Kiss Me Darkly by Cecilia Gray

Author:Cecilia Gray
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gray Life, LLC

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As with most house parties with robust activities all through the night, several rooms had been set aside for female guests to indulge in afternoon naps. While there was no need for the Belles to make use of these rooms since they were provided with private quarters, it was practice that they joined their guests if the need for respite overtook them. Most of the elderly guests and young ladies had taken to bed to gather strength for the night of dancing ahead.

Dinah, however, felt no need for respite. She should have felt languid and boneless from the drink, the chocolate, and the poetry. Instead, a hum of energy flooded her veins, which is how she found herself the sole woman still awake as the men adjourned for cigars and cards.

There were too many men to be contained within the card room, so games had been set up in the library and dining room. It left Dinah with few options for solitude, so she wandered outside beneath to the tent that earlier had held food and drink and sat back in a chaise amid the maze of abandoned chairs.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

She started at her father’s voice. “Two thoughts,” she said, “the first being that you are preternaturally sneaky, and the second being that you can afford to pay much more than a penny.”

He chuckled and leaned forward in his chair, just beyond the cover of the tent. She could not make out his exact expression, but the moonlight cast enough glow to illuminate the planes of his face, his hands, and the white of his shirt, which peeked out from beneath his dark coat.

“Why are you out here?” he asked.

“I could ask the same of you.”

“I take a moment for the stars,” he said. “But you cannot see them beneath your tent.”

“I wanted a moment for myself.”

“Which I’ve disrupted. Very well, it is your birthday. I shall be the one to quit.” He began to rise.

“Don’t go.”

He sat with a grunt.

They were alone, for the first time in her recent memory. He was at her disposal. She could share any thought she had. Any brilliant revelations or singular realizations. She had her moment to show him that she was more than a girl to be married off.

And as such, her usual intellect failed her.

What could she possibly say? What one thing could possibly compete with his own idea of who she was?

“What do you see in the stars?” she asked instead.

He leaned back in his chair and cast his gaze up to the night sky. “Navigation points. A map. I know which star carries me away and which brings me home.”

She moved to the seat next to him. “It’s so different here than in London.” In Town, the sky was obscured by factory steam and lamplights.

“It’s even more brilliant from the sea.”

Thousands of glittering pinpricks winked at her from the inky blanket above. Her father saw a map. A practical application. She should appreciate that sentiment, applaud it.

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