Chapter Five
Damn him. He was going home. He was finished for tonight.
Headed for the foyer, he skirted many in the ballroom and avoided eye contact and discussion with anyone.
He decided not to bid good evening to his host and hostess.
He’d write a note tomorrow and explain that urgent business took him away.
He’d leave the family carriage for his mother and two sisters, and have the Chelmsfords’ butler hail him a public hack.
He grumbled to himself as he waited in the foyer for the cab.
A footman brought his greatcoat and hat, and he donned them, grumbling.
Not business but the lack of pleasure drove him onward.
He’d failed to have a proper meeting with Sir Raphael Durham and certainly failed to contain his impulses where the luscious Mademoiselle Bechard was concerned.
What was it about her that made him forget his rules of conduct?
If he touched a woman—especially her lips—if he drew a woman against him—as he had drawn her to him in the library—that was all a lady needed to agree to his affections. He would decide then if his attentions should last a night, a week, a month, whatever to sate his attraction.
But this woman—this French beauty with hair that caught the golden rays of candles, and eyes that lured a man into the wooded shades of her surrender—confounded him.
She was no innocent chit. Her carriage, her sense of personal authority, even the way she absorbed the sight of strangers in a supposedly unoccupied room, proclaimed that she was no girl from the countryside who knew little of men, their needs and their desires.
She bore that look about her, that grace that said she understood those she gazed upon, and certainly those with whom she engaged in polite banter.
Yes, she was savvy. She’d pegged even him.
That she had rejected him had had him questioning his allure. It even, for a moment, deterred him. If she’d had no reaction to his touch or his embrace, he would have abandoned his interest and his ploys to make her melt for him.
But when he sent his thumb along the edge of her lower lip, she’d caught her breath and allowed him his full caress. Both times. Then, just now, when he’d pressed her near and listed what particulars he knew of her background, she’d not pushed away.
He was too much a roué not to have noticed her responses to him. Too much of a gentleman to advance further. He’d first have her consent.
So she could be as rebellious as she wished for as long as she wished, but he could wait for her to cool…and warm. To soften. To yield. No need to make amends for what he had first assumed was an error on his part. He had rattled her, not insulted her.
Furthermore, he had no woman at the moment gracing his bed.
Indeed, he hadn’t had one in nearly a year.
He’d been oddly irritable lately, attributing his discomfort to his lack of bed sport.
But holding her firm, curvaceous body against him, he knew better.
He wanted not simply someone new, someone sensual and eager for a man to help her pulse with fulfillment.
He wanted a challenge, a mystery. He wanted a woman who excited him with her mettle.
With her grace and form. Like the charming pianist in Boulogne.
Like this new émigré, this cantankerous, exquisite woman he needed to know better. Know completely, body and soul.
God knew, he faced mighty challenges in her. Truth be told—he stopped on the next step to acknowledge his next thought—he might never gain her.
But he would make a giant effort.
He smiled at that. He’d never exerted himself to gain a woman’s company.
“First time for everything,” he told himself.
Set in his purpose, he tugged on his gloves and drove one fist into his other hand. Then he strode down the front steps. The night was chilly.
He spied a footman at the end of the drive who had done the butler’s bidding and urged a public carriage to come forward.
“Sir,” the footman said as he opened the door to the hack, “we were very happy to have you with us this evening.”
“I was delighted to be here.” More than you will ever know.
“Halsey!”
At the sound of his name, he glanced back toward the steps.
Rafe Durham took them at a jog. “Wait! I do have news.”
When Durham got to the bottom of the stairs, he asked Halsey not to leave.
“Pardon us, will you?” he said to the footman.
“I must have a private word with my friend.” Then he waited until the servant disappeared inside the front door.
“After you and I left off in the library, I got into a discussion with Langley and Carlisle. They both tell me that they’ve had word that the Hastings shoreline has been cleared of debris.
” That was code among them for a French spy’s capture.
“One less mess to deal with, eh?” He inched closer to Halsey for discretion.
Halsey welcomed the news. “Are you finished dancing for the evening, Durham? If so, allow me to offer you a ride around Hyde Park. You can tell me all you’ve learned from them…and afterward, I can bring you back if you wish. What say you?”
“Happy to join you.” Rafe turned for the front door. “A moment, eh? I just need my coat and hat.”
“Excellent.” Halsey hoped for a sound discussion of business to settle his musings over Inès Bechard. “I have a full bottle of cognac in my coach.”
“Ah, the benefits of knowing a crafty smuggler.” Durham clapped him on the back, and they made their way out.