Moonwitch

“Thank the Lord. I thought maybe Kyle took sick—brain fever or somethin’. At least nothin’s happened to his… er…private parts.” She had the grace to look embarrassed then and took a swallow of brandy to cover up her blunder. “All right, let me figure a minute. There oughta be somethin’ you can do.” She thought for a moment, tapping her fingers against her cheek. “Seems to me, the thing you gotta do is seduce him.”

Selena’s eyes widened. Seduce Kyle? Four weeks ago the suggestion would have shocked her; never would she have considered such a thing. But then, she wasn’t the same person she was before her marriage. Indeed, from the moment she had met Kyle, she hadn’t been the same. Even so, she wouldn’t know the first thing about seducing a man.

“I’m afraid I wouldn’t know how,” she said forlornly.

Angel chuckled, shaking her head. “You got instincts, don’t you? Even if you are a fine lady. Now listen to what I’m gonna tell you…”

She leaned forward with a confidential air. Ten minutes later, Selena was the one shaking her head. She was too shocked to be embarrassed. “I don’t know… I’m not sure I can do it.”

“Sure you can. You jest let nature take its course, and Kyle’ll do the rest.”

The redhead rose from the table and went to the door. With rising panic, Selena latched on to the one excuse that might save her. “Angel, I can’t! Not tonight. I left Thaddeus waiting outside.”

“Thaddeus Sidlow? He hasn’t been around here in an age. Well, I’ll just invite him in. The girls’ll keep him entertained.”

“No! I mean…Bea would prefer that Thaddeus go straight home, I’m sure.”

Angel grinned at her. “Then I’ll send him straight home. If what you got planned works the way I think it will, you won’t be gettin’ outa that bed till long past daylight, anyways. Now, you get ready—and mind what I told you.” And then she was gone.

Selena stared at the closed door for a long moment. Then, with unsteady hands, she reached for the ribbons of her bonnet.

Chapter Thirteen

Kyle came too soon. Selena wasn’t ready, having only just removed her gown.

When the knock sounded on the door, she snatched up the wrapper she had retrieved from Angel’s wardrobe and held it up before her, trying to cover her corset and shift.

Kyle must have been intimately familiar with the room’s proprietor, she noted, for he didn’t wait but a moment before he strode into the room.

“Angel? Belle said you wanted—”

He stopped abruptly, arrested in midstride, his words cut off in mid-sentence. “Sweet heaven.” He breathed the words as he stood there staring at Selena. She had snuffed out all but a single candle, and her skin glowed pale and lustrous in the dim light.

Seeing her unbound hair falling in a silver cascade over her naked shoulders, Kyle drew a quick breath. For a space of a dozen heartbeats, he didn’t move. Then slowly, he pushed the door shut behind him and propped his left shoulder against the door frame, as though he needed the support.

Selena returned his gaze, wide-eyed and uncertain. This was going to be much harder than Angel had suggested.

It was a long moment before Kyle slowly let out his breath. “I suppose,” he said softly, “you’re going to tell me what this is all about.”

“I… I came to keep you company.” Selena could feel herself flushing. “Angel thought you might be in need of some…female companionship.”

Kyle didn’t reply at first, knowing full well what Angel’s idea of female companionship was. He shook his head, not trusting his ears—or his eyes. It couldn’t be Selena standing there, issuing him a provocative invitation for the use of her body. “Let me see if I’ve got this right… You’re here to provide me with a woman for the evening?”

“Yes.”

“You’re going to service me?” He couldn’t believe it. Not his prim, proper wife—though just the idea made him harden with arousal.

Selena’s color deepened at the crude word, but she was committed now. She couldn’t retreat. “Yes, if that’s what you want.”

“You’re too much a lady.”

“Well, perhaps… I mean… I think I could try…not to be a lady.”

Kyle stared at her. This wasn’t the first time she had

set him on his ear with her unpredictable behavior, but he still couldn’t believe what he was seeing. And now that he had started to recover from the shock of her presence in a bordello, he began to feel an undercurrent of anger beneath his skepticism. Anything could have happened to Selena in this notorious town. If it wasn’t for that, he might even be able to find this incredible situation amusing.

“How did you get here?” he asked with sudden seriousness.