Two Sinful Secrets (6 page)

But tonight wasn’t one for subtlety and sneaking around. It was a time for having
a bit of fun, before she went back to her old life again.

They stepped through a doorway hidden in the paneling of the foyer, where a stern-looking
English butler checked names off the invitation list and maids took the guests’ wraps.
Everyone else had already moved into the main salon, and Sophia could hear the clamor
of dozens of conversations through the closed double doors.

“Is everyone here, Makepeace?” Sophia asked the butler as Camille checked her hair
in the mirror. Over the last few days, while Camille went out to find new patrons
and put the finishing touches on the decor, Sophia had organized the servants. Her
mother’s calm, efficient example had served her well for once.

“Almost everyone, Madame Westman,” Makepeace answered as he showed her the list. “And
they all brought guests as well.”

“I hope our supplies of champagne hold out!” Camille said.

“Me, too,” Sophia said as she examined herself in the mirror behind Camille. Unlike
Camille, who wore a fashionable creation of sea-green silk and tulle with diamonds
at her throat and in her hair, Sophia had no choice but to wear one of her black gowns
again, and she smoothed her hair back into a simple chignon. But even though the dress
was unadorned, with none of the poufs and ruffles so stylish that year, the satin
fabric was rich and glossy, and the low neckline showed off her white shoulders. In
her ears, she wore her grandmother’s pearl earrings, the one piece of jewelry she
had managed to hold on to, and she had bought paste hair-combs with an advance on
her salary.

Not too bad
, she thought. If only she didn’t look so pale and thin, so anxious after the last
few months. The patrons wouldn’t have any fun if the hostess looked so desperate.
Sophia pinched her cheeks to bring some pink to them and gave a bright smile. She
had to enjoy all this while she could.

She spun around as Camille threw open the doors and swept into the salon to welcome
her guests.

“
Bon soir, mes amis!
Welcome to La Reine d’Argent. A place where there is decidedly
no
gaming,” Camille said as everyone laughed. “I hope that you will all find something
to enjoy here. There is dancing, dining, conversation—anything you might fancy. Please,
if there is anything you require, let me or Madame Westman know. And now go, go, have
fun! The night is young.”

Camille gestured to the small orchestra in the corner to begin playing a lively tune,
and the crowd surged back into talk and laughter again as the footmen circulated with
more wine. Camille disappeared into the crowd and Sophia followed. As she swept through
the crowd, she could hear whispers about the “
femme mystère
” and they made her smile. That was what she wanted to be—the mysterious woman, the
one nobody knew anything about.

As Sophia turned to go through the salon, the doors opened again to admit yet more
latecomers. Behind the laughing group, standing alone, was a tall man dressed in a
fashionably tailored dark blue evening coat and cream-colored satin waistcoat and
cravat. The gaslight gleamed on his pale golden hair, which was brushed back in sleek
waves from a face too handsome to be real. It surely belonged on a fallen angel rather
than a mere mortal man.

It was a face she remembered very well. A face she had seen in her mind ever since
that night she crept into the Devil’s Fancy and challenged him to a card game—and
more. And now he was standing right across the room from her.

For so long, Dominic St. Claire had been a fantasy figure, a perfectly handsome, perfectly
charming dream she could think about when she needed an escape from real life. She
had come to think no real person could possibly
be as beautiful as her memories. Probably he was older than she remembered, or was
clumsy and smelled bad.

But she saw now there were no flaws. In fact, he was even more handsome than in her
memories. The real life was more vivid, more striking, than she could have remembered.
And everyone else seemed to agree, as they all turned to stare at him as if they were
not sophisticated Parisians at all.

Sophia felt her cheeks turn hot even as she shivered. Everything suddenly felt strange
and unreal, as if the time had fallen away, and she was that headstrong girl again,
swept away by her first taste of passion. She had the most powerful urge to run to
him, to touch him to see if he was real. Yet she also wanted to run away, to vanish
as she once had after he kissed her.

Instead she stood still, frozen, and watched him. He looked around the room, a half-smile
on his lips, his expression unreadable as he looked at the people around him. He was
said to be one of the finest actors in England, and Sophia could see why. He was so
good at hiding his thoughts as he stood there, as still and quiet as if he was making
a stage entrance, but she fancied she could see a flash of some cynicism in his eyes.
He seemed very remote from all that was going on around him.

Yet as she watched him she still couldn’t help but remember that long-ago night when
he had kissed her, touched her, in that dark room. She had never felt like that before
or since. Did he remember, too? Surely he hadn’t known who she was—at least she hoped
he did not. But did he ever think of her, the woman in the mask?

Or was she merely one of dozens of women who blurred together in his memory?

She thought of poor Mary Huntington, of her helpless desire for a man who couldn’t
care for her the same way, who wounded and betrayed her. Mary had drowned in her unhappiness,
and when Sophia read her words she vowed never to do that to herself. Never to depend
on anyone for anything. She did desire Dominic St. Claire, of course—he was so terribly
handsome and, as she remembered, so very good at kissing. But that was all.

It was all it could be.

Dominic’s brilliant green gaze suddenly turned—and landed on her. She could feel the
heat of it even across the room. It felt as if he physically touched her skin, ran
his hand over her bare body, and a chill ran up her spine.

Then his smile widened, but not with humor. It looked like the smile of a wolf spying
a helpless rabbit just before he snatched it up. And she wanted desperately to be
the prey he sought.

Oh
, she thought with a flash of raw panic.
I am really in trouble now…

It was her again. He had found her.

When Dominic first stepped into the crowded club and caught a glimpse of the woman’s
back, something that had felt long-frozen flickered to life within him. That glossy,
black hair pinned in shining, heavy coils atop an elegant head, reminded him of the
mystery woman he had once kissed—and who had run away from him. She had been the only
woman he ever wanted who eluded him, and the thought that she was within his grasp
again awakened the primitive hunter in him.

He had come to La Reine d’Argent as a respite from
working at the theater, from getting the new play ready to open and playing go-between
in quarrels between the other actors. He wanted to play some cards, have some fun,
and maybe learn something he could take back to the Devil’s Fancy when they returned
to London. Camille Martine was a very fine hostess, as they had learned at her dinner
at the Café Anglais, and he was sure her club would be a grand one.

He hadn’t expected to find the woman in black as well.

Dominic smiled and smoothed the velvet cuffs of his coat as he watched her. She was
not very tall, but was slender and delicate-looking in her black satin gown. She talked
to a group gathered around her, her lace-gloved hands fluttering in an exuberant gesture.
Her head tilted back in laughter, and everyone around her watched her intently, as
if caught in an enchanted spell.

Then she turned—and froze when their eyes met and she saw him watching her. The smile
on her rosebud lips faded, and her already fair cheeks turned pale. And Dominic saw
that it really was his mystery woman. Even though she had once worn a mask, he could
see that the shape of her face, the delicate nose and slightly pointed chin, were
the same.

“She is beautiful,” he heard his brother James say. “They say she is a widowed Englishwoman
who has fallen out with her family and came to work here with Madame Martine. That
she wasn’t married long and is heartbroken, looking for a new start. But I couldn’t
discover anything else.”

“You seem to have discovered a great deal about her,” Dominic said.

James grinned. “I was talking with Madame Martine
just now. The woman is rather stingy with information about her friend, but I did
find out a few tidbits to add to what we had at dinner the other night.”

“Who is she?” Dominic didn’t take his gaze off the woman. She had turned away to talk
to someone else, but he could see the way she held her shoulders rigid, the strain
in her pretty smile. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye, but then her gaze
quickly slid away. She was certainly not indifferent to him.

Dominic felt his blood heat as he looked at her, felt himself coming to life again.
It had been so long since he felt that way.

“Her name is Mrs. Westman, an Englishwoman,” James said. “Other than what I told you,
I don’t know much, but I intend to find out.”

Mrs. Westman. Dominic studied her as he wondered what sort of man Mr. Westman had
been to win such a prize. Had she been married when she was at the Devil’s Fancy?
Her kiss had tasted innocent, as if she hadn’t been aware of such a spark of passion
before. But now it seemed she was a widow, a woman of mystery in Paris. Like James,
he intended to find out everything there was to know about the lovely Mrs. Westman.

“Believe me, James, you can’t handle a woman like that,” he muttered, and moved into
the thick of the crowd, ignoring his brother’s protests. He kept Mrs. Westman in his
sight as he reached for a glass of wine from a footman’s tray.

She had disappeared into the bright crowd. He moved through the twisting warren of
elegantly cozy rooms, searching for a glimpse of her black gown amid the pastel crinolines
of the other women. He finally saw the ebony
gleam of her hair in the ballroom at the end of the winding hallways. An orchestra
played a waltz as couples swirled around a polished parquet floor, looking like a
brilliant summer bouquet under the muted glow of the gaslights behind their frosted
glass screens.

Mrs. Westman stood near the wall, examining the gathering with a small smile on her
face. She gestured to two footmen as if to send them on errands and straightened a
painting in its frame. Dominic studied the graceful, elegant line of her white arm,
her smooth shoulders.

Yes, he did want her. Like he had never wanted anything before, and he was a man of
stubborn single-mindedness. He would have her this time.

Dominic stalked around the edge of the dance floor, keeping her in his sights. She
had the strangest, most intriguing quality about her, a delicate, watchful air, as
if she would take flight and vanish at any moment. She had done that before.

Dominic wouldn’t let her go again.

Our new home is not entirely what I expected.

I was so excited to leave the Court. The clothes and music there were wonderful, as
were the theaters and balls after all the years of gray nothingness under Cromwell.
But I want only my husband’s love. I cannot take lovers, as everyone seems required
to do around the king, nor could I bear seeing my John laugh with other women. I have
never been a jealous woman before. What has become of me?

I thought all would be well once we came here to the country. We would be alone. We
would find each other again. But still John sits by the fire and drinks so late at
night, and I do not know what to say to him. Why can I not make him happy? Why can
I not be happy, as I thought I would be?

S
ophia was so busy making certain everyone was having a good time that she didn’t see
Dominic St. Claire when he first entered the crowded ballroom. Which was most disconcerting,
because she had been so acutely aware of him all evening.

Did he know it had been her that long-ago night at the Devil’s Fancy? She was almost
certain he did from the way he looked at her, so dark and intent, as if he was searching
his memory for her. It made her feel as she never had before, nervous and acutely
aware, almost afraid, but excited at the same time. As if she couldn’t breathe wondering
what might happen next, as if she was reading the story of someone else, like Mary
Huntington.

She had no time to desire a man right now, especially a man like Dominic St. Claire.
He would never be easily dismissed, as Jack had been. The fact that their one kiss
still haunted her showed her that all too well. She had work to do now. She had to
figure out how to get back into her family’s good graces. She couldn’t be distracted
by Dominic.

She pasted her brightest, most sociable smile on her lips again and stood on her tiptoes
to study the ballroom.
That was when she saw him again. He stood just inside the doorway, studying the room.
The dancers swirled between them, a cloud of silk and tulle, obscuring her view of
him until they parted again and she saw that he had suddenly vanished. Startled, she
spun around and tried to find where he had gone. She had that urge to run again, to
hide from him and his intense green eyes, but she was caught between the wall and
the dance floor.

And the potted palms lined up along the walls offered meager shelter. She suddenly
wished Camille had decorated with chinoiserie screens instead. They might be a bit
unfashionable, but they were always useful when one wanted to hide in plain sight.

Sophia spun around and took a step toward the orchestra, only to freeze when Dominic
appeared in front of her.