Susan Johnson (14 page)

His was an effective approach; as she continued to hold her bodice together, the prudishness would be hers, a silly and negative word in the privacy of this room between two people who’d experienced the ultimate intimacy. And at base, she was grateful for his flattery, a kindness after Miriam Dixon, to restore her shaken confidence. Her fingers uncurled from the velvet and her hand dropped.

Trey’s glance was immediately appreciative. The deep vee of the bodice now slashed from throat to waist, only the outside curve of her breasts covered by the soft velvet. He remembered the feel of her heavy breasts, remembered their taste, the way she moaned in sighing surrender when he gently caressed each begging peak. Her bare feet peeped out below the crushed folds of her velvet skirt, adding a waifish quality to the implicit opulence of her body.

“You’re not strong enough,” she softly said into the heated silence.

“Stronger than you.”

She shivered at the implied assertion, and the small flame in the pit of her stomach flared. “You could hurt yourself.” Her warning was low-pitched, a concession made to conscience without the necessary conviction in her soft, breathy tone.

“I hurt already,” he replied in the same quiet resonance, his arousal pulsing and erect. “That’s why I want you”—he paused, carefully choosing his words—“to come here and help me.”

In any other circumstances the innocuous words could have had any number of meanings, but the hushed demand was alive with clarity in that sunlit room, restless, impatient, heated.

It took her a moment to respond, contemplating a means to save him from what he wanted, to save him from possible injury, even though her own desire was flustering her sense of duty, poignant with its own longings. “If you take your medicine
first,” she declared, decisive in her role of nurse, forcing her emotions aside.

“Hurry.” His voice was deep-pitched, on the verge of a whisper.

Was it an answer? She wasn’t sure. “Will you?” she asked again.

He nodded, the bargain made.

Not out of malevolence but rather out of consideration, Empress mixed a sleeping potion. Trey was too newly recovered; what he wanted could be dangerous to his health. And while he may not understand the consequences, she did.

She gave him the medicine in a small cup, and he smiled warmly when he took it from her. “Would you mind taking off that dress yourself,” he asked in a civil, conversational way, “to save my strength.”

“You drink that and I’ll go and take this off,” she replied. “Should I shut some of the drapes?” Moving toward the windows, she reached for the pull cord, deciding he’d sleep better in a darkened room.

“I don’t care.” Lifting the cup to his mouth, he queried, “Do you like it in the dark?” Soft amusement tinged the words.

Spinning around, she cast him a glowering look. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a spoiled, pampered brat?”

“Not since you last did,” he replied cheerfully, and tipped the liquid into his mouth.

Sniffing softly, Empress returned to the remaining windows and soon had the room shut off from the morning sun.

“No more stalling, darling. Take the dress off and come join me.”

Swiftly checking to see that there was a discarded cup on the bedside table, she replied amiably, “I’ll be back in a minute.” Entering the dressing room, she shut the door and glanced at the small clock on the dresser. She’d give the medicine five minutes to work.

Leisurely she unbuttoned the dress, slid her arms out of the sleeves, the gown slithered to the floor, and she stepped out of it. Picking it up, she carefully shook the beautiful material free of wrinkles. It was exquisitely made, all lined in silk, sewed with stitches so small, they were barely visible. Mama had had a riding habit in this same forest-green velvet. She’d
looked so smart in it when she and Papa rode. That seemed a lifetime ago. The riding habit had been made into a quilt cover three winters back and now kept Guy and Eduard warm in their loft bed.

Opening one of the mirrored panels, she hung the dress up in a row of pressed shirts, neatly arranged by color. Out of curiosity she unlatched all the mirrored doors lining the walls of the dressing room. Suits, topcoats, jackets, trousers, more shirts, and shelves of shoes, boots, and sweaters. A dozen silk robes, some quilted for winter. Silk cravats in every shade of the rainbow. She saw before her a very complete wardrobe, tailored, she noticed, checking the discreetly initialed labels, primarily in England. Off to the side, there was a larger door, which she pulled open last and gazed in amazement at its splendid contents. Leather—fringed, beaded, quilled, decorated with ermine and wolf tails, the most exquisite leather clothing she’d ever seen. She touched the colored quillwork, smooth as satin, intricate in design. Her fingers slipped through the long fringes, gently curled around the fluffy wolf tails, slid luxuriously over the pure white ermine. A different world required clothes like these, and though she was aware of Trey’s heritage, she’d never seen him except as a wealthy young man. The way he dressed, this house, the scores of servants, how did he fit into his Indian world? How different he’d seemed, dressed in these clothes.

She lifted out one decorated shirt, a creme leather with bands of lapis blue beading, and held it against her shoulders. The leather was like satin on her skin. She gazed at herself in the mirror with the garment held in front of her, its fringed bottom hanging almost to her knees. A pattern of green quillwork swept down both sleeves, geometric in design, very male and powerful. Dare she try it on? How much significance did these clothes hold for Trey? Would she be overstepping into a private, spiritual world?

But she’d never seen anything so richly embellished; it was like a work of art, and Trey was sleeping by now, she rationalized, so wouldn’t be aware of what she’d done. She’d just quickly slip it on and then as quickly return it to its place in the wardrobe. Then she’d check on her patient to see he was covered, and when he woke, she’d apologize for the deception with the sleeping potion. The medicine was for his own
good, she quite righteously reflected, and whether he agreed or not, she knew what was best for his health.

Carefully lifting the heavy shirt over her head, she slid it down, adjusted it on her shoulders, and was admiring the garment in the mirror when a voice behind her said quietly, “There’s a bear-claw necklace in the third drawer down you might want to try with it.”

She spun around.

Trey lounged in the shadowed doorway, one shoulder braced negligently against the jamb.

“You’re supposed … why aren’t you—” She stopped, aware suddenly how defensive she sounded. “You should be sleeping,” she calmly went on, but the size of him dwarfed the portal, and her voice was more calm than her state of mind. Wearing a gray silk robe and framed in the darkened doorway, he looked like an apparition from some Stygian gloom. His voice, though, when he spoke, was the opposite of his mysterious appearance. It was light and unclouded, sunny almost. “I had other plans,” he said, and smiled.

That smile had always been his greatest asset. It was unexpected, as he was, and dazzling. Dizzy with its impact, Empress forced the caught breath out of her lungs. “The medicine,” she half whispered.

He lifted his fingers in a vague gesture. “Back in the cup, I’m afraid.”

“You didn’t trust me.” She had found her voice.

“Should I have?” he inquired mildly, pushed away from the jamb, and stepped into the light-filled room. The outside wall, broken by French windows, allowed the morning sun to stream in, brilliant and sparkling. Carefully shutting the door into the bedroom, Trey closed the first of the mirrored doors, advancing slowly around the perimeter of the small room, gently pushing shut each closet door Empress had opened until he stood near the last wardrobe, still open, the one with his Absarokee clothes. “If you like, you may have that,” he said, indicating the elegant leather shirt Empress wore. “It’s much more attractive on you than on me.”

“I couldn’t—it’s too valuable,” she replied, uncomfortably aware of being caught rummaging in another person’s belongings, aware also of Trey’s potent nearness, fascinated inexplicably by the pearl-gray Chinese shantung of his robe, an
alluring foil for his blatant masculinity and deep bronze skin. He was never ordinary, always extraordinary, in his startling physical beauty.

Was it normal to want to run your hands up the gray silk of his sleeve and feel the muscled strength of his arms beneath? Was it customary to find one’s eyes drawn to a carelessly tied silk belt around his lean waist? Forcing her gaze away, Empress’s eyes lifted to Trey’s handsome face, perfection modeled in sharp-cut planes. He smiled.

Bathed in the warmth of that soul-stopping smile, the overwhelming feeling of wanting to reach out and touch him, she abruptly decided, was orthodox and habitual with Trey Braddock-Black. And he knew it.

“I should make you pay,” he said softly, breaking into her thoughts. When her eyes widened in startled response to the ominous words, he went on casually, his expression pleasant, “Because of the deception.” The sunlight sheened his long, dark hair with ornamental shadows, tipped his thick lashes with gold.

“It was for your own good,” Empress instantly responded. “You’re too weak.”

“If I faint,” he retorted softly, advancing another step closer, a small smile on his face, “ring for the servants to carry me back to bed.”

“Are you always so … single-minded, and damn the consequences?”

“Rarely.” The word was murmured, mild and uninflected.

She was surprised, and it showed in her eyes. “I wouldn’t have guessed. All I’ve seen is Trey Braddock-Black getting what he wants.”

His brows rose slightly in inquiry. “Does it offend you?”

“Not particularly … I’ve known many men like—” Just in time, Empress remembered: The details of her background were to remain concealed. She had been about to say that most of her cousin Claude’s friends, and Claude as well, were as selfishly bent on pleasure as Trey. And if the duel her father had been involved six years ago hadn’t come to trial in the wrong province, she’d still be living in that same splendid world. So she was very much aware of pleasure-bent young men. But as provincial courts were by definition parochial, and the man her father had killed had been the son of
a local duke more powerful than the counts of Jordan, he’d been convicted and her world had changed.

Grandmama had kept the channels of appeal open for almost a year until she died because Grandmama had favors to call in from a lifetime. But when she died, the obligations of old friends were less staunch toward her son, who had, after all, killed the Duc de Rochefort’s only son. An old and bitter rivalry originally had begun over Mama, and when the slur had been cast at Mama that day at the races, everyone knew Papa must respond.

Mama had come to Paris in the British ambassador’s entourage, engaged to the ambassador’s son, and her astonishing beauty had instantly attracted every man in Paris. She was La Belle Anglaise that season, idolized and feted. At a ball given by Empress Eugenie, she and Papa had fallen in love—the scandal of the season. Disowned by her family, she and Papa had retired to the estate in Chantilly and lived a quiet, happy life. Until the duel.

Trey’s eyes narrowed at the astonishing answer that had ended so precipitously. “Tell me, have you known many men?” he asked, a slight edge to his voice. “I’d like to know.” He understood, of course, that she’d been a virgin that night at Lily’s, but he was also aware of some men’s fetishes. She
could
have known men—a slight scowl drew his brows together—in other ways. If anything, Trey’s experience in vice was extensive. Not that he’d necessarily engaged in the unconventional inequities, but he knew men who did. He knew men who used women in any but the conventional ways; he knew men—and suddenly a flare of anger surfaced. He wondered if he’d been taken in by an innocent-appearing young woman who was the very opposite of innocent, who perhaps knew ways to please a man he hadn’t thought of.

Restraining his mercurial temper with a dispassionate reminder that this beautiful young woman standing before him in a tumble of tawny hair, in his leather shirt and nothing more,
had
saved his life. Visibly tamping his bristling irritation, he told himself to be reasonable. And he was for three seconds more.

Taking umbrage at Trey’s restrained fierceness, feeling quite rightly, she reasoned, that her past was none of his business,
Empress replied in an even, level tone, “You don’t have to know.”

“I paid enough,” he said bluntly, “to have my questions answered.”

Empress stood a bit straighter, twin patches of angry red color appearing on both cheeks. “Your money didn’t buy my past,” she retorted curtly, “or my future.”

“You’re not going to answer?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll have to find out for myself what you’ve learned from all those men you’ve known,” Trey threatened. “We didn’t have much time that night at Lily’s to explore”—he paused, discarding the crude word that came to mind—“the
variety
of our experience.” He smiled wolfishly. “I look forward to the education.”

“And if it kills you,” Empress snapped, annoyed at his presumptions, resenting his all too ready inclination to think the worst of her.

“I’m intrigued,” Trey drawled, deliberately misconstruing her response. “I never realized your fascinating taste for excess. Shall we begin?”

“You’re mad!” She moved back a step.

His voice was composed, gentle in its temperance. “Hardly,” he murmured. “But pleasantly expectant, I admit.” And he closed the distance over which she had retreated.

Empress withdrew another step and found herself against the cool, mirrored wall.

“How charming,” Trey breathed softly, scanning her frightened expression with a negligent gaze. “The enterprising young lady who sold herself at Lily’s has a flair for drama. Tell me,” he drawled languidly, reaching out to slide his fingers through the pale curls lying on her shoulder, “is that look of fear a particular favorite of the many men in your past?”

“Damn you,” Empress retorted bitterly. “Think what you like, but you don’t own me.”