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Confused, it was as though the days passed in the burn of a low fever. Serafina was unbalanced, things out of perspective, the colours too bright. Forthenby pushed against her again and again, his body, hands, lips, and she faced it – passive, immobile – for if she resisted him in earnest, he would stop and somehow that bruised her more than his knowing smiles, his mocking laughs. 

Apparently, it was not enough that she was in his power – she must yield to that mastery willingly and permit his foot to fall squarely on her neck. 

She told herself that she did all this to pacify him, to protect others within his power, but such thoughts were only platitudes to the hot, ugly, helpless thoughts which invaded her mind. Serafina saved her coins, but she watched him. She could not help but watch him, with his dancer’s swagger and his gaudy clothes. 

Forthenby was dangerous. 

She knew it from the casual way he carried his pistol, knew it from the way his eyes would harden when one of the men around him crossed some invisible line, knew it from the power of his hands. Perhaps he had stopped using that force, that strength against her, but the knowledge that he might made her kittenish and weak to him, when she knew she must be resistant and strong. 

It was easier when there was distance between them, when they were among society. Yet even sitting at tables with respectable Parisian matrons, she would watch his restless movements, his flashing rings and reckless laughter, and how, when he turned to her, the coldness would settle over his face like a veil and he would smile, odious and proprietorial. She forced herself to meet his gaze, unabashed, to ignore the way it travelled gloatingly along her neck, her arms, her chest. To ignore the thoughts it brought.

Let him stare. It changed nothing. 

Nothing.

Unlike his kisses, unlike the pressure of his hands over her breasts. They changed altogether too much. 

If only Mary Dunning were here. If only she had a friend with whom she could laugh at him. Serafina could read French well enough but these fine ladies with their Parisian accents rattled away so quickly that she could hardly keep the thread, let alone display her alleged wit. 

Besides, it might not be so proper on so slight an acquaintance. She was among a set to which she had not been born, and she did not know the rules.

Tonight was another dazzling party, all crowded rooms and blazing candles. There were plates all around her, piled high with pastries, macarons, dainty little cakes. She looked at their sugared glister, thinking of William, how he would rampage through them – of how she herself had always been taught to taste of such things only sparingly, to pretend that she had nothing in the way of appetite. 

Everywhere, fine china shone, and ladies of fashion wore bright gowns and twitched silk fans. She remembered what she could, making notes in her mind of all the poisonous little details that would amuse Mary, but her mouth felt stopped and dry for lack of conversation. 

“A petit-four, my beloved?” said a voice in her ear, as she felt a cool, silk glove upon her shoulder, the strong hand beneath it. “Or perhaps a choux bun? A mille-feuille?” 

Serafina looked up into eyes of kingfisher blue. “Thank you, no, my Lord.”

He had cream at the corner of his mouth, and dabbed at it with one finger, licking it clean as his gaze travelled ticklish up her arms, across her shoulder. It settled on her own lips and she thought of the sweetness of syrup and jam, of the sheen of the gilded macaroons. 

Her mouth began to water.

Forthenby smiled, wry and knowing. He glanced at one of the matrons as if she would understand. He stroked Serafina’s cheek. “My sweet girl. You are in Paris.” And with those words, he was leaning across her, picking up one of those ostentatious plates. “It is a city for the senses.” 

She inclined her face away, only slightly.

 “No?”

“No, my Lord.” She did not, would not, look down. Would not be the first to look away. 

Forthenby lifted a slice, all jam and fine layers of pastry, offering it to her. It barely seemed able to hold together in his hands, collapsing under its own excess. 

She held up her own hand to fend him off, but Forthenby only shrugged and bit into confection, sending the jam oozing redly from its sides, staining his gloves. It smeared his lips, brighter than rouge. 

“Oh,” he said. “Mmmm, yes,” and brought the dripping slice away from his mouth, putting the plate to one side and dabbing at his lips with his free hand. Little fragments of pastry caught on his gloves, and he sent up sticky clouds of white sugar. 

He seemed to be struggling with a laugh, trying to stop it bursting through his closed lips, to stop them both being showered with pastry flakes. His eyes were closed, too, his long golden eyelashes fluttering. 

“Oh, that’s wonderful,” he said, when he could speak again, and took another bite.

Embarrassed, Serafina fought the urge to look away. 

Forthenby still brushed at his lips, still stood before her, unabashed. 

She felt something hot and unbalancing sear through her like vertigo. 

“Impossible to be elegant with these,” he said, when his mouth was empty, before slipping the last of the pastry between his lips, wiping his jam-smudged gloves against them, licking them clean. He kept them there, hiding his mouth for a moment, dabbing at the mess that it had left, smiling like a child. “Delightful, though.” 

“A handkerchief might serve you better, my Lord,” she said, struggling to keep her voice both civil and stern. She could only think of the sugar that hid itself at the corner of his mouth, of the sheen that it left upon his lips. Could only think of how his lips would taste, how they would be sticky and sweet, how the sharpness of the jam would taste on her tongue. 

“So practical, my love,” Forthenby said, and whipped one from his sleeve with a conjurer’s flourish, mopping his fingers clean but continuing to lick his lips. “You really must try one.”

Sudden, terrible, was the urge to seize him, to take another of his kisses and, curse the man, but he seemed to sense it and laughed, pulling away. 

Serafina did not pluck at her dress, did not twist her fan in her hands, or stalk away to pace off her frustration in a cooler room, away from him. People were watching. 

She could control herself. 

What she could not do was control the blush that stole across her face, nor the way her whole body seemed to burn with it. 

Her husband chucked her under the chin, caressing and dismissive. “Too shy to ask, my dear?” 

No, she wanted to say, no, not at all. But for some reason she merely stared up at him, mute and overcome as he lifted some gilded fancy from the plate, and held it out towards her –  towards her mouth, which opened to receive it.