‘On the contrary, you know that I am obliged to court it.’
‘Then you should be glad that I am here.’
‘Should I, indeed?’ She turned her head and looked at him then. There was an edge to the words that made him unsure if she were glad or angry to see him. Her eyes held his and there was a certain coolness in them before it faded. He watched her gaze drop to his hat and gloves he carried in one hand and his cane in the other. She arched a sultry brow as if questioning if he meant to leave.
He set them down on the flat coping surface before him.
She returned her gaze to wander over the darkness of the garden, but not before he saw the small satisfied curve of her lips. They were not the small rosebud lips so sought in women, but full, passionate lips that reminded a man of the erotic pleasures a woman’s mouth could bring.
‘Another refuge?’ he asked.
‘You know all my secrets, Lord Linwood.’
‘Not all.’
‘No, not all,’ she said as she turned to look into his face. He saw something flicker in her eyes, something that was not quite in keeping with the rest of her, something which he could not quite discern. But it was gone as quickly as it had appeared. ‘And I do have so many.’
‘I am intrigued, Miss Fox.’ It was the truth. She was the most celebrated and coveted actress in all London. Bewitching. Beguiling. Yet cool. Her reputation preceded her. Linwood had never met a woman like her.
‘By my secrets or by me?’
‘Both. But I thought you desired flattery to be confined to the green room.’
She laughed, her eyes silver in the moonlight beneath the dark elegant curve of her brows, her skin pale and perfect as porcelain. ‘I will tell you one of mine if you tell me one of yours.’ Her voice was husky and as alluring as that of a siren. Her gaze held his boldly. The sensual tension tightened as the silence stretched between them.
All around them was darkness, as dense and black as the secrets he carried in his heart, secrets that he would take to his grave rather than spill.
‘Would you really, Miss Fox? Tell me your darkest secret in exchange for mine?’
She glanced towards the star-scattered inky blue of the night sky, before returning her gaze to him. Her eyes seemed to glitter in the moonlight. ‘No,’ she said softly, surprising him yet again with her candour. ‘I would not. Would you?’
‘I think you already know the answer to that question.’
‘I do.’
‘It seems we are two of a kind.’
‘Perhaps, when it comes to secrets.’ She looked directly into his eyes and again there was that coolness and distance. ‘But then again, I doubt you are anywhere as good at guarding your secrets as I am at guarding mine.’
‘I think you underestimate me, Miss Fox.’
‘No, Lord Linwood, I assure you the underestimating is all on your half.’
‘That sounds like a challenge.’
‘I do like a challenge,’ and her eyes held his and seemed to smoulder. The silence stretched between them, brimful with desire, before she turned her gaze to the garden once more. He felt the stirring of excitement, the need to know more of her. He studied her profile and did not want to take his eyes from her.
‘Were you on stage tonight?’
‘I am on stage every night. And every hour of every day. It is the price any actress must pay if she wants success.’
‘Are you on stage now, Miss Fox?’
She did not hesitate in her answer. ‘Of course.’ Another answer so contrary to everything he expected. And through him, over him, in him, he could feel the pull of the power that she held over men.
‘Are you always so honest?’
‘I am an actress, Lord Linwood. I am never honest.’ She smiled again and this time so did he, he who in all these past months had so rarely smiled.
‘And what of the real Venetia Fox, as opposed to Venetia Fox the actress? What of her?’ Questions he would never have asked any other woman. And yet he asked her, for he found that he wanted to know the answer.
‘What of her?’ She looked at him.
‘Is she content to stay hidden in the shadows of the divine Miss Fox?’
‘Divine…? You are flattering me again.’
‘And you are not answering my question.’
‘Then the answer is that she is very content to stay hidden.’
‘May I meet her?’
‘You would not care for her in the slightest.’
‘Why not let me be the judge of that?’ He was flirting with her, angling to catch just a little more of this fascinating woman—Linwood, to whom flirting and women should have been the last thing on his mind.
‘Expose myself to a stranger?’ She arched one perfectly shaped dark brow and leaned towards him ever so slightly so that he could not prevent his gaze sweeping down to the luscious curve of her breasts and imaging them naked and exposed before him. He knew she was toying with him, just like she toyed with all the others, but right at this moment in time he did not care. She was all that stood between him and the dread and bitterness of his memories and thoughts.
‘Maybe we will not always be strangers, Miss Fox.’ His gaze held hers.
‘Maybe,’ she said and smiled a slow sensual smile.
The music floated out from the ballroom, the notes so sweet and clear on the night air. ‘The Volga,’ she said. ‘My favourite dance.’
His eyes held hers. ‘I am afraid I do not dance tonight, Miss Fox.’ How could he, when so much hung in the balance?
She stepped towards him, slowly closed the distance between them until the hem of her dress was practically touching the toes of his boots. She angled her face up to his, and her eyes glittered full with secrets, and her lips made him want to place his own against them, to kiss her, to taste her, to take the temptation that she offered. It had been such a long time since he had had a woman. But when he would have yielded she moved her mouth away to whisper against his ear, and he could feel the warm caress of her breath against his cheek and smell the bittersweet heady scent of neroli, her lips so close yet not touching.
‘I was not asking,’ her whisper enunciated so clearly that it stroked the nerves that ran from his neck all the way down to his manhood. His blood stirred hot.
She paused before retreating beyond his reach.
‘Perhaps… we might go for a carriage drive one afternoon.’ The words were spoken before he could think better of them.
She
