Sure enough, Mrs. Posey dozed off within minutes. The ticking of the clock in the room punctuated her soft snores, and Susannah returned to her repair of the corset.
She threaded a thin needle and began to mend the small slashes in the ribbing where she had removed the stones. The sound of footsteps on the marble floor of the small entry hall reached her, but she assumed it was Mr. Patchen going about his morning routine, directing the airing of rooms and the polishing of banisters and other important tasks.
A deeper voice than his made her jump. “Good morning, Susannah. Forgive me for not knocking. Your manservant left the front door open. I saw him go down to the kitchen just before I came in.”
She looked up, startled to see Carlyle Jameson looking through the open door to the room where she sat.
“Oh-hello.” Was it scandalous for a man to look at a woman who wasn’t his wife if she was wearing a morning gown? He seemed to like what he saw, so she had probably broken yet another unwritten rule. However, the loose garment and its intricate print revealed much less of her than a fitted dress would have done. She hoped Mrs. Posey would not wake up and pin her with an accusing look. She pointed to the sleeping old lady, hoping Carlyle would take the hint.
“Ah, I see you are not alone. Very good.” His voice became softer. “Then it is entirely proper for me to call upon you.”
“I don’t know about that,” she answered quietly. “But come in.”
This unexpected visit would require her to think quickly. His reaction when he caught sight of the corset would tell her something.
Looking down at it, Susannah thrust the threaded needle into the pink silk again and began to sew. Prim and proper. She felt anything but in her morning gown. The circumstances seemed far too intimate, despite the presence of Mrs. Posey. They might have been lovers, meeting in the morning after a night of…Susannah, a virgin, which was as it should be, wondered nonetheless about nights of.
Keeping her gaze upon her work, she heard Carlyle cross the thick carpet, his footsteps muffled now. He came around the table and took the chair opposite her. His nearness was unsettling.
Her body, unconfined, betrayed her. Susannah felt her nipples tighten, stimulated by the loose material that brushed them each time she made a stitch. His gaze never left her face-she could feel it.
It was not as if they had never sat at a table together-they had, often, and faced each other across chessboards with their knees nearly touching. But the open-air pavilion and the lofty marble halls of the palace kept everything light and breezy, unlike the hothouse atmosphere of a London parlor on a warm day. Perhaps flinging the curtains open had not been such a good idea after all. A touch of sepulchral gloom would be just the thing for cooling off her wayward thoughts.
Susannah stopped sewing and looked up into his gray-green eyes. Carlyle regarded her with the calmness of a cat-a very large cat, handsomely dressed in a light coat of dark wool and immaculate linens beneath a sober vest, clothes that did not hide his physical vigor and manly health.
He did not speak for a moment, holding her gaze, sitting quite still except for his large, sinewy hand, which tapped restlessly on the table as he smiled at her.
At last he looked down. Susannah noticed something flicker in his eyes-she decided it was shock-and felt a flash of satisfaction. So he had seen the corset before. Just as she’d suspected.
He lifted his hand from the table to adjust his collar. “Would you mind if I took off my coat? It is rather warm in here.”
“Not at all.”
Carlyle nodded and stood to remove the light wool coat. Susannah could not help but admire the power and grace of his tall body as he did so, looking intently at him when the sleeve of his shirt did not seem to want to part from the sleeve of his coat.
He tugged at it, not glancing her way. Fie. The most ordinary gesture or movement of his caused her to stare. She attempted a serene air, casting her eyes down to her work and putting a pin in her mouth in a seamstressy way.
Carlyle put the coat over the back of his chair and sat down again. “What a very appealing picture. Johann Zoffany might have painted you, Susannah. A woman en déshabillé, sewing a corset.”
Corset. The word seemed to hang in the air between them, suggestive and sexual. Susannah told herself that it was only an article of clothing and there was no need to simper or blush about a mere word.
All the same, he or someone known to him had seen fit to stuff this very corset with hundreds of gems. She glanced at him for only a fraction of a second…and immediately regretted it.
The intelligent regard in his eyes made her think that he knew precisely what she was up to. Susannah felt her cheeks turn pinker than the silk she was sewing and she almost swallowed the pin. She hastily removed it from between her lips, aware that he was watching her closely. “I am not familiar with that artist.”
He cleared his throat. “Zoffany painted the luminaries of the London theater and the great courtesans, then went to India to do portraits of native princes and the resident British. Before your time, my dear, but your father might have known Zoffany’s work.”
“He never mentioned the man.”
Carlyle did not seem offended by her blunt reply. “Oh. Well, it was just a thought.”
She would have to be blunter. “Hmm. I would prefer that you do not address me as my dear.”
He looked a little pained. “I used to in India. You did not mind it then.”
“We are not in India now.”
“No, we are not.” His voice was neutral and his steady gaze remained on her face. “You don’t like London, do you?”
“Not very much.”
Carlyle nodded. “I expect the endless parade of potential suitors is beginning to depress you. But I am sure someone will offer for you.”
Susannah fumed. Would he never notice the corset? Did she have to wave it like a flag?
“Someone whom you might come to love,” he added.
Perhaps he would receive a bonus, if that unlikely event should occur. “Have I no other choice in life?” Her vehement question seemed to take him aback.
He shrugged his shoulders, rubbing a hand thoughtfully over his chin. He had been well shaved, she noticed. A faint scent of bay rum came to her unwilling nose. She sniffed in reverse to get rid of it.
“Well, if you do not wish to marry, you can subsist on the income from your inheritance for some time,” he said at last, “if you can live modestly.”
“Hmph.” She waved a hand at the furnishings of the cluttered room. “I could live without all this, certainly. The British Empire raids the world simply to fill its parlors with useless bric-a-brac. Looking at it makes me want to run away.”
He smiled slightly. “If the money must last, there will be no travel, no servants, no extravagances. That might prove difficult for a girl who grew up in a palace.”
“My dear Carlyle,” she began, forgetting that she had asked him not to call her my dear. “I did know it wasn’t my palace.”
“But you seemed somewhat-” He pressed his lips together for a second, not wanting to say something that would upset her. “Somewhat unaware. Everything you needed appeared as if by magic.”
“My toys were mine. And when I was older, my books and my piano. My clothes, of course. It is true that I wanted for nothing, but I had very little I could call my own.”
“And yet you were content.”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“The happy empress of your own domain.”
Susannah shot him a wry look. “Are you saying that I was spoiled?”
“No, no. Not at all.” Carlyle leaned back in his chair.
Liar, she thought, nettled. Do not make yourself so comfortable.