The Taming of the Duke

Page 41

She wasn't fighting anymore. Slim white arms circled his neck, and now he couldn't smell the spilled gin and pipe smoke of the inn: merely the innocent woman smell of Imogen who hadn't—though she had her ambitions— taken a lover. Not yet.
A plate slapped on the table next to them. "I pay for me posturings," Hynde said. "You two are looking too impatient to behave in the way that I requires amongst my patrons."
Rafe put Imogen away and slowly rose, his eyes burning down into Hynde's. "Did you make an impolite remark that included this young lady?" he asked. His voice wasn't loud, but silence fell over their part of the room like a pool of water. "Mr. Hynde, did I hear you make an impertinent remark?"
"No," Hynde stammered, looking quite unlike the burly wrestler who had tossed one of his patrons straight out the door. "I said nothing. Nothing!"
"Good," Rafe said, sitting down again. Hynde scuttled away.
"Oh my," Imogen whispered. "Gabriel, everyone is staring at us!"
"Drink your wine," Rafe said. "They'll turn back to their sport soon enough." He looked at Imogen. "I expect they're just fascinated by your hair. That wig looks like a cross between a corkscrew and a lightning stroke."
Her curls had abandoned all their moorings and bounded in every direction. "A flaxen Medusa," Rafe said, amused.
Imogen's eyes were shining and not from excitement. That was desire. The look in her eyes made Rafe shudder like an adolescent in the hands of his first lass. He could feel his heart thumping in his chest. She's craving Gabe, not me, he told himself. She was pulling off her gloves.
"What are you doing?" he asked hoarsely.
"Taking off my gloves so that I can eat some of this excellent pigeon pie you ordered." The men around them had gone back to hoisting tankards of aJe to their mouth, quarreling, pinching, and generally carrying on like the near lunatics they were. She had her gloves off now and was looking around for tableware. Rafe handed her a fork.
"Where did you find that?"
"In a place like this, you bring your own."
Luckily, at that moment there was a squeal of a solitary trumpet, because Rafe wasn't quite sure he could watch her eat without pulling her into his lap and feeding her himself. "That should be Cristobel," he said, unnecessarily.
"Actually, according to the sign on the door, it should be Love's Mistress," Imogen said, a smile playing around her mouth.
Rafe took her ungloved hand in his and brought it to his lips. "Surely you can give her a run for her money?" he said, slow and deep.
She was blushing. He could see it through the face powder.
The audience was howling. They had surged to their feet, and each man was straining forward, trying frantically to push enough people out of the way so that he had a clear view of the stage.
An escalation in the general howl seemed to indicate that Cristobel had arrived.
"If they all stand throughout, we shan't be able to see," Imogen said.
"I doubt they'll sit down." But he bellowed, "Down in front!" The ocean of men in front of him hadn't the slightest intention of sitting. They were surging at the stage, held back only by five or six burly men guarding the edge.
Imogen was on her tiptoes. "What does she look like? Didn't you say that you'd seen her before?"
"Cristobel? Her hair is even higher than yours, if you'll credit it." Never mind that Imogen was fifty times more beautiful than Cristobel. Imogen didn't need him to praise her features.
"Does she wear a beauty spot?"
But Rafe didn't answer because Cristobel had begun to sing. "Come all wanton wenches," she sang, "who long to be in trading." She had the kind of rich, dark voice that rolled over the room like barley beer. It was husky and erotic, a promise made in song, a mermaid's call. Instantly the men before them stopped shouting and shoving, and simply gazed at her.
"She has a lovely voice," Imogen said breathlessly. "Oh, Gabriel, I have to see her. This is so frustrating!"
"Come learn from me, Love's Mistress, to keep yourself from jading," Cristobel sang.
"What's jading?" Imogen asked. "Do you think anyone would notice if I climbed on my chair?"
In Rafe's opinion, they wouldn't notice unless Imogen threw off her clothing. Cristobel had them in her throaty spell. "Be not at first too nice or coy, when Gamesters you are courting."
With a swift grab, Rafe pushed a wine cask against the wall. "Here," he said. "No one will notice you."
"What?" Imogen said, looking around.
He had his hands on her waist to lift her onto the cask, but she looked up at him with an adorably confused expression and before he knew what was happening he lowered his mouth to hers again. Cristobel's voice rolled over them like rough honey. "Let not your outward gesture, betray your inward passion."
Rafe had just enough conscious thought left to think that he was certainly betraying inward passion. But there was no time to consider the fact because Imogen was trembling, and now she was holding his face in her hands. He had her pressed against the rough wood of the wall, protecting her from the gaze of strangers. But of course he hadn't allowed their bodies to touch.
Of course.
But he couldn't help it: there in the swelter and the smell of gin and the coiled sensual tone of Cristobel's voice, he brought their bodies together, shuddering at the softness of her.
"Gabe," she said, her voice half-caught in a rough sound.
It was enough to chill him. He picked her up without a word and put her on the wine cask.
She gasped and clutched his shoulder. Rafe turned around so that he was in front of her and she could hold his shoulders if she lost her balance. No one had noticed them at all. Even though Imogen was on a wine cask and visible to the whole room, who could look otherwhere than at Cristobel?
Now that he was standing up he could see straight to the stage. He had only seen Cristobel once before, a year or so ago, but she wasn't a woman one forgot. The intervening year had done nothing but give her a slightly exotic patina. She was sitting on the same old chair used by the posturer, holding nothing more than a small stringed instrument, and yet she had every man in the room mesmerized. Last time he saw her she had dark red curls piled on the top of her head. Now her hair was free, curling wildly down her back as if she had just stepped out of bed.
Which was undoubtedly what every man was thinking about. She was the kind of woman who made you think about sweet butter and sweeter cream: there were no angular bones poking through a gauzy dress, the look beloved by the ton, but curves so sweet that they seemed to beg to be stroked. She was on to another song now, about a man and a young maid that were "taken in a frenzy in the midsummer prime." And she wasn't singing it, she was purring it. She didn't even seem to have bothered much with face paint, contenting herself with one beauty patch high on a cheekbone and lip rouge in a crimson shade.
She stood up now, putting her instrument to the side, and swaying, dancing a little dance. Her gaze drifted around the room as she sang, licking at the bodies of the men. Rafe watched her with some amusement as she effortlessly bewitched them.
Still her eyes drifted from man to man, making certain every man felt that he and he alone was the one whom she'd singled from the crowd. She reached the heart of the song. "He landed in a hole ere he was aware. The lane it was straight, he had not gone far…" when she finally looked to the back of the room.