Anger chased it. Good Lord. The man was addled. He could not make up his mind, and he was going to make her addled in the process. Maybe that was his aim! Having received no success this morning, he was going to tease her to desperation, manipulate her into debasing herself again—
His mouth slid across her cheek to her ear. “Spy holes,” he murmured, his hand idly brushing the line of her waist. “Lean down to sniff the roses. Take a look.”
Spy holes? Great ghosts! What sort of business partner did Lord Weston encourage these days?
Alex began to nuzzle her neck. A pleasurable chill lifted the hairs at her nape. She shrugged his mouth away with one shoulder. He caught her shoulder and squeezed. “Someone might be watching,” he said into her ear. His hot breath made her shiver again. “Hurry up and take a look.” His tongue flicked along her lobe. “Or give them an excuse for your dallying here.”
She cleared her throat. “Let me have a look at these flowers!” she said brightly.
He winced and stepped back. All right, her delivery needed work. She would have to spend a few minutes mustering the Barbary Queen before she dared set foot outside their rooms.
She bent over, making a show of fingering one petal, meanwhile fighting the urge to reach up and touch her ear where he had licked it. He made her knees weak with one stroke of his tongue. This was not a magic any cautious woman would encourage.
His tanned hand slid over hers. “This one,” he said, lifting a finger to indicate a rose nearby. “Beautiful,” he said, and then stroked his finger back down hers, delicate as a man admiring the brushwork on a piece of priceless china. The contrast of his tanned skin against hers, the gentleness of his touch and the strength of his hand, riveted her. She almost missed the way his knuckles touched the wall before he removed his hand to his side. “The shade is striking. Dye, do you think?”
Had he not indicated the spot on the wall, she would never have noticed the spy hole. It was minute, pricked cleverly at the tip of one velvet floret.
Assuming, of course, that it was a spy hole, and not simply the shoddy workmanship of an underpaid assistant.
She straightened. “The roses are Gloire de Dijon, Alex. A lovely but not uncommon breed. I do not think dye was required.”
“Oh? I really must expand my knowledge of such things.” He was walking along the wall now, his fingertips lightly dragging across the wallpaper as he appeared to idly inspect the furnishings. A framed watercolor of the Venetian canals caught his interest; he paused before it, staring hard. “Remarkable taste Barrington has,” he murmured. “Have you ever been to Venice?” He glanced at her. “Stayed at the Piazza once. What a view it offered.”
She looked from the painting toward the bed. A very direct view, indeed. If people were spying on them, so much for hoping that he would sleep on the floor.
He walked to the far wall, then stopped before the mirror atop the toilette, brushing down his suit jacket, running his fingers through his hair. It struck her that watching him primp was almost comical; he did not wear spectacles in public, but in all other ways, he seemed to possess very little vanity.
Perhaps he skipped the specs for the same reason she did. She always felt vulnerable when she wore them in public. They stripped her of one of her greatest weapons: her ability to ignore what she did not wish to see.
The idea was curious. What might Alex wish to ignore?
His family.
Any cause to change his itinerant lifestyle.
She cleared her throat. “Have a clear view of yourself, then?”
He turned back toward her, smiling wryly in acknowledgment of the double meaning. “Yes,” he said. “I do wonder if this room is comfortable enough to suit you? I know you prefer something a bit more . . . ornate. We could always take a room in Cannes.”
Two rooms, even. How very tempting. “Let me take one more look around,” she said, and walked back into the dressing room.
A moment later, he joined her. The room was very small; when he walked inside, the enforced proximity set her nerves to firing. She stood very still, enduring the malfunctioning of these million small cells, which leapt and shivered at the prospect of some accidental contact with him.
It took him less than a minute’s scrutiny to conclude that it was not similarly sabotaged. In the course of this silent survey, some slight adjustment brought his thigh into her skirts. She would not pretend to fidget, would not conspire to heighten this intimacy. It was not even intimacy: his leg was only touching the fabric of her gown.
And yet . . . she could guess now what lay beneath his clothes. He was a tall man, built on lean lines, and she had seen him without his shirt; she knew beyond doubt that his broad shoulders were not merely a trick of his bone structure. Throat to chest to arms to thighs to calves, his body was strapped with muscle. Clearly he disciplined it as firmly as he did his business concerns, not to mention the affection he allowed himself for those who loved him.
And there was the problem, of course. Any other man—a man of more human dimensions—would have taken her last night. Alex had wanted her. She was sure of it. But while his refusal might have resembled, by mere mechanical coincidence, the actions of a gentleman, that coincidence should not and would not make him more attractive to her. She was not so much an idiot that she would now begin, after all her sad history, to romanticize rejection as proof of some admirable quality in a man.
“All right,” he said, and she realized she’d been holding her breath. “We can speak freely.” He looked down at her at the precise moment that she looked up, away from his body to his face.
His eyes narrowed slightly. That was the only sign of his sudden realization that they stood so close. His mind had been elsewhere. Now it was only on her.
A wistful thought slipped free. If only he—
No. She slammed shut the window through which the beginning of this wish had strayed.
She drew a breath that felt, and sounded, unsteady. “So . . .”
His hands lifted very slowly. His thumb touched her upper arm. It traced the bare skin, drawing a circle, light but for the slight scrape of his nail. The other moved to her hair, plucking out one hairpin, and then another. A lock of her hair tumbled past her temple. He caught it up, drawing it through his fingers, from root to tip.
The breath left her on one long, sibilant rush. “There are no spy holes,” she whispered. “Not here.”
“We’ll have to put on a good act outside. And practice makes perfect.” His warm fingers cupped her elbows, forming a light vise that he tested, his grip tightening slightly. “Shall we practice?”
She swallowed and stepped back. Her shoulder blades hit a shelf. “Not like this.”
He followed her. “Not like what?”
“Like . . . like you mean it,” she mumbled. She felt a blush start up her throat.
“But I do mean it,” he said with a faint smile. “That was never in doubt, Gwen.”
She glanced away from his expression, fighting the urge to take hope from that statement. She was done with wrestling flattery from his obscurities. She looked away from his face, to his throat; unlike his eyes, it did not have the ability to look back, to study her so closely that she felt flustered and infuriated and manipulated but also peculiarly exposed. “I suppose animal lust is not extraordinary.”
“Certainly not,” he said. As his head bent, his hair brushed her chin. With his lips pressed to her throat, he breathed deeply, as if the scent of her was enough to lure him, to turn his voice to a low, rough pitch as he said, “But animal lust is also very easily contained. This, on the other hand . . .” The tip of his tongue touched her. Her eyes closed of their own volition.
“I think we might call it resonance,” he murmured.
“Resonance.” She meant to sound scathing, but the word was too breathy, and it tipped up at the end like a question.
“Every object vibrates at a particular and specific frequency.” He dragged his mouth up to her jaw, and she f
elt, briefly, the edge of his teeth. Into her ear he said, “Place two of a kind side by side, and the first, if vibrating, will force the other to vibrate alongside it. I slept last night, the whole night, for the first time in six months. Did you?”
She fought for composure. It was true that when he was near, she felt attuned to him in every cell. But what was he implying? That their natures were the same? If he’d believed that, why would he have refused her? Why would he have any care for her virtue?
She averted her face. “I could not sleep for hours,” she said to the wall. “I am done being toyed with, Alex. You made yourself quite clear last night. I am Richard’s little sister to you. And while you play the rebel very well, you certainly sounded most conventional when refusing me.” She manufactured a short laugh. “Indeed, I’ve no idea why I’m surprised. You may criticize our rude, fat MPs all you like, but it was their work that opened the trade routes to your ships, wasn’t it? Why, even your rebellion suits our government. I’m sure you pay a fortune in taxes. You’re far more boring than you realize.”
He surprised her by laughing low in his throat, the warmth coasting over the skin of her temple. “A very neat set down,” he said. “Do try not to flash your intelligence at Barrington. He won’t expect it of the Barbary Queen.”
She twisted away from him and made a face. “So we do mean to stay here, then?”
“We can always visit from Cannes.” His light touch at her waist made her startle. “Shh,” he said. “Just getting you comfortably into the role. Can’t have you flinching when I touch you in public.” After a pause, he said, “The blush is beautiful, though. I would regret to see you lose that.”
She stared very hard at a hook set into the wall. Focus. “But what would be the point of staying so far away? Your aim is to gather information. It’s most easily done here.”
He traced a circle on her hip. This time, to her pride, she successfully denied any outward response to the touch, although inside, oh—low in her belly, in her fluttering chest, in the places he had taken and soothed last night—she was dissolving.
He spoke. “I don’t appreciate being spied on. That’s the point.”
She choked on a surprised laugh—and then, when he lifted a brow, she said simply, “The irony, Alex.”
After a moment, he smiled as well. “Touché. I suppose hypocrisy is the name of this game as well.”
“Then I should be good at it.” She paused. His hand still covered her hip, but when she focused all her attention on the task, instead of simply allowing her baser senses free reign, she could find it amusing, in an ironic sort of way. “You should be good at it yourself,” she said. “No need to touch me now; I’m done with flinching and gasping.”
His hand tightened on her hip. “Gwen—”
“Lily,” she corrected. “We’ll stay. We didn’t come all this way for nothing. And if at night they don’t see . . . well, what they expect to see, then we’ll simply have to pretend that we’ve quarreled. Yes? So we will act very coldly toward one another today.” In that regard, the spy holes were a blessing: she now had an excuse to curl as far away from him as possible. Perhaps even to lie on top of her traitorous hands, which would be sure, otherwise, to stray toward him.
His touch fell away. “I don’t think that’s wise,” he said. “Barrington might see it as an opportunity to make his address to you.”
“I can handle flirtation,” she said. “I’m no green girl. Not all men are well behaved in a ballroom.”
“All right,” he said at length. “But only provided this is the last unpleasant surprise we discover. If he proves dangerous—”
“I know,” she said in bored tones. “In your brotherly way, you will insist we leave at once.”
She had the satisfaction of seeing his face go dark before she swept back into the enemy territory of the bedroom.
By the time they had bathed (Gwen requested the tub to be placed in the dressing room) and finished changing out of their traveling clothes, the sun had begun to set and the temperature to drop. Gwen plucked out a pashmina shawl in a beautiful ruby red to wear over her low-necked evening gown to dinner. Alex, in turn, donned full coat tails, and the sight gave her a moment’s mute astonishment. She had not seen him so formally dressed in years. He never attended the parties that called for it—not in her circles, at least.
The look suited him. His jacket was cut to a more form-fitting silhouette than was fashionable in England at present, and it emphasized the sweep of his broad shoulders into his narrow waist, the long, muscled length of his legs.
“We are going to quarrel,” she reminded him. And herself.
He smiled at her, those gorgeous eyes of his dancing. “I’ll warn you,” he said. “I never lose a quarrel.”
“Ah, but you’ve never quarreled with me,” she parried. “Recall that with a mere smile, I have driven men to turn tail and run. Imagine what I can do if I put my mind to a scowl.”
He flashed her a brief look of evident surprise, then laughed and offered his arm. It occurred to her, a moment later, why he was startled: it was the first time she had ever made a lighthearted joke about her jiltings. She searched herself and found not a lick of wounded hurt to power the remark.
Heart light, she processed downstairs on his arm, and then, per their respective roles tonight, broke away from him to walk ahead into the drawing room.
Inside, a motley crew sat around a low table—six gentlemen crouched over hands of cards, bottles of open liquor at their elbows, bowler hats discarded by their feet. Draped on and around these men were four very young women, three of whom reposed in various states that even at a music hall could be termed as “undress.”
The last lady, a raven-haired beauty who looked to be in her late thirties, was lounging on a nearby sofa, her heeled boots propped atop the arm, her red-and-white striped skirts frothing at her knees. Her posture left no doubt that she was fully dressed—right down to the scarlet garters holding up her stockings.
Despite her casual posture, she radiated an air of watchful repose, even authority; and this aura was bolstered by the glances sent her way by the younger women as Gwen paused on the carpet. She sat up, giving Gwen a leisurely inspection that slid up her lavender silk skirt, paused momentarily at her wide belt, and lingered again at the amethyst pendant holding in place the drape of Gwen’s shawl.
By the time their eyes met, the woman’s mouth had slipped sideways into a smile that seemed distinctly unfriendly.
“One of yours?” said a man at the table. “Darling, come here.” He patted his knee.
“No, not one of mine,” said the lady. “I’ve told you, Alessandro, if Veronique doesn’t arrive on time, I’ll play your flute for you.”
Alex’s arrival was announced by the broad hand fitting into the small of Gwen’s back—not to guide her onward, for he applied no pressure, but perhaps simply because he wished to ensure that she stayed upright. “What’s this?” he asked lightly.
His touch recalled her to her purpose. She was not shocked by the sight of garters. Indeed, she wore them herself. “I don’t know,” she said with a bright smile. “But this gentleman has brought a flute, and a flautist is coming to play it for him, so it seems that the company will be musical all around.”
The comment won a weird silence. The dark-haired woman fixed an amazed gaze upon her. Alex made a curious noise, deep in his throat.
She had the sudden feeling that she should be blushing. And then, all at once, she was blushing. She tried to paste a saucy smile over it, but the effect apparently looked miserably awkward, for one of the men sat forward, elbows on knees, to inquire with a frown: “I think you’re Miss Goodrick and Mr. de Grey, no?”
“Indeed we are,” Alex said flatly.
The man tweaked his ginger mustache, smoothing it to a fine, sharp tip. “Pardon me, sir. Dinner crowd gathering in the east wing.” His glance shifted to Gwen, and he gave a lopsided grin. “Do come back afterward, if you like—always room f
or more at the game.”
Gwen grew cognizant, abruptly, that the ratio of ladies to men left something to be desired.
“Will do,” Alex said, and ushered Gwen back into the hallway, where he said in an undertone, “A flautist?”
“I know,” she said miserably. “I don’t know what I was thinking. A code word of some sort, I’m sure of it. I doubt that man even had a flute with him.”
He drew a strange, strangled breath through his nose. “Darling, perhaps you’d best keep your mouth shut tonight.”
His tone was teasing, rueful, and she almost asked him to explain what she’d missed. And then she saw Barrington step out of the hallway five feet ahead of them. The opportunity was too perfect to resist. “Keep my mouth shut?” she repeated, injecting wounded anger into her voice. “How dare you, Alex. Perhaps I can find someone else here who might admire it better.”
Predictable as clockwork, Barrington spoke. “Ah, mademoiselle, monsieur!” Giving an oily smile to Alex, he added, “Miss Goodrick, I wonder if I might have the honor of escorting you into dinner?”
Chapter Twelve
The party grew drunk, and then drunker. Gwen sat four seats away from Alex, at Barrington’s elbow near the head of the table. At first, Alex monitored her only to make certain that she was not letting Barrington refill her glass. He was meant to be playing the irritated lover, so he supposed occasional dark looks were permitted. He manufactured a glare to lend his glances authenticity.
But by the time the fifth course was served, his dark looks no longer required effort. Indeed, he had dismissed the pretty Italian countess to his right and was probably doing a very good imitation of an obsessed, glowering fanatic. Was Gwen so good an actress, or was her displeasure with him genuine? She looked to be leaning into Barrington’s touches now, and Alex would have been hard-pressed to distinguish her current smiles from those she had given him on the banks of the Seine, the morning after the adventure at Le Chat Noir.
When dinner was concluded and the party transferred outside for a moonlit boating expedition, he pulled Gwen off Barrington’s arm and into the corner with a very showy sulk.
Wicked Becomes You Page 20