The Secret to Seduction (30 page)

“Rhys?”

“Mmm?”

There was a pause so long he began to wonder if he’d imagined her speaking.

“Is it…is it like this for every married man and woman?”

She’d tilted her face back to look at him, and her usually direct gaze was shaded a bit. The question embarrassed her, but he understood why she’d asked. He knew she meant: Did every man and woman all but burst into flames the moment they touched each other?

He hesitated. “No.” He said the word carefully. As if giving her a gift he wasn’t certain she could handle, like a musket or a wild stallion.

She said nothing in response to this; he saw her eyes go abstracted as she took a moment to consider what this meant. And then, to his surprise, she drew her finger across one of his eyebrows twice, gently smoothing it.

“It was mussed,” she explained. And smiled.

He felt some strange sensation inside his breastbone, something as sharp and clean and exhilarating as that air he’d breathed today atop Polly, the post mill. As though he’d just been jerked up by the collar to some dizzying height, and from there could see eternity.

His expression must have gone odd, because her smile faded.

“Rhys?”

This time he merely looked at her, because he feared the next question.

She took in a deep breath. “Is it always like this for…you?”

And suddenly breathing was difficult.

This clever, tender woman easily saw as much as he did, he knew now, only through a different lens. He preferred the shelter of being cleverer than everyone else. Of keeping the world at bay with words, words, words. Words and things.

And the word was reluctant, and the word surprised him, and he preferred not to say it until he knew what it meant for him, or how he felt about it. But it was true, and she had asked.

“No.”

He said it shortly, gave it no intonation. A way of discouraging any more such questions. For the more accurate answer would have been: “It has never been like this for me.”

She looked down, and frowned a little, faintly. Such delicate brows. Two little auburn wings drawn together.

A few moments later he pulled gently away from her, smoothed down her dress, and she laughed a little self-consciously, as though they were both finding sobriety again after a debauch. He reassembled himself in his trousers, freshly amused that he was reassembling himself in the library. It was probably the least sensual room in all of La Montagne.

He noticed something then on the settee: a soft coil of blue. “What’s this?”

She flushed as he picked it up and ran it curiously through his hands.

“It’s…it’s a scarf. I knitted it for you.” Casual words, yet strangely weighty in import.

“Oh.” A blue scarf. Knitted for him. He hefted it almost as though he’d never seen such a thing before. For some reason, he didn’t feel he could meet her eyes in that moment.

“I’ll see you at dinner, Sabrina,” he said gently, at last looking up from his gift.

He gestured for her to precede him out the library door.

She looked at him once, searchingly. And clearly she didn’t find what she sought, because her face went closed and polite.

And they went their separate ways again in the grand house.

Sabrina wondered if she would ever cease marveling at the appearance of food she hadn’t cooked. Domed tureens had been left for them in the dining room; no footmen were in evidence. They were to serve themselves this evening, apparently, which she could certainly manage. A pair of candles lit the table and their faces, and the great chandelier was dark. It made the grand hall much more intimate.

“Do you dine out in London, frequently?” she asked him as they took their places across from each other.

“Not lately. Lately I run to and fro La Montagne and London to pluck my wife down off windmills and rescue my carpets.”

She smiled, which for some reason made him go very still, and just…watch her. With a pleased sort of mystification. His eyes darkened a bit, too, which made her wonder whether her smiles perhaps did to him what his did to her.

The thought made her momentarily breathless.

“Have you heard Signora Licari sing lately?” It was a bold question, and she asked it while dragging her fork through some sauce. She thought the timing right, however, if he was mystified by her. She looked up for it.

It took him a while to answer.

“I haven’t seen Signora Licari at all,” he finally admitted. And the words were delivered carefully again.

She glanced down at her plate and bit her lip to keep from smiling. It was a gift, his answer. But somehow it was funny, too.

“Why did you begin writing poetry?” she asked when it seemed he wouldn’t speak again, and was only intent upon gazing at her.

He looked startled for a moment. He tipped his head to the side, as if giving serious consideration to his answer.

“Do you remember the man I mentioned? Damien Russell? Scottish lad, but it was my misfortune that he ended up in my regiment—”

She smiled at the affection she heard in his voice. “Your regiment? What did you do during the war?”

“I was an officer under Wellington. Bought a commission after my mother died,” he said shortly. “Damien was a foul-mouthed, cheeky bugger, very funny, the best soldier you could hope for. Never complained. Always knew precisely the right filthy thing to say to cheer the men up.” Rhys smiled a little. “He was a gambler, but he never won. He was bad at every game of chance he tried. Never could manage a face for bluffing. But I caught him one night, scratching away with a pencil. And wouldn’t you know it…he was writing a poem. And I told him I’d tell everyone in camp about it unless he let me read it. So he did, of course. Besides, I was his commanding officer, and he hadn’t a choice.”

“You were a tyrant,” she said gravely.

He shrugged modestly.

“Was it good, his poem?”

“Oh, no. It was dreadful. Quite lurid. But lively enough. And it planted the idea, you see, when I’d exhausted other options. War is boredom interspersed with terror, typically. Poetry was something to do.”

She thought of his extraordinary poetry. “Something to do,” indeed.

“Did Damien come home from the war?”

“Yes.”

“Do you still see him?”

“Oh, we’ve a reunion once a year in Little Orrick, a tiny town with marvelous fishing. Northumberland.”

It seemed such a very tame thing for The Libertine, of all people, to do—the fishing—that she smiled again.

And Rhys frowned a little, as if embarrassed by his own disclosure.

“Do you have regiment reunions from time to time, then?” she asked him, thinking he’d be more comfortable talking of war. “The men in Tinbury do.”

“Damien and I were the only ones from our regiment who came home.” So matter-of-factly said.

The words knocked the breath from her.

And she didn’t know what to say, but the realization struck her just as hard: he’d come back from the war full of poetry, sensual poetry all about the pleasures of the flesh. Nothing of ugliness, nothing of emotion. They were odes to the senses, so potent they’d acted on her own senses like opium. When no doubt he had seen bodies shattered and limbs torn, watched all of his men die but one.

And somehow he’d managed to create from that ugliness something that made the women of London cast off their dignity and trail him about. Poetry was his own form of anesthesia. He’d created something beautiful, remarkable, from blood and terror. And he’d taught her something miraculous in the process. He’d brought her fully alive.

And now he couldn’t write.

But perhaps it was gone, then. Perhaps, with words, he’d exorcised whatever had haunted him.

He poured more wine into her glass, just as though he hadn’t handed her the key to himself.

And later, once again she dressed in her night rail, and began to brush her hair, and though as usual she half hoped he would appear and finish the job for her, she found herself hoping just as strongly that he wouldn’t.

She’d made love with her husband a mere four times now. But each time he’d left her it had taken her longer to find her way back to a semblance of nonchalance, to the pragmatic acceptance of the nature of their marriage, regardless of the pleasure they took in each other’s bodies. And even as she found herself yearning for him, she resented what she knew would follow: the struggle to regain her equilibrium in his absence. The struggle to swallow her pride.

And so when Rhys did appear in the doorway, she didn’t turn to see him, and the words emerged from her before she could consider the wisdom of or motivation for them.

“Will you be returning to London in the morning?”

“Yes.”

The man actually sounded
puzzled
by her question.

Rhys came to stand behind her, so closely that she could feel the warmth of his body. His hands landed lightly on her shoulders, and he ran them down her arms, lowering his head to kiss the nape of her neck.

She stiffened.

Astute as ever, Rhys lifted his hands up. Was silent for a moment.

“What’s troubling you, Sabrina?” His voice was quiet, even.

She inhaled deeply. She hadn’t the courage to put it into words. She perhaps hadn’t even the right to put it into words. And yet—

“It’s just . . .” She stopped.

“It’s just?” he urged. Tension in his voice now.

“You appear every few weeks and you . . .”

“And
what
do I do?” He’d begun to sound impatient.

“I’m sorry. Please forget what I said.”

She moved restlessly away from him, pretending to fuss with the brushes on her table.

In silence he watched her.

“Complete your sentence, Sabrina.” Coldly now. An order. “Let me remind you how it began: You said: ‘You appear every few weeks and you . . .’”

“I know what I said.” Apparently anger was contagious, for she was angry now. “All right. It’s just that…you never ask. You just…take.”

She turned then to look him bravely, evenly in the eye. Odd how his beautiful eyes could be so very nearly terrifying when he was angry.

“I take.” He drawled it, and she heard the contained fury building in his voice. And oddly, accompanying it was something she could have sworn was fear.

“Me,” she clarified, her own temper quite obviously fanned by his. “You take
me.
And I do know it’s my duty—”

He flinched as though she’d slapped him. “Is that how you see this, Sabrina? As a
duty
?” The words were incredulously choked.

“I . . .” She was struggling, and his obvious fury wasn’t making it any easier for her. “Well, isn’t it? Isn’t it my duty to be here to take as you wish and when you wish, and for you to leave when you wish?”

She lifted her hair, pushing it up away from her face awkwardly.

He stared, his breathing hard and fast now.

“What the bloody hell else do you want?” This said low and cold.

Silence now. Rhys watched her shoulders rising and falling, saw the soft unhappiness on her lovely face.

“Please forgive me, Rhys. I’m sorry I said anything.”

And as he watched her, that panic welled, along with the irrational fury. And he didn’t understand why he felt either of those things.

“I didn’t ask for this marriage, either, Sabrina.”

She jerked her head up then. “Oh, I know that very well, Rawden.”

She could do sarcasm now as well as he could, it seemed.

Silence.

Inwardly Rhys flailed. He was at a loss with a woman for perhaps the first time in his life.

“You…enjoy it,” he said. “This.” And he meant everything that took place in this bedroom—and the library, and other rooms—between them. He’d said it almost accusatorily. And there was a hint of plea in it, which he despised.

There was a long pause.

“Yes.” The word was a desolate little syllable. Delivered with a rueful smile.

She met his gaze evenly for a moment. And then she dropped her eyes.

“Bloody hell,” he finally said quietly.

He spun on his heel and left the room, shutting the door hard behind him.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A
ND SO THE days resumed a sort of rhythm. Sabrina woke to chocolate and warm bread brought in by Mrs. Bailey; she rode out or walked out to visit Buckstead Heath to sit and chat with Margo Bunfield, and to visit with Geoffrey.

And she cursed her pride.

She supposed she was luckier than many, many a woman. She was comfortable and wealthy. Her every need was met, and good heavens, she had more carpets and tables and portraits of ancestors than anyone could ever want. She wasn’t entirely neglected by her husband. He appeared every few weeks to service her and to scold her.

Ah, and there was her temper again.

She would never have known about her temper, or her pride, or her passion, without that bloody man. She wouldn’t now be hurting, and seething, and longing, and confused . . .