A Duke For All Seasons (3 page)

    
“Enchanting. My fiancée adores German love songs.” Neville scooped up the stack of books Sebastian had brought him, including the
Don Giovanni
libretto, and made a hasty exit. “Goodnight, Winterhaven. I trust you’ll think about what I said.”

    
Not bloody likely
. Why should he settle on one woman when the world was filled with the gorgeous creatures? Sebastian sent his friend silent thanks for leaving so quickly and closed the door behind him.

    
“May I take your wrap?” Not waiting for her answer, he stepped behind her and slid the velvet cloak down her silken arms. A few tendrils escaped the chignon at her nape and a whiff of violets tickled his nostrils. Anticipation clenched his gut.

    
“Thank you, Your Grace.”

    
“Call me Winterhaven.” He crossed to the sideboard and poured two glasses of the best French vintage The Peacock Tail’s cellar boasted.

    
“Winterhaven.” She rolled the syllables around on her tongue as if she were tasting them. “Is that your name?”

    
“For all normal purposes.”

    
“Dining with me is not normal for you,” she said as she accepted a glass. “My friends call me Bella. What do you think? Shall you and I be friends?”

    
“I sincerely hope so.” Sebastian felt himself tumbling into her dark eyes.

    
“Then what is your name?”

    
Against his better judgment, he gave her the name only his mother had ever used for him.

    
“Sebastian. I like it. It suits you.” She touched the rim of her glass to his. “To a lovely dinner.”

    
He smiled down at her. “And to dessert.”

“Selecting a mistress involves more than finding a pleasing bed companion. A gentleman must be sure the woman is an ornament to his arm and a credit to his reputation as a man of discriminating taste.”

~ A Gentleman’s Guide to Keeping a Mistress

    
“And when the second act began, the tenor and mezzo-soprano were nowhere to be found, so William, our stage manager, had to send in their understudies.” Arabella took a sip of her wine.

    
Sebastian couldn’t tear his gaze from her lips. Even though it felt like something a callow youth might claim, he truly did envy the glass because it touched her red ribbon of a mouth.

    
“Well, the principal singers were furious of course,” she went on, “but the maestro told them that if the rest of the company had to wait till after the final curtain to seek their lover’s couch, they could too.”

    
Sebastian smiled indulgently. It had been a while since he met a woman who was so frank about matters of the flesh.

    
“Of course, the mezzo was just covering for the tenor,” Arabella said before she popped a bite of orange into her mouth. “He was actually in the property mistress’s closet with one of the baritones from the chorus.”

    
Sebastian laughed. Arabella St. George told such engagingly ribald stories. They tripped off her tongue as easily as her high notes. She regaled Sebastian with naughty tales of the backstage doings at the opera company and sly little tidbits about heads of state for whom she'd sung private recitals. He easily envisioned her moving smoothly among his peers as they made the rounds of demimonde haunts, charming everyone as she went.

    
The only problem was that she seemed a bit distracted sometimes. He caught her gaze flitting about the room now and then as if she were looking for something in particular. It seemed out of character—as if the lady were in actuality a cutpurse looking for a likely victim. But then she’d flash him such a beguiling smile, he decided he’d imagined the whole thing.

    
By the time they reached the main course, he was thoroughly convinced he’d made the correct choice for his next mistress. Then she stumbled badly.

    
“But I’ve occupied the conversation for far too long,” she said. “Tell me about yourself, Sebastian.”

    
He shrugged. “What do you want to know?”

    
“Everything.”

    
That was far too wide a net. He decided to limit it. “I am a Whig in matters political.”

    
She laughed. “Our costume mistress has a parrot that claims to be a Whig if you offer him a cracker, a Tory if you give him cake! Rather like a real politician, I should think. You’ve told me nothing.”

    
That was his aim. The whole point of having a mistress was
having
an entertainment, not
being
one. “I am the 8
^th
Duke of Winterhaven.”

    
“An accident of birth.” She waved away the attribute that so entranced his other women. “Your title tells me about your station, not about you. Tell me something you like.”

    
He frowned. None of his other women ever contradicted him or pushed him to reveal himself like this. “I like you,” he said, not so sure he truly did now.

    
She raised her glass in salute. “Flattering, but you’re stalling, sir. Tell me something I don’t already know.”

    
While he was perfectly willing to share his body with this delectable woman, he always kept a firmly erected barrier between himself and his mistresses. When he looked into her eyes, he realized he’d not advance his cause a bit by holding back.

    
“I . . . like raising horses on my country estate.”

    
She smiled. “Good. Why?”

    
“Because it’s the done thing.”

    
“Oh, how deplorably dull. Never say that’s the real reason or I’ll believe you haven’t an original idea in your head.”

    
By thunder, no man had ever spoken to him thusly. Certainly no woman. “Miss St. George—”

    
“Bella, please,” she corrected. “Do you know why I sing, Sebastian? Because it
moves
me.” She leaned toward him and he forced himself not to be distracted by her décolletage. “Music is a demanding god. I can’t have a normal life because of the odd hours, the travel, and the slightly disreputable company. But when I sing, the glory of sound shivers over me. Music gives me so much, that the dusty theatres, the despicable critics, the terror that something might go horribly wrong—none of those things matter. I’m never more fully alive than when I’m pouring out my soul in song.”

    
“That’s what moves me.” She laid her hand on his. “I want to know what moves you. Now, tell me what you like about raising horses.”

    
He liked the smell of a horse, the dusty warm scent of a gelding’s shaggy coat on a brisk fall morning. He liked their soft noses and sweet breath. The homely comfort of a low whicker of greeting when he approached. He loved giving a spirited mount its head and flying across the—

    
“Freedom,” he said softly. “I love the freedom of riding. The speed. The thrill of controlling a powerful animal with only my knees, reins and will.”

    
Her smile washed over him. “You don’t have to be the 8
^th
Duke of Winterhaven on the back of a horse.”

    
“No, I don’t,” he said, surprised that she’d divined his deeper thoughts so accurately.

    
“Someday, Sebastian, I should like to see you ride.”

*
   
*
   
*
   
*
   
*

 
    
It’s not here
. Arabella rifled through Sebastian’s greatcoat pockets while he stepped out to see what was keeping their dessert.
Oh, God, it’s not here.

    
All during supper, she’d furtively surveyed the sumptuous room, looking for the libretto. There weren’t that many horizontal surfaces where he might have laid it aside absently. She checked the small bookshelf, but there were only a few novels whose spines had never been cracked. The escritoire in the corner was locked, but surely he wouldn’t have felt the need to place the libretto under lock and key.

    
Unless the duke had found the envelope tucked within
Don Giovanni
’s pages and opened it. Unless he
knew
.

    
“Calm down,” she ordered herself. Sebastian was a very closed off, very private person, but she’d been able to read him fairly well. She’d know if he had found it.

    
She brushed her fingertips over the window ledges to see if he’d propped the libretto there. The door opened behind her and she turned guiltily to face him as he came back in, followed by a footman.

    
“Looking for something?” Sebastian asked.

    
“Looking
at
something,” she said smoothly. “Did you know you can see St. Paul’s from here? It’s really quite lovely by starlight.”
   

    
“And some things are lovely even without benefit of starlight.” His appraising gaze washed her with masculine approval.

    
She smiled at his compliment and settled back at the dining table where the footman put the finishing touches on their dessert. With a fine fork, he pricked the
sponge cakes resting in shallow dessert-dishes. Then he poured on raisin wine and brandy in equal parts and once the cakes were thoroughly drenched, he sifted sugar on each of them. Just when Arabella didn’t think she could handle another ounce of decadence, he spooned a generous dollop of custard alongside each cake.

    
The footman bowed and left them to enjoy their sweets.

    
“I’ll never fit into my second act costume if I eat all that.”

    
“Try it before you decide not to like it,” Sebastian said, forking up a bite and offering it to her.

    
She opened her mouth and let the flavors burst on her tongue. “Oh, my! That’s worth a trip to the tailor.”

    
He offered her another and she took it.

    
“Oh, there’s a bit by the side of your mouth,” he said.

    
She ran the tip of her tongue around her lips.

    
“No, you didn’t quite . . . allow me.” He leaned over and licked the corner of her mouth, right at the juncture of smooth skin and moist intimacy. Then he pulled back slightly and looked into her eyes.

    
She wasn’t sure what he saw in hers, but she saw . . . loneliness in his and her chest ached.

    
Then he kissed her.

    
His kiss in her dressing room had been practiced, smooth. This one wasn’t. There was no sense of seduction, no hurried taking. It was more a gentle exploration. His mouth slanted over hers with surprising tenderness.

    
Then the kiss took a decidedly wicked turn. He stole her breath and nipped her bottom lip. His tongue made rough love her to mouth and her whole body sang. She draped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. He stifled a groan.