'Why do you do it?'
What a startling question. 'Why not?'
'You engage in debauch without thinking?'
He shrugged. 'Mostly.'
'
'In your case, I have too. Don't look so surprised. I don't as a rule,'-he smiled-'engage in debauch with virgins. So you see, tonight is different.'
'How different?'
One dark brow rose, amusement in his eyes. 'Is this a catechism?'
'Do you know?' She wanted her question answered.
'As a matter of fact, I don't. I don't have the vaguest notion why you fascinate me.'
'I fascinate you?'
He shrugged again. 'It seems so.'
'Because of this?' She swept her hand over her gown.
'Definitely a factor,' he said with a boyish grin.
'I confess your good looks are a most potent lure for me.'
'Then we can both be accused of being shallow,' he sportively affirmed. Although he knew better. He'd slept with scores of great beauties and never felt what he felt right now.
'Do you actually want to eat?'
His heart missed a beat. 'You decide,' he carefully replied.
'I'd rather not eat-right now. I'm too excited.'
He set his glass down, slid upright in his chair, and gazed at her with a look that was faintly quizzical and wholly carnal. 'What would you like to do instead?'
She bit her lip, debating how to ask, and then in a rush said, 'May I see your bedroom?'
His pulse rate leaped, but he schooled his expression to a well-bred courtesy. 'Certainly,' he said, coming to his feet.
'If you don't think me too forward. Bess warned me that men don't-'
'It's not a problem.' Offering her his hand, he drew her up from the chair.
'I wish I could be calm. I'm so nervous.'
Her hand was small and warm in his, and it took effort to maintain his composure. 'Should I bring a bottle of champagne with us?' He smiled. 'For your nerves.'
'Maybe you should, although I already had some wine at Molly's before I left-to calm myself… and I'm not sure when I'll get tipsy.'
'You may get tipsy if you like,' he genially offered, picking up the bottle from the iced container. 'I've always found the world looks considerably better after a bottle or so.'
As they stepped into the hall, Pomeroy materialized from the shadows.
'Postpone dinner,' Dermott instructed. 'I'll ring when we're ready.'
'Very good, sir.' The chef was going to burst into tears.
'I wonder if I might be a
'Something light?' Dermott suggested.
'That would be wonderful. I think I smell chicken.'
'A little of everything,' Dermott ordered.
'Now, sir?'
Dermott looked at Isabella, then back at Pomeroy. 'Now,' he said.
'I do apologize,' Isabella remarked as they began ascending the stairs.
'No need. Pomeroy will take care of it. That's what he does.'
'Our household was rather small-compared to yours. And not so formal. I confess, I'm quite intimidated.'
'By Pomeroy? Don't give it another thought. If you're hungry, you can eat. It's as simple as that. What else do they have to do? Hell, I'm hardly ever home.'
'Don't you like your home?'
He glanced around the cavernous staircase and entrance hall, a multitude of ancestors staring down on them from the walls, the cupola fifty feet above them. 'I suppose I do. Never thought about it.'
'And yet you're never home.'
'Too quiet.'
'You require stimulation?'
He laughed. 'You might say that, darling. Come, this way.' Tugging on her hand, he led her down the corridor toward a huge painting of a man in Elizabethan dress with a hunting dog.
He'd called her darling. The word strummed through her brain, warming her senses even while she told herself to discount charming words from charming men.
He stopped before two massive carved doors just short of the huge painting, and tucking the champagne bottle under his arm, opened them. 'Welcome to my wing, Miss Leslie,' he said, ushering her into an enormous drawing room.
'This can't be your bedroom.'
He nodded toward another set of double doors. 'It's in there. The earls of Bathurst apparently used this room for-' He grinned, interrupting himself. 'I haven't the foggiest idea. Come, I'll show you my bedroom. It's built on a slightly more intimate scale.'
Only slightly, she realized as he opened the doors into the bedroom. The idea of intimacy must have been in terms of royal levees. The bed was mounted on a dais, crowned with a gilt coronet draped in crimson brocade. Enormous gilt chairs covered in a similar brocade were placed along the walls, as though courtiers had watched their master sleep. Windows ten feet high were draped in swags and tassels and more of the crimson brocade. A large desk sat in the middle of a Persian carpet off to one side. Obviously a working desk, papers were strewn over its surface. The ceiling must have been twenty feet high, the mural adorning it that of a bacchanal.
'Do you actually sleep here?'
'Cozy, isn't it?'
'For two hundred people maybe.'
'Let me show you my dressing room.' Taking her hand again, he led her across the carpet custom-woven for the dimensions of the room and opened a normal-sized door into a normal-sized room.
His stamp was revealed on every detail of the room, from the riding boots on a stand at the end of the bed to his watch fobs tossed on a tray atop his bureau to the portrait of him as a child tucked away in a corner of the room. The bed was small, made for a single person, and covered in a blue Indian cotton. There was a desk here as well, more cluttered than the one in the imposing bedroom outside. And books. Everywhere. On shelves, on chairs, stacked in piles on the floor.
'Forgive the mess,' he apologized. 'I don't let the staff move my things. If they clean up too much, I never can find anything.'
'You read.'
He smiled. 'Is that all right?'
'Forgive me. I was surprised, that's all. May I look?'
'Certainly.' He offered her entree with a small bow and then took himself to a liquor table, where he set down the bottle of champagne, poured himself a brandy, spilled an inch or two of champagne into a glass for her, and sat down to observe her tour of his room.
'Fielding,' she said with a smile, holding out a small volume to him. 'I love him.'
'He observes the realities with a charming sense of the absurd.'
'Yes, does he not? And Richardson. You like him too?'
'When I wish to pass the time. He has less humor and his heroines often meet disastrous ends.' He shrugged.
She picked up another book. 'I love Gibbon too.'
'You are enamored of reading, then,' he said with a smile, taking pleasure in watching her excitement.
'Oh, yes, very much. It was my access to a world I'd never know otherwise.'
