Weeks earlier, he’d noted that the house, which had been standing empty for months, had finally been let. Various footmen, attired in royal livery, had been carrying in furniture and trunks for days. Prior to tonight, however, he’d never once seen this woman.
Reaching the pavement leading to the entrance of her home, he lingered, sensing he would remember this night for years to come.
The woman paused. She lowered her hairbrush, shifting toward the window. Sections of her face faded into the soft shadows cast by the streetlamps, making him keenly aware that she was now privy to his presence.
He didn’t know why he continued to stand there like some perverted dolt, but he did. He supposed limiting his association with women throughout the years had led him to do very strange things even he did not understand.
She hesitated, only to then wave, as if there was nothing wrong with waving to an unknown man lurking outside her bedchamber window at this time of night.
His pulse thundered as he stared up at her. Was she mistaking him for someone else? She had to be. Did he care that she was mistaking him for someone else? Hell, no.
Unable to resist, he touched his gloved hand to the curved rim of his hat in a gentlemanly salute, and hoped there wasn’t a husband there in the room with her. A husband who could already be loading lead balls into a pistol whilst enlisting his wife’s assistance in setting up the target.
The woman snapped up a forefinger, wordlessly requesting his patience, then unlatched the window and, to his astonishment, pushed it wide open. She leaned out, her wavy black hair cascading past the window in a single sweep, and casually propped herself against the sill as if she were Rapunzel in the flesh. The ruffled décolletage of her billowy, white nightdress shifted and spilled forward, exposing the golden glint of a locket swaying on a chain as well as the most stunning pair of breasts he’d ever had the pleasure of encountering.
Tristan fisted his gloved hands, forcing his mind and his body to remain calm.
She smiled flirtatiously down at him and spoke in a sensuous, foreign accent he couldn’t quite place. “’Tis a pleasure to finally meet you, my lord. You live in the house directly across from mine, do you not?”
He couldn’t help but be flattered, knowing she had been waving to him, after all. Trying not to stare up at those lovely breasts that taunted him beneath the low hanging scoop of her nightdress, he offered, “Yes. I do.”
Awkward silence hung between them.
Should he ask for her name? No. That would be crass and overly familiar. So what should he say? Stupid though it was, he couldn’t think of anything.
She half nodded and glanced up toward the cloudy night sky above, tapping the brush against the bare palm of her other hand. “A rather pleasant evening despite all the clouds. Is it not?”
Weather as a topic was death to any conversation. Why couldn’t he be more dashing? Why couldn’t he be more…debonair? Why couldn’t he—“Yes. Yes, it is.”
“And is it always this cloudy in London?”
“Unfortunately.” Christ, he was pathetic.
Awkward silence hung between them again.
A playful, melodious laugh rippled through the night air. “Is that all I am worth? Two or three words at a time and nothing more?” She wagged her silver hairbrush down at him. “You British are so annoyingly coy. Why is that?”
He cleared his throat and glanced about the quiet darkness of the square, hoping that no one was watching him make an oaf of himself. “Coy? No. Not coy. Curt. Curt best defines us.”
She laughed again. “Yes. Curt. That certainly explains everyone’s apparent lack of conversational skills. Might I venture to ask how a woman, such as myself, is ever to befriend a man, such as yourself, when all forms of conversation here in London appear to be so…stilted?”
Though the last thing he wanted was to expose this sultry foreigner to any gossip by continuing their conversation, ass that he was he couldn’t resist. There was a playful intelligence in her demeanor that was as bold as it was fortifying. Even more intriguing was that delectable, soft twang of an accent. Unlike most foreigners whose English was irregular, coarse and difficult to understand whilst they struggled to find words, hers was clipped, perfect and beyond well versed.
Moving closer, Tristan grabbed hold of the iron railing lining her home. Propping his leather boot on the ledge between the railings, he hoisted himself up, wishing there weren’t three whole floors separating them.
He observed her heatedly, admiring the way her long, dark hair framed her pale face and how it swayed past the window against the soft breeze. A sharp nose and wide, full lips, made her exotic-looking in a subtle way, though he couldn’t quite make out the color of her eyes against the shadows and the light filtering out from behind her.