by Robin Schone
Madame’s feminine French army hurriedly gathered together the bolts of beautiful fabrics and trailed after their mistress.
Anne’s beaded reticule glittered on a Louis XVI side table; the fingers of her black silk gloves dangled limply over the glazed, gilded wood. Her black grenadine cloak hung on a brass hook nearby. Michel’s cane was propped beside it, gold head gleaming.
The private sitting room shrank until there was no place for self-deception.
A peahen did not belong in the French provincial setting.
It was all too obvious Michel did.
He had sat there, in this shop, perhaps on that very same divan … many times.
Assessing many different women.
Anne squared her shoulders. “Why did you bring me here?”
Michel’s violet eyes were impenetrable. “Madame René is in reality la Comtesse de l’Aguille. Her grandparents escaped to London during the revolution. They lost everything—their estates, their wealth, their jewels. Foolishly they reared their sole surviving daughter to believe that she would marry an English aristocrat worthy of her position. The daughter succumbed to a rake who had no intention of marrying her; then she succumbed to death after delivering his child. The grandparents turned their ambition onto the grandchild—a beautiful, titian-haired girl who would obviously attract wealthy, titled men.
“But the girl was practical. She was determined to become a courtesan and have not one, but many English aristocrats. When her attractions matured, she opened this establishment. First she ruled the men, now she rules their women. A woman who does not have a gown designed by Madame René is not thought to be fashionable.”
Anne continued to stare at him mutinously.
She did not want to feel sorry for Madame René.
All these years she had been reconciled to being a plain spinster. Or so she had thought. With a single fitting the modiste had shown her how little she differed from the eighteen-year-old girl she had once been who had failed to take her place among London’s beautiful, fashionable elite.
“She does not dress just any woman, Anne,” Michel elaborated gently. “Not even for the exorbitant prices society belles are willing to pay.”
“Did you take just any woman who could pay you?” she asked coldly, knowing she was behaving badly but unable to stop the question.
“At first, yes,” he said bluntly.
“And later?”
“I took only those who met my criteria. As does Madame René.”
“What is her criteria, pray tell, if not wealth?”
“The same as mine.”
“And that is?”
“We both require passion in a woman.”
For one heart-stopping moment Anne believed that he found her attractive.
She wanted to believe him.
But Michel would not have taken her without her money any more than Madame René would have.
The throb between her legs intensified. “You said you would not lie to me.”
“I have not.”
“If I wanted you to … would you?”
A faraway door slammed shut on the noisy London life that had invaded the shop.
Something like pain crossed Michel’s dark features. Or perhaps it was regret. Or merely boredom at her lack of sophistication. “No, I will not lie to you.”
Anne blinked back tears. “Why not?” she asked tightly.
“Because I like you, Anne Aimes.”
No one had ever said they liked her. Wanted her. Needed her.
She quickly countered to cover the hot flush of pleasure his declaration elicited. “Then you have lied to other women.”
“Yes,” he said baldly.
“Did you not like them?”
“I liked some of the women I’ve been with. But not all. Liking has little to do with lust.”
“Did you ever lie to any of those whom you liked?”
“Yes,” he said adamantly, unrepentantly.
“But you will not lie to me.” The bite of roast beef she had eaten for lunch gored her stomach. “Why not?”
Why wouldn’t he tell her that she was beautiful?
She wouldn’t believe him then.
She would understand the basis of his purported attraction: money. She would know how to act. What to expect.
She would know what he wanted from her.
Michel rose from the gold brocade couch. Purposefully he stalked her.
The raspy contact of his fingers bolted through her body. It touched places only he would ever touch. Her breasts. Her clitoris. Her buttocks.
He cupped her face and lifted it to his, his breath a sultry caress. “Because you don’t want me to.”
She stared at the black tie knotted at his throat; the heat of his fingers penetrated her flesh. Her teeth. Her bones. “How do you know that?”
“I know you, Anne.”
He could not possibly know her.
Her desires, yes. But not the woman who had dedicated her life to aging parents rather than risk being ridiculed.
He did not know the woman who out of weakness and cowardliness had heartlessly prolonged pain and suffering.
Anne resolutely met his waiting gaze. “Perhaps I would rather be lusted after than liked.”
Michel’s face lightened; he smiled, a flash of white, even teeth. “I lust after you, Anne. Lust is not synonymous with liking, but neither does it preclude it.”
She determinedly touched the front of his wool trousers to test the validity of his statement.
Heat scorched her hand.
He was hard.
Ready.
A pulse beat in the heart of her palm.
His … or hers?
“Did you bring me here because you are ashamed of the way I look?”
The words burst out of her mouth before she could stop them. Anne withdrew her hand in horror.
She didn’t want to know—she had had enough truths for one day.
“I brought you here so that you could meet Madame René.” Michel did not blink an eyelash at her rash bluntness. “She’s a wonderful, courageous woman who has flourished where other women in her circumstances withered. You remind me of her.”
Yes, both of them were well past their prime.
“Were you ever her lover?”
Anne cringed. Madame René had to be seventy if she was a day.
“No. But I would have been.” Michel’s eyes were intent, daring her, his procuress, to judge him, a man who catered to needy women like herself. “If she had wanted me.”
And had paid the price.
Anne focused on the curve of his bottom lip, feeling incredibly naive in this uncomfortable world of exotic beauty and blatant sensuality.
“Madame said that I am too small in the breasts.” Her voice was small—almost as small as she felt. “That my waist is thickening. And that my legs are passable. But not to worry, she will do well by me.”
He tilted her chin so that she had no choice but to meet his violet gaze. “That is not what she told me,” Michel murmured smoothly.
There was no condemnation in either his voice or his face.
“Oh?” Anne drew in a shaky breath. “I would not have credited her with sparing a woman’s sensibilities.”
Laughter glinted in his eyes, like sunshine rippling on a lake. Brilliant. Blinding. “She said that your breasts are high and firm, like those of a young woman. That your waist is supple. And that you have legs like a racehorse.”
Anne remembered … the cold draft of air, and violet fire …
“You saw me,” she said breathlessly. “When madame was measuring me.”
And she had stood naked save for stockings and her hat with its ridiculous feather that made her feel like a great, clumsy horse.
“I saw you.”
By lamplight. By sunlight.
Legs splayed. Feminine lips spread.
“I cannot wear Madame René’s creations.”
His mouth thinned, still sensual, still alluring. “W
hy not?”
“I’m in mourning.” Her throat tightened as she remembered the pain that didn’t stop and the exhaustion that always waited. “My parents died ten months ago.”
The tension eased out of Michel’s face—or perhaps it had never been there. It was impossible to understand this complex man who claimed he wanted her as badly as she wanted him. “Is that why you came to me”—his scarred thumbs grated across her cheeks while his fingers burned her ears—“to forget your grief?”
“No.” Singeing awareness raced through her. Of his blood that pulsed in his fingertips; of her blood that thrummed inside her temples. “I came to you out of fear. That I will someday be as lonely and unhappy as they were.”
He studied her lips, his gaze a palpable touch. “Yet you nursed them.”
“They had no one else.”
And neither had she.
“You did not want to go out with me today.” Eyelashes lifting, his gaze locked with hers. “Are you ashamed of me?”
Had he heard the couturière?
Did it hurt him when people stared? Talked?
How could any woman not find him attractive?
“Women do not pay men ten thousand pounds if they are ashamed of them, Monsieur des Anges,” she said firmly.
His violet eyes were unrelenting. “Then why did you cringe in horror when I asked if you would be seen with me?”
He would not allow her dignity. Modesty.
Pride.
What had he said?
Sometimes a lie is all that protects us. But there’s no need to lie. We both want …. We both need ….
Anne stiffened her spine. “I cringed in horror at being seen with you because … because everyone shall know that you would not be with me if I did not pay you.”
His silky soft lips twisted. “Anne—”
“And because I know that society is not as understanding of a woman’s physical needs as you and Madame René are. There will be gossip. Rumors. What few invitations I occasionally receive will stop altogether.”
A shrill laugh cut through the muted noise of the city—another customer, cozily ensconced in a private sitting room.
Perhaps she had once been Michel’s customer, too.
Immediately she drove the thought out of her head.
She would not allow her insecurities to ruin their short time together. It was time to take responsibility. And initiative.
Anne tentatively cupped her hands over his; his scarred skin was hot and rough against her cheeks where he touched her, and against her palms, where she touched him. “But that is the price I am willing to pay.”
“Then you will wear madame’s dresses”—Michel’s head lowered, close but not close enough—“for the time we have together?”
She instinctively moistened her lips for his kiss. “Yes.”
“And afterward, when you are no longer in mourning?”
“Yes,” she lied.
The dresses would be wrapped in tissue, packed away in a trunk, and delegated to the attic, there to join the trunks packed with the remnants of her childhood and her coming-out wardrobe.
His mouth grazed hers. “Let’s go home.”
Michel’s home. A house scented with flowers instead of mildew. Passion instead of pain.
Anne’s breath quickened. “I cannot take you so soon after …. I am raw.”
His lips grazed hers again, violet eyes watching her watch him. “There are other ways I can please you.”
She grew moist with remembered pleasure, muscles loosening, ache increasing. “You mean”—she swallowed—“like you did earlier.”
With lips. Tongue. And teeth.
“I mean”—his lips grazed hers yet again, beautiful eyes starkly staring—“I am going to take that feather out of your hat and tickle your clitoris until you scream for me to stop. But I won’t stop, Anne.”
For a second Anne couldn’t breathe for the vivid image of the white feather adorning her hat held firmly in his long, scarred fingers, and positioned between her yawning thighs.
The muscles in her lower abdomen contracted.
Anne’s fingers convulsively dug into his to contain the stab of desire.
But she wanted more than solitary satisfaction.
She wanted the sharing of heartbeats; the mingling of breaths; the joining of their sexes.
“I prefer it when you take your pleasure with me,” she said unevenly.
Just when she thought she would explode from the intensity of his gaze, his touch, the promise of his kiss, his thick black lashes lowered. Lightly he licked her lips, a scrape of liquid fire; the scalding heat palpitating against her palms and her cheeks plunged between her legs.
“Then I will show you other ways that a man and a woman can obtain satisfaction,” he whispered. “Together.”
Unexplored boundaries of passion.
Anticipation. Apprehension.
She had never before realized how alike the two separate emotions were.
Anne licked her lips, tasting his saliva, his breath. Her uncertainty. “Can a woman accept a man … where you penetrated me with your finger?”
Michel’s eyelids slowly lifted.
Scorching heat rocketed through her body.
She did not know if it came from embarrassment at her boldness, or from his gaze and the riveting flare of passion there.
“A woman can take a man in her every orifice,” he said hoarsely, fingers squeezing her cheeks, breath searing her lips.
The pressure should hurt, she vaguely realized, but it didn’t. All that mattered was the violet of his eyes. The magnetism of his touch. And the image of him taking her where he had previously taken her with his finger.
Remembered sensation rippled through her.
“You said you would tell me what every woman has a right to demand. But what do men have a right to demand?” How could she possibly return the pleasure he gave her? “What do you expect from a woman, Michel?”
Michel released her; cold air embraced her cheeks. “I expect everything from you, Anne.”
Anne blinked at his unexpected withdrawal.
Turning, he walked away from her. She stood rigidly straight, trying to regain control over her breathing. Her body.
She felt rather than heard him come up behind her. “Hold out your right arm.”
Anne awkwardly thrust first one arm, then the other into the sleeves of her cloak. The motion forced her right breast forward … her left breast, her linen chemise a rough caress.
The weight of the grenadine cloth settled on her shoulders. It pressed in on her until she could not breathe.
What had she said to turn him away?
Suddenly he stepped in front of her, holding her black silk gloves and beaded reticule.
Not meeting his gaze, she stiffly reached for them.
Michel pulled them back, held them loosely on either side of his groin.
The gray wool trousers bulged between the feminine accessories.
Her gaze shot up to his.
“This is for you, Anne.” Face set in unreadable lines, he pressed her gloves and reticule into her hands, his fingers scraping her soft skin, forcing her fingers to close around slippery silk and brittle jet beads. “Money may buy pleasure, but it doesn’t make a man hard. When we step out onto the street and people look at us, they will see my erection—not a monetary transaction.”
Anne searched his eyes for the truth. “It doesn’t bother you that others can see your … desire?”
“Why should it?”
Why should it, indeed?
All her life she had camouflaged her needs, afraid to show them for fear of what others would think.
Michel offered her his arm. Underneath the wool jacket lay the muscled reality of masculine flesh.
The streets were crowded with people hurrying to their individual houses or nearby shops to take high tea while vendors frantically tried to tempt them with their goods. They did not notice Anne Aimes, or the man who unasham
edly flaunted his arousal for a spinster.
Dark eyes snared hers, slid away. An approaching man, young, obviously wealthy, briefly appraised Michel’s groin before his gaze once again leveled on her with open speculation.
There was no ridicule in his eyes. No censure.
Only male appreciation.
The London air, polluted with smoke, raw drainage, and animal leavings, was suddenly clean and pure.
Anne thought of the aigrette bobbing in her hat. And of the use the plume would be put to.
She thought of Michel’s flesh, hard and erect. And his remark, bold and direct.
Their steps rang in unison on the cobbled sidewalk. Every orifice echoed inside her ears.
A cab instantly pulled up to the curb when Michel raised his hand.
Anne’s pupils dilated inside the dim interior of the hack; the springs creaked, tilted, righted, first with her weight, then with his.
Michel smartly closed the cab door behind him.
She pulled her cloak about her to make more room for his shoulder; his hip; his leg. Her lungs. “You seem to attract cabdrivers, Monsieur des Anges.”
A surge of raw energy bolted through the cramped confines of the hack. Michel’s left hand tightened around the door handle as if to wrench it open while his right hand clenched the gold handle of his cane so hard that the reddened welts covering his flesh turned white. At the same time the cab lurched forward.
Too late Anne realized what caused his reaction.
Chapter 8
Michael had not considered the possibility of being taken on a crowded street in the full light of day. By a cabby.
Uninterested pedestrians trotted by; vendors shouted out their wares while his cock burned and throbbed as if it were a separate entity, untouched by the looming threat of danger.
His gut clenched with belated understanding: when the time came it wouldn’t matter if he was ready.
He gripped the metal door handle; it did not halt the cab.
The asphyxiating odors of old perfume, stale cigar smoke, and damp hay shot to his head in a disorienting rush of energy. Underlying the reek of faceless, nameless customers who would never know the fate of one lone spinster and the man she had hired to take her virginity was the astringent smell of benzine, soap, shampoo, and the sweetness that was Anne herself.
“I beg your pardon.” Anne’s low, cultured voice was a drum-piercing roar; her shoulder rhythmically pressed and rubbed his right arm, chafing muscles that were stretched taut with tension. “I did not mean to imply that your … appearance … attracts undue attention.”