An Inconvenient Arrangement (Inconvenient Matches Book #2)

The Devil's Pastry

"And there's this woman, her name is Caroline Herschel," Sylvie chattered away happily as Raphael experienced his own personal version of hell. She held a half-eaten eclair in one hand, a small dot of cream right above her lip which Raphael was desperately trying not to look at. "She's discovered three nebulae! Three! Can you imagine that? And ten comets! Ten! A woman! She gets a stipend of fifty pounds a year from the King! That's enough to keep a woman comfortable, I imagine. Oh, what an accomplished lady."

They were sitting in the same clearing where Raphael had found her a few hours ago, only now they had a picnic blanket set underneath them and were helping themselves to a basket full of pastries. Pastries that could double as torture devices, that is. How the bloody devil had he never noticed that eclairs could look so positively....phallic. She slipped the pastry past her parted lips and made a groan of approval that was giving Raphael ideas that should never involve someone he'd known since girlhood. She kept chattering away in that adorable way of hers, completely oblivious to his silent suffering.

Thomas' sister. Thomas' sister. Off limits, off limits, off limits.

"Oh, the way this cream just melts in your mouth is divine," she sighed happily, wiping the corner of her mouth and then sucking her finger clean of the filling as he hastily drew his coat closed over his waist, lest she accidentally catch the obvious tightness of his breeches. "You must try some, Raphael."

In his mind's eye, he saw himself licking that dollop of cream right off the corner of her mouth and then tasting the remnant sweetness inside her mouth.

This could not possibly be happening. Not to him! He didn't get ensnared like this. Ever.

"Uh, why don't you try some of the biscuits, instead?" He all but snatched the tray of the remaining eclairs from her hands and shoved the tin of biscuits in their stead. She shot him a confused look before reaching for the pastry again but they, tragically, slipped out of his hand. Completely by accident.

"Well now look what you've done," she frowned at him.

"It's fine, we have other things to eat."

"Yes, but now the sheet will be all sticky thanks to you,"

Good God, please have mercy.

He had a feeling this would not be the only sheet that might end up a little sticky tonight thanks to him.

"Er, so anyway, that woman you were telling me about. Comets! Isn't that something?"

"Oh, Miss Caroline Herschel. Isn't it just a dream? A woman! Acknowledged by the King himself! But please do tell me all of your adventures in Cambridge! How much of the scandal sheets are true?"

They fell into a companionable conversation, enjoying the desserts and the pleasant weather as he regaled her with the more tame stories from university. He noticed that Sylvia kept shooting him contemplative looks but he was too sleepy and far too sated to muster the energy to ask her what was bothering her, but when her frowning didn't cease he was finally forced to ask, "What are you thinking with that clever little mind of yours, Sylvie?"

"It's just.....you've changed. Even more so than I could have expected," she said softly, making him crack open his eyes in interest. "It's so peculiar. You are so very familiar, while simultaneously being a stranger. Sometimes I see my very dear friend in the way you laugh, and other times I can't help but ask myself 'Who is this man?'"

"So I have," he agreed. "As have you."

You've turned into this elven seductress that I am rather disastrously attracted to.