He lifted his head so suddenly, she nearly pushed back her chair in fright. “Iknowwhat you want. The scent of aroused woman is filling my nostrils all the way over here.”
“You, Mr. Colwyn, are a swine of the lowest order. What right have you to assume you know my needs?”
“Col,” he said. “Just Col is fine.”
“Oh—and now, now I suppose you’re going to pretend there’s something strange about a woman standing in front of you, practically begging for what you are obviously well known for in, um, certain circles.”
Suddenly, her eyes widened. “Money? That’s it, isn’t it? Is that what you require? Of course. What was I thinking? You’re a paramour for hire. Your services go only to the highest bidder. Never fear. Of that I have in plenteous supply.”
He stood so suddenly, he nearly upended the chess board. He stared so intensely at Charlotte, she feared he might do her bodily damage. Instead, he knocked the white king flat, never breaking his engagement with the burning intensity in her violet eyes.
The crash of the heavily carved wooden king slamming against the board was the sound of finality, a sound that spoke of endless lonely days and nights, something she couldn’t bear to hear.
When he turned to leave, she leapt to his side and grasped one of his wrists. “Stay? Please stay. I promise I require nothing from you but your good company.” When he remained stoically silent, she released him, opened her hands wide, and continued, “I’m lonely, and I think you are too.”
“Charlotte, I know that you’ve been reading my journal pages, and I know you’re trying to re-create one of the scenes where the woman who was paying for my services staged a seduction with hundreds of candles placed everywhere.”
She hung her head. “I suppose I don’t meet your standards for a seduction like that.”
“No, you don’t. I would never put you through a seduction like that. That woman insisted on rough coupling, along with debasement. You are much too fine a human being to allow yourself to be treated that way.”
“How do you know what kind of human being I am?”
“You said you’d trust me, and you have to trust me when I say I know what kind of woman you are. You are the kind of woman who deserves to be loved.”
9
When Col disengaged from her hold and moved to sit on a plump, stuffed, velvet-covered chaise, she paced away, her nerves at a ragged edge.Pah. A woman who deserves to be loved, but kept like a doll in a cabinet instead.At length, she came to a momentous decision. If Col wouldn’t let her seduce him, the least she could do would be to feed him.
She moved to a bell cord in a far corner of the room, and, at the first pull, her butler, Samuel, tapped at the door immediately, pushing a cart loaded with a tureen of creamy, buttery oyster soup; a whole salmon baked in a pastry crust designed to look like a swimming fish; a roast saddle of mutton; a molded cabbage and spinach cake; asparagus with butter; a potato pudding; and a small pot of port wine sauce.
For the first time in memory, Charlotte was grateful for the kitchen and the hot house gardens Lilith watched over like much-loved, cosseted children.
Her butler proceeded to lay out the first course of her carefully chosen feast on a nearby sideboard, using ice delivered that morning and packed in moss to keep the cold dishes cold. The hot dishes were displayed on silver platters elevated on elaborately carved legs above small burning candles in pottery saucers.
He placed a large decanter of dark red claret in the middle of the small, intimate dining table. After carefully pouring wine into the two crystal glasses at the table settings, he sent a dark glance Col’s way, before he finally left them alone and snicked shut the heavy sitting room door.
After his departure Col looked all around the room before slanting her a quizzical look. “Where are all the other guests?”
“You are the only guest, you silly man. I was going to seduce you with food, but now I suppose we’ll just have to enjoy Lilith’s feast.” She paused a moment after lifting a lid from the steamed asparagus to take a deep, sensual sniff accompanied by a small moan of pleasure. “If we don’t at least try everything, Lilith may leave me for the marquess. He’s always trying to interfere in my domestic arrangements.”
Charlotte took idle pleasure from the bristling look that bit of news evoked on the face of her guest. She stood and took his bowl to the sideboard to serve him some of the oyster soup she’d especially requested for the purpose of seduction.
* * *
Col prayedthe second course would be a shortened version of the first. All he’d be good for would be to go lie in a corner and moan if he ate much more.
To begin with, he’d tucked into the first course of the feast because he’d been working and moving on nothing but nervous energy for more than a day.
When Charlotte rang for the second course and her butler wheeled in the final dishes, he breathed a sigh of relief. The final half of the repast consisted of nothing more than a platter of cold salmagundi piled high in the center with prawns boiled in butter and then chilled; braised beefsteaks; tiny raspberry cakes; cheese biscuits; and scoops of ices from Gunther’s in a silver bowl balanced on top of more moss-covered ice.
By the time he’d finished sampling the second course, he wouldn’t be in any position to threaten anyone’s virtue. And then there was the excellent red claret in the decanter that her butler was filling again.
* * *
Charlotte lickedthe last of the crumbs from one of Lilith’s airy cheese biscuits from her lips and finished a tiny cup of Lilith’s incomparable whipped cocoa drink. When she set the cup down and looked back across the table at Col, he still held his half-drunk cup and there was a speculative look on his face.
“Do your servants respect a closed door?”
