Susan Johnson (45 page)

But she always tore up the intended letters, for the words never seemed appropriate. She attempted amiable words—cool, objective words—and even tried writing in the third person. She considered a simple announcement. She wanted to tell him about his son and the joy she felt at having their child. Somehow, in each attempt, the phrasing always appeared awkward, like a petition, and she would recall all too vividly his resentment at Valerie’s pregnancy
and the number of females with gun-toting papas he’d evaded.

Could he have been wronged in that many instances, or was it just easier for a man to walk away from his indiscretions? It seemed too easy for him to say, “They weren’t mine,” as if saying the words set his conscience free and his life went on undisturbed. So she never sent the letters because she refused to ask him to love his son only as an obligation.

Recently Empress had begun to receive visitors again, a pragmatic decision based less on desire than on Adelaide’s persistent persuasion. In the early months after her return to Paris, Adelaide had seen that Empress was deluged with invitations, and although a widow in mourning, her devoted admirers were numerous and solicitous.

The men, quite frankly, were dazzled by the beautiful woman they’d last remembered as a thin, lanky adolescent. Empress was voluptuous now, rather than coltish, and endowed with a rare, precious fairness that recalled Botticelli’s finest work. Her sun-streaked hair was defiantly riotous even when she attempted to restrain her curls in a severe style commensurate with widowhood. And had she known how tantalizing she looked in black, all golden skin tones and pale tawny hair, she would have better understood the reasons for the besieging array of suitors.

Her green eyes, shaded by luxurious dark lashes, were languorous when they lifted to gaze at one, and she was immediately, although discreetly, dubbed the Green Temptress by the gallants surrounding her.

More than anything, her casual indifference was viewed as provocation, and her startled wonder, which so many of their fulsome compliments engendered, was translated into piqued fascination. Whatever the individual interpretation accorded her sentiments, there was no argument about the Green Temptress’s physical beauty. She was an opulent woman, a lush, golden-toned sultana, all the more desired for her enigmatic wish for seclusion. Everyone understood her recent widowhood, but each young Turk hoped he would be the one she ultimately chose to end that seclusion.

And the offers of exactly
how
to end that seclusion ran the gamut from indiscreet to honorable. As the former Comtesse de Jordan, regardless of her marriage to an American, Empress
was the recipient of many sincere and respectable offers of marriage. She was also, in the wealthy, aristocratic circle in which she moved, the recipient of several interesting, less permanent offers.

To all she extended the same polite response: after a year of mourning she would consider their offers seriously. Bets were taken on the front runners in the contest for the Green Temptress’s favors, and the Duc de Vec and Prince Hippolyte de Morne took those honors.

The Duc de Vec’s offer, everyone understood, was limited by his marital state, but to date this had not unduly hampered his reputation as the foremost womanizer in Paris. Wealth, looks, and a frankly sensual charm had all combined to endow the Duc de Vec with advantage in his female relationships.

Prince Hippolyte, much younger and perhaps more vulnerable to romance, fell under Empress’s spell to the extent that he began composing sonnets and considered heeding for the first time his mother’s incessant demands that he take a wife.

So the wooing had gone on until Empress had retired to await the birth of her child, and now that she was returned to society—more beautiful, if possible—her drawing room was thick with dashing men, each intent on pressing his suit. Although the months had advanced, a year was by no means past, but hope, as they say, sprang eternal, and each man entertained the fond ambition that Empress would succumb to his wooing and overlook her remaining interval of mourning.

Into this highly charged atmosphere of competition, albeit gentlemanly in demeanor, Trey was to appear precisely two hours after arriving in Paris.

During the six-day journey, Trey’s mood had fluctuated violently from happiness to moody resentment. When he’d reread Guy’s letter, which he did so often that he knew the words by heart, he’d only think of his joy in seeing Empress alive. Conversely—and these feelings surfaced generally after several brandies—his bitterness would jostle aside the clear-cut happiness. Empress said she’d write to him, dammit, he’d acerbically reflect, but she hadn’t. Was she only mercenary at heart, personally ambitious, easily convinced by Valerie that
he was unavailable as a husband? Was that why she left? In retrospect, the brandy coloring his speculation, Empress’s indomitable spirit took on an enterprising character: her decision to come into Helena to sell herself was certainly a practical undertaking; her offer to save his life may have been prompted by the fear that his bank draft wouldn’t have been honored had he died; even her encounter with Valerie had left Empress unscathed by Valerie’s claws. She had been angry rather than tearful.

And in Trey’s gloomiest contemplation, Empress seemed far and away the most pragmatic woman he’d ever known. Even in the expedient society of the frontier, white women did
not
put themselves on the auction block in a brothel. Her explanation that night at the ranch, when he recalled it, where she spoke of waiting for him in France, seemed cool and restrained in hindsight, without the emotional tears one would expect in discussing such a separation.

It was late afternoon, and he only took time to check into the hotel, bathe, and discard three coats before deciding on the conservative black. Gloves? No gloves. Money? He stuffed some large notes into his pocket, double-checked with the manager for Guy’s address, and quickly dashed through the lobby to his waiting-carriage.

He was not prepared for the splendor of the Hotel Jordan. As he crossed the threshold and stepped into the gilded and marble foyer, he was not prepared to have a haughty butler announce Empress Jordan as Mrs. Terrance Miles. His immediate reaction to news of her marriage was hostile, although, he bitterly concluded, he should have known better. Hadn’t Guy announced in his first letter that Pressy had taken care of everything? he thought aggrievedly.

When the drawing-room doors swung open and the major-domo announced his name, he was
most definitely
not prepared for the veritable
crowd
of men surrounding Empress, seated in their midst like a queen holding court. And his response to the scent of white lilac was instant, intuitive desire. Blindfolded, he would have known she was in the room.

Visibly surprised, Empress gasped and stared, the blood
draining from her face.
He has come
, was her first flashing thought.

A curious silence fell while every set of eyes noted Empress’s pallor and then quickly veered to the open doorway and the handsome man standing there with a natural grace, looking every inch an exotic half-blood despite his impeccable tailoring. Tall, well built, with lustrous, long hair as black as raven wings, shading to iridescent blue-black where the light caught it, and skin so bronzed that the uncivilized, savage splendor of the West was immediately conjured in every mind. The black cutaway coat he wore over a citrine-and-azure waistcoat accented rather than mitigated the acute sense of physical virility. And when he smiled suddenly at the abrupt hush, the lift of his mouth was wolfish, his pale eyes narrowing in a predatory gleam, his intrinsic arrogance responding to the fascinated silence.

It was as though motion hung suspended, each of the men surrounding Empress stunned, caught off-guard; her obvious shock so unusual in a woman noted for her poise.

The striking dark man in the doorway emanated a confident power that rushed through the room like a gale. He didn’t know what he expected the first time he saw Empress again, but he hadn’t expected this—how did you put it, exactly?—this horde of hopeful men, and an ungovernable jealousy assailed him. It was clear now why she hadn’t bothered writing, Trey thought, his luminous eyes scanning the score of men, some of whom he recognized from Estée’s crowd of friends. Tall, short, muscular, lean, old, young, some in hacking jackets as if they’d come after riding in the
Bois
, others attired in prescribed afternoon dress.

But all rich.

He understood immediately.

But while he understood, powerful emotion overrode insight, and his sole consideration was that there was an excessive number of men around the woman he instinctively thought of as his. Regardless, he told himself, of her new name and new husband. With effort, he resisted the impulse to curl his fingers into fists and strike out at them. This was, after all, a Parisian drawing room.

So his voice when he spoke wasn’t angry but self-possessed and scrupulously polite, only his soft Western
drawl coloring the perfect fluency of his French. Like many wealthy young men, he’d been reared on yearly visits abroad. “Good afternoon, Mademoiselle Jordan,” he said, deliberately overlooking her married name and the possibility that one of these men was her husband. “You’re looking …” He paused while his glance raked her boldly. If she had almost died last month, there was no vestige now of illness. She was in full glory. “… splendidly healthy.” The last two words were lazily uttered in a slow, sensual drawl, and his gaze leisurely drifted across her décolletage, noting with a connoisseur’s eye that her breasts were measurably larger. If her husband was indeed in attendance, he decided with a dismissive assessment, he was obliging with his wife’s … company.

Trey’s insolent words and appraisal brought a rosy blush to Empress’s pale face, while the shock of his appearance generated warring, irresolute emotions. Her first instinctive rush of pleasure had been instantly altered with alarm over Max, and reflecting on Trey’s impertinent drawl and his refusal to acknowledge her new name, a swiftly rising resentment ruffled Empress’s temper.

It was just like Trey, she thought, with growing vehemence, to walk back into her life with that unfailing assuredness, those polished manners, insinuating in that lazy drawl that he somehow had some proprietary claim to her. Was he still married? she wondered in the next flashing moment. Was his wife in Montana or traveling with him and left behind in some hotel suite? Was it possible he was divorced? Why was he here suddenly, after so many months? All unanswered questions she wasn’t in the mood to deal with now after having slowly compromised and negotiated her feelings back into reasonable perspective. She had struggled too long to reconcile her ardent yearning, to reduce the potent, tantalizing memories of Trey to manageable levels. She wouldn’t allow him, she decided heatedly, to casually walk in and overset her hard-won tranquillity.

Like Empress, the Duc de Vec immediately and justifiably took exception to Trey’s proprietary tone. Only recently Empress had begun responding to his urbane courtship with a teasing amusement he’d found charming and encouraging. In his experience, young widows were by far the best possible lovers, and since the birth of her child, the countess was provocatively
voluptuous. Rumor had it she’d insisted on nursing the child herself. Unheard of in the environs of the Faubourg St. Germain but typical of the startling independence he found so fascinating. He expected she would be unconventional in other aspects of her life as well, and he’d already selected a necklace of fire rubies as a remembrance of their first night together. This dark-skinned man with over-long hair and challenging presumption annoyed him, and turning to Empress, sitting beside him on the embroidered setee, he said in a low voice both casual and intent, “Should I throw the scoundrel out?”

The Duc’s voice broke into Empress’s critical intentions, and with relief she looked away from Trey’s powerful masculinity. Deliberate and maturely considered as her intentions were, disobedient feeling was enticed by the sight of him. “That won’t be necessary, Etienne.” Encouragingly she found she could speak in a normal voice even while her heart palpitated uncontrollably. “Mr. Braddock-Black and I are old friends, and I’m quite used to his familiarity.”

“You couldn’t, anyway,” Trey replied mildly, and vivid with challenge, he strolled closer to the group of men seated around Empress.

The Duc, conspicuous for his temper, immediately came to his feet, his anger graphic on his face, his skill with pistols or rapier distinguished and deadly. Before he could issue his own challenge, Empress touched his hand and murmured softly, “No, Etienne.”

Trey’s eyes shifted to Empress’s small hand on the Duc’s, then up to the Duc’s proud face, its slightly heightened color visible beneath his tan. “Do you do her bidding, Etienne?” Trey inquired insolently, angered by the championship of the man seated so intimately near Empress. It didn’t matter who he was or why he held the place of honor next to Empress on the small setee. The large whip-lean man in splendidly cut Harris tweed was a rival encroaching on personal property, and impulse rather than reason guided Trey’s actions.

“Behave, Trey, you’re not at Lily’s,” Empress admonished hotly, her green eyes fiery with temper.

“It sure looks as though I’m at Lily’s,” Trey drawled, his derisive smile tight-lipped.

Glowing with a furious incredulity at his rudeness, Empress
drew a calming breath before she said very softly, “With your taste for self-indulgence, I’m sure you could scarcely distinguish the difference.”

“You’re right, of course, I never did learn how,” he replied equally softly, his pale glance deliberately trained on her. “You know the old saying, ‘In the dark’—”

Talk of Lily’s meant nothing to the Duc, but the impending conclusion to Trey’s remark brought De Vec’s free hand up in anger, and he took a step forward.

Swiftly tightening her grip on his hand, Empress admonished in a hushed, intense murmur, “
Please
, Etienne.” She refused to have a brawl, because Trey was impertinent and Etienne was territorial. “Please, for me …” she repeated in a soft, throaty tone.