“I do not think what you would or would not allowsignifies. I hope that you are not one of those men who believes one kiss allows him to dictate to a woman.”
“This is about your well-being. You invite the worst suspicions if you live in your father’s apartment. Of more concern to me is that his accomplices know about those chambers, and might well visit them. You are too smart to take the risk of attracting their attention too.”
She did not immediately argue against his reasoning.
“You are a very good barrister, aren’t you?” she finally said. “That was neat. Very well done. I am without recourse in the discussion.”
“I like to think I am persuasive when I choose to be.”
“You are most persuasive. Expensively so. It appears I will go to a hotel tonight, and seek out my own chambers for the days ahead. Perhaps you can recommend a hotel that is suitable for a woman alone who is not without means, but hardly well to do.”
“I know of an excellent place that will suit you splendidly for a few days at least.”
She stiffened so much her head rose an inch. “Where is thisplace?”
“You will see.” He turned and gave the coachman the street.
When he turned back, rigidity had left her posture.
“You worried I meant my own home, didn’t you?” he asked.
“Of course not. It was only one kiss. Well, two. You would never assume I was amenable to staying in your own home after such a small intimacy.”
“Only one kiss?A small intimacy?I am insulted, Miss Belvoir.”
“I think you view it the same way, and were as astonished as I that it even happened.”
How wrong she was. That kiss had been coming for days now. In the dark silence of the coach, its descendants clamored to be born. He doubted she experienced the same anticipation, but the mood in the small space crackled with the charged atmosphere of desire. The wicked side of him started making arguments for behaving badly.
The coach drew to a stop. She looked out the window. “This is not a hotel.”
“It is a place where you will be safe and well cared for, however.” He opened the door, stepped out, and offered his hand.
She alighted, and angled back her head to look up the façade. “Where am I?”
“This is my family’s home. It is the Duke of Aylesbury’s town house.”
“It appears the size of ten houses.”
“That means it has plenty of space for you.” He reached in for her valise, and handed it to a footman who had come down from the door. “Come along. I will see you settled. This evening we will share some dinner. Then I will leave you to rattle around inside to your heart’s content. You will have privacy. No one else is here except servants now.”
She took a few steps, then hesitated. “I should insist you have the carriage take me to a hotel.”
“Mrs. Ludlow made me responsible for your safety. I would be obliged if you did not make the charge more difficult.”
“I suppose if you put it that way...” She accepted his escort to the door. “I should not allow that one inexplicable kiss to make me suspicious of your intentions.”
“You are too generous.”
***
Padua agreed to accept the offer of sanctuary in part because curiosity about the interior of the house consumed her. Ives lived luxuriously on his own, and she suspected his family’s house would impress even more.
The mansion did not disappoint her. The reception hall alone could hold a good-sized apartment. A staircase towered up a well, wrapping it again and again as it ascended five levels. Appointments and paintings of incalculable value decorated tables and walls. She experienced the urge to speak only in whispers, lest she disturb the noble ghosts living within.
Ives handed her over to a housekeeper, who led her above to a fine chamber on the third level. Almost Spartan in its elegance, it suited her with its white bedcoverings and drapes and finely wrought mahogany furniture.
The most decorative element, with pride of place beneath a window, was a gorgeous, small writing desk with elaborate multicolored inlaid patterns on its ebony surfaces. It sounded a contrasting note of excess and whimsy to the chamber’s simple melody. She picturedit covered with books. She would study them at leisure by good lamplight, instead of for an hour now and then when a stub of candle offered a bit of light at night.
