Suddenly, however, it was difficult to know which was more real: the feverish, firelit naked grappling, or this: the duke in his spotless black coat and cloud-like cravat, looking as coolly brisk and unapproachable as he had the day she’d met him.
Except for his eyes.
As far as his eyes were concerned, she was a feast.
But only briefly. He screened them carefully. A habit of being a general, no doubt, and forever in the public’s eye.
“How are you today?” he asked.
A little sore from locking my legs around your naked back so I could take you deeper, thank you for asking.
“Very well,” she said, politely. “And you?”
“Never better.”
If only he was a blusher. One of them was hot and pink at the moment, and it wasn’t him.
He smiled, though, slowly.
She had never fainted, but she was beginning to understand what it was like to swoon in place.
“I thought we would write your letter accepting the job that we can have a messenger take at once to Signor Roselli in Paris.”
“It is so very kind of you to offer.”
“It’s no trouble at all. Would you like to write the letter yourself? I’m certain you’re able to by now.”
“Yes, please, I would.”
“Why don’t you do that, and I’ll review it when you’re done?” he said gently.
They sat in silence.
His pen scratching.
Her pen scratching.
Cozy, if not for the lava-dense atmosphere.
In Italian, she wrote:
Dear Signor Roselli,
I would be pleased to take the position. I shall arrive in Paris a week before rehearsals begin, as you requested. I am pleased to accept your offer of accommodation. Thank you for offering me the position and for the chance to review your lovely libretto.
Yours sincerely,
Mariana Wylde
He sealed it with a blob of wax, but not with a press of that enormous signet.
And then, just as if it were an ordinary day, and not the day after a night she would remember for the rest of her life, he tested her on vocabulary words. Because she would be leaving for Paris and would be surrounded by Italians, and she would need them.
When the hour had nearly come to a close, he gestured to the message. “I’ll have it sent straightaway.”
“Thank you.”
There was a pause.
