The Lover (12 page)

Anne thrust her hand inside her glove and followed Mrs. Huttchinson to the front of the building. The older woman courteously opened the door for her, admitting a draft of cool air and dazzling sunshine.

She paused on the threshold, suddenly needing approval, knowing she would not receive it. How could she ask another woman to condone her actions? "Please give my regards to Mr. Little."

Mrs. Huttchinson smiled kindly. "I will most certainly do that, Miss Aimes."

Anne reluctantly stepped forward. Behind her the closing door clicked with finality.

The cabby—face as blank and uncaring as those of the rental servants—stared down at her. His hat was pulled low over his eyes. "Where to, ma'am?"

Suddenly it was not a black bowler hat that Anne gazed up at. She saw instead the black bodice of her abigail reflected in the mirror of her dressing table.
But what if your solicitor is unavailable
?

Across the street, a horse, startled by a boardman passing out bills, reared up and kicked the air.

A man stood nearby, leaning against a lamppost. Metal glinted—the head of his cane. His hair was so black it gleamed with blue highlights.

Anne's mouth went dry.

Michel had hair that color.

As if aware of her regard, the black-haired man abruptly turned away.

A shoeblack blocked his escape. Between one blink of the eyes and another the man became not Michel, but just another Londoner hitching his foot up on a shoeblack's box and hunching over the kneeling boy to watch him clean the filth and manure that mucked the cobbled streets off of his boot.

It dawned on Anne that Michel, a Frenchman, had only once spoken French after he had taken her virginity.

Rose Huttchinson stared through the slits of the Venetian blind. Anne Aimes hesitated by the cab, as if unsure of her destination.

Her heart ached for the spinster and the choice she had made.

John Little had frequently talked about Anne Aimes. First of her dedication. Then of her solitude. And finally of her incredible decision.

Rose wondered what Miss Aimes would have said if she had told her that she, too, had once faced a similar choice.

When her husband, a barrister's clerk, had died, she had been childless and destitute. John had offered her a job in his home, and then he had offered her a place in his bed.

They had been two middle-aged people bound by loneliness, young enough to want but too old to trust in new beginnings. He had been committed to his work; she had been afraid of losing another man to death.

That had been ten years ago. Now John Little was sixty-five, and she was fifty-nine.

As if coming to a decision, Anne Aimes stepped into the cab and pulled the door shut.

Rose did not for one minute regret taking comfort in her solicitor's bed. She hoped that Miss Aimes did not regret taking comfort in Michel des Anges.

Sometimes a woman had to grab happiness and let the future take care of itself.

An omnibus waddled down the street, blocking Rose's view of the departing cab.

She frowned.

John had complained of chest pains lately.

It was not like him to go off without telling her, she thought fretfully. He worked too hard. He should not have stayed up all night, working on that will, and then traipsing off without a by-your-leave.

A sixty-five-year-old man was too old to travel at every client's whim. Who would warm his feet while he was away?

Who would warm
her
feet?

A reminiscent smile curved Rose's mouth.

John had discussed the legal merits of marriage on several occasions these last few months. Perhaps, if he worked up the courage to propose, she would reconsider her decision to remain an independent woman.

Perhaps
she
would make
him
an honest man.

That would certainly teach him to go off and leave her alone.

Chuckling, she turned back to her desk and the typewriter that was John Little's pride and joy.

There were so many things to do. A will had to be typed. The ashes in John's office needed to be cleaned and the room aired.

What had he burned? she wondered irritably. It positively reeked.

She checked the paper in the typewriter, then squinted down at the neatly stacked papers and the scrawled script that was John's handwriting.

In the note, he had instructed her to arrange for his trunk to be delivered to a solicitor.

Strange, that. She had never heard the man's name before.

John always kept her informed about his legal associates.

A shadow darkened the scrawled handwriting.

Rose started.

The bell over the door had not rung. There was only one other entrance into the solicitor's home and office, and that was through the back door. But John and Rose were the only two who possessed a key.

The shadow was broad—much broader than that which belonged to the frail man she had come to know and love.

Clutching her chest to still the thumping of her heart, she looked up, up, up… and stared, mesmerized. "May I help you?"

The man smiled disarmingly.

Rose's heart fluttered.

He really was quite handsome.

She remembered the first time she had seen her husband, a blindingly clear spring day—much like this day. Gay young women had strolled in the park, flirtatiously pretending to ignore the studious young men who took their lunch there.

It was the last thought Rose had.

Michael watched, body motionless, from the upstairs sitting room window. The thin, powder blue silk drape clung to his fingertips.

Anne Aimes's hair had also clung to his skin.

It was far, far more fine than the silk curtain.

The spinster stepped out of the cab. She wore a plain black cloak and a round black hat with a white egret feather that danced in the sunlight. Raoul, his dark, wiry butler, gesticulated wildly, directing two footmen to unload her trunk.

Michael's heart hammered against his ribs: from delayed reaction. From the rush to reach his town house before her cab.

He had been careless. Anne had seen him outside her solicitor's office.

What would she have done if she had recognized him? Would she have come to him, knowing he followed her?

He remembered the morning sunlight—and Anne lying in his bed, sleeping.

She slept quietly, unobtrusively, as she lived.

Except when approaching orgasm.

There was nothing quiet or unobtrusive about her uninhibited pleasure.

Anne and Raoul disappeared underneath the arch of the doorway.

Last night he had tasted her innocence. This day he had tasted the woman he had made of her: the saltiness of sweat; the sweetness of passion; the coppery tang of her virgin blood.

Michael had never before made a woman bleed.

He should feel remorse.

He did not.

For the time they had left she was his.

A whore's woman.

A killer's woman.

The two footmen clumsily lowered the brown leather trunk off the cab.

It was no doubt filled with drab, colorless clothes that befitted a drab, colorless spinster.

Each grasping an end of the trunk, the footmen walked underneath the arch where Anne and his butler had disappeared.

Michael glanced at the silk drape in his hand, at the pale, transparent blue that was reminiscent of Anne's eyes.

He imagined her dressed in beautiful clothes. Revealing clothes. Clothes that defined her innate sensuality instead of her marital status.

A hand fisted inside his chest.

The identity of the man she had cared for
a long, long time ago
had been so painfully obvious.

Beautiful, cocksure Michel des Anges. A French
courailleur
who had seemingly escaped the threat of the Franco-Prussian War merely to take English ladies for the ride of their lives.

He had been so confident he would not be identified. So very sure he could finish what the boy he had once been could not.

Michael bitterly begrudged the man Anne Aimes had cared for—the man who had died in a blazing inferno—whereas she did not in the least begrudge the woman who haunted his past.

He was not used to generosity. Or kindness.

Anne had unstintingly given him both.

Distant steps traversed the marble stairs; not-so-distant steps echoed down the hallway toward the sitting room where Michael awaited Anne.

His spinster was a fighter.

Diane had been a beautiful woman whose reckless passion had matched his. They had shared laughter. Champagne. And sex.

Everything else had been superfluous.

When the man destroyed Diane's passion, she had possessed nothing more enduring to sustain her.

Anne was strong as well as passionate. Intelligent. Familiar with death and suffering.

She might survive.

If she did, she would need more confidence to see her through the aftermath.

He could give her that.

The air behind Michael stirred. He could sense his butler, Raoul. But he could feel Anne in the very blood that pulsed through his veins.

His erection was instantaneous.

"Mademoiselle Aimes, monsieur."

Michael dropped the curtain and turned toward the only female alive who couldn't imagine another woman not wanting him.

Her pale blue eyes were guarded, her shoulders squared. She had not allowed Raoul to take her cloak.

Only sheer strength of will kept her from turning and running from the force of her desires.

Anne's passion tonight was his enemy, as in the end it had been Diane's enemy. It would make her nervous and restless.

He had to circumvent her thoughts before they led them both down a road that neither would enjoy traversing.

Michael smiled; behind his practiced charisma, he plotted. "You came."

"As you see."

But he did not see
… how far he would go in order to restrain her.

He did not see how far she would venture on this sexual odyssey that both their needs had catapulted them into.

He did not see how long it would be before she pieced together the pattern of deception and seduction
, and her passion turned to hatred.

Deliberately he played on her kindness—as he had earlier played on her sensuality. "Will you be seen with me outside these walls, Anne Aimes?"

His question took her by surprise. As it was supposed to.

Her expression took Michael by surprise. As well as the pain it engendered.

Even she hesitated to be openly seen with a man who bore the scars of his past.

Anne tilted her chin, denying the horror that had flitted across her face. As she denied her feminine attractions. But they existed—both the physical appeal she held for him and the repugnance he incited in her. "Yes. Of course I will be seen with you."

Michael shrugged off the hurt. What he did to Anne would cause far more pain than any she could inflict upon him.

"Then I want to show you something. Something that is quite extraordinary. If you dare," he challenged.

Anne rubbed the peacock blue velvet between her gloved fingers and silently damned both herself and Michel.

If she had known that he would take her to a dressmaker she would not have accompanied him.

She felt hurt. And used.

He had tricked her. Worse, he was obviously ashamed of her.

She pushed away the bolt of cloth. "I would prefer something more subdued, please. Perhaps a navy blue."

Michel and Madame Rene, a petite, autocratic old woman with shocking red hair who wore a collar of pearls worthy of a queen, exchanged looks.

Anne correctly interpreted their silent communication.

She was an unsophisticated, gauche woman, their glances said, who did not know the slightest thing about what was fashionable.

And she did not.

But she knew how harshly the world judged an unmarried woman.

She knew that wearing peacock blue velvet would not make her less of a spinster.

It would not make her younger.

It would not make her more attractive.

What a fool she had been, to agree to stay with a man she knew nothing about other than that he had a perfect body and knew exactly how to make a woman forget she was not similarly blessed.

"Mademoiselle, we will take your measurements and then we will decide,
oui
?" The modiste held up a small, slim hand. A large diamond glittered on her right forefinger. "Claudette, take mademoiselle's reticule—Angelique, her gloves—Babette, her cloak—ah, there is no need to worry, mademoiselle; Monsieur Michel will watch over your things."

Short of creating a public row, there was little Anne could do to restrain madame's feminine army. In due order her reticule was pried out of her clenched fingers; her gloves tugged off of her hands, and her cloak whisked away.

"
Voilà
," Madame Rene said briskly. "If you will step this way,
s'il vous plait
."

Anne found herself ushered behind a maroon velvet curtain into a plain, claustrophobically small dressing room. A crystal gas chandelier hissed and popped overhead. "There is no need to take my measurements, Madame Rene. I can tell you what they are."

The modiste, shorter than Anne by several inches, reached up and pinched her left nipple.

The air froze in Anne's lungs. It escaped in a blast of outrage.

"How dare you—"

"
Non, non
, mademoiselle, this gown, it is not made to fit you
id
—here—see? The wool—it balloons over your breast. Claudette! Ah, there you are,
ma chère
. Bring the new corset—the French one—that arrived yesterday. Now, mademoiselle, we will take off our dress."

Anne stepped back from the modiste's small, busy hands before they took even more shocking liberties. The hard press of a wall stopped her short. "I will send you my measurements, madame. Monsieur and I have a previous engagement that we will be late for. Pardon me…"

Madame Rene did not step aside.

The modiste cocked her head, a conspiratorial gleam in her bright, tawny eyes. "It is Monsieur Michel,
oui
?" she whispered. "He is a much changed man. You dress the drab ensemble when you are with him,
non
? To attract less attention. No woman wants to draw the eye when she is with such a man,
oui
?"

Anne's head jerked back. "You are mistaken, madame."

"
Non
, I do not think so, mademoiselle. If I were, then you would want to please him, to be
la belle
for him. You would want every man to look at you when he is at your side, to say,
quelle une femme incroyable
—what an incredible woman! What a man he must be to possess a woman like her!"

"Monsieur des Anges is a remarkably handsome man," Anne said icily.
Despite his scars
. "He is quite capable of holding his own in any company."

"If you say so, mademoiselle. He is rumored to be built like
un etalon
—a stallion." Madame's mouth wrinkled in a moue of distaste. "But those scars…"

The ice in Anne's blood thawed; molten heat infused her.

Michel
was
built like a stallion.

"I am not ashamed of Monsieur des Anges," she insisted, masking mortification with haughtiness.

Madame shrugged. The Gaelic gesture was more telling than words.

Clearly the modiste did not believe her.

"Madame Rene, I am not…" Anne forced the words out—painful words, hurtful words,
truthful
words. "I am not an attractive woman."

A satisfied smile broke across the woman's wizened face. "That is before you come to me, the so talented Madame Rene. After I finish with you, mademoiselle, you will be
très magnifique
!"

Anne raised an eyebrow ironically. "And how much will you charge for this miraculous transformation?"

"A fortune, mademoiselle. But if you did not possess it, you would not be with Monsieur Michel,
non
?"

Anne breathed slowly, deeply.

She would not be hurt.

The modiste said to her face what others would soon be saying behind her back.

She did possess a fortune. If not for her money, she would not be with the man who was named for his ability to bring women to orgasm.

Everything could be bought, Michel had said. Sexual satisfaction. Intimacy. Friendship.

Why not the illusion of beauty?

"Very well, Madame Rene."

The modiste was not content merely to strip Anne of her dress. "
Tout
, mademoiselle.
Tout
."

Everything
went—bustle, petticoats, corset, chemise,
drawers
.

The dressmaker did not understand English modesty—very practical for a woman in her business, Anne thought bitingly.

As convenient as it was for a man in Michel's business.

Goose bumps marched over her body.

She shivered, clothed only in a hat, drooping stockings, and garters that squeezed the very air from her lungs. The feminine articles did nothing to hide her swollen, tender breasts. The heels on her half boots forced her pelvis forward—as had the heels on the slippers she had worn when Michel undressed her.

But there was a world of difference between being stripped naked by a woman as opposed to a man. With Michel it had been exciting, titillating. Madame Rene inspected her as if she were a horse, first from the front, then from behind.

She felt like a great, clumsy horse
, with the feather sticking out of her hat.

A measuring tape snaked around her neck, choked her, slithered away. It was summarily stretched across her shoulders. "Lift your arms, mademoiselle." The tape was pressed into Anne's armpit—a warm shock of fingers and cold metal tab—and extended to her wrist.

She had not undergone the humiliation of being measured for many, many years. Ridiculously, she found herself hoping—as she had hoped when being measured for her London wardrobe eighteen years past—that the modiste would find perfections her own mirror did not.

Anne stoically stared over Madame Rene's head as the elderly woman leaned into her naked bosom. Above her the popping hiss of the gas chandelier was discordantly loud.