Earlier I thought you wanted one of those five-guinea telescopes. But you, Miss Cantwell, are ambitious.”
“For some things,” she admitted.
“When you fancy a telescope, you want one that can show you each party of a double star. When you fancy a man, you want The Ideal Gentleman.” With one finger atop his walking stick, he tipped it from side to side. “What else do you fancy?”
She should not tell him anything else. She should never have mentioned the telescope in the first place, never given him a glimpse into her private self.
“All I ever wanted was to be an independent spinster.”
She winced inside. What possessed her to keep layingherself bare before him? Granted, it was terribly lonely to be in love, and granted, his continued interest was—
Her thought process halted abruptly, as if it were a ship encountering a hidden sandbar. She stopped fiddling with the twine bow. What had just happened?
She had been so careful. Infatuation, besottment, madness—she’d used every word in the thesaurus to describe her state of mind.
Every word except
love
.
Because love wasn’t a state of mind liable to change from hour to hour, day to day. Love was like smallpox: Even the survivors did not escape unscathed.
She looked at him as if seeing him for the first time, the beauty, the poise, the wickedness. She was in love with a man no woman in her right mind would approach, let alone want.
He tapped his tented fingertips against one another. “I can give you that, an independent spinsterhood. And a bigger telescope than the one you hungered after.”
“You are as persuasive as the serpent in the Garden of Eden.”
“And you are far cleverer and warier than poor Eve ever was.”
He lifted his straight rod of a walking stick and, holding it near the base, set its handle on her lap, a frightfully intimate, invasive gesture that made flame leap through her.
The terrible thing was, the more he revealed himself to be dangerous and warped, the more she fell under his spell. And the more she fell under his spell, the freer he felt to reveal even more of his true nature.
His eyes met hers again. “Let me give you everything you’ve ever dreamed of.”
But he couldn’t. Or at least, he wouldn’t.
For she could no longer be satisfied with an expensivetelescope, an exemplary spinsterhood, or his sure-to-be-magnificent body—or even all three together.
She was a woman in love and she wanted nothing less than his unscrupulous and very possibly unprincipled heart, proffered to her in slavish devotion.
She set her fingers on the handle of the walking stick, still warm with the heat of his hand. At first she thought it was but a knob made of heavy, smooth-grained ebony, but as she traced its curve with her hand, she looked down and realized that the handle was actually in the shape of the head of a black jaguar.
“Very fine specimen you have here,” she said, a little shocked at both her words and her action.
She was
caressing
the part of him that he had chosen to extend to her person, her fingertips exploring every nook and cranny of the handle. His gaze, intense and heavy lidded, traveled from her face to her uninhibited hand and back again.
“You like it?”
He was as deliberate and self-mastered a man as she had ever met. Whenever she thought of him with access to her body, she’d always imagined a manipulative lover with infinite patience and control, making her pant and writhe, and then perhaps tormenting her a little—or a great deal—by withholding what she desperately needed.
But there was an undercurrent to
this
particular question that made her think of him pushing her up against a wall, or perhaps the column of a Greek folly, and taking her hard, all his patience and control gone.
Her voice shook slightly. “Yes.”
“I have far better specimens I can show you.”
“I’m sure you do. But this will always be my first.”
The town coach seemed to have been built of glass, with
“For some things,” she admitted.
“When you fancy a telescope, you want one that can show you each party of a double star. When you fancy a man, you want The Ideal Gentleman.” With one finger atop his walking stick, he tipped it from side to side. “What else do you fancy?”
She should not tell him anything else. She should never have mentioned the telescope in the first place, never given him a glimpse into her private self.
“All I ever wanted was to be an independent spinster.”
She winced inside. What possessed her to keep layingherself bare before him? Granted, it was terribly lonely to be in love, and granted, his continued interest was—
Her thought process halted abruptly, as if it were a ship encountering a hidden sandbar. She stopped fiddling with the twine bow. What had just happened?
She had been so careful. Infatuation, besottment, madness—she’d used every word in the thesaurus to describe her state of mind.
Every word except
love
.
Because love wasn’t a state of mind liable to change from hour to hour, day to day. Love was like smallpox: Even the survivors did not escape unscathed.
She looked at him as if seeing him for the first time, the beauty, the poise, the wickedness. She was in love with a man no woman in her right mind would approach, let alone want.
He tapped his tented fingertips against one another. “I can give you that, an independent spinsterhood. And a bigger telescope than the one you hungered after.”
“You are as persuasive as the serpent in the Garden of Eden.”
“And you are far cleverer and warier than poor Eve ever was.”
He lifted his straight rod of a walking stick and, holding it near the base, set its handle on her lap, a frightfully intimate, invasive gesture that made flame leap through her.
The terrible thing was, the more he revealed himself to be dangerous and warped, the more she fell under his spell. And the more she fell under his spell, the freer he felt to reveal even more of his true nature.
His eyes met hers again. “Let me give you everything you’ve ever dreamed of.”
But he couldn’t. Or at least, he wouldn’t.
For she could no longer be satisfied with an expensivetelescope, an exemplary spinsterhood, or his sure-to-be-magnificent body—or even all three together.
She was a woman in love and she wanted nothing less than his unscrupulous and very possibly unprincipled heart, proffered to her in slavish devotion.
She set her fingers on the handle of the walking stick, still warm with the heat of his hand. At first she thought it was but a knob made of heavy, smooth-grained ebony, but as she traced its curve with her hand, she looked down and realized that the handle was actually in the shape of the head of a black jaguar.
“Very fine specimen you have here,” she said, a little shocked at both her words and her action.
She was
caressing
the part of him that he had chosen to extend to her person, her fingertips exploring every nook and cranny of the handle. His gaze, intense and heavy lidded, traveled from her face to her uninhibited hand and back again.
“You like it?”
He was as deliberate and self-mastered a man as she had ever met. Whenever she thought of him with access to her body, she’d always imagined a manipulative lover with infinite patience and control, making her pant and writhe, and then perhaps tormenting her a little—or a great deal—by withholding what she desperately needed.
But there was an undercurrent to
this
particular question that made her think of him pushing her up against a wall, or perhaps the column of a Greek folly, and taking her hard, all his patience and control gone.
Her voice shook slightly. “Yes.”
“I have far better specimens I can show you.”
“I’m sure you do. But this will always be my first.”
The town coach seemed to have been built of glass, with
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