In the Arms of a Marquess(28)

“No, it is not enjoyable?”

He shook his head, furrows forming in his brow beneath the fall of satiny dark locks.

“Then—” Her heart beat peculiarly quick. She had the uncanny sense that he had revealed to her a secret, something no one else knew. But that was a ridiculous notion. “Then what do you do for enjoyment?”

His gaze scanned her face, sliding along her neck and shoulders then lifting to her eyes again. “I am enjoying myself now.”

Tingles of pleasure skittered up the insides of her legs—of all places. Her fingers tightened around the stem of her parasol.

“You know, I am not yet out in society, not until next month, at least, when I turn eighteen. I haven’t any idea how to flirt.”

His ebony eyes sparkled. “That makes two of us.”

“Really?”

“I only speak the truth.”

“Then I will make certain to only ask you questions for which the answer is indisputably pleasing.”

“Ah, but I will be fashioning all my speech so that it pleases you.”

She laughed. “That is absurd. Whatever for?”

He stepped forward, closing the space between them to much less than was strictly proper. “Because,” he said in a quiet voice, his gaze fixed on her mouth, “I admire your smile and wish to see it often.”

Her lips quivered. “It?”

He lifted his gaze to hers, gloriously dark. “You.”

After that day he was at the bazaar each time she went there, twice the first week, then again the following, and after that. She shopped and he walked along beside her, commenting on her purchases and sampling foodstuffs as she recommended and occasionally required.

“You know, Genghis Khan had a royal taster to test for poison slipped into his dinner by assassins,” he said mildly as he discarded the remains of a mango she demanded he try before she purchased any.

“How convenient for him.”

“Tasters, I should say. He had many enemies.”

“Emperors often do. Lucky for you I am just a lowly nobody.”

He slanted her an unreadable look. “Lucky for me, indeed.”

They spoke of everything and nothing, of India and war and of passing, insubstantial matters—the varieties of flowers for sale, the unlikelihood that the sari mender’s husband had moved an inch from his sleeping-slouch in the corner of the shop since the previous week, the obvious mistake the Anglican vicar’s wife had made in attaching faux robin eggs to her hat brim. Tavy never asked him of his family or the society he kept, and he never asked of hers. There seemed to be no need.

“He won,” he murmured as they stepped away from a particularly spirited barter she had engaged in with a spice vendor.

“Yes, I know.”

“Then why do you look so pleased?”

“Because last week I told him I would let him win today.”

A crease dented his cheek, a look of frank admiration upon his handsome face. “Remind me to ask for the same consideration should the need ever arise.”

Tavy laughed. “I will.”

His gaze seemed to still in hers, then to grow warm. His smile slipped away. Tavy’s throat went dry.

He moved off and she followed, unable to tear her gaze from his lean, muscular form, hints of the leashed energy beneath his skin revealed in the careless grace of his every action, a young, beautiful man at once sublimely at ease and restless in his body. He wore European clothing with cavalier elegance and eastern flare, expensive trousers and boots, soft-as-silk linen shirts of pristine white, fantastically gold-embroidered waistcoats, and a ring upon his left hand, a large gold tiger’s head with ruby eyes. Lord Benjirou Doreé was art and nature combined to perfection.

Pausing at the nut seller’s stand, he palmed a handful of almonds from a barrel-sized sack. He proffered them to her, the thick gold band glinting between his fingers as he leaned back against a table.

She shook her head. “You never purchase anything.”

“I have no need.” He withdrew his hand and slipped an almond between his lips, his eyes watchful upon her.

“And yet here you are so often, and always precisely when I am.”

“Perhaps a coincidence.”

“I doubt it. Unless, of course, you simply spend entire days here.”

He smiled.

“Perhaps,” she said, ducking her chin but still meeting his gaze, “we should make an appointment for the next occasion, so that you will not be obliged to guess.” Her heart pounded.

They met the following day as planned, in the hottest heat of the afternoon. They wandered from stall to stall, laughing and tasting the vendors’ offerings—spiced pistachio cakes, chapatis, and sugar-coated delicacies.

That afternoon he kissed her for the first time. She hadn’t known she longed for him to until he did. But when in the deep shadow of an awning behind the falconry he touched her cheek, ducked his head and brushed his lips against hers, everything in her awakened. Then she wanted nothing else but more.

He drew back, gazed at her for a long, silent moment then smiled gently. They walked on. She hardly knew of what they spoke or if they spoke at all until they parted, as always, just beyond the market entrance.

That night in her bed Tavy burned, feverish beyond the heat of the August night, her body and heart filled with strange, strong yearnings.