by Louise Allen
‘I love to dance,’ Thea said firmly.
They strolled around the place amidst the ladies in their local traditional costume, skirts wide with frothing white petticoats, lace in their headdresses and at cuff and throat, the men with coloured waistcoats and wide sashes. One side was dominated by the Palais des Papes, more a fortress than a religious building, Rhys thought.
‘This one,’ Thea decided and stopped by a group of tables, each topped with a spotless chequered cloth, some red and white, some blue and white. ‘See how busy this is, which should mean it is good. It is not too near the fires and there is a table here with a good view of the dance floor.’
Rhys pulled out chairs, settled Thea at the table and clicked his fingers for the waiter. ‘Bring us a good selection of what you would recommend. And as for wine, a Châteauneuf-du-Pape.’
The waiter suggested adding some of the local crémant. ‘As sparkling as the demoiselle’s eyes, monsieur,’ he said, and hurried off.
‘I cannot wait,’ Thea said. ‘Good food, wine, music, dancing. Bliss. You do dance these days, don’t you, Rhys?’
‘Not if I can help it, no,’ he responded. His mood had soured again with the waiter’s mildly flirtatious comment about Thea’s eyes. He wanted to be at that little table over there, half-hidden by a drapery of creepers, not here, on display. He wanted to feed her titbits of food, to watch her eyes sparkle with the wine, to hold her hand under the table and steal kisses. And then they would dance, but not in this square under the stars, but in his bed, which was wide and plump with snowy sheets and a goosefeather mattress and the dance would be the ancient pavane of loving...
‘Oh. Of course, I expect you do not care for it anymore.’
Her face fell as if he had snubbed her and he supposed he had. How not to hurt her? It was like picking his way across a scatter of broken glass, barefoot with his eyes closed.
‘I never did.’ Rhys found it impossible to keep the edge out of his voice. ‘Serena cared for it, so I danced, that is all.’ Now he really had cast a damper over the proceedings. Thea bit her lip, upset, he supposed, that he should mention that name. ‘I have little talent for it,’ Rhys added, striving for a lighter tone.
The musicians started to group together, fiddle players, drummers, various woodwind players and one with a strange device that they guessed was a hurdy-gurdy. Couples were coming onto the dance floor, girls giggling and pretending reluctance, young men in their best suits, swaggering and showing off, older couples, stocky and more sombrely clad, but moving together with the ease of long acquaintance.
‘Madame?’ A pleasant-faced, stocky young man stopped at the table and bowed. ‘You would care to dance? If monsieur permits?’
Thea jumped to her feet, took the stranger’s hand and left without a glance back at Rhys. He heard her laugh as they took their places in the lines of men and women and say something to the pretty girl on her right. Then the fiddlers stuck a chord and they were off, weaving and spinning, promenading, a human plait.
She turned wrongly, bumped into two other women, righted herself and they laughed good-naturedly, turning her back into the measure. Now the women were waving neckerchiefs over their heads. Thea tugged the lace fichu from her shoulders and used that. She looked beautiful, Rhys thought. Graceful, happy, full of life and enthusiasm, her face transformed with a flush of colour, a wide smile.
When the dance ended, her partner brought her back, bowed and went to the next table in search of another girl. Thea sat down, fanning herself. ‘That was such fun!’
Before she could sit down another man approached, bowed. ‘Madame? S’il vous plaît?’ He was tall and dark and even Rhys could appreciate that he had looks that would set any woman’s heart aflutter.
Thea darted a glance at Rhys. Not asking permission, that was certain, and yet there had been something in her eyes.... Yearning? For what?
He was still puzzling when she turned to the Frenchman. ‘Merci, monsieur. You do not mind, do you, Rhys?’ Without waiting for an answer she took his arm and they went back to the dance floor.
‘Mind?’ Rhys snarled under his breath. I’ll tear his head off if he so much as puts a finger wrong with her. He glowered at the colourful scene. The dancers were turning, then the women spun beneath their partners’ upheld arms. Thea was smiling up at her Frenchman, chatting despite the speed of the steps.
Rhys splashed out more wine and slid farther down in his chair, the glass cupped in both hands, shoulders hunched. He was perilously close to sulking, he told himself. It was bad enough to do something so juvenile, but worse when he wasn’t at all sure what he was sulking about.
Thea returned at last, with a small group of eager young men, all pressing her for a dance. And this time she did not so much as glance in Rhys’s direction.
He dumped the glass on the table, levered himself out of the chair and strode over to meet her. ‘This dance is mine.’
Thea did not take kindly to being ordered about, he knew that of old, but he was determined to win this. He was not going to watch her laughing up into another man’s face, happy and carefree. She was damn well going to suffer trodden toes with him.
‘I would love to!’ Her smile took his breath and Rhys struggled for some poise as she turned to her followers with a pretty apology in French. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured as she slid her hand into his. It felt small and delicate. Puzzled, Rhys glanced down at her. This was Thea, with confident, strong, long-fingered hands—what was the matter with him? Her immaculate coiffure was coming loose and tendrils of hair curled and fluttered on her brow, which was slightly damp from her exertions.
Desire burned through him like flames licking along his veins, and yet all he wanted was to hold her and keep that smile on her lips, that sparkle in those hazel eyes. The band struck up a lilting air and couples turned into each other’s embrace.
‘A waltz,’ Thea said. ‘How dashing. I do not believe the patronesses of Almack’s have presented you as an eligible partner, my lord.’
‘I am willing to risk the scandal if you are,’ Rhys offered, and gathered her firmly into his arms, all sweet curves overlying a lithe strength that only emphasised her femininity. His bad mood vanished like smoke.
Thea looked up, her face serious. ‘We have already risked it. And yet...we dance.’ There was no regret in her voice, nor teasing, either. Her eyes were soft and held the smile her lips did not. Rhys moved without conscious thought into the opening steps of the dance, feeling that he had been punched in the gut and had no air in his lungs. Could she mean what he thought she meant?
‘I would very much like to be that scandalous again,’ he said when he had found his voice. ‘But I can well understand if you do not. Forgive me for—’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Yes?’
‘If you truly want to.’ He must have looked incredulous, for she shook her head and smiled, despite the blush that was turning her cheeks rosy. ‘I said I had no expectations beyond that one night, and I would hate it if you felt obliged by gentlemanly scruples to return to my bed.’
‘Gentlemanly scruples should keep me from it,’ Rhys said wryly, knowing that nothing on earth was going to do that now. This was madness, but madness with a term to it. How long before they reached Venice and a return to sanity? Two weeks, perhaps. He wanted to invent diversions, convince himself that reaching Venice should involve going via Rome, Naples, Sicily. But he could not. It was not fair to Thea; it was not fair to himself.
‘It will not change anything, will it?’ she asked now. ‘Our friendship, I mean. I felt I had lost you, these past years.’
‘You had,’ Rhys confessed. ‘I think I had lost myself, too. I should have realised that I did not need to cut off the whole of my past simply to leave behind one part of it. Now we will not lose each other again, whatever befalls us. We will write, often, I hope.’
Thea quirked an eyebrow. ‘Until your marriage. I doubt your wife would look kindly on a correspondence with a
n unmarried female.’
His wife. That theoretical, nebulous lady. Rhys knew he had lost sight even of her outline these past few days. All that remained of her was an arid list of requirements. Arid, but safe. Sensible. He’d think of her again once he had left Venice. ‘Yes, of course. But you may be back in London by then. We will meet.’
Thea across a dance floor in the arms of another man. Thea married, perhaps. Thea in another man’s bed. Or unmarried, available, but not to him because he had married some near stranger with good bloodlines and a placid temperament.
‘The music has stopped.’
‘And you may stop laughing at me, you provoking chit.’ Around them couples were smiling. Some ladies even appeared to be regarding them with a sentimental sigh. ‘For goodness’ sake, they look as though I’ve gone down on one knee in the middle of the dance floor, just because I kept turning for a few bars!’
‘About a minute, actually. The French are romantics,’ Thea said with an abrupt return to her prosaic tone. ‘Come and have your supper. It will get cold.’
* * *
Of course Rhys cared for her, Thea thought as she picked up a spoon and delved into the first of the interesting platters before them. And he loved her as a friend and, miraculously, he desired her as a woman. But he did not want her, not as a wife, not as a lover for ever. We will write, he had said. And when he was married no doubt she would be invited to dinner and to parties at his town house or to stay at the Norfolk estate.
It had been foolish to mention his marriage. What had she expected? That he would drop to one knee, as he had joked just now, and declare that he had been blind, that he had loved her all along and they must marry at once? He was treating her precisely as she had asked. She would be delivered to Godmama, much educated in the sensual arts and with her heart in tatters, for now she knew the adult man as a friend, and a lover and a companion, all day and every day. She would know him as well, if not better, than a wife.
Rhys reached towards the plate of cheese-and-herb pastries. ‘Oh, no, you don’t, that’s the last one.’ Thea pounced on the remaining flaky morsel. It melted on her tongue, an instant’s pleasure. That was what she must do, live for the instant. Then, when Rhys had left, she would rebuild her life with all the courage she had. As if he had died.
They finished the food with sighs of mutual pleasure, then fell silent. Or possibly Rhys was simply distracted by the subtle assaults he was launching on her composure. His arm lay warm across the back of her chair and his thigh touched hers beneath the cover of the cheerful tablecloth. Both limbs were an incitement to lean into their strength; both promised a leashed power that made her shiver with anticipation. From the slight curve of Rhys’s lips she knew he could feel that tremor.
‘Shall we go?’ Rhys stood and Thea looked up at him, tall, dark, broad-shouldered, somehow unmistakably English against the golden stone, lit now by flickering torches. Desire quivered through her as he took her hand and then trapped it hard against his side as she came to her feet. I will become addicted to him, Thea thought with a sudden plunge into despair. I will be like a laudanum user, only half-alive without his touch. If I was strong, I would tell him no. This should end here. But I will not.
They turned at the mouth of a dark alleyway to look back at the festive scene. ‘There are Polly and Hodge, dancing.’ Rhys pointed at the two figures, Polly, lively and laughing, and Hodge, upright and respectable as ever, even in the midst of a country dance, a great grin on his face.
‘At least they are happy.’ She spoke her thought aloud and Rhys looked down at her.
‘And you are not? Ah, Thea...’ He stepped back into the darkness and pulled her into his arms. ‘Tell me what you want.’
Chapter Eighteen
‘Tell me what you want.’
This was the moment to be strong and sensible. The moment to tell him it was a mistake, that they should resist this attraction and to leave him quite clear that her actions were simply driven by sexual desire.
But if to love was to be weak, then so be it. She would have to find her strength soon enough, because she would not wallow in despair and loss. After Rhys she would rebuild her life, but she had perhaps two weeks to give him everything but the words.
‘I want to be with you. I want to make love with you again. I want to spend the night in your arms.’ It felt sinful and wonderful to be like this in the open air, in a dark alley in a foreign city pressed against the aroused body of her lover.
‘That seems clear enough.’ Rhys’s voice rumbled in her ear as she pressed her cheek to his shirtfront. He turned and she was trapped against the wall. ‘I tried this in a Paris alleyway and got threatened with a hatpin for my pains.’ There was laughter in his voice and a husky anticipation of passion. ‘I wanted to kiss you then. What will happen if I kiss you here?’
‘Try.’ Thea put her arms around his neck and ran her fingers into his hair, closed them tight and pulled his head down.
It must have hurt, but he simply growled, deep in his throat. ‘You want to play rough games, do you?’
She was not certain what he meant, but it sounded...exciting. ‘Yes,’ she managed to get out before Rhys’s mouth crushed down on hers. He lifted her, his hands spanning her waist, and raised his leg so she was riding his thigh, her feet off the ground, her back to the wall, her full weight bearing down on the point where her body ground against his.
Rhys slid one hand between them to cup her breast, his fingers teasing at the nipple through the fine fabrics until somehow he freed it from the constriction of her stays.
Thea moaned against his mouth as his tongue plunged in, filling her with the taste of him. His fingers rolled and pinched the hard peak past the point of discomfort into a thrilling, shocking dazzle of excitement that flashed like lightning to her core. It was uncomfortable, exciting, wild. The wall was unyielding, his body as hot and as hard as the stone. She tried to move, to rub against the hard muscle of his thigh to reach for the pleasure that seemed just out of reach. She felt full, swollen, wet down there. ‘I need...’ she panted.
‘Tell me.’
‘I need to move.’
‘No. I am in control here.’ He left her nipple, slid his hand down, bunched up her skirts and pushed his fingers between his own leg and the swollen folds that ached for him. ‘Is that what you want?’
‘Yes. Rhys...please.’
Then he touched her, one long, sliding stroke perfectly placed, and she shattered, sobbing, limp in his arms.
‘Can you stand?’
Thea found herself with both feet on the ground, Rhys still holding her pressed between his body and the wall. ‘I think so.’
‘Good. I cannot see our host approving of me sweeping you through the front door and up the stairs in my arms.’ He eased away and took her arm.
‘A pity, it would be so romantic.’ She sighed with pure contentment, all her dark worries fled. ‘The darkness and the starlight. These ancient buildings, the warm air and the scents. The music...’
‘Venice will be more so. Gondolas and beautiful palazzos reflected in the canals.’
Venice would be wonderful, and it would be the end. Once she was safe with Godmama, Rhys would leave. There would be no romance in Venice, only safety. Safety from a drab half-life, safety from the pain of being with Rhys. ‘I am resolved to enjoy every moment as I live it,’ Thea said, pushing the thoughts away. ‘Tonight, teach me to make love to you, Rhys. Show me how to give you pleasure.’
‘You already do.’ His voice was husky.
‘You are being careful with me, I know. Show me, Rhys.’ She sensed both his arousal and his reluctance to what? Shock her? ‘It excites me to think of touching you. I want to drive you wild.’
‘Continue talking like that and you will have succeeded. Talking is even more powerful than thinking, sometimes.’
‘We’re here.’ Thea made herself walk sedately up the steps to the front door. ‘Bonsoir, monsieur.’ She nodded to the proprietor. ‘I�
��ll retire, I think, my lord,’ she added to Rhys, ‘and leave you to your brandy.’
‘Goodnight, Lady Althea.’ She heard him talking to the Frenchman, discussing Cognac. When she reached the landing she picked up her skirts and ran to her chamber. There was something she had bought in Orange, just for Rhys, never thinking he would see it.
She had bathed before they went out, so now she threw off her clothes and sponged herself all over with the tepid water on the nightstand, dabbed rosewater behind her ears, between her breasts and behind her knees. The nightgown she had bought slid over her curves like the water of the Rhone had done that afternoon, silky, fluid, semitransparent, honey coloured. Her hands went to the pins holding her hair up and then left them. Rhys liked to take it down; she had learned that already.
What else might he like? She was going to find out and the waiting was killing her. Thea paced back and forth, the new silken gown swishing around her ankles. Would he like it? The vendeuse had assured her it would bring any lover to his knees.
The sharp intake of breath behind her was all the warning she had that Rhys was in the room. He closed the door and leaned back against it. ‘Is this my birthday?’ He fumbled behind him with none of his usual coordination and managed to turn the key in the lock. ‘You no longer believe you are plain, do you, Thea?’
‘I am not beautiful. Rhys, you do not have to flatter me—it is more than enough that you desire me.’
He pushed away from the door and began to walk towards her, shedding clothes as he came. Neckcloth, coat and waistcoat fell to the floor. ‘No, you aren’t beautiful.’ He heeled off his shoes. ‘You are extraordinary.’ He dragged his shirt over his head and dropped it. ‘You leave me speechless,’ he said as he unfastened his breeches and kicked those and his stockings out of the way.
Thea swallowed at the sight of all that male magnificence right in front of her. ‘Your body is communicating quite adequately without words,’ she managed. His erection stirred as if it had a life of its own. ‘But you had best find the words to tell me what to do.’