Where Passion Leads (Berkeley-Faulkner #1)(20)

“Good. I don’t mind perfumes or sweet waters unless they are intended to camouflage a stronger scent.” Rand strode over to the window and crushed out the musk and civet pastilles that had been recently lit in order to fill the suite with their odor. They were intended to ease the unpleasant fragrance of unwashed bodies. “I also don’t like the rooms I frequent to smell like a harem.” Although Rosalie agreed with him, she disliked his high-handed manner.

“Then would you mind locating a place where I can have my clothes washed?” she asked, picking up her soiled skirts and displaying them in all their disreputable glory. “Else I will undoubtedly drive you to check into the Hotel d’Angleterre.”

Rand half-smiled at her impudence.

“It seems that we’ll have to purchase something for you to wear during our stay here.”

She didn’t like the idea of him buying the clothes she would wear. It was far too personal, and she realized that she was dependent on him in a way that only a kept woman should have been. But it wasn’t my choice to be kept, she reminded herself.

Rand sensed the course of her inner debate with unnerving acuteness. “Think of it as part of the reparation I owe to you,” he said. “And if it’s still unpalatable, content yourself with the reasoning that you can hardly go about na**d . . . unless you’d like to, of course,” he tacked on with perfect politeness. Suddenly Rosalie could not resist smiling back at him. “You’ll dress me like a whore, no doubt.”

“Like a butterfly,” he corrected gravely, and slowly her amusement faded.

“I am no butterfly, Lord Berkeley. Not a whore, nor a lady . . . not a wife, nor a maiden. I wonder that we’ll have me dressed suitably at all, for I have no idea how to explain myself.”

Rand looked at her with a sort of baffled irritation. “Then I’ll leave you to reflect on the matter,” he said, and scowled for good measure before he left to prowl around the inn.

As the bath was being prepared, steaming buckets laboriously emptied into a porcelain tub in the central room by two chambermaids, Rand encountered her in his bedchamber. She had procured his brush from the dresser and sat on the bed while working vigorously at her tangled mane. Her face was flushed from the tugging of the hairbrush, her eyes smarting with tears from the painful exertion. Unaware that he watched, she took the most obstinate snarl between her fingers and lifted a pair of scissors to it.

“Don’t!” his voice suddenly cut through the air. Rosalie glanced at him in surprise, the scissors remaining in her grasp.

“I can’t get them out,” she explained impatiently. “Tangles the size of mice . . . I’ve tried for hours. It won’t show if I—”

“Not one hair,” Rand warned, walking over to the bed and sitting on the edge next to her. The scissors were removed unceremoniously from her fingers.

“Try if you like,” she said with resignation, holding still as he lifted a lock from her shoulder. A few moments later, detecting no sign of progress, she made a timid move toward engaging him in conversation. “I’ve been wondering what to call you, my lord.” “No inoffensive names have yet come to mind?” he inquired with suave politeness.

Rosalie flushed and smiled slightly. “Something like that. Would you care to make a suggestion?”

It was a delicate point to consider. It was not often that Christian names were used, even between the closest of friends. Among the higher-bred classes, husband and wife properly called each other “Mr.” and “Mrs.,” while one addressed a father as “sir” and a mother as “madam.” Undoubtedly they should have referred to each other as “Lord Berkeley” and “Miss Belleau.” However, in this peculiar situation, such formality seemed excessive.

“My dear Miss Belleau . . .” Rand drawled, completely aware of the multitude of distinctions between one form of address and another. He paused as if testing the sound of it, and then shook his head in negation. “No, that doesn’t feel right. You’re ‘Rosalie’ to me, and there’s no help for it. I’ll have to use your first name.”

“Why not?” she responded dryly. “You’ve taken worse liberties.”

“I assure you my preference doesn’t imply a lack of respect—” he began mockingly.

“I’m certain it doesn’t . . . Randall.” “Rand.”

She nodded at his correction, deciding that she liked the shortened version of his name. Brusque, masculine —it suited him far more than the elegant “Randall.” She half-smiled with the novelty of being able to call a man by his given name. It felt odd to address someone, especially him, so casually. “Why did you decide to come to France?”

Rand hesitated before replying, reflecting ironically on the fact that he rarely bothered to acquaint himself with a woman on any terms except sexual. This woman, this girl who lacked so much in sophistication, was the last sort he would turn to as a source of conversation, yet she was not silly or giggly as most of the debutantes her age were. Probably she had never had the freedom to talk alone with a man. Lord, what different worlds they came from.

“Have you come up with any theories on the matter?” Rand inquired, deftly untwisting several silken skeins.

“It’s not for social reasons, or you wouldn’t have brought me along with you.”