Page 12 of Lord Appleby's Gorgeous Imposter
Of all the compliments he could have given, he chose the one that churned her anger at him. She had missed him all her life. Loving him, wanting him, watching him come and go, accepting finally that he would never be hers. She licked her lips. “I am honored.”
“Are you? I am undone. I thought I had buried in my heart how bewitching you are,” he said in the mellow voice that couldmelt her like a candle. “I was wrong. One glimpse, even so far from the stage, and I knew—”
“Excusez-moi, monsieur.” She put her other hand atop his and squeezed. He spoke French and so did she, but she could not have anyone overhear what he might say. “Do not—”
“Hurt you?” He turned to English. His large eyes turned mellow and reassuring, his soothing expression taking her back to the weeks when they fled the mobs and he had saved them all from disaster. Mama, her sister, even Beau had been the beneficiaries of his courage and his kindness. “Never, mademoiselle. I simply must talk with you in private.”
“Not here. Not now.” She had to collect her responses. Were there not scripts for occasions when you confronted by surprise the love of your life?
“Then later. Where do you lodge?”
“Please. Do not press me.”
“I must. I will. You know I will not rest until—”
“Yes. Yes, that I do know.”
“When?”
When had God created a man so beautiful that to look at him blinded a woman to all else in the world? He seemed broader of shoulder, sturdier of muscle than when last she’d beheld him. His hair—that cinnamon blond the English defiled by calling ginger—fell over his broad brow. The lines fanning from his eyes told of the years he bore, the years they had been apart when she had yearned for him—all in vain.
She wanted to ask him truly how he was, where he’d been, why he was here in Paris. But she dared not. Whatever his reason to be in Paris, it was not her business. She was here not to meet him or enjoy his company, but to conduct her own affairs. Conversely, what she did was none of his affair.
“When? When will you see me?” He leaned closer. That cologne that distinguished him all his adult life—that grassy mixof German vervain and orange—washed over her and took her breath. He kissed her wrist, far from the place where the rabbit had put his lips, and with two fingers to her chin, Tate raised her face. In English, he whispered, “It must be soon.”
“Monsieur.” She gave him her mask of polite refusal. “Please, do nothing rash.”
“Never, mademoiselle. Not to you.”
She snatched back her hand. “I have an engagement for which I must prepare.” That was in French, loud enough for others to hear.
“Skip it.”
“Impossible,” she told him, and at Tate’s heels, her little dog proclaimed loud and long how he needed Tate’s affections now.
She bent to pick up the dog. Louis had not nipped Tate’s heels. Of course not. Animals never attacked those they loved.
“Bonjour, Louis,” Tate whispered, and put his large hand to the head of her hairy little mutt. If Tate were a harsh man or an angry one, he could take her little dog’s head and crush it in his fingers like so much paper.
But Louis—remembering the man whom he had loved above all other males—nuzzled into the fond embrace of big, bold, sappy Tate Cantrell, now the Earl of Appleby, the man who had given Louis to her as a pup and who had given her, her mother, and her half-sister Charmaine a cottage, income, beds to sleep in…and hope to live on.
“Surely…mademoiselle,” he began, obviously avoiding use of her given name in this crowd, dwindling though it was. “Surely you agree about the need to talk.”
She shook back her long, pale curls that flowed over her shoulders. Then she gave him her most impervious stare. She had to convince him to stay away from her. To never reveal, never voice her worst fears and say her name. “Monsieur, I am very busy. As you can see. And I am tired.”
He scoffed, his hand still caressing her sweet Louis. The dog was a traitor to cuddle Tate like a long-lost father. “A few minutes tonight.”
She needed to prepare what to say to him. So much for being a good actress. “I must ask you to leave.”
“Make me go.”
She swallowed her anxiety that he would make a scene and ruin her entire plan.
“Alice!”
The maid stepped forward. She was nearly as tall as Tate. He noticed with a smirk.
“Go with this gentleman to the wig closet”—she lowered her voice even though she spoke English to her—“and give him my address.”
