shook down her hair, letting it fall over her shoulders. Channing shifted on the bed. He was in a poor position to hide any effects of her toilette. Well, good, let him be the uncomfortable one for a change. ‘Are you going to come over and help me with my gown?’ She made a show of reaching for the impossible back fastenings.
Channing rose from the bed and came to her, standing close enough to smell, close enough to kiss. She thought she had him, aroused and distracted. Even in dark evening clothes, the former was evident. But apparently she hadn’t succeeded with the latter because his answer surprised her. ‘No. I am not going to help with that gown. We both know what will happen if I do. It won’t stop there.’ His words were a whisper between them, part anger, part a seduction of his own. ‘I don’t want you like this, Alina. I’m not a game. I will not be used.’
Alina would not retreat. Her arms went about his neck, her lips kissed his throat. ‘I thought you said those two weeks in France were the best of your life,’ she whispered.
‘They were, which is why I refuse to tarnish them with something like this,’ Channing growled, setting her away from him. ‘Not all men are like your husband, Alina. Not everyone can be manipulated with sexual favours, nor does everyone expect to be.’
She froze at the words, all thoughts of distraction fleeing in the wake of her anger. ‘Are you calling me a whore? Considering your line of expertise, that would be quite like calling the kettle black.’
‘Am I mistaken? I thought it was you who was so fond of saying there wasn’t much difference between prostitution and marriage because we all did it for money in the end.’
‘You would know. You’ve done it more times for money than the rest of us.’ They were hurtful words. She knew what the League of Discreet Gentlemen meant to him. She knew it was about more than the money and the sex. But she hurled the words anyway because he’d hurt her and she was angry. She made a sharp gesture towards the door. ‘Get out!’ She was shaking with rage. ‘Don’t even think you can lecture me on the way I managed my marriage. You don’t know what that man was like. You don’t know what I had to do to win my freedom.’ She’d told no one about the degradations that had gone on behind closed doors. Not even Channing with his keen intuitions could guess at half of it.
‘A thousand pardons, comtesse.’ Channing gave her a frigid stare and exited the room.
Well, at least he’d dropped the matter with Seymour. But it was small consolation. This had not been how she’d wanted to do it. Still, she’d known from the start how things could explode with Channing. They’d been too intimate, too close, once upon a time. They knew each other far too well for objective games of manipulation to work without consequence. They knew just how to prod the sleeping lions each carried within them as this last demonstration had proved.
Alina rang for Celeste, disappointment blooming where anger had resided. Channing had been a source of strength for her once. Those two weeks had given her power, had taught her that she was strong, that she had value, the taint of a bad marriage could not diminish.
She was facing another important trial right now in exposing Seymour. Channing’s strength would be welcomed. But she couldn’t risk it. She didn’t want him involved. He had the League to protect. If her plans went sour, there’d be a scandal and she couldn’t promise he wouldn’t be exposed along with it. She’d never contemplated involving Amery when she’d hired him. She had no intentions of involving Channing now no matter how much he pushed, which was why she’d be sleeping alone tonight.
* * *
He’d be sleeping alone tonight because he hadn’t pushed, not in the right direction at least. Channing yanked off his cravat with an angry pull. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been thrown out of a woman’s bedroom. He had only himself to blame. He’d done it all wrong, broken every basic rule of relationship management. He’d called her attempt at seduction a manipulative ploy and by extension he’d implied rather blatantly she was prostituting herself in order to distract him from the true issue.
It had been a low blow no matter what. A gentleman never called a lady a whore. It was an especially low blow because he knew what her experiences would cause her to make of the situation. He’d accused her of being no better than the comte, a man whom she had thoroughly despised.
Channing undressed himself without assistance. He was in too poor of a mood to inflict himself on the unsuspecting valet. He should apologise. Once he did that, he could seduce her, which is what he should have done in the first place. Everyone knew you caught more flies with sugar than vinegar and he’d been nothing but vinegar. He’d rebuffed her efforts in the forest and he’d picked a fight with her tonight. Neither of those were classic recommendations for winning a woman’s favour or her trust. He needed both if he was going to uncover her business with Seymour and, if need be, protect her from her own impetuosity. She was paying the agency for protection and he was damn well sure she was going to get it even if it was protection from herself.
Why do you even care? his mind challenged. She’s been nothing but trouble to you since the day you met her and likewise she thinks the same of you. Yet you can’t seem to stay away from her. But Channing knew why. She was beautiful and strong and yet more vulnerable than she understood. There was a joie de vivre in her laugh, a magic in her wide smile, an exhilaration in the lightest of her touches. He’d never met a woman like her who could captivate a room so effortlessly by simply walking into it, who could captivate him, a man who had known so many women in his time and who could have any woman.
And yet you remember everything about her. You remember the first time she looked at you from across a Parisian salon, how she smells, how she freezes a man with a glance and how she stokes him with one as well. Channing blew out the lamp and climbed into bed, knowing full well the night was a lost cause. He was going to dream of Paris until the sun came up.
* * *
The comtesse might be genuine. Roland Seymour yawned sleepily from his discreet post in the hall. Perhaps she was truly alone. There’d been no questionable entrances or exits from her room since he’d taken up his position shortly after one in the morning. To have come sooner would have aroused suspicion. The house had not yet settled. He didn’t think he’d missed anything though; the comtesse’s maid had only left a few minutes ago, suggesting to him that there was no man inside her room. He’d give it another hour and then take himself to bed. No one would be showing up at three only to have to be out by five before the house servants started their rounds.
He intended to enjoy his brief association with the comtesse. She was everything a Continental woman should be, elegant and refined, sensual and passionate. He’d seen the tenacity with which she’d played a simple card game, perhaps an indicator of what awaited a man who garnered her favours. And yet, she was a woman and that meant she had limitations, limitations which she had freely admitted to him during their stroll. The business of running estates weighed on her. He fully expected she’d come forward with a more specific request for help tomorrow. Hopefully, she was in her room right now contemplating the wisdom of taking his offer. If not, he’d gently push that direction. He was fully confident he would know her situation by tea time.
Of course, he knew a little of her situation even now. She was a widow of two years according to the rumours circulating the house party. But rumour also suggested the marriage had been bad and the husband’s death somewhat suspect. What could one expect when one married a Frenchman? Still, there were those at the house party who were less generous in their thoughts: Why marry a Frenchman in the first place?
He’d listened to the gossip because it proved that she was alone. Even at the party there were no staunch allies for her, no one she could
