Talk of the Ton (Free Fellows League 5)

“Of course not,” Emma said. “Most Englishmen are so unattractive: pasty white, with that yellow hair that one knows will sneak away in the night, leave the man naked as a billiard ball within a few years.”

She walked ahead, and Gil followed. He was thinking hard. Clearly, Madame de Custine had been in Paris when he was there, and she had somehow found herself in the way of his marauding, drunken self. And if she now wished to have a final affaire before she married her worthy burgher, who was he to complain? “Before your comment, I saw no particular reason to celebrate my dark hair,” he told her.

She pursed her lips and then gave him a slow, raking glance, from the top of his hair to his boots. Gil almost laughed. There was nothing more enjoyable than a Frenchwoman in passionate pursuit of an hour’s entertainment.

“Indeed,” she said finally, “Your hair is gratifyingly dark. In fact, I took you for a Frenchman until I heard of your success with the women of France.”

“Ouch!” Gil said, laughing. After all, he was to marry, too. Perhaps this French lady would be his last fling before he settled into a dutiful matrimony. He helped her into the carriage and then seated himself opposite her. “I am entirely . . . at your service, madam.”

“In that case,” she said with perfect aplomb, “I am staying at Grillon’s and I would be very grateful if you would accompany me to the hotel.”

His eyebrows rose. Little Emelie was remarkably accomplished at the business of making an assignation. For a moment he had a flash of sympathy for her worthy burgher. Her eyes were shining with excitement above her mask. She had lovely eyes, with a wicked fringe of lash that curled at the corners of her eyes, giving her an entrancing coquettishness. Truly, how could he have forgotten this woman?

He pushed away the thought. Two bottles of brandy a night have a way of doing that to a person; and when one is trying above all to forget that one’s little brother just died, other things tend to get forgotten at the same time. “Would you care to remove your mask?” he asked.

“Oh, I think not,” she said. Her voice sounded like sin, joyous sin. She leaned forward and put a small, gloved hand on his knee. A bolt of pure lust shot to his groin. “I think it would be most amusing this way, if you’ll forgive me, Kerr. After all, you don’t remember my face from our last encounter, and I should hate to cause either of us embarrassment should we meet again. I am marrying an Englishman, after all.”

“You called me Gil at the masquerade. And I am quite certain that I shall forget your face once more, if you ask me to do so.”

“You will forgive my lack of confidence,” she said, and the rich glow of laughter in her voice was more tantalizing than her hand, which still rested on his knee. “I should like to wear my mask.”

“There is more than one way to befog my memory,” he said. And then, eyes fixed on hers, he reached up and turned down the small oil lamp that hung at his side. His side of the carriage was instantly cast into shadow, leaving only the light from the small lamp on her side burning. Its glow cast gold on the deep red of her hair, caught brilliance from the diamonds at her ears, turned the deep velvet of her pelisse to shining bronze.

She glanced at her own lamp. Then slowly, carefully, she began to pull off her right glove, finger by finger. “May I attend to your lamp?” he asked, rather horrified to find that his voice had darkened to a growl. There was something unbearably erotic about watching her slowly, so slowly, remove one glove.

She chuckled. She was not the sort of woman who giggled, he noted to himself. Finally, she curled back her glove to reveal a hand as beautifully shaped as her mouth. “One should never tend to oil lamps while wearing gloves,” she said, turning down the wick. “It presents a hazard.”

The light flickered, cast one last ray of light over the cream of her neck, and went out. Now the carriage was lit only by the flickers of light that came from below the tied-down curtains as they rumbled through London.

He sat for a moment in the dark, every sense aware of her movements. She was taking off her left glove unless he was mistaken.

“I shall not make love to you in this carriage,” he said suddenly.

Her laughter was so suggestive that it almost destroyed his control and sent him leaping to her seat. “Mon dieu, what a respectable man you are sober,” she said. “In Paris, you were sans cérémonie.”

“I can only regret my loss of memory,” he said, meaning it. “May I hold your gloves for you?” he asked, leaning forward.

“Of course,” she said, dropping the gloves unerringly into his hand.

“Do you see in the dark, like a cat?”

“No. But I am accustomed to it, since I have spent some time in the wings of a theater. Theaters don’t light the rear, or it will be visible to the audience.”

“You’re a professional actress?”

Actresses had a reputation for being nothing more than prostitutes, although Emma could have argued the point. Five years of painting sets for Mr. Tey had taught her, if from a distance, that actors and actresses arrived at their ethical lapses in as many ways as other people.

“No, I am not,” she said, undoing the clasp at her throat and allowing the thick velvet of her pelisse to fall from her shoulders.

“May I?” His voice had darkened to a husky rasp that made her heart beat faster in her chest. She handed her pelisse to him.

“Then why on earth have you spent time in a theater?”

“I paint drop scenes, the scenes that mark the changing of an act.”

“You paint drop scenes,” he said, sounding utterly stunned.

“Exactly. I painted one for an amateur performance, a few years ago, and fell into doing more as a favor to the local theater. That’s how I met my devoted fiancé,” she added, remembering his supposed existence.