Page 20 of Lord Ashley's Beautiful Alibi
Kane’s hostess and he had enjoyed a few minutes of greeting and useless chatter, then Kane moved on to the footmen who offered a selection of wines from the Champagne. The Englishwoman’s salons were renowned for the buffet, the conversation, and the assignations that many attested occurred in her tiny back garden. However, last week, Paris was regaled with one observer’s detailed description of three guests enjoying aménage à troisin themajordom’s wine cellar.
Kane usually was not interested in such tales. This afternoon he gazed across the crowded room, interested only in finding one person. Josephine Bonaparte, whom he hoped to avoid, per Scarlett’s warnings, was in attendance, and he sought to be anywhere she was not. Madame Averdeau, who had pursued him last night, was here, but so was Augustine Bolton.
This afternoon, Augustine stood across the room talking with a gentleman who bent to her every word, gallant and animated. Was the man a suitor, perhaps? Whatever his relationship to her, she gave her polite words of excuse and took up a position at the elaborate pianoforte a few steps away. She put her fan down and sat upon the bench with a brush of her violet silk skirts.
With no regard to gathering admirers to her, she sat with her hands in her lap for a long moment. Slowly, her head turned and her marvelous dark green eyes met Kane’s and slid away. She put her long fingers to the keys and, smiling to herself, began a Mozart piece Kane knew well. He played it often himself. Sweet and short, it fit the mood of the salon. It pleased her too, for she did it with a smile, then replayed it. That second time, she drew polite applause, including his, even from so far away. She clearly felt his acclamation, because once more her gaze traveled to his and locked. For only a second, she lavished him with her attention. At once, she was gone, up and away from the instrument, her fan in hand as she strolled among the throng…away from him.
Alas, patience was his watchword. To drown his need to rush to her side and swoop her away to his carriage and his purpose, Kane diverted his attentions and went in search of a good wine.
He would work his way toward her. Slowly. This was her aunt’s house, and her residence, too. It would do him no good to look too eager.
He strolled on, surveying the two hundred or more guests. Dressed in the finest satins and silks in colors of the rainbow, the ladies appeared in thehaute couture.The flowing styles that resembled the gowns of Roman and Greek ladies were dictated by the leadership of the stunning brunette, Madame Bonaparte. Some said she wore a gown only once and discarded it. Gossip had it she took three hours to bathe and dress, changing her clothes four and five times a day. Her husband, it was told, demanded she look her best, before and after he ravished her.
Today Josephine had chosen a demure muslin with intricate embroidery. The delicate white fabric fell over her supple curves as if a breeze caressed her. She moved among the throng as if she were a queen. She was restrained, modest, and polite. Her friends worked hard to emulate her in manners and style. Fewequaled her brilliance, but paraded, down to their painted toes, every asset they possessed so others would notice their own beauty.
Kane smiled to himself. A man in such feline company could quickly grow hard and foolish. But he had only one desire. And as he conversed with this one and that, drank and dined and sat for a hand of cards, he tracked the one woman he sought. Meanwhile, he listened for any indications of who might discuss the whereabouts of Madame St. Antoine.
One claimed she had gone to oversee this year’s vines. Another mocked that idea and speculated she was in hiding in her own cellars in her house here in Paris. A woman took umbrage at that and proclaimed that the poor girl had gone south to Aix for the sun for the warm months.
Kane made note to investigate the likelihood of each of those possibilities. But finished with his hand of cards, he pocketed his winnings, then strode toward a footman offering delicacies. The tray offered silver spoons filled with two tiny balls of crab, between which stood erect one pink, steamed shrimp. Two ladies partook and giggled over its similarity to a certain part of male anatomy.
Smiling at their comparison of the bright crustaceans to something that could never curve like that, Kane liked the taste better than their humor. He wiped his fingers on a hot napkin offered by the accompanying footman and moved around to the billiard room.
There, at two in the afternoon, stood three ladies and four men with their cues. The gentlemen were swathed to their ears in elaborate cravats, their shoes off, stockings on, their breeches firmly buttoned. That last was particularly intriguing, and their prowess owed much to it, given that the three ladies who played cards with them also played with the men’s self-control.
The ladies wore silks of such translucence that they might better have worn nothing at all. In the most ethereal shades of shells from the sea, they had donned gowns that exposed charms best meant for their lovers. When they bent to their shot, their breasts hung forward. When they sank a good point or failed, they chuckled or brayed like fishwives. None of the women had much else to recommend them but their audacity—and the men took advantage of their displays, admiring but not advancing.
Kane monitored how he directed his attention away from the players. Derision of others was not the finest attitude to display in public, no matter how louche any of them appeared. And the bets stacked high in coin and promissory notes. A veritable fortune was here to be won.
A woman’s grassyverveineperfume enveloped him. “You have a fine discretion.”
Raven.His blood rushed to his head at the fragrance. He was at once attentive—and hard. Her rough whisky voice captured him. He turned to her. The sight of her, so close and smiling, filled him with more need and more respect than he had dared to admit till now. “I appreciate finesse.”
“Good to be a man of many talents.” She sounded less like a critic and more like an ally. “I also disapprove of the display.”
For him, the atmosphere grew sweeter. He was at once at comfort in a room of strangers. “Is this normal?”
“The exhibit?” She faced him, her smile wide and enchanting. Her lips were plump and pink. “Oh, yes. The winnings? Today’s are particularly large.”
“Is there a reason for it?” he asked like a boy just wanting to hear the lady he liked speak to him.
She tipped her head in speculation—and she let her gaze speak volumes. Her eyes enthralled him. They were not simply green. Or simply dark as a wooded glen. Or simply anything at all. They were large, round orbs with golden flecks that sparkledin the sunshine flooding through the windows. If he were a younger man and a virgin, he would have melted at her radiance. But he was practiced in the arts of seduction, even jaded, he could say.
“Ah, well.” She sniffed and handed him another glass of wine from a footman. Then she nodded toward a window. Kane fell in beside her as she led them toward a private corner. “The reason those three gamble? They are in need of money. Always. For their modiste, and their husbands, and their household, yes. They need the money. And exposure is the way to get it.”
Why did she tell him so easily? Why was she here at his side? He was wary of her motives. He took a drink. “Do many gamble away their virtue so easily?”
“By showing a little bit of skin?”
“That is more than a little skin.”
She gave a laugh. “A little nipple, then?”
“Are people so lax, truly?”
As she considered that, she opened her lips, and he wanted to trace them. Such beauty deserved homage.
She spread her mouth wide in a smile. And he was undone. His own lips were open, needy.
