The Matchmaker (5 page)

It bothered him that Julia was obviously conforming to
a ridiculous and dangerous fashion. She hadn't followed
yet another practice and resorted to padding above and
below the waist in order to make the S-curve look even more exaggerated, but since she had a naturally tiny waist and full breasts, the corset alone was quite enough to give her the stylish appearance. At the dance she'd
worn a rather concealing gown with a great deal of lace.
Of course he hadn't noticed any distortion of her slender
figure. One of Cyrus's somewhat peculiar talents was the
ability to gauge a woman's natural measurements accurately no matter what misleading fashion prevailed, and
he'd known only that her figure was splendid.

He didn't like that corset, especially not on Julia.

He sat down on the bench a foot or so away from her,
and smiled when her startled eyes met his. "Hello."

Immediately, she returned her gaze to the young
people some distance away. Her smile was gone; she was
expressionless now. But her delicate hands twined
tightly together in her lap and he could feel her tension.

"Surely you can speak to me in public, can't you,
Julia?"

"Not without being ruined," she said a bit grimly.

He couldn't help but laugh, pleased by her honesty, but said, "That's nonsense, and you know it. I often escort the wives of my friends, occasionally an unmarried young lady, and it does their reputations no harm."

"You are not a friend of my husband's." Then she'
paused and sent him a swift glance from guarded eyes.
"Are you?"

Gently, he said, "One doesn't make a friend of a man and then seduce his wife. Not quite honorable, that.
Friends are treated with more respect."

This time she turned her head and stared at him.
"Of all the barefaced effrontery!"
Her voice wasn't so much shocked as incredulous.

"I'm famous for it," he said, nodding. "But the real
effrontery would be if I did seduce a friend's wife. In any
case, if it's my plain speaking you object to, I'm afraid that's another trait I'm known for. It saves so much time, you see. I'm paying you the compliment of believing
you'd prefer honesty to pretty speeches and bedroom
lies. I want you, Julia. And no matter what you've been
taught, real desire doesn't come dressed in silks and
satins; it's naked."

She looked away again, a little pale except for the heated skin over her cheekbones. A blush suited her, he
thought, and it was uncommon among redheads. She
was really quite lovely. And young, Noel had been right
about that. But she was two years married, and there
was no doubt she was a woman—even though her green
eyes seemed to hold even more innocence than he'd first thought.

"I'm married," she said in a soft, still voice.

"I hope you don't believe that's going to stop me,"
Cyrus said calmly. "If you were happily married, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"Have you no sense of decency?"

He didn't fail to notice she let his remark about her marriage go unchallenged.
"By society's definition?
I
suppose not. What does it matter?"

Julia drew a short breath and looked at him with
glittering eyes. "Then we'll set decency aside, since that
means nothing to you. And I'll be as blunt as you've been. I don't want you. I don't want an affair. Is that clear
enough?"

"Let's walk," Cyrus said, rising to his feet and reaching for her hand.

"No—"

He grasped her hand before she could pull
away,
and gently but inexorably drew her up. "Don't fight me,
Julia," he said, tucking her hand into the crook of his
arm, "or you'll attract the kind of attention you'd rather
avoid."

"Do you often resort to blackmail?" she demanded
tightly, walking beside him as he began strolling toward
one of the paths that wound among trees and neat
shrubs.

"Only when necessary.
Do admit you're more com
fortable walking—if it's possible, that is, to feel anything
but
agony
in that corset you're wearing."

It was one of the least shocking things he'd said to her, and since "agony" was a fair description of what her
tightly laced stays caused, particularly today, Julia was a
little bemused to hear her own defensive reply. "To be
fashionable—"

"Fashion can go to hell. Forcing the human body to
conform to an unnatural shape is foolish and dangerous, particularly in the name of fashion. And any man who'd choose to see his woman resemble a pouter pigeon ought to be forced to spend a few hours in one of those bloody
contraptions."

She couldn't think of anything to say to that, and
glanced up at him in faint surprise. It was unnerving to
discover that the top of her head barely reached his shoulder, and even more unnerving to believe that his
indelicate talk of corsets had been prompted by concern.
He was a strange man; his black velvet voice made her feel things she didn't understand, his bluntness disturbed her and left her without the protection of conventional propriety, and though he'd been very calm and
matter-of-fact about it, his determination to have her
seemed unswerving.

Then he continued speaking in the same calm but
forceful voice, and she wondered a bit numbly if there
was anything, anything at all, that he considered im
proper to discuss with a woman. Somehow, she didn't
think so.

"Besides that, you don't need any kind of artificial help to have a magnificent body. God gave you one. Seeing
you naked has become my life's ambition."

Julia wanted to gasp or laugh hysterically, but her
stays were too tight to allow her to do either without
fainting at his feet. She almost told him so, certain he'd appreciate the remark. Instead, staring straight ahead
and determined to keep her calm no matter what he
said, she said coldly, "I'm terribly sorry to frustrate your ambition, but I must."

"Why?"

"I told you. I don't want an affair."

"I'll change your mind." He looked down at her as
they walked along the winding path, wondering absently
how long her hair was. It was difficult to judge, since the
fiery mass was arranged in a pompadour. The hand he
held firmly in the crook of his arm was very small and
slender. Her left hand, he realized; neat gloves hid her
wedding ring, but he knew it was there.

Too tight.
The thought sprang into his mind, and he
didn't know if it was literal or symbolic, if her ring fit too
tightly, or her marriage vows did.

"I don't want my mind changed," she snapped. "I have
no desire to be flung out in the streets and branded an adulteress."

"Drummond wouldn't do that even if he found out,"
Cyrus said coolly. "He's a politician. Infidelity means-
nothing compared to the damage a divorce would cause his career."

Until that moment Julia had believed she'd experi
enced all the pain a man could inflict on a woman, but
this was a new hurt, an unexpectedly raw hurt. Another
man, she thought bitterly, who discounted private tor
ment as long as the world saw only a mask of content
ment.
Another man who would stop at nothing to satisfy
his own needs.
She wondered suddenly if even the scars
of her private hell would evoke a shred of compunction
in what passed for Cyrus Fortune's heart.

The concern she had thought she'd heard in his voice only moments before had obviously been no more than
her imagination. Or perhaps his condemnation of corsets
came purely from a man's desire to have the body he wanted undamaged by silly fashions.

"No," she said quietly, feeling empty.

"You don't love him, Julia."

Genuinely surprised, she looked up at him. "What
does that matter?"

He stopped walking and half turned toward her, still holding one of her hands against his arm. The path they
stood upon was shady, and reasonably cool, with a few
midsummer flowers perfuming the still air with sweet
ness. Now, in the middle of the day, only the young
people and the two of them were in the park—and the
others were so distant even their laughing voices
couldn't be heard.

Cyrus looked down at her upturned face, and wondered why he'd even said what he had. She didn't love her husband, but, as she'd said, what did that matter?
She wasn't refusing him because she loved another man,
but because she was a married woman who wouldn't break her vows.

"I won't give up," he said.

Her green eyes were clouded with puzzlement and something else, something he couldn't read. "Why does
it have to be me?" she asked.

"Because I want you."

She shook her head a little, her delicate features
briefly holding a kind of bitter anguish. "Is what you
want so much more important than what I want? Does it always have to be that way?"

For just an instant an unaccustomed hesitation took
hold of Cyrus. This wasn't what he'd expected; she was different from the others. She was in pain, this was
hurting her. He didn't want to hurt her, and honestly
believed he wouldn't. All his instincts told him she needed him like the others had.

They had needed different things from him, those
other women. Though no one who wasn't immediately
concerned would have believed it, few of them had ended up in his bed. Some had needed a sympathetic ear or shoulder, some discreet help with problems they
didn't dare take to their husbands, some a more nebu
lous assistance or comfort. Since he didn't particularly
care about his reputation and since none of the ladies involved were harmed by their rumored affairs, he allowed people to think what they liked.

But with Julia...
He acknowledged silently to
himself that with her the instinct to help had tangled
instantly and fiercely with a desire so powerful, his own
needs had been more important to him.

Now her upturned face was filled with mute emotions that hurt him and made her even more beautiful to him
in a strange, primitive way, and the intense desire for
her swept over him like a tide. She needed him, he
knew it. He knew it.

Julia was caught off guard by what she saw in his burning black eyes. She shouldn't have been, perhaps, because he'd certainly made both his desire and his intentions plain enough. But despite everything he had said
,
she really hadn't expected him to attempt a blatant physical seduction—and certainly not in broad daylight in a public park.

When his hands rose to her shoulders and his dark
head bent toward her, she opened her mouth to utter some wild, wordless protest that never found a voice. His strong face blurred and she closed her eyes help
lessly to try to shut out what had already gotten too
close. His lips were hard, curiously hot, the demand in them so insistent she was aware of every suddenly throbbing nerve in her body. It was a shock greater than any he'd yet caused, stealing what little breath her stays allowed her and filling her mind with dizziness.

She was dimly aware of his long fingers tightening on
her shoulders, of the whisper of pain as tender flesh
protested even that slight pressure, but it didn't matter.
He was drawing her down into some dark place that was
velvet and fire, and she was lost there.

He muttered something against her mouth and then
his slanted, deepening the kiss even more with stark possession. His tongue was sinuous as it stroked hers in a touch so intimate it sent a shudder of feverish pleasure rippling through her. Her body swayed toward his, and
she felt the hardness of his chest press against her
breasts.

Then his hands slid down her back to her waist,
trailing new heat and the echoes of old pain, and the
reminder was just enough to bring a chill of sanity to her
mind and a moan of protest to her throat.

Whether or not he heard, Cyrus raised his head,
staring down at her dazed face with eyes so fierce she almost flinched away from them. "You want the same thing I want
,.
Julia," he said thickly. "That's what mat
ters. It's all that matters."

She backed away from him slowly, and he let her go.
She had a fatalistic certainty that next time he
wouldn't... because next time she wouldn't be able
to protest. It took more willpower than she thought she had to turn and walk away, but she did it. Her heart was pounding and she couldn't breathe except in shallow little gulps, but she walked with her head up and she didn't look back at him.

Some minutes later, as Cyrus continued on his way,
frowning in thought, a man stepped onto the path
behind him and stood gazing after him. He was a tall
man, well-dressed and obviously prosperous. His lean face was without expression, but a shaft of sunlight fell
across the powerful hands that clenched into fists by his
sides repeatedly in a measured rhythm.