She looked away from him, a fluttery sensation in her stomach. He was distractingly handsome in a saturnine fashion this morning as he lounged at the table in the dining room without his coat. His shirt was finely pleated at the shoulders for fullness. He had not yet put on his cravat and the neck slash flared open, revealing the strong column of his neck and the curling hair at his throat and upper chest.
It was difficult to believe that she had spent the night in his arms. When she awakened this morning, there had been only a spot of warmth in the bed to show that he had occupied it, that she had not dreamed his presence. He had shaved and donned his clothes in the dressing room. When he had emerged, he had tossed her his dressing gown and waited in the dining room for her to join him for breakfast. The show of tact had been unexpected and disarming.
Cyrene would have given much to avoid the intimacy of this midmorning meal. It had seemed cowardly to huddle in bed waiting for him to depart, however, and so she had trailed in to breakfast with his long velvet dressing gown wrapped around her and her hair spilling in an untidy curtain down her back. It was not easy to meet his eyes and pretend that she was unaffected by the events of the night. It was almost worse than if he had forced himself upon her.
She had meant to fight him, to refuse to be touched. Where had her resolve gone? Was she so trusting, so easily mollified or intimidated mat he had only to tell her he meant her no harm and she believed him? Or was it that she was too susceptible to him, to his touch, to resist?
René sat watching the woman beside him with his gaze hooded and his hand idly toying with his chocolate cup. It was fascinating the way the color came and went across her cheekbones, not all of it the reflection of the ruby velvet of his dressing gown. She was totally charming in her naturalness as she sat with that oversized garment wrapped around her, the sleeves folded back to show her blue-veined wrists, and the fine, curling strands of her hair caught on the thick nap. He wanted to reach for her, to take her on his lap and part the lapels of the dressing gown, exploring the warm curves and hollows underneath. He restrained the impulse. He had the feeling that if he moved so much as a millimeter in her direction, she might jump up and lash out at him.
His gaze rested on the dressing gown once more. He said abruptly, “You will need new clothing. I’ll send a seamstress to you this afternoon.”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind!” Her stare was militant. Here was something she could refuse in order to wipe out her weakness of the night.
“There will be functions to be attended at Government House.”
“As your mistress? No, I thank you.”
“You would not be the only woman not a wife by any means. There are many—”
“Officers’ doxies. I don’t care to join their number.”
He lifted a brow. “If you prefer to remain shut up here like some concubine in a seraglio, that is, of course, your choice. The festivities of the Mardi Gras season are under way, however. There will be several masked balls.”
“A Parisian conceit introduced by Madame Vaudreuil. What use do we have for such mummery? It’s ridiculous.”
“What use is music and dancing at all except to lighten our woes. You must admit that the masquerades are excellent diversions.”
“I wouldn’t know,” she said baldly, “I’ve never been to one.”
“A situation easily remedied. You will attend, at my side. I’ll have the seamstress also construct a costume for you.”
She glared at him in defiance. “I think not. I won’t see this seamstress of yours, so you may as well save yourself the trouble of sending her.”
“I see. Then perhaps I had better hie myself to a tailor.”
“What?”
“If you will not have clothing made, then I must, if you intend to share my wardrobe.”
Cyrene glanced down at his dressing gown, which he was studying with such a pensive expression. “You gave this to me to wear! But I will naturally go to the flatboat for my own clothes.” It was comforting to know that though the Bretons had gone, the flatboat still rocked at its mooring, a refuge in case of need.
“Wearing what you have on? I’m sure the officers’ doxies will be titillated, not to mention the officers.”
“Of course not in this! In my own things I was wearing last night.”
He raised his brows in surprise. “You wanted them? But they were so torn and stained. I told Martha she could dispose of them.”
“You what?” The exclamation was involuntary. She did not doubt him for a moment.
An apologetic expression came into his eyes, one so false it set her teeth on edge. “Well, how was I to know you had an affection for them?”
“You did that on purpose.” Her eyes were narrow as she accused him.
“How can you say so?”
“Easily, not that it matters. Martha can go for my things.”
He shook his head regretfully. “I fear I can’t permit it.”
“You won’t, rather.”
“Exactly,” he said, his gaze direct as he smiled at her.
She abandoned her outrage since it appeared to have little effect on him and less chance of changing matters. Seconds passed while she stared at him, then she said, “Why do you want to humiliate me?”
A dark tide of color rose under the bronze of his skin. He said shortly, “I have no such desire. Is it so wrong to wish to see you gowned in a way that will best display your face and form, to want you beside me, to desire to see you enjoy the pleasures that are to be had?”
“I have no use for these things.”
“I do,” he said softly.
“I won’t go.”
“I believe you will.”
Since neither could or would abandon their stand, the contest must inevitably go to the one in the strongest position.
René got to his feet. “I will not send the seamstress,” he said in cool tones, “I’ll bring her myself. You will permit the necessary measurements or I’ll also take those myself.”
“You will not find it easy,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Maybe not, but it should be a distinct pleasure.”
The trace of returning humor in his words, with its indication of his supreme confidence, galled her. “Even if you succeed, I’ll never wear these gowns.”
“You’ll wear them or I’ll be your maid as well as your seamstress.”
“You can force me to stay here, even force me to wear what you will, but I will never be paraded as your kept woman!”
It was unwise to defy him so openly. She knew it but could not stop herself. It had to come sometime, but not now, not so soon.
He leaned toward her, bracing his hands on the table. His voice as he spoke was hard, yet it carried a rough edge. “You are indeed my kept woman. Until I choose to let you go, you will grace my table, warm my bed, and be a public ornament for my person as surely as my lace handkerchief or the nosegay in my buttonhole. There is no alternative. There will be none. The sooner you accept that, the better it will be for you.”
He pushed away from her, moving toward the door. She stopped him with a cold and clear question.
“And why should I stay to enjoy this grand position you have for me? You sent the Bretons away, arranged to have them cleared of any charge. What threat will you hold over me now?”
He turned slowly to face her. “I could say no threat, only the requirements of honor, of a bargain struck, but I doubt you would see it that way. That being so, I’m left with the alternative of explaining to the governor that I was deluded, temporarily deceived by you; blinded by your beauty, lulled and gulled by your charms. Do you think,” he added gently, “that he will believe me?”
The governor would believe him. Cyrene, surveying with despair the look of dark remorse and regret René had summoned at will, knew she was defeated. There were always terms of surrender, however, and those terms would be her own. They would.
Surrender. She did not like that word. A shiver ran through her that had nothing to do with the chill of the day. She pulled the heavy velvet of the dressing gown closer around her.
René watched that gesture of futile protection and was touched to the quick. For the thousandth time, he wished that things could have been different. That was equally futile he knew, but it could not be helped.
With abrupt decision, he moved toward her. He put his fingers under her chin, tilting her head, then bent to press his lips to hers. Her mouth under his was smooth and cool, fragile and incredibly sweet. It was all he could do not to increase the pressure, to draw her up into his arms and take her to his bed. Not yet. Not yet.
With the all-too-familiar ache in his chest driving into his loins, he released her, straightened, and walked away.
Cyrene watched him go, watched the swing of his broad shoulders, which tapered into the line of his hips, the muscular grace of his long legs. Passive denial was better than none, she told herself; she had not returned his kiss. The effort it had taken to gain that small victory frightened her. She must marshal her strength, prepare herself for the clashes between them, or she would wind up warming his bed, indeed.
The thought that came to her then brought a tight smile to her face. She had not warmed his bed the night before. Rather, he had, in a manner of speaking, warmed hers.
The seamstress came. She was a brash woman known as Madame Adèle, with red hair coarse with henna, a large, raw-boned frame, a strong scent of patchouli, and a faint air of disreputability. Regardless, her voice was surprisingly soft and her movements competent. Though she was escorted by René, once she was introduced to Cyrene and took out her length of ribbon to begin measuring, she paid him little attention. Her attitude toward Cyrene, unspoken but evident, was one of fellow feeling. It was not hard to imagine that once, before she had become a seamstress, she might have been a mistress.
Cyrene allowed herself to be divested of René’s dressing gown. In his silk nightshirt, standing before the warmth of the sitting-room fire, she turned this way and that, lifting her arms on instruction, bending her neck or holding her head straight as required. While René had been out, she had come to the painful decision that defiance on the matter of clothing was without purpose. She was at enough of a disadvantage living in his house, subject to his will, without being half-naked at the same time. It worried her, the compromises she was making. It was as if she were being forced to retreat step by step. What would become of it, she did not care to guess, but for the moment she could see no alternative.
In spite of herself, she began to be interested in the subject at hand as Madame Adèle asked her preference in colors and styles and materials and discussed the latest variations in the formal dress of the court, the
robe à la française.
“I’m afraid I know little of fashion,” Cyrene said finally, her voice stiff.
“What is to know except what becomes you?” Madame Adèle said with a shrug of broad shoulders. “Madame Pompadour now has such a fondness for pink and peach, blue and gray; everything must be in these pale, so delicate shades. They are not for you, I think,
chère
;
on you they would fade to nothing. Deeper colors, yes, bright and clear. These are what you need with your hair like the pale syrup of the sugarcane. And the fabrics from Lyon, the re-embroidered brocades, yes! I see you in a deep blue-green embroidered in gold. What say you? Or perhaps a rich cream. Not with Pompadour’s silver, but also with the gold?”
Cyrene frowned. “Aren’t such fabrics very dear?”
“What of it? M’sieur Lemonnier has said you are to have the best that can be procured.” The woman sent René a roguish glance that was also slightly feline and named a price that made Cyrene gasp.
“To spend so much on something to cover the body — it isn’t right.”
“Everyone does it, chère
.
Besides, it isn’t just to cover the body but to lift the spirit, to make one think that we are not so removed from the grand affairs of France here in this provincial outpost.”
“I like Louisiane.”
“So do I, but you must admit it isn’t
la belle France!”
René sat in an armchair to one side of the fireplace with his legs stretched out before him, his feet crossed at the ankle, and his hands folded across his waist. He watched Cyrene turn back and forth, quietly enjoying the view of her slender form under the silk of his nightshirt outlined in a glowing red-orange nimbus by the fire behind her. Her cooperation was unexpected. It was also troubling. For some reason he did not care to analyze, it made him feel guilty, like a debauched roué. It did not help to realize that she probably saw him in that selfsame light. He had given her every reason to hold that opinion; still, it galled him to have his intentions so misread. And it chafed him even more to recognize that he would like nothing more than to play the roué, indeed.