Kitabı oku: «A Scandalous Proposal», sayfa 4

Chapter Four

Several hours later Emily looked up from her worktable in bemusement. “Put them on the desk, I suppose,” she told the urchin with his paper-wrapped parcel of flowers.

“Where, ma’am? There be’s a pow’rful lotta posies a’ready.”

In truth, the top of her small desk was nearly buried beneath a floral avalanche. The bouquets—some small, some large—had begun arriving early this morning, and the parade continued steadily all day. Francesca had long since run out of vases, and the most recent offerings reclined in an odd miscellany of pots, mugs and bowls.

The numerous bouquets contained only pansies or violets. Deepest purple, pale lavender, near white, the shimmering velvet blooms and their perfume filled the office and spilled out into the salesroom beyond.

Searching for a spare inch, Emily surveyed the assortment with a mingling of amusement and exasperation. Lord Cheverley must have bought up every blossom in the city. They’d be reduced to water and cold mutton for dinner, as there was hardly a kettle or teacup left in the kitchen. She didn’t know whether to be touched or annoyed.

The delivery boy still stood, flowers in hand, looking at her expectantly. Sighing, she laid down her scissors. “Just bring them to me.”

The boy handed them over, but when she dug in her pocket for a coin, he waved her away. “The toff what sent ’em paid me good, ’n offered me an extry yellow boy if’n I wouldn’t try’n fob a tuppence off ya.” Tipping his grimy cap, he gave her a gap-toothed grin and ambled out.

Francesca entered from the kitchen behind her and raised her eyebrows. “By the Blessed Virgin, Mistress, your noble lordling must be pleased with you.” Eyes twinkling, she leaned over to pat Emily’s cheek. “And you, querida, look like a woman who has been well loved.”

“Enough, Francesca.”

“Ah, you grumble, but me, I think it very fine,” Francesca replied with unimpaired good humor. “You are tired, no, mistress? Rest, and I will deal with the clientela. Then I cook another special dinner.”

“Lord Cheverley is not invited for dinner,” Emily replied stiffly.

“But he comes tonight, surely as a saint’s reward,” Francesca said shrewdly. “Go rest yourself, mistress. He must not see your beauty dimmed. Take the violetas—” the maid wrapped Emily’s hands around the flowers “—and sleep. I left upstairs a vase.”

In truth, she was tired. With a sigh, she allowed Francesca to urge her toward the stairs. “All right. But for an hour only.”

“Good, I will wake you,” the maid agreed. “A hungry work, this loving is. Tonight will I prepare a hearty paella.”

“If you can find anything to cook it in,” Emily muttered as she walked out.

Emily slipped the fragile, fragrant blooms—deep violet with tiny white eyes—into her favorite vase, a delicate piece of blue-and-white Portuguese pottery in a fanciful pattern of birds and animals. Setting it down on the desk that also served as her dressing table, she caught her reflection in the little mirror propped against the wall. Solemn eyes, somewhat shadowed perhaps, stared back at her over a straight, narrow nose and generous lips. I look no different, she thought. Should not becoming a Fallen Woman have left some tangible sign?

Steeling herself, she picked the miniature off its easel beside the mirror. In defiance of convention, Andrew had wanted her to paint him relaxing rather than posing formally, and so she had. The neck fastening of his dolman was un-hooked, his capless hair tumbled as if in the ocean’s breeze. She’d managed to capture the sparkle in his emerald eyes, his high-spirited grin with just the hint of the devil.

Oh, Andrew, what would you think of me now?

The ache went too deep. Replacing the miniature on its stand, she wandered to the balcony. Wan sunlight, a feeble imitation of the fierce peninsular light that had bathed the quarters they’d shared in a score of different villages, cast a mellow glow. She leaned against the railing, gazing down into the garden below.

When she first returned after years under the Peninsula’s bright sun and sharp blue skies, she’d found London’s mist, fog and smoke impossibly grim. ’Twas as if, she joked to Francesca, the city itself wept at her loss. Then she’d come upon some pots of lavender at a farmer’s market and set about turning the abandoned, weed-choked lot behind her shop into a replica of a peninsular garden.

Now, pots of herbs surrounded a sundial fashioned from a broken milestone, an old deacon’s bench salvaged from the parish burn pile set invitingly near. Her beloved lavender thrived in the barren, rocky soil around the sundial, its scent, released by the gentle sun, floating up to her.

How the smells of sun-baked earth and herbs brought it back—the sharp-cut scenery of rock and scrub, narrow gullies and steep ravines. The simple, whitewashed dwellings clinging to hillsides and gazing at the distant azure sea. How she’d loved to set up her easel on the wide balcony and work furiously to capture the changing light on those hills, that glimmer of ocean.

She’d painted Andrew, too, of course, and Rob, his rascal of a brother and fellow soldier, and all their comrades. Canvases of men in uniform relaxing on the balcony, dining about her table or playing an impromptu game of cricket on the village square had begun to crowd her baggage, for when the troops were billeted in towns between engagements, the quarters of Lieutenant Waring-Black and his beautiful bride became a sort of junior officer’s mess. Many an evening had they laughed and played at cards, while Boyd or Matthew sang to Francesca’s guitar.

Melancholy filled Emily’s chest along with breaths of lavender-spiced air. She loved this little garden, a tangible reminder of the happy sunlit days with Andrew. When accounts did not total, or a tradesman bickered, or some well-born lady puffed up with her own consequence belittled her, Emily would somehow find herself sitting on the bench below. She’d run her fingers along the stiff gray wands and inhale the herb’s sharp, cleansing scent. Whenever something troubled her.

Like the thought of the tall, well-formed man returning tonight. Her lover.

Her cheeks burned, her body heated and the thought escaped before she could check it: I’m sorry.

Don’t be an idiot, she told herself crossly. You’ve chosen your course. There’s nothing to do but go on and make the best of it. Only children and cowards whine and regret.

She was too honest to deny Cheverley’s lovemaking brought her intense—and sorely missed—pleasure. Nor could she deny the idea of receiving his caresses again, soon, sent a spiral of warmth to her very core.

’Twas just her pride that ached, and old memories she should have long since laid to rest. She should view the matter pragmatically, as Francesca suggested.

A businesslike arrangement without long-term or legal complications might suit her very well. And if his lordship’s ardor lasted until she managed to build her income to such a level of security that she would never again be forced into this position, it would, as Francesca said, be all to the good.

And just what does that make you? a little voice in her head whispered. She turned away from the garden, trying to shut out the ugly word that burned, unspoken, in her ears.

After leaving Emily in the lightening dawn, Evan sought his bed. Too keyed up to sleep, though, he soon gave up the attempt. From the exasperated look his mama gave him when he left the breakfast chamber two plates of eggs, ham and sausages and three steaming cups of tea later, he must have missed half her conversation.

Deciding in his present fog of abstraction he would likely run his high-perch phaeton into a post or allow the highbred cattle to bolt, he waved away his groom and elected to walk to his Horse Guards office.

But during the stroll, instead of reviewing details of Wellington’s supply routes, his mind kept slipping back to the sounds and images of last night. The low velvet timbre of her voice. The curve of her little finger as she held her teacup. Her eyes, sometimes deep plum, sometimes the lighter veined lavender of a woodland flower.

Flowers. He halted, electrified. To the woman beautiful as a perfect, fragrant violet he would send every blossom he could find. Grinning, he hailed a hackney and instructed the jarvey to carry him to the closest florist.

Two hours and a good deal of blunt later, he had dispatched enough blooms, he calculated as he mounted the stairs to his office, to cover her desk and most of the dining table. Mayhap she could even strew some petals on the sheets.

An immediate wave of heat assailed him. No, he dare not start thinking of that. Besides, he wanted this evening to proceed differently. He’d promised himself to court and woo her, then had taken her like a street-corner strumpet. The very thought of it galled him anew. He would have been well-served if she’d kicked him down the stairs afterward and bolted the door.

Instead, she’d wept.

His stomach twisted and his chest tightened. Ah, sweetheart, he vowed, never again will I make you weep.

With a start he realized he now stood before the door to his office. Gathering his disjointed thoughts, he entered, extracted a supply ledger from the stack on his desk and sat down to review it.

He was gazing out the window, thinking of violets and amethysts rather than account totals, when his door opened and Geoffrey Randall, his college mate and assistant, strolled in.

“’Morning, Ev. Have you reviewed the ledgers yet?”

Evan glanced at the page he’d smoothed open at least half an hour ago, unable to recall a single total. “Not quite,” he mumbled.

“When you finish, could you check this report for powder and shot? I’ve added the columns three times, but the figures don’t make sense.” Frowning, Randall tapped the paper he held.

Ah, figures. With a private smile Evan called to mind one particular willowy, well-rounded form.

“Something doesn’t seem right,” Randall was continuing. “I’d appreciate your looking at it. If you would, Ev. Ev?”

His drifting attention recalled, Evan focused on the secretary. “Y-yes. You were saying?”

His assistant eyed him with some concern. “Seem a tad done-up this morning, old friend. Rough night? Surely you didn’t lose, for a change?”

A sudden vision of Emily in his arms, and he in Emily, warmed him like a candle flame. “’Twas a wonderful night, and I certainly didn’t lose.”

Raising an eyebrow, Randall laughed. “Ah, that sort of night. Why don’t you go get some sleep? You’re not doing any good here.”

“Thank you most kindly,” Evan replied with a grin. “But you’re correct—my mind isn’t on ledgers today. Shall we discuss the matter later?”

“Of course.” Randall grinned back. “And if the wench is even halfway deserving of that fatuous smile, you’re a lucky devil.”

As Evan neared home, the idea of another gift struck him with vivid clarity.

There must be no gown unfolded with memories tonight. No, tonight she should come to him in sheer purple silk and a whisper of cream lace. His woman, wearing his gown, making new memories that were theirs alone.

Proceeding immediately to the shop of one of the city’s most exclusive mantua-makers, he swiftly made his choice. However, when he informed Madame she need not deliver the garment, for he intended to take it with him, she protested she’d be happy to insure it arrived wherever he wished.

Catching the speculative gleam in her eye, he realized the seamstress was consumed with curiosity to discover the identity of his newest inamorata. Instinctively he knew his reserved, dignified Emily would not appreciate having her name bandied about. Cordially turning aside the dress-maker’s offer, he paid her well and left the shop.

To be truthful, he found the notion of revealing Emily to be his mistress strangely distasteful. Not that he’d ever flaunted his women, but Emily was different—a treasure he wished cloistered for him alone. He’d not have what they shared be the subject of vulgar speculation by Willoughby and those of his ilk.

What a many-faceted jewel she was, too: elegant and proper as the highest-born lady in that demure lavender gown the first day they’d met; siren last night, her ebony tresses flowing silken over her bare back and full, high breasts, her soft mouth and thighs promising sin and magic.

Just thinking of her hardened him to such urgent need he groaned. How many more hours until dark?

After avoiding his mama’s curious glances at tea, he dressed for dinner early and slipped away to his club. Surely he could find someone to get up a game of whist or piquet that would fill the hours until he could present himself back at her shop.

“Ev, well met!” Brent Blakesly rose to greet him as he entered the reading room. “Missed you at White’s last night. I take it that means your, ah, appointment was successful?”

Evan knew he was beaming; he couldn’t help it. “Completely.”

Brent whistled. “Congratulations, then! Come—” he motioned to a waiter “—let’s have some champagne! Though I can hardly credit it—Willoughby was so sure she’d not go down for anyone.”

Evan jerked back the hand his friend was enthusiastically pumping. “Dammit, don’t you dare describe her in such terms.”

Shocked into immobility, Brent simply looked at him. “Sorry, Ev,” he said at last. “I meant no disrespect.”

Shocked himself by the depth of his outrage, Evan made himself smile and motioned Brent back to his chair. “I don’t want this to become common knowledge about London—not a hint of it. If you take my meaning?”

Brent straightened, looking mildly affronted. “I’m hardly one to go gossiping about my friends. As I thought you’d know.”

“Yes, yes, I do know. Just a reminder.”

“Mrs. Spenser worries for her reputation?” Brent guessed.

“No, I do. I don’t want some idle fool getting the wrong idea and bothering her.”

Brent stared at him searchingly, then shook his head. “The lady must have made quite an impression.”

Evan let his mind play over the images of Emily in all her guises, and of their own volition his lips curved into a smile. “She did indeed.”

The champagne arrived, and with a flourish, Brent presented him a flute. “To you,” he raised his glass, “the luckiest bastard in London.”

After they downed the wine, Evan put a restless hand to his pocket and frowned. “Blast, I seem to have left my watch. What o’clock is it?”

Brent squinted at the mantel clock across the room. “Near on five, best I can see. How about a few hands of piquet before you leave me for the divine Madame? Mayhap I can fleece you of enough blunt to assuage my jealousy.”

So strongly did the thought of Emily pull Evan, even the prospect of several hours spent over good wine in the company of his best friend didn’t appeal. He knew where he most wanted to be. So why not just go there?

“Another time, perhaps,” he replied, deciding on the spot. “I think I’ll stop by the shop and make sure the runner is still on duty.”

Brent grinned. “Righto, better check. Runners are such an inefficient lot.” He ducked Evan’s mock punch. “Give the widow my regards—you lucky bastard.”

Already halfway across the room, Evan only nodded.

Chapter Five

Quietly entering the salesroom half an hour later, Evan saw Francesca by the office door, Emily bent over her worktable in the room beyond. As the maid’s face lit in a welcoming smile, he put a warning finger to his lips and beckoned her.

“Don’t disturb your mistress,” he whispered when she reached his side. “Will she forgive me if I invite myself to dinner?”

“You honor us, my lord,” the maid whispered back.

Grinning, Evan handed her a pouch. “You’ll need to make some purchases. I doubt you usually cook enough to feed a healthy man’s appetite.”

She shook her head sadly. “Not for years.”

“Do so tonight. And if there’s a special dish your mistress particularly likes, prepare it.”

“I know just the one!” Francesca pocketed the pouch, her dark eyes shining. “Ah tonight, such a meal I cook!”

“If ’tis anything like last night’s, I may sack my chef and steal you away. Before you go, could you take this upstairs?” He handed her the tissue-wrapped package.

He tiptoed to the office door. Lost in concentration, Emily toiled away unawares. Vases of flowers scattered about the salesroom wafted the subtle but pervasive scent of violets and pansies. Within the small workroom every available surface but the table itself was covered with bouquets. The spicy fragrance teased his nose.

Though he’d not expected her to hide his tributes, he was absurdly touched to discover she’d placed them all around her, some even in public view. Surely she could not be bent on pleasing him only out of gratitude, could she?

Despite the maid’s friendliness, he was unsure enough about her mistress’s reaction to his unannounced and uninvited arrival that he delayed making his presence known. Silently he settled against the wall, curious, and content to watch her.

A sketchbook sat open on the worktable, a half-finished velvet bonnet on a stand beside it. From time to time she glanced at the book as her long fingers deftly fashioned rosettes of braid and added them to the hat. After completing a final flower, she lifted the bonnet and placed it carefully on her head.

Before he realized what she was doing, she walked to the mirror to inspect it—and saw him behind her in the reflection.

She gasped and spun around. “Lord Cheverley!”

Once again, her beauty seen face-to-face took his breath away. For a long moment, he merely stood, tongue-tied and awkward as an infatuated adolescent.

Quickly she replaced the bonnet on its stand. “I wasn’t expecting you this early, my lord.”

All the gallant, polished phrases he’d practiced deserted him. “I couldn’t stay away.”

Groaning inwardly at such gaucherie, he strode toward her. “But I don’t mean to interrupt. Please, complete whatever you intended to finish by evening.” He halted a foot away, conscious of a strong desire to pull her into his arms. Barely a minute close to her, and already he was lost. He settled for kissing the fingers she extended, savoring the scent, the touch of her skin.

She smiled slightly. “I’m not sure it’s possible for me to work with you so near. But Lady Wendfrow expects this tomorrow, so I’m obliged to try.”

Could she feel the attraction, that magnetic pull between them, as strongly as he? Evan fervently hoped so.

He stepped toward the table, forcing himself to focus on something other than her intoxicating proximity. “You work from your own designs?” At her nod, he indicated the sketchbook. “May I?”

“If you wish.”

To distract himself while she finished, he opened the book, intending to flip idly through the designs. The first image facing up at him riveted his attention. “Why, that’s Lady Wendfrow to the life!”

“’Tis easier to design a bonnet that flatters my client if I work from a detailed sketch of her face.”

“If you can fashion something to flatter Lady Wendfrow, you’re a wizard.”

She made a little gurgle of a laugh, the sound so enchanting it momentarily distracted him. “She does tend to wear plumed hats that only emphasize her narrow face, in shades of black that do nothing whatsoever for her coloring.”

“You intend to rectify those errors?” He pointed to the half-fashioned bonnet.

“Yes. The frame is mourning black, on which she insists, but I’ve lined the brim and trimmed the sides with peach satin. That soft tone beside her face will warm her skin to cream. And I shall drape the plume more to the horizontal, to broaden her face.”

“By heaven, it might work. Mama said you were a genius. May I look at the other sketches?”

“If you like. I’ll be just a few more moments.”

She took up needle and thread and set to work.

While she stitched, he flipped through the book, pausing to study several sketches of the ladies familiar to him. He had to marvel both at how well she had captured their images and at how skillfully each bonnet she’d designed emphasized their best features.

Then he reached the last page and froze.

Emily had caught the sitter at a pensive moment, one hand to her chin as she gazed into the distance. The pale ivory of her hair, the turquoise of her eyes and the wistful, half-smiling expression were so vividly rendered he felt as if his mama might at any moment speak to him from out of the sketchbook.

“This is extraordinary!” he burst out. “Please, I must have it. May I buy it from you?”

She glanced over, her hand with the needle momentarily stilling. “The sketch of Lady Cheverley? Take it, if you like. That bonnet is already finished.”

“I must pay you for it.”

“Nonsense, ’tis only a pastel. Besides, you’ve already expended far too much for me. If the likeness pleases you, I should be honored for you to have it as a gift.”

He hesitated, about to argue the point, but the oblique reference to her indebtedness and the slight lift of her chin alerted him that her pride was at issue.

Give in gracefully, he decided. He could repay her in ways she’d not discover—through Francesca, who, unlike her mistress, seemed cheerfully willing to accept his largesse.

“Thank you, then.” He took a knife from the worktable and carefully cut free the sketch. That task accomplished, he looked back to see her hunched over the bonnet, peering at the dark velvet in the rapidly fading twilight.

“Emily, stop. You can’t possibly see black thread against black velvet any longer.”

‘A few more stitches, and ’twill be finished.” While he watched in exasperation, she stubbornly bent closer, her nose nearly buried in the bonnet as she attached a final ribbon. At last she knotted off her thread.

“Enough,” he said, and put his hands on her shoulders, gently pulling her from the worktable. But at the feel of her flesh under his fingers, he found all his banked passion surging back. He shuddered and went still, resisting the sudden, sharp longing to enfold her against him.

She’d gone motionless as well, and he could feel her muscles tense under his hands. Without thinking, he began to massage her stiff shoulders.

“Ahh,” she sighed. “That feels lovely.”

“No wonder your shoulders ache, standing in front of that worktable all day,” he chided, extending the massage to her neck and upper arms.

“You scold just like Francesca,” she said with a giggle. ’Twas so infectious a sound, he found himself laughing, too. She rotated to face him. He looked down into those wide pansy eyes and caught his breath yet again.

Slowly her smile faded. When, helpless, compelled, he lowered her mouth, she raised on tiptoes to meet his kiss.

He kissed her long and longingly, battling the immediate urge to slide his hands to the tempting, tilt-tipped breasts brushing his chest. At last he reluctantly released her. “I’ve been waiting a century for that.”

Her charming bubble of a laugh sounded again. “Indeed? ’Twas nearly six when you left this morning.”

“Couldn’t have been. It seems an eternity.”

She lifted her gaze to his, her velvet eyes holding the slightly startled look of a wild thing disturbed. Then, to his surprise and utter delight, she closed them again and leaned back into his embrace.

“Another glass of wine, my lord?”

Emily had poured half the glass when the hot dish Francesca was carrying in caught her attention. Her eyes narrowing, she gave the maid a sharp look.

“Paella? How delightful,” Evan said.

“’Tis Madame’s favorite,” Francesca confirmed, ignoring Emily’s pointed stare. “Also the beef with rosemary, potatoes and minted peas, and the fine rioja.”

“Francesca, I’ll want a word with you later.”

“Aye, mistress.” With a curtsey and a saucy wink at Evan, the maid withdrew.

“You mustn’t scold her,” Evan said. “I asked her to fix your favorites this evening.”

“You gave her money,” Emily said flatly.

“Of course. I would rather dine with you than anywhere else in London, but I can hardly expect you to regularly feed one large, overgrown male.”

“If you are my guest, I can provide for you. Perhaps not paella, rare beef and the finest of riojas.”

“Please, Emily, don’t pull caps with me. You do a wonderful job providing for your household. Your company gives me such—” he caught himself before uttering the word joy “—enjoyment, I wanted to do a little something to express it.”

“A little something?” she echoed, exasperation in her tone. “My lord, you’ve already chased away an abusive villain and saved me from being blackmailed a tidy sum monthly for the indefinite future. I think that’s quite enough.”

“Do you place limits on the gifts you give a friend?”

Lips open as if to pursue her argument, she paused. “No, I suppose not,” she admitted after a moment. “Unless necessity compels it.”

“Then will you not permit me the same luxury? Please. You have worked diligently for so long. How can it be wrong for a friend to indulge you?”

Seeing that wary look coming back in her eyes, he changed tack. “As for work, I’m impressed by the exceptional quality of your sketches. Did you not say you’d painted portraits while in Spain? Why did you choose not to continue painting here?”

She took a sip of wine. For a moment, he thought she’d ignore the question. Finally, looking away from him, she said softly, “’Twas different in Spain, among strangers. My father was a—a wealthy man. He sent me to an exclusive school. Some of those who would commission portraits here might be his colleagues or acquaintances. Or former classmates of my own.”

She didn’t need to say more. All at once he had a searing vision of what her life must have been. Cast out of the privileged world of bourgeois wealth because of her runaway marriage, unacknowledged by her husband’s apparently aristocratic family, upon that soldier’s death far from friendly lines, she’d found herself utterly alone in a foreign land with nothing but her talent and wits between herself and starvation.

For an individual who had vanquished the dangers she must have faced to return and work as a servant for those who were once her equals would have been intolerable. Small wonder she’d chosen, despite her undeniable talent, to abandon portraiture.

That she had managed to amass enough capital to return to England and begin a business was nothing short of astounding. Stirred initially by her beauty, he found himself even more fascinated by the resourceful, courageous character beneath.

“Will you be offended if I express my admiration for how cleverly you’ve built a successful business?”

“How could I be? When one lives solely by her own labors, she cannot help but feel gratified that a man praises those efforts rather than her sparkling eyes or raven tresses.”

He stowed that tidbit away for later use. “I cannot recall ever knowing a woman so completely in charge of her own life.”

She shrugged. “One does what one must.”

“Was your break with your family that complete?”

“It was absolute.”

“Do you not think they might reconsider, were they to know you are home now, and widowed?”

She laughed shortly. “My father could not tolerate being crossed. When he realized I had defied him and run away, he was—ungovernable. He forbade my mother to contact me, had my letters to her returned unopened. That he disowned me is certain; I don’t doubt he left orders in his will that even after his death, no member of the family attempt to communicate with me. Though, quite typically, he rendered such an order superfluous.”

Her lips twisted in a bitter smile. “I chanced upon a distant connection in Lisbon a few years ago, and she was astonished to see me. It seems my father told everyone I’d died of a fever the summer I turned sixteen.”

For a moment she stared sightlessly past him. Her voice, when at last she spoke, was a whisper. “I would have starved in the streets of Lisbon before I would have begged him to reconsider.”

Then the intensity left her and she smiled faintly. “But enough of that. Can I not pour you some port while I…get ready?”

Instantly the image that phrase conveyed sent the blood pounding to his temples and set his body aflame. Desperately he tried to reel back the passion he’d been riding all evening on the tightest of checkreins. “Th-there’s no n-need to r-rush,” he stuttered.

Her purple eyes deepened to smoke. “Is there not? I find myself rather—anxious.”

She leaned up, and the rest of his noble intentions shattered at the first touch of her lips. With a groan, he gathered her close and tangled his fingers in her satin hair, combing out the pins as he deepened the kiss. Her tongue met his, mated with it, then pulled away to caress every surface of his mouth. His hands slid down to her back, to the buttons on her gown, and jerked frantically at them. The soft sound of renting cloth finally stopped him.

Heartbeat thundering, his breathing a harsh gasp, he made himself push her away. She looked up at him, her lips still parted and her eyes so passion glazed he almost lost control again.

Hands gripping her shoulders tightly to hang on to his dissolving willpower, he dredged up a ragged smile. “S-sorry! I’m about to take you again like the gr-greenest of saplings. I expect you can’t credit it, but I used to account myself a rather slow and skillful lover.”

She smiled, smoky, intimate. “Oh, but you are.”

“Don’t!” He cupped her startled face with both hands. “Don’t say pretty things you think I want to hear. Tell me what you truly think and feel, or nothing. Promise me?”

“All right.” A little warily, she drew back. “Do you wish me to change now?”