Mariana watched the Comte de Villefranche transform before her eyes. No longer was he an awkward pretend suitor. He was a confident man passionate about his beliefs.
“If we are to have an aristocracy,” he continued, “then we must have a constitutional monarchy, like your England. Otherwise, good riddance to the aristocrats.”
“Yours is a powerful branch of the Orléans family,” she countered. At last, she was getting somewhere. “It seems your family would lose a great deal.”
“My family is French first,” he repeated on a rising note. As if shocked by his own fervor, he came to an abrupt stop. “You must pardon me,” he said, his voice hollowed of the passion that had infused it seconds ago. The moment was lost.Drat. “At times, I become too . . .” he trailed off as if unable to find the correct word.
Mariana took pity on him and exclaimed, “Oh, this is the shop I’ve been searching for. My son, Geoffrey, simply adores”—She glanced up at the sign, and her stomach dropped to her feet—“tobacco.”
Villefranche’s brows knit together. “You cannot possibly have a son old enough—”
“Who do you think the cigar box is for?” Mariana asked, her eyes locked onto his, all but daring him to contradict her. It wouldn’t do to mention that Geoffrey would reach his eleventh-year next month.
Or that, in the letter she’d retrieved from Helene today, he’d made a shopping request that she bring home a box of French bon-bons. He was trying to convince a sweet-toothed cook at Westminster to give him larger dinner portions. The boy certainly possessed a fundamental understanding of what made the world go round. In fact, he was much like his father.
No, none of that would do presently.
In for a penny, in for a pound, she went on, “Geoffrey is a connoisseur of the fogus.”
Villefranche cocked his head. “Fogus? I’m not acquainted with that word.”
“Tobacco is characterized as such in certain areas of London.” She would keep to herself which areas of London and that she’d never once ventured into any of them.
Oh, how Francis Grose’s little dictionary was infecting her mind. The thought provoked a tiny smile that wouldn’t be bitten back.
Villefranche’s mouth drew into a silent, grim line, and he pushed the door open. As Mariana stepped inside the shop to the delicate tinkling of bells, she regretted her bravado. Feigning interest in the various forms of tobacco on display, her mind raced to find a usable angle for how to proceed. Flirtation hadn’t succeeded. She floundered about for yet another role.
“Lady Nicholas,” Villefranche began, “would you like me to sample a particular . . .fogusfor your son? It is my understanding that ladies have difficulty appreciating cigars.”
How Mariana longed to reach inside one of the many open boxes on display, pull a cigar from its depths, and puff it alight before his scandalized eyes. Perhaps it was the paradox of Paris calling out to her, but last night’s foray into the Foyer de la Danse slipped into her mind.Heavenly and sordid.
A frisson of excitement trilled up her spine, and her next role came to her.Seductress. Hadn’t it been Nick’s idea to useany means necessaryto finesse information out of Villefranche? She could transform into a hedonistic, amoral Parisienne. Morals, it must be admitted, could be so tiresome . . .
Quickly on its scandalous heels followed another thought: Nick had been spying on her last night, Nick could be spying on herright now.
Impelled by a bold and unfamiliar brazenness, she propped her elbows on the display case behind her and allowed a flirtatious smile to play about her lips, thoroughly channeling the role of hedonistic, amoral Parisienne. If such a position forced her breasts to thrust forward and draw Villefranche’s eye—or any other eye that might happen to be watching—then so be it.
Any means.
“Have you never pulled out your cigar and invited a woman to appreciate it?” she asked.
Shock mingled its way into Villefranche’s bland features. “Never.”
“Have you never longed to watch a woman—”
His eyebrows arched toward to the ceiling.
“Puff your cigar alight?”
His throat moved up and down in a gulping motion. She almost wished she could give him a glass of water and a pat on the back—almost. When he finally regained his capacity for speech, he sputtered, “I have not experienced the pleasure—”
“Non?” she interrupted. “I thought every sort of pleasure was to be experienced in Paris.”
As Villefranche averted his gaze, she considered Nick’s eyes possibly lingering on parts of her body long left untouched. A mixture of unanticipated excitement and desire flowed through her, casting a warm glow down the winding length of nerve endings aching to be used again, furthering her sense of unreality.
Memories of a past best forgotten threatened to descend upon her. Memories London would suppress; memories Paris would ignite. Even after all this time, they could consume her in a fire that had never been convincingly extinguished.
In an effort to pull herself together and allow reality a foothold in the present, she dragged a breath deep inside her lungs and released it on a slow exhale.
