The Seduction (30 page)

"Oh, yes. My father taught me years ago."

"Are you any good?"

Her chin lifted at the challenge, and she turned to him. "Good enough that I eventually trounced him, and he hasn't played with me since. My father is not a man who likes to lose."

"I can believe that." He pulled out a chair for her. "Shall we?"

"Very well," she agreed, settling into her seat, "but I'll give you the same warning I always gave my father. I'll not let you win just because you are a man."

"God forbid!" He pushed in her chair, then sat down opposite her. "Why should you?"

"In playing games with gentlemen," she said primly as if quoting from an etiquette book, "a lady should take care not to allow a spirit of competition to overcome her. It is always best if she loses, so as not to hurt their feelings or wound their pride."

He shook his head. "And all this time,
I've believed it was my superior skill at games that enabled me to win against the ladies. I feel quite disillusioned."

She laughed. "We'll see how you do this time," she said and reached for one of the white pieces from the box. But Trevor plucked it out of her hand before she could place it in front of her on the board.

"Since we are not allowing the sex of the players to influence the outcome, the lady does not automatically get the opening move." He pulled a black pawn from the box and hid his hands beneath the table. "All in the spirit of fair play, of course," he added, lifting his closed fists.

Margaret couldn't very well argue with that, even though she was accustomed to opening the game and preferred it that way. She hesitated a moment, then pointed to his left fist. He opened his hand to reveal the black pawn.

He handed the piece to her. "It seems luck is on my side."

She gave him a confident smile across the table. "You'll need it."

With that, they arranged their pieces on the board, and the play began in earnest. He opened with the queen's pawn, she countered with the bishop's. Both of them settled into intense concentration, scarcely noticing when Gustavo pulled his chair over to watch them.

She was good at the game. Trevor was surprised by that, not because of her sex, but because he wouldn't have thought Margaret patient enough for chess. He studied her face as she studied the board, the fierce little frown that knit her dark brows, and the stubborn set of her chin, and he realized what she lacked in patience she made up for in tenacity. Like him, Margaret liked to win.

The evening wore on. Sophia and Gustavo went to bed, leaving them alone in the parlor, absorbed in their chess game. Trevor knew Margaret's strategy was sound, and every move she made was calculated to further that strategy. But her
singleminded
tenacity eventually cost her the game. He allowed her to close in on him with her purposeful moves until she thought she had him trapped.

She slid her rook forward. "Check."

He moved his knight. "Checkmate."

Her shoulders slumped in disappointment. "I never saw that coming," she admitted with a sigh. "I should have."

He smiled at her across the table. "You're a good player, Maggie. You just need to be more flexible. Flexibility allows you to take advantage of opportunities and makes you less predictable."

She lifted her head. "What you're really saying is that you knew what I was going to do every step of the way."

"Not every step," Trevor said, laughing at her glum expression. "There were times when you did surprise me."

"Beast. I feel quite humbled, since I couldn't fathom your moves half the time. I kept thinking perhaps you'd had too much wine with dinner."

"If I had, could you blame me? It was very good wine, and Sophia kept refilling my glass."

"I know. I've never met such hospitable people. We're strangers to them, but they treated us like part of the family."

"Well, when you have that many, what's two more?" He laughed. "Did you know that Sophia and Gustavo have nine children and twenty-six grandchildren?"

"Heavens! Can you imagine what a responsibility that would be?"

"Is that one of the reasons you are so opposed to marriage?" he asked, deliberately misinterpreting her words. "Because children would be a responsibility you don't want?"

Astonished by the question, she fell back in her chair, staring at him across the table. "I'm not opposed to marriage."

"Aren't you? It seems to me that you are."

"You just say that because I don't want to marry you," she countered with spirit.

"Well, I must confess, as a man who feels he has a great deal to offer a future wife, your violent opposition to the possibility did rather wound my pride." He gave a casual shrug. "But I've gotten over it."

"You have?"

"I'm not a fool, Maggie, and a man would have to be a fool to chase a woman who doesn't want him."

"I never said—" She stopped abruptly and bit her lip. "I never thought you were a fool," she amended.

"It's just that you're holding out for true love," he said lightly. "Isn't that right?"

"Don't laugh at me," she said.

"I'm not."

"Yes, you are. I don't think you even believe in love."

He heard the sudden hint of wistfulness in her voice and knew this was an opportunity of which he should take immediate advantage. He should take her hand in his and gaze into her eyes and say something sensitive and meaningful—tell her that of course he believed in love, and that he was thinking perhaps he'd found it with her.

But when he looked at her across the table, he found himself unable to say the words that just might win him the prize. He couldn't lie to her so blatantly about something she valued so highly.

"I'm not laughing at you, Maggie," he said gently. "It's just that I think people waste a lot of time, endure a lot of pain, and expend a lot of energy for something that doesn't really exist. I think that what most people call love is simply passion all dressed up."

"You're very cynical."

"Perhaps. But I've discovered that love is a rather unreliable emotion. Hardly sufficient motivation for a lifetime commitment."

"And what would you consider to be a sufficient motivation?" she asked, her eyes narrowing. "Money, perhaps?"

He knew that game, and he refused to play it her way. "You are very quick to accuse me of being cynical, when you seem to believe that every man who shows an interest in you wants nothing but your money."

"Like you, I draw conclusions based on my experience."

"Indeed?" He smiled at her. "I knew the first moment I saw you that you were a woman of the world."

"You
are
laughing at me." She lowered her gaze to the chessboard between them and said softly, "Perhaps it's foolish of me to believe that marriage should not be a business arrangement. Perhaps it's silly of me to think that people should marry because they are truly in love and for no other reason. But I do believe it. I've seen three of my closest friends marry because it was expected of them, because they were afraid to be labeled as spinsters, or because their families pressured them until they felt they had no choice, or because they believed the men who vowed to love and cherish them, without being certain of their character, or without waiting for proof of their devotion. And now they are trapped."

"What do you want, Maggie? What do you really want?"

She gazed down at the chess pieces. "I am determined that only the very deepest love will induce me into matrimony. I believe that there is a man out there, somewhere, who will love me for myself, even if I didn't have two nickels to rub together, even if I am headstrong and—I admit it—spoiled. A man who will love me all the days of my life. I will not marry until I find him." She lifted her head and saw his faint smile. "What's wrong with that?"

He could have told her what was wrong with it. He could have told her that she was setting herself up for bitter disillusionment, that nothing was more painful than innocence lost and expectations unfulfilled. Better to have no illusions and no expectations. But he could not tell her those things, and, even if he did, she would not believe him.

Trevor looked into her dark eyes and saw the defiance there, defiance that made him want to pull her into his arms, to kiss her and caress her until she stopped dreaming about some white knight who didn't exist and realized that the man she would marry was sitting right in front of her. But he also saw something else in her eyes, a sweet and painful vulnerability that made him suddenly wish he could spare her that disillusionment, that he could become what she wanted.

The moment he thought it, he realized what rubbish it was. If he listened to this much longer, he was going to start believing in white knights, too, and angels and miracles, as well. He set the chess piece back on the table and glanced at the clock on the mantel. "It's getting late, and we have to be on our way early in the morning."

"Of course." She rose to her feet, then picked up the lamp from the table and started for the stairs. But Trevor made no move to follow her.

When she reached the bedroom, she realized that Sophia had been there before going to bed. A nightgown had been laid out on the bed for her, and a tortoiseshell brush and mirror lay beside it. The gown was of plain white cotton, but the delicate embroidery and hand-knitted lace told her that it had been made with loving care. On the washstand rested a small jar. When she opened it, Margaret discovered homemade soap scented with lavender.

She placed the cork lid back on the jar and smiled at Sophia's thoughtfulness. The Italian woman had put the things there for her, certain that a bride would want to look pretty for her husband when he came to bed.

But Trevor was not her husband. Her smile faded, and she set down the jar with a thoughtful frown.

Trevor could never be her husband. He did not love her. He didn't even believe in love.

Margaret brushed out her hair with the tortoise- shell brush, washed with the lavender-scented soap, and put on the pretty nightgown anyway, reasoning that she wasn't doing it for him, but for herself.

She slid between the crisp cotton sheets and closed her eyes, knowing it would be best if she were asleep when Trevor came in. But sleep eluded her. Try as she might, she could not stop thinking of him and the passionate moments of the night before. She could not stop the bewildering rush of emotions that overcame her when she thought of the extraordinary touch of his hands and the brush of his lips on her skin. And she could not stop listening for his footsteps and wondering when he would come upstairs and lie down beside her.

But when Trevor finally came in, he did not share the bed with her. Instead, he took a pillow and stretched out on the floor near the window.

Margaret listened as his breathing deepened to the even cadence of sleep and told herself she should be glad that he was behaving honorably. She should be relieved that he had not touched her in that way again and that he'd abandoned his mercenary notions of marrying her. But she wasn't glad. She wasn't relieved. She was actually disappointed, and that was the most bewildering thing of all.

They left
Sora
early
the following morning. In addition to his usual load, Hadrian was given another burden—a burlap sack stuffed with all manner of food from Sophia's kitchen. Trevor told Margaret the Italian woman had packed them so much they could probably get to Algiers before they ran out of food.

Sophia and Gustavo had tried to refuse payment for their hospitality, but Trevor somehow managed to convince them to accept five hundred lire.