Chapter Four
Giselle sank back against her door, inhaling quickly to calm herself.
Mad at herself for finding le Marquis de Carlisle thrilling and funny, she plucked off her hat and let it drop to the carpet.
Ruined. Not even fit for scraps for kite decoration.
She’d give it to the maid tomorrow to throw away.
She hurried to her bedroom, picking at her wet pelisse, muttering to herself about Carlisle’s good looks and how easily he had charmed her from her fears just now.
Surprise at that made her smile. Men did not charm her as a rule.
She frowned, admitting to herself she was too jaded, too put off by the men who had shamed her or hurt her.
Those like Carlisle who treated a lady as their equal were few.
Those who treated a lady like a jewel to be protected were rarer.
A vision of her tall, silver-haired father, so upright, so principled, and so loving of his family, sprang to mind.
The curve of Carlisle’s lips when he smiled, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, recalled the same of her father.
Even his humor sparked the remembrance of her sire’s.
But she should not compare Carlisle to her father.
She hardly knew the marquis. He could be a card sharp, a gambler, a drunk.
Worse, like her husband, he could be an arrogant sort who sought to dominate women.
He could frequent whorehouses…though something about the way he took her in so openly told her he was no lecher, no man of ill repute.
Be done with this, Giselle! She shook him from her thoughts as she hung her pelisse on a chair back. It too might have to go. She fingered the coins in the tiny hem of the inside pocket. She’d extract those, if the coat were not salvageable.
Then she pushed down the bodice of her gown. The hem was torn and muddy. No repairing that. She’d dig out her coins she’d sewn into that hem and throw the gown away tomorrow, too. Then order another gown of midnight blue with red ribbons at the bodice and sleeves.
Carlisle had glimpsed the gown beneath her coat and admired the blue and red, just as he had liked her pink-and-lavender gown of this morning. He’d not said a word, but then—she grinned—he did not have to. Argh! She needed no man’s approval.
In a rush, she worked at her petticoat, then her chemise.
What would a man like Carlisle think of a lady who could not wait to be naked?
Who disliked the attentions of maids? Who wanted buttons down the front of her gowns so that she could remove her clothes by herself?
Even do without corsets? As I do most days. Even tonight.
Had he noticed?
No. Not tonight. Her bodice he could not see.
But this afternoon, he definitely had when she was soaked, head to toe.
From what he did not see tonight, he would assume she wore those hideous contraptions, like every other woman.
Modesty demanded it, if health and vigor required a bit of lifting up, correct?
Her breasts were sturdy, upright, pointed little things.
In her gowns, she appeared well formed. Even generously so. Without stays to pull her up and out.
Did le Marquis de Carlisle like women with heavy breasts?
She arched her back. The instinct to compete had her chuckling. Oh, now you are a naughty cat, Giselle Laurant!
What was wrong with her? She stood on one foot and removed one half boot, then hopped about to take off the other. Stockings, too. She pushed her boots toward the floor of the cupboard and took her socks to drop them in a hamper.
There! She caught a glimpse of herself in the cheval glass.
At twenty-six, she was not so badly formed.
Petite, she had always been shorter than most other girls.
She’d even noticed how far up she had to tilt her head to fully admire the beauty of this marvelous man Carlisle.
Her breasts, if smaller than many, stood high.
Her nipples, dark rose from her year of nursing her daughter, were large—and yes, erect.
Pointed. Thinking of the luscious marquis did this to her.
She did not want to be lured by a man. Nor have a liaison with a marquis.
Still, his looks were unusual. His magnetism, inescapable.
Usually she saw men for what they were. The honorable, those who kept to their legacies, their estates, and most often their morals, she saw in the shades of blue and purples.
The rest she saw in ruby reds as adventurers, bullies, frauds.
Struck by the colors of those with whom she crossed paths, she had never been truly entranced with a man before.
Let alone a stranger. A tall, gorgeous man whom she was shocked to say she saw in shades of silver and gold.
She shot a hand across her eyes. She had to stop this obsession. She had too many problems to be preoccupied with a man. A dashing cavalier. A gentleman with a child, a family, and a title far above that of the youngest daughter of the Vicomte de Touraine.
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 have rendezvoused 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.