Page 36 of Seductive Reprise
But a man could only wait for so long.
He threw himself into business, keeping an eye out for anything with a speck of promise. He visited mines, spent days reading about various large-scale engineering projects in desperate need of capital, and had an ill-fated meeting with the London-based chairman of an Argentine railway. Nothing had come to fruition, and in the case of the railway, the man had commented on Yusef’s “Oriental appearance” and asked, with a telling laugh, if he was sure he wasn’t a Sassoon. Yusef cut that meeting off abruptly, but not before casually questioning therailway’s abnormal profit guarantees versus the spectacular rise in costs. The fool’s pale countenance and stuttering attempt at a reply was worth the five-minute delay in Yusef removing himself from his presence.
He’d instructed Bartle and Collins to find out what they could about the major art dealers in town: Goupil’s, Agnew’s, the French Gallery. A thought was percolating; just the germ of an idea at the moment, but one that seemingly held promise. If he could assist her, use his skill and coffers to help her assert herself as an artist… Hopefully Bartle and Collins’ report would help him home in on the best means to achieve such a thing.
And yet he still couldn’t rein in his thoughts.
He’d been lonely for close to a decade.
The realization had been so galling, so unwanted, that he’d removed himself back to Hertfordshire for another several days of solitude. He’d even taken the small, glossy rosewood box with him—the one that had lain undisturbed for a decade, containing the entirety of his correspondence with Rose for those two precious years between the first time he’d kissed her… and the last.
And now, here in his carriage, en route to Marcus Hartley’s sad little dwelling place, he could not still the urgency roaring in his veins. It had taken everything he’d had to avoid the hovel during that dutifully reported third sitting and the hastily added fourth (apparently the dog’s suit of clothes hadn’t been ready when hoped).
He wanted to see her face, even as she shot him disdainful looks. To hear that sultry voice even as she chastised him.
But he restrained himself.
Yusef had never been ruled by his baser urges. When Rose had stormed out of Flixton Hall and that horrid Christmas ball years ago, any carnal thought he possessed had left with her. It hadn’t been until his time in Beirut that he’d truly experiencedthe pull of desire. But still he’d resisted. He didn’t want some indiscriminate rutting, hurried and frantic, with nothing but a sheen of sweat between his body and whomever he had found to try to satisfy himself with.
He wanted her.
Slow, worshipful. A fated joining of two souls who no longer wandered, blind and alone.
Safe in the carriage, with curtains drawn, he allowed himself the luxury of a long, ragged sigh. His eyes fell to his walking stick. With a thumb he brushed the engraving in the plain gold top, the duke’s coronet above the letterP. His father would still be in town. As would Florence and that wet cigarette of a husband of hers. And Margaret, though devil take it, he hadn’t the faintest idea of what his younger half-sister was about these days. She’d not been at the Pall Mall house when he’d visited, and he didn’t care to return to seek her out. Making a mental note to perhaps have Bartle or Collins investigate that as well, he clenched his jaw and looked out the window.
It was getting dark earlier now. He loathed the thought of Rose hiking across London. He meant what he’d told her; tonight he’d refuse any mention of her traipsing back home in the cold night air. She may be an ornery little filly, pious in her self-imposed poverty, but he was Yusef Ghali, and he would walk home jacketless behind his carriage before he allowed her to freeze. And Rose would most certainly extract such mean terms, were she to capitulate.
A small smile teased his lips at the thought of their matching obstinacy. He recalled the last time both of them had refused to yield to the other; the memory hit him like a meaty fist slamming into his jaw.
He’d apologized, hadn’t he? But she’d told him it didn’t suffice. And in the next breath she’d forbidden him to lavish gifts upon her. What in God’s name did she want from him, then? How washe to demonstrate his contrition? He drew in a scornful breath and steeled himself as the carriage came to a stop.
The usual humdrum, mercantile-class set had already arrived at Hartley’s Portland Place house: Dr. Matthew Collier, an ox of a man whose size was tempered by a pair of spectacles and a quiet nature. A Mr. Towle, an older colleague of Hartley’s—though a bit cagier and more reticent—who had narrowly hung onto his seat over the years despite numerous serious challenges. He was accompanied by his equally shrewd wife. There was also Mrs. Venables, a lady perhaps slightly more advanced than Mrs. Hartley or thereabouts, who was chaperoning her granddaughter, Miss Tryphonia Venables, a brown-haired young lady with pretty enough features despite her cold expression and plain frock. Finally, to round out their number at an even ten to meet the pathetic dining room’s upper limit, was yet another MP, Mr. Henry Stokes. An upright prude of a politician who was so sanctimonious in his dogged crusade against opium that he made even Marcus Hartley appear as an even-tempered libertine or anarchist, depending on your political preferences.
To say Yusef loathed the man was to undersell his feelings entirely. Had the Pharmacy Act not been passed, Yusef would still be in Smyrna, elegantly avoiding this plagued island that had troubled him his entire life. After leveling the coolest of his glares at Mr. Stokes, he sought out Mr. Hartley, whose arched eyebrow and puckish grin suggested that he’d invited Mr. Stokes with an eye on a clash. Yusef silently cursed the Sedleys and their irritating keenness for instigating dramatics as he walked over. Never mind that Mr. Hartley’s mother was the Sedley; now that he’d become acquainted with the lot, Yusef counted them all one and the same.
“Stokes, Hartley?” he said, ignoring Hartley’s extended hand and scanning the room instead.
Hartley sighed good-naturedly. “What can I say? The weeks slip by and still I haven’t a word from you, or from the duke, about our agreement.”
Rather than reply, Yusef decided to wait and see if Hartley might move on from the subject of the Duke of Marbury on his own. For he had no desire to think of his father, let alone speak of him and their last conversation. Or of his tepid response to Hartley’s behest for his support of the Smoke Regulation Act. Yusef had no desire to be the bearer of bad news at the moment.
A door opened across the room, and a pair of footmen entered, awkwardly carrying an easel between them, a tasseled blue velvet covering draped over its top half.
Rose followed them, reaching out for the easel before pulling her hand back to worry at her lower lip.
Yusef wished Hartley would disappear, but the man hovered in his periphery.
“I didn’t see you at the third sitting. Or the fourth.”
“I know.”
“I informed you, see; I’ve kept up my part of the bargain.” Hartley’s tone hardened.
Yusef glanced sideways at him. “You did.”
He looked back. She was wearing a simple sea green silk dress, finer than anything he’d seen her in since their reacquaintance. But the waistline was higher than the current fashion, and the sleeves puffier, more in line with gowns from ten years ago. Someone must have stripped it of its dated fripperies and taken the skirts in quite a bit. He hated that this was the best she owned. She deserved so much better. She was the daughter of an earl, he lamented. If she’d only—
“He was wearing the suit.” Hartley’s musing interrupted Yusef’s silent glower.
