Brice had seemed to sense something, too, while they were out in the streets.
Damien hoped passionately that the warning was not also directed at her. Because he wanted Brice Ashton close by. He wanted to learn her secrets, her desires, her dreams. And he was fairly certain that he was going to make love to her eventually as well. The attraction was so bloody strong. He might even show her who he truly was, even if it was the most reckless thing he had ever done in his long, long life.
It was a terrifying thought. But it could happen—and easily. He knew himself, knew that the old longing for companionship she stirred would eventually overwhelm him. Frustration and loneliness had been a growing shadow on his spirit. In time it began to stain the soul as surely as the blackest of the deadly sins. Damien wasn’t a glutton—
usually
, he amended, thinking about the dinner he’d just shared with Brice. He did not envy, did not lust after others’ possessions. He wasn’t even slothful. But he did hunger for companionship with the appetite of a starving man. He thirsted for a chance to be honest about who he was.
He wanted to give his heart again.
From the moment of his transformation, he had held back from people—from his lovers especially. Always he was wary. Always he held back his heart. And the secret of his identity, and his unnaturally long life, was as safe as the day he had received it from Dippel and the gods. But this time, Damien was sure he’d tell the truth to Brice.
Because the truth will set you free?
an inner voice asked, mocking his romantic sentiments.
Perhaps. There were good reasons why men confessed their sins.
Damien jumped down from the railing and turned to the doors where Brice had stood. Her perfume lingered in the air. He could smell it on the hard, cold night.
And even if the truth didn’t free him completely, he would let himself lose his heart to this woman—and do so before he lost his nerve and again pulled back from the warmth of life, and possibly even love, that she offered.
But he shouldn’t do anything until he knew it was safe to share his information with Brice. He would wait. For a while. He had to.
All men are intrinsical rascals. And I am sorry that, not being a dog, I can’t bite them.
—From the letters of Lord Byron, October 20, 1821
Rochefoucauld told me once that a man of sense may love like a madman but not like a fool. In this I agree.
—From the letters of Ninon de Lenclos
Like a lovely tree,
She grew to womanhood, and betweenwhiles
Rejected several suitors, just to learn
How to accept a better man.
—Byron
Brice pressed into the frosted glass, looking downward. Yesterday afternoon she had seen lots of people scurrying by. Many of them wore bright knit caps with their black coats, and they had looked a bit like the world’s biggest bed of asters pushing through the snow. This morning there were fewer pedestrians, and they walked hurriedly, postures hunched, telling her that bitter cold had settled on the city. There were no cars either. The plows hadn’t been out yet to scrape away the snow left by the freakish storm.
Frowning, she pulled back from the cold glass. The scene seemed somewhat sinister for Christmas Eve, but wasn’t that because she hated the cold and didn’t know how to cope with it? Maybe this air of desertion was perfectly normal for the city. Perhaps its inhabitants were all at home by a fire drinking eggnog. Or at Macy’s, doing last-minute shopping. Brice didn’t celebrate Christmas now that her parents and husband were gone, but others did.
She pushed her bleak thoughts away and turned her mind to Damien instead. Which reminded her of something that needed seeing to. Brice reached into her cosmetic bag and brought out her birth-control pills. She was glad that she was still taking them. She had tried giving them up twice after Mark’s death, but had been reduced to a nervous wreck who cried at the slightest provocation. The choice had been to take the pill again or turn to antidepressants and tranquilizers. After her thoughts turned once to suicide, hormones had seemed safer. And now…useful?
She swallowed the pill, chasing it with a mouthful of tap water, then turned to the rest of her travel arsenal.
Brice was vain enough—and attracted enough, in spite of last night’s odd show—to dress carefully for Damien. She just hoped that she wasn’t too obvious in her selection of clothes. She didn’t want to appear as desperate for attention as an S.O.S. from a sinking ship. She also wasn’t looking to get eye-fucked by any other person who happened to be passing by. Eye-fondled maybe, but nothing more than that.
Brice heard herself giggle. The sound was startling in its giddy youthfulness. It made her sound as if she had suddenly dropped thirty critical I.Q. points. She couldn’t help it, though. Imagine using such a crude expression in front of Damien! She could see his eyebrows darting upward and his lips compressing in disapproval. The thought was hilarious.
Still, she was a grown woman now. She didn’t giggle like a teenager, even at amusing things. Especially not when it made her sound stupid.
Not that she had reached the point where she was chasing after the fountain of youth with collagen injections and Botox, or throwing pennies in wishing wells and saying prayers to the evening star that age be gentle with her face and body. However, sometimes she did wear makeup—especially when she wasn’t well rested and needed a lift. Which she most definitely did need this morning. The previous night had been anything but restful.
Shaking her head, she broke the seal on a new tube of mascara. She leaned toward the mirror, opened her mouth slightly and did her best not to blink while the mascara wand was near her eye. The only thing worse than botched mascara was crooked eyeliner. No one looked good with asymmetrical eyes. She stroked carefully, making small humming noises. Finally, satisfied with the effect on her right lashes, she moved to her left eye.
Of course, most men didn’t understand what a compliment it was for a woman to wear heels and mascara for them. They didn’t appreciate that a woman who wore them was really saying,
very well! I don’t expect you to do the impossible and want me just for my mind. I will give you something for the eyes since you like that part of me more
. And, sure enough, though she always hoped for more, they usually didn’t look beyond the packaging if it pleased them sufficiently. They figured that beautiful women were like beautiful weather, or the Detroit Lions finally winning a game, or a cold beer with baby-back ribs: things to be enjoyed and not questioned.
Certainly her last few blind dates had been with men who seemed barely bright enough to know which end of the spoon to eat with. They’d been sufficiently handsome and reasonably good-natured, but not the sort of choice a woman would make if she liked her men complicated. The last one—
Luke? Duke?
—had been as easy to read as a nametag, and about as interesting. He’d smiled a lot because he liked her legs, liked her breasts, and generally liked that she was a woman. He was okay company for dinner, too, if you didn’t switch topics too quickly. You couldn’t change conversational gears on a guy whose brain had a bad transmission—not if you wanted him to keep up. Yeah, Luke, Duke, or whatever his name was had been extremely simple.
They almost all were. Even the less pleasant ones who picked on waiters and cabbies. The picky, whiny ones who usually looked great, but who could be offered a place at the right hand of God and still find fault with the seating arrangements. There was plenty of nastiness there underneath those expensively toned bodies and fake tans, but even then there was no depth.
But Damien Ruthven was not most men. He might notice her efforts and understand. Would that be good? Bad? Did she want a man who could actually read her thoughts and guess her intentions?
Maybe. For a while.
Brice blinked at her grinning reflection, again distracted from her unpleasant thoughts by Damien’s shadow, which hovered constantly at the back of her mind.
Should she wear perfume? Did he like it? Perhaps just a tiny spritz, misted into the air while she walked through it.
Her heart began somersaulting the moment she walked into the library. Her tread was more measured than her thoughts, but even so, because of her heels, there was a definite swish in her walk. Until she saw Damien. After that, her knees got a little shaky and she had to brace herself.
She supposed the feeling of being unbalanced could only be expected when her stomach was doing back-flips and her emotions were standing on their heads, but she didn’t care for the way the cardiac palpitations made her sweater jitter over her heart. She had seen Damien doing a gargoyle impersonation last night, hadn’t she? And she’d been alarmed? Thought it abnormal?
It seemed hard to credit the memory this morning. He was dressed as a professor might be, in a tweed coat with the obligatory suede patches at the elbows. Yet somehow, in spite of the sober clothing, he failed to look like a scholar.
It was the eyes, she decided. He looked like Don Juan misdressed by an amateur costumer who did not know what play he was supplying.
Actually, with his hair drawn back and tied with a velvet band, Damien looked exactly like portraits she’d seen of Lord Byron, except for a comma that fell over his brow.
Brice almost groaned.
Not again
. She had gone over this all last night. She had Byron on the brain. It had to be pheromones. Or hormones. Maybe she should just sleep with Damien—let him seduce her before she lost all reason. She had a feeling that resisting him would be an impossible test of willpower, a test she was bound to fail soon if the mascara and heels were any indication, and probably without a great deal of regret. Why not embrace the fall and get her brain back right away?
Brice felt her lips part, but her voice failed when Damien looked up and smiled. That small bend of his lips didn’t help her heart at all. Her sweater fluttered more violently.
“Come in. There is someone I want you to meet.” He held out a hand to her. “Did you sleep well?”
“Yes, thank you,” she lied, looking around the room and seeing no one. She didn’t take Damien’s hand, since her own was trembling, but she didn’t pull away when he laid it on the small of her back and urged her around the desk.
“I’m afraid he’s shy. The poor chap persists in hiding under the desk when strangers are here.”
“Oh.” Understanding at last, Brice smiled and knelt down, pretty sure that she knew what awaited under the writing table.
“His name is Mace. He’s mostly Karen’s dog since I travel so much, but she has allowed me to be the godfather.”
“Mace? Strange name.” Brice offered her hand, being careful to move slowly toward the small, dark ball in the shadows. “Hello, sweetie. Will you come out to say hi?”
Reassured by the soft voice and slow movement, the tiny beast crept out into the light. Her first sight of him made Brice gasp softly. The poor creature was a mass of scar tissue with odd clumps of hair growing in uneven patches on his head and body.
“Well, he is rather repellent-looking, don’t you think? Poor chap got caught in a fire. His family died. He’s mostly blind now, so nobody else wanted him. No one else thought he’d live.” Damien’s voice was brisk, demanding she not comment on any sentiment she suspected might lurk in his bosom for this maimed animal.
Brice also wondered if she had just been tested. If so, had she passed?
“You poor angel,” she whispered, caressing the terrier’s stubbed ears and earning a small lick in reward. “What a brave doggie you are. How sweet and good.”
“We have some excellent brioche and coffee,” Damien said after she and Mace shared a couple more caresses. “Mace likes his with lots of cream and sugar.”
“You have brioche and coffee every morning?” She smiled up at Damian. He looked good even from that angle.
“Not every morning.” Damien helped her to her feet. His hands were warm and gentle. “Sometimes we have croissants and tea.”
“With milk and sugar, though,” Brice guessed, feeling her smile widening. Somehow, the dog’s presence had—probably ridiculously—reassured her about Damien’s character. So what if he had the semi-suicidal habit of sitting on the parapets of a high-rise? He couldn’t be all bad if he loved this wretched scrap of a canine.
“Of course. Mace is now an English dog. He takes his tea in the proper manner.”
“I see. And Karen doesn’t mind you teaching him bad eating habits.”
“I know the Heart Association would not approve, but we figured that Mace faced down an almost fatal fire, loss of his family, and a long, painful recovery that amazed his vet. Cholesterol doesn’t scare him.”
“And I face literary critics at breakfast. Cholesterol doesn’t scare me either. I hope you’ve saved some for me,” Brice teased, taking the saucer of milky coffee and torn brioche from Damien’s hand and bending down to offer it to Mace.
The dog sniffed, then woofed appreciatively. The sound was barely a wheeze, and Brice realized that his vocal cords must have been damaged too.
She watched for a moment, enjoying the exaggerated care with which Mace plucked out the pastry. Each bite was followed with what sounded like a sigh of pleasure. She half expected him to somehow pick up his saucer and slurp his tea, but though he was probably clever enough to manage it, he was too well-mannered for such boorishness. He lapped quietly.
“I can’t tell you how overjoyed I am to have you facing me at breakfast. You are so much more attractive than my stack of manuscripts,” Damien murmured, pouring out another cup and offering it to her as she stood. Before she could think what to say, he changed the subject by adding: “Now, there is absolutely no rush, but I have moved a desk in here for you and selected a few tomes that I think might amuse you.”
Brice sipped her coffee, eyes rolling up in her head as she sighed with pleasure.
“Jamaican Blue Mountain,” she said. “You hedonist, you! I have to special-order it—and then only on my birthday since it costs about the same as God’s wisdom tooth.”
“And how much are the Lord’s teeth going for these days?” Damien asked, amused.
“Forty-eight dollars a pound. Plus shipping.”
“Well, Mace insists on the best.”
“And I adore him. He has exquisite taste.” She let her eyes remain closed as she savored the scent and taste of the coffee. Brice couldn’t be sure, but she was fairly certain that Damien took the moment to study her.
“I’m sure it’s mutual.” Slight amusement crept into his voice and made her eyes pop open. “I thought it was a man’s heart that one reached through the stomach. For women it’s supposed to be…what? Diamonds, that make her heart go pitter-pat?”
“I’ve never doubted that cliché,” Brice answered, making her voice brisk. “In most cases, dogs are man’s best friend, diamonds a girl’s. But I don’t see that a liking for one should preclude the other. Diamonds are, after all, merely an economic consideration left over from the days when women didn’t work outside the home. In any event, it isn’t my heart that the coffee has reached.”
It was something a bit lower.
No, that’s Damien, not the coffee.
Oh, shut up, will you?
Brice pleaded with her chatty subconscious.
“You are suddenly looking quite thoughtful,” Damien said. “Surely it is not all the contemplation of canines and gems that is making you frown.”
“No, it isn’t.” Brice forced herself to smile and did some subject-changing of her own. “Look, don’t simply be polite. Will it bother you if I work in here?” She hoped he would say no, but needed to ask. She was fussy about where she wrote and imagined Damien might well be too. She didn’t turn to look at the books he’d brought. If they were wonderful, perhaps even Byron’s memoirs, she would forget everything else, including her polite question about whether he really wanted her in his library. And Damien and his coffee deserved better.
She shivered. The books were beginning to whisper to her.