Seductive Deception

Chapter 26

When the sound of bird songs and the morning light filtered in from the window, Morgan stirred with a peculiar sense of loss in his half-aroused state. It had been a long time since he'd slept peacefully, full of contentment, but now, he could sense something was different before he was fully awake. Opening his eyes, he rolled over to find the bed empty. Madam Cerise was no longer beside him.

He ran his hand over the sheets. They were cool. She'd been gone for a long time.

Blast! How could she do this to him? How could they spend a night like last night and leave, walk away? After he finally felt...what had he felt? Relief. Security. Desire. Lust. Passion. But something more than all those together. Something he assumed she felt too. How could he be so foolish?

He grabbed a fistful of the sheets and flung them to the side as he sat, his eyes darting around the room to the floor where he knew the pile of her clothing was no longer, and then to the door to the bedroom, left ajar.

He put his head in his hand and rested his elbows on his knees as he dealt with the blow, running his hand over his face as he took a deep breath, shaking his head.

She'd left. And at that moment, it occurred to him he had no idea where she would have gone. He had no idea who she was. No idea what address she called home. No idea if she had a family or if she was married.

"Christ," he grumbled to himself. He was playing a dangerous game. He pushed the thought aside with a grunt as he cursed and kicked at something with his foot, regretting it instantaneously when the twang of pain throbbed in his big toe, radiating like red-hot heat.

His eyes darted to the floor, where he saw something black slid halfway under the armoire; he got up and went to it.

In Madam Cerise's hurry to escape, she'd left something behind— her mask.

It was a simple disguise—larger than a domino, covering more than half of her face when worn—and made of what he presumed was black silk or satin. Two ties, which were more utilitarian than ornamental, dangled loosely from the back.

He pressed the mask to his face, indulging in the cool silky material against his cheekbones. It had the same faint scent he'd come to recognize— Rosewater? Mint? Somewhere in the depth of his memories, he recognized the scent. It was something he'd smelled before— many times, but the memory of it was submerged; it never bubbled to the surface.

And later that same night, after he returned to Whittington and spent the entire day locked away in his office pretending to go over financial reports, he found himself lying awake — staring at the ceiling. He found it insufferable to be around too much noise and, ironically, equally intolerable to be in silence. So, he huffed, unamused at his problem, a walking paradigm of contradiction. And the silence, which was once filled with repetitive thoughts of war, Leo, and his father, was now filled with thoughts of her: Madam Cerise.

He remembered how she felt in his arms, the weight of her warmth as she sat on his lap, and how she reached and wrapped her hands in his hair and tugged, causing a whirlwind of satisfaction to spiral inside him.

He got up and went to his sideboard, pouring himself some whiskey before rummaging through the top drawer of his desk, pulling the mask out once again, and putting it to his nose.

Madam Cerise was around, the muddier his thoughts became. And he didn't like muddy. Not when it came to emotions. He liked absolutes—black and white, yes and no, life and death. There was no place for gray, maybes, or anything else. But when she was around, he dreamt of impossible things, impossible scenarios between them. Fantasy.