would have been deeply understating the matter. He could not have been more surprised if that upstart Napoleon, presently and hopefully forever incarcerated on St. Helena, had arrived on his grandmother’s doorstep brandishing an invitation!
Not that he had not been fully aware of Sylviana Moorland’s
return to Society, now that her year of mourning her husband was well and truly over—indeed, it was closer to two years since Colonel Lord Gerald Moorland had been struck down at the battle of Waterloo. And having heard that gentleman’s widow had returned to town at the start of the Season, Christian had taken the steps necessary to ensure that they were never in attendance at the same social function.
Steps that had been shattered this evening by his own grandmother, of all people!
Unintentionally, of course, for surely his grandmother was as much in ignorance of Christian’s previous acquaintance with Sylviana as was the rest of Society.
If anything Sylvie was more beautiful than Christian remembered, no longer that young girl on the brink of womanhood but now fully matured into a beautiful woman. The gold of her hair was arranged in artful curls upon her crown, with several loose tendrils at her temples and nape. Brown eyes surrounded by long dark lashes, and as deep and impenetrable as the golden molasses they resembled in her heart-shaped face; a small and delicate nose, with full and pouting lips above a small and determined chin. Her body was no longer coltishly slender, either, but lush and sensual, the fullness of her creamy breasts spilling over the low neckline of her green silk gown.
A gown of the same moss-green color as Christian’s eyes...Deliberately so?
The challenge in her dark gaze as she gazed up at him so
disdainfully would seem to imply so. “How unfortunate, my lord, that the passing of the years appears to have done nothing to improve your manners!”
Christian gave a hard and derisive smile. “Did you expect them to have done so?”
She eyed him coolly. “One might have hoped so, yes...”
“Why did you come here this evening, Sylvie?” He snapped his impatience with that coolness. “Or perhaps you prefer the grander Sylviana now that you are become a countess?” he added contemptuously as he saw the way she stiffened at his familiarity.
“I believe ‘my lady’ and ‘my lord’ are a more fitting address between two people of equal rank.” She had drawn herself up to her full height of just over five feet. “And I am here this evening because your grandmother invited me.”
Christian gave a derisive snort. “And are your invitations into Society so few and far between that you must needs accept this one?”
“On the contrary.” That golden gaze raked over him contemptuously. “Perhaps you have not heard, my lord, but I believe I am considered to be something of a matrimonial catch this Season, and as such in receipt of more invitations than I could ever hope to accept.”
His mouth twisted with disgust. “I had heard that your elderly husband left you a rich widow, yes. Which, no doubt, was your intention when you married a man so much older than yourself.”
Her eyes widened. “How dare you—”
“Oh, I believe, Sylvie, that you will find I dare much where you are concerned!” His eyes glittered dangerously. “A first lover’s privilege, shall we say?”
“No, we will not say!” All the color had now faded from her cheeks.
Christian gave a humorless smile. “What reason did you give your ancient husband when he discovered that there was no maidenhead for him to breach on your wedding night?”
It took every effort of will on Sylvie’s part not to flinch at the
unmistakable disdain in Christian Ambrose’s tone, and the hard censor of his moss-green gaze as it raked over her with slow contempt, from her blond curls down to her green-slippered feet, before shifting, deliberately lingering, on the firm swell of her breasts.
As if she were nothing more than a slab of meat on a butcher’s block that he was considering the merits of purchasing!
As if this man had no recollection of once upon a time slowly removing every article of clothing from her body—much more than once!—before making love to her as if she were the most delicate, precious thing upon this earth...
Once upon a time?
For Sylvie it was a different lifetime!
Certainly she was no longer that innocent young miss who had believed, in her naïveté, that Christian Ambrose, a gentleman six years her senior—in experience as well as years—returned the deep love she had felt for him. That trusting young girl had disappeared long, long ago, upon the realization that she had been nothing more than yet another female conquest to the rakish Christian Ambrose.
In her place was Sylviana Moorland, wealthy widow of Colonel Lord Gerald Moorland, a coolly composed woman of two and twenty, who felt as cynical toward love as the gentleman now standing before her gazing down at her so disdainfully.
Sylvie drew in a deep, controlling breath. “I—”
“I believe it would be best if we were to finish this conversation outside on the terrace,” Christian Ambrose grated harshly even as he grasped Sylvie’s arm and pulled her toward one of the sets of open French doors.
She resisted that painful hold upon her arm. “Unhand me at once, sir—” She broke off her protest abruptly as Christian turned to focus the full fierceness of his icy-cold moss-green eyes upon her, eyes that had once caused her to melt with passion but which she now knew only too well to be wary of. “People are staring at us...” she substituted lamely.
“Let them,” he grated unconcernedly as he continued to pull her effortlessly across the candlelit room, through the open doorway and out onto the dark seclusion of the terrace.
No sooner had they stepped outside into that shadowed darkness than Sylvie felt the steely strength of Christian’s arms as he pulled her hard against him, the lowering of his head blocking out the brightness of the moon overhead as his lips claimed hers.
Not a gentle or exploratory kiss, but that of an experienced lover, demanding she return that same heat of passion. An experienced lover who knew exactly how to kiss and caress the woman in his arms until she was weak with arousal...
Try as Sylvie might to resist that seduction, and her determination never to fall for this man’s rakish charms ever again, she found she had no defenses against the onslaught. Christian’s tongue parted her lips before plunging possessively inside, his hands moving in a restless caress down the length of her spine before cupping beneath her bottom to pull her in so tight against him Sylvie could feel the hard ridge of his arousal.
Betraying heat flooded between her thighs, her nipples aching beneath the bodice of her gown as Christian deliberately rubbed his chest rhythmically against them, eliciting a want, an unwanted hunger deep inside her—
Christian wrenched his mouth from hers to lower his lips to the swell of her breasts, his tongue
