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“You’ve been rash, your grace,” she taunted. “Again. Another silly wager. But this time a great deal more is at stake.”
His pride, a gentleman’s most tender part.
He shrugged and gathered up the cards.
But she knew what the shrug masked.
His friends had seen him at the opera in the box of an aging actress, seeking an introduction to the actress’s friend. Émilien knew she was a London dressmaker, and by tomorrow night, at least half of Paris would know she was a nobody: no exciting foreign actress or courtesan, and certainly not a lady of any nationality.
What would his friends think, when they saw him enter a party he wouldn’t normally attend, bringing a most unwelcome guest, a shopkeeper?
“What hypocrites you aristos are,” she said. “It’s all well enough to chase women who are beneath you, merely to get them beneath you—but to attempt to bring them into good company? Unthinkable. Your friends will believe you’ve taken leave of your senses. They’ll believe you’ve let me make a fool of you. Enslaved, they’ll say. The great English duke is enslaved by a showy little bourgeoise.”
He shrugged. “Will they? Well, then, watching their jaws drop should prove entertaining. Will you wear red?”
She rose, and he did, too, manners perfect, no matter what.
“You put on a brave show,” she said. “I’ll give you credit for that. But I know you’re having second thoughts. And because I’m a generous woman—and all I want, foolish man, is to dress your wife—I’ll release you from a wager you never should have made. I do this because you’re a man, and I know that there are times when men use an organ other than their brains to think with.”
She gathered her reticule, arranged her shawl—and instantly recalled the brush of his fingers upon her skin.
Crushing the recollection, she swept to the door.
“Adieu,” she said. “I hope a few hours’ sleep will restore your good sense, and you’ll let us be friends. In that case, I’ll look forward to seeing you on Friday. Perhaps we’ll meet on the Quai Voltaire.”
He followed her to the door. “You’re the most damnable female,” he said. “I’m not accustomed to having women order me about.”
“We bourgeoise are like that,” she said. “No finesse or tact. So managing.”
She walked on, into the deserted corridor. From one room she heard low murmurs. Some were still at their gaming. From elsewhere came snores.
Mainly, though, she was aware of his footsteps, behind her at first, then alongside.
“I’ve hurt your feelings,” he said.
“I’m a dressmaker,” she said. “My customers are women. If you wish to hurt my feelings, you’ll need to exert yourself to a degree you may find both mentally and physically debilitating.”
“I hurt something,” he said. “You’re determined to dress my duchess, and you’ll stop at nothing, but you’ve stopped. You’re quite prepared to give up.”
“You underestimate me,” she said. “I never give up.”
“Then why are you telling me to go to the devil?”
“I’ve done no such thing,” she said. “I’ve forgiven the wager, as it is the winner’s prerogative to do. If you’d been thinking clearly, you would never have proposed it. If I hadn’t allowed you to provoke me, I should never have agreed. There. We were both in the wrong. Now go find your friends and arrange to have them carried home. I have a long day ahead of me, and unlike you, I can’t spend most of it recovering from this night.”
“You’re afraid,” he said.
She stopped short and looked up at him. He was smiling, a self-satisfied curve of his too-sensuous mouth. “I’m what?” she said quietly.
“You’re afraid,” he said. “You’re the one who’s afraid of what people will say—of you—and how they’ll behave—toward you. You’re quite ready to sneak in like a thief, hoping nobody notices, but you’re terrified to enter with me, with everybody looking at you.”
“It distresses me to shatter you illusions, your grace,” she said, “but what you and your friends think and say is not as important to other people as it is to you. I hope no one will notice me for the same reason a spy prefers not to be noticed. And it seems to escape you that the thrill of going where one isn’t wanted and hasn’t been invited—and getting away with it—will make the party more fun for me than it will be for anyone else.”
She walked on, her breath coming and going too fast, her temper too close to the surface. Her self-control was formidable, even for her kind, yet she’d let him provoke her. She only wanted to dress his wife-to-be, but somehow she’d been drawn into the wrong game altogether. And now she wondered if she’d bollixed it up, if he’d got her into a muddle with his beautiful face and falsely innocent smiles and his fingers brushing her skin.
His voice came from behind her.
“Coward,” he said.
The word seemed to echo in the empty passage.
Coward. She, who at scarce one and twenty had gone to London with a handful of coins in her purse and overwhelming responsibilities on her shoulders: a sick child and two younger sisters—and staked everything on a dream and her courage to pursue it.
She stopped and turned and marched back to him.
“Coward,” he said softly.
She dropped her reticule, grasped his neckcloth, and pulled. He bent his head. She reached up, cupped his face, dragged his mouth to hers, and kissed him.
Chapter Four
Mrs. Clark is as usual constantly receiving Models from some of the first Milliners in Paris, which enables her to produce the earliest Fashions for each Month, and trust that her general mode of doing business will give decided approbation to those Ladies who will honour her with a preference.
La Belle Assemblée,
or Bell’s Court and Fashionable Magazine,
Advertisements for June 1807
It was no surrender, but a slap in the face of a kiss.
Her mouth struck and opened boldly against his, and the collision rocked him on his heels. It was as though they’d been lovers a long time ago and hated each other now, and the two passions had melded into one: They could fight or love, and it was all the same.
She held his jaw with a powerful grip. If she’d dug her nails into his face, that would have seemed fitting: It was that kind of kiss.
Instead she damaged him with her soft mouth, the press of her lips, the play of her tongue, like a duel. She damaged him, above all with the taste of her. She tasted like brandy, rich and deep and dark. She tasted like forbidden fruit.
She tasted, in short, like trouble.
For a moment he reacted instinctively, returning the assault in the same spirit, even while his body tensed and melted at the same time, his knees giving way and his insides tightening. But she was wondrously warm and shapely, and while his mind dissolved, his physical awareness grew more ferociously acute: the taste of her mouth, the scent of her skin, the weight of her breasts on his coat, and the sound of her dress brushing his trousers.
His heart beat too fast and hard, heat flooding through his veins and racing downward. He wrapped his arms about her and splayed his hands over her back, over silk and the neckline’s lace edging and the velvety skin above.
He slid his hands lower, down the line of her back and along the curve from her waist to her bottom. Layers of clothing thwarted him there, but he pulled her hard against his groin, and she made a noise deep in her throat that sounded like pleasure.
Her hands came away from his face and slid between them, down over his neckcloth and down over his waistcoat and down further.
His breath caught and his body tensed in anticipation.
She thrust him away, and she put muscle into it. Even so, the push wouldn’t have been enough to move him, ordinarily; but its strength and suddenness startled him, and he loosened h
is hold. She jerked out of his arms and he stumbled backward, into the wall.
She gave a short laugh, then bent and collected her reticule. She brushed a stray curl back from her face, and with an easy, careless grace, rearranged her shawl.
“This is going to be so much fun,” she said. “I can hardly wait. Yes, now that I think about it, I should like nothing better, your grace, than to have your escort to the Comtesse de Chirac’s ball. You may collect me at the Hotel Fontaine at nine o’clock sharp. Adieu.”
She strolled away, as cool as you please, down the passage and through the door.
He didn’t follow her.
It was a splendid exit, and he didn’t want to spoil it.
