When the Duke Returns(56)

He ducked his head forward and then raked his fingers through gleaming wet, clean hair. Isidore didn’t breathe as he braced his hands on the sides of the tub and stood up.

His body wasn’t at all like hers. She was all curves, the gift of her Italian mother. Depending on how tightly she laced her corset, her waist was small, and then her breasts and hips swelled above and below—not gently, not in a slim, English style, but with a lush Latin bountifulness.

Nothing was lush about Simeon’s body. It was all rippling muscles, even his bottom. As he stood, the last bubbles ran down his back, down his legs. His bottom was hollowed on the sides. Her fingers twitched and she suddenly realized that, in her imagination, she was tracing the bubbles, down over the muscles of his back that rippled as he reached for a towel. He bent forward…perhaps it was the running that gave him such large thighs? She’d heard of men padding their pantaloons to give themselves bulk. Simeon had the muscles of a dock-worker.

He had one foot out of the bath now, and was drying off his second leg. She started to move soundlessly backwards.

“Don’t leave,” he commanded, not turning his head.

He must have noticed the door open, and probably thought she was a footman. She stepped back again and began to ease the door shut.

“Isidore.”

Her mouth fell open.

Moving with his usual thoughtful control, he wrapped the towel around his waist and turned around. Isidore snapped her mouth shut.

“I am sorry to have disturbed your bath,” she said, keeping her voice even. “I wished to speak to you about your mother’s refusal to leave the house.” She swallowed. He didn’t have a mat of hair on his chest. She could see the shape and size of each muscle, see the way the human body was designed to be.

“How did you know I was there?” She forced herself to meet his eyes. Of course, they were utterly calm, unreadable.

“Your scent,” he said.

She cleared her throat. “Your soap has a very interesting odor.” That was such a stupid thing to say. The words fell into the air between them. Obviously, this was a perfect opportunity to seduce Simeon.

“Cardamom,” he said.

“I suppose you found the soap in the East somewhere?” She sounded like a fool, Isidore thought desperately.

“India,” he said. “It’s a spice used in cooking as well.”

“Interesting,” she managed.

The white towel settled a little lower on Simeon’s hips and without thinking she looked toward the movement and then jerked her eyes back to his face. He was just looking at her with a pleasant inquiry, as if they were in the drawing room, and he’d asked whether she would like a cup of tea.

She couldn’t seduce him. She didn’t have the faintest idea how to go about it, and what seemed easy when she was in London wasn’t easy at all. He didn’t seem the least interested in the fact that she was in his bedchamber while he was nearly unclothed.

Besides…

He was so large. Everything about him was big, from his shoulders to his feet.

She dropped a curtsy, taking refuge in formality. “I beg you to forgive me for interrupting your bath,” she said, backing up one step and then whirling so she could leave. She shut the door so fast that it slammed a bit, the sound reverberating down the corridor.

Inside the room, Simeon unclenched his teeth and then threw away the damned towel with a muffled curse. She hadn’t seemed to notice the way it tented in the front, though she had certainly seen how close he was to utter loss of control. She had fled as if a horde of desert tribesmen had brandished their swords at her.

He glanced down at his personal weapon and then dropped into a chair. Christ, this was a mess. He didn’t dare touch himself for fear he would explode. He had been sitting in the bath, thinking of her: the way her hair gleamed like rumpled strands of black silk, waiting to be woven into the kind of garment a man could bury his face in, stroke his cheek, other parts of his body…

His blood had been raging through his body already when he heard that light knock and then, before he could gather his wits, the door opened and it was she. He knew instantly, of course. Who else in the household smelled of jasmine, like a poem in flowers? Even with the house reeking of sewage, he knew when she was near because her scent came to meet him.

But Isidore’s real scent wasn’t jasmine. Her scent was under the fresh, clear call of the flower, something that teased his senses more than any perfume, made him think deliriously of burying his face in her hair, of kissing her skin, licking her from head to foot.

Embarrassing. That’s what it was.

She was like a firebrand, burning more brightly than any woman he’d ever known. He could accept this marriage—and spend his life circling around her, like a tribesman with a precious donkey, trying, trying to keep her from being stolen.