Suddenly You(5)

The stillness of the parlor was underlaid with the gentle snapping of the fire in the hearth and the sounds of their breathing. Amanda had never felt this way before, actually fearful of what she might do. Her heart was beating so hard that it made her dizzy. She gave a stiff little shake of her head. He was a stranger. She was alone in the house with him, and she was more or less at his mercy. For the first time in a very long while, she was in a situation in which she had no control. And it was all of her own making.

“Are you by chance trying to seduce me?” she whispered.

“There’s no reason to fear me. I would never force myself on a lady.”

Of course there would be no need. It seemed very likely that he had never heard the word “no” from a woman.

This was without doubt the most interesting situation that Amanda had ever found herself in. Her life had been spectacularly uneventful, in which the characters of her novels said and did all the forbidden things she herself would never have dared.

As if he could read her thoughts, her companion smiled lazily and leaned his chin on his hand. If he was indeed trying to seduce her, he was in no great hurry. “You’re exactly as I imagined,” he murmured. “I’ve read your novels…well, the last one, at least. Not many women write as you do.”

Amanda never liked to discuss her work. She felt uncomfortable when she received effusive praise, and she was most definitely disgruntled by critics’ opinions. However, she was keenly curious about this man’s opinion of her work. “I wouldn’t have expected a pr—a man of your…a cicisbeo,” she said, “to read novels.”

“Well, we have to do something in our spare hours,” he said reasonably. “We can’t spend all our time in bed. Incidentally, that’s not how you pronounce it.”

Draining the last of her wine, Amanda glanced at the sideboard, wishing for another glass.

“Not yet,” Jack said, taking the empty glass from her hand and setting it on the small table just behind her. The movement brought him directly over her, and Amanda shrank back until she was nearly reclining on the upholstered arm of the settee. “I won’t be able to seduce you if you have too much wine,” he murmured. His warm breath touched her cheek, and although his body didn’t quite meet hers, she sensed the solid, heavy weight of him poised over her.

“I w-wouldn’t have thought you’d had such scruples,” she said unsteadily.

“Oh, I have no scruples,” he assured her cheerfully, “it’s just that I like a bit of a challenge. And if you had any more wine, you would be too easy a conquest.”

“You arrogant, vain—” Amanda began indignantly, until she saw from the rascally twinkle in his eyes that he was provoking her deliberately. She was both relieved and sorry when he moved away from her. A reluctant smile pulled at her lips. “Did you like my novel?” she couldn’t resist asking.

“Yes, I did. At first I thought it would be typical silver-fork fare. But I liked the way your well-bred characters began to unravel. I liked the portrayal of decent people moved to deception, violence, betrayal…you don’t seem to shrink from anything in your writing.”

“Critics say my work is lacking in decency.”

“That’s because your underlying theme—that ordinary people are capable of extraordinary things in their private lives—makes them uncomfortable.”

“You actually have read my work,” Amanda said in surprise.

“And it made me wonder what kind of private life the proper Miss Briars might lead.”

“Now you know. I’m the kind of woman who hires a cicisbeo for her own birthday.”

A smothered laugh greeted her rueful statement. “That’s not the way to pronounce it, either.” His shrewd blue gaze traveled over her, and when he spoke again, his voice changed. The amusement was tempered by a note that even in her inexperience, Amanda recognized as purely sexual. “Since you haven’t yet asked me to leave…take down your hair.”

When Amanda didn’t move, only stared at him with round, unblinking eyes, he asked quietly, “Afraid?”

Oh, yes. All of her life, she had feared this…the risk, the possible rejection and ridicule…she had even feared the disappointment of discovering that intimacy with a man was indeed as base and repulsive as both her sisters had assured her it was. However, she had lately come to discover that there was something she feared even more: not ever knowing about the great tantalizing mystery that everyone else in the world seemed to have experienced. She had described passion so well in her novels, the yearning and madness and ecstasy it inspired, all the feelings she herself would never experience. And why should that be so? She had lacked the good fortune of having been loved so greatly by a man that he would seek to join his life with hers. But did that mean she should forever be undesired, unwanted, unclaimed? There were perhaps twenty thousand nights in a woman’s lifetime. For at least one of them, she did not want to be alone.

Her hand seemed to reach for her hairpins of its own accord. She had pinned her hair the same way for the past sixteen years. The neat topknot was made by twisting her curling locks into a heavy coil. It took exactly a half-dozen pins to secure it as tightly as she preferred. In the mornings, her hair stayed relatively smooth, but as the day progressed, tiny curls never failed to spring out all over her head, forming a fuzzy halo around her face.