by Laura Parker
Unaccountably angered by their beauty, she placed them in their box and closed the lid. The diamonds would go back to Senhor Tavares and he could then dispose of them in any manner he wished. It was time to leave New York before d’Edas publicly declared her a fraud. The pretense was over.
She undressed quickly, replacing her dress and corset and petticoats with a full-flowing night dress and cambric dressing gown. In the distance she heard the chimes of the huge mantel clock that stood in the library below. Nine … ten … eleven … twelve. Midnight.
She refused to stop and think about what she planned to do, or she knew she would lose her nerve. She turned down the lamp by her bed until it was no more than an ember’s glow, then crossed to her door and opened it a crack.
The gloom of the empty hall made her brave. She moved through the darkness like one long familiar with nighttime treks. In truth, she wasn’t feeling very brave but her fear of d’Edas was greater than that of black shadows and moon-pale slats of light. At the end of the hall she found the stairway that led up to the servants’ quarters, which were under the attic eaves, and began climbing into the impenetrable darkness of the stairwell. Using sensitive fingertips and toes she felt her way.
When she neared the top, she spied a faint glow from beneath the door of the room nearest the stairs. From a room further along the hall, she heard a feminine giggle, muffled footfalls, a whispered call for silence, and then nothing more. For the space of a dozen heartbeats she waited in the stairwell, wishing that she had paid more attention when he told her about his quarters. She remembered that he didn’t share it with other servants and that it was next to one shared by the two maids. Perhaps if she listened at each door she would hear something that would give her a clue.
She mounted the final steps slowly until she stood in the narrow, low-ceilinged hall. If she should be caught here, in her robe and slippers, there could be no proper explanation. She reached for the door handle of the nearest one, as if by touch she could learn the name of the room’s occupant. Even as she touched it the handle moved beneath her hand, and frozen by horror she watched helplessly as the door swung open.
Quick as lightning illuminates the black-mantled night, her eyes saw instantly what her thumping heart took longer to realize, that the room was occupied.
A man bent over a basin of water. Handfuls of water dripped from between his fingers while other droplets cascaded down his beardless face and bare chest. His black hair steamed like ink. A little foam of soap bubbles clung to one ear. The light gave his skin a dull copper gleam that seemed to have an almost inhuman beauty to it. The long sleek lines of his stretched torso were taut, the contours of hard muscle strongly delineated beneath his skin.
This was not the turbaned and bearded Akbar she had become accustomed to dealing with nor was it the superbly tailored Brazilian gentleman named Senhor Tavares with whom she had first done business. This dark, half-naked, well-muscled man seemed a stranger, and wholly different from anyone in her experience.
Eduardo allowed the shock of the opening door to wash over and beyond him when he saw who stood there. Philadelphia Hunt was on his threshold! He saw to his astonishment that despite her dressing gown, the soft womanly shape of her breasts and hips was discernible beneath the layers of sheer fabric. For a moment he discounted his own eyes for the image of her in dishabille had become one of his favorite idle speculations.
Then he felt, like a touch, her gaze as it roamed over him and the curiosity in her expression both warmed and disconcerted him. He’d been so eager upon his return to New York to see her that he’d dared the impropriety of going to the Fergusons in search of her. Then he’d found her, rising up on tiptoe to kiss Henry Wharton. If she’d suddenly jumped from hiding and knocked the breath out of him with a two-by-four he couldn’t have been more surprised and angry … and hurt. It had taken every ounce of self-possession and pride to make him turn his back. Even then, several heartbeats had galloped past before he was able to feel that his legs would carry him out of the room.
She’d kissed another man freely! The memory fueled the not-quite-dead anger that remained in the backwash of his mood. He straightened up. “Why are you here?” he whispered, but in his deep voice the stinging ire was unmistakable.
Philadelphia didn’t reply. She knew she should say something, anything, explain her presence but she couldn’t. Finally she glanced down at her hand which still held the door handle.
He followed her gaze and then came forward quickly to gesture her inside and close the door.
She held her breath as he turned back to her, amazed to find him standing so close. She remembered Eduardo Tavares as thoroughly handsome but not possessing this flagrant male beauty that made her faintly ashamed to even look at him. She lowered her eyes until her vision was blocked by the broad expanse of his chest. The rich-toned skin was smooth satin, undulated by the shift of muscle over bone as he breathed, and punctuated by two flat chocolate-brown nipples. She’d never before seen a shirtless man and the anatomy lesson cost her more of her poise than she would ever have admitted.
She took a step backward but there was no more space for her to occupy between the wall and the narrow bed and his washstand. “I shouldn’t be here.”
She spoke so softly he was forced to watch her lips to catch the full meaning of her words, and he found himself remembering the kiss she’d given Wharton. No, she shouldn’t be here. In his present state of mind she shouldn’t even be beneath the same roof as he.
She clutched the front of her gown self-consciously. “I came to warn you of danger.” She said each word slowly, hoping single sounds would not carry through the walls as clearly as regular speech.
He didn’t respond. He had forgotten how beautiful she was, the warm golden depths of her wide eyes, how her mouth could be both aesthetically correct and yet beg a very human kiss. He had forgotten how the fragile bones of her face merged into a strength of character that made her vividly real. The pulse beating at the base of her throat moved hot blood through her. The breath rising and falling within her chest would be warm upon his face if he leaned nearer to catch it. The tremors shaking her shoulders were not altogether the trembling of fright. She was aware of him as a man, at last, and he meant to capitalize on the moment.
He reached for her, one hand rising to cup her chin and lift it, the other to embrace the back of her head and draw her close.
As their bodies met from waist to shoulder, her cambric gown drank in the dampness on his skin until she could feel the heat of his nakedness against her breasts. The shock of it was like the touch of a hot iron to tender skin. She took an instinctive step back but there was nowhere to go as his arms slid about her in an embrace, nowhere to look but into the black eyes of his handsome face. And so she looked into them, hoping that she might hide in that deep welcoming darkness as he bent to her.
“You kissed a boy tonight,” he whispered as he lay his damp cheek against hers. “Now kiss a man.”
She shut her eyes to block out the knowledge of what was about to happen but it didn’t help. The instant his lips touched hers, her eyes opened wide in surprise.
For a moment there was only the warm persuasive pleasure of smooth firm lips covering hers. Then his lips parted, the heat of his mouth engulfing her, and her lids again fell shut.
Yet it was only the beginning. With the tip of his tongue he stroked her lips, then lightly licked at her tongue to draw it from between the shelter of her teeth. Acting on instinct, she followed his example, pressing the tip of her tongue to his, then darting away. She heard his moan of pleasure and felt his shiver of delight as he gathered her closer. Greatly daring, she embraced his waist, marveling at the smooth solid feel of his naked body, so much broader and harder than her own. Her arms rose. Her hands spread up and across his back to hold him and the moment, while behind her closed lids a shower of falling stars shot through the enraptured darkness.
He felt her melting surrend
er as his own need became painfully acute. So easily, so naturally he could press her back against his narrow cot and make love to her. But he mustn’t. He was angry and jealous. He’d meant to shame and embarrass her for having the temerity to kiss Wharton while she treated him as something less than a flesh and blood man. He hadn’t counted on her passionate return of his kiss. It was as if she sought to seduce him.
Drawing on a strength of will that caused near physical pain, he lifted his head. He’d been snared by a fool’s trick. He should have known that he could no more draw passion from her without igniting his own than he could slit his wrists and not bleed.
He groped behind himself for the door latch and lifted it. “Go.” He said the word like a sigh as he gently pushed her past him into the hallway.
Philadelphia gasped in disbelief as he closed the door on her. The feeling of unreality was so strong that she nearly gave into the impulse to throw herself upon the barrier of his plank-board door and cry out against his action, yet she didn’t even dare draw a deep breath.
Dizzy with amazement and warmth and a deep stirring that had shaken her to her toes, she sagged weakly against the opposite wall and closed her eyes. She felt hot and cold in a dozen different places. Her body tingled and ached with unnameable needs. One moment she had been caught in an embrace she hoped would never end. The next she stood in the blanketing silence of the dark hall, listening to the roar of her own heart fill her ears.
After a long moment, when the pounding in her chest was no more than a dull thudding, she turned and groped her way blindly down the stairwell back to her floor.
Only when she was under the covers of her own bed did she try to think. And what she thought both exhilarated and shocked her. She had kissed Eduardo Tavares and liked it! She had touched his naked back and shoulders, had felt the pulse and power and heat of his body. Even now her breasts still ached with the remembrance of being pressed against the muscular wall of his chest. She should be ashamed, mortified, outraged, appalled. In a rational moment she would be all of those things. Yet now, still caught up in the outrageous emotion of the present, she was excited beyond any experience of her life. She felt alive from her fingertips to her toes, quiveringly, tinglingly alive.
When she shut her eyes every instant of the kiss came back to her and she found herself pressing her fingers to her lips in a vain attempt to emulate the feel of his mouth on hers.
She hadn’t told him any of the things she’d risked impropriety to say. Yet it didn’t seem to matter at the moment. There would be time enough in the morning for conversation, and regret. Only one thing remained clearly in her thoughts, that she had been kissed twice this night and that the second had erased the impression of the first from her mind forever.
Philadelphia sat up straighter as a rap sounded gently on the library door. “Come in.”
The maid opened the door, as always just enough so that she could poke her head through. “Akbar is on his way, mam’zelle.”
“Tres bien,” she replied with a calm she didn’t feel.
She had dressed carefully for the meeting. The lines of her lavender dress were plain, the bodice closed by a row of tiny pearl buttons that ended just under her chin. She felt prim and reserved, a perfect antidote to her appearance the night before. She would offer him no distractions, and she hoped he would offer her none.
The library door opened quietly, admitting the familiar figure in East Indian costume. His false beard was once more in place and the makeup applied. In disguise, he seemed very different from the man she’d intruded upon the night before, and for that she was grateful. There was so much she had wanted to say to him and felt now that she couldn’t. Only a short day ago she would have said how glad she was for his safe return, how she’d begun to be afraid for him and herself. But, to say those things after what had occurred in his room seemed too forward and, perhaps, foolhardy. He was as far removed from the passionate man she’d embraced hours ago in the small of the night as Bombay was from New York.
He bowed low as he made the Indian gesture of greeting. “Memsahib calls her servant and he is here.”
The strange intonation and phrasing further removed him from the images that had tantalized her dreams. “Akbar,” it seemed, was another man. He was her friend, her confidant, her servant. The other? He did not bear thinking about just now.
“So you have returned,” she said, mimicking his formality. “Why didn’t you present yourself immediately to me?”
“I did.”
He had switched from English to French, a sign she had come to recognize as meaning he wished to speak more intimately than was proper between servant and mistress, but she wasn’t about to be maneuvered into a discussion of the night before. “You should have made yourself known in a proper manner,” she answered in English.
Black eyes regarded her steadily over the brush of beard. “I would have but I did not wish to disturb memsahib’s enjoyment of the evening’s entertainment.”
Philadelphia fumed as he neatly sidestepped her barrier and went straight to the heart of the matter. “Yet you came,” she persisted, wishing to make him as uncomfortable as she was.
“I came to see you.” He used the French familiar instead of the formal “you,” imbuing the ordinary sentence with intimacy.
Talking with him was like playing lawn tennis. Each time she made a proper serve he returned an answer to which she had to scramble. “What kept you away so long?”
“Business.”
It was plain that she’d learn nothing more. “Very well, I am pleased by your safe return.” Then, because she couldn’t wait any longer to broach the subject, she spoke in French. “There’s a man in the city who knows that I am a sham.”
She thought at least his expression would alter but it didn’t. “What man?”
“The Marquis d’Edas. He’s something of a favorite among the Fifth Avenue set. From the moment I saw him I knew he would be trouble. Why, just yesterday, he told one of Mrs. Ormstead’s friends that he’s never heard of the de Ronsards.”
“I have never heard of him.”
The arrogance of his comment provoked her. “Of course you’ve never heard of him! How many French aristocrats would you know, in any case?”
“More than a few,” he answered and for the first time there was a hint of good humor in his tone, as if her anxiety amused him. “Tell me what you know of this man.”
“I met him a week ago at a soiree. I think he’s been deliberately following me ever since.”
“You seem to have collected an alarming number of admirers in my absence,” he said dryly.
“That is my business, not yours,” she snapped too quickly.
“Isn’t it?” he asked softly.
She looked away from him, her mouth thinning in indignation. “I don’t wish to discuss last night.”
“Then, perhaps, we can return to the matter of the marquis. You say he thinks you are a fake. How can you be certain?”
Her gaze swung back to him. “He called me a cheat under his breath only last night.”
“Was that before or after your dalliance on the balcony?” She saw his brows lower ominously. “A man smitten by a woman will often consider her his long before he’s made claim to her.”
Philadelphia stood up. “I can see I made a mistake in trying to warn you of the disaster which looms before us. You would rather make odious comments about a private moment in which you had no part or interest. Snoops aren’t well liked in America, Senhor Tavares.”
He made no protest, only the widening of his eyes alerted her to the blunder she’d made in calling him by his name, and in English.
“I don’t care,” she said defiantly, falling back into French. “The lie can’t stand when one man knows the truth.”
He moved toward her, and though she held her ground her legs began to tremble. If she moved away he’d know, damn him, just how much he affected her and how vulnerable he mad
e her feel.
Eduardo stopped a few scant inches from her, looking her over with insulting intensity. “You’re flustered. And you don’t appear to have slept well. Does Henry Wharton make so ardent a suitor? It was his kiss that kept you awake, wasn’t it?”
He dared her to deny it and because she would have died before admitting anything else she said, “Henry is a charming and gallant suitor. He wants to marry me.”
She hadn’t meant to say the last but his lips were curved in mocking derision. She wanted to slap his face. The effect of her last remark was nearly as good. The smirk straightened and the twinkle died in his dark eyes.
“He wants to marry you.” He said it like one might say, “The sun rose today.” “And your answer?”
“My answer?” She looked at him in disbelief. “What answer could there be? I’m here under false pretenses.”
Nothing changed in his face. “Then tell him the truth. If he loves you, he will understand.”
“Will he?” Her voice was suddenly bitter. “Will he understand that I was driven to this sham of playacting by desperation because my father’s life and reputation had been villainously ruined?”
For the first time since they’d left Chicago, Eduardo saw the shadows of confused hurt and loss in her expression. “If he loves you, it won’t matter.”
“You’re wrong!” she flung at him and turned away, biting down hard on her lower lip. After a moment she continued. “I’ve seen the look of lost confidence in the face of one man who promised to marry me. I won’t risk that again.”
She turned back to him, the unshed tears locked behind her fierce gaze. “I won’t marry Henry Wharton. I can’t.”
Eduardo resisted the urge to gently and quietly embrace her. He denied his need to soothe her pain and hurt. He stifled the longing to tell her that he’d do anything for her, that if she stayed with him she’d never be alone again, that nothing would ever hurt her again. He crushed the inclination to return to Chicago to do murderous harm to the young norteamericano fiance who’d deserted her. He thought and felt and ached to do everything, but he did nothing.