R Is for Rebel (10 page)

“Hmmm… time… yes…” she agreed.

He kissed her gently, but his hands were firm and possessive on her cheeks. “It's already late in London, you beautiful creature. Rest on my lap and we'll be there in no time. I'm going to have to continue on to Milan. I don't want our first time together to be some rushed mile-high business.”

She frowned and turned her lips to kiss the palm of his left hand. “I know you're right. And it will be wonderful, but—first no shoeboxes, then no mile-high club—” She huffed. “No fair.”

He smiled and reluctantly let his hands come away from her face. “Oh, I'll make it fair come Friday, don't you worry.”

She smiled and let him guide her into a more comfortable position, resting her cheek on his thigh and enjoying the sound of his fingers clicking on his computer and the occasional pressure of his hand on her cheek or shoulder when he paused to think. Abby fell asleep quickly and didn't wake up until they were on their way into London.

“Let me guess?” She rubbed her eyes and sat up slowly. “I slept the whole way again?”

“Yep.” Eliot was putting his computer aside and helping her buckle up for landing. “Sleeping beauty.” He leaned in and kissed her neck and nuzzled into her, then kissed her lips. “I've reserved a suite at the Plaza Athénée for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights.”

“Oh, you didn't need to do that.”

“Of course I did. Did you think I was going to stay in a room with you and your mother?” He smiled and played with a strand of her hair.

“No!” She gave him a playful nudge. “I already have a room. I would have thought it'd be obvious that my mother is not really the slumber party type.”

“Fine. We can keep both rooms. You can use yours like a changing room, or whatever. I want a lot of room to move around. To move you around.”

Her stomach lurched and her cheeks burned. “Really?”

“Yeah. Really. I've got all sorts of ideas about what we can do with each other if we set our minds to it. Three days…” He was talking low and looking at her face, touching the edge of her lip, the turn of her brow. “Three nights… I might require long stretches of time to…” His voice trailed off as his other hand cupped her breast. Abby gasped, reveling in the way he was beginning to know her body already. “…discover what you really like… make it last… test your limits…” When he fondled her in that calculating way, she thought she might have an orgasm just from the way he concentrated all of his attention on her reaction.

“I say, Eliot. I believe you might be seriously bent. Quite the dark horse.”

“I admit it. You make me think very dark thoughts.” He looked suddenly clear-eyed and businesslike. “Would you prefer I was the straight arrow everyone takes me for?”

She laughed and kissed him hard. “Never.”

***

Friday afternoon, Abigail texted that she and her mother had made their train and they would be arriving at the Plaza Athénée in Paris around 6:30 that night. All need for subtlety now gone, Eliot simply replied:

i'll be panting in the bar.

So here he sat with a very large, very good scotch on the too small cocktail table at his knee, in the bar of the Plaza Athénée. He was surrounded by platoons of beautiful Parisian women dressed in tight black dresses and high suede boots and the men and women with whom they smoked and drank and laughed. The precision of the modern interior design was the perfect counterpoint to the bubbling anticipation that coursed through his veins; he felt like molten fire trapped in ice. And then he felt the tentative trace of a finger along the small space of skin between the top of his collar and the edge of his hairline and all the worries of the week simply evaporated. He groaned his pleasure and had to resist the urge to grab at her wrist and pull her into his lap.

Instead, he stood up and forced his face into a cheerful mask, lifting his mouth into his best good-son smile. He simultaneously put one possessive hand around Abigail's trim waist and the other reached out to shake the perfectly manicured hand of the Dowager Duchess of Northrop. The feel of Abigail's trembling ribs beneath his firm hand made it difficult to process the words coming out of the dowager duchess's lips. He figured it was something along the lines of
nice to see you
, and Eliot opted for a similar reply.

Then again, he might have missed a word or two, what with Abigail's birdlike heart pattering frantically into his fingertips.

“Eliot?” Abigail was trying to get his attention, but the room was crowded and he was simply overcome with the relief of having her in his hold.

“Yes?” He leaned his head down to hear her better.

“My mother asked if we might go out to La Galerie des Gobelins.” Her lips were dangerously close to his ear; he might have swayed into her a bit. “I think it's a touch loud and crowded in here for her.”

He straightened, physically and mentally, and signaled the waiter. “Of course. What would you ladies like to drink and I'll have them bring it to us?” They sorted out their orders—Eliot didn't notice Abigail's slight swoon at the sound of his perfect French conversation with the waiter—and the three of them left the commotion and hum of the bar behind them.

Eliot was consummately at ease with women (women in their twenties or women in their nineties), so having Abigail's mother along would normally have presented a pleasant addition to the evening. As it was, he thought she was the most extraneous person he'd ever come across, and wished she would simply disappear. He filed those uncharitable feelings deep into the part of his psyche that was rapidly running out of storage space, the file marked: desires-I-repress-since-meeting-Abigail-Heyworth.

The wintry Parisian night accentuated the warmth of the hotel's interior. The quieter gallery bar where they relocated had a lovely perimeter of potted trees that diffused the sound of the other people and created a calm elegance.

“Do you mind if I remove my jacket?” Eliot asked the duchess cordially.

“Of course, you should remove your jacket, Eliot. It's quite casual here.”

Eliot smiled as he pulled the lightweight blazer from his shoulders, thinking that only someone of the duchess's particular character could construe the Hôtel Plaza Athénée as
quite
casual
… compared to Blenheim Palace, maybe. He turned to hang his jacket on the back of the suede Bergère chair and caught Abigail staring up at him. Eliot gave her a quick wink while his back was turned toward her mother. He would have endured medieval torture for the shy smile that he earned in reply.

Their drinks arrived within seconds and they spent a comfortable time talking about their respective travels into Paris. He had taken the 4:30 flight from Milan; they had taken the Eurostar. He had taken the liberty of making a reservation at Alain Ducasse's restaurant in the hotel. The duchess nodded her glowing approval of his choice.

Eliot started talking about plans for the next Fashion Week with the duchess, and Abigail smiled and looked away from her mother, who was veering dangerously close to fawning. She supposed she couldn't blame her; Eliot was impossibly charming. As she looked around the genteel bar area, she noticed three older people talking at the far end of the room, partially obscured by one of the elegant leafy palms. From this distance, the couple with their backs turned looked remarkably like Eliot's parents. Abigail smiled to herself, and thought a psychologist would have a field day, questioning the mental health of seeing Eliot's likeness at every possible turn.

“What are you smiling about, Abigail?” Eliot asked, reaching out to touch her thigh, letting his hand rest gently on her skirt.

She paused for a second at his caress, inhaling. “I was just thinking how those people look like your parents from far away, and then I thought how silly it is that I would think random people look like your family.”

Eliot turned his head over his left shoulder to glance in the direction Abigail had been looking, then rolled his eyes and very reluctantly pulled his hand away from Abigail's precious leg. “Those are my parents.”

Eliot rose from the table and turned past the adjacent potted plant to see his uncle and parents enjoying a bottle of champagne in the far corner of the bar. His mother caught his eye before her companions did and she gave a quick cry of delight.

Her eyes sparkled, dark and joyful and mischievous.
Like Eliot's
, thought Abigail. The three gregarious Americans left their table and went over to say hello to Abigail and her mother.

“How much fun!” Penny Cranbrook clapped her hands together and looked at Abigail and Sylvia as if they were all a bunch of long lost friends.

Eliot made formal introductions to the dowager duchess, who remained seated. Abigail wanted to kick her mother in the shin and tell her to get up and quit being such a slave to convention. Abigail was up and shaking hands with the lot of them, and laughed when Eliot's mother pulled her into a half-hug and whispered, “Don't you look pretty!” Abigail was unaccustomed to doting of the maternal sort, but she thought she might be able to get used to it.

“Thank you. It's so nice to see you again, Penny,” Abby replied.

It turned out the Cranbrooks' companion, Jack Parnell, was an old childhood friend of theirs who had moved away from Iowa when he went off to college. He must have been in his late sixties like Will and Penny—and the duchess, come to think of it—but he lifted one of the heavy Bergère chairs with ease. He settled himself right in next to Sylvia, disarming her with his easy mix of respectful interest and joviality.

Abigail looked up at Eliot with a grateful smile. He pulled her slightly away as his father pulled up two more chairs for Eliot's mother and himself. A waiter came over with their standing bucket of iced champagne and resituated it near their new location.

“Do you think we can run off and leave them now?” Eliot's warm hand was at the small of her back and his voice was a low rumble in her ear that shot straight to her gut.

She slapped him on the upper arm. “Never say!”

Eliot's mother caught the short interplay and looked away with a small smile.

“There is no way in hell I can abandon my mother to these
strangers
!” Abigail whispered in a perfect imitation of her mother's plummy, snobbish accent on the last word. Eliot laughed quietly and Abigail felt it roll through her as he guided her back to her seat with the light touch of his palm at her back.

The six of them ended up having dinner together at Alain Ducasse, with Sylvia looking more relaxed and happy than Abigail had seen her ever since her mother had been widowed. Sylvia had Jack Parnell to her right and Will Cranbrook to her left, and she looked unexpectedly young and vivacious. Abigail mused that her mother's practiced ease in society was yet another trait they did not share. But her mother's spark of vitality this night was nothing like the typical mask she wore in recent years amid her circle of friends in London. Abigail thought, with a pang, that her mother might be simply enjoying herself for the first time in years.

Eliot was sitting to Abigail's left and Mr. Cranbrook was sitting to her right. She felt as though she were bookended between American Male Specimen the Elder and American Male Specimen the Younger. Eliot and Abigail were seated on the banquette and the other four at individual upholstered seats around the immaculate table crowded full of wineglasses, fine white linen, and sparkling silver.

The seating arrangement made it much easier for Eliot's hand to wander unnoticed along Abigail's supple thigh. She wore a simple black skirt that stopped just above her knee, and rose higher once she was seated. All Eliot could think of was how quickly and easily it might be removed.

Dinner conversation jumped from the happy coincidence of Eliot's presence in Paris (“So surprising given the importance of the negotiations in Milan,” Penny Cranbrook noted with particular meaning and a glance in Abigail's direction) to the recent praise heaped upon Jack Parnell and his years of service in Paris. Abigail adored the look on her mother's face as Jack talked humbly about the work he had done over the past forty years as an expat in Paris, where he had come as a clerk right out of University of Chicago Law School on a two-year assignment with a large American firm.

Parnell had been widowed five years earlier and had three grown sons, two living in the United States and one in Paris. He had spent much of his free time championing the rights of immigrants and other disenfranchised members of French society, and his recent retirement from the law had not diminished his enthusiasm for good works.

Abigail picked up and followed bits and pieces of all the conversations winging around the table (and some from the large, noisy table behind them as well), but found it surprisingly difficult to focus when she spoke to Eliot, who was practically on her lap. After a few attempts at small talk with him, Abigail had the uncomfortable realization that she couldn't say anything to Eliot without it sounding like a seductive purr. She tried clearing her throat a couple of times, but he just smiled and shook his head, as if to say, don't even bother.

She asked him about his negotiations in Milan; they talked about the small town where the family's traditional factory had been located for centuries; Eliot invited her to come for a visit to see it. He asked her all about her meetings in London and how she was progressing with what he dubbed her
life
plan
. She bristled momentarily at the perceived slight, that he was belittling her efforts to take charge of her (considerable) finances and set a course for herself. He caught the subtle shift in her posture immediately.

“What is it?”

“You make it sound a trifle piddling when you say it like that.”

“That certainly wasn't my intention. It's your
life
and it's your
plan
. I wasn't trying to diminish the importance of what you're doing.”