by Betina Krahn
"You do all this yourself… with a homemade system of accounting?" he demanded hoarsely, his eyes glowing and nostrils flaring as they had at breakfast.
Something in the way he said "homemade" rankled her pride. "If you will just allow me to finish," she said irritably, retreating to the desk and pulling out a bundle of receipts. "I apportion the monies for each expenditure… and write a draft or put the pound notes for each in an envelope for the tradesmen who come each month to settle accounts." She felt her hands growing icy and her heart beating faster as he advanced on her, his face dusky, his chest heaving. "Then I mark the bills with a number which corresponds to… and file them… in boxes…" He was so close, so big. His dark hair looked so soft and his lips looked so… Her knees were going weak again, and she turned and slid shakily into the straight chair that faced the desk. "So you can see, everything is quite orderly."
Graham had barely heard one word in three. The minute he stepped through the door, he had caught that scent again, and his senses had cast off all rational control to go racing after it. By the time he reached the center of the room, that bedeviling smell filled his head, his lungs, and was seeping into his heart, his blood, even his blessed bones! More, he moaned silently. He had to have more. His pulse was pounding, his mouth was watering, his skin was beginning to ache. He rubbed one hand over the other to relieve it.
The urge to sniff overwhelmed him, and he began to track the source like a cat on the prowl. Step… sniff, sniff. Closer, sniff, sniff. The trail led straight to Miranda Edge-thorn.
Cinnamon and vanilla… hibiscus and hyacinth… peppermint drops… rose petals warmed by sunshine… all a part of it and yet only the tiniest component of it. The scent concentrated until it tickled his nose and curled through his blood, a powerful sneeze that would not come, a desperate itch that couldn't be localized enough to scratch. It was all around her… It radiated from her… Lord—it was her!
When she sat down at the desk, her back to him, he closed his eyes and swayed. His skin ached and burned for some sort of contact. He pressed closer, wanting to rub against her, desperate to feel his skin against hers. He rubbed his palm over the knobs at the top of the chair… ohhh... and then ground his ribs and waist against the spokes on the back of it… gently… biting his lip to keep from making a sound. An ache roared through his skin, a burning need to rub his bare chest against her, to nuzzle the nape of her neck and bury his nose in that mass of silky burnished curls.
He couldn't help himself. He wanted to roll and rub and slither and arch against her—to have her stroke and pet him, ruffle his hair. He sniffed hungrily as his head lowered toward her shoulder and his burning lips neared the cool, satiny skin of her neck.
Mimi sat at her desk, frozen with expectation, feeling his heated presence at her back and coming nearer… nearer. His breathing was a hard, exciting rasp that pulled her own into the same erratic rhythm.
"Do you understand… my system?" she whispered. He didn't answer, but she sensed his movement, felt his rising heat. She closed her eyes, and her head swayed to one side. Something warm and soft brushed the side of her neck, and a sound vibrated her ear, low and liquid, like a purr. _
"Mimi, dear… Mister Hamilton. You're hard at work, we see." Aunt Caroline's strident voice pierced the air like a gunshot.
With their faces crimson and their eyes dark and luminous, both Mimi and Graham jolted and whirled to face the old aunts. He lurched back two steps; she sprang to her feet like an untied coil. He stiffened and glowered; she clutched her throat and stammered.
"I… we… were just… getting started."
"So we see, dear," Aunt Flora said sweetly. "Well, I shall be in my garden most of the day, putting it to bed for the winter," she informed the red-faced pair, "in case you should need me."
"And I have to take the horse into the village to have a loose shoe repaired," Caroline put in. "I'll be gone awhile."
"And I've promised to give the rector's wife a reading and consultation for her eldest boy," Phoebe announced. "Won't be back until time for tea, Mimi, dear."
The old ladies smiled and nodded as they ambled away, each to her own devices.
Graham seized a ledger from the table and dragged a chair to the door, depositing himself as far from Miranda as he could get and still be in the same room. He was dumbstruck, mortified at having been caught sniffing and panting and rubbing, like some deranged animal! He could only hope the old ladies hadn't seen his unthinkable behavior. Lord, he groaned, what was happening to him?
He looked up to find Mimi staring at him with her delicate face flushed and her golden eyes wide and hauntingly beautiful. For a moment, he was spellbound. The gold reminded him of the color of the downy buttons at the centers of daisies. A slash of heat cut across bis belly, and he tightened his grip on the ledger, using every ounce of his self-control to fight the seductive pull of her scent.
"Perhaps I should explain some of the expenditures," she said, starting toward him.
"No!" he barked hoarsely, throwing up one hand to stop her while his other hugged the book to him as though it contained his sanity. "I mean… I'd prefer to look the ledgers over myself." Anything to keep her away from him! he thought.
She blushed violently and stepped back. Horrid, unpredictable man, she thought irritably. One minute he was hot, the next he was cold. One minute he couldn't seem to get close enough, the next he couldn't get far enough away! She couldn't wait to be rid of him!
For the next several minutes, he pored over that ledger, scowling, fidgeting in his chair, and occasionally rubbing his hands over his face or pulling at his collar as if it were a bit too tight. She sat on the edge of her chair with her hands clasped tightly in her lap, waiting, preparing herself. And finally it came.
"And just what the devil is this supposed to be? Five hundred bloody pounds to some Spaniard!" he exclaimed, looking exasperated beyond all bearing.
"A South American, actually." She sprang up defensively and took a step toward him before his forbidding look stopped her.
"South… American," he echoed with a nasty bit of patience.
"Señor Aloquina is an import broker. He arranged the purchase of two very rare South American aromatics for Aunt Flora," she said tautly.
"What the hell is an aromatic? And what does Aunt Flora need two of them for… at two hundred and fifty pounds apiece?" he demanded.
"They're plants," she declared tautly, taking offense at his crude language. "And you can't have just one and expect it to live. They live and breed in pairs."
"Plants?" He choked on the word. "Five hundred pounds for two bloody plants?"
"Aunt Florabunda is a highly skilled horticulturist. Her collection of exotic specimens is unparalleled in England."
"Dashed well ought to be—at five hundred pounds a crack. Where the devil is this South American wonder? I have to see this for myself!"
"Fine! Come with me!"
He stalked along at a safe distance behind her, through the center hall, then along a faded corridor in the little-used west wing. She led him through a large set of brass-bound doors and into a soaring glass-domed conservatory filled with lush greenery and bright bowers of blossoms. The air was humid and crowded with the heavy fragrances of exotic flowers. She led him along one of the brick paths that circled the terraced beds and paused before a pair of glossy, thick-leafed plants bearing huge, intricate pink and purple blossoms.
"Here they are… the Xinqotec passionflowers from the Amazon River basin. They're very rare and very potent."
He scrutinized the pair, then stepped back from the penetrating sweetness, wrinkling his nose. He glanced around with a look of broadening horror and pointed to a pair of elegant, lace-leafed trees nearby. "And those?"
"Those are rare Carpathian spice trees… from the East. My aunts traveled the Orient in their younger days, and Aunt Flora learned all about the eastern aromatics."
"Then—good Lord—there must be thousands and thousands of pounds
' worth." He groaned, waving his arm at the rest. "She's beggared your inheritance just to have something fancy to smell?"
" Hardly," she managed through the frustration squeezing into her throat. "She uses them to make scents and perfumes. I suppose you'll want to see her laboratory with your own eyes, too." Without waiting for a response, she lifted her skirts and sailed toward another set of doors at the far end of the conservatory, leaving him to follow.
A double set of doors separated the conservatory from a large sunlit room lined with shelves which were filled with pots, crocks, and vials. Several tall tables occupied the center of the floor, cluttered with mazes of suspended coils, bubblelike spheres of glass, caldrons, and mortars and pestles such as chemists used to make up Pharmaceuticals. As he stared at those tables, the vivid memory of what he'd seen the withered old sisters working on—caldrons and conjuring and vapors—flooded his mind.
"This is it! This is what I saw last night!" He stalked feverishly back and forth, looking at the walls and the apparatus on the tables from several angles. "The room's not quite the same… but these caldrons and all these coils hanging everywhere…" He gave Mimi a look that said he'd been vindicated as he prowled around the tables, craning his neck to peer into crocks and crucibles, and poking at things with his finger. "You see, I wasn't dreaming or drunk. I did see your old aunts brewing and conjuring!"
"What you saw, Mister Hamilton, and what you see here, is Aunt Flora's distilling apparatus for concentrating the essences of flowers and making extracts from her aromatic plants," she announced, watching the look on his face as her words sank in. "Aunt Flora is a master perfumer… who believes strongly in the power of smells and scents. Mister Hamilton, you saw my aunt working on some sort of perfume—not some sort of witch's brew!"
Perfume, he thought, how utterly ridicu— He stopped dead, and some of the high color drained from his face. A perfumed He thought of his behavior that morning, of the scent that had bewitched and bedeviled him and nearly caused him to disgrace himself. Could something that com-pelling, that enthralling, actually be just a perfume? His sane, orderly, supremely rational self rebelled against that possibility. A scent—the smell of bananas, mildew, wood smoke, even the bouquet of good brandy—was just a scent. It didn't take over a body, affect his sight and hearing… didn't make him rub and writhe and pant like a damn animal in rut!
"It was most certainly not just a perfume," he said to himself, not realizing that she would think the words were meant for her and take them as a personal challenge. "It was more powerful than any bit of rosewater."
"Smells can indeed be very powerful things, Mister Hamilton," she declared, her eyes flashing. "They can evoke strong memories and feelings, change a person's mood or his whole outlook on life. But they have nothing to do with witchcraft or magic. And I'll prove it to you!"
She hurried to a cabinet on the far wall and returned a moment later with a wooden box containing several crystal vials. Selecting one, she held it out to him with a tilt of defiance to her chin. "Most people don't understand just how potent a scent can be. Try this, Mister Hamilton."
Warily, he came around the end of the table and accepted the little bottle full of amber liquid. He lifted the crystal stopper, raised the vial to his nose, and sniffed suspiciously. Cool essences of pine and rich earth and the musk of damp, decaying leaves invaded his senses… each recognizable separately, but blended into an intriguing whole that was easily identifiable as the essence of a forest. A second, deeper breath and he could actually see green—new green like the first delicate leaves of spring. And in the midst of that earthy swirl of color he could see Mimi, clothed like a wood nymph, her shoulders bare, her hair down and tousled about her, and her smile an alluring combination of innocence and invitation. He started and blinked, then thrust the vial back into her hands and fell back a step. When he opened his mouth, only one hoarse word came out.
"Unbelievable."
Her eyes twinkled as she handed him a second vial. For a moment, he could only stare at her, letting the woodlands fade in his sight and realizing that his precious nymph remained. His hand trembled as he brought the second bottle to his nose.
He smelled warm sand, a hint of dust, then cinnamon bark, allspice, and oil of cloves. He gave a short laugh of astonishment. A second whiff, and he heard the ping of finger cymbals and the drone of a zither and beheld a rainbow of shimmering, multicolored veils… swirling about Mimi's soft, undulating body. Twining in her gloriously disheveled hair were small carnations, verbena, and orange blossoms. A coral-red hibiscus was tucked behind her ear. All around her were dried strings of vanilla beans and heaps of nutmegs, their sweet scents permeating her, making her the choicest treat in that exotic spice market of sensation. With his gaze fixed on the shimmer of her eyes, he threw caution to the wind and inhaled deeply. He could actually feel it spreading from his lungs into his blood, taking him over, seizing his whole being. He swayed dizzily, grinning, growing intoxicated by the scent… by her… by the wild and wonderful possibilities she embodied.
When she removed the vial from his tightly clenched fingers, he was a reeling, inarticulate mass of sensation. It took a long minute and several repetitions of his name to bring him back to reality. "Mister Hamilton… Mister Hamilton, are you all right?" When his vision righted, she was still the glorious center of it.
"It's Graham, sweet Mimi. Call me Graham." He raised his hand and feathered his fingertips across her cheek. She looked and felt like cool satin. "Let me hear you say it."
"Graham." Her voice was soft and breathy as she looked up at him, her eyes wide and glowing. She bit her lower lip, and he ran a finger over it, entreating her to release it. "Do you want to try one more?" she asked quietly. He could only nod. He would try anything… as long as he Gould be with her like this.
-He lifted that third vial to his nose, and his senses exploded. Sunshine—everywhere—seeping through every pore, drenching his soul, setting him free! Suddenly he was barefoot in soft, thick grass, so green and lush, littered with daisies, buttercups, and primroses. Birds were singing, and a cool breeze brushed his face again. And there she was, wearing a coronet of daisies on her sun-kissed curls and a gauze-thin smock that hung adorably askew, baring one shoulder. She was a meadow sprite, a child of nature, a goddess with soft, beguiling eyes and warm, touchable curves.
"Mimi!" he cried, seizing her hands, feeling as if he were soaring on sunlight with her… laughing… giddy with release. He paused and put the vial to his nose once more, then it was somehow gone from his hand. And all he could see was Mimi, sweet Mimi smiling at him, laughing with him. Suddenly her scent engulfed him again, sending him into a state of pure euphoria.
She had pried the vial from his fingers and set it aside. His wide, often hard-set mouth drew up into an irresistibly boyish grin, and he pulled her body full against his and wrapped her in his arms, whirling around and around with her until they were both dizzy. They stumbled and stopped, steadying each other. And he began to fill her heart as he filled her arms.
For the first time in her life, she was held in a man's embrace. Tingles collected all along her front, wherever her body pressed tightly against his. His head lowered, even as hers tilted up to meet it. And she experienced the softness, the firm possession of a man's mouth on hers for the first time. It was heavenly… sweet and silky… intimate beyond her wildest dreams. His tongue stroked her lips, coaxing, exploring, then slid between them to caress their sleek inner borders. She yielded, opening to him, wanting more, and catching her breath when his body began to rub against hers, his chest against her breasts, his hardened loins against her belly. She shivered and sent her fingers up his neck, tracing his square jaw line, ruffling through his hair. It was soft, so silky that her fingers tingled. As he picked up handfuls of her hair and buried his face it, she began to rub her cheek against his shirt and the soft wool of his coat front.
He kissed her temple, her cheek, her ear, and slid his mouth down the side of her neck
, breathing her in like a greedy child, craving sweets. More… She expanded in his head, in his lungs, and still he wanted more. His senses were swollen with the taste, the sight, the smell, and the feel of her, and yet he couldn't seem to get enough. "Mimi, my love… sweet, beautiful Mimi…"
He twirled her around and around, then released her to dance on his tiptoes, prancing to some melody only he could hear, while spiraling ever higher, to dizzy, rapturous heights. He spread his arms, rising on updrafts of rarest pleasure, whirling, gliding, soaring…
Suddenly he lurched and swayed around and around, muttering, "Ohhh, Mimi." And he keeled straight over, landing flat on the floor with a horrendous thud.
"Graham!" Mimi staggered with shock, then rushed to his side, calling his name. "Graham, are you all right? Please—oh, Graham, wake up!" But he just lay there, out cold, with a blissful grin on his face.
She ran to fetch Shaddar, and the big manservant knelt and ran his hands over Graham's head and pried open his eyes one at a time. He nodded gravely, indicating that Graham would be all right, and Mimi sighed her relief and stroked his hair. Apparently, he wasn't used to happiness in such large doses.
Shaddar lifted him gently and carried him back through the conservatory and the west wing, headed for the stairs and Graham's borrowed room. When they reached the center hall, they met the old aunts returning early from their errands. The old ladies' eyes widened on Graham's limp form, then flew to Mimi's flushed cheeks and lowered lashes.
"Whatever happened to Mister Hamilton?" Aunt Caroline inquired, craning her neck to get a better view of the grin on his face. She and Flora exchanged looks.
"Please don't be angry," Mimi said, blushing hotter. "Mister Hamilton seemed to think we paid an excessive amount for Aunt Flora's Xinqotec passionflowers, and I just thought I'd convince him that Aunt Flora's collection and her perfumes were… not to be taken lightly."
