He chuckled low, darkly, as though he’d followed her thoughts down the errant path they’d traveled, as though he knew she didn’t want to be drawn to him. “The cook will be glad to hear that.”
“We should probably call her a chef, start some rumors that perhaps she’s from France.”
“That rumor would die the moment anyone heard her speak.”
“I could teach her a few words.”
“We might be a house of vice, Vivi, but I want us to be an honest one.”
His expression was earnest, no teasing, no seduction. When discussing the business, he was serious. “You’re right, of course.” She tasted the soup, pleased with the flavor. “This is rather good.”
The conversation turned to other good things. Funny moments from his youth, teasing his brothers and sisters, being teased in return. Happier times from hers when she’d been given Sophie and taught to ride. They avoided talking about their own past, the past they’d shared. And she couldn’t help but think that if they hadn’t met before, if they were only starting to know each other tonight, she would have been charmed by him. If there was no past, perhaps she would feel comfortable charming him.
Although old habits, ingrained since birth, were difficult to ignore, and she found herself being a bit more flirtatious than she should have been, smiling secretly, lowering her lashes provocatively. Especially when the wine—as fine a vintage as anything served at a lord’s table—was urging her to lower her resistance, to reveal her interest in every word he uttered, and she was interested. She always had been. He was the first not of her class to speak to her as though she were an equal, to show her a nongilded world. He’d been brawn and muscle, strength and tenderness, and the years had only added to his allure. He filled her with hope for a better world, a more meaningful life. He was the reason she no longer cared about pearls or diamonds. Although she did very much enjoy wearing the silk gown for him, especially when his gaze would dip to the swells barely contained within the cloth. She did wish she’d stop imagining his lips dotting her flesh with kisses.
She told herself it was the wine, but two glasses were hardly enough to make her lose her head. It was him and the candles and the fine dinner. They finished their meal with a snifter of warm brandy, the heat making it taste all the smoother.
“The ladies will enjoy dining here. The cook outdid herself.” She wasn’t surprised. She’d tasted other offerings when food was brought to the office midday, brought to her rooms in the early evening. But tonight’s fare had been special, designed to seduce the taste buds. Everything tonight had been designed to seduce, from the caress of silk over her skin to the tantalizing spirits on her tongue, to the shadows, the flickering flames, the low voice of the man sitting with her.
“I studied the dining room at Mick’s hotel,” he said. He lifted his snifter. “And naturally, Gillie shared her knowledge of liquors. Thornley took her to wineries in France after they were married, not that she did much sampling from what I understand. But she’d always wanted to see them. Her excitement—after their return—at telling us about everything she experienced”—he made a sound that could have been a laugh or a scoff, but either way there was affection in it—“you’d have thought he laid gold at her feet.”
“I should think for a tavern owner his gift was better than gold.”
“Do you regret not marrying him?”
“No, we weren’t well suited. We never really talked. We simply went through the motions. My entire life has been going through the motions. I think I have lived more in the months since August than I did my entire life before.” She shook her head. “That’s not true. I was always more alive when I was with you. I always felt more myself. Perhaps the fairies switched me out at birth, and I don’t have noble blood coursing through my veins after all.”
“You have noble blood, Vivi. There was a time when I’d have faulted you for that.”
“It seems we are all too quick to judge, based upon what we see of a person rather than what we know or are willing to learn about the person.”
“Maybe we’ll change a few minds when our patrons are mingling.”
“I shall hope so. That would be a wonderful contribution from our establishment.”
He set aside his empty snifter. “Are you finished?”
She’d savored the last drop of the brandy, wished their time together would continue, but it was getting late and they had a lot of work remaining to be done on the morrow. “Yes, I suppose I am.”
Shoving back his chair, he stood, assisted her in standing, and offered his arm. Certainly, she could wander back to her rooms of her own accord, but she welcomed the opportunity to again touch him. However, instead of heading toward the door through which they’d entered, he began leading her toward one in the opposite direction.
“You’re going the wrong way,” she told him.
“No, I’m not. I have something else to show you.”
He opened the door, and she stepped through into a salon where the gas-lit chandeliers glowed, filling the room with warm lighting that barely held the shadows at bay, giving the area she’d designated as a ballroom an intimate feel. Then the lilting strains of an orchestra began to fill the silence, and pleasure flowed through her as though she were comprised of strings that were being plucked.
Without words, without urging, with nothing more than his hands to guide her, he swept her across the polished parquet floor. This, she realized, not dinner, was the reason he’d wanted her to wear the gown. The meal was merely a prelude to his seduction. It was here with her in his arms that he would pursue her in earnest.
Where she would welcome him doing so.
She was weary of fighting the attraction, of ignoring what she felt for him. They moved in tandem, complementing each other. Always it had been thus between them, an understanding that required no voice. Holding his gaze, she realized that with him she was always falling, falling in love, always would be, going deeper and further. That was the reason she’d been unable to marry Thornley. Because she hadn’t wanted a life without this, without a connection that spoke volumes without speaking at all.
Finn never tried to shape her or mold her into what he thought she should be. From the beginning, he’d merely accepted her as she was, foibles and all. From the beginning he had made her happy.
No one had ever looked at her as he did—as though he would die if he couldn’t have her, as though he would die if he did. His failure to show had hurt so desperately, because he’d meant so much to her. And she’d allowed that hurt to create a fog that was only now beginning to lift. He hadn’t abandoned her. He’d been taken from her.
And now he was back. Different, altered. But impossibly very much the same, but not the same at all. He exuded sensuality. She could sense the need for her shimmering off him in waves. His brown eyes had grown darker, smoldering with banked desire.
