The knock on her bedroom door was a firm double rap, and Flora’s hand froze in arrested motion over her head, the hairbrush in her hand suspended in space, her face in the gilt-framed mirror before her registering shock.
He wouldn’t dare, she incredulously thought, even as the solid reality of the sound echoed in her mind, the knock so like him—not diffident, but strong, sure. Glancing at the small jeweled clock on the dressing table in front of her, she checked the time. One-thirty. Could she have been imagining noises in the night? she nervously equivocated. Perhaps a servant had been checking the gaslights in the hall and accidentally banged against the door.
But even as she attempted to discount the truth, she watched the door behind her open in mirror image and saw a tall familiar figure in evening dress enter her bedroom. Shutting the door in a whisper of sound, Adam smiled at her.
The hairbrush fell from her hand and she froze where she sat, every sound in the large house magnified a thousand times in her ears. Sarah would hear. The servants would know. Everyone was listening to Adam’s footfall crossing her floor.
Coming up behind her, he touched her hair first, sliding his hand down its shimmering red-gold length as if marking her as his possession, vetting her and branding her in one simple gesture. Then his fingers slipped forward, glided up her throat, gently gripped her chin, and lifting her face slightly upward and toward him, he bent his dark head low.
“I couldn’t wait,” he murmured against her soft mouth. “I don’t know how to be friends.…”
“You’re drunk.” Her voice was hushed, the taste of brandy fragrant on her lips.
“I don’t think so,” he whispered, slipping his hands under her arms and raising her from the small satin-covered bench. “I wish I were,” he murmured, turning her, pulling her hard against his body, his hands on her lower back warm through the cotton eyelet of her nightgown.
“So you’d have some excuse for coming here.” Her palms lay on his satin lapels, the familiar feel of him initiating a rush of pleasure, her senses immune to the danger of his presence.
“Yes.”
“But you don’t.”
“I haven’t thought of one.”
She could feel the strong beat of his heart under her hand. “Perhaps you love me.”
He grimaced and the silence was profound.
She smiled at his resistance in the context of such obvious necessity. “We could just be friends.”
His brows drew together in a scowl.
“But you came here for something else, didn’t you?”
Another silence while she surveyed the dark beauty of his face as if searching for her answer in the subtle play of light and shadow.
“I came here because I can’t live without you,” he said at last.
“I know,” Flora softly replied, her fingers stroking the fine silk of his lapels, the feel of him beneath, hard, strong. “I’ve missed you.”
Adam glanced at the clock on the dressing table.
Like a drenching in ice water Flora was reminded of the style of his liaisons. Short, sweet, numerous. “Do you have another engagement?” Resentful, instantly jealous, she tried to pull away.
“You haven’t lost your hot-blooded temper,” he teased, his arms unyielding.
“Don’t patronize me,” she snapped, locked hard in his embrace despite her resistance, hotspur anger in her eyes. “Am I keeping you from something, dammit?”
“I have to be back when Lucie wakes up.”
“Oh, Lord,” she whispered, a mortified, flaming blush coloring her cheeks. “How humiliating.”
“No more than my coming here,” he quietly said. “When I shouldn’t.”
Unguarded desire trembled through her senses, the heat of his body burned into her palms. “How long can you stay?” she murmured, beyond shame, helpless against her need.
“Three hours, probably four. It’s up to you”—he smiled—“and the servants’ attuned hearing.”
“I should send you away,” she whispered.
“But you won’t.”
“No,” she softly said.
“Good,” he murmured, his gaze bare of well-mannered civility, flame hot. “Because I wouldn’t go.”
Reaching for the blue ribbon threaded through the scooped neckline of her summer nightgown, he gently pulled on the bow.
She didn’t move in the quiet of the bedroom, aware of the tremulous beating of her heart, aware of the delicate touch of his fingers as he untied the silk ribbon and then loosened the gathered fabric. He slowly slid the fine eyelet over her shoulders, the brushing warmth of his hands flaring through her body, the intoxicating pleasure feverish, familiar, and she thought: How long has it been?
Weeks.
Hours were too long to deny such soul-stirring rapture, and it had been weeks since he’d touched her.
Now that he was standing before her, tall, powerful, aroused, she wondered how she’d ever been able to rationalize away her longing.
His palms glided over the verge of her shoulders, shoving the light material aside, slipped down her arms, midway to her elbows. And the pale gown slithered to the floor.
He looked at her without speaking, his hands drifting lower until his fingers touched hers and delicately slid through them. Lifting her hands to his lips, he gently kissed her knuckles.
“You’re trembling,” he murmured, his gaze intent beneath the shield of his lashes.
“It must be the cold,” Flora whispered, her smile discounting her words and the sultry summer heat.
“Do you need someone to warm you?”
“I thought that’s why you came.”
It stopped him for a moment, the candid truth beneath the casualness of her reply, the utter lack of coyness.
“I saw your light,” he said.
“From Morrissey’s?”
He grinned. “Is this a quiz?”
“No,” she said, glancing at the bed before her gaze returned to his. “Why don’t you latch the door?”
How did she always manage to disconcert and arouse in equal measure? he thought as he moved away. And when he turned back from locking the door and saw her waiting for him, lounging against the lacy pillows like a practiced courtesan, he questioned his sophistication. A grudging displeasure pervaded his mind.
Dropping into a chair near the bed instead of joining her, he restlessly slid into a sprawl, not certain why he was there, suddenly not certain what he was going to do. She looked very beautiful, playful and inviting, like a Boucher nymph—all pink, blooming flesh. But less cherubic, he noted, more voluptuous and womanly.
“I came to Saratoga to seduce you,” Flora gently said, surveying Adam’s moody sprawl. “Will I have to, after all?” she softly inquired.
“No.”
“You have that sullen look of a man doing something against his will.”
“Are you jealous? Tell me, because I am.”
His gaze went oblique for a moment before it met hers again. “Yes,” he said. “And I can’t escape it if I ride ten thousand days and nights. I want you in my hands. I want you to be kissed only by me. I’m haunted by the pleasure I take in possessing you.”
“The pleasure isn’t exclusively yours,” Flora gently reminded him, “nor the inescapable need to possess. And don’t look at me like that. I don’t say this to other men.”
“I’m sorry,” he gruffly muttered, “The violence of my feelings threaten any sense of detachment.”
“Your customary sense of detachment, you mean.”
His gaze came up, volatile, fitful, and he looked at her from under lashes longer than anyone’s. “I see you everywhere—in my dreams, in shop windows, in the mirror in place of my own image. I’m not sure—”
“You want to be in love?”
“I’m not sure I want the calamitous changes in my life.”
He looked spectacularly beautiful, all dark eyes and hair and sullen restiveness, his powerful body elegant in black tails, diamond studs twinkling down his starched shirt front, his hard, flat belly sleek beneath a white satin waistcoat, a large sapphire ring on his right hand catching the light.
“I don’t have your misgivings,” Flora said, sliding her legs over the side of the bed, pushing herself upright. “Love doesn’t frighten me.”
A swift surprise showed in his eyes, and he watched her with a guarded wariness as her feet touched the floor and she moved the small distance from the bed to his chair.
“The fetters alarm you, don’t they?” she murmured, gracefully kneeling at his feet. “You don’t want to be undone by love.”
“I don’t know what I want,” he quietly said, aware the rhythm of his breathing had changed when she knelt before him.
Placing her hands on his knees, she parted his legs so she could move between them. “There’s always one certainty, at least,” she softly said, feeling the warmth of his thighs on the underside of her arms, knowing he could have stopped her at any time. “In this friendship of ours.” Her fingers slid under the placket on his perfectly fitted trousers, closing on the top button. “We agree on that, I think,” she whispered, her eyes on his as she slipped the first button free.
She undid his trousers with the compliant deference of a well-trained houri while Adam gripped the chair arms to restrain his violent impulses.
Her hair smelled of perfume, the scent sweet and heavy, the pale satin of her shoulders and the mounded fullness of her breasts only inches away, tempting, tantalizing as Persian love poems, his for the taking.
Was he willing to contemplate the enigma of love? He thought for the first time in his life. And if he did, what was the price of his freedom?
But tumultuous feeling overwhelmed any further insightful musing, for Flora’s hands glided over his arousal as she tugged his shirt up, and he suddenly lost interest in speculative theory. Her small hands were warm on his stomach, brushing his clothing aside, languidly spreading the fine wool of his trousers over his hips to expose his erection.
A small cry escaped her, a swallowed, abrupt sound, the shape under her hand recognizable. “You’re carrying a gun,” she softly challenged.
Adam drew the weapon from his pocket. “For the servants,” he pleasantly said, placing it under the chair.
“The truth,” she firmly demanded.
“Caldwell gave me his derringer at Morrissey’s,” he replied, his voice devoid of inflection.
“Why would he do that?” Her hands rested on his thighs, her gaze held a critical scrutiny.
He shrugged. “He’s the cautious type.”
“Why?”
“No reason, darling.” He smiled, brushing a light fingertip over her quirked brows. “You look delectable in your pearl earrings,” he said, flicking the pendant pearl dangling from her earlobe. “And nothing else,” he added in a hushed murmur. Shifting on his spine, he leaned foward, and taking her face between his hands, he kissed her, a long, slow, delicious kiss that made her forget the violence that was so much a part of Adam Serre’s life. And when he released her mouth and lounged back again, he’d forgotten Frank Storham’s disruptive presence.
He waited then as she knelt between his legs, familiar with that look in a woman’s eyes—her gaze heavy with passion. And when her head lowered over him, he shut his eyes.
Her mouth was warm, soft, engulfing, her hands on his erection skilled. The scent of rose and jasmine drifted into his nostrils, Saratoga vanished, the bedroom disappeared, his world narrowed to a gliding mouth and exquisite, intense sensation.
His size intoxicated her, his readiness tantalized, like a personal invitation to sensual delight. She felt the heat between her legs, whetted desire restless in her blood. And a sense of power touched her too, offered its own degree of pleasure. She could hear his harsh breathing and the catch in the rhythm when she held him deep against the back of her throat. She could feel him lift his hips when she paused a lengthy moment at the apex of her ascent, and his deep groan of satisfaction as her mouth descended again evoked a small internal smile.
His hands slipped through her hair, cradling her head, grasping incredible pleasure in his hands. And she held him in thrall.
Until suddenly he lifted her head.
“I’m not finished,” she murmured, looking up at him through tousled curls.
“You’re finished,” he gently said, rising in a flawless fusion of muscle, sinew, and bone, pulling her upright, no longer uncertain about motive or purpose, sure of what he wanted.
Carrying her to the bed, he settled her down and, swiftly moving over her, lowered himself between her legs. He entered her with dizzying speed, driving in with exactitude and force, pressing to the depth of her womb so she moaned in ecstasy, overpowering rapture so acute she held her breath to sustain the trembling splendor.
Then Adam Serre proceeded to do what he did so well, clothed or unclothed, disquieted or resolved, regardless of setting or circumstance. Like an acquired skill with a lariat or the consummate artistry of a well-trained pianist, he knew how to make love. He knew how to move: how fast; how deep; how slow; how hard. He knew how to kiss a woman’s mouth and the tender warmth behind her ear; how to suckle her nipples and draw his tongue lightly over the curve of her breast or the pouty fullness of her lips. He knew when to lift her hips to meet his plunging invasion, when to be gentle and when not to be. He understood the delicate balance between violence and pleasure, between harshness and tenderness. He was accomplished at bringing a woman to climax simply by caressing her or talking to her. He was very good.
But he did it a lot, Flora thought, as peaking ecstasy climbed through her body.
It was one of his professions. And if she hadn’t been quivering just short of release with her own selfish pleasure, she might have resented his proficiency.
Their climax when it came was like running downhill, breathless, bursting, wild. But immediately afterward, as if cooled by a sudden cloudburst of remembrance, Adam rolled away. Lying on his back, eyes closed, he struggled with his compelling need for Flora, with the obstacles and consequences.
Sparks were still detonating in small flashes along Flora’s nerve endings, the heat of her body diminishing slowly from blue flame to red to flickering gold. And she didn’t recognize germane elements of reality, only her own pulsing enchantment.
When she finally turned to look at Adam, he was sprawled beside her, his arms thrown over his head, his breathing still fast and hard. Undressed like a man in a brothel, she thought, with only the minimum clothing undone.
“Do you want to leave?” she asked, sensitive to the cool silence of his pose.
He didn’t answer, and she wondered if she really wanted to know. Rolling on her side, she noticed how close his eyelashes were, black silk, long like a baby’s but thicker. What would he do if she touched them? she incongruously mused, when she should have been considering his deadly preoccupation.
Then his eyes opened, the pupils large in the semidarkness, shadowed by his heavy brows, and his smile appeared, sudden and warm. “Maybe I’ll leave in a thousand years,” he said.
“In that case,” Flora murmured, cognizant of the difficulties in his life, her own smile ripe with delicate accord, “you’re overdressed.”
She divested him of his clothing while he obligingly helped, kicking off his shoes, raising his hips to slide his trousers off, shrugging out of his coat while she tugged at the sleeves. But when she straddled his hips to unbutton his waistcoat, his concentration suddenly lapsed, her hot bottom instant enticement.
“I’m glad you decided to walk to Franklin Square tonight,” she fondly said, slipping a fabric-covered button through a buttonhole.
“I didn’t have a choice, bia,” he murmured with a lazily quirked brow.
“Because this brought you here.” She touched his arousal, sliding her finger up the swollen shaft, circling the ridged pulsing crest.
He smiled. “It’s stubbornly enamored.”
“Of me?” She pulled his shirt loose from the diamond studs in a sweeping tug of her wrist.
His grin offered instant delight. “As you see.” He lay beneath her, half-undressed, his shirt and waistcoat open, the white fabrics stark contrast to his bronzed skin, to the muscled power of his tall frame. “Are you ready?” His voice was a low whisper, the question rhetorical; she was soaking wet between her legs, her own honeyed fluids mingling with his ejaculation. And when he touched her breasts, she pushed herself against his hands and breathed deeply, her eyes closed, her face lifted upward with a groan.
He fondled the ripeness of her breasts, cupped them, softly massaged the nipples. Gently swaying as he caressed her, she glided back and forth over his erection in languid incitement, the rush of her breathing the only sound in the silent room.
“Lift up,” he murmured, sliding his hands over to her upper arms and raising her. “Would you like me to come in you again?” he whispered, his fingers stroking her swollen labia. “Would you like that?”
“Yes,” Flora sighed, luxurious feeling ravishing her senses, an insatiable hunger for him transcending all else. “Fill me to overflowing.…”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he lazily murmured, adjusting her on his hips, guiding himself into place, slowly penetrating her throbbing tissue, encouraging her hips with his hands once he was inside her, easing himself in by slow degrees until she’d absorbed him completely.
Then, bracing his feet, he pushed deeper, surging upward so forcefully, she screamed, the sound ringing through the silent house—hot, insatiable, unmistakable.
She instantly tensed under his hands, even while the savage heat of passion bombarded her mind, clashed with any faint-hearted apprehension, outstripped caution.
Swiftly cupping her head, Adam pulled her facedown and kissed her. “No one heard,” he murmured against her mouth, covering her ears with his hands. “No one.” He had no intention of stopping or relinquishing this night of carnal passion—not, at least, this side of death. He softly kissed her, soothing, pacifying kisses, his hands lightly covering her ears, blocking out the world, the rhythm of his lower body persistent, bewitching, unsated.
He didn’t care if the door came crashing down. He didn’t care if all of Franklin Square poured into the room. He was on fire, Flora was shaking, flowing with desire, both their bodies slick with perspiration, gratification shudderingly close.
Surging upward again, he felt flame scorching his brain.
She could feel her womb opening up, wanting him to come in and fill her, fulfill her, replenish, ravish her. She clung to him, felt him swelling, swelling inside her.
The frantic rush of their breathing accelerated, flooding the shadowed room with the audible cadence of lust, and then their two fused bodies stopped.
A second hung suspended in the filmy heat.
Until their orgasms exploded, unspeakable pleasure melted through their senses, hot, rippling, fierce. With a small, inarticulate cry, Flora slumped across Adam’s shoulder, her hair streaming over his face, filling his nose, his mouth, covering his eyes.
He smiled with her hair in his mouth.
It tasted faintly of rose, like her.
After they’d rested, after they’d kissed like adolescents, closemouthed, tenderly; after they’d murmured giddy love words to each other that made them giggle. After they’d smiled into each other’s eyes with the innocence of newfound happiness, they made love in the simplest of ways. With his body balanced between her parted thighs, he joined in her silky wet heat, moving in harmony, his palms warm on her smooth shoulders, her hands pressed lightly at the base of his spine.
They explored and discovered, swimming and sliding, their kisses soft, warm, his sex harder and harder, plunging, withdrawing, thrusting, and rising until she couldn’t wait anymore, and sensing it, he moved in so deeply, rivulets of ecstasy seared her brain, dissolved into his as he followed her in orgasmic release.
Enfolded in the tremulous overflow of rapture, Flora reached up and touched Adam’s cheek afterward, wordless, her eyes still filled with wonder. He was perfection. Dangerous as an addiction, an undiluted drug of pleasure, framed above her by a lemon-colored light that limned his wide shoulders and sleek head. As she basked in the exaltation of his allure and the charitable afterglow of lovemaking, his shadowed form suddenly slipped away, moving off the bed with a supple agility.
“Where are you going?” Her voice sounded distant to her ears, a three-o’clock-in-the-morning voice, someone else’s voice.
“Not too far without any clothes,” he said over his shoulder, the smile in his voice caressing her across the room. Moving with a horseman’s loose gait, he walked to her dressing table and, bending over, picked up the hairbrush she’d dropped on the floor. Returning to the bed, he kissed her gently, climbed back in, and lifted her docile body—the lethargy of climax still blanketing her senses—arranging her in a seated position between his legs. Kissing the curve of her shoulder, he murmured Absarokee love words into the soft curls behind her ears, his voice deep, hushed. And began brushing her hair.
Aware of the momentous implications, Flora was enchanted by his devoted gallantry. But she found herself wondering with a modicum of skepticism, as he smoothly wielded the brush with a flowing deftness, whether he’d often indulged in such love play. Although a heartbeat later she debated whether she really wanted to know.
Her natural curiosity overcame more sensible caution, however, or perhaps she was feeling immeasurably secure, with his prevailing spirit tonight so charmingly affectionate. “Have you ever done this before?” She’d half twisted around so she could see his face when he answered. “You don’t have to answer.” But then her voice changed mid-sentence to a more impassioned tone. “I want to know.”
He smiled at the discernible change. “How serious I am? How enamored?”
“You could say ‘love,’ ” she gently chided with a delicate, tantalizing smile. “I was just wondering if I should die of love right here, right now, or scratch your eyes out instead for your facile charm.”
“Don’t die of love, darling. I want you too badly.”
“Are we betrothed, then?” she playfully teased. “Should I select a wedding gown tomorrow?”
“I’ve never done this before,” he said instead, a lifetime of evasion difficult to disregard.
“Never?”
He shook his head.
“Not with all the scores of women?”
Hundreds, he thought, and smiled no with a small shake of his head. But he gave no further explanation because he had none, no words to explain, no prearranged reason in his brain. He’d acted on impulse, but amazingly he didn’t feel dread at the consequences. It surprised him. He’d been waiting for the overwhelming terror to strike. A man attuned to the mystical rhythms of his world, he particularly took note of that lapse.
But he only kissed her then, as she lay against his shoulder, and showed her in ways other than words how much he cared. And much later, when he finally had to leave or risk being seen, fully dressed again, Adam turned back to the bed where Flora lay in languid repose and, gazing down at her, said with a small sigh, “We have to talk … about … this … us. I don’t want to rely solely on chance meetings and lust.”
“You needn’t be chivalrous, Adam,” Flora murmured, smiling up at him. She was beyond recriminations and demands, her body sated, her senses replete, enchantment pungent, like the scent of roses crushed in one’s hand. She knew he cared; she was content. “Come to me when you can.”
“I don’t like the casual sound of that.” His voice was minutely curt.
“I’m sorry, darling. Don’t misunderstand. I just mean I’m willing to meet you anywhere, anytime—your rules.”
After their long weeks of separation, after their recent incredible hours together, he found he couldn’t risk having her sail away for Tikal or Timbuktu or even somewhere innocuous like the Midlands for the upcoming hunt season. More pertinent to a man who’d never viewed a woman with any degree of permanence, he couldn’t bear the thought of another man touching her. He softly exhaled, a decision reached sometime in the heated hours of their passion. “I don’t want that,” he firmly said. “I want more.” Then, smiling at his own seriousness, he murmured, “I’m beginning to think this insanity is love, bia.” Leaning over, he kissed her soft cheek and whispered, “I’ll see you at eight.”
It was five-thirty when Adam reached his hotel room; enough time to bathe, dress, and visit with Lucie for a short time before he left to take Flora for breakfast.
“Are we going to the track, Papa?” Lucie exclaimed when she came bounding into his bedroom shortly before six and climbed up onto his unused bed. “Should I have Cook find my clothes?”
“We’ll go later today, darling. I’ve a breakfast appointment first.” Almost finished dressing after his bath, he slipped some bills into his trouser pocket.
“Don’t forget you promised Flora a ride to Tiffany’s at nine. And if you go without me, bring me back something,” she added with the eternal request of children to their parents.
“What do you want?” He picked up his watch from the bureau top and slipped it into his waistcoat pocket.
“A toy.” Her answer never changed.
“Is Cook keeping you entertained?” Loop the chain, snap it shut. He looked at himself in the bureau mirror; sleep might be useful one of these nights, he thought. His eyes were more heavy-lidded than usual.
“She knows hundreds of stories about wild animals ’cuz she was raised in a cabin with her papa who trapped and she didn’t have a mommy very often like me, so that’s why she knows all the stories. Her papa told them to her.”
Lucie’s knowledge of the staff’s personal lives never ceased to amaze him. He thought Cook had come from St. Paul with Mrs. O’Brien; they seemed of the same age, they both had grandchildren. “You’ll have to tell me some of the stories. I like animal stories,” he said with a smile, sliding a small gold signet ring his father had given him on the fourth finger of his right hand.
“She had her own pet owl too. Can I have a pet owl? I’ll take really good care of it and it can sleep in my room.”
“We’ll have to think about that, dear. I’m not certain an owl would like to sleep in your room.”
“Could I have a squirrel for a pet, then? Cook had two squirrels for pets and a baby wolf and a chickadee who sang for its supper every night at the same exact time. Isn’t that the most amazing thing you ever heard?” Her voice trilled with excitement.
“We’ll definitely have to get a pet when we return to Montana. Maybe Cook can help you train it.” He ran his fingers through his damp hair, shoved it behind his ears, and turned to his daughter. “Would you read me a story before I have to leave? I haven’t had you read to me in two days. And we’ll go on a picnic with Flora later, so you and Cook tell the hotel restaurant what: you want in the picnic basket and we’ll be back at noon.”
“I know noon on the clock, Papa. That’s easy. I’ll read you the story about the little girl who travels with her baby doll to Paris. I like the pictures.” She spoke with the same energy that fueled her mind and spirit and small body.
She sat on his lap in a chair by the window, and he helped turn the pages. She brought a peace to his life, a grounding, a joy. She knew the words practically by heart; he did too after rereading the book so many times. And when Cook came in later to check on Lucie’s wishes for breakfast, the plans for the day were arranged.
“We may go back to Montana early,” Adam told Cook, who stood politely in the doorway, her starched white apron so crisp it crackled when she walked. “It depends on a number of things. So if you don’t mind looking out for Lucie for a few days, I think we’ll forgo hiring new nursemaids here.”
“Lucie’s not a speck of trouble, Mr. Serre. She likes my stories about Pa and the animals, but if you decide to return to Montana early, I can’t say I’d be disappointed. I miss my Ben.”
“That’s her husband, Papa,” Lucie said, interpreting her father’s blank look.
“Forgive me, Mrs. Richards,” Adam apologized. “I haven’t slept much. The name didn’t register immediately.”
“Never mind, Mr. Serre. I reckon you got lots more on your mind than remembering everyone’s names. Now, you should be dressed too, Miss Lucie,” she added. “Maybe we could take a walk to that toy store down the block after breakfast, if it’s all right with your father.”
“Yowiee!” Lucie gleefully cried, jumping from her father’s lap. “Let’s see if they have any fuzzy animal toys. Say yes, Papa,” she added, figeting in her excitement, “and don’t forget to bring me something back.”
“Yes to both,” Adam said with a smile. “And thank you, Mrs. Richards.”
As Adam waited for his carriage to be brought up to the entrance of the Clarendon, he debated the next step in his relationship with Flora.
His marriage, of course, was a dominant roadblock to any permanence. He could arrange a divorce in Montana, but Isolde would ignore it. The Catholic church didn’t recognize divorce, nor did the laws of France.13 And knowing Isolde, she would continue to consider herself his wife.
He needed an annulment.
Almost reflexively, he drew in a deep breath at the finality of the word. At the commitment it implied in terms of his attachment to Flora. Despite his wretched marriage, he’d always avoided the ultimate dissolution. Out of inertia, perhaps, or a sense of family duty. Or maybe for selfish reasons—since he and Isolde had lived separate lives, he’d been spared any restrictions on his activities, and his status as a married man had protected him from demanding lovers.
Was he truly ready for such a serious measure?
Did he really want to be free of his marriage?
Would he regret the loss of his liberty—for Flora expected faithfulness. Was he capable of such devotion?
Smiling at his driver as his carriage rolled up to the hotel, he stepped into the open carriage and said, “Good morning, Monty. At least one of us is fresh and alert, I see.”
“Some of us use a bed for sleepin’, boss,” the wiry ranch hand said, echoes of the Georgia hill country still in his voice after years in the West.
“The thought’s beginning to take on a definite appeal, Monty,” Adam replied as he sank into the soft leather upholstery. “Ten Franklin Square this morning.”
But a block down Broadway, Adam suddenly said, “Stop.”
“Forget somethin’?” Monty asked, easing the horses over to the side of the street.
“I just need a minute to think,” Adam murmured.
Should he wire James to begin the annulment proceedings? Adam mused, indecision rife in his mind, his gaze unfocused on Monty’s straight back. If he intended to go through with an annulment, James should start the legalities; any negotiations with the Vatican were sure to be protracted. Isolde would be obstructive. A certainty there. As was her mercenary family’s greed; they’d sent a phalanx of lawyers to deal with the marriage settlement.
On the other hand, if the proceedings were to take years, a few days one way or the other scarcely mattered. He needn’t make so momentous a decision this morning.
Perhaps the afterglow of last night with Flora would fade.
Perhaps she would annoy him this morning.
Her untrammeled independence didn’t bode well for obedience in a wife.
If indeed he wanted that submission.
If he wanted another wife at all. He sighed; he squinted into the sun; he decided to decide later. “Go on, Monty—Franklin Square,” Adam asserted, visions of his discordant marriage instinctively cooling his ardor. Sliding into a lounging sprawl, he gazed up at the canopy of green leaves and sparkling sunshine overhead, unanswerable questions assailing his mind. Should he or shouldn’t he? Did he wish to lose Flora or keep her? Would he lose her if he did nothing? Swearing under his breath, he longed for a very large cognac.
They were turning onto the approach street to Franklin Square when Adam suddenly shifted upward on the seat and abruptly said, as if he might change his mind were he to be less impetuous, “Go to the telegraph office first.”
Bringing the horses to a halt, Monty shifted around, not sure he’d heard correctly, so softly had Adam spoken.
Adam smiled. “Yes, I’m sober, although I’m not certain I might want an excuse later for doing this. The telegraph office, Monty, before Franklin Square, and you can congratulate me. I’m getting married.”
“That a fact.” Monty Blair was too polite to mention Adam’s current wife, although no one at the ranch expected her back. And if he was talking marriage, it had to be the redhead from England. After her stay at the ranch, bets were taken by the staff on how soon she’d return.
“An eventual fact,” Adam replied with a grin. “If Lady Flora will have me. I have to let James know.”
“Don’t expect he’ll be surprised.” Monty had been driving for Adam for a decade; he’d watched the young count forced into his marriage; he’d seen Isolde’s reaction to Aspen Valley and her husband. And he was aware of all the concessions and adjustments Adam had made for his wife over the years. “Reckon things will be different with Lady Flora,” he laconically said. “Congratulations, boss.”
“Thanks, Monty,” Adam replied. “I’m in a damned good mood.” His smile shone white in his bronzed face, and then his dark brows rose and fell in swift merriment. “I think.…”
Flora was sitting on the front steps of Sarah’s house when Adam’s carriage drove up, and by the time his driver had stopped in front, she was standing at the curb looking fresh-faced and girlish in a primrose, sprigged muslin gown, her straw bonnet hanging from her wrist by its grosgrain ribbons.
Jumping down from the gleaming black victoria, Adam helped Flora in and then settled on the padded seat opposite her.
“I didn’t want to wake Sarah,” Flora explained as the carriage began moving. “She generally sleeps late in the morning, so—”
“—you were sitting on the steps like an urchin,” Adam finished with a smile. “A very beautiful urchin, by the way. Could I interest you in a home,” he teased, “to get you off the streets?”
“I could possibly be tempted,” Flora coquettishly replied, fluttering her eyelashes in mock flattery. “Would the work be hard?”
“Sometimes,” he said. “It depends …”
“On?” A flirtatious lift of one brow.
“On my mood,” he softly said.
“I’d have to cater to your moods? Ummm … perhaps I should think about it.”
“You’re not allowed to think about it,” Adam brusquely retorted, and without regard for gossip or scandal, he reached over, lifted Flora into his arms, and pulled her onto his lap. “You’re only allowed to say yes,” he whispered, holding her tight.
“Are you abducting me against: my will, Mr. Serre?” Flora murmured, the froth of her primrose skirts surrounding her in heaps and piles so she seemed fragile, vulnerable.
“It’s a thought,” he said with a degree of sincerity, not inclined to let her leave him again. “Kiss me.”
“They’ll run us out of town, darling,” she warned, quickly glancing around to see if they were observed.
“You’re too shy,” he murmured, kissing her instead, a light, delicate, restrained kiss. If he’d allowed himself to really kiss her, there’d be scandal indeed. “And I won’t be here much longer should they wish to run me out. I’m going back with you.”
“When?” Heaven within reach.
“In a day or two. I have to see my horses readied for travel.”
“Utter bliss,” she murmured.
“It gets better,” he said. “Wait until you taste George’s fried trout.”
George Crum14 had first learned to cook as a guide in the Adirondacks, having been taught the finer aspects of cooking by a Frenchman who employed him. He’d worked at Moon’s Lake House with his sister-in law, and after gaining fame for his culinary expertise, he opened a restaurant of his own on a low hill at the south end of Lake Saratoga. A mixed-blood of mulatto and Stockbridge Indian heritage, he kept his expenses down by having his five Indian wives serve as his waitresses. They were all devoted to him, as were his customers. His tables were so crowded he had no need for reservations, and tycoons, socialites, and celebrities waited their turn with ordinary guests. And despite the rustic quality of his restaurant, no objections were made to his prices, which were as high as New York’s fashionable dining salons. His gifted skills as chef were worth the cost.
Flora and Adam were greeted on the front porch by George and his wives.
“I promised Flora your trout,” Adam said as they climbed the few stairs to greet their host. “And thank you for opening early. It’s hard to find privacy in Saratoga.”
“How much privacy you needin’?” George replied, his bony face creased in a smile. His long, straight black hair attested to his Indian blood. “This your second wife now?”
“That’s what we’re here to discuss, so give us your table out on the porch by the lake and bring us something sweet right away, because I think she’s going to hit me.”
“Want some tips on managing your wives?”
“One is all I can handle at a time, George,” Adam said with a smile, taking Flora’s hand. “I’m not diplomatic like you. And bring champagne too. We’re celebrating.”
They sat at a small table overlooking the lake, holding hands across the white linen, smiling at each other as if they alone knew the secrets of the universe, the magical beauty of love.
“Forgive George,” Adam said into the peaceful summer air. “We’ve been friends too long.”
“Everyone’s forgiven today. I feel unbelievably happy.”
“I already wired James to begin annulment proceedings. I’ll talk to your father in person when we return to Montana. I need you with me.”
He spoke quietly, with very little inflection, his fingers tightly clasping hers, and she felt that small restraint in tone, in the fierce pressure of his hands.
“Do you love me?” she asked.
“I must,” he carefully said. “I do,” he corrected himself and then with a faint sigh added, “I’m not sure about love; I’ve never been in love before, but I desperately miss you when you’re gone, and I want you to be my wife so you’ll never go away again. And to that purpose I’m willing to try to buy off the Vatican, Isolde, and her family. If not for that daunting prospect, and the vicious scars of my marriage, I’d be more certain. I wonder too at times what you’re doing with me.”
“I don’t have the vaguest idea,” Flora cheerfully said.
He grimaced. “Perhaps we have a problem here.”
She shook her head so her curls swung back and forth on the delicate lace of her collar, her smile carefree, her joy a kind of radiant abandonment, boundless and prodigal. “I may not know precisely and absolutely why I love you, darling, but I know what love is now. It’s everything,” she said, her tone both tender and blissfully happy. Her brows arched in teasing query. “Do I need particular reasons?”
“No, so long as you’re with me.” His life had been more restricted than Flora’s by family and duty; Isolde too had tempered his belief in happiness. And his clan’s struggle to survive against the enroachments of settlement had made him aware of the stark reality of greed. It had nurtured a possessiveness in him. “I’m impossibly jealous,” he quietly said.
“As I am,” Flora replied with equal gravity. “I’ve never met Isolde, and yet I despise her for the time she’s spent with you. And all the other women too.”
“You needn’t be jealous of Isolde. I never touched her after …” He paused, debating how much to say. “After our marriage,” he neutrally finished. “As for the other women … that’s over, and it’s long past time to end the sham of my marriage.”
“If you can.”
“Generally large sums of money expedite annulments, but Isolde’s family is influential too.” He sighed. “There’s no certainty.”
“You needn’t marry me,” Flora gently said, understanding the complications. “I’m content simply to be with you … content like this, holding your hands, knowing you’re near.”
“But I want to marry you.” He’d never said that before, never thought he’d understand with such clarity what marriage could offer. “I’d like to have more children, too.” He smiled. “If you don’t mind.”
Flora’s halcyon glimpse into paradise faded away. In all her jubilation she’d forgotten. “Maybe you won’t want to marry me, after all,” she softly murmured, pulling her hands away and clasping them in her lap.
“Why wouldn’t I?” His voice was circumspectly calm, but he was watching her intently.
“Because I can’t have children,” Flora whispered, forcing down the lump forming in her throat.
Only the slightest flicker in his eyes denoted his fleeting shock. “It doesn’t matter,” Adam softly replied, leaving his chair to move around the table. Slipping his hands under her arms, he lifted Flora to her feet and, taking her chair, pulled her down onto his lap. “It doesn’t matter,” he whispered, his arms enfolding her. “Truly.”
“I wish I could give you children.” A tear slid down her cheek.
“Hush, don’t say that. I don’t care.” He wiped away the wetness with his thumb. “I just want you.”
She told him then in a rush of tears and broken phrases about her illness in Egypt, how she rarely had menses after that, how the doctors—so many doctors—had told her the high fever and infection had destroyed her capacity to have children. “None of it mattered to me … until now,” she ended on a gulping sob.
“Please, bia, don’t cry.” He gently rocked her in his arms as if she were a distraught child. “I love you,” he whispered. “I’ll always love you. I’ve loved you from that first night at Judge Parkman’s.” It was the only time he’d ever told a woman he loved her; it was the first time he realized how powerfully Flora had affected him all those months ago in Virginia City. And for a man who had studiously avoided the declaration in all his amorous play, he found the sentiment pleasing on his tongue, satisfying.
“Maybe you’ll change your mind later,” Flora despondently said. “When you miss having more children.”
“We have Lucie,” Adam gently said. “She’s more than enough to keep us both on our toes, believe me.”
“She does like me,” Flora murmured into his shirt front, a small ray of hope entering her gloom.
“Lucie adores you; I adore you. Come, now, darling, dry your tears. This is a day of celebration, and I’ve a wager for you. Tell me what you think my annulment will cost, and closest estimate to the actual figure wins—what—ten thousand?”
Flora half raised her tear-streaked face. “You’re just trying to coax me out of my doldrums, but it won’t work; I’m feeling very sad.” Her bottom lip was pouty like a child’s.
“I’ll say twenty thousand for the prelates,” he thoughtfully murmured, ignoring her reproach because he was intent on distracting her. “Twenty thousand for Isolde, and another twenty thousand for her family’s honor.”
Flora’s head lifted completely from his chest. “Are you talking about the real world?” she incredulously inquired. “Twenty thousand won’t even get a monsignor to read your application. As for Isolde, while I don’t know her, I gather she moves in very expensive circles. Twenty thousand buys five or six dresses at Worth. You’ve been in Montana too long.”
“Really,” Adam calmly said. “What sort of numbers are you betting, then?”
“Damn you.” She’d fallen for his bait.
“You’re intrigued,” he said with a smile. “Admit it. Humor me, darling, tell me what this is going to cost me.”
Since Flora had overseen the expenses of all their expeditions, she had a precise knowledge of prices throughout the world. “I dislike being manipulated,” she remarked, her tone still mildly resentful.
“Don’t answer, then.” He’d dealt with a pouty Lucie many times.
“You think you’re clever, don’t you?” But the sadness was gone from her eyes.
“Fine, don’t give me a figure,” he blandly replied. “We don’t have to wager.”
“I don’t need your money.”
“Nor I yours. It’s just for fun.”
“Maybe we should wager something else,” she tentatively suggested, a gambler at heart.
“What do you have in mind?” His smile had taken on a roguish cast.
“Not that, you libertine. Let’s say, breakfast in bed for a month.”
“You can’t cook.”
“I could carry it up.”
“I don’t want breakfast in bed. Everything spills.”
“My, we’re fussy. You think of something.”
“Can I be salacious?”
“No.”
“We’re not even married yet, and you’re becoming virtuous. Maybe we should rethink this proposal of marriage,” he quipped. “At least with Isolde I was free to indulge my libido with other women.”
“That’s not allowed in my contract.” Flora’s eyes had taken on a deadly glare.
“Do you think you could stop me, little one?” Adam teased.
“A bullet between the eyes would be effective.”
His eyes widened in mock alarm. “Am I supposed to be faithful, then.”
“Absolutely.”
“And you must as well,” he quietly said, the humor gone from his voice.
“My pleasure, Monsieur le Comte. Are we done now with our ultimatums and demands, because I dearly love you above all things. And you select the wager.” She grinned, carefree once more. “I just want a chance at the amounts, because I know I’ll win.”
“We both won already,” Adam softly said, warmed by the joy in her eyes, his own heart filled with love.
“I knew that before you did. I knew that when—”
“—when we first talked of Siberia. I wasn’t going to touch a woman that night. Not after my recent nasty wrangling with Isolde.”
“But I changed your mind.”
“Without a doubt, bia.” He smiled. “I’ve often thought of buying that landau from the judge and enshrining it.”
“It does have fond memories,” she noted with a lingering smile.
“Are we agreed, then, my sweet seductress?” Adam murmured, holding her close. “Marriage as soon as my annulment is obtained. The absolute moment we receive word. I’ll have a preacher or parson or shaman standing by.”
“Agreed,” Flora cheerfully replied. “Papa will be ecstatic too. He practically pushed me on the train. In the meantime, apropos our nameless wager, because you know how I love to win, I say fifty thousand for the Vatican, no less than two hundred thousand for Isolde, and another hundred thousand for her ducal family. I’m within pennies on this, darling, you don’t stand a chance.”
“James is very tightfisted. I think you’re high. I’ll go ten thousand less for the Vatican, half your estimate for Isolde—he hates her thoroughly—and nothing for her family. Isolde’s father ordered James to take his coat once, mistaking him for a servant. That impertinence will cost him dearly.”
“But, then, they know you’re in a hurry. Which will adjust the price accordingly.”
“I don’t care what it costs. I only care about you,” he said, taking simple pleasure in the words. “Isolde is gone, and I mean to see she’s permanently out of my life. Whatever the price.”
“I’m so happy I found you that night at Judge Parkman’s,” Flora merrily declared.
“And I mean to keep you happy,” Adam murmured, nibbling on her earlobe.
“You can eat that later, Adam,” George Crum called out, leading a procession of his wives down the length of the porch, all bearing trays of food. “Give this a try first.”
Adam invited their hosts to join them, and after pulling over another table, they all enjoyed breakfast alfresco, overlooking the peaceful shores of Lake Saratoga. Fresh trout, fried to crisp perfection, bass boiled with wine and herbs, woodcock, snipe, quail in subtle, pale sauces were arranged on white china platters. George’s signature Saratoga chips, potatoes sliced paper thin, fried and salted, piled high in a large glass bowl, disappeared with predictable speed. His delectable invention was already on menus around the world. A luscious variety of fruits completed the meal: pineapples, tamarinds, pomegranates, peaches, apricots, and grapes. The whole washed down with sparkling champagne.
It was a perfect morning in a perfect world. Good food, pleasant company, Flora and Adam’s future sweetly assured.
As figurative frosting on the cake of their happiness, they stopped at Tiffany’s when they returned to Saratoga. Flora bought herself a small brooch of pearls and emeralds, a reproduction of a Renaissance piece depicted in one of Raphael’s portraits. And Adam insisted on buying her a ring. “An engagement ring,” he whispered.
She shook her head and nervously glanced at the clerk, who might have heard. “Hush. What will Sarah say if we’re in the Herald’s gossip columns tomorrow?” James Gordon Bennett, who owned the New York Herald, took special interest in reporting the indiscretions of the wealthy at Saratoga. Every day brought new scandal in the morning paper.
“A friendship ring, then, a pearl or an emerald to match your pin,” he murmured, and before she could respond, Adam said to the clerk in a normal tone of voice, “Show us your emerald rings.”
Ignoring her quiet protests, Adam selected a large oval emerald surrounded by diamonds, slipped it on the fourth finger of her left hand, kissed her in front of the prudently expressionless clerk, and said, “I’ll take it.”
All the employees at Tiffany’s understood that the wealthy lived by different standards from the normal populace, and if the Comte de Chastellux, whose horses outran the best in the country, and who also happened to be married, chose to engage himself to a beautiful young woman with a ring priced at thirty thousand dollars, it wasn’t a lowly clerk’s place to take public notice of a nobleman’s eccentric whims.
The clerk did, however, offer the tidbit of information to the Herald reporter who regularly paid him for his insight into the lives of the rich and famous, and the young Tiffany employee added twenty dollars to his income that day.
Lucie and Cook thought the new brooch and ring beautiful, although Lucie preferred her gold mechanical parrot bank with diamond eyes that flapped its wings and opened its beak for the coins. After their picnic that afternoon, when Flora returned home, Sarah admired the new jewelry with a more personal interest in its significance.
“Adam calls it an engagement ring,” Flora said, smiling. “A quaint term under the circumstances.”
“But very lovely. How long do you plan on being engaged?” Sarah placidly asked.
“Until his annulment is secured.”
“That can be a lengthy process.”
“In the meantime we’re going back to Montana.”
“Are you happy?” It was a rhetorical question, for Flora was so obviously in love, her eyes shone with joy.
“Extremely.” Flora spread her arms wide and smiled. “Immeasurably.”
Her aunt beamed, pleased with her part in the matchmaking. “All my best wishes, darling. Your papa will be pleased, and now that all is reconciled, I don’t imagine you’ll need me to entertain you this evening.”
“We’re going to dinner and then a play.”
“An improvement over the piano pieces last night,” Sarah said with a smile.