The Taming of the Duke

Page 42

She recognized him. There was a lush little smile in the back of her eyes, a warm greeting that made most of the heads in the room turn in their direction. But she was a consummate performer, and her eyes drifted on instantly, flicking over Imogen and her yellow corkscrew curls, the knot of laboring men standing to their right, breathing heavily as they watched Cristobel's hips sway.
"Gabriel," Imogen said, bending down so that she could speak in his ear, "I do believe that Cristobel knows you."
"Absolutely not," he said.
"Why not? You have met her, haven't you?"
Rafe looked up, and her amused eyes went through his system like lightning. Would he ever understand Imogen? She was amused by the fact he had been recognized woman in a thousand who would think it humorous if Cristobel hailed their escort. "She couldn't possibly recognize me," he said, remembering to school his voice to his brother's scholarly tones. "I'm wearing a mustache, remember?"
"How could I not," Imogen whispered back. "I think my cheek is rubbed raw by that same mustache."
He smiled up at her, a little crooked smile, and then caught her chin, surveying her face. "I don't see anything." His lips were almost touching hers.
"Everyone can see us," she whispered.
"No one's interested," he said, rubbing his lips across that deep lower lip of hers.
Imogen pulled back and shoved at him. "Turn around," she ordered.
So he did. He turned around, waiting with arms crossed until Imogen had seen enough so that he could lift her from the wine cask. In fact, he was planning that very move. He'd lift her down, and let her drop against his body, slowly—very slowly…
Suddenly he noticed that Cristobel was dancing toward the steps leading to the stage. All around them the men were shifting, pushing toward her. She came down the stairs like the promise of a succubus, like a man's wickedest, wildest fantasy come true. Each man in the room strained toward her. And all that protected her were the bodies of five burly men who cleared a little path before her. Down that path danced Cristobel, coming face-to-face with this man, quickly touching that one on the neck, blowing a kiss to a third.
Cristobel was wanton: genuinely wanton. Her eyes warmed every man in the room, told him a secret story that promised he was the one.
Every inch of Rafe's body was conscious that Imogen's warm body was just above his on the wine barrel. But he wasn't exactly unaware that Cristobel kept stealing looks in his direction. And she wasn't drifting around the room aimlessly either. Soon she had visited all areas of the room—except theirs. A table had overturned when a young stripling leaped forward in the hopes she would smile at him; she gave him a night of happy dreams by kissing her finger and placing it on his lips.
But still she was moving steadily toward Rafe. Damnation.
"What is she doing?" Imogen asked, above him.
"Singing," Rafe said, watching Cristobel the way one watches a curious bear cub to make sure it doesn't come too close.
Cristobel had started a new song about a phoenix who rose, and rose again. Imogen was laughing. "She's astounding. But why is she—"
She stopped. Rafe guessed that Imogen had just realized why Cristobel was drifting around the room. He turned his head. "She chooses one man."
Imogen's mouth fell open inelegantly.
"One man, a different man?"
He nodded.
"Every night?"
"Only one."
"No wonder men come from three counties," Imogen breathed, looking, to his relief, more interested than scandalized. But then her eyes narrowed.
"She's coming in this direction," Imogen pointed out.
Rafe was quite aware of that. What's more, he had the distinct impression that every man in the room thought that Cristobel was about to take away that yellow-haired little crumpet's customer.
"Our Grandam Eve before the Fall," sang Cristobel, " Went naked, and shamed not a whit."
"I'm getting down from here," Imogen said suddenly.
"Wait!" he said, but at that moment Cristobel and her escort of former pugilists swept up to them. Her guards formed a little circle around them. And Cristobel was staring at Rafe, a little liquorish smile playing around her mouth.
Rafe suddenly realized that if Cristobel had, indeed, looked past his mustache—and it certainly looked that way—she was about to blurt out his name. But instead she drifted up to him as if she was about to give him one of the little kisses she'd handed out so liberally.
Except that he was suddenly pulled back, away against the cask of wine.
"Oh, I don't think so," Imogen said. She was smiling, but there was a little edge there.
She had draped a slender arm around Rafe's neck and she was resting her cheek against his hair. "You see," she said to Cristobel with a sweet persuasiveness that was at utter odds with her costuming, "my friend is occupied for the night."
The crowd was absolutely silent. Cristobel didn't seem to have even heard Imogen. She came a step closer, and now he could see that though she was still beautiful, she was tired. She was lovely—likely would always be lovely, if she didn't catch the pox and lose a nose. But what struck you, up close, was not the fact that Cristobel had an attractive face. It was the force of her languorous sexuality. The fact that whatever else was in her eyes when it rested on the faces of the men around them, there was a genuine invitation there.
At the moment that invitation was clearly directed at Rafe.
"I remember you," she said, her voice husky.
"That's all right then," Rafe heard a young farmer say to the right. "She never takes the same one twice."
"I don't think so," he said evenly.
"Ah, but I do. You and your friend—he was a lovely man. What was his name?"
He met her eyes with a secret warning.
"He was an earl," she said. "What a night I had with him! Your friend is a man among men." She gave him a dewy-eyed smile. "A man worth returning to."
"We shall surely let him know," Imogen said.
Cristobel's eyes raised to Imogen, and this time they didn't flick away. "Aha," she said sweetly, "what have we here? A little canary-bird, are you? Because you look far too delicate to be common ware, my dear."
Rafe was thinking frantically about what to do. They were surrounded by five of the biggest, burliest men he'd seen outside a boxing match. Moreover, the path between the door and their corner was blocked by at least fifty customers. At any moment Imogen might faint. She was being insulted by a prostitute, for goodness sake.
That was not the kind of thing that happened to gently bred young ladies. Wards. Wards of dukes.
"And you look too common to be Bartholomew-ware," Imogen said sweetly. "But appearances are so deceiving, and now that we're closer I can see…" She let her voice trail away.
Cristobel's eyes narrowed. "I'm no Bartholomew-ware, child, though I doubt you know the meaning of the word."
"Oh dear. Perhaps I meant some other word. Did I, Gabriel?" She turned to Rafe and he realized with a pang of deep surprise that Imogen was thoroughly enjoying herself. Her eyes were shining, and even with those tumbled, frowsy curls around her head, no one in his right mind could think she was a chipper. Not with those laughing eyes, laughing even now at Cristobel who—Rafe noticed with a similar shock of surprise— was laughing back.