To Seduce a Sinner (Legend of the Four Soldiers #2)(26)

“You yourself must have a favorite dish, if your theory holds true.”

He smiled. A feeble attack. “Pigeon pie, gammon steak, raspberry tart, ripe fresh pears, a good beef steak, biscuits hot from the oven, roasted goose, and any kind of cheese.”

She touched her wineglass to her lips but did not sip. “You’ve listed many foods, instead of one favorite.”

“At least I have a list.”

“Perhaps your mind cannot settle on one favorite.” Her lips tilted at one corner, and he noticed for the first time that although they weren’t lush and full, her lips were elegantly curved and rather lovely. “Or perhaps, having none to raise above the others, they are all equally mundane to you.”

He sat up in his chair and coack chair cked his head. “Are you calling me frivolous, madam?”

Her smile widened. “If the shoe fits . . .”

An affronted laugh puffed from his mouth. “I am insulted at my own table and by my own wife! Come, I will kindly give you a chance to retract your statement.”

“And yet I cannot in all conscience do so,” she replied at once. That smile still played about her mouth, and he wanted to reach across the table and touch it with his thumb. To physically feel her amusement. “What would you call a man who has so many favorite foods he can’t choose amongst them? Who gains and loses two fiancées in the course of less than a year?”

“Oh, a low blow!” he protested, laughing.

“Who I have never seen wear the same coat twice.”

“Ah—”

“And who is the friend of every man he meets, yet has not a favorite friend himself?”

Her smile had died, and he had stopped laughing. He’d had a favorite friend once. Reynaud St. Aubyn. But Reynaud had died in the bloody aftermath of Spinner’s Falls. Now he spent his nights among strangers. She was right, his damnable wife; he was the acquaintance of many and the soul mate of none.

Jasper swallowed and said low, “Tell me, madam, why having a plethora of likes is worse than being too fearful to pick one at all?”

She set her wineglass on the table. “I don’t like this conversation anymore.”

Silence hung between them for several heartbeats.

He sighed and pushed back from the table. “If you’ll excuse me?”

She nodded and he strode from the room, feeling as if he were admitting defeat. No, this wasn’t defeat; this was a short retreat to regroup his forces. Nothing shameful in that. Many of the best generals considered falling back much preferable to an all-out rout.

SHE’D COME CLOSE to revealing too much about herself this evening. Too much about her feelings for Vale.

Melisande pressed a hand to her lower belly as Suchlike pulled a brush through her hair. To have anyone, but especially Vale, be that interested in discovering her inner soul was seductive. His entire attention had been focused on her tonight. That kind of total concentration might very well become addictive if she wasn’t careful. She’d let her emotions take hold of her once before with Timothy, her fiancé, and it had nearly destroyed her. Her love had been deep and single-minded. To love like that was not a blessing. It was a curse. To be capable of—to endure—that unnaturally strong emotion was a kind of mental deformity. It had taken her years to recover from losing Timothy. She kept the reminder of that hurt close, a warning of what might happen if she let her emotions gain control of her person. Her very sanity depended on her strict constraint.

She shivered on the thought, and another pain hit her. The ache was low and dull in her belly, like a knot drawn tight there. Melisande swallowed and gripped the edge of her dresser. She’d been enduring this monthly pain for he hly paififteen years, and there was no point in making a fuss over it.

“Your hair’s so pretty when it’s down, my lady,” Suchlike said from behind her. “So long and fine.”

“Fine brown, I’m afraid,” Melisande said.

“Well, yes,” Suchlike conceded. “But it’s a pretty brown. Like the color oak wood turns when it ages. Sort of a soft blondy brown.”

Melisande stared skeptically at her maid in the mirror. “There’s no need to flatter.”

Suchlike met her gaze in the glass and seemed genuinely startled. “It’s not flattery, my lady, if it’s true. And it is. True, that is. I like the way your hair waves a bit about your face, if you don’t mind me saying so. Pity you can’t wear it down always.”

“A fine sight that’d be,” Melisande said. “Me looking like a sad dryad.”

“I don’t know about them things, my lady, but—”

Melisande closed her eyes as another pain squeezed her belly.

“Are you hurt, my lady?”

“No,” Melisande lied. “Don’t fuss.”

The lady’s maid looked uncertain. Naturally she must be aware of what the problem was since she took care of Melisande’s linens. But Melisande hated having anyone, even someone as innocuous as Suchlike, know such an intimate thing.

“Shall I fetch a heated brick, my lady?” Suchlike asked tentatively.

Melisande almost snapped at the maid, but then another pain hit her, and she nodded mutely. A wrapped hot brick might very well help.

Suchlike hurried from the room, and Melisande made her way to the bed. She crawled underneath the covers, feeling the ache reach long tentacles into her hips and thighs. Mouse hopped on the bed and crept over to lay his head on her shoulder.