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She drew a long, steadying breath. "Cruel," she said. "Unspeakably cruel. Poor David." She emptied the champagne glass. "Is that why you were so unreasonable when I came home? You had a delicate job, I collect, to get the details out of him. It must have been beastly for you. If I'd had to investigate a friend—Fiona, for instance—in such a way, and hear of such cruelty and misery, I should be wretched." She stroked his coat sleeve. "Oh, Esmond, I am sorry."
The emotions he'd so ruthlessly buried began struggling to surface. Shoving them down, he said, "If you feel sorry for me, I can only conclude you are drunk."
She shook her head. "It takes more than two glasses of wine—with a large dinner—and one glass of champagne. And it’s no use trying to persuade me you don't feel anything—especially regarding David. I know you're upset because he's got a strong motive for murder."
"He does, certainly. Now he also has a strong motive to kill me."
"You're upset because you like him," she persisted. "You always call him my favorite, but he's your favorite, too, isn't he?"
"I am not upset," he said, edgily aware of her hand still upon his coat sleeve. "Even if he did the murder, it does not follow that he must be punished. My ideas of justice are not English. And all Quentin wants is to satisfy his curiosity. He likes to know all the answers. He is like you."
She was absently stroking the sleeve, her countenance thoughtful.
"You don't want me to believe you have a heart," she said. "Or a conscience."
"Leila."
"You might have a little bit of a heart." She lifted her hand and brought thumb and forefinger nearly together. "Since you're almost human, you might have a tiny little piece of a heart," she went on, squinting at the narrow space between her fingers. "And a tiny, tiny sliver of a conscience." She shot him a glance from under her lashes. "And I never gave you leave to use my Christian name. You normally manage to observe certain formal proprieties of address, even when you're behaving most improperly. But tonight I've got you so upset that you say—"
"Leila."
"That's three times now. Very upset, indeed."
"Because you provoke me," he said, grabbing her hand. "Because you probe. But I am not Avory. I do not tell my every thought and feeling to everyone who shows me a small kindness."
"Kindness?" she echoed. "Is that what I'm accused of? For heaven's sake, do you think every time a human being tries to deal with another as a human being—as a friend—there's some ulterior motive?" She pulled her hand away. "Because I haven't taken fits and broken things over your head and made an unprofessional fuss about a professional matter, you think I'm engaging in some sort of coldblooded manipulation?"
"You were probing," he said. "I could feel it."
"I wasn't detecting. I was trying to understand—to see matters from your point of view."
"As a friend, you said."
"And what's wrong with that?" she demanded. "Aren't you friends with some of your colleagues—accomplices—whatever they are?" She paused to study his face. Then, her voice dropping almost to a whisper, she said, "Don't you have a friend, Esmond?"
It was truth, and it stabbed deep. He had colleagues and countless accomplices and acquaintances and even devoted companions, like Avory. But Avory looked up to and confided in him. There was no equal give and take. There was no friend with whom Ismal shared himself as an equal.
For one terrible moment, gazing into her golden eyes, Ismal wanted, with a loneliness as sharp as physical pain, to share himself with her. His buried secrets struggled, as though they were living things, up—toward her compassionate voice, the soft warmth of her body, the promised welcome and shelter of her generous heart.
One moment of unbearable temptation...Then he saw there could be no welcome for him. Every secret was tangled in lies. He could not extract even one harmless secret, for it might carry a hint of some damning truth that could turn her against him forever. To share with her anything at all was to open the door to more probing, for she wouldn't be satisfied until she knew everything. That was both her nature and her calling, as an artist who sought the truth beneath the skin. Already, she had reached too deep.
"You are probing still," he reproached, drawing nearer. "Stop it. Now, Leila."
"I only wanted to—"
"Now." He continued to advance, until her knees were pressed against his thighs. Then he leaned in close.
"Don't," she said. "Stop it."
"You stop it."
"Unfair tactics, Esmond," she said edgily. "You are not to—"
He crushed the rest with his kiss and, holding her fast, tenderly punished her mouth until she gave him entrance to its sweet, dark depths. And, in an instant, the ache of loneliness fled on a bolt of pleasure that made his limbs tremble. Then came another bolt, stunning him, when she reached up and caught hold of his shoulders, her fingers digging into his coat.
His mouth still locked with hers, he lifted her up onto the edge of the table and, sweeping the clutter aside, eased her back while he nudged himself between her legs.
She gasped and started to pull away.
"No," he said softly. "Now I interrogate you. Let us see who discovers the most."
He took her mouth again, and she answered swiftly, hotly. He slid his hands over her bodice, and she shivered, and arched into his urgent touch, pressing the delicious weight of her breasts against his hands.
"Ah, yes," he murmured against her lips. "Tell me more, Leila."
"You already know, damn you," she answered breathlessly.
"Not enough." He drew another long, deep kiss from her while he reached down for the fastenings of her bodice. Then, keeping her distracted with feather kisses along her cheek, her jaw, her neck, he quickly freed one hook, then another. He continued unfastening hooks and buttons while he brushed his mouth over her ear and teased with his tongue and grew dizzy with wicked delight when she shivered and twisted against him. Finally, impatient, she caught his hair and brought his mouth back to hers and pressed and coaxed until he surrendered, and answered with the passionate plunder she wanted. Under his deft hands, her armaments surrendered, too: the twilled wool and silk of her bodice arid, beneath, the soft cambric and, beneath…heaven...the warm silk of her lush breasts, rich with her scent...taut under his soft, wondering caress.
"Ah, Leila." His voice was soft and wondering, too, as he brushed his thumb over a hard, trembling bud. She answered with a moan, and drew his head down, and let him worship with his mouth, because there was no choice, for her, for him. No choice at all once they came together. They were strong-willed, both, but this desire made a mockery of will. Just as it did of honor. For him. For her.
And for this moment, for him, there was no will or honor or anything but her...welcome and warmth...creamy flesh under his lip
s, his tongue...and the intoxication of desire he heard in her low moan, when he took one tawny rose peak into his mouth and tenderly suckled.
At this moment, all the world was one woman and the need she stirred in him, fathoms deep, to the very bottom of his black, false heart. Lost in need, he could not keep himself from restlessly seeking more of her, pushing back every barrier in his way until her lavish bosom was fully exposed, and he could bury his face in that creamy softness.
Her caressing hands and aching sighs told him, as her trembling frame told him, that she was lost, too, for this moment. And lost beyond conscience, he pushed the moment on, with long, drugging kisses, while his too-quick hands were busy as well, dragging up her skirt, stealing under the petticoat, sliding swiftly over the silken drawers to the feminine secrets the fragile fabric so inadequately shielded.
The instant he touched the thin barrier, she recoiled, as though she'd been burned. But he was burned, too, for her damp heat was a fiery current that darted through his fingertips and raced through his veins. She was hot and ready for him, and he was on fire, mad to possess.
With one arm lashed against her back, he trapped her in a deep, plunging kiss while he found the silken drawstring. Swiftly untying it, he slid his hand under the fabric.
He was aware of her body stiffening, aware of her withdrawal even before she broke from his desperate mouth, but he couldn't draw his hand from that rapturous womanly warmth. He couldn't keep his fingers from tangling in the silken curls and closing over her moist heat in mindless possession.
"No," she gasped. "For God's sake—no."
"Please," he whispered, blind, besotted, needy. "Let me touch you, Leila. Let me kiss you." Even while he begged, he was sinking, ready to fall to his knees. He would die if he could not put his mouth to her sweet, damp heat.
She grasped a fistful of his hair and jerked him upright. "Stop it, curse you." Digging her nails into his wrist, she wrenched his hand away.
