"Stay with me, Etienne. Entertain me." Her breathy tone was an invitation—practiced and potent and rarely ineffective.
"I'd love to, Isme… some other time." When it won't cost me fifty million francs, he politely refrained from adding. Kicking aside a tangle of white linen sheet, he slid his legs over the side of his bed, and rose in swift muscular grace.
"I shall pout if you go," she declared, lying in curvaceous splendor in the shambles of his bed, her pale skin glowing from her exertions and arousal, the nipples on her heavy breasts peaked in seeming expectancy. "And make you pay…" she petulantly declared, watching him walk away from her across the dark green silk of his carpet. "And you should cut your hair, Etienne," she pettishly went on in the tone of an aggrieved wife. "You look like an Arab brigand."
Glancing back at her from the threshold of his dressing room, her wifely tone struck a chill down his spine. At age thirty-nine, if he'd wanted his hair cut shorter, he wouldn't be wearing it long. Taking in the flushed pink and white loveliness of a woman known for her beauty and prowess in bed, he gently said, "Don't pout, darling. I detest pouting women."
"And I detest talk of business." Isme's voice was acerbic as she pushed herself up on one elbow, her beauty marred by the scowl on her face. "How incredibly boring you sound, Etienne. The Bourse will still be there in an hour or two."
"I'm sorry I bore you." The Duc de Vec didn't take personal offense at Isme's remark. He only found it typical of her style of female. Too typical, too predictable also, and perhaps at base, like her estimation of his interest in the Bourse… boring. With one hand on the polished gold handle of his dressing room door, he urbanely offered what conventionally mitigated unhappy scowls on the faces of women acquaintances. "Let me buy you a trinket at Chaumet's. Pick out something for yourself on your way home. In payment, as you put it," he added with a lazy smile, "for my boorish leaving of you."
"I shall be terribly expensive, darling." Her small moue hinted at a tantrum. "And I shan't come over for a week, to teach you a lesson."
"I'm devastated." His grin was less than devastated. It was, instead, wicked and sinfully attractive.
"Damn you, Etienne!" The Comtesse was sitting up in bed now, glowering at the tall powerfully built nude man about to exit the room. "Are you really leaving?"
The Duc inhaled marginally as the mantle clock chimed the hour and on a soft exhalation, said, "Really."
Reacting with the volatile temperament for which she was famous, Isme leaned over, snatched up a small porphyry bust of Cleopatra Etienne kept on his bedside table, and, raising it high above her tousled blonde head, gave every indication of using him as a target.
At the moment the missile left her hand, he slipped into his dressing room, slamming the door a fractional second before impact. With explosive violence, the small porphyry sculpture smashed into the cherry wood paneling, disaster evident in the brittle sound of fragments skidding down the door. The Duc winced inwardly at his loss.
"The Comtesse is unhappy?" Louis's calm, restrained voice suggested a familiarity with female theatrics in his master's apartment.
"Apparently," Etienne said dryly, wondering if Roussel could find him a replacement for his favorite Cleopatra. He'd had the elegant sculpture since adolescence, charmed by the Egyptian Queen's exotic beauty as well as the poignancy of her losing struggle against Rome. Shaking away sentimental reverie a second later, in light of the brutal reality facing him at the Bourse, he briskly asked, "How high has the stock gone?" Isme was dismissed for more important matters having to do with fifty million francs of his money.
"At Legere's last call a minute ago, the price had risen to 220 francs," Louis answered. "I was about to interrupt you, regardless of the state of your er… activities. Legere is wild."
"Tell him to wait another forty points, then sell. Tell him, also, I'll be dressed and down to the trading floor in fifteen minutes." In regard to his last statement, the Duc locked the door behind him to avoid any temperamental interruptions in his very tight schedule. Turning back around, he continued, "Have Guillaume ready out front. He is?" The Duc's grin was warm and gracious. "What would I do without you. The Comtesse will need a carriage brought round too." At Louis's faint smile, Etienne said with amusement, "I suppose her mount has been seen to as well." Another answering nod. "Need I ask that a lady's maid be sent up to her?"
"I think she prefers Augustine, Your Grace, which might account for the current state of calm in your bedroom."
"In your efficiency, Louis," the Duc said in teasing response, "why couldn't you take care of my Bourse trading as well and I wouldn't have had to lose my Cleopatra."
"I was tempted to, but you know Legere… a martinet for protocol. And your orders were specific, sir. I was to see you were up again and dressed by ten. But forgive me for interfering in the Countess's morning—er—visit," he apologized.
Etienne shrugged and smiled, conscious of the overriding urgency of a railway acquisition over Isme's lush body. Well, at least intellectually conscious. Isme did have considerable ingenuity in the art of inflaming a man's senses, although he was becoming impatient with her pouting demands. Today was simply another instance of her intruding into his private life without invitation. She'd surprised him by appearing in the Bois de Boulogne that morning as he rode with his son and friends in their customary fashion. Although not adverse to Isme's exquisite brand of sensuality, he preferred taking the initiative with women; he disliked being pressed. He particularly disliked intimations of permanence in a relationship—those initial small demands on his time, the possessive tones of censure, the inevitable claims of exclusivity.
As heiress
