Forbidden Read Online Free PDF

beneath her ear, and this time her entire body twitched and
shivered. She could not prevent it. She was helpless beneath the sure touch of
his lips and his hands.
    His shoulder brushed a spray of cherry blossom and the petals
fell, the scent enveloping them. Somewhere deep in the gardens a nightingale
sang.
    A stray beam of candlelight from the parlor fell across them
and in its light Margery saw that he was studying her face intently, almost as
though he was committing it to memory. She felt disturbed. The mood was broken.
She slipped from his arms and felt cold and a little bereft to have lost his
touch. The music continued but he stood still now, his face in shadow.
    “I should go,” she said, but she did not move. Suddenly she was
scared; she wanted to beg him not to tell Lady Grant what had happened at the
brothel but she was too proud to beg for anything. She always had been. Her
brothers often said that pride and stubbornness were her besetting sins.
    “Wait,” he said. “I wanted to ask you—” He broke off. It was
too late. Some of Lady Grant’s guests spilled out onto the terrace, chattering
and laughing. Margery knew that in a moment they would see her; see her with a
gentleman, a maidservant caught in a guilty tryst.
    “I must go,” she whispered.
    He caught her hand. His was warm. He pressed a kiss to her
palm, a feather-light caress. It made her tremble. The light in his eyes made
her stomach swoop down to her toes in a giddy glide.
    “Thank you,” he said, “for the dance.”
    She had been seen. She heard the voices and spun around,
pulling her hand from his. Her fingers closed over her palm as though to trap
the kiss and hold it there.
    “Who is that?” A woman in a filmy flame-red gown was peering at
Margery through the darkness. Margery shrank back into the shadows as a couple
of ladies giggled and pointed.
    “It’s no one. A maidservant.”
    Someone tittered. “How encroaching of her to be out here spying
on her betters in the ballroom!”
    Margery’s cheeks burned. At least they had not seen her
dancing. And the terrace was empty. Her mysterious gentleman had gone.
    Something glittered at her feet. She bent to pick it up. It was
a cravat pin, slender, with a diamond head and a couple of initials entwined
around the gold stick. She turned it over between her fingers and watched the
diamond catch the light.
    For a moment temptation caught her in its spell. The pin was
valuable. If she gave it to Jem, he would give her money for it with no
questions asked. There had been times in the past when he had asked her if Lady
Grant had any jewelry or clothing or other possessions that she might not miss.
Margery had given him a fine telling off and he had not mentioned it again, but
now, staring at the glittering diamond, she thought longingly of the money she
could put toward a little confectionery shop.
    She gave herself a shake. No and no and no. Thieves and
criminals had surrounded her since childhood. Billy was bad enough, a chancer
and a con man, and Jem was worse. There was something very dangerous about Jem.
Growing up among thieves was no good reason to become one. She would hand over
the cravat pin to Lady Grant and tell her that she had found it. She would imply
that one of the guests had dropped it and she had come across it by chance. She
slipped it into the pocket of her gown.
    “You, there! The little maidservant.” One of the women on the
terrace was calling to Margery. “Fetch me a glass of champagne.” Her voice was
haughty. The light from the colored lanterns skipped over a gown of striped
silk. Margery recognized the thin, disdainful woman she had seen in the
hall.
    “I’ll ask one of the footmen to serve you, ma’am,” she said
politely.
    “Fetch it yourself,” the woman said. “I don’t want to
wait.”
    Someone else laughed. They were all looking at Margery, sharp
and predatory as the bullies she remembered from the streets of her childhood.
Jem had fought those