Page 44 of The Rebellious Lady and the Phantom Lord
She waited until she heard the girl’s footsteps recede, then leaned against the door for a moment to compose herself. She turned to discover Armande standing and straightening his frock coat. He bore the same look of disorientation-like a dreamer too violently awakened.
She stared from him to the rumpled daybed, hardly able to believe what had nearly happened. It had all been so sudden, the flaring of their passion-like a spark set to dried tinder. But theflame appeared to have died as quickly, leaving her embarrassed and shaken.
It helped to see that Armande was not looking his urbane self, and the smile he gave Phaedra was uncertain. “I am not sure whether we should curse that girl or thank her. It would seem I was nearly the undoing of your reputation, after all.”
He strode toward the door where she yet leaned. Was he planning to leave her like this, with no more to say than that? He might attempt to dismiss what had happened so casually, but she could not.
“Armande, I?—”
He placed his fingertips upon her lips. “I fear we both have been behaving with less than wisdom, ma chere. Nothing has truly changed. We still cannot trust one another. We will only make matters more complicated by embarking on a relationship sparked by mutual loneliness.”
Mutual loneliness. Was that all it was, this attraction between herself and Armande, that seemed both to draw them together and pull them apart?
“I wish I could simply forget.” His vehemence startled er, but it vanished as quickly as his passion had done. “But I cannot.”
Forget what? she wanted to demand, watching that shuttered look settling over his eyes. He said, “It is best we continue as we began, keeping each other at sword’s length.”
“I have every intention of doing so,” she said.
He briefly saluted her hand with his lips. They might have parted thus if his eyes had not chanced to meet hers. This pretense could not be maintained. She read in his gaze the single truth that burned between them.
He might make what declarations he pleased. But it could not change what they both knew was going to happen, what had been inevitable from the night they first met.
Ten
The music gallery’s curtains were drawn, closing out the night, but not the distant rumble of thunder. Phaedra’s hands faltered as she ran them along the spinet’s keyboard. She wished the storm would break and be done with. The heavy stillness in the skies beyond the shielding of velvet seemed to magnify the tension gathering within her.
Her fingers jabbed at the black and white keys, plunking out a tune from Gay’s Beggar’s Opera. A song she’d oft played, it required little concentration-which was as well, for she had little to give. Her gaze traveled from the instrument to the man who stood half-turned away from her, appearing lost in the study of an elaborately framed work of Salvator Rosa’s, mounted upon the walls. The lace tumbled over Armande’s wrists and gathered at his throat seemed so at odds with the lean, dangerous slant of his profile. As though he felt her staring at him, he turned to face her. The silver candelabra mounted upon the torchere cast a bright glow, but the tiny flames burned no more brilliantly than what smoldered in the depths of Armande’s eyes.
Phaedra’s pulse skipped a beat as she felt the embers of a similar fire stirring deep within her. Her fingers stumbled,missing a few notes. Armande had insisted that nothing had changed between them. He was wrong.
All during the course of the long, tedious dinner, a meal they had both left nearly untouched, their eyes had often met, furtive stolen glances as though in acknowledgment of the secret they shared-that sweet, brief moment of passion. It was that secret, Phaedra believed, that prevented Armande from retreating behind his mask of impassive hauteur as he had done before, and shutting her out so completely.
He might deny the mutual desire they had known, declare that he had no intention of ever caressing her again. It mattered naught, Phaedra thought, raising her gaze from the keyboard to find him staring at her. His eyes were telling her something far different.
Her cheeks flushed, her fingers somehow located the right keys to end the song. The last note she struck seemed to reverberate forever in the gallery, resounding off the high, scrolling ceiling.
She had cut the song short, but no one appeared to have noticed. Half-asleep on the bow-fronted chaise, her grandfather’s snort startled her. She had all but forgotten that he and Jonathan were still in the room.
Jonathan broke into polite applause while Weylin blinked and smacked his lips. “Eh-what? Oh, yes. Delightful, my dear, simply delightful.”
Phaedra dragged her gaze from Armande long enough to stare at the old man. Her grandfather was strangely mellow this evening, all his earlier peevishness gone. He had not even rebuked her for her inexplicable behavior in bolting from the Green Salon. Throughout dinner, he had beamed at her. She could not imagine what she had done to deserve his approbation.
“Play something else for us,” Jonathan requested humbly. Her grandfather bolted upright. “What! Nay, it was not that delightful.” He harumphed, then struggled to his feet with a wide yawn. “Damnation, how groggy I feel. It is the fault of that port you brought me, Jonathan. Cursed heavy stuff.”
“It was far superior to the other lot Scroggins tried to pass off on me,” Jonathan said. “The knave! I only dealt with him at all upon Lord Danby’s recommendation.”
“Danby!” Her grandfather hooted. “You should have known better than to listen to him. That fool’d drink anything.”
Phaedra could not help covertly studying Armande to see if the mention of Danby’s name produced any reaction. He appeared absorbed in stacking her sheets of music into a neat pile.
“Even Danby would have balked at this wine,” Jonathan continued. “Scroggins had sought to make the wine seem more full-bodied by treating it with oil of vitriol.”
Weylin shook with amusement. “Hah! That might have made a temperate man of Danby. One glass of that, and I trow he’d have no stomach for another.”
Jonathan waxed bitter over the foul tricks he had often detected amongst his fellow merchants, sulphuric acid substituted for vinegar, alum used to whiten bread. The exposing of such deceits held a keen interest for him, one of the few subjects that inspired the quiet man to passion. But he was cut short by her grandfather, bellowing for John to unfold the card table.
Phaedra heard the command with dismay. She had barely managed to get through dinner and her music. How could she possibly spend long hours of card-playing seated across from Armande, half-dreading, half-inviting his glance?
