"Or we could discuss the merits of the present Figaro, or debate whether Rosina ought properly to be a contralto or a mezzo-soprano," she said. The scent and the voice and the body were slowing his brain.
Her dark gaze lifted to his head and slid down slowly, leaving a heat trail in its wake, and coming to rest at his neckcloth. Yet if he closed his eyes, he'd swear he conversed at present with an English aristocrat. He'd assumed she was an actress or courtesan. Ladies of the upper ranks did not consort with actresses. The accent was refined, but her friend-forty if she was a day-was an actress. He'd heard her speak to Orefeur in flawless Parisian French, superior to Clevedon's, certainly. "I should have wagered anything that you were French." French, and a commoner. He'd answered automatically, taught from childhood to show his conversational partner the courtesy of responding in the latter's language. He trailed off as it belatedly dawned on him: She'd spoken in English, in the accents of his own class, no less. "How rude of me to loom over you in that way. "It's uncomfortable to converse with my head tipped back, your grace," she said. Then she waved her fan at the empty seat nearby. For a long, pulsing moment, their gazes held. He lifted his head and met a gaze as deep as midnight. A light but exotic scent swam into his nostrils. "Enchanté." He touched his lips to the soft kid. Heart racing, he bent over her gloved hand. Having said to Mademoiselle Fontenay all that good manners required, he turned to the woman who'd disrupted the opera house. Her voice was low, a contralto shaded with a slight huskiness. He was vaguely aware of the people about him talking, but he couldn't concentrate on anyone else. His gaze drifted lower, to the silken swell of her breasts. The light caught her hair and gilded her skin and danced in those laughing eyes.
Then she moved a little, and it was only a little-the slightest shift of her shoulders-but she did it in the way of a lover turning in bed, or so his body believed, his groin tightening. looking down at the ripe curve of her mouth, laughter, again, lurking at its corners. Pierre and every other woman in the world.Ī lifetime seemed to pass before he was standing in front of her, looking down into brilliant dark eyes, where laughter glinted. He looked at her neck and forgot about Clara and Madame St. Disorderly dark curls dangled enticingly against the nape of her neck.
The first thing Clevedon saw was the rear view of the brunette: smooth shoulders and back exposed a fraction of an inch beyond what most Parisian women dared, and the skin, pure cream. The instant the interval began-and before the other audience members had risen from their seats-the Duke of Clevedon entered the opera box with the Comte d'Orefeur.
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