The two words hung in the air after the door closed behind her.
That was when it truly sank in: who she was and who she’d be from now on…and how far she’d come since the night she’d pounded on an unknown Englishman’s door in Cairo.
She’d found the courage to escape her old life.
She’d find the courage for whatever her new life turned out to be.
Later
Zoe’s quarters, she discovered, were about twice the size of her mother’s apartments.
Given this, she could hardly be surprised at the vastness of Marchmont’s bedroom. She was impressed nonetheless.
It was larger than the large drawing room of Lexham House, and it was the antithesis of austere.
His Grace, she saw, liked his comfort. Furthermore, the leader of fashion was no slave to the latest fashions in décor.
His bedroom was a delightful hodgepodge of furnishings of various styles and times.
A great tester bed dominated one wall. Its canopy rose nearly to the ceiling. From it hung curtains of gold and green velvet and silk. Nightstands stood on either side, a set of steps on one side. She took in chairs, tables, a bookcase, and a chest of drawers. In one corner of the room stood a lacquered Chinese screen and nearby, a matching cabinet. On the walls hung several beautiful paintings, including one of his parents. Though she had no memory of them, the style of clothing and the physical resemblance told her who they were.
A thick, richly designed carpet covered most of the floor—and that was considerable acreage—while elaborate plasterwork adorned the ceiling.
This marble chimneypiece was even more impressive than the one in the entrance hall. Before the fireplace stood a table laid for two and a pair of well-padded armchairs.
Zoe stood in the center of the room, hands clasped under her chin while she turned, taking in her surroundings.
Jarvis had dressed her in the nightclothes Zoe had carefully chosen for her wedding night: a simple muslin nightdress under a muslin wrapper embroidered in green, pink, and gold silk thread.
Shortly after she entered, Dove appeared, with a small train of footmen behind him, bearing trays and a silver bucket. Zoe watched them set out the supper—an array of dainty dishes, small sandwiches like those she’d served her sisters, and cheeses, fruits, and pastries. Champagne cooled in the silver bucket, which was filled with ice. She knew that Marchmont House had its own icehouse, as did other great houses.
Marchmont stood over the servants, giving orders, moving a dish a fraction of an inch this way and another that way. She watched him for a moment and remembered what Priscilla had told her: that Marchmont bothered about nothing and nobody.
But he’d bothered this time. He’d thought about this and planned it and decided what it ought to be.
For her.
She looked down at the great diamond on her hand, the wedding ring nestled alongside, and a lump formed in her throat.
Oh, heaven, he truly could be sweet, like the Lucien she’d known long ago. How was her heart to withstand such sweetness? And if he captured her heart, how would she bear it when he grew bored with her?
Never mind. She’d survive somehow. She always survived.
And that day was sometime in the future.
Now he wasn’t bored.
And for now, she knew how to make sure he stayed not bored.
At last everything seemed to be in order. Marchmont knew he couldn’t fault Cook, for the man had done exactly what he was told to do. If it all added up to too much or too little, the duke had no one to blame but himself.
He waved the parade of footmen out of the room and waited until they closed the door behind them. He poured the champagne, took up the glasses, and turned toward the center of the room, where he’d last seen Zoe, slowly going round and round, taking it all in.
He had no idea whether she approved or not. He tried to tell himself he didn’t care. She had her own rooms, which she could furnish as she pleased.
Yet he couldn’t help wondering whether she found his bedroom old-fashioned and cluttered, with its odd assortment of furniture from various generations. Some of the pieces came from other houses, and had belonged to the earliest holders of the title. Other pieces had been his grandparents’ and parents’ purchases, and a few, his own.
She wasn’t there.
“Zoe?”
No answer.
He set the glasses down on the table. He looked toward the door that led to her bedroom. She couldn’t possibly have…
Then he heard it, a faint rustling from behind the Chinese screen.
He’d had one of the nightstands containing a chamber pot moved behind the screen. She must have found it while he was busy with the footmen. For his bachelorhood, it had stood in the open, near his bed. But now he was married, and he knew that women tended to be more circumspect about such things than men.
He turned away and began to whistle.
He heard a giggle.
He turned toward the sound.
She stepped out from behind the screen.
She was wearing a smile. And the great diamond ring. And a great deal less clothing than she’d been wearing when she first entered his bedroom.
Then she’d worn a lace-trimmed nightdress under an embroidered, lace-trimmed wrapper of fine muslin.
Now she wore only the wrapper.
He couldn’t see through it. While fine, the muslin was not transparent, and she was not standing in front of the fire. Where she stood, firelight and candlelight and shadows danced on the pink and green and gold embroidery, making the garment a shimmering veil.
The shadows and shimmer outlined the curves of her body, not fully revealing but calling attention to every alluring undulation.
He swallowed hard.
She began to sing. Her voice was low, barely above a whisper, and the melody was in a strange minor key. He felt it, like a touch, skimming over his skin. He couldn’t have understood the words even if she’d sung louder, but his body understood the message and every fiber of it came fiercely alive.
Then her hands went up, sinuous as snakes, and she began to dance.
She moved with the fluid grace of a ballerina, but it was nothing like any ballet he’d ever seen. Her hands, her hips, the movement of her head and her eyes, glancing toward him and away—every gesture was exotically, unmistakably suggestive.
She moved about the room, but it was like the motion of a wayward breeze, advancing, then retreating. Now and again her hand went to her hair, and he caught the glint of a hairpin dropping. The devil danced in her smile and called to him from her eyes. Around him she danced, her hair tumbling loose, and he turned, mesmerized, following her.
She danced backward towar
d the bed and her hands glided down over her body, pausing to cup her breasts, then slid lower, her fingers skimming over her waist and belly. Further down they moved, to trace the shape of her hips and buttocks…then they moved to the front, under her belly, sliding over the triangle between her legs.
He’d bedded women, experienced and talented women, but they might have been wooden puppets compared to her.
She was all fluid carnality, shameless beyond shameless.
She caught hold of one of the carved posts at the foot of the bed and let her fingers trail over the carvings. Then she let go, to let her hand drift over the bedcover while she moved to the side of the bed.
In one easy motion she glided up and onto the bed. She settled into the middle of it on her knees. She lifted her hands above her head and pressed the palms together, like a prayer, and swayed there, her torso moving in ways the human body couldn’t possibly move.
All the while she sang in the low, lilting minor key words he couldn’t understand but whose meaning was obvious.
He’d long since forgotten about the supper he’d so carefully planned.
He’d forgotten everything in all the wide world.
He simply moved toward her, unthinkingly, because thinking wasn’t necessary even if it had been possible. She could have been Eve, apple in her hand, Eve the temptress.
She brought her hands down as far as her heart, the palms still together, the gesture as fluid as silk. Then she opened her hands and smiled and curled her two index fingers, beckoning him.
He went, moving to one side of the bed, but as soon as he placed his knee on it, she laughed, and slipped out of the bed on the other side as easily as she’d slipped onto it.
He moved away from the bed and started toward her. She darted away, laughing again.
He tried a few more times, but she danced away from him. When she leapt onto the bed again, he leapt onto it, too. She scrambled away before he could get his hands on her.
He climbed off the bed. “Zoe Octavia,” he said.
She backed away. “Lucien Charles Vincent,” she said, and in the low voice, with its shadows and soft edges, his name became unbearably intimate. She stuck out her tongue, the brat. Oh, but not a brat. She’d become a woman, and this woman was sin incarnate.