Silk Is For Seduction by Loretta Chase Read Free Book Online Page B

draped over furniture and sprawled on the floor. The look spoke the volumes she left unsaid.
    He was nettled, more than he ought to be. Otherwise he would have pretended not to understand. But these were the people with whom he customarily associated, and her mocking half smile was extremely irritating. Provoked, he said it for her before he could catch himself: “Unlike me and these other dissolute aristocrats, you mean. The bourgeoisie is so tediously self-righteous.”
    She shrugged, calling his attention to her smooth shoulders, and unfolded her hands. “Yes, we’re great bores, always thinking about money and success.” She took out her purse and scooped her winnings into it, a clear signal that the evening was over for her.
    He rose and came round the table to move her chair. He gathered up her shawl, which had slid down her arm. As he did so, he let his fingers graze her bare shoulder.
    He heard the faint hitch in her breath, and a bolt of pleasure wiped out his irritation. The feeling was fierce—fiercer than it ought to have been after so slight a touch and so obvious a ploy. But then, she gave so little away that to achieve this much was a great deal.
    Though no one about them was conscious, he bent his head close to her ear and said, in a low voice, “You haven’t told me when I’ll see you again. Longchamp, the first time. Frascati’s this night. Where next?”
    “I’m not sure,” she said, moving a little away. “Tomorrow—tonight, rather—I must attend the Comtesse de Chirac’s ball. I suspect that gathering will be too staid for you.”
    For a moment he could only stare at her, his eyes wide and his mouth open. Then he realized he was gaping at her like a yokel watching a circus. But he’d no sooner erased all signs of surprise than he wondered why he bothered. What was the use, with her, of pretending that nothing surprised him when everything did? She was the least predictable woman he’d ever met. And at this moment he felt like one of the men who’d walked into a lamp post.
    He said, slowly and carefully, because surely he’d misunderstood, “You’ve been invited to Madame de Chirac’s ball?”
    She made a small adjustment to her shawl. “I did not say I was invited.”
    “But you’re going. Uninvited.”
    She looked up at him, and the dark eyes flashed. “How else?”
    “How about not going where you’re not invited?”
    “Don’t be silly,” she said. “It’s the most important event of the social season.”
    “It’s also the most exclusive event of the social season,” he said. “The king will be there. People negotiate and plot and blackmail each other for months in advance to get an invitation. Did it not occur to you that an uninvited guest is very liable to be noticed?”
    “Didn’t I pass by you a dozen times undetected?” she said. “Do you think I can’t attend a ball without calling attention to myself?”
    “Not this ball,” he said. “Unless you were planning to go disguised as a servant?”
    “Where’s the fun in that?” she said.
    “You’ll never get through the door,” he said. “If you do, you’ll be discovered immediately thereafter. If you’re lucky, they’ll merely throw you into the street. Madame de Chirac is not a woman to trifle with. If she’s not amused—and she rarely is—she’ll claim you’re an assassin.” The accusation might well be taken seriously, for France was unsettled, and one heard rumblings of another revolution. “At best you’ll end up in jail, and she’ll make sure no one remembers you’re there. At worst, you’ll make the personal acquaintance of Madame Guillotine. I don’t see the fun in that.”
    “I won’t be discovered,” she said.
    “You’re mad,” he said.
    “The richest women in Paris will be there,” she said. “They’ll be wearing creations by Paris’s greatest modistes. It’s the greatest fashion competition of the year—a notch above Longchamp. I must see those