French Leave by Maggie MacKeever Page A

refilled Barbary’s glass also, as an afterthought. “Your cousin was a tremendous flirt who always had admirers in tow. The most hardened flirt in all London, it was said. My error was in thinking marriage with me would be sufficient to occupy her attention. I was mistaken. She is hopelessly addicted to the game of hearts.”
    Addicted, was she? Barbary’s fingers clenched around the glass. “I do not think you should be telling me such things.”
    “I wished you to understand.” Conor sat down beside her on the couch. “I had put Barbary out of my mind. Now here is the cousin who looks so much like her and acts so differently. I can’t help but be intrigued.”
    Intrigued, was he? Once Conor had told Barbary that she was made for love. Now he called her a flirt and made sheep’s eyes at Mab. Someone should teach the knave a lesson.
    So someone should. Who better than herself? Barbary looked demurely into her brandy glass. “I regret that I should awaken unpleasant memories.”
    Lightly, Conor touched her hand. “It is easily enough remedied. We have merely to make pleasant memories of our own.”
    Barbary looked at his fingers. Had he not touched her then, she might still have changed her mind. But Barbary remembered that touch very well, and she was very much disgusted with Conor for trying to play off his wiles on an innocent like Mab. Mab would fall in love with him—how could she not?—and then Conor would tire of the business and find some reason to cast Mab aside also. Barbary foresaw the entire unhappy chain of events.
    This time it would not happen. Barbary would teach Conor a sorely needed lesson, would allow him think her his victim, and would make him hers.
    “I have offended you,” said Conor, when she remained silent. He took his hand away.
    “No, you have not offended me,” Barbary said quietly, and with considerable untruth. “It is just—you move more quickly than I am accustomed to, m’sieur.”
    Beside her she felt him tense, heard his exhale. “So—you are accustomed, Ma’mselle?”
    She turned to look steadily at him.“I am not fresh from the schoolroom, m’sieur.”
    “No.” He touched her hair again, bolder now, more sure of himself. “No, you are not.”
    Conor’s comeuppance would be made all the easier by Barbary’s knowledge of him. It made her melancholy to think that their past intimacy would now lead to his future downfall. She was made even more melancholy to think of all that she had lost because of the man. Barbary looked straight into his eyes and smiled.
    She was a paradox, thought Conor, an artist’s model, yet of good education and birth. She was totally devoid of social graces, of artifice, a free spirit unfettered by the ordinary constraints of society. And she had that damnable resemblance to his wife. Of course he wanted her; how could he not? He touched his fingers to the smooth contours of her face.
    She closed her eyes, catlike, beneath his caress. In that respect she was like Barbary. Conor had known few women as sensual as his wife. He was very curious as to what other similarities, or differences, the cousins possessed. His fingers moved to her throat, the neckline of her modest gown.
    She looked at him then, a languorous expression in her sapphire eyes. “We are alone?”
    “Quite alone.” Conor was grateful now for the ill temper that had prompted him to dismiss his servants. “We will not be disturbed.”
    Revenge, Barbary reminded herself. She wanted revenge on this man, not just for herself, but for her cousin and every female who had ever been misused, and not just by Conor, though she’d no doubt he’d left strewn behind him in his pathway an inordinate number of broken hearts. As her own heart had been broken. Precisely who had broken her heart Barbary could not have said at that moment, but there was no doubt that she was ruined for further romance. Which was a great pity, because Barbary had enjoyed romance very well. She lifted her