“Certainly he was sore about losing to me. Game and money both.” Isobel’s favors as well.
She nodded slightly before bending to the paper and its lines of neat, careful script, her face expressive as she sifted mentally through recollections of the night’s conversations.
After several minutes she shook out her wrist to loosen it, reading over what she’d written. Satisfied, she laid aside the paper to dry and stoppered the ink. “Will you share this with M.Baudelaire tomorrow?” She idly rubbed her thumb along the quill’s spine.
Foolish to be so arrested by that small movement. “Aye. I’ll pass along a copy elsewhere as well. That copy can wait till tomorrow.”
Isobel rose gracefully to her feet and moved over to one of the windows, though she could surely see nothing out of it.
“Earlier...” But he stopped, uncertain which part of earlier he meant to address, here or on the terrace at Frascati’s.
She turned. The silence extended, becoming nearly tactile, till she broke it. “Being here in France”—one hand made a vague, all-encompassing circle—“first searching alone for signs of Lucy, now having involved myself with whatever else is also at stake... It feels terribly fraught.” She took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Regardless of our public interactions, or perhaps I should say in addition to them, we cannot pretend there is not a—genuine attraction.”
“Aye.” It was part of what he’d meant to address, sayingearlier.
Her cheeks had definite color beyond that painted by the lamps. “As you said, it isn’t all pretense.” Her hands were on the frog fastening her pelisse. A line of Frenchvoltigeurscharging through the door couldn’t have caught his attention more effectively.
She wasn’t looking at his face. “I’ve been alone for some time now, in my own way. By your own admission, you have as well.”
“Aye.” He understood now what she was leading towards. Unwise, yes, but he’d certainly wanted it when he led her onto the terrace of Frascati’s, hadn’t he? He wanted it now.
“You told me the other day that sometimes, for a few days, if you met someone living isolated as you were, in—a sort of impermanent situation, that you might...” But despite her nerve in bringing it up, she could not quite finish the sentence after all.
“Become lovers.” Blunt, for both their sakes.
“A very short while only.” She had the frog undone. “Perhaps a single night only?”
“Why?” She was not embarking upon this lightly; he knew her that well by now. He needed surety from her.
Her voice was soft. “I am weary of feeling nothing but cold inside. Earlier, with you, I did not.” Folds of velvet whispered to the floor. The lamplight made gold from the cream silk beneath and sapphire of her eyes.
“How do you want this to go?” His voice was rough to his own ears. His question meantyes.
“In truth? I do not know, precisely.” Her dimple showed itself. “I was advised recently that such matters become easier once begun.”
Chapter 13
Isobel turned slowly away, presenting her back. She glanced an invitation over one shoulder, setting his nerves snapping.
He came to her and set two fingers lightly against her neck, just below where a few short wisps of hair curled loose from her chignon. Again,yes.
One by one he undid the line of tiny hooks until the dress was loose enough to slip from her shoulders. She started to say something that was lost on a sigh when his lips found the spot on her nape that his fingers had touched.Yes, again.
Short stays remained, ending well above her hip, with a chemise so fine as to be translucent, skimming just above garters and silk stockings. He worked loose the stays’ lacing, unthreading it bit by bit until it came free. Mouth suddenly dry, he grazed a knuckle down her spine’s elegant curve beneath the chemise. He couldn’t have spoken had his life been imperiled. It was... This was an unforeseen complication, a distraction even, but it was also an unanticipated gift. A very welcome one.
He sat to remove boots and stockings, discarding his waistcoatas she bent to undo her garters. A moment’s hesitation and then she’d grasped the hem of her chemise.
He had to remind his lungs of the necessity of air. Lightheaded, he drank her in. The light from the lamp cast her in gold: slender shoulders, breasts with nipples pulled tight, narrow rib cage above rounded hips, long slim legs.
She closed the space between their bodies when he stood. His cravat did not at first want to yield; she caught her lip in her teeth as she worked at it. Next, the lacing at the neck, and then her hands were on him, tugging his shirt free to slide beneath the lawn. Her fingertips drew trails of fire everywhere they touched.
“I want to see all of you.” Her voice had gone husky, burning through him and pervading his senses like fine liquor. She gathered fabric in her hands, pushing the shirt up. He caught it from her and pulled it over his head.
Her hands skimmed his bare chest, skin and muscle and scar. She lingered on the ugly welt that curved from his chest across his ribs and over his left hip. “This is from Badajoz?”
“Two years earlier. An action at the River Côa.” A moment of panic by a young Frenchman who’d thought to use his bayonet with his musket jammed. He’d managed to catch Nate a blow across the chest, although he’d not had further time to regret the unwisdom of not retreating.
Isobel ran her fingers pensively across the scar. Thinking of her late husband? How could she not?
