course not.” Sebastian shrugged. “I may have had some input but the final decision was always your father’s.”
Bemused, she stared up at him. How was she ever going to convince him that she was worldly when—thanks in part to him—she’d been cloistered away like a cultured pearl?
Images of Veronike’s seductive red lips, puffy and pouty, taunted her and she refused to let him go on thinking of her as some kind of inexperienced virgin.
Even if that’s exactly what she was.
“Well, it may have been all girls, but there were men.” She wracked her brain for the roster of professors. “There was, um, let’s see…Alonzo, and Barnaby and uh, and umm.” She frowned. What was his name again? “Cedric! And, uh—”
“An alphabetical accounting of your lovers?”
Her chin jerked up and she could make out the twinkle sparkling in his eyes by the light of the harvest moon. “You don’t think I’ve ever even had a date, do you?” There was a heat in her tone that she struggled to squelch.
“I hope not.”
“Oh, you do, do you? Why?”
“Because,” he answered simply, as they reached an immense yet shallow reflecting pool, “you’re mine.”
Marie-Claire was dumbstruck. For a moment, everything went fuzzy, and little pinpricks of light danced before her eyes. Her heart palpitated, and a wild joy sprung from deep within the vicinity of her stomach and, like a flash fire, spread throughout her body.
“Oh.” The breathy utterance hovered on the air between them.
“You’re not entirely surprised.” He paused and turned to face her, lifting her chin with his thumb and forefinger.
“No.”
“There is something. It’s been there since that night.”
“Yes.”
“Something special. It’s almost as if we were…” He squinted off into the night sky and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he searched for the words, “…somehow kindred spirits.”
“I know,” she whispered.
He dipped his head back toward her and they stood in a shaft of moonlight, regarding each other. Discovering the truth in each other’s eyes. It was a powerful moment, fraught with a tension so palpable it generated heat that radiated between their bodies.
Marie-Claire could see that Sebastian was as stunned by the power of their chemistry as she was. For an instant, he seemed to lose his perennial confidence. There was vulnerability in his expression that endeared him impossibly closer to her soul than ever before.
In front of them, seeming to float on the vast surface of the reflecting pool, Le cheval du roi—a statue of her great-great grandfather’s royal steed—reared, flanked on each side by two equally impressive mares. Years of weather had given the cool, dark metal a streaked green patina. The fountain was especially spectacular when it was lit for a party, as it was tonight.
Seemingly unable to endure the tension that shimmered between them, Sebastian abruptly turned and tugged her to the edge of the pool. He stepped up to the top of the two-foot high wall rim, then helped her up behind him. Off in the distance, strains of an orchestra sounded over the fountain’s spray.
Sebastian stepped out of his highly polished wingtips and kicked them to the ground below. Then, reaching for the slippers that dangled from Marie-Claire’s fingers, he dropped them on top of his own shoes. “I never did get another dance.”
Marie-Claire lifted her arms and draping them over his shoulders, let her wrists dangle. “And so you did not.”
“Shall we?”
“We shall.”
Marie-Claire whooped in surprise as he took her by the waist and stepped into the pool’s knee-deep water. Her gown ballooned on the surface before it sank to swirl about her ankles. Sebastian drew her close and they began to move about their watery dance floor.
Laughing, she leaned away from him so that she could better see his handsome face. This was a moment she would forever remember, she promised herself. Full of hope and possibilities. A veritable dream come to life.
Playfully, he swung her away from him and back again, then bent her low in a dip that had her giddy laughter ringing out. Their spontaneous hilarity caused those who loitered on the verandah to smile with indulgence as the king’s youngest daughter frolicked in the fountain with St. Michel’s most eligible bachelor. As the tempo of the music increased, so did their silly antics.
Sebastian lifted Marie-Claire in his arms and spun until they were both dizzy and in danger of tipping into the drink.
“You’re going to soak us!” Marie-Claire clutched his neck for dear life and wished the ebullient feelings that bubbled into her throat would last forever.
Neither seemed to notice that the music had stopped.
“Don’t look now,” Sebastian set her down and pulled her up against the solid wall of his chest, “but we’re pretty much wet.”
Pretending to pout, Marie-Claire leaned sideways. She paused to study her voluminous skirts, hanging heavy against her legs. “I can’t go back in now.”
“We’d get the floor all wet.”
“People might fall.”
“You’ll let me know if you’re thinking of shucking your dress for a skinny dip?” Grin teasing, he cupped her cheek in his palm.
“Will I ever live that night down?”
“You haven’t yet. Not in my mind.” Their noses grazed as he looked deeply into her eyes. Marie-Claire could feel his warm breath against her lips as he spoke. “Even when you were gone away to school, you were never far from my thoughts.”
“I know. It was the same for me.”
“You were so young.”
“Yes, I was.” More than once it had occurred to Marie-Claire that Sebastian could so easily have taken advantage of her foolish crush when she was but a child. But he hadn’t. He was an honorable man, and that was only one of the myriad qualities that attracted her. “But I’m not anymore.”
“No. You’re not.” The muscles in his jaw worked as his thoughts seemed to race back over the years. “Waiting for you to grow up has been tedious. I knew any involvement for us before you were of legal age could have caused problems for your father. But—” On a heavy sigh, his eyes slid closed. “For so long, I’ve wondered…and wanted….”
By now, his lips were brushing hers as he spoke and so it was only a matter of allowing himself to finally indulge in the guilty pleasure of their heretofore forbidden kiss. Ever so slightly, he leaned forward until his lips covered hers in a touch so gossamer, Marie-Claire was tempted to wonder if she was dreaming.
That was all it took for the glowing embers to flare to life.
