His One-Night Mistress
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Sandra Field
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15
CHAPTER ONE
GLITTERING. Dazzling. Magnifique!
Lia d’Angeli edged toward the wall in the vast foyer of the hotel, whose floor-to-ceiling, gilt-scrolled mirrors reflected what could have been a scene from one of Louis XIV’s revels. Her fingers tightened around her invitation with its elegant gold script, an invitation given her just yesterday by her Parisian friend Mathieu. “A masked ball,” he’d said with his charming, lop-sided grin. “I can’t go, malheureusement. Take some handsome young man, Lia, eat, drink and dance your heart out.” His grin took on a satyr’s edge. “You could try ending up in his bed–—you’re far too beautiful to have the reputation of a nun, chérie.”
Mathieu’s endearment Lia took with a grain of salt; he was known for romantic dalliance in every district of Paris. But his advice–—at least some of it—she fully intended to take. Eat, drink and dance. Yes, she’d do all three with pleasure. But she had come to the ball alone, and she intended to leave it alone.
Alone and anonymous, she thought with a sigh of pure pleasure. Her fame was new, and not altogether pleasant. But this evening she wasn’t Lia d’Angeli, the brilliant young violinist who’d burst on the international scene by winning two prestigious competitions within six months of each other. No, she thought, glancing sideways at herself in the nearest mirror and feeling her lips curve in a smile. She was a butterfly instead, flirtatious and enigmatic, fluttering from partner to partner with no intention of being pinned down by any one of them.
Her costume consisted of a shiny turquoise bodysuit that faithfully outlined her breasts, hips, gently incurving waist and long, slender legs. Jeweled turquoise sandals were on her feet. Flaring between arm and thigh were her wings, folds of delicate chiffon, turquoise and green. But it was her mask that made the costume. Like a helmet, it covered her high cheekbones, revealing only the darkness of her eyes, and hiding her tumble of black hair in a glimmer of sequins and exquisite peacock feathers. She’d carefully smoothed turquoise makeup over her cheeks, her chin and her throat; her lips were a luminous gold.
An outrageous costume, she thought with great satisfaction. A costume that freed her to be anyone she wanted to be.
No one here knew her. She planned to take full advantage of that, dance her heart out and leave by midnight. Just like Cinderella.
Her eyes ranged the crowd. Marie Antoinette, the Hunchback of Notre-Dame, a cardinal worthy of an El Greco portrait, a sexy dancer from the Moulin Rouge. All masked. All strangers to each other. And perhaps to themselves, she thought with a tiny shiver of her nerves.
She shook off her sudden unease, making her way to the doorman and presenting her numbered invitation. A uniformed official was whispering something in his ear; the doorman waved her into the ballroom impatiently, scarcely glancing at the calligraphy on the card as he added it to the stack beside him. Lia slipped past him quickly; she’d worried a little that there might be some objection to her having Mathieu’s invitation rather than one in her own name. A good omen, she thought lightheartedly, and tucked herself around the corner out of his sight.
The ballroom was alive with the lilt of an old-fashioned waltz, although by the look of the sound equipment the music wouldn’t be that sedate all evening. More mirrors adorned the sapphire-blue walls, while sparkling gold chandeliers were suspended from a ceiling painted with more chubby cherubs than there were springtime lovers in Paris. Against the far wall long tables with immaculate white cloths held a feast that even King Louis wouldn’t have scorned. White-jacketed waiters circulated among the crowd, holding aloft silver trays of wine and champagne.
And then she saw him.
Like herself, the man was standing with his back to the wall, surveying the crowd. A highwayman, cloaked and booted, a black mask making slits of his eyes, a black hat with a sweeping brim shadowing his features.
No costume in the world could have hidden his height, the breadth of his shoulders or his aura of power, of command, of complete and utter self-control. An aura he clearly took for granted.
A man who took what he wanted. A highwayman, indeed.
He, like her, was alone.
As another of those chills traced the length of Lia’s spine, his gaze came to rest on her. Even across the width of the huge ballroom, she felt his sudden, searing focus; his body stilled, like a bandit’s when he sights his victim.
She couldn’t have moved to save her soul.
The butterfly pinned to the wall, she thought crazily, her heart racing against her rib cage. She’d been frightened many times in her life; it was part of the striving for excellence that had driven her for as long as she could remember. But pre-concert nerves, for all their terrors, were at least backed by the sure knowledge of her own technical accomplishments, and by the inner certainty that, once again, she could overcome those nerves.
This terror was different. She felt stripped, laid bare, exposed. All because a stranger had chanced to look at her. A man she’d never seen before–—of that she was sure–—and need never see again.
Ridiculous, she thought, gathering every vestige of her courage to fight an assault unlike any she’d ever known.
Assault? The man hadn’t even touched her.
In a flare of defiance Lia gestured to the nearest waiter, took a glass of red wine from his tray and, with a mocking salute to the man across the room, raised the glass in a toast.
He swept off his hat, revealing a crop of untidy, sun-streaked blond hair, and bowed to her from the waist, a courtly gesture that brought an involuntary smile to her lips. Then he straightened and started toward her across the wide expanse of floor.
In total panic she heard a male voice say in clumsily accented French, “Voulez-vous danser avec moi, madame?”
A British soldier from the Napoleonic wars had inserted himself between her and the highwayman. Quickly Lia put her wine down on the nearest table and said, in English, “Thank you, yes.”
“Cool—you speak English,” the soldier said, put his arm around her and with a certain flair eased her among the other dancers. He waltzed with a competence for which she was grateful, and didn’t seem to require much from her in the way of conversation, for which she was more than grateful. From the corner of her eye, she watched the highwayman be accosted by a group of curvaceous chorus girls, then extract himself with a remark that left them all giggling. She said breathlessly, “I’d love to get a closer look at the orchestra–—can we go that way?”
The soldier obediently whisked her to the opposite end of the room. The waltz ended, followed by a rhumba. A clown with a garish red slash of mouth cut in; automatically Lia followed the rhythm, her diaphanous wings fluttering as she raised and lowered her arms. The clown was superseded by a dignified gentleman who could have emerged from the pages of a Jane Austen novel.
As the two-step came to its predictable close, another partner loomed behind the elderly gentleman. The highwayman, his black cloak swirling. Lia’s nerves tightened to an almost intolerable pitch, even though from the first moment she’d seen him she’d known this meeting was inevitable. “My turn, I believe,” he said pleasantly, yet with an edge of steel underlying a voice as smooth as brandy.
Lia smiled at her partner, thanked him and turned to face her opponent. For opponent he was; of that she was in no doubt.
She could have refused to speak to him. But pride had always been one of her besetting sins, and besides, weren’t challenges meant to be met?
Before she could even open her mouth, he said with that same steel edge, “You’ve had your fun. Now it’s my turn.”
She’d see about that. Raising her chin, Lia said with rather overdone politeness, “It’s very warm in here, isn’t it? I’d love a glass of champagne.”
“What’s your name?”
“Subtlety certainly isn’t yours.”
“I don’t believe in wasting time.”
“Mine or yours?” she demanded.
“Mine.”
“Then perhaps you should find yourself another partner.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” he said.
“So tell me your name,” she said, fully expecting him to refuse.
“Seth Talbot. From Manhattan. You’re American as well.”
Her home base was a tiny apartment in Greenwich Village. She said coolly, “I was born in Switzerland, Mr. Talbot,” and with equal aplomb gestured to the nearest waiter, who presented her with a crystal flute of champagne. She raised it to her lips, feeling the bubbles tickle her nostrils.
“So you take what you want,” Seth Talbot said softly.
“Is there any other way?”
“Not in my world. I’m glad we understand each other.”
“You can’t possibly understand me—because you don’t know what I want,” she retorted.
“From the first moment we caught sight of each other, we’ve wanted the same thing.”
Back off, Lia. Be sensible. End this before it begins. “Since I’m no mind reader,” she snapped, “why don’t you tell me what that is?”
He wrapped fingers as unyielding as handcuffs around her wrist. Long, lean fingers, she saw, ringless, with well-kept nails and a dusting of blond hair where his shirt ended in a tight cuff. She said evenly, “Let go.”
With almost insulting abruptness he dropped her wrist. The music had started again. “We’re in the way,” he said, draped an arm around Lia’s shoulders and drew her off the dance floor.
His cloak had enveloped her in its dark folds; his arm was heavy, its weight as intimate as a caress. She could have protested. Screamed, even. In a room full of people there was no way he could do anything to her without her consent.
Had she ever felt like this in her life? It was as though he’d mesmerized her. Her heart was beating in slow heavy strokes, and the warmth from his arm had spread throughout her limbs. From a long way away, Lia watched him toss his hat on a table. He took her free hand in his and raised it to his lips, caressing her knuckles. Then he turned her hand over and kissed her palm with lingering sensuality.
His hair was thick and silky clean. All she wanted to do was drop her champagne glass on the floor and drag her fingers through those untidy, gold-tipped waves, exploring the tautness of his scalp, cupping her hand to his nape. With a physical effort that felt enormous, Lia gripped the stem of her glass, holding onto it as if it were all that was keeping her sane.
His mouth was still drifting over her palm. Her eyes closed as sensation swept through her in waves of pleasure. Deep inside her, desire sprang to life in a tumultuous, imperative ache; for a few moments that were outside of time Lia gave herself over to it, her body as boneless as a butterfly’s. She was spreading her wings to the sun, she thought dizzily. Drawing in its heat, laved by its golden rays. Fully alive, as surely she was meant to be.
Come off it, Lia. Say it like it is. You’re allowing yourself to be seduced by a man who lives in the same city as you.
She snatched her hand back, champagne sloshing over her dainty shoes, and said raggedly, “You’ve got to stop!”
He lifted his head, although he was still clasping her fingers. “You don’t want me to stop–—tell the truth.”
“I don’t know the first thing about you, yet you’re—”
“We’ve skipped the preliminaries, that’s all,” he said hoarsely. “Gone for the essentials.”
With a jolt of her heart she heard that roughness in his voice, and saw how the pulse at the base of his throat was pounding against his skin. “You feel it, too,” she whispered.
“I felt it the first moment I saw you across the room.”
Hadn’t she known that? Wasn’t that why she’d run for the dance floor with the nearest available man, and stayed there as long as she could? She said faintly, “A highwayman’s a thief, Mr. Talbot.”
“A butterfly’s sole purpose is to mate.”
Her breath hissed between her teeth. “A thief takes what he wants regardless of the consequences.”
“If you’re willing to be taken, I can scarcely be called a thief.”
“Oh, stop it,” Lia said peevishly, “you’re turning me around in circles.”
“Good,” he said, and suddenly smiled at her.
It was a smile that crackled with pure male energy. Steeling herself against it, Lia clipped off her words with cold precision. “I’m not looking for a mate. A costume’s just that–—a costume. Not a statement about my character.”
He looked her up and down, taking his time, his gaze scorching her flesh almost as though she was naked. “Yet you look highly provocative.”
Two could play that game, Lia thought in a flare of temper. She glanced downward. His soft leather boots clung to his calves and were cuffed at the knees; his thighs were black-clad, strongly muscled against the taut fabric. Her eyes traveled upward, past his elegant white shirt with its laced neckline over a slash of tanned skin, to the wide shoulders under his cloak. A wave of primitive hunger attacked her, shocking her with its intensity. Had she ever felt this way in her life?
No, she hadn’t. Ever. She said with admirable coolness, “Let’s face it, you didn’t choose to dress up as a clown with ears like jugs and white paint all over your face—like the one I danced with a few minutes ago. Your costume’s sexy, too. So what?”
“You’re finally admitting you find me sexy–—we’re making progress.”
“Don’t be coy,” she said, exasperated. “I’ve got eyes in my head and any woman worthy of the name would find you sexy.”
His voice roughened. “This is all very amusing and it’s nowhere near the truth. There’s something going on between us that’s never happened to me before–—not like this. Not once in my life have I seen a woman across a crowded room and known in my blood and my bones that I had to have her. You’ve got to trust me on that—I swear it’s true.”
The crazy thing was that she believed him instantly. “This kind of thing’s never happened to me, either,” she said shakily.
With a gentleness that disarmed her, he stroked her cheek with one finger. “Thanks–—for being so honest.”
Longing simply to rest her forehead against his shoulder and be held by him, Lia said as steadily as she could, “Then let me continue to be honest. I don’t make a habit of getting into bed with strangers.”
“Neither do I. So why don’t we begin with you telling me your name?”
She’d come here to be anonymous; and from some deep instinct, she intended to remain so. Tossing her head, she said, “I can give you a false name. Or no name at all. Your choice.”
He took her glass from her hand and thunked it on the table beside his hat. “Why are you being so mysterious?”
“It suits my purposes.”
His eyes narrowed. “Are you someone I should know?”
He didn’t look the type of man to sit in a concert hall listening to Beethoven; he’d be more at home in a smoky jazz bar. “I doubt it,” she said.
“If we go to bed tonight–—and that’s what we’re talking about–—I have to know who you are.”
He was right, she thought in horror, she was considering going to bed with him. Was she clean out of her mind? “If you insist on knowing my name,” she said, “then it’s no dice.”
“Are you in trouble with the law?”
“No!”
“If you’re neither famous nor on the lam, you could have given me a false name and I’d never know the difference.”
“I dislike lying.”
“You like winning.”
She laughed, a warm throaty chuckle. “Well, of course. Is there anything wrong with that?”
“I like winning, too.”
“Then–—as far as my name’s concerned—it’ll be good for you to have a new experience. We should all expand our horizons occasionally, Mr. Talbot.”
“The name’s Seth,” he said tersely. “And even though you may disbelieve this, I’ve had more than enough experience of losing in my life.”
Her smile faded; once again she believed him instantly and wholeheartedly. “For that, I’m sorry,” she said.
“You are, aren’t you?” he said in an odd voice. “You’re beginning to intrigue me–—is this about more than lust?”
Again panic flared in her chest. She said obliquely, “If a highwayman even noticed anything as ephemeral as a butterfly, he’d crush it underfoot.”
“How about my version? He sees it as something so beautiful that he simply wants to enjoy it.”
“But then he has to let it fly away,” Lia said, and heard in her own voice something of the steel she’d earlier heard in his.
For a moment he was silent, his eyes trained on her face. Then, with a suddenness that startled her, he ripped his mask off and flung it on the floor. His eyes were deep set, a startlingly deep green, flecked with amber. His cheekbones were imperative, and for the first time she saw the full strength of a face that was both too rugged to be truly handsome, and too strongly carved to be anything but formidable. She swallowed hard and said the first thing that came into her head. “I must be mad to be even contemplating going anywhere near a bed with you…and I’m stone cold sober, so I can’t blame it on the champagne.”
“It’s nothing to do with champagne,” he said softly. “Take off your mask.”
“No,” she said. “If we go to bed together, you have to promise not to touch my mask. You’ll never know who I am–—that’s the way I want it and that’s the way it’s going to play. If you don’t agree to my conditions, then I’m walking out of here right now, and if you try to stop me I’ll scream the place down.”
“So the battle lines are drawn…I could change your mind, you know.”
“But you won’t try. Not if you respect me as you should.”
Incredibly he began to laugh, throwing his head back so the muscles in his throat stood out like cords. Then he looked straight at her. “I have the feeling my life’s been entirely too dull and predictable for the last many years. Both in bed and out. I’ll tell you one thing–—you’re not dull, and not the slightest bit predictable.”
Wasn’t that one of the things the critics always said of her? Lia d’Angeli never plays it safe. Never takes the well-worn path. Risks everything to find the heart and soul of the music.
Nine times out of ten, the risks paid off. But would that be true of tonight? With this man? Or would tonight be the tenth concert, the one the critics pounced on with glee?
She had no way of knowing.
