Gareth did not like losing. He would not be outdone by some fraud. He’d looked forward to the challenge when he thought he would vanquish her. The situation became far less entrancing when her victory was possible.
Tasks. He couldn’t let this continue.
He turned to Ned, who was fidgeting on the edge of his seat. “Ned,” he said.
The boy looked up attentively.
“Do you think Madame Esmerelda will need a shawl?”
“I suppose—”
“Go buy her one.” Gareth fumbled for a bank note and held it out.
Ned frowned, his fingers closing on the paper. “Why can’t the modiste just choose one? What I know about ladies’ shawls, I could fit—”
Gareth fixed Ned with his coldest look. “I think it would mean more to her if you chose it yourself. Don’t you?”
Ned offered a few more halfhearted protests. Easy enough to dismantle those; soon his cousin scurried out the front door.
The workroom door swung open, and one of the seamstresses popped out, her arms flowing with colored silks.
Gareth took a deep breath. This charade had gone on long enough. “Is Madame in a condition to receive me?”
She sniffed primly. “My lord. As you wish, my lord.”
But as soon as he ducked through the doorway the servant indicated, he halted. A half-mirror stood on the otherwise empty wall, and Gareth’s lungs contracted at the profile reflected in it. Rounded hip, and a swell of breast.
Madame Esmerelda wasn’t wearing a fashionable dress. She wasn’t wearing much of anything at all—nothing but a thin, worn chemise. The seamstress must have assumed he was the fortune-teller’s lover, or she’d never have sent him back here. His body moved of its own accord, turning toward her, like a plant tracking the path of the sun.
Christ. Underneath the colorful skirts, now lying in a discarded heap, Madame Esmerelda had a waist. She had a bosom. She had a damned remarkable bosom. From five yards away, he could see the hazy outline of her legs through worn muslin. He could even make out the dark nubs of her nipples. The curling ends of her hair fell all the way to the small of her back.
She wasn’t anything like the slender sylphs society favored. She was a Grecian fertility goddess, round and soft all over. And with her rosy lips frozen, half-open, she looked almost inviting.
Not that her invitation extended to him.
Gareth’s brain tumbled to a halt. What remained in his head was no rational thought, but simple greed. His mouth dried, and every muscle contracted in anticipation of the feast on display before him.
She stood, rooted in place, her eyes wide in horror. If she were a lady, he would have apologized profusely and left the room. Not that he could help his own reaction. It was more than just the sight of a beautiful, nearly naked woman that set his heart hammering. It was the way she’d challenged him, the way she’d undermined him. It had been years since anyone had out-thought him. And so what he felt was a sharp desire to possess her. To obtain her surrender in every way a woman could surrender to a man. It was lust, pure and simple.
But this woman was trying to make an idiot of Gareth and a dupe of his cousin. There was nothing pure or simple about her. And so he stuffed his physical response as best he could behind the safety of a cold, businesslike demeanor.
“Madame Esmerelda,” Gareth said, “you win. There will be no tasks. No elephants.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Get out.”
“One hundred guineas, if you tell Ned you’re a fraud and disappear from our lives.”
She inhaled and her chest expanded. She pointed to the door. “Get out now.”
“Think it through. I doubt you’ll be able to milk that much from him in your entire acquaintance. He’ll outgrow your advice soon enough. And you could live for years on the money.”
She took a deep breath, and those remarkable breasts shivered underneath the thin chemise. “I wouldn’t do it for a hundred—” she began.
Gareth covered his rising lust with a nonchalant shrug. “Two hundred.”
Her lip curled, and she shook her head in outrage. “Not for two thousand. Not for ten.”
“Oh?” He flicked an insultingly familiar glance down her chemise. “You’d do it for ten. But you’ll do it for two hundred.”
She started toward him, her fingers curved like claws. He deserved to be slapped, and more, for the insult his look had implied. If he was right, and the woman was gently bred, she’d not appreciate the aspersions he’d just cast on her character. But he couldn’t let her near him. He feared his own response if she came within arm’s length.
“Really, Madame. Once you dispose of your fabricated outrage, you’ll realize this is the best solution for everyone.”
Gareth inclined his head, all sardonic politesse, and stepped back through the opening. He eased the door into place behind him, and let the insolent sneer slide off his face.
He leaned against the wall, his breath ragged. The challenge between them had become more than a territorial war over Ned’s future. Now it was sensual.
Madame Esmerelda was extremely intelligent. She was devious. And if she had any idea how she affected him, she’d take advantage, unscrupulous creature that she was. And how idiotic that he wanted her to take that advantage. He wanted her to befuddle his wits until he lost all control and took her.
Gareth gripped his hands into fists. In his time in the jungles of Brazil, he’d cataloged close to a thousand insects. Now he let them march through his mind. Cockroaches. Poisonous, furry caterpillars. Maggots. He thought of every creeping thing ever to mar the face of the planet. He imagined them crawling about on his skin. And he didn’t stop until his ardor subsided and the memory of her body dissolved from his mind.
It took a lot of millipedes.
JENNY HADN’T REGAINED HER COMPOSURE by the time she fastened, with shaking hands, the final layer of Madame Esmerelda’s outrageous costume. Bad enough that this whole experiment had extended the lie of Madame Esmerelda far outside Jenny’s usual sphere of business. Worse still, she’d been made to endure the pricks and pokes of the contemptuous seamstress who’d assumed the worst of Jenny’s relationship with Lord Blakely.
But the crowning glory had been when the marquess had marched in on her as if he owned her body. He hadn’t even bothered to avert his eyes. She wasn’t sure which had been more insulting—the look he gave her, or his assumption that she’d be willing to abandon Ned if only he offered a high enough price.
Not since that first day, that first hour, had she been tempted by Ned’s money. She wouldn’t leave the poor boy to suffer under his cousin’s unemotional auspices.
Jenny stormed out into the front room, her loose hair tangled around her shoulders.
Lord Blakely leaned against a wall next to an unclothed dress form. His eyes snapped open as she slammed the door behind her. But she didn’t let him move. She jammed a finger into his chest and glared up at him.
“Just because you ignore everything around you except facts does not mean everyone else can be reduced to a number.”
He looked down at her, astonishment in his eyes. “What the devil?”
She poked his chest again. “There are some things in life for which there are no figures. You don’t comprehend what your cousin really needs or why he finds it necessary to speak with me. No matter what number you choose, you will never, ever be able to describe him. Not with a hundred guineas. Not with a thousand.”
“Very well.” He swallowed, focused on some spot on the ceiling. He didn’t even bother to meet her gaze. “I shan’t offer you bribes again.”
“That’s not enough. If it’s not money you enumerate, you’ll latch on to some other figure. The number of times I make an accurate prediction. The degree to which I specify what is to happen. Attach as many numbers as you like to my relationship with Ned, but they will not help you understand.”
She was Ned’s confidante. She’d be damned if she sold that role for mere money. She w