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He waited.
Then, “I know,” she said. “The Botticelli.”
He heard his own gasp, one quick, involuntary intake of breath. He smoothed his face, but he suspected he was too late.
Whatever else he’d expected, it wasn’t this. Yet it should have been the first thing. The very first thing.
“You said high stakes,” she said. “I don’t know what it’s worth, but I do know it’s irreplaceable.” She gazed at him with limpid innocence.
For a moment, the air between them crackled.
Then he laughed. “I’ve grievously underestimated you, madame. High stakes, indeed. Let’s see. What will you put up against my Botticelli? What’s irreplaceable to you? Time. Profit. Business. Your clients.” He paused for a heartbeat, two. “Well, then, will you stake a fortnight?”
“A fortnight,” she repeated blankly.
“With me,” he said. “I want a fortnight.”
Her blue gaze sharpened then.
“Of your exclusive attention,” he said. “At a place of my choosing.”
He couldn’t be sure—she was so skilled at concealment, she seemed even able to control her blushes—but he thought a hint of pink washed her cheeks before it faded.
“You do understand, don’t you?” he said.
“I’m not naïve,” she said.
What he’d seen must have been a blush, because it had washed away completely, leaving her pale. With fear? Good gad, what did she think he’d do to her? With her. But she was a milliner and beautiful. Countless men must have made themselves obnoxious.
He wasn’t that sort of man, yet he felt as though he’d stepped wrong, and he was aware of heat stealing up his neck—the disagreeable, embarrassed kind of heat.
“I don’t ravish women, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said.
“Oh, no,” she said. “I had supposed that women stood in line waiting for you to relieve them of their virtue.”
Then why had she paled?
Or had he only imagined it? Her color seemed normal now.
“I want two full weeks of your undivided attention, that’s all,” he said.
“That’s all?”
“I should like a fortnight of not taking second or third or eighteenth place to business.”
“And?” she said.
He smiled. “You cynic, you.”
“And?” she said. “Not that it matters, because you’ll lose, but I’m interested to hear what, precisely, you have in mind.”
“Precisely?” he said.
“Yes.”
He gazed at her for a moment, his head tipped to one side, considering.
Then he advanced.
Lisburne clasped the edge of Leonie’s shoulders, just above the sleeve puffs.
She stood very still, her heart racing, her gaze fixed on his blindingly white, perfectly tied, folded, and creased neckcloth.
“Madame,” he said.
She looked up. That was a mistake.
She saw his beautiful mouth, turning upward at the corners, turning into a dangerous curve of a smile. She saw his eyes, as green as the sea must have been between Scylla and Charybdis, here and there catching the sun in glints of gold. Dangerous waters, and she—the responsible one—wanted to leap in.
Then the smile vanished and he bent toward her and kissed her.
A touch of his lips to hers. Only that, and the world changed, grew infinite and warm, offering a glimpse . . . of something. But it was over before she could tell what it was she glimpsed or felt.
He started to draw back, then “Blast!” he said.
It would have been wise to pull away, but she was lost and wondering, unable to be wise.
He brought his hands to her waist and lifted her straight off the floor, until they were eye to eye. He kissed her again.
It was more than a touch of his lips, this time. So much more. The sheer physical power of him, the way he lifted her up as easily as he might pluck a flower. He pressed his mouth against hers, firmly this time, like a dare, and she took the dare, though she didn’t know what to do. She’d thought she knew, but the feel and taste of his mouth was sweet and dangerous and entirely beyond the little naughtinesses she’d once called kisses. This was like an undertow.
She lifted her hands to his shoulders and held on while the world tumbled away. Something pressed against her heart and set feelings into flight, like flocks of startled birds, wings beating as they darted away.
Only a moment, and it was over. Only a moment like years passing, a lifetime between Before and After.
He set her down on her feet. She let go of him, and she could still feel the texture of his coat against her palms. The room tilted, like a ship in heavy weather.
He stared at her for a moment. She stared back while she tried to get her brain back in balance and the crowd of little Leonies in her head cried, Don’t you dare faint!
“Er, that sort of thing,” he said.
“I thought so,” she said.
“Did you?”
“I’m not naïve,” she said.
“Really? I could have sworn—”
“Not experienced,” she said, too hotly. She was not in control. She’d slipped out of control so swiftly that her head was still spinning. But he’d done things to her or she’d done something to herself.
One thing was painfully clear: She’d made a mistake. No great surprise. She was a Noirot-DeLucey, and being the most sensible one of them all still didn’t count for much. “There’s a difference. Not that it matters either way, because you’ll lose.”
“I think not,” he said. “And I’m looking forward to furthering your experience.”
Whatever else Lisburne had expected, he hadn’t expected her to be . . . surely not virginal?
No, no, that was too absurd. She was a French milliner. From Paris. She was one and twenty, hardly a child. Her sisters had swept two of London’s most sophisticated men off their feet.
Inexperienced, she’d said. Not quite the same. And yet . . . the tentative way she’d held herself at first and the hint of uncertainty befor
e she’d let go and kissed him with something like assurance, and . . . feeling.
Perhaps, after all, it was nothing more than uncertainty about a man she scarcely knew. He hadn’t had time to tell, really. So brief a kiss.
He shook off his doubts and watched her stroll back to the desk in a flutter of ruffles and billowing muslin.
“We ought to be specific about the terms,” she said, brisk and businesslike once more, while he was still trying to find his balance. “I’ve made general statements, open to interpretation. What would you take as proof?”
“Proof?” he said.
“Of Lady Gladys’s conquest of the beau monde.”
“The entire beau monde?” he said. “I shouldn’t dream of disputing your genius, madame, but I believe that would be a great deal to accomplish in half a month’s time, for any young woman who isn’t Lady Clara Fairfax.”
She stiffened. The temptation was almost unbearable, to cross the room and kiss the back of her neck until she melted.
But he’d already rushed his fences.
He never rushed his fences.
His patience was prodigious. He enjoyed the game of pursuit as much as the conquest.
Yet he’d been so hasty and clumsy.
He made himself think, as he ought to have done earlier. He tried to remember what she’d said.
Gladys. She’d become so emotional about Gladys.
“What do you believe Gladys would wish to accomplish?” he said.
“That is not a sensible question.” She walked round to the back of the desk, as though she knew what he’d been thinking about her neck and wanted a large piece of furniture between them. “You know perfectly well Lady Gladys would be happy if people stopped behaving as though she were one of those horrid little dogs some ladies take everywhere with them.”
For a moment he couldn’t take it in. Surely Gladys took no notice of others’ reactions to her, any more than she gave a thought to what she said and did to offend and hurt them.
“Anybody in need of the lady’s goodwill pretends it isn’t foul-tempered, ill-bred, and ugly, and regards it with a pained smile,” she said. “Lady Gladys believes a pained smile is the most kindly reaction she can expect. I aspire to a great deal more than that, my lord. I mean for gentlemen to want her company. I mean for her to receive offers of marriage. I mean for her to have dancing partners who ask her of their own free will, not because their relatives order them to. I mean for her to be invited to not one but several country house parties.”
