Page 9 of Lord Carlisle's Enticing Lure
Agh!She padded to her clothes press and took out her night rail. Her negligee. A sinuous thing of creamy Lyon silk that she’d pampered herself to buy just before she left Paris, she pulled it over her head. Cold still, she shook out the matching robe lined in fuchsia satin. Better yet, she strode naked to the pile of bath linens and wound a towel around her wet hair.
She cast the tempting marquis from her midst, then climbed up into her delicious bed piled with blankets of wool and an ivory crocheted coverlet. Tomorrow, she had work to do. Her new drawing of Brighton was not finished. Glad the man who was to haverendezvoused with her tonight did not show, she criticized herself aloud that she was behind in her schedule. For now, she did not worry why he had not appeared. Tomorrow, he might send word somehow and be secretive about it. Meanwhile, she should be on to the next drawing.
She punched her pillow into the shape she liked and sighed into the soft bed. Yes, she thought of Carlisle. Persistent man!Here again, monsieur le marquis?
She knew how to banish him. Quickly, too. She best get to it.
Throwing the bedding aside, she strolled into her sitting room in search of her bottle of French cognac. She’d asked for cognac to be brought to her room the day before yesterday when she arrived. She enjoyed it, one glass each night, one of her small pleasures in her life alone. She poured, drank—and tonight, in honor of Monsieur le Marquis de Carlisle, she poured another good portion.
She closed her eyes and savored the smooth, hot fire of it down her throat. It warmed her…as the good looks of Carlisle did. Too bad she could not enjoy his interest in her. She’d not had a man in three years. She gave a bitter laugh as she went to her chaise longue and reclined. She had never had a man. Not really. Not totally. Her husband had had her. Ruthlessly, continuously, whenever he desired.
Her young girl’s dreams to have a considerate husband had been dashed by his callousness. She had always counted herself fortunate that after a year of marriage and his nightly visits, she had gotten pregnant at last and put an end to his repeated, callous insults to her body. So too was she blessed that she had delivered her daughter in only nine hours. That her baby was in good health and perfect in form. That neither of them seemed to show the effects of her husband’s heinous taste for chains and gags. Her midwife had never asked, if she had even noticed, that her body had been harshly invaded. Her husband only mated. Never had the man understood the art of making love. Giselle even doubted he had heard of the tenderness that could exist between a man and woman. Her parents had. Her brother and his wife had.
But she? No.
Another sip of the cognac sent hot ripples through her and a question formed loud in her head. Did the Marquis of Carlisle know how to take a woman and show her and him any joy?
Oh, stop. Just stop. You cannot care! You do not know that joy yourself…save for those two men you took to bed last year solely for the purpose of learning pleasure in the art of love.They had been congenial bed partners, but the momentary bliss they had brought her lacked the essential ingredient of love.
She must give off her thoughts of rapture and concentrate on her worries. They could fill her mind. Her own lack of progress on the first Brighton drawing. Now the added challenge that the man she had to deliver it to was not appearing at the time or place of their agreement.
Come to think of it, her personal guard had not appeared at all today. Not after noon. Not in her walking tour of the Steine park at four o’clock. She’d had not one glimpse of him today, and she usually had one each day. A reassurance, she supposed, that he took care of her. That he remained near. Yet he had not today. That, on top of the failure of Jacques Durand’s man to appear tonight, had her considering a third pour of her cognac.
But no.
Durand’s man had missed their first appointed meeting in Hastings weeks ago. He had appeared the next night. So she must not worry.
Just take care of your own responsibilities.
She would remain calm. Simple explanations always abounded. She’d wait patiently for Durand’s agent. Perhaps tomorrow night he’d come.
And in the meantime, I’ll not hunger for a man. For this marquis. After all, he is rich, titled, a perfect specimen of masculinity. Surely he is married. A man that appealing also certainly has a mistress. Or two.
Her heart fell to her feet. Oh, she would be so very disappointed if that were true. She much preferred him as she first beheld him, carefree, smiling, available, and—curse her own desires—obtainable.
But no. No and no.
I give one kite. For Bella. For myself, I take only that satisfaction.
From the delicious marquis, I accept the hot adulation of his gratitude.
That is all I shall do.
Then we part.
Chapter Five
But at eleventhe next morning, Giselle sat in the main salon at a table filled with her supplies to make a kite. She had donned her newest gown, clothing the other indulgence beside cognac that she gave herself for her solitary life and the dangerous work she did. She glanced down at her skirts of a delicate muslin she called her summer cloud of blue. Telling herself she wore the pretty frock for confidence, she allowed herself the basic truth that the shade was an exact match for her eyes. Youthful silliness though it was, she’d taken longer than usual with her toilette this morning because she wished to impress monsieur le marquis. Fruitless as self-deception was, she did not usually lie to herself about anything, if she could help it. But this man lingered inside her, uplifting her, varied and bright as a rainbow.
He appeared no more than a minute later. He led by the hand his charming little girl.
Bella broke free from him and ran to her. “Madam”—she mangled the word, but Giselle did not care—“we make a kite. It will be red?”
“Exactly as the one we lost, Bella.”
The child beamed at Giselle. Her heart twisted. She was so like her own Sophie, sprightly and fun, with her chubby cheeks and pink, heart-shaped mouth.
Giselle patted the chair beside her. “Come sit down.”
