Stroke of Genius by Emily Bryan

idea about swiving on the floor in her head. A Hakkari carpet was rather like long green grass, wasn’t it?
    And the hazy image of him in naught but a leather apron, that came right from the devil himself. The devil who lived in Cheapside.
    If only he hadn’t forced a kiss on her in his studio. If only he hadn’t teased her beyond bearing at Vauxhall.
    If only he’d kissed her again when she wanted him to.
    Grace threw back the sheet and climbed out of bed. “You’ll be joining us today, won’t you, Claudette?”
    “ Bien sur, mam’selle.” She gave a contented sigh. “I will see Monsieur Wyckham again. How lovely to meet an Englishman who knows why God gave him a tongue.”
    That sounded more than a little naughty. Grace made a note to ask her more about what Englishmen were supposed to do with their tongues. But the tongue inquestion was attached to Wyckham, Crispin Hawke’s manservant, who was probably as unreliable a fellow as his master.
    “Claudette, haven’t you noticed that Mr. Allen our footman seems very taken with you?” Grace asked as Claudette helped her into her morning gown. “He appears to be a decent enough fellow.”
    “Oh, oui! ” Claudette plumped the pillows, beating them into submission before drawing up the brocade counterpane on Grace’s bed. “I shall marry your Monsieur Allen someday.”
    Grace blinked in surprise.
    “Then what are you doing with Mr. Wyckham?” And his talented tongue?
    “Why does the bee seek the flower?” She shrugged in a gesture that was purely French. “But it is clear you know little of men if you must ask such a question.”
    “Enlighten me, please.”
    Claudette plopped on the foot of Grace’s bed and hooked an ankle under her. “Monsieur Allen, he hears I am the French maid, oo-la-la! He looks at me and I see like that—” She snapped her fingers. “He thinks to make the light love with me in every cranny and nook.”
    Grace had never noticed Allen giving her maid anything but a respectful, almost adoring, gaze. She really needed to become more observant.
    “But if I do not so much as look at him.” Claudette turned her face away and held up both hands in a forbidding gesture. “Then Monsieur Allen, he pants after my skirts comme un chien —how you say?—like a dog. Come, mam’selle. We do your hair.”
    Grace settled into her dressing-table chair and let Claudette undo her long braid.
    “But what about Mr. Wyckham?” Grace hadn’t missed the speaking glance that passed between her maid andCrispin’s servant. That smoldering gaze was impossible to overlook. “Doesn’t he want to make light love in every cranny and nook, too?”
    “ Bien sur, and so he does!” Claudette fanned herself with one hand. “Son derrière! C’est formidable! ”
    Grace blushed. She’d noticed well-formed male backsides were fine to look upon, but had never heard anyone else admit to it except Claudette. “But I don’t understand. If you intend on marrying Mr. Allen, why don’t you make love with him?”
    “ Pourquoi? “ Claudette shot her a look in the vanity mirror that said she thought Grace hopelessly dense. “Because I intend to marry him, I hold myself from him, non? His wanting for me, it is bigger all the more, n’est-ce pas?”
    Grace conceded her point, though the logic was tortured. “And in the meantime, you amuse yourself with Mr. Wyckham.”
    “Just so. And tres amusant he is!”
    “But you don’t love him.”
    “Love, bah! This I give for love.” Claudette put two fingers to her lips and made a spitting sound. “Love is something old rich people give to their cats. And even then, the cat, she does not give it back.”
    “But you aren’t averse to lovemaking.”
    “Not in the slightest pinch.” Claudette shook her head as if Grace were an incredibly slow child who would never understand. “Lovemaking is a gift. I give it to myself. With a little help from Monsieur Wyckham, bien sur. ”
    “So what if someday you find