Page 28 of Better Love Next Time
Determined not to make a fuss, Kitty disappeared into the dining room. The table was a sprawling affair in the French taste: inlaid mahogany with bronze fleur-de-lis ornaments about the black skirt, bronze tiger claws capping the trestles. The cream silk chairs beckoned, padded bottom and back.
Here she was. In the most conspicuous rooms in the most conspicuous establishment in town. A town wishing to be Bath and Brighton.
The apartment door clicked behind her. Julian said, “I have procured another room.”
“Thank you.” She walked toward the door where men unloaded their trunks.
Julian caught her by the arm and nodded for the men to quit the apartment. “You will remain here. I will take the second room.” When she veered her gaze to the smaller, second room off the main, he added, “Another room. Second down from the corner.”
“But if I stay here, I will appear a kept woman.”
“You are a kept woman.”
“I will pay for my own lodgings.”
“Stop.” He pressed a finger to her mouth. “I will not have you living in one room while I enjoy luxury. No, you will remain here and allow me to visit.”
“Regardless of where I sleep, I will require a companion to maintain respectability.”
Julian blinked repeatedly. “You try my patience.”
“We shook hands on this. Are you a gentleman, Mr. St. Clair?”
A shiver of restraint wracked his shoulders.
“I will speak to Mr. Welles,” she said, “about transferring the account.” She grabbed the key dangling from Julian’s fingers and, securing the handle of one of her trunks, dragged it out the door.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The St.Clair temper was renowned in English aristocratic and parliamentary circles thanks to Julian’s father, Uncle William—may he rest in peace—and his brother Oliver. Even his cousin Georgiana had displayed it on occasion.
Kitty was a lucky woman Julian hadn’t inherited the curse. He had settled her into a third-rate room and left her. After reading the summary of Madame’s life, he joined the crowds in the lower rooms where tourists acquainted themselves over tea, cakes, and gossip.
Madame Féline had a dead husband, mother, and child, and a living brother and father. She had grown up in the country. Her father was lesser nobility and a pauper. She had metEtiennein her seventh year. Near to what Kitty’s life had been, and it made sense to live a lie as close to the truth as possible. Except Julian wasn’t dead. Neither was their never-existing child.
The blond woman Kitty had so graciously suggested he amuse himself with strolled near and paused to speak to a matron to his left.
With a thorough perusal of the woman’s tiny waist and generous hips, Julian pronounced his wife’s taste in womensound. The modest fichu tucked in her bodice served to highlight her abundant breasts and make a man want to rip it off and bury his mouth in the ivory glory. And those layers of skirts—he would throw them over her head and bury himself in her voluptuous heat.
The sideways glance she sent him, blue and arched and not innocent, had him filling his breeches. In the middle of a formal tea.
Could he do it?
Kitty had released him and named him dead. They had shaken hands on it.
But could he?
After the woman offered another smoldering look, he decided he could. But how? He flushed in humiliation.How?He had been a eunuch for two years and sorely out of practice, but he wasn’t dead. Despite Kitty’s assertions.
The woman dropped her fan. Julian cleared his throat, and she turned in his direction.
“You dropped your fan,” he said, like he couldn’t care less.
When she looked about as if she hadn’t purposely thrown it at his feet, he stooped down and fanned it open. Written upon the gilt leaves was her room number. Fifteen.
He handed the fan back to her. She returned to her companions, engaging them in quiet conversation. He needed this woman. If he had her for a week or two, his puritanical notions of fidelity would be an amusing memory.
The woman sent him a sideways glance and, hips swaying, walked from the room.
