“Next time I promise to provide all that you desire.” He removed the cork. “Did you know there are men who can do this with a sword? I tried it when I was seventeen. I went to the cellar and used my sword again and again, and not once did the cork come out. All I had in the end were a lot of bottles oozing champagne and a good number with guillotined necks.”
“It sounds like an expensive experiment.”
“My father was furious when the steward told him of the mysterious damage. They concluded a band of Boney-hating militia had sneaked in to destroy it all. Every bottle was smuggled from France, you see.” He turned those blue eyes on her. “Aren’t you going to sit? You can use that safe, distant chair the way you did last time.”
She sat in the chair. It seemed closer to the divan this time. She considered her situation while he poured the wine.
She was green, but he was not, by far. No doubt he knew women found him attractive. He thought she had come for that, and used the shawl as an excuse. He assumed she’d bit on his lure because she wanted to.
Oh, yes, she was in trouble. It did not help at all that she found the game exciting and fun. She smoldered while she sat on that chair even though she tried not to.
He did not make her come to him for the wine. To her dismay, he brought it to her instead. Rising high as he stood and looming larger with each step, he carried her glass to the chair.
His hand grazed hers when he handed her the glass. “Only one,” he said. “I don’t want it said I took advantage of you.”
He stood there, right next to her, longer than he had to. She could see him more clearly up close like this. Lights in his eyes said she might be in even deeper trouble than she thought. She battled a shiver of delicious anticipation and took a sip. “Thank you.”
He retreated to his divan, but only physically. In unseen ways, his spirit pressed even closer.
“Are you comfortable?” he asked.
“Yes—no. See here, Your Grace—”
“Do not address me like that, I beg you. It is not appropriate to the situation. It reminds me that—”
“That you are a lord and a gentleman? I can see how you might want to avoid acknowledging the latter right now.”
A perceptible stiffening of his posture. A discernible small cocking of his head. “Better to insult my title than imply that, my dear woman of unknown name. It is awkward not to have one for you. I suppose I will have to name you myself, to have an address of some kind. Hmmm. For some reason, I think something with an A will do. Anna, Anne, Alice, Amanda—”
“Alice is a nice name,” she rushed to say when he paused after the last one.
He raised his glass. “Alice it is, then. What makes you say I may need a reminder I am a gentleman, Alice? I think I have displayed remarkable behavior at all of our meetings.”
“No woman who finds herself coerced into a night meeting by a strange man would trust much in his claims to be a gentleman.”
She had no trouble seeing his smile this time. “You are perfectly safe with me, Alice.”
“Do you promise that? Do you promise as a gentleman that I am perfectly safe?”
The smile disappeared. He shifted his gaze away from her. She sensed petulance, as if he were a boy getting into mischief and someone had just ruined his fun.
A sigh, barely audible. “I promise that nothing will happen here that you do not permit.”
Ah, he was a sly one. She was already halfway to permitting anything, just sitting here. “That is not good enough. Promise that you will not have your way with me. That you will not . . . will not . . .”
“Risk getting you with child? The final act?” He supplied the words for her and smiled again.
That was more selective than she liked, but she waited.
“I so promise, as a gentleman. Unless you ask me, of course.”
“No. Not even then.”
He drank some wine, as if he needed to think about that.
* * *
Damnation. Did she really expect him to resist even if she ended up begging him to take her? It would be unnatural for a man to do that.
