Seduction - His Every Kiss Part 6

"Oh, yes. A sonata, two concertos, and a serenade, all her own. She says she is beginning work on a symphony."

Dylan felt a glimmer of pride, which was rather an odd thing, since he barely knew the child. "She is a very talented girl."

"Yes, she is, but I suspect her greatest talent may be that of getting her own way." She paused, then added in a wry voice, "It seems she takes after her father in more ways than one."

He laughed at that. Unexpectedly, she did, too. He stopped playing and turned to her, appreciating the smile that lit her face. "That is the first time I have seen you smile." Before he could even think, he was lifting his hand to touch her again.

That smile vanished as his fingertips grazed her cheek. He paused, looking into those extraordinary eyes, eyes as green and lovely as spring. Spring, and starting afresh, and all things new again. If only he could be renewed.

His fingers were calloused from a lifetime of pounding on piano keys, but her skin felt so soft against them. He flattened his palm against the side of her face, cupping her cheek. His thumb brushed against her lips. That delicious scent of pear invaded his senses, and the noise in his head receded to a faraway hum, then it disappeared altogether. For a few blessed moments, he heard nothing at all.

He closed his eyes. He stopped breathing. He did not move. So long since he had heard the sound of silence, he had forgotten what it was like. It was like heaven.

She opened her mouth against his thumb. "Hush," he said in a harsh whisper. "Not yet. Don't ruin it."

Dylan felt every breath she took against his thumb, waiting. He wanted to draw music out of her and put it on paper. He wanted the taste of her, the feel of her, the peace that would come afterward.

He could hear the noise coming back. Desperate to keep it at bay, he slid his thumb beneath her jaw and tilted her head back to kiss her. The noise grew louder, but the moment he touched his lips to hers, it ceased to matter. Christ, she was sweet. Honey on his tongue.

"No."

The word was m.u.f.fled against his mouth, but he heard it, and he opened his eyes as Grace slid away from him, off the piano bench and out of his reach. He watched her back away from him and move to the other end of the long Broadwood Grand. She stared back at him without speaking.

"Grace," he said, his voice as soft as he could make it. "Come back."

She shook her head, took two steps back, then turned away. She flung the doors open and departed. He let her go.

In her wake, she left behind that pear fragrance and something else. Without thinking, he put one hand on the keys and pounded out a quick, hard series of notes, not the notes he always heard with Grace, but instead the austere tones of C minor. He realized he had just created the opening of the first movement of a symphony. The masculine theme. The music Grace had inspired five years ago was the feminine theme that would follow it.

Of course, he thought, and crossed to his writing desk for quill, ink, and staff paper. He returned with them to the piano and began improvising on the notes he had just played.

The idea seemed so obvious now. The masculine and the feminine. He would use them throughout not only the first movement but also the entire piece. A symphony written to be like a love affair.

It was an excellent idea creatively, but he craved the reality even more. Even while he worked, Dylan could not stop thinking about Grace, about the scent of her skin, the shape of her body, the taste of her kiss. Over and over, he tortured himself with thoughts of her, but if he had ever harbored any doubts that she would inspire him, they were gone by the end of the day.

Dylan set down the quill and stared at the scrawled sheet music spread across the top of his piano. He had a basic structure for the first movement, the first tangible evidence that he could still compose, but he would gladly have given it back to the G.o.ds for another moment of her, and her kiss, and the silence.

Chapter Six.

Filling a suite of five empty rooms required a long shopping list. Grace pulled the pencil from behind her ear, and, at the bottom of her list, she added two armoires.

"I don't see why I have to sleep up here," Isabel said, standing next to her and sounding quite aggrieved that both her governess and her father were in agreement that a little girl of eight belonged in the nursery.

"Think of it this way," Grace said, using the wall as her writing surface as she penciled in a blackboard and chalk below the armoires. "You do have the largest suite in the house."

She glanced at Isabel just in time to see the little girl's face brighten. "That's true," Isabel agreed. "It is even bigger than Papa's. But that's only because if I had brothers and sisters, I'd have to share. Can you put staff paper on the list? Stacks and stacks?"

"Your father said to buy whatever we needed. I think it is important to have stacks and stacks of composition paper."

"Me, too."

"As do I," Grace corrected and continued perusing her list. As talented as she was, a child of Isabel's intelligence required a more substantial education than most other children to keep her from becoming bored, and she needed interests beyond her music. To her growing list, Grace added a set of watercolor paints and supplies, a child's dinner service and tea set, and an abacus.

Isabel looked at the list. "Why do we need a fis.h.i.+ng net?"

"I thought we could go to Hyde Park and fish some of the tiny insects out of the ponds. If we got a microscope, we could look at them very closely."

"Why would we want to?"

Biology was not very appealing to Isabel, Grace could see. She changed tactics.

"Going to parks is necessary so one can enjoy the fresh air."

"I've been to parks all my life. They all look the same."

Grace looked at the child. "Do they?" she asked, noticing that Isabel seemed very forlorn all of a sudden.

"I'd rather go to Papa's estate in the country. There are ponies there. Molly told me."

"Molly?"

"Third housemaid. She said Papa's estate is called Nightingale's Gate, and it has orchards. Apples, pears, plums. And the house is right on the sea. I've never even seen the sea, well, except to cross the Channel."

"The sea is wonderful," Grace told her. "I grew up in Land's End."

"Land's End? That is at the very, very tip of England, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is. You could look out over the ocean from my parents' house." Grace was overcome by an unexpected wave of homesickness, and she pushed it away. Showing Isabel the list, she asked, "Can you think of anything else we need?"

Isabel read through the list again and shook her head. "No. There's an awful lot to buy already, isn't there? We shall be shopping for days."

"It puzzles me that there is nothing up here. I know you have had quite a few governesses, so why is the nursery empty? Had you been sent up to school?"

"No, I have always had governesses, until the nuns anyway."

"Nuns? Is your family Catholic?"

"Mama was, I think, but she never went to ma.s.s or anything. Papa is English, so I don't think he is a Catholic. In fact," she added, looking up at Grace with a thoughtful frown, "I can't see Papa being anything. Can you?"

Not unless being a hedonist is a religion. "So, if you have had governesses, why is there nothing up here?"

Isabel's eyes widened in surprise. "Didn't my father tell you? I only got here three days ago. I was born in France, at Metz. My mama died three months ago. Scarlet fever, and I had to go to the convent. Sister Agnes brought me here to live with Papa, and I like it much better. I don't think my father was expecting me."

"You have only been with your father three days? He did not tell me any of this."

"I had never met him before I got here, but I knew a lot about him. The newspapers are always writing stories about things he's done. Did you know he won a prost.i.tute in a card game? She was his mistress before you."

"Isabel!"

"He smokes has.h.i.+sh, too. I saw him, the other night. He has a gla.s.s pipe in his room. It's blue."

How did the child even recognize has.h.i.+sh? Grace wondered how to respond to comments like this from a little girl. She thought of what her own childhood governess would have done, but that was no help, for she doubted Mrs. Filbert had ever needed to deal with a child like Isabel or a man like Moore. "That will be enough, Isabel."

The child looked at her with deceptive innocence. "Does it bother you?"

Grace guessed that getting under her skin was the child's objective, and she Med. "No, but it should bother you. I thought you didn't want your father to have mistresses, yet you talk so freely about them."

Isabel frowned at her, obviously unhappy that her governess wasn't responding in the expected way.

"Besides," Grace went on pleasantly, "these are not appropriate topics for a young lady to be discussing with anyone, and it grieves me to think that when you are in society, you will be shunned for saying such outrageous things."

"Papa says outrageous things, and he isn't shunned."

That was true, but Grace wasn't about to discuss the details. She turned toward the wall, flattened out the paper, and added draperies and carpets to her list. "Your father is an artist. Artists are... different."

"I am an artist, too!"

"Perhaps, but you are a girl, and it is different." Grace paused, her hand tightening around the pencil, staring at the wall. "It is a horrible thing for a girl to be shunned by society. If you knew what it meant, you would cease this sort of talk."

She thrust the pencil behind her ear again and turned to the child, adding, "I have read about your father, too. I know as much about his reputation as you do. But it has nothing to do with either of us."

Isabel frowned, staring up at her. After a moment, she said, "Why did you really come here?"

"I needed work."

"Because you are poor. I can tell by your dresses. They are awful."

Grace smiled. "Thank you."

Isabel bit her lip and was silent for a moment, then she exhaled a sharp sigh, looked away, and said, "That was rude. I'm sorry."

"I accept your apology."

"You're far too nice, you know," Isabel told her, taking refuge in the offering of sage advice. "It doesn't do for a governess to be so nice."

"Thinking you shall walk all over me, are you?"

"Yes." Unexpectedly, Isabel smiled at her. It was devilish and beguiling, and at that moment, she looked so much like her father that Grace was startled. "That is exactly what I was thinking."

"You should give in now, then," Grace countered, laughing. "Since I can tell what you are thinking, you don't have a chance."

Isabel's smile faded, and she looked at Grace thoughtfully. "I don't understand you. You aren't anything like my other governesses."

"And you are not like any child I've ever met before. In many ways, you are a great deal like your father."

Isabel looked pleased. "You really think so?"

"Yes. What was your mother like?"

The little girl turned away with a shrug. "I hardly ever saw her, unless she was giving me a present or taking me somewhere in the carriage. She did that sometimes, if she wasn't sleeping in the afternoon."

Isabel walked to the window to look out, as if uninterested in the subject of her other parent, but it had only been three months since the woman's death, and Grace was not fooled. "You must miss her."

Isabel turned sharply at the question. "No, I don't. I hardly even remember what she looks like. I never saw her. Why would I miss her?"

The vehemence of the reply told its own story. She missed her mother. Badly.

Grace walked over to the window. "Why don't we go into the other rooms and see what we need to buy to furnish those, hmm?"

Before the child could reply, a footman entered the room.

"A note for you from the master, Mrs. Cheval," the young man said as he crossed the room. He held out the folded sheet of parchment to her with a bow. "He asked me to wait for a reply."

"What does it say?" Isabel asked, moving to stand beside Grace as she broke the seal and unfolded the note.

"A young lady does not inquire about the private correspondence of others," Grace said gently and lifted the letter higher to keep it away from the child's curious gaze. She scanned the few lines written there, lines that were scrawled across the page as if a drunken spider had gotten into the inkwell.

Grace, I have need of your company this afternoon. Be so kind as to meet me in the music room at four o'clock.

Moore It seemed that yesterday's meeting was to be a daily occurrence, and though she was not surprised, she did not welcome it. Too many ghosts, she thought. Too many expectations.

Too much seductive charm.

Hush, Moore had said, touching her face. Don't ruin it. What on earth had he meant? Ruin what? It was as if all he wanted to do was sit there with her in the quiet and listen, as if there would be music. And then he'd kissed her.

She touched her cheek where he had touched it and felt herself getting warm. What was it about him that affected her so? She'd met other powerful, brilliant men. Was it Moore's tortured creativity that fascinated her, that drew her to him like a moth to a flame? If so, she needed to give herself a dunk in cold water before she got scorched by the fire.

"Why do you keep rubbing your cheek like that?" Isabel asked.

Grace jerked her hand away from her face and looked up to find Isabel right beside her. "Am I?" she asked, discomfited to hear her voice come out in a breathless little rush.

"Yes." Isabel looked up into her face, staring, frowning. "You don't have a pimple," she a.s.sured her. "No spider bite or anything."

"I'm glad to hear it," Grace answered and doused any notion that Moore was charming. He was a shameless man, wild and unprincipled. Hadn't she learned by now? Artists cared for their art more than they could ever care for any person. Even for a brief amour, even if he heated her blood and made her ache, she did not want a man like him, not any more. Not ever again.

She had been alone so long, and when he had touched her and kissed her, it had seemed as if he had never felt skin so soft or tasted lips so sweet, but it was not real. He might treat her as if she were the only woman in the world, but he was still Dylan Moore, and she knew enough about him to know that on some other night, some other woman would be the only woman in the world.

Grace turned to the wall, laid the note out flat against the plaster, and retrieved her pencil. Directly beneath his words, she wrote her response.

Sir, I apologize for the informality of this reply, but I am currently without proper paper and ink. I have made the arrangements of Isabel's schedule with the household. From three o'clock until five, she has lessons with me in German. Her dinner hour is five o'clock. After that, she and I have play time until she goes to bed at eight. Therefore, I fear I cannot meet with you at your suggested hour. I respectfully request we postpone this meeting until tomorrow morning. Perhaps nine o'clock?

Mrs. Cheval She refolded the sheet and handed it to the footman. He took it and departed with another bow, and she put Moore out of her mind. She returned her attention to her shopping list, discussing the furnis.h.i.+ngs with Isabel.