And he wanted her more than he had ever wanted any other woman.
She was not even particularly feminine—not in a frills and lace and powdered, fragrant, swelling bosom sort of way, anyway. She was not lisping and big-eyed and worshipful with a head stuffed full of fluff.
Devil take it, was he describing the sort of woman whose bed he usually sought?
She was . . . What was the word Sidney had used earlier—or yesterday, to be precise? Formidable. That was it. She was formidable. That fact ought to repel him. Instead it attracted. Ah, another pair of opposites—attraction and repulsion.
“You and me,” he said again. “But there has been no balance tonight, Imogen. It has been all me, as is only right for a domineering male lover.”
She smiled at him—and the uncomfortable suspicion grew again that he was falling in love with her. Something unfamiliar was happening to him, anyway, something that was attacking his gut. And it was not just the desire to take her to bed and have his way with her until they were both panting with exhaustion. It was what was left beyond the sexual desire that was unfamiliar and unidentified—unless that was being in love. He hoped not.
She should never smile.
She should always smile.
He felt as if he were on her balancing scale of opposites.
“Yes, lord and master,” she said.
He pointed a finger directly at her.
“It will be your turn next time,” he said. “You have stripped me naked, Imogen, and I do not mean just abovestairs in your bedchamber. I will strip you next time—and I do not mean just abovestairs in your bedchamber.”
He smiled at her even as her own smile faded.
“Not tonight, though,” he said. “I have a valet to consider. No matter what I say to him, he will insist upon waiting up for me. He will be sitting in my dressing room at this very moment, without a fire, without a light, like patience on a monument. It is time I went home.”
She lifted the cat gently off her lap and set it down beside her—the animal thanked her with an indignant meow. And she stood and brushed cat hairs from the ancient velvet of her dressing gown and looked up at him.
He closed the distance between them and kissed her, his arms about her. There was no desire, though, to take her back up to bed, and that in itself was a bit unnerving. There was only the warmth of embracing a woman with whom he was becoming increasingly comfortable, even if she did harangue him when she could get him alone at two in the morning.
She saw him on his way, holding the lamp aloft with one hand to light the path to the gate and clutching her dressing gown to her throat with the other. He looked back after closing the gate behind him and tried to convince himself that she did not present the most appealing sight he had ever seen in his life.
The sooner he left here after this infernal ball, he thought, the better it would be for his peace of mind. He touched the brim of his hat with one gloved hand and turned away.
18
The ladies had taken possession of the library and the ballroom again. Imogen, Beth, and Meredith, at last sighting, were writing invitations. A couple of the uncles had gone off with Knorr to watch as part of the park wall was rebuilt without mortar. Leonard and Gregory had walked to Porthmare with Alma and Eva to deliver some invitations and visit some new acquaintances. Uncle Roderick and Cyril had taken Geoffrey down onto the beach again.
Percy was riding along the top of the valley with Sidney and Arnold.
“If I were you, Perce,” Arnold was saying, “I would turn a blind eye. You say nothing specific has happened since you came here to compel you to act.”
“Apart from one soggy bed, one sooty floor complete with dead, sooty bird, and one window curtain designed to keep out the light even of the sun on midsummer day, no,” Percy admitted. “Nothing of which I am aware.”
“You will be gone from here soon, Perce,” Sidney said. “And I doubt you will be back soon. There is not much here for you, is there? Apart from the widow, that is.”
That drew Percy up short—and his horse too. “The widow?” he asked, frost in his voice.
Arnold’s mount pranced about as he reined it in. He was grinning. “The last of us staggered off to bed just before three last night,” he said. “One of your uncles remarked that you were wiser than the rest of us and must have taken yourself off to bed after walking with the dog. Sid and I took a brief peek into your room. Fire crackling, nightshirt spread over a chair before the blaze, bedcovers turned neatly down, no Percy.”