by Anne Mallory
She drummed her fingers on the freshly printed Gothic. “You are not amusing.”
“I daresay you are though.” He leaned a little farther over the counter, a long magnetic pull of man and tailored cloth. “What is your name?”
She stared at him, speechless for a moment, her stomach doing an odd little flip. “That hardly signifies in the current discussion, sir.”
“Are we still discussing? My apologies.” The apology, if one could call it such, was delivered in a tone that indicated that he said the words often but rarely meant them.
“Disingenuous,” she blurted.
His smile very nearly became delighted—if a man like that could be delighted and still maintain the absolute aura of control and power. The heady sense of manliness.
She was far, far beyond any comfortable ground. She should bury her nose back in her fiction. But a tiny curiosity bloomed as to what exactly lay over the edge of the cliff.
“Ingenuous.” His eyes lazily studied her. “I think I must learn your name now for sure.”
“Burgeoning with potential,” she said somewhat desperately, trying to return to the previous conversation, willing her tongue to comply for once, to leap away from the cliff. “There is a beautiful layer there waiting to be uncovered.”
He tapped a finger in a lazy rhythm on the counter. “I rather agree.” The look he cast over her made her heart skip two beats and the edge of the cliff crumble back toward her, enticing a peek.
“Peeking through the soil,” she said faintly.
“Wildflowers spring from the cold soil, untamed and free.” One finger drew a long curve against the wood, his dark, obsidian eyes were anything but cold. “I do love untamed and freed things.”
“You do?” she said faintly.
“And buds that have yet to open. A flower waiting to burgeon, to use your phrase.” His hand mimicked a flower blooming, tightened fingers slowly lifting and straightening in an upward and outward dance. “Whether from a tawdry secret or a sure, warm hand.”
She could almost feel his warm fingers, still burning hers where they had brushed, even through her glove. She made a last grasp toward her slipping grip on reality. “The secrets, now written, would hardly work in the pure sense.”
And it was a shame, really, because the idea of them was quite lovely. To feel such things.
He rested his chin upon the beautiful bare heel of his palm. “So you don’t think I could use those tactics on you and succeed?”
The vision of his trying to seduce her sprung fully formed to her mind. “I don’t think one could succeed simply using those tactics, no.”
“The author will be crushed.” He looked pleased at the thought.
She shook away the lingering spell he had twined around her. “Nonsense. It is obvious there are layers of meanings within the book. One could read it as a book on how to avoid being seduced. To recognize the tactics employed by members of both sexes. To bring the innocent to sense.”
“You really don’t believe that drivel, do you? The author is trying to cause scandal and further his pennies.” He gave a cynical tilt of his head toward the prominent stand, his eyes losing their warmth. “And it worked.”
“I have encouraged the author not to cover his true vision in his next work.”
“You told the author what a bloated tome he created?” He smiled. “I applaud you. The man is probably still sobbing in his frilly pink boudoir.”
“Nonsense. Eleutherios is a man of good sense and fine sensibility.”
“Pink boudoir included.”
“I hardly think his boudoir is pink.” Maybe red. And gold. And overwhelming.
“Do you usually contemplate how a man’s inner sanctum might look?” He tilted his head, obviously amused.
At the moment, she was simply trying to wave away from her view the haze he had created.
“Veiled beneath the commercial aspects, The Seven Secrets of Seduction teaches people to embrace the beauty around them,” she said, drumming her fingers militantly once more.
“Sounds a bit complex for a sex manual.”
“It’s not only a sex manual. And I tell you, it could hardly work now as such.”
“I don’t know.” The man looked deliberately doubtful. “I heard a fellow just the other day say that he had seduced three women in three days using the tactics therein. One in the garden, one in the kitchens, and even one in his master’s sitting room. However tawdry and irritating the book is, it seems to give results.”
Her face flamed. “I don’t believe you. It gives the reader the opportunity to seduce the senses and open oneself up to nature and life. To take chances.”
“Not to engage in and promote titillation then?”
“No.” Well, not only that.
He raised a brow. “I could have sworn that was the author’s exact intent when I read the first page.”
“You are quite wrong.”
“Mmmmm.” His finger caressed a furrow in the counter. “Many people will be vastly disappointed in that.”
“They may. People read into things what they desire to read, of course.”
He gave her a pointed glance.
“There is a reason the book is such a great seller with women too,” she stressed. “And it is not simply to know how to dodge transparent seduction tactics.”
He gave the books on the counter a pointed glance. An entire series of imitators had popped up overnight to capitalize—most of them quite earnest in being as explicit as possible in how to best show members of each sex the way to eternal sexual illumination.
“Or maybe they just find it novel and tawdry, as it was meant,” he said. “Titillating.”
She upped the tempo of her fingers’ drumbeat, preparing for war. “It’s not titillating.”
She’d been only slightly titillated.
“Well, then it hardly did its job.” The right side of his mouth curved again. “Do you think you are above seduction?” His eyes were heavy and…warm.
“Seducing the senses does not necessarily mean—” She waved her hand, trying to dispel both the effect of his expression and his words. “That. I had a lovely sense of seduction just this morning when I watched an orchid germinate.”
His smile became more pronounced. “An orchid germinate?”
She lifted her chin.
“You don’t even believe the drivel you are spouting.”
“It’s not drivel. And I love to be seduced by it.” One dark brow rose. The back of her neck was becoming hot, and she waved a hand to fan herself. She tried to recover. “My senses seduced.”
“Don’t we all?” He lazily smiled. “I think that is the hook.”
Not a second too late, she noticed the direction of his creeping fingers. She scooted her prized book away and under the desk.
“Don’t want me to be titillated?”
“Somehow I doubt that would be a problem.” She primly folded her hands on the counter. Across from his strong bare fingers, her faded gloves looked even cheaper than if he had worn the finest silk. Mocking almost. That he didn’t have to wear them. That he could flout convention.
His fingers were perfectly made and didn’t look as if they’d seen a day of work—nor picked up a pen. No ink stains there like the ones that crept beneath the bare threads in her gloves and worked under her nails, the chapped pads, and paper-cut ridges. “Now, if I can be of service?”
“Oh, you have.” He ran a finger up the spine of a book on a shelf too high for her to reach without a stool. “I haven’t been so amused by a verbal exchange in a long time.”
She felt her cheeks warm again as his hand crested over. She couldn’t remember the last time she had used a dust cloth in anything other than an absent fashion. His finger curled over the top of the binding and pulled back. The book slipped from its spot, the cover rubbed against those of its siblings, creating a soft swish, loud in the suddenly silent store.
Light swirls of dust rose, then drifted through the f
ading beams. She should be embarrassed, but what difference did it make? The entire encounter would serve as a fanciful memory later, then fade from view like the falling swirls.
“It doesn’t look as if this one has seen the light of day in some time.” He nodded at the counter. “It seems as if people are more interested in titillating books than in Shakespeare.”
Or perhaps not.
“I’ll have you know that Shakespeare is plenty titillating.”
He leaned a hip against the counter. “I agree. Tawdry little man, wasn’t he?” His fingers veritably caressed the book.
She forced her eyes away and met coal black eyes framed by equally dark brows. “You are mocking me.”
“Only a little.” He smiled. “I find myself fascinated actually. Who knew that I would find such delight when I set out to purchase a few new books to fill my shelves.”
“Shelves waiting to be filled with sexual enlightenment?”
He leaned farther into the counter. “If that’s what it takes.” His head cocked to the side. “Are you still offering to help me?”
“Only with finding the tomes you seek,” she said as lightly as she could manage, completely unused to overt flirtation yet feeling its pull, the curiosity and heat, under his regard. The tilt of his body, the way his hair brushed his collar in a somewhat wild manner. All of the inconsistencies he presented vying to present an incomplete picture. Control and chaos, structure and flouting convention.
And his eyes…
She felt like a deer pulled into a wolf’s trap. Men like this just didn’t look that way at women like her. And finding herself being studied by a man who exuded all things masculine and virile was daunting. And magnificent. There was an internal part of her that felt like a star sprung to sudden life.
Dangerous, dangerous man.
“If you like Shakespeare, then perhaps you will enjoy this.” She tapped a copy of a book on a stand situated front and center. Right next to The Seven Secrets of Seduction.
“Sonnets for Spring? Oh, bloody hell. Not you too?”
She looked down her nose at his language. “It’s not Shakespeare, but it’s not bad.”
“Perhaps I need to take a copy to see if I can determine what you are reading. By chance you might carry a different book altogether than the one I tossed aside after its release.”
She pulled a copy from the prominent stand, ready for battle with a charged energy she rarely felt.
“Front and center. Not like poor William,” he said, disgust evident.
She put the copy on the counter with a thump. “People have been buying it all week.”
“God help us all.”
“You know”—she looked down her nose—“if you seek good writing, you should read Seven Secrets again. The author writes beautifully beneath the surface.”
“Seven Secrets is cheap and tawdry and this…thing”—he pointed at the slim volume—“is full of sappy emotion.”
“It is not!”
“It is so. Though I’m sure the man is quite pleased with his profits. Just like Eleu-whatsit, the Secrets’ author.”
“Eleutherios isn’t that type.”
The man laughed and leaned farther against the counter, tapping a finger against the cover of Hamlet. “You are entirely delicious. Do you truly think, just like every other lady in town, that this paragon of virtue is real? This Eleutherios?”
She stared down her nose at him, her last bit of reticence evaporating. “I know he is.”
The man’s smile grew secretive. “Will you be disappointed to find him old, gray, and withered, depending upon the profits of his tawdry tales to support his opiate addiction?”
“Tosh, you are not amusing, sir.”
“No?” He set down Hamlet and pulled The Seven Secrets of Seduction toward him, opening the cover, the crisp new binding crackling. “And here I had so hoped I would be.”
She tapped a finger. “Aren’t you missing something? Perhaps an engagement or a meeting at your club?”
“No. Out too late last night. Putting these seduction tactics to use is hard work for the gentleman about town.”
“You could put those tactics to work by sitting at the Serpentine and admiring the view right now in the beautiful downward slope of the sun.”
“Now I know you are not serious. The Serpentine is a flat expanse of boredom. Duck, duck, swan, boat, floating branch.”
She gave him a dark glance. “The Serpentine is lovely. The way the wind glides over the water, ruffling the edges, tickling it.” Why did the people who had time to enjoy such things completely lack the notice or care?
“Mmmmm, tickling is always a good tactic.” He looked over the page. “Perfectly useful information on that point, though the author seems a bit glib, doesn’t he?”
“There is nothing about tickling in there!”
“And I suppose you think that ‘baiting your hook’”—he tilted the book upside down toward her and pointed at the words on the page with one perfectly chiseled long finger—“means to find an actual worm and a rod?”
“A baited hook can be the impetus for finding that which will open you to the beauty before you.”
He let the cover close with a thump. “Well, I agree that opening a beauty before me is prime impetus.”
She tried not to blush further. “And the author is not glib.”
“No? He seems awfully suspect to me. Tricking young innocents into thinking that he is talking about the beauty around oneself versus trying to get the beauties around oneself.”
She blinked for a second before his meaning hit, and she felt herself go scarlet.
He tapped the cover in disgust. “I just wonder at the gall of what he will write next.” There was something dark in the statement that she didn’t understand.
“I am sure it will be something of epically good sense.”
“Epically.” He lifted a brow at her. “And here I had heard it was just another tawdry sequel, Eight Elements of Enchantment, or some such absurdity.”
She straightened. “I have heard nothing of the sort.”
“That alliterations are absurd?”
“That there is a sequel already in the works.” She had been hoping that the author might branch out and write something like Sonnets for Spring. Except in his own style.
His eyes were heavy lidded as he surveyed her. “Your beloved Eleutherios hasn’t mentioned it?” He smiled. “Imagine that.”
She narrowed her eyes. If there was one thing her flittering uncle had taught her, it was not to turn away a customer who wore a cut of cloth the way this man did, gloves or no gloves. She had never wanted to eject someone from the shop, not even horrible Mr. Oswald, who had poked fun at her reading material. She had been too flustered then to be angry until after he’d gone.
That didn’t seem to be a problem with this man. The horridly delicious man had her wrung in internal knots, but her tongue and emotion seemed quite capable of making themselves known.
“I look forward to anything he writes. I find him enlightening.”
He flicked open the cover of Seven Secrets again and flipped a few pages.
“‘When you find the perfect scene, stand back and absorb the details.’” He met her eyes over the edge of the page. “Enlightening,” he said flatly. He looked back down. “‘Don’t rush. Don’t make the mistake of underestimating the beauty before you. Center on the object of your desire and examine the intricacies. Find the hidden treasure. An ill-fitting key scrapes a rusted lock. Requires force to turn. However, find the perfect set of tines, and the door will fall open practically on its own.’”
“Have you never passed by a portrait only to discover later that careful examination shows something much deeper behind the paint?”
“Like another stray hair from my great aunt’s natty spaniel?”
She reached for the book, but he easily moved it out of her reach.
“I wasn’t done.”
“I think you have had your la
ugh, sir.”
“But that was not my intention at all.” The sound of his voice changed, and the rich mocha made the hair on her arms stand on end. He flipped another few pages. “‘The greatest treasure is that of the everyday variety. One when examined more closely reveals something hitherto unknown. Unseen. Untasted.’”
His eyes lifted from the page and traveled over her slowly, the last syllable of “untasted” hanging on his tongue in a nearly tangible caress.
She swallowed.
“‘Let nothing stop you from the experience of tasting the keen pleasure of a new conquest in a mysterious guise. Like the finest wine sipped from the belly of the cask.’”
His eyes raked her slowly, as if she was the receptacle from which he intended to sip.
She swallowed again. When he read it, it sounded as if it just might actually work as a guide to seduction.
“‘Find it. Embrace it. Breathe it. Never let it go.’” His voice, gravelly and smoky, slipped over her like an enchanted breeze, his eyes, dark and mysterious, held her still. She absently wondered if the heroine in her book actually wanted to escape from that maze after all. “You don’t think you could be seduced by such? Flinging your morals to the curb and letting go? This paragon of virtue worming his way under your skirts? Or perhaps someone else doing so, someone more…real?”
And here she had thought she’d simply be finishing her read and tending an empty counter today.
“Sir—” She forced her eyes to drop from his, equal measures of intense discomfort and tight-wound thrill running through her. “Your library shelves?”
He snapped the book shut. “Do you have a copy of Candide?” His voice turned from seductive to firmly businesslike.
“Yes.” She paused, a strange impulse gripping her as the thrill still coursed right through her toes. “In the Enlightenment section.” She raised a brow.
“I don’t know where that is.” He lazily leaned back, firm tone suddenly forgotten again, and scratched at the cover of the copy of The Seven Secrets of Seduction. She slid the copy away before he could destroy the edge.
She pointed. “Back and to the left.”