and I’m particularly fond of this toilette. I would hate to have it marred with bullet holes.”
“Why don’t you try it and see what happens.” She had the most delicious amount of menace in her voice. It would almost be worth it, just to see how far he could push her.
“Thank you, I will,” he said, spreading the voluminous skirts of his coat out and sitting on the end of her chaise.
She quickly pulled her legs up, away from him, and her grip tightened on the gun. “You certainly do like tempting the fates, do you not?”
“Are you my fate, poppet? I’ve had that uneasy feeling ever since I saw you, huddling beneath your rags out at my château. Most men would run in the opposite direction, but I must admit I’m inordinately fond of risk. Are you really going to shoot me?”
“It’s quite possible.”
He smiled at her. “Why? Simply because I annoy you? That’s a bit extreme. Do you think I’m going to rape you?”
He felt the sudden jerk of her body, so near to his, and he allowed himself to be grateful that her finger hadn’t jerked on the trigger of the pistol that was still pointed in the general direction of his belly. And he could feel the effort she made to calm herself.
“No,” she said.
“Why not? I’ve made it very clear that I intend to have you, even though you’ve chosen not to believe me.”
“You said you wanted me to stay for conversation. To entertain you,” she said.
“And you believed me? Silly child. You’re talking to a libertine, a member of the Heavenly Host. I don’t believe we’re known for our love of good conversation.”
She grew very still. “So you are going to rape me?”
“Good heavens, no,” he said with a soft laugh, and some of the tension left her body. “I never take by force what I can have by charm.”
Her astonished laughter was genuine, and it might have wounded a more sensitive soul. It just made him want her more. “If you’re relying on your charm you’ll have a long wait, my lord,” she said tartly.
“Perhaps,” he said. “Why don’t you put that pistol away. I’d take it from you, and you’d let me, but then we’d simply have to go through the rigmarole of getting it back to you. Set it down, poppet. You know you don’t want to shoot me.”
“You’re wrong. There’s nothing I’d like more than to pull this trigger,” she said, her voice uncompromising.
He laughed. “I do concede that part of you would like nothing better than to put a very large hole in me. But I hold that the rest of you would much rather have me in one piece.”
“I don’t want you at all.”
“Now, that, my precious, is a lie.” He took the pistol from her hand, uncocked it and set it down on the parquet floor very carefully. He hadn’t thought she’d had it properly primed. He really shouldn’t underestimate her.
She said nothing.
Now that she was no longer clutching a gun, her hands lay in her lap, and he picked one up, letting his thumb rub against the inside of her wrist, letting his long fingers slide around hers. She tried to curl it into a fist but he stopped her, and she didn’t fight him.
She took a deep breath, forcing herself to relax, and he could have told her that was a mistake. One needed to be wary around a member of the Heavenly Host when he wanted something. She pulled her hand free, and he let her, and she leaned back against the chaise, surveying him out of those deliciously practical eyes.
“I think, my lord, that you haven’t thought this through. For some bizarre reason you decided you wanted someone innocent and untried in your bed. Perhaps you have the French disease and think a virgin would cure it. Perhaps the novelty of it, after so many whores, was irresistible. But I’m not the woman you want. I’m not innocent, I’m not inexperienced, I’m not a virgin.”
Poor darling. Virginity be damned, he didn’t know when he’d met a more innocent female. It almost, almost made him feel guilty.
“You’ll give me leave to doubt you,” he said, not doubting her for a moment. “The fact that you’ve freely said this twice now makes me think you’re lying to distract me.”
“I’m not lying.”
“Prove it,” he said. “You’ve made a devil’s bargain, Scheherazade. Tell me the story of your love affairs, and perhaps I might let you go.”