Chapter23
Lovers in the Afternoon
Meanwhile, at Villa D’Avalos
Excitement, anticipation, and disbelief combined to make Patrick experience a moment of lightheadedness.Perhaps he was hungrier than he thought—in more ways than one.“Tell me, my lady, when you say you wish to have your luncheon in your bed, are you...?”He paused and swallowed.
She glanced up at him as he opened the door to her courtyard.“Speaking of food or proposing lovemaking?”she finished for him.She stepped under the arched opening.“Perhaps a bit of both,” she said on a sigh.“I am hungry.I’ll have DeLuca send up a cold collation.”
“That sounds...uh, very good,” he stammered, closing the iron door until he heard theclunkof the latch when it engaged.
She watched him a moment before they made their way across the marble tiles.“Why, Patrick, for a man who claims he was about to propose marriage, you seem terribly nervous all of a sudden,” she accused.
“That’s because I am,” he admitted, opening the door to the villa when DeLuca didn’t immediately appear.When the butler stepped into the entry from somewhere off to the right, Patrick realized his guess that the servants quarters were on the ground floor was confirmed.
“Why?”She seemed genuinely curious as she shook the mantle from her shoulders and handed it to DeLuca.She rattled off a series of orders in Italian to the servant before lifting her skirts to make the climb up the stairs.
“I fear I am about to humiliate myself,” Patrick murmured, following her up the stairs he had climbed earlier that morning.
Had it just been that morning?
A quick glance at his pocket watch confirmed they had only been gone for a couple of hours.
Armenia glanced back at him, a brow furrowing in confusion.“Why?”
He dipped his head.“Uh, I haven’t been with a woman—in bed—in a very long time.”
For the first time that afternoon, she seemed uncertain of what to say.“Because...?”
He lifted a shoulder and sighed.“Travel, business, lack of opportunity.”He followed her down the corridor to her apartment.“I’m not very social when I’m concentrating on business,” he explained, relieved when they were in the sitting room outside her bedchamber and he could close the door behind him.“My son is constantly nagging me to...”He stopped speaking and stiffened when he saw her take a step back, her eyes wide with censure.“What is it?”he asked.
“Yourson?”she repeated.“You are...married?”A hint of anger sounded in her words.
For the first time that afternoon, Patrick realized they hadn’t discussed his personal life.“No.Uh, I mean, I...I was,” he stammered.
“Divorced?”she guessed, her accusatory expression changing to one of curiosity.
“A widower,” he stated.“For several years now.It’s just been my son, Patrick Junior, and myself.”
Armenia visibly relaxed, although she still seemed unnerved.“No mistress?”she asked.“No...prostitutes?”
An odd sound came from his throat.“If you knew anything about the ladies of the evening in Boston, you would not be asking,” he said.When he noted her eyebrow once again arched, he added, “Uh, they will rob you blind and leave you with venereal diseases or...syphilis,” he said, shuddering with disgust.“There is something to be said for celibacy.”
Apparently satisfied with his response, Armenia moved into her bedchamber.“When you said you thought you were about to...what was the word you said?”she asked, turning her back to him so he could undo her buttons.
“Humiliate myself,” he replied, quickly setting the jets free of their holes.It was far easier to undo them than it had been to button them earlier that day.“Uh, embarrass?”he clarified, thinking she didn’t understand his English.“It’s not that I don’t know how to...to pleasure a woman,” he said in a quiet voice.He pulled the ties of her corset and petticoats.“It’s only that?—”
“You think it’s been too long?”She turned around, pulling her arms from her bodice as one of her petticoats fell to the floor.
“Maybe,” he replied.He swallowed and kept her gaze as he felt her gloved hand sweep down the front of his top coat.His erection, one he’d been fighting since they had been climbing the stairs, was evident behind his pantaloons, and he inhaled sharply when she pressed her palm around the bulge.
“Maybe not,” she whispered, her eyes never leaving his.
“And you?”he challenged.Given her beauty and his housekeeper’s opinion, he feared she bedded a different man every week.
She stiffened.“My favorite lover and I parted when Nikky and Donald were courting,” she murmured, her gaze darting to the side.“He had already taken up with someone…younger,” she whispered.
“Then he was a fool,” Patrick stated, groaning when she acknowledged his comment by tightening her hold on his arousal.“May I kiss you?”
