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Her swollen lips now twitched with mirth. “I’m glad you find my appearance acceptable, Your Grace, but I’m afraid you look as if the very devil has been raking his pitchfork through your hair.” When she was done taming his wayward locks, she again leaned in to kiss him on the mouth.
Alessandro fought to keep his hands at his sides as she smoothed her hands along the planes of his face, feeling the texture of his skin. He allowed her to explore his mouth at her leisure in a sweet kiss that left him longing for more.
“Thank you,” Mélisande whispered.
When she pulled away, his pulse whirred in his ears. He knew she wasn’t thanking him for fixing her gown.
“I never like to disappoint a lady,” he said, making an effort to sound cavalier. Instead, the words came out in a shaken, gravelly rasp, completely ruining the effect.
Smiling, she turned away. “Come.”
Alessandro took a deep, rather unsteady breath and followed. This was going to be extremely challenging. You know this game; you are a master of it, he told himself.
She led him to another stair cut into the wall opposite from where they had originally emerged. Before they entered, she paused. “I realize you and I know next to nothing of one another, really. I should like it very much if we could truly become friends.”
“I am most happy to hear you say it,” he agreed, smiling gently as she moved forward once more. “I look forward to knowing all aspects of you, not merely the physical.” Indeed, he realized he wanted far more of her than just her delicious body in his bed.
Again Mélisande paused. “When we reenter, we must act as though we have been in conversation for some time. Do you happen to play chess?”
“I have played since I was a small child. Stamma tells me I have potential.” He chuckled, amused at the sudden change in the direction of the conversation.
“Excellent! That will make it easy, then. Everyone knows I’m mad for chess.” She grinned. “We’ll simply act as if we’ve been engaged in a private match. No one would dare question me on my whereabouts, at least not directly.”
After several minutes of navigating steep stairs and narrow, twisting tunnels, Alessandro heard the muffled murmuring of people.
Mélisande stopped, holding out a hand to prevent him bumping into her. When the coast was clear, she stepped forth, pushing aside a heavy tapestry concealing the opening. They emerged just behind a statue nestled in an alcove off the main hall.
How appropriate, Alessandro thought, patting Venus’s beautifully sculpted backside with fondness.
Mélisande turned to him, eyes twinkling. He held out his arm, and together they sauntered out of the alcove and into the hall.
“Have you met Philidor?” she asked, quietly starting the conversation.
Intense dislike filled Alessandro. “Indeed,” he grumbled. “He visited my father not long after he won his match against Stamma. All he did was talk of his victory and himself.”
Few noticed their arrival, and those who did simply noted with raised brows that the couple had been visiting the goddess of love.
“I see you have as little fondness for the man as I,” Mélisande murmured, smirking as they blended back into the crush. “He is a narcissistic ass. An excellent strategist when it comes to chess, but a complete waste, otherwise.”
“Not that I disagree in the least with your assessment, but how did you come to dislike him so?” He’d heard her issue the challenge earlier that evening and wondered at such ire.
“You don’t know?”
He shook his head. “I know only what I heard in the library while you were playing Stamma.”
“He boasted of his win over Stamma, belittling his intelligence as well as mine, and then had the audacity to propose a match against me—with my virginity as the stakes. He insulted me in front of everyone, saying I might as well concede before even setting the board because the only games women were fit to play were those of the bedchamber. He was more than a little drunk, and his behavior was completely, inexcusably barbaric.”
It sounded exactly like something Philidor might say. The man’s opinion of the female sex in general was primitive, at best. Alessandro had to work hard to keep from laughing aloud, for any male who thought of this woman as a mindless bauble was due to have his perspective mightily adjusted; it was only a matter of time.
“And you slapped him?”
“So that my hand ached terribly for several hours afterward,” she confirmed with bloodthirsty good cheer.
“An appropriate response,” he responded. “I wish I’d been there to see it. And I certainly hope I shan’t be the recipient of such treatment for my forward behavior,” he added softly, stroking the back of her hand where it rested on his arm.
She remained silent, but her lips curled at one corner. Immediately upon entering the upper gallery of the ballroom, she stopped and turned to him. “I must speak with my friends. I’m afraid some of them can be a bit overprotective,” she told him. “Naturally, they’ll be concerned, but I shall see to it no one calls you out.”
“Your thoughtful consideration is much appreciated, as I wish neither myself nor any of your friends to come to harm,” he responded, reaching up to stroke a featherlight finger along the line of her jaw.
