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She wanted to kick off her shoes and trail her stockinged toes up and down the black, costly boot. She wanted to slide her fingers under his starched shirt cuff and trace the veins and muscles of his wrist and feel his pulse beating under her thumb. Most of all, she wanted to press her lips to his hard, dissolute mouth and kiss him senseless.
Of course, all such a demented assault would get her would be a position flat on her back and the swift elimination of her maidenhead—very possibly in full view of the café’s patrons. Then, if he was in a good humor, he might give her a friendly slap on the bottom as he told her to run along, she reflected gloomily.
“Miss Trent,” he said, “I am sure all the other girls at school found your wit hilarious. Perhaps, however, if you would stop batting your eyelashes for a moment, your vision would clear and you would notice that I am not a little schoolgirl.”
She hadn’t been batting her eyelashes. When Jessica did play coquette, it was purposely and purposefully, and she was certainly not such a moron as to try that method with Beelzebub.
“Batting?” she repeated. “I never bat, my lord. “This is what I do.” She looked away toward an attractive Frenchman seated nearby, then shot Dain one swift, sidelong glance. “That isn’t batting,” she said, releasing the instantly bedazzled Frenchman and returning to full focus upon Dain.
Though one could hardly believe it possible, his expression became grimmer still.
“I am not a school boy, either,” he said. “I recommend you save those slaying glances for the sorts of young sapskulls who respond to them.”
The Frenchman was now gazing at her with besotted fascination. Dain turned and looked at him. The man instantly looked away and began talking animatedly with his companions.
She recollected Genevieve’s warning. Jessica couldn’t be certain Dain had any active thoughts of reeling her in. She could see, however, that he’d just posted a No Fishing sign.
A thrill coursed through her, but that was only to be expected. It was the primitive reaction of a female when an attractive male displayed the usual bad-natured signs of proprietorship. She was hammeringly aware that her feelings about him were decidedly primitive.
On the other hand, she was not completely out of her mind.
She could see Big Trouble brewing.
It was easy enough to see. Scandal followed wherever he went. Jessica had no intention of being caught in the midst of it.
“I was merely providing a demonstration of a subtle distinction which had apparently escaped you,” she said. “Subtlety, I collect, is not your strong point.”
“If this is a subtle way of reminding me that I overlooked what your gimlet eyes perceived in that dirt-encrusted picture—”
“You apparently did not look very closely even when it was clean,” she said. “Because then you would have recognized the work of the Stroganov school—and would not have offered the insulting sum of fifty quid for it.”
His lip curled. “I didn’t offer anything. I expressed an opinion.”
“To test me,” she said. “However, I know as well as you do that the piece is not only Stroganov school, but an extremely rare form. Even the most elaborate of the miniatures were usually chased in silver. Not to mention that the Madonna—”
“Has grey eyes, not brown,” Dain said in a very bored voice.
“And she’s almost smiling. Usually they look exceedingly unhappy.”
“Cross, Miss Trent. They look exceedingly ill tempered. I suppose it’s on account of being virgins—of experiencing all the unpleasantness of breeding and birthing and none of the jolly parts.”
“Speaking on behalf of virgins everywhere, my lord,” she said, leaning toward him a bit, “I can tell you there are a host of jolly experiences. One of them is owning a rare work of religious art worth, at the very minimum, five hundred pounds.”
He laughed. “There’s no need to inform me you’re a virgin,” he said. “I can spot one at fifty paces.”
“Fortunately, I’m not so inexperienced in other matters,” she said, unruffled. “I have no doubt Le Feuvre’s mad Russian will pay me five hundred. I’m also aware that the Russian must be a good client for whom he wishes to make a shrewd purchase. Which means I should do considerably better at auction.” She smoothed her gloves. “I have observed many times how men’s wits utterly desert them once auction fever takes hold. There’s no telling what outrageous bids will result.”
Dain’s eyes narrowed.
At that moment, their host sallied forth with their refreshments. With him were four lesser minions who bustled about, arranging linens, silver, and crockery with painful precision. Not a stray crumb was allowed to mar a plate, not a trace of tarnish smudged the flawless sheen of the silver. Even the sugar had been sawed into perfect half-inch cubes—no small feat, when the average sugar loaf was somewhere between granite and diamonds on the hardness scale. Jessica had always wondered how the kitchen help managed to break it up without using explosives.
She accepted a small slice of yellow cake with frothy white icing.
Dain let the fawning proprietor adorn his plate with a large assortment of fruit tarts, artistically arranged in concentric circles.
They ate their sweets in silence until Dain, having decimated enough tarts to set every tooth in his mouth throbbing, set down his fork and frowned at her hands.
“Have all the rules changed since I’ve been away from England?” he asked. “I’m aware ladies do not carelessly expose their naked hands to public view.
I did understand, though, that they were permitted to remove their gloves to eat.”
“It is permitted,” she said. “But it isn’t possible.” She raised her hand to show him the long row of tiny pearl buttons. “I should be all afternoon undoing them without my maid’s help.”
“Why the devil wear such pestilentially bother-some things?” he demanded.
“Genevieve bought them especially for this pelisse,” she said. “If I didn’t wear them, she’d be dreadfully hurt.”
He was still staring at the gloves.
“Genevieve is my grandmother,” she explained. He hadn’t met her. He’d arrived just as Genevieve had lain down for her nap—though Jessica had no doubt her grandmother had promptly risen and peeped through the door the moment she’d heard the deep, masculine voice.
The voice’s owner now looked up, his black eyes glinting. “Ah, yes. The watch.”
“That, too, was a wise choice,” Jessica said, setting down her own fork and settling back into her business mode. “She was enchanted.”
“I am not your little white-haired grandmother,” he said, instantly taking her meaning. “I am not so enchanted with icons—even Stroganovs—to pay a farthing more than they’re worth. To me, it’s worth no more than a thousand. But if you’ll promise not to bore me to distraction by haggling and trying to slay me with your eyes in between, I shall gladly pay fifteen hundred.”
She had hoped to work him round by degrees. His tone told her he had no intention of being worked upon. Straight to the point, then—the point she’d decided upon hours ago, after catching the expression in his eyes when she’d let him examine her remarkable find.
“I shall gladly give it to you, my lord,” she said.
“No one gives me anything,” he said coldly. “Play your game—whatever it is—with someone else. Fifteen hundred is my offer. My only offer.”
