As You Desire by Connie Brockway

so … monumentally stupid! It is you who are the romantic.”
    “There is nothing wrong with being a romantic,” Desdemona said. “But thank you for making me reconsider my words. Your insistence on vesting Harry with heroic qualities isn’t romantic, it’s self-delusional. Harry Braxton is the least romantic man I know.”
    “That is not what the other ladies in Cairo think,” Magi said slyly. Desdemona snatched another envelope from the stack and ripped the end off the damned thing.
    “There is a huge difference between romance and … appetite,” she said tightly.
    “Desdemona”—Magi cocked her head in sudden inspiration—“is it perhaps that you do not feel yourself woman enough to satisfy a man of Harry’s experience?”
    “No.”
    “Because, if it is, I can teach you some means of securing and keeping a man’s interest,” she offered.
    “No.” Desdemona blushed, which was ridiculous. Long ago, she’d asked and received from Magi certain explicit information regarding the nature of physical relationships between men and women. She’d received that detailed information unblinkingly. Why that knowledge when spoken in conjunction with Harry should now make her blush was a mystery.
    “Just as well.” Magi shrugged. “I do not think Harry requires experience of you.”
    “I don’t give a damn what Harry requires!”
    “Language!” Magi scolded. She folded her hands at her waist. “Why cannot you see? What happened that you have built this wall between Harry and yourself?”
    “Wall?” Desdemona said. “There’s no wall between Harry and me. We understand each other perfectly. We’re friends. Kind of.”
    “Friends.” Magi said the word as if it were sour.“Bah. This is a nothing word. You use it to protect yourself.”
    “From what?” Desdemona asked, honestly startled.
    “This is what I would like to know. I have never pursued the subject, certain that in your own time you would come to see that which is clear. But next week you will be twenty-one years and I have seen a troop of young officers parade through here without ever touching your heart. What do you protect yourself from, Desdemona?” Magi’s voice was soft with concern. “Why do you insist on playing the part of this sleeping person from one of your English fairy tales? Why do you not try to attract Harry?”
    “No challenge.” Desdemona took a deep breath, striving for a light tone. “The entire female population of Cairo has already accomplished it.”
    “I do not know.” Magi cocked her head, frowning as she studied Desdemona. “I do not think this is simply jealousy. You are not by nature a covetous woman, Desdemona. Is it something else. Perhaps … did Harry at one time become too ardent? Too demonstrative?”
    Desdemona cut off the sob—whether of laughter or pain she would never have been able to say.
    But Magi was quick to read her and stared in astonished dismay. “Oh, my dear. If when he was younger, bolder, more unruly, he overwhelmed you with his—”
    “Good God, no!” She cut Magi off in a voice low with embarrassment and hurt. “Quite the opposite.”
    “Desdemona?”
    “Harry doesn’t want
me
, Magi.”
    “Impossible.”
    “Oh, quite possible. In truth, a fact.” She laughed, a splintered sound. “I am loath to admit it, even to you dear friend, but he was offered
me
on a silver platter! I, you see, did the offering.”
    “Oh, my.”
    “Yes. So now you understand, there’s no need to—”
    “There is every need. You must have misunderstood. I see how he looks at you. I see how he cares for you.”
    “Magi, there is no possible way I can have misunderstood. I went to his house, dressed in”—her face burned with fire—“in a most provocative manner. I … I kissed him. He told me to go home.”
    She told Magi the story then: how she sneaked into his home and found him in his library. He had jerked away from her kiss and scooped her up against his chest. His arms had