Regency Surrender: Passion And Rebellion. Louise Allen

she would have to get up and go home soon, she realised. She wasn’t sure how long she’d dozed, but they’d already spent several hours in this bed.

      ‘When can I see you again,’ he asked, as he poured wine from a carafe into one of the glasses and handed it to her. ‘Soon, I hope?’

      The eagerness in his voice soothed some of the sting that his less-than-subtle hint it was time for her to leave had inflicted.

      ‘Tomorrow evening, I should think. I shall tell my...friend, Fenella, that since we won’t be staying long in Paris, you need to work on my portrait as often as possible.’

      He frowned briefly, turning away to pull some grapes from their stalk.

      ‘I had hoped perhaps we could meet during the daytime, too,’ he said, popping one into her mouth. ‘I should like to show you something of Paris. The real Paris. Not the one your hired guide will show you. The one that the citizens inhabit. And tomorrow is Sunday.’

      He turned back to her, an eager, open expression on his face that reminded her of when they’d both been so much younger and they’d talked about...anything and everything.

      ‘I could take you outside the barrière, perhaps to the Jardin de la Gaieté. The locals get paid on Saturday and they tend to go outside the barrière to spend their money, where goods don’t incur Paris custom dues. It’s like a huge open-air party, with feasting and dancing all day.’

      Something seemed to turn over and flip inside her. He had no idea how wealthy she was. He’d looked at her clothes, listened to her story, which had made it sound as though she and Fenella were pooling their resources, and come up with an entertainment that would make what little money he supposed she had go as far as possible. It meant he really wanted to spend time with her.

      ‘I am sorry,’ she said, surprised to find that refusing his invitation really had caused her a pang of regret. ‘But I have already made plans.’

      ‘You could break them.’

      Yes, she could. The trouble was that she wanted to do just that far too much. It felt wonderful to have him look at her like that as he asked her to spend the daylight hours with him, as though he really wanted to be with her. But then he’d made her feel like this when she’d been younger, too. And just look how that had ended!

      No, it was more honest to just limit their relationship to what it was truly all about. If they started to behave like a...well, like a courting couple, then she might start to slide into feeling something for him besides the physical fascination she couldn’t deny he exerted over her.

      ‘No. I don’t break my word,’ she said firmly. Besides, it would be much healthier to spend time with her friends, friends who would still be there for her when this affaire with Harcourt had burned out. As it surely would. By all accounts he was incapable of sticking to one female for much more than a week.

      ‘What about the evening, then? I have an invitation to a soirée you might find amusing. We could go together.’

      She frowned up at him. ‘I’m not sure that would be a good idea.’ She didn’t know what kind of circles Nathan moved amongst these days. It was just possible she might get introduced to one of the merchants with whom she was trying to do business. And then if they spotted her with Monsieur Le Brun, who was acting for her, they might put two and two together. It was only a slight possibility, but still...

      He sucked in a sharp breath. ‘You want to keep our affair secret. I can understand that.’ He shrugged, and smiled, but it was a cynical smile that made her sorry she’d spoken so sharply. ‘But you will come to me again?’

      Oh, that was better. Much better. He found her so irresistible that he would accept any terms she chose, so long as she returned to his bed.

      * * *

      She had hugged the sensation to herself all the way home and woken up the next morning with a smile on her face.

      She wasn’t unnatural and unfeminine, as her father had decreed she must be, for preferring to stay with her aunt and work at her ledgers rather than crawl home to the vicarage and...stultify. She was a desirable woman. Nathan Harcourt, the man who had once spurned her, wanted her. Her.

      Without knowing a thing about her fortune.

      She stretched her arms above her head, wincing as she felt the pull of muscles left tender from all those hours of lovemaking.

      No, not lovemaking. She wasn’t going to mistake his enthusiasm for her body as affection, not this time round. Nor was she going to fall for him, or anything silly like that.

      He wasn’t anything special. He was just here. At a time in her life when she was ready to explore new possibilities. To find out what she really wanted from life. She’d known it wasn’t the cloistered, cramped existence that was all Stanton Basset had to offer. She’d wanted to break free of its petty restrictions, it’s narrow-minded parochialism. And she’d thought visiting Paris would do it.

      She’d been wrong.

      Taking a lover had been what she needed.

      They would say she was wanton, if they knew what she’d done last night, the town tabbies. And wicked, to boot, for turning down Harcourt’s guilt-induced proposal.

      It had surprised her, that proposal. It was the kind of thing an honourable man would do and she’d long since ceased to think of him as anything more than an out-and-out scoundrel.

      But he wasn’t all bad. He had wanted her, truly wanted her, when he’d been a young man. And if he’d been the villain she’d believed, the rake that the scandal sheets had branded him, he could have taken her virginity then and left her sullied as well as broken-hearted.

      But he hadn’t bedded her when she’d been a girl. He might have cut her out of his life quite harshly when he’d decided to marry for gain, rather than...well, she hesitated to use the word love, but it really did look as though he had felt something for her. But he had left her in such a way that she could have married someone else.

      If she hadn’t been so shattered.

      If her parents hadn’t added to her misery by heaping all the blame upon her.

      If her aunt hadn’t swooped down and taken her under her wing. And fostered her poor opinion of the male species until she, too, had grown to dislike them all on principle.

      Well, that was all water under the bridge now. It was Sunday and, instead of trudging to church and listening to the moralising of plump and priggish Parson Peabody, she was going out on an excursion of pleasure. Monsieur Le Brun had organised a carriage to drive them out to the Bois de Boulogne. It sounded rather tame, she sighed as she got out of bed, in comparison with the all-day ball that Nathan had invited her to attend. But as she washed and donned her clothes, she reminded herself that it wouldn’t do to let him monopolise her time. He was already monopolising her thoughts.

      He would have to be content to have the access to her body that no other man had ever known.

      Listen to her! Planning to keep her lover at arm’s length. She giggled at her newfound confidence in her attractiveness. Oh, if only she’d known how good making love would feel, she would have taken a lover years ago.

      Or at least she might have considered it.

      Though...actually, she hadn’t ever felt the slightest curiosity about what it might have been like to so much as kiss a man, until she’d run into Nathan again.

      But then, she hastily reminded herself, she hadn’t been in Paris, either.

      She had just about convinced herself that it was something about the revolutionary atmosphere lingering in Paris that had given her the courage to defy all the rules by the time she went through to the main salon.

      And got the shock of her life.

       Chapter Nine