Where Passion Leads (Berkeley-Faulkner #1)(38)

“I think that’s enough,” Rand said doubtfully. She shook her head. “I’ll never get the gown fastened if it isn’t tighter. Go on, pull.”

He hesitated, aware of a vague unpleasantness in his stomach at the thought of compressing her body with the laces any more. Due to the sensibly styled empire gowns, corsets hadn’t been necessary for more than a decade. Binding a woman’s figure in the contraptions seemed like an unnecessary form of torture. “Why don’t you wear another gown?” he suggested. “Am I going to have to call for one of the maids to do it?”

Muttering under his breath, Rand pulled the cords again, watching her waist diminish another inch to an unbelievably tiny size. Rosalie took several shallow breaths and held a hand to her midriff.

“Can you—?” she began to ask, but he cut her off sharply, “No. No more. I’m already battling an urge to look for a pair of scissors.” He pulled the back of the dress together and fastened the buttons efficiently as he spoke. “Why you women insist on bringing back a fashion that should have been outlawed in the last century—”

“I’ve heard some men are doing it. Even the prince regent supposedly—”

“Yes, the ones who frequently overindulge their taste for wine and food. But you don’t need it, Rosalie.”

“How can you be a judge of—?”

“I’ve seen you,” Rand reminded her, and as she stiffened he lingered over the last three buttons. “It’s a crime to alter your shape.”

Rosalie closed her eyes, heat rushing to her face as she felt the warm, sensitive touch of his fingers at her neck. Suddenly it seemed as if he had just touched her for the first time. The memory of their na**d bodies entwined was distant and no longer clear. Sometimes she could recall briefly the hardness of his body over hers, the flexing of heavy muscles, the deep shudder that had racked his limbs as he had thrust into her. But strangely, it seemed that two other people had been joined in that bed, that she had never met Rand until they had arrived in France. In self-protection, Rosalie dragged herself to the present and bunted for a way to break the intimate silence.

“Coming from a connoisseur, I suppose I should be pleased at the compliment,” she said.

“I’m not a connoisseur,” he said quietly, looking down at the top of her head.

“You’re right. The term ‘connoisseur’ implies a certain respect for the subject of your interest. A hobbyist, then.”

Rand stifled an urge to close his hands around her throat and throttle her, wondering grimly why she was determined to antagonize him. “If you’re a hobby of mine, I must have a peculiarly masochistic idea of enjoyment.”

She turned around to face him. “I have only my experiences with you to examine—and the obvious conclusion is that you have no respect either for me or for women in general.”

“If that were true,” he said in a dangerous tone, “we’d be in that bed right now, regardless of your prickly little thorns, Rose. I do respect you.”

“Then I don’t understand . . .” she began, and her voice diminished to nothing as she stared at him. The shape of his mouth, a touch too wide, finely made, expressive, had altered slightly with his irritation. A flash of memory curled insidiously through her mind; how hard his lips had once felt as they had demanded access to hers, how soft and tender as he had brushed her forehead with a kiss after their dance together. I’m lost, she thought, realizing in that moment that she was beginning to care for him.

“You don’t understand what?”

“Why you did . . . what you did . . . in London,” Rosalie muttered, desolation encasing her heart like hardening plaster.

Rand’s irritation evaporated immediately. Bleakly he searched for an answer and found it impossible to speak. How could he explain it to her? The world he had been raised in had been one without compassion, without patience. He had learned his lessons well, the main one being that pleasure was something taken, not given. It was a conditioned reflex that when he discovered a need he satisfied it without considering the consequences. And how could he further explain that because of her he was beginning to change, that he had learned to feel regret?

“I didn’t know you then,” he said slowly. “All I knew was that . . . Oh, hell, Rosalie, you were beautiful and you were there at a time when I wanted a woman.”

He expected her to fly at him in anger, and he would not have blamed her for reacting in such a way. But instead her expression twisted in bewilderment, her voice became quieter.

“I don’t understand you,” she whispered. “Why are you so kind sometimes, and then so . . .” She could not find the appropriate word to use; how could mere words describe his changeable nature? And how could she ever hope to trust someone who was cold, sweet, gentle, selfish, without explanation, without warning, without consistency?

They were both subdued as the carriage rattled on its way to Calais, avoiding each other’s eyes as they were jostled along the poorly constructed roads. Their stops for food and rest were too infrequent to break the tension or relieve their growing weariness of travel. The atmosphere inside the vehicle was so stifling, watchful and restless that Rosalie almost leapt out of it when they reached Brummel’s residence. It was all she could do to accept Rand’s assistance docilely. Visiting Brummell again, however, was well worth the trip, especially when Rosalie detected a shadow of loneliness leaving his face as they crossed the threshold. Despite the constant flow through his door of the best of English society, including the Duke of Argyll, the Duke of Gloucester, the Duke of Beaufort, Rutland, the Duchess of Devonshire, the Lords Alvanley, Craven, Bedford, Westmoreland, and d’Eresby, Brummell’s social life was a mere fraction of what it had once been.