashamed of it.”
After he’d kissed her earlier, he’d thought about it all day, since chopping cabbage didn’t prevent a man’s mind from roaming. She’d liked the kiss; she’d deepened the kiss. And then her clever, organized mind had cleared its throat and interrupted them, and she’d been all business again.
But throughout the day, he’d caught her looking at him. Confused, as she’d said, and sometimes biting her lip. Remembering the kiss, or the taste of strawberries, or the honeycomb he’d found carefully wrapped and hidden behind the new sugarloaves in the pantry.
Maybe he wasn’t the only one with urges.
Marianne pivoted to face him, a foot of space between them on the mat. “Your manly urges didn’t keep you from being thrown like a—how did you put it? A sack of cabbages?”
All right, maybe he was the only one with urges. “Do your worst, Cook. I’ve handled more cabbages today than you, and I’m not a bit afraid.”
“You were going to have me on my back, I think you said. Would you like to try it?”
Through the wide windows, the sky still held the final shreds of daylight, while branches of candles kept their corner of the ballroom glowing warm and welcoming. Oh, she looked saucy, her eyes shining and hair glinting auburn in the candlelight. She still wore her faded work dress from the day, but her hair was plaited now and pinned into a coronet about her head. It looked playful yet regal, and if she didn’t stop laughing, he just might pluck out those pins and give reality to his promise.
“I’ll not only try it,” he said, “I’ll make it happen.”
He scrutinized the other pairs for clues, soon understanding why the footmen were willing to allow themselves to be flung about. Miss Carpenter was settling the hands of one of the students on a footman’s wrist, instructing the young woman to tug the man’s arm forward. As the student obliged, putting pressure on the man’s elbow joint, his expression looked anything but discomfited. It was half an embrace, the lucky fellow.
As Miss Carpenter moved along to the next pair, demonstrating the lunge and tug, Marianne faced Jack.
“You’re watching what they do? Let’s give a different move a try. Come at me as if you’d like to kick me in the midsection.”
Jack regarded her doubtfully. “I like your midsection. I don’t want to kick it.”
“If I’ve learned my lesson from Miss Carpenter, you won’t even come close.” She looked about. “Here, we’d better stand over one of the mats.”
Dubious still, Jack stepped back. Then he strode forward, one great step and another, and turned on the ball of his foot to kick out sideways toward Marianne.
Though he’d expected some skullduggery, he hadn’t foreseen her quick movement. She seized him about the leg in a tight embrace. Thus pinned—though not unhappily—he struggled to keep his balance. “You’ve made your point,” he said. “You’re strong and clever. Now let go. I look like a ballerina.”
Over the line of his leg, her frank eyes met his. “I’m sorry about this,” she said. A second later, a kick to his standing foot knocked that leg out from under him, sending him to the mat flat on his face.
Only then did she let go of his leg. As he groaned, stunned, she crouched next to him. “All right?”
“You’re a terrible human being.”
“I did apologize,” she pointed out. “But wasn’t it clever? You could use the same tricks if anyone ever attacks you.”
“No one would ever attack me in Lincolnshire. And the only person who attacks me in London is you.” Settling his hands under himself, he pushed up into a plank, then slid his feet beneath him and stood.
Miss Carpenter stopped beside them then. “Another good f-fall, Mr. Grahame.” She looked to Marianne. “A-are you comfortable trying the throat grab?”
“Throat grab?” Jack’s brows shot up. “No. I’m not comfortable trying the throat grab. No one grabs my throat.”
“It works the other way. With you grabbing me.” Marianne’s cheeks went pink. “Jack, take hold of me as if you want to throttle me.”
With a knowing smile—just what did she think she knew?—Miss Carpenter moved off to work with another pair. And Jack faced Marianne, less than an arm’s length away.
He stepped closer. “You said ‘as if I want to throttle you.’ Taking it for granted that I don’t, after what you’ve put me through?”
“You said you wanted to see what sort of academy this is.” Her eyes were fathomless, lovely. “And I’ve hurt you only today, and only your pride.”
Which meant, he supposed, that he had hurt her far more over the years. It must have seemed to her, gone from Lincolnshire and knowing his life only through vague rumor, that he’d got everything he wanted and moved along from her.
Secondhand news never got the details right. Sometimes he hadn’t known what to make of his own life, and he was the one steeped in it.
He stepped forward and set one hand to each side of her neck, cradling it in a gentle collar. Her skin was smooth and warm; he stroked it with the pad of his thumb, up and down, until her head tipped to one side to allow him greater range of motion.
“I’m throttling you,” he said quietly. “What do I do now?”
She blinked slowly. “Ah...now I take hold of you.” She grabbed his arms above the elbows and pulled him tightly against her body.
“Dear me,” Jack said thickly. “Which of us is attacking which?”
“Now...now we lie on the floor.” She was still blushing.
“You mean I get you on your back.” He knew he was smirking.
“I mean I pull you to the floor.” She leaned backward, taking them down in a swift tangle of limbs.
For once, it didn’t hurt to fall—or maybe the aches merely faded in the face of arousal. His hands were still on her neck, and he slid them to her collarbone, to the lovely sliver of uncovered skin above the bodice of her dress. She clutched him about the arms, preventing him from freeing himself—as if he’d be fool enough to want to when he lay over her like a lover in bed. Just a fraction, he dipped his head, and when her lids fluttered shut and lips parted, he decided fighting was his new favorite subject.
Another inch, and he’d claim her mouth, and then he would—
“No, n-no. That’s not it at all, Mr. Grahame. Mrs. Redfern. James, come here.”
Jack’s head snapped up. Marianne’s eyes snapped open. With what probably seemed like suspicious speed, they untangled themselves and scooted away from each other on the mat.
Miss Carpenter was the one who had spoken. Reluctantly, one of the footmen shuffled away from his pliant, smiling partner and toward the instructor.
Once Jack and Marianne moved aside, this pair took up places on the mat. What followed was the throat grab and arm grasp, a sudden yank back, and some sort of collapsing somersault on the part of the teacher, and the unfortunate flip of James, heels over head, to land on his back.
The young teacher bounced to her feet, then extended a hand to her partner and heaved him upright. “See the difference? Y-you need to fold at the w-waist, Mrs. Redfern, and place a foot at his m-middle. Make a spring of your body to propel him into the air.”
“Don’t listen to her. Don’t fold at the waist,” Jack murmured into Marianne’s ear as they sat at the edge of the mat. “Don’t place a foot in his middle and propel him into the air. Let him lie on top of you instead.”
She snorted. “That wouldn’t be much of a defense, would it?”
“And why would you defend against me?”
“Many reasons,” she said with a sigh.
That didn’t sound like a bad thing, but he stood and offered Marianne a hand to help her up. Instead of rising to her feet, she took hold of his hand, then his arm at the elbow, and pulled him down again. One of her feet came up to catch his belly, not as a kick but as balance, and instead of his body flipping over hers, they again collapsed in a heap.
“N-not quite how I meant it,” said Miss Carpenter.
But if their instructor said anything else, Jack didn’t notice as he looked into Marianne’s face. He noticed only the swiftness of Marianne’s breathing, the wicked curl of her lips. The softness of her breasts beneath his chest and the length of her limbs entangled with his.
And she thought she had to defend against him.
“Had we best be done with today’s lesson?” he asked, addressing his words not to Miss Carpenter, but to the lovely woman who had tugged his body against hers.
“I think we had, yes,” Marianne replied, a hitch in her voice.
That was that. And a wise thing, too. Regretfully, slowly, Jack levered himself up from their prone position and helped Marianne upright. After he thanked Miss Carpenter for her instruction and bade good night to the others, he and Marianne exited the ballroom. “I’d best be off to my hotel, so I can be ready to work at first light.”
She didn’t quite look at him. “Not yet. There is more work I need of you here. Tonight.”
“Truly? There cannot be a vegetable in London left unchopped.”
Still, she didn’t look at him, and the candles in the corridor sconces left her face in shadow. “It’s not chopping vegetables I have in mind.”
Oh. Oh. He thought he understood her meaning, but decided to toy with her a bit. “Indeed? Could you be more specific?”
“Come on, Jack,” she said with some impatience. “I know you liked lying on top of me. I—could tell.”
“Of course I liked lying on top of you. Remember? Manly urges.”
“Are you still having them? The manly urges?”
She tipped her face to look up at him, and he couldn’t be flippant anymore. Not with her eyes on him, so beautifully familiar in shape, so vulnerable and seeking. They’d grown apart; she was offering them a chance to be together again.
Even if he hadn’t had manly urges—which, by God, he did—he’d be a fool to say no.
“For you?” he replied, smoothing back a wisp of her dark hair, loving the feel of her, real, here. “Always. Forever.”
She laced her fingers with his, then, and pulled him through quiet corridors and through the door that separated the main part of the academy from the servants’ quarters below. They descended the narrow steps to the basement kitchens, silent under the weight of wanting that filled the space between them. Every stride was too short to cover the distance remaining; every breath was too long to wait to touch her more.
When they reached the kitchens, still and empty for the night, Jack was following her blindly, his eyes wide against the pressing darkness. His footsteps rang heavily on the flagstone floor, obvious and blundering. Marianne guided him through the warren of small rooms, through a doorway, then closed it behind her. She struck a flint and tinder, then lit a lamp to reveal a tiny chamber beside the butler’s pantry.
“What room is this?” Jack asked, eyeing the simple bed, the screen, the washstand on which Marianne had replaced the lamp.
“It’s mine,” Marianne replied. “I’ve this chamber, and the housekeeper and butler have a great large room at the other end of the basement. The other servants are up in the attics.”
“This is where you live?” Curious, Jack studied the space. There was nothing to show this room belonged to Marianne, or indeed to any particular person. Besides the clothes hanging on hooks behind the screen, it might have been a bare chamber left unused.
“No. The kitchen is where I live. This is where I sleep.” She reached her hands out to him. “And where we can...”
“Ah. You want me to slake my manly urges with you,” he said lightly, though the sight of the room troubled him. She was a gentleman’s daughter, and she lived with almost nothing. Was she at the edge of poverty? What would happen to her if she couldn’t work anymore?
Questions he’d never thought to ask until he’d realized his family had no more money. Questions he felt compelled to resolve now that his finances were secure.
“Come with me to my hotel room,” he offered. “There’s a feather bed, with more than enough room for you to stay the night, and—”
“Jack. No.” She lifted a hand, laid it gently over his lips. “This is where I live. It’s where I belong now.” She gestured broadly, encompassing the servants’ quarters as a whole. “If you want to be with me, be with me here.”
He pressed a kiss to her hand, then pulled it from his face. Taking her into his arms, he replied, “I want to be with you.”
So he was. And after much undressing, and kissing, and caresses and laughter and a pleasure almost shattering, he had to admit that there was nothing at all wrong with a narrow bed in a plain room, as long as one shared it with the right person.
In a tangle of limbs, they fell asleep.