Sexy Beast II

by Kate Douglas, Noelle Mack

  They looked like wild strawberries. Probably handpicked in the surrounding woods by the little boy. Fraises des bois. How very French. She scrubbed up, handed the towel back to the waiting maid, and popped a strawberry into her mouth from the dish the boy held up. The taste was exquisite, nothing like the flavorless mega-mutants from the supermarket back in the US.

  She smiled at the little boy, who smiled back, blushing. Was he Jean-Claude’s son? He was adorable in those handsewn wool pants tied at the waist with a drawstring and his little linen shirt. He mumbled something that sounded very polite, and the housemaid laughed, bowing slightly to Tanya as she and the boy withdrew.

  The sound of a vast yawn made her turn around. The lion had arisen, stretching exactly like a house cat, its enormous paws extended and its rump up. She looked at the baroque curl of its long tongue and its gleaming white fangs, feeling a shiver race up her spine.

  The lion gave her a sleepy-eyed look and moved to its trainer, allowing the man to guide him out of the field, its tail swaying lazily as they walked away. She could just see the top of a huge striped tent behind the trees. Pennants of bright silk fluttered from the poles that held it up.

  Hmm. That hadn’t been there when she began to work on the lion’s mane, she was sure of it. And it wasn’t possible to set up such a big tent so quickly and make no noise at all. Tanya took a few steps in the direction that the lion and its trainer had gone, before the soft sound of other footsteps on the grass stopped her.

  “Ah. He enjoyed that,” a deep male voice said.

  She looked over her shoulder. Uh-oh. Talk about spells. This man could put one on her whenever, wherever. He was just about too sexy to be believed, with thick, dark, tied-back hair and a rugged face. His eyes were dark brown with sparks of gold in the irises, and his lashes were black.

  The man had a masterful air. He was tall and powerfully built, dressed as simply as the little boy, but the old-fashioned effect was totally different on him. His linen shirt subtly revealed as much as it concealed, pushed against his body by the breeze and open at the neck. And he wore breeches of soft, supple leather and tall black boots. Riding boots. Yeehaw.

  Okay, so he’s a ringmaster, she thought. He’s entitled. Ringmasters wear breeches. Maybe he’d taken off his red frock coat for now. But not his black riding boots, lucky for her.

  “I am Jean-Claude,” the man said with a slight accent, extending a hand. Tanya took it, yielding inwardly to strong fingers that clasped hers for a moment longer than necessary.

  “Um, hi,” she replied, hoping he spoke English as well as he wrote it so they could get past the usual guidebook conversation starters. “I’m Tanya. Thanks for everything. I mean, for bringing me here to France and all that. Your chateau is beautiful.” She paused to take a breath, telling herself not to babble.

  “Thank you,” he said. “It has been in my family for a long time.”

  So far, so good, on the mutual comprehension. “Really. How long?”

  “Centuries.”

  “Oh. Imagine that.” She barely could, having grown up in a Dallas suburb where the oldest house had been built only a year before she was born, and she was twenty-eight. A photo of her mom and dad, standing in front of their brand-new house with their brand-new baby—her—flashed across her mind.

  She looked up at the immense stone house looming in back of Jean-Claude, letting her gaze rest on the windows of the room she knew was hers. There must be twenty rooms just like it in the main part of the chateau, and that wasn’t counting the wings. Framed by louvered shutters and shadowed by draperies that hid the interiors, the windows seemed designed to keep the ordinary world out. A faint tremor ran through her. She would have to go back to that world soon enough.

  “Are you cold, Tanya?”

  She loved the way he said her name. Soft and low, lingering over the syllables. “A little.”

  Tanya rubbed her goose-bumpy arms, wishing he had a ringmaster’s red coat to offer her right now. She knew he would. Jean-Claude was obviously a gentleman. But he couldn’t exactly whip off his linen shirt and wrap it around her shoulders.

  “The sun is low. Shall we go inside?” Despite the formal quality of his speech—to be expected from someone who grew up in a chateau—his tone was warm.

  “Okay.”

  “Perhaps a cup of chocolate chaud would take the chill away.”

  Tanya’s eyes brightened. “Ooo. I love French hot chocolate. Nice and thick and gooey and—and I sound like I’m six years old.”

  “Not at all. Your eagerness is charming. I shall ring for the maid.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to. Whisky’s quicker anyway. But not before sundown.” She winced. That sounded bad, but it was too late to take it back. “I prefer wine,” she added hastily.

  He didn’t seem to notice her gaffe. “Very good. Then we will share a bottle or two over dinner. I would consider myself honored if you would join me tonight.”

  “Ah—all right. I’d like that very much.” Interesting. He didn’t treat her like the hired help or an annoying American. This gig could be exactly what she needed for more reasons than one. She studied the tall man who stood in front of her. Jean-Claude’s hands rested just above his hips, his strong fingers spread out on either side. His stance was relaxed but there was something compelling about his physicality all the same.

  Just like his big ole lion, he scared her a little. And you like it, she told herself. She’d bet anything he roared in bed.

  She looked him over. He seemed so commanding. So virile. Those soft leather breeches showed everything. He probably had more women than he knew what to do with.

  Hmm. A wicked thought flashed through her mind. Add a riding crop to the breeches, boots, and aristocratic ponytail and she could have herself a really entertaining fantasy.

  Jean-Claude smiled at her and something inside Tanya melted. Do not fantasize, she told herself sternly. Just because you’re in a different country doesn’t mean you can run wild.

  She walked through the lower floor of the château, her footsteps echoing. It was alarmingly grand. Lined with mirrors in elaborate gilt frames, the hall through which she passed gave the illusion of being much wider. And she saw herself many times over, myriad Tanyas moving through rays of reddish light. The sun was setting.

  People were talking in the room just beyond, and she hurried a little. Was she late? Were there other guests? Tanya looked at her watch, and realized she was still on New York time. She fiddled with it, setting it ahead by several hours, and looking around for a clock to get it right on the minute. There, on the mantel, in front of the ormolu mirror—that thing might be a clock. Three slender marble goddesses held up a glass sphere with a mechanism inside it that whirred silently. She went over for a closer look.

  There were hours engraved upon the mechanism but she couldn’t figure out how to read it. A sundial would have been easier. No doubt there was one in the formal parterres of the garden outside the windows, but she wasn’t going to look for it now. Tanya glanced in the mirror and ran her fingers through her auburn curls, flinging them over one shoulder and batting her eyelashes at her reflection. The new shade of shadow brought out the green in her hazel eyes. You sexy thing, she told herself.

  She went on to the room where the voices were coming from, standing just outside the door for a moment. A manservant in livery was setting out domed silver platters and a maid was arranging fragrant pink roses in the centerpiece. She was somewhat older than the maid who’d come to Tanya in the field, with a more delicate face. Her slender white fingers touched the petals of the roses, opening them more to show the deeper pink inside.

  The set table was beyond elegant. Snowy napery. Antique silver and china. Crystal wineglasses. Her Texas grandmother would have fainted at the sight.

  The servants cast a quick glance at her and seemed to vanish into thin air. The way they came and went so swiftly was a little unnerving but Tanya wanted to be with him and only him. If everything was
already on the table, including the wine, she just might get her wish.

  Jean-Claude rose to greet her with a bow. “Good evening. You are beautiful.” The admiration in his eyes was as sincere as his tone, and she felt her face grow warm. She was glad Jean-Claude liked it, because it was the only dress she’d brought with her, figuring she’d hit the Paris clubs when her week here was up. With its plunging neckline, slinky black synthetic material, and jagged hemline, it was her favorite dress for dancing in.

  “Everything looks so nice,” she said. “Thank you. Your, uh, servants are amazing.” Servant. That was a word to trip over. She didn’t know how anyone got used to being waited on.

  “Hmm. The aristocrats of the ancien régime invented a table that rose through the floor, fully appointed and laden with food so as to do away with inquisitive servants altogether.”

  La-di-da. Tanya wanted to pinch herself. Perching in a gilt chair and eating with antique silver seemed to require a towering powdered wig and a pannier gown that was too wide to get through a door unless you went in sideways.

  He pulled out her chair and waited for her to sit down. The moment of truth. Tanya had never quite mastered this particular trick. She sort of slid and sort of sat, keeping her butt just above the brocade seat. Jean-Claude did the rest with a motion so subtle she barely noticed it until the immaculate white tablecloth enfolded her bare knees.

  Good girl, she told herself. And how nice it was to sit on upholstery this luxurious. Especially since she wasn’t wearing underwear. She could practically feel the pattern of the taut brocade through her thin dress. Jean-Claude gave her an oh-so-European half-bow and moved to his seat. The courses had been set within easy reach by the manservant—or was he the butler? Tanya really wasn’t familiar with the details of livery. If she remembered her Masterpiece Theatre, footmen wore breeches, butlers didn’t, and head butlers had more buttons than anyone else in the cast.

  It was possible that French people didn’t have butlers at all, or that they called them something else. Butlaires, maybe. No. Majordomos? That didn’t sound right either. She took a sip of the wine Jean-Claude had just poured for her and smiled up at him. Not a question she was going to ask right now. The wine was so good that she planned to have a second glass and then she could ask him, when she no longer cared if she made a fool of herself.

  He took off the domed cover of the dish nearest him, and sniffed the aroma that wafted up. “Ah. My favorite. Boeuf bourguignon. Allow me to serve you.”

  “Please do.” Tanya nodded, grateful that it was beef and not something like tripe or other squishy inside stuff. The French ate unusual things, but personally, she had drawn the line in Texas long ago and she had drawn it at prairie oysters.

  He took off the other covers and revealed a tempting array of courses, elaborately sauced and arranged on the platters. Apparently Jean-Claude could afford the best, and preferred the best. She studied him over the rim of the wineglass she was sipping from. The soulfulness she had noted in his eyes had deepened to a frankly sensual stare all of a sudden.

  Animal instinct.

  Oh, no. Now who was talking? Tanya quickly set down her wineglass, glancing away from him and catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror. The burgundy made her lips shine, and its complex flavor lingered very pleasantly in her mouth. Jean-Claude gave her a seductive once-over. As if he knew how she would taste if he kissed her right now: like wine and woman.

  She gave him a demure smile. Tanya wasn’t going to give in that fast. He sighed and went back to filling her plate with delicious food. She needed it. The first glass of wine had gone straight to her jet-lagged head and opened the door marked Wanton Behavior.

  Tanya suddenly knew without a doubt that she was going to end up in bed with Jean-Claude. Maybe not tonight but certainly before the end of her weeklong stay. Okay, maybe tonight. They could skip the introductory small talk and pointless exchange of life stories. More than anything, she wanted to find out right away what he looked like buck naked. With that long, dark hair spilling over his bare shoulders and chest.

  What about love?

  Tanya shook her head to clear it. That was definitely her inner lonely-girl-in-the-big-city talking. She imagined herself drinking a shot of refreshing, ice-cold, pure cynicism and slammed the mental shot glass down on the table. Love wasn’t what this encounter was going to be all about but at least she knew that she wasn’t hearing talking lions.

  “So,” she said pleasantly, opening up a new topic of conversation, “it must be fun to run a circus. How long have you been doing that?”

  “Since before you were born.”

  That didn’t make much sense. Jean-Claude wasn’t more than ten years older than her. He had great eye crinkles when he smiled but no other lines on his handsome face.

  “Oh. Is it a…family business?” Oops. That sounded like a tire dealership or something. Jean-Claude was, as far as she knew, a nobleman and the inheritor of a venerable chateau. He certainly looked noble, dressed for dinner in black tie. Regal, even.

  “In a way,” he said.

  Not a very informative answer. But then he was concentrating on the food. He finished a mouthful of savory beef, taking a true carnivore’s pleasure in every molecule.

  “Well, I’m sure you love what you do.”

  He inclined his head in a gracious nod. “And yourself?”

  “I like it, sure. I’ve had my own salon for two years now.”

  “A friend forwarded me a copy of the article in Vogue.”

  Tanya shrugged. “That was mostly about Frederic Fekkai, not me. I only got a one-line mention.”

  “But it was a memorable line.” Jean-Claude smiled and poured her more wine. “May I quote? ‘When it comes to hair, Tanya Jones is the future.’”

  “Yeah, they said something like that. Haven’t seen a stampede of new clients, though.” Which was yet another reason why she had responded to his e-mail. No matter what Vogue said, her salon was barely breaking even. She didn’t feel like telling him about her lease being up.

  “My dear Tanya, you have uncommon talent. And you understand fantasy. Your sketches were remarkably imaginative. No one in Paris is doing work like that.”

  Tanya took a bite of her food, pleased by his compliment. “Well,” she said, “I hope the lion lets me do more than comb his mane.”

  “If not, then c’est la vie,” Jean-Claude laughed. “A lion is a lion. But he likes you very much. And I suspect the rest of the company will too.”

  They approached the tent behind the trees an hour or so later, treading a path made soft by freshly strewn sawdust. A half moon hung low in the night sky, lighting the way. Tanya held the high heels she’d taken off, not wanting to twist an ankle. He took her hand in a way that seemed deliciously intimate, rubbing his thumb gently against her palm as they padded softly over the path. He didn’t seem to be in a hurry.

  Neither was she. The excellent dinner and fine wine had put her in a wonderfully sensual mood made more intense by their mutual self-restraint. No playing footsie under the table. No leaning over to reveal a glimpse of bosom. She’d sat up straight and so had Jean-Claude.

  But Tanya’d had the uncanny feeling that he was reading her mind as they ate and talked. Chalk it up to fabulous burgundy that had been mellowing in the caverns under his chateau for decades. There was no way he could know that she was thinking about, oh, oral sex with him when all she was doing was passing the salt. Her own animal instincts had kicked in, though. Tanya sensed that he was as hot for her as she was for him. But he had been a goddamned perfect gentleman all the same.

  Ahead of them through the trees the striped tent glowed and she saw shadows move across the fabric walls, one flying in mid-air.

  Just outside the tent Jean-Claude paused to take her in his arms, looking down at her with an expression she couldn’t quite read. “I must warn you. The rehearsals are usually private. The performers sometimes work in the nude, or nearly so. Their every move is captured by
hidden CGI cameras and the animation artists take over from there.”

  Ah-hah. Computer-generated imagery and animation. Special effects and skin. So that was the secret. She was only surprised that rich people would pay so much to see it. Sex was no big deal in this day and age. But maybe Jean-Claude’s circus offered more.

  “Anything can happen,” he was saying. “They won’t notice you but you mustn’t be shocked by what you might see. Do you understand?”

  Tanya hesitated for a fraction of a second. “I think so. But why won’t they notice me?”

  He kissed her forehead very gently. “Because you will be standing in the dark and watching them. As if they only existed in a dream. Your dream—with a nod to Toulouse-Lautrec, one of my favorite artists. Poor fellow. But he found a happiness of sorts with his prostitutes and performers.” For a fleeting second, his expression turned profoundly sad.

  He took her arm before she could reply and led her inside. They stood to one side of tiered seats where they had a clear view of the center ring. A spotlight positioned at the top of the tent blinded Tanya for a moment. She heard the calliope before she saw it, then looked at the moving figures that decorated it. Jesters, kissing lovers, and plump cherubs popped out of hidey-holes in it on every fourth note, an eternal carnival made of painted wood.

  A young woman was practicing a routine on double wires strung close together, suspended about five feet over the ground. Her hair was pulled back and she wore only a leotard almost the same color as her skin, finely knit. No tights. With one foot on each rope, she bent her knees and did a somersault, landing with ease and bouncing on the wires.

  Her closefitting shoes were worn and dirty, with ribbon ties sewn by hand. Like a ballerina’s rehearsal toeshoes, they were meant to work in, not to be pretty. But the tightrope walker’s strong legs and the sinuous curves of her body were beautiful. Without a trace of makeup, without false eyelashes, without sparkly decorations in her hair, she was the picture of graceful femininity. The brilliant light poured down, giving her a shimmering aura that made her look like a hologram.