Page 109 of Frankly, My Dear

He bent to the floor, lifting the two objects in his hands, grinning. His dimple emerged slowly as the grin bloomed into a full-blown, dazzling smile, heart-wrenching in its open splendor.

I love you, James. She had to bite her bottom lip to keep from saying the words aloud.

Turning back to the mirror, she squeaked out, “Why, you jerk! You gave me a hickey.”

“What’s a hickey?” he said, coming up behind her.

“A passion mark,” she replied, laying her fingertips on the dark bruise at the side of her neck.

“So I did,” he noted without apology.

“How could you have said I look beautiful, James? I look absolutely horrid,” she moaned, wondering how she was ever going to repair the damage before dinner.

He stood behind her, looking at her image in the mirror. His lips were just as kiss-swollen as hers, his face flushed with unfulfilled passion, his black hair rumpled from her caresses.

“You look beautiful to me,” he said simply.

All those years with Devon when she had tried so hard to please, he’d always made her feel inadequate. Now here she was with James, looking her worst, and he made her feel so special. “Oh, James, I’m afraid that you’re better than any old Rhett Butler. Much, much better.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you all along, chérie,” he said with a wink and began to help her fix her hair. “Rhett was just a fairy tale. I’m…I’m—”

“—the answer to my dreams.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” he said dryly, and winked at her in the mirror.

Chapter Eighteen

Selene felt a bit like Alice in Wonderland at the tea party by the time dinner rolled around. And that rogue sitting at the other end of the table, inhaling bourbon and staring at her with blatant eroticism, was unquestionably the Mad Hatter.

A dark cloud hung thickly in the atmosphere, portending an ominous storm. And James was going to be the lightning rod or die trying.

She’d had the good sense to stop her intake of spiked syllabub, and James definitely needed to cut off his supply of bourbon or he’d soon have his face in the crab gumbo before him.

“James, would you like a glass of lemonade?” she offered politely.

“No.”

“What?”

“No, I don’t want any lemonade, Selene. No, I’m not drunk. No, I don’t need you to tell me what to do.”

“But—”

Standing abruptly, he pulled the monstrous epergne centerpiece toward him and, one by one, dumped the roses and water from each of the ten miniature crystal vases onto the floor. Then he proceeded to fill each of them with bourbon. Taking one of the vases in hand, he sank back to his seat, shot a “so there!” look at Selene, and quaffed the liquor down in one swallow.

Everyone at the table stared at him as if he were a lunatic. Then, with pure Southern graciousness, they just pretended he hadn’t done such an outrageous thing in polite company.

Fergus and Reba had joined them at the dinner table, along with Mrs. Baptiste, Andrew, Pierce, and Ellen, who seemed to have recovered nicely from her fit of the vapors.

Ellen kept looking at the new and improved Reba, no doubt seeing Selene and her talents in a new light. Andrew kept looking at his wife to make sure she didn’t swoon or need help with some brain-straining activity, like buttering her bread.

Fergus kept looking at the passion mark on Selene’s neck and grinning at James.

Pierce kept looking at Selene and winking.

James kept looking at his vases of bourbon…when he wasn’t glaring at Pierce, or sending Selene sexual signals that would scorch a girl’s body at ten paces.

And Mrs. Baptiste kept looking from one to the other with supreme satisfaction, as if everything were just hunky-dory.