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His hands dropped from her waist and he stepped back, his face impossible to read in the poor light. ‘I apologise.’
‘Why?’ She felt genuine surprise. ‘If I had objected, you would have been in no doubt. I wanted you to kiss me.’
‘Why?’ he echoed her, standing very still. Sara realised that the lamplight fell full on her face and he was studying her expression intently.
‘Because you are an attractive man, because I miss being kissed and because I was curious.’
‘And is your curiosity satisfied now?’ Lucian’s voice was very dry.
‘Perfectly, thank you.’
He moved slightly and the light caught the lower part of his face, betraying just the glimmer of a smile, a sensual curve of those lips that had been so skilful, caressing hers. ‘And?’
‘And nothing more. I know why you are here under an assumed name and I know what it is like to kiss you.’
‘You know why? How can you?’ Every ounce of sensuality had vanished from his voice. Sara found she was glad of the support of the cold stone at her back.
‘Because Dot knows what it is to lose a baby.’
The hiss of his indrawn breath was audible even over the sound of the waves sucking at the shingle on the beach below.
‘Neither of us would dream of betraying her secret and I do not think anyone else would realise unless they knew how sad and fragile she is.’ When Lucian said nothing she risked putting her hand on his forearm. ‘Marguerite is lucky to have your support.’
He shrugged. ‘I feel helpless. I do not know how to help her, to reach her. She rejects everything I try.’
‘You have to give her time, she is mourning.’ In the ballroom there was applause as another set drew to a close. ‘We cannot talk out here for much longer or it will be noticed. Tomorrow the shop is closed for the morning, come then. I would like to help Marguerite if I can. A loving brother is a wonderful thing, but I suspect she needs a woman to talk to.’
Lucian put his hand over hers as it rested against his arm. ‘What happened just now—’
‘Was a moment that will not be repeated? Of course it will not. I told you I was curious, not that I expected an affaire and, besides, you do not want a woman with whom you are having an irregular relationship anywhere near your sister, do you?’
His cool silence said it all. Where had all that tingling warmth gone to? Sara took back her hand, gathered up her skirts and moved towards a side door. ‘I will go to the ladies’ retiring room, it would be more discreet if we do not return together.’
And so much for your assumption that you were sophisticated enough to deal with any gentleman who crossed your path, she scolded herself. No wonder he had become cool. She had sent messages that she was available and then backed away. He must think she was an outrageous flirt or a horrid tease and either possibility made her feel hot with an embarrassment she hadn’t felt for years.
The room set aside for ladies to repair their complexions and hair, and to have drooping hems and split seams attended to, was mercifully empty, except for the maid on duty. She stood up when Sara entered, bobbed a curtsy and then waited in the background while she sat at a dressing table and made a pretence of fussing with her hair.
What did you expect? she scolded herself. Sinking with embarrassment was not going to help matters, she needed to understand herself. She had wanted a moment of madness, the touch of a man’s mouth on hers, the affirmation that she was not rushing towards a sexless middle age, she supposed, and Lucian had assumed she expected more, probably a full-blown affair, she guessed.
Perhaps that is what I really want. She hadn’t expected to miss sex. It had been lovely with Michael, of course. She had loved him and he had been tender and careful. Perhaps, thinking about it in retrospect, a little too respectful. All the whispers, the gossip from other women, portrayed sex as exciting, thrilling, sublime. Her experience had been that it was pleasant, and occasionally exciting, and the intimacy and trust had certainly brought her and Michael closer together. But sublime and thrilling? That kiss just now had been thrilling, it had made her toes curl, but perhaps that was simply because it was not a married kiss but a shocking one.
The Marquess of Cannock was a physically attractive man who apparently found her attractive, too, which was, in itself, arousing. But he was precisely the kind of man she had avoided marrying, the sort who wanted to smother all his womenfolk under the all-enveloping cloak of his honour, to control them, however benevolently. Daydreams and frankly erotic night-time dreams were no reason to risk entangling herself with a man she would have no intention of marrying.
Sara frowned at her own face in the mirror. It had taken long enough to recover from Michael’s death, she would be insane to risk her still-tender emotions on a man so very different,
so very…dangerous.
She gave herself a little mental shake. The fact that she was attracted to a man was an encouraging sign that she was returning to normal after her mourning—that was all. The really important person in all this was Marguerite and she could do nothing about the girl until tomorrow. Now she was going to go out into the ballroom to dance and enjoy herself and if Mr Dunton was making himself agreeable to all the ladies, then that would be excellent.
*
Lucian climbed the hill to Aphrodite’s Seashell next morning, prey to more uncertainty regarding a woman than he had experienced since he was eighteen. Lady Sara… Mrs Harcourt rather, as this was daylight and she seemed to change at nightfall like some magical creature, Sara was not indiscreet or mischievous or uncaring. However she felt about him after that kiss she would do nothing to harm his sister. But what had that been about? She was sexually experienced and yet she had treated it as no more than a moment’s diversion, not the invitation to a full-blown affaire that he had taken it for.
Was she actually that sensual, that beautiful, that free and yet that innocent? He reached the door, which had the blind drawn down and a sign reading Closed, and knocked.
When the door opened it was the redoubtable Mrs Farwell who stood there. She came right out into the street before ushering him in and Lucian realised she was demonstrating to anyone who happened to have seen him that Mrs Harcourt was very adequately chaperoned.
Lucian knew himself to be experienced, sophisticated even, in the relationships between men and women. It was strange and more than a little disconcerting to feel a faint apprehension about this meeting. Sara had kept him wrong-footed from the beginning, although if he was honest with himself, she had done nothing and he had fallen into one misapprehension after another about her identity, her likely morals, her availability. And he did not feel very comfortable about any of that, he realised as he waited inside the shop for Mrs Farwell to relock the door.
