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“It’s slightly creepy, knowing what I know now, I will admit, but my room is very beautiful. That said, Lou’s room sucks. She loves irises, and I checked out that room on the solo part of my tour. It’s right across the hall from mine and she’d like it very much. So maybe move her?”
“If you wish,” he muttered, his attention having been captured by my lacy bra. “Is that for me?”
I didn’t know it until that moment, but it was one thousand percent for him.
Argh.
“I thought it might annoy your dad.”
He lifted his gaze to mine. “He’s going to hate it.”
“Then my work tonight will be done.”
“Fuck, I wanna kiss you,” he murmured, put that right out there, his gaze now on my mouth.
Well, damn.
And double damn because I wanted him to kiss me, goddamn it.
He didn’t kiss me.
He moved to the couch and opened a sleek wooden box on a side table. In it was a stack of cigarettes rolled in dark-blue, watermarked paper, and they had a gold tip.
He took one, put it between his beautiful lips, then slid a long, thin, sleek gold lighter out of a special compartment carved into the box, which looked made for it.
He tipped his head to the side in a movement that had been made by many a gorgeous man over the decades, and had sold a million, trillion cigarettes, and he lit up.
He blew out a plume of smoke and only then did he down the Champagne in what was now two swallows.
“Trust you to have fancy cigarettes,” I quipped.
He leveled his blue gaze on me in a way that had me rooted to the spot so firmly, in that moment, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to move again.
“Only the best,” he decreed in a throaty rumble of a voice.
“Ian,” I whispered.
“Do you want to know more about Dorothy Clifton?” he offered.
I didn’t, considering the last time she slept, it was in my bed.
“Um…okay.”
He put the lighter back in its place, snapped the box closed, and turned again to me.
“David fancied himself in love with her, or at least that’s what he told Virginia in an effort to make her jealous.”
“Oh,” I muttered, then took a sip of my Champagne.
“William was in love with Virginia.”
“Oh!” I said much louder, caught by surprise by that nugget of information.
“William couldn’t marry Virginia…” He shook his head. “Strike that. Virginia couldn’t marry William because he was the second son. There was a third, but he was gay and moved to Paris when he was twenty, never to return to English soil again. William lived at Duncroft at David’s leisure.”
“All right,” I said when he didn’t go on.
“So, obviously, William had nothing. Not true. He was the local physician, but although a noble pursuit, it didn’t give him much status. Not like David had. Virginia had no choice. It was her job to make the best marriage she could, and if lore is true, David was besotted, so she made it.”
