Much preferring his last suggestion to his previous order, Claire quickly complied, sitting down on an elegant green brocade fauteuil. She watched him pour himself a drink from a decanter set on a small pietra dura table. She watched him drink it down, refill his glass and do the same once again with a kind of strange acceptance, as though his moodiness matched hers.
She knew very well that she shouldn’t give into her passions, that making a pact with the devil for Harriet’s sake was unwise. Any sensible woman knew that when all was said and done, Ormond would bring her misery. But as Dryden said, “We loathe our manna, and we long for quails.” And dear God, the wild, heady passion Ormond offered-however transient-was the undoing of every woman who came within his scope.
She was no different.
And perhaps therein lay the rub.
In fact, just the sight of him approaching her now, sent a shiver of anticipation through her senses. She sat up straighter as though uncompromising deportment might fortify her against temptation.
Taking the seat opposite her, Ormond set the decanter he’d carried over on the floor beside his chair, and slid into a lounging pose. “Why don’t you just tell me about the men in your life,” he murmured, appraising her with a moody gaze, “and I’ll become normal again.”
“Normal? I doubt it.” She’d heard all the stories. Who hadn’t?
“Normal for me, then. It’s not as if I’d ever slept with a virgin or even wanted to-until you.” He smiled tightly. “Although, my luck held out. You weren’t.”
“How fortunate for you,” she replied, huffily, loathe to be categorized with the throngs of women in his past.
He ignored her huffiness; a few stiff drinks perhaps blurred the nuances. “I am mystified by my need to know,” he said, his singular focus undiminished. “But there it is. So humor me. Consider how gratified Harriet will be if Seego comes up to scratch.”
“Are we haggling here?”
“Call it what you like.” Picking up the decanter, he pulled out the stopper, lifted the cut-glass bottle to his mouth, and poured a large draught of liquor down his throat.
Concerned that he might become even more unmanageable should he empty the decanter, Claire weighed her options-along with her rather potent amorous desires-and came to a decision. A foregone conclusion any objective observer might have pointed out. “If I tell you what you want to know, will this conversation be at an end?”
“Yes.” Immediately setting down the decanter, Ormond gave her his full attention, an anomaly in situations like this. His normal pattern with women was to be attentive only to the degree tact and courtesy was required to attain his sexual goal.
Claire didn’t speak for some moments, finding it difficult to exhume feelings long buried. She had never before divulged her relationship with John Darton. But with Harriet’s future at stake, she steeled herself against painful memory. “I was once secretly engaged,” she began, speaking briskly as though once having made her decision, she wished the conversation quickly done. “My fiancé did not have the means to offer marriage at the time and we were content to wait. A wealthy uncle of John’s consented to purchase a captain’s commission for him and John sailed for India with the Light Dragoons. He hoped to prosper there and we would marry on his return. He died of fever in Calcutta instead,” she finished, holding Ormond’s gaze for a moment as though to say-Are you satisfied now?
“Your family didn’t know?”
She shook her head. “There was no point. Our marriage was impossible at the time. My father was retired on a colonel’s half pay; there was no money for my dowry and John’s family was in equal straits.”
“And there has been no one else?”
“Dear God, have you no heart?” she peevishly exclaimed. “I offer up bitter memories and that is all you can say?”
He shrugged. “I have no heart of late, it seems. My apologies.”
“Why does it matter anyway-whom I have known?” she asked with asperity. “You and I are nothing more than partners in lust.”
“It matters. Don’t ask me why. I couldn’t tell you.”
His stark statement had none of his mannered nonchalance. It was blunt and grudging. “There has been no one else,” she shot back, speaking with equal bad grace.
He had been reaching for the decanter and stopped. His dark gaze held hers for a telling moment before he pulled himself upright in his chair. “I’m sorry for your loss.” His voice was gentle, the moodiness gone from his eyes. “Having traveled that mournful path myself, I offer you my condolences.”
Disarmed by both his humanity and his recognition of their shared afflictions, she answered him more kindly. “Time heals I’ve found-at least to a degree.”
He smiled ruefully. “So I’ve been told.”
Experiencing a compassion she had not felt short moments ago, she wondered whether his sulky discontent only added to his allure, whether other women, too, felt the need to console him. “Let us not be blue-deviled today,” she murmured, “when we have reason instead to relish life.”
He smiled faintly. “Indeed-we should gather our rosebuds while we may.” He ran a hand through his ruffled curls. “I am grateful for your company, even though,” he added with a small grin, “I have done my best to disabuse you of that notion. Forgive my boorishness.”
She waved away his apology. “We both have our demons.” Perhaps now was the time to stop grieving over what might have been, she precipitously thought, her sudden postulate making her feel as though a huge burden had been lifted from her shoulders. “Let us dwell on pleasure today.”
“Agreed. May I offer you a drink? I find the world is always more tolerable after a drink or two.” She might need time to deal with her confession, he reflected, while he, in turn, needed time to digest her disclosure. Another layer had been added to the intriguing Miss Russell.
She smiled. “Perhaps one.”
Ormond lit the fire that had been laid and with their drinks in hand, they watched the dancing flames in an atmosphere of harmony and calm.
“You color my world most pleasantly,” Ormond said after a time, smiling across the small distance separating them.
“You offer me a degree of pleasure I find impossible to resist.”
“How is it,” he murmured contemplatively, “that we found each other in this vast and brittle world?”
“I believe you were trying to seduce my sister.”
He laughed. “Fortune, it seems, was on my side. I found you instead.”
“Or fortune was on mine,” she flirtatiously replied.
“Speaking of mutual desires,” he softly drawled, “might I interest you in trying that rather flamboyant bed over there? I’m told it was once in the Trianon.”
“I rather thought it had the look of France. And yes, you could indeed interest me in your bed.”
“Your bed.”
“We’ll see.”
He didn’t argue, but set down his glass instead, stood and offered her his hand.
He undressed her slowly, slowly, as though wanting to remember this occasion, as though these moments were auspicious.
She did the same for him with a kind of fastidiousness he found charming-with a kind of breathless awe that was particularly provocative. Regardless of her engagement, she was still relatively uninitiated in the world of amour and for a man who had always preferred experienced women, he found her naivete wildly arousing.
When she at last stripped away his linen small clothes, her eyes opened wide at the sight of his upthrust erection. “My goodness,” she breathed, glancing up at him. “Did all of that fit inside me?”
He smiled faintly. “To perfection as I recall.”
“May I touch it?”
She was already about to do so, her fingertips poised a hairsbreadth away. Not that he would have said no in any case. “By all means. We would like that immensely.”