The Pleasure Seekers

by Melanie George

  Paintbrush still in hand, Bliss moved back to the canvas sitting upon an easel in the middle of the room. “I’m not mooning,” she replied, toweling off the blotch of yellow paint that had dribbled down her thumb. After cleaning her brush, she dabbed it lightly in a pocket of blue.

  “Chérie, I know mooning when I see it. I am an expert on the subject, after all. I have perfected the art of drifting about in a state of melancholia, looking pale and tragic. You’ve painted me this way”—he waved an airy hand—“hundreds of times, mais oui?”

  “I am not pale and tragic.”

  “Perhaps not pale, as you spend too much time with your face turned up to the sun, but you, mon ange, are most definitely tragic. I feel your pain.”

  “Please, François, do not get dramatic.”

  “This, too, is something I excel at. We French have a flair for drama. It is in our blood. Now tell your darling François, whom you treasure above all others, what has put you in such an unhappy state?”

  “I am not unhappy.” She almost sounded convincing, but François was too sharp to miss a thing.

  “Poor François is now to be lied to?” He sighed. “You break my heart, jolie. You think I do not see that you have not been the same since you returned from that heathen England?”

  “England is not heathen.” Though some of its occupants were.

  He sniffed disdainfully, staring at her with betrayed eyes that conveyed he was horrendously misunderstood and gravely wounded.

  He claimed his loathing of all things English was inherited, but Bliss knew his animosity had begun when he had been smitten with an Englishman who had scorned his adoration. For a Frenchman, to be scorned in love was akin to being hacked to bits with a dull cleaver.

  “Look at me,” he said. “I am about to expire on the spot with curiosity. Why must you torture me so? You know how sensitive I am to unwanted agitation. Why, I feel a terrible affliction coming on as we speak!”

  “Turn to the right and raise your arm a little higher,” Bliss instructed, hoping he would let the matter drop.

  “This is the first time you have requested my services since you arrived home. If I did not love you so, I might feel wounded beyond all hope of recovery that you did not call upon me the very moment you stepped foot back in Paris.”

  “Tilt your chin up, please.”

  “Fille méchante,” he huffed, growing impatient with her. “You are so difficult to dredge information from when you are feeling testy.”

  “I’m not feeling testy.” Melancholy, perhaps, but soon she would be back to her normal self. Her feelings for Caine would run their course and that would be that. She only wished she knew how long that would take, because the hollow feeling inside her had yet to abate. Some days it nearly overwhelmed her. “Remove the sheet now, if you please.”

  He did as she asked, whisking the sheet away as though he was a Roman conqueror flinging his gauntlet to the ground, revealing what his male admirers most admired about him. He was fond of saying that he need not swing from the gibbet to be well hung.

  Normally the sight of that proudly erect part of him interested her not at all. It was simply another piece of the human body, like an arm or a leg, its only value aesthetic.

  But today, the sight of that very elemental part reminded her of Caine—of the pleasure he had given her, of all the delicious and wonderful things he had done to her body, and she found herself warming to an uncomfortable degree.

  She forced herself to blot out thoughts of Caine and concentrate on the task at hand, her brushstrokes light and fluid across the canvas. She was so absorbed that she didn’t immediately notice that the image being rendered looked less like François and a great deal more like Caine.

  “Mon ange?”

  Distracted, Bliss glanced over at François. “Yes?”

  “Have you, by chance, lain with a man?”

  For a moment, Bliss blinked dumbly at him, then a sudden heat crept up her cheeks. She should have expected such a blunt and probing inquiry, as François possessed no compunction about discussing anything.

  At her telltale flush, François sat bolt upright, staring at her as though the Virgin Mary had just materialized in front of him. “Dieu doux dans le ciel! You have! Oh, you have broken my heart, you wretched girl,” he bemoaned. “I was to be your first. I was to initiate you into the art of lovemaking. No man does it with the skill of a Frenchman.”

  Bliss avoided his accusing gaze and studied her canvas. “I don’t recall ever having that discussion.”

  François waved a dismissive hand. “Inconsequential details. You miss the point.”

  “Which is?”

  “Mon Dieu, did you learn nothing in that country of the swines? You have been ruined. You will never want a real man between your thighs. It would be too much for you to handle.” As though this was the most dire sentence the heavens had thought to cast down upon a mortal, he threw up his hands and sank back on the cushions in his best imitation of a beleaguered sulk.

  “It wasn’t that bad.” Bliss waited for a crack of thunder to rend the sky at her blatant understatement. She had never imagined that making love to a man could be so wonderful.

  François lifted his forearm from his brow, gazing at her with one aggrieved eye. “Not that bad? A woman’s first time should be the most memorable experience of her life, not some clumsy rutting. You have dealt me a mortal blow. I think I will never recover.”

  “And I think you will recover as soon as the dance hall opens its doors this evening.”

  He glared at her. “Not only does the cur take your virginity, but now he has left you a viper-tongued shrew whose affections he has usurped from your beloved François. I think I shall kill this interloper.”

  “You’re forgetting something,” Bliss said, striving to sound indifferent as she refocused her attention on the canvas.

  “Oh?” he queried, sounding offended.

  “You prefer men.”

  “That.” He shrugged in a careless fashion. “Not the same, chérie. In this one instance, I would have put aside my natural revulsion for female flesh. You are the exception, of course.”

  “Of course.” Bliss laughed softly.

  “I am your friend, therefore I had a certain obligation to perform this momentous favor for you. But,” he said with a bereaved sigh, “the deed is fait accompli. So now the question remains, who is this man who has won your heart?”

  “He hasn’t won my heart.”

  François’s gaze was unnervingly direct. “You, who have cast aside men as though they were so much fodder—”

  “I have never cast anyone aside like fodder.”

  “You, who have left hearts scattered all over Paris, never giving one man more than a cursory glance, their pride in shambles—”

  A knock at the door saved Bliss from whatever probing question loomed on the horizon. She would welcome the devil himself at that moment, if it distracted François.

  Moving to the door, Bliss swung it open, thinking it was her mother with a supper tray.

  Instead, leaning negligently against the doorframe was the very devil she had summoned, looking every inch the aristocrat in a navy superfine jacket that molded his rugged shoulders, cream brocade waistcoat that emphasized his broad chest, and dove-gray trousers that hugged his muscular thighs.

  The devil known as the Earl of Hartland.

  Sixteen

  A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast,

  And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again…

  Matthew Arnold

  Bliss was unable to catch her breath, her gaze riveted to the piercing midnight eyes she had just painted.

  “Surprised?” Caine murmured, his deep, resonating voice making her shiver.

  She shook off the traitorous thrill caused by his unexpected appearance and stiffened her resolve. This man had used her. He had no right to suddenly appear on her doorstep as though he had done no wrong, especially looking so calm and fascinating.


  “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

  “I’ve come to pay a visit.” He leaned close to her, assaulting her with that incredible heat. “I’m the very soul of sociability.” His mouth was suddenly next to her ear, his breath a soft pressure against her throat as he whispered, “I’ve missed you.”

  A sharp ache rose inside Bliss, infuriating her. She forced herself to remain rigid, glaring at him. “Your arrogance knows no bounds, my lord.”

  He straightened slowly. “None at all.” There was a suggestive intimacy in the curve of those full lips, which had kissed her with such carnal abandon. “May I come in?”

  “No.”

  “Still an expert at chiseling me down to size, I see. Good thing I’m not easily deterred.” He pushed away from the doorjamb and took a step toward her. Impulsively, Bliss held her hand out to block his path. He quirked that infuriating eyebrow at her, challenge written plainly on his handsome face. “Are we to engage in a scuffle? I’d prefer to avoid it, if possible.”

  “Then leave and it won’t be an issue.”

  He chucked her under the chin. “Remind me to take you to Gentleman Joe’s for a bout in the ring. My money’s on you.” Then he entered her apartment, the hand she intended to use to push him out the door brushing across his chest instead, leaving a telltale heat in its wake.

  “Cozy,” he murmured, his gaze scanning her belongings before a dark scowl formed on his face. “Who the hell are you?” His belligerent tone told her he’d spotted François.

  Naked.

  “Who the hell are you?” François demanded in return, not sounding the least intimidated, though Caine had to outweigh him by at least two stone.

  Swallowing back an unexpected laugh, Bliss was greatly relieved to see that François had tugged up the sheet, though the thin silk sculpted his bounty in all its glory. To the unknowing eye, it might appear she was having an afternoon tryst. And from Caine’s tense profile, that was exactly the conclusion he had drawn.

  His eyes, now far more black than blue, settled on her. “Have you already begun gathering your information?”

  It took Bliss only a second to deduce his meaning. He had once tauntingly questioned her about the degree of pleasure he had aroused in her, and she had replied that she would need to seek out other men to make an adequate comparison of his skills.

  Lifting her chin, she replied, “Yes, as a matter of fact, I have. Now, if you wouldn’t mind leaving so that I can continue my lessons? I’m a very studious pupil, if you recall. But some things require a good deal of time and devotion to master.”

  The possessive light that suddenly blazed in his eyes warned that pushing him was not advisable. “You mastered that particular lesson quite aptly, if memory serves.”

  The carnal undertone of his words evoked images Bliss had yet to forget. “How did you get in here?”

  “A plump, rosy-cheeked maid welcomed me with open arms. She didn’t seem to find it remotely unusual that you were entertaining men in your bedroom.”

  “This isn’t my bedroom.” His gaze slid to the cot she kept in the corner, and for some unfathomable reason, Bliss heard herself say, “Sometimes I work late into the night.”

  He slanted her a disarming smile. “A captivating image.”

  Her heart missed a beat. “If your insatiable curiosity has been appeased—”

  “Far from it.”

  “That was your hint to depart, monsieur,” François interjected, knotting the sheet around his lean hips and standing, his own impressive height of six-two a fairly even match to Caine’s. “Unless you need help finding the door.”

  “I presume you think to assist me?” Caine’s gaze flicked over his potential opponent, unconcerned.

  “Mademoiselle has expressed her desire for you to leave. If you do not feel so inclined, then most assuredly, I will show you the way out.” François took a step toward Caine, which Caine matched.

  Bliss hastened between them, her back to François. “Stop this.”

  Caine raised an eyebrow, a glint of anger in his tumultuous gaze. “Saving your lover, sweetheart? How charming.” He caught her chin between his fingers. “Then again, you always were quite passionate when riled.”

  “I want you to leave,” she told him furiously, hating the fact that part of her still responded to him and didn’t want him to go.

  Faint lamplight caught the saturnine curve of his cheek. “I have something to say to you.”

  “Then say it and go.”

  “It’s a private matter.” His gaze cut over her shoulder to François. “Why don’t you scuttle off, old boy? Later, if you feel so inclined, I’ll take you up on your offer to step outside. For now, however, get out.”

  Bliss had to block François as he lunged forward. He may prefer men to women, but that didn’t make him any less male when it came to his honor.

  “This is foolishness!” he said in an impatient tone. “Let me dispatch this boor so we can return to what we were doing.”

  “And what was that, again?” Caine asked, now making a lazy circuit of the room as though he had every right to snoop.

  “Perhaps we were making love,” François taunted.

  Caine glanced over his shoulder. “And perhaps I’ll wring your bloody Frog neck.”

  “Jealous, English?” François draped his arm over Bliss’s shoulder, the gesture intended to provoke.

  “Of you?” Caine said with a scoffing laugh. “I’ve seen what you have to offer, and I highly doubt the lady was impressed.”

  Bliss’s temper soared. “Why you pompous, pigheaded…Out! Both of you!”

  “But, chérie…” François cajoled, only to be silenced by her glare.

  “You, of all people. How could you?”

  “I only meant—”

  “I know what you meant, and I suspect I’ll eventually forgive you. But not at this moment.”

  He sighed dejectedly and retrieved his clothes, once more the old François. “What of that one?” he muttered, his gaze flinging daggers at Caine’s back.

  Bliss glanced toward Caine. His tousled, sable hair was painted with streaks of golden candlelight. He was an enigma to her, yet she could not seem to shake her fascination for him.

  Turning back to François, she said, “He’ll be following on your heels.”

  “Are you sure you would not like me to put a few lumps on his thick skull? Nothing would give me greater pleasure.”

  “I’ve retained that right for myself. But thank you anyway.” She took hold of his hands and tried to smile reassuringly. “I know you were only trying to protect me.”

  “He’s the one, isn’t he?”

  Bliss’s first thought was to utter a denial, but she knew François would see through her. “Yes,” she answered softly. “He’s the one.”

  A flicker of reluctant interest revealed itself now that a conflict had been avoided. “I do not know what you see in him. Those muscles are ostentatious. And that face! All harsh planes and rough, brooding angles. Utterly gauche. The spawn of a long line of bare-knuckled brawlers and bourgeoisie, I suspect.”

  As though sensing he was the topic of their conversation, Caine glanced over at them, raising that provoking eyebrow, his grin clearly challenging.

  “Barbarian,” François huffed with a disdainful sniff. “I shall remain within shouting distance, should you require my help.” Clothes in hand, he sailed regally out the door, the sheet trailing behind him like the robes of an emperor.

  “Close the door,” Caine softly commanded.

  Bliss wet her lips, exhaling slowly. “No.”

  He leaned a shoulder against the wall, arms folded across his chest, showcasing those ostentatious muscles as though a person could possibly miss them.

  She had felt them for herself not so long ago, running her hands up and down their supple strength, reveling in their barely restrained power, the way they molded her against his body, her hands clinging to them as he drove into her. She shivered.


  In four long strides Caine stood face to face with her, something unreadable in his eyes. “Has he made love to you?” When Bliss remained mute, he took hold of her arms, his grip bordering on painful. “Has he?”

  “No!” She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing it would be a long time before she allowed another man into her bed. “Now please, just leave.”

  With surprising gentleness he brushed back a stray lock of her hair, the light sweep of his fingertips along her neck as intimate as a kiss.

  Bliss stepped back. “I won’t let you come in and out of my life, wreaking havoc with impunity. I know all about your ploy; Lady Buxton delighted in rubbing your dirty secret in my face.”

  He reached out and traced her cheek with his finger, the tender gesture at odds with the strange severity in his eyes. “She shouldn’t have done that,” he murmured, sounding almost sorry.

  “Of course not.” Bliss backed out of his reach. “It took the pleasure away from you.”

  His hand remained suspended for a moment, then dropped away. “Are you so sure I would have enjoyed it?”

  “Why not? You did before. But you did warn me, didn’t you? What a laugh you must have had, bringing me down a notch. Another idiotic chit throwing herself at you.”

  “If I recall, I threw myself at you.”

  He was trying to charm her. Bliss stiffened her resolve. “If you’ve come all this way hoping to find me steeped in regret and self-pity, you’ll be sorely disappointed. Self-pity is your territory.”

  “Perhaps you’re right.”

  She didn’t want his agreement. She wanted him to feel as angry and hurt and betrayed as she felt. “I made love to you and I enjoyed it. You thawed the duke’s frigid daughter, so count yourself a success. But having made the wrong choice with you, I’ll know better than to repeat the mistake. You may have been the first, my lord, but you won’t be the last.”

  He continued to observe her in that resigned fashion. “I didn’t come here to gloat, regardless of what you think.”

  “Why did you come? Something must have motivated you, and I don’t delude myself that it’s concern for my feelings. That would undoubtedly be a first.”