Lessons of Desire

by Madeline Hunter

  She held out her hand for the cameo. He appeared almost reluctant to give it to her, but he placed it in her palm.

  The museum had fallen quiet. Arditi looked out the window. “Ah, here comes Lord Elliot’s carriage. I must remind him that only red wine cuts the dust in one’s throat. In Pompeii, even the dirt is very special.”

  Elliot assumed Arditi knew of what he spoke. He lifted his goblet to cut some more dust while he and Phaedra dined in the guesthouse where they had taken lodgings in Portici.

  A good number of English visitors were in residence with them. They dwelled in luxury while they visited the excavations and enjoyed the hospitality of the Neapolitan aristocrats who had fled the heat in Naples.

  He had taken two rooms this time. Nor had he named her as his wife. He did not recognize any of the other guests but there was a good chance that some of his countrymen recognized either him or the unusual Phaedra Blair.

  Then again maybe not. She had worn a blue dress to dinner. It was, she explained, her one normal garment. She had also put up her hair, into a style more fashionable than the simple roll that she wore in Paestum. Looking normal would probably be an effective disguise for Phaedra Blair. He suspected that had been her intention.

  “Did you learn what you wanted?” she asked.

  “Yes, but I will return tomorrow.” And he had learned a lot. Eventually his concentration had turned to the discoveries and his mind had escaped into this other passion. His guide had helped by engaging him in a spirited discussion of the remains, asking his opinion and debating the ultimate source of some of the artifacts.

  It had been good to immerse himself again in his studies. He had been away from them too long. He had been too distracted by Phaedra. That had never happened before, which spoke to the power of this unusual woman. Today, however, his other self had reawoken, stretched, and revitalized itself. He had left Pompeii more content than he had entered it, feeling more himself than he had in weeks.

  “And you, Phaedra. I assume that you also learned what you wanted to know.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “You came here for a reason and fate offered you an opportunity to ask your questions of the man who can answer them best. I do not think you would pass up the chance.”

  “Yes, I asked my questions of him. I received my answers.”

  “Were they about another paragraph in the memoirs?”

  Her expression fell as if his mention of the memoirs saddened her. It was, he realized, the first time they had been mentioned since that day in the tower.

  “My mother left me a cameo. She said it came from Pompeii,” she explained. “My father wrote that it was a fraud, sold to her by that other man. I needed to know, of course. It affects the value considerably.”

  “If it is a forgery, do you think that also lends credence to the rest of what he wrote about your mother’s lover?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I hope for your sake that it is real.”

  “Unfortunately, Signore Arditi was very sure that it is not ancient. It is a forgery, and he is aware that cameos like it have been made and sold over the years.”

  She spooned at the ice that she had requested. Thoughts seemed to roll over in her head while the cold confection rolled in her mouth.

  “Matthias gave me the name of two dealers who knew my mother. I am thinking that it is very likely that it would take a dealer to obtain these forgeries. There were others, you see. My father refers to a scheme of flogging frauds. Plural.”

  “It will be difficult to identify who it is, no matter what names you have.”

  “I will find a way. However, I was not thinking about that. It is Arditi himself who occupies me. I am not sure I believe him.”

  “You traveled to Pompeii to seek an expert’s opinion. You received one from the best expert in the world. Now you do not believe him?”

  “It disturbed him to see that cameo. He has excellent reason to lie. If items are being stolen, he is responsible. It is very much in his interests to claim none have gone missing in the last twenty years, at least.”

  She had sought evidence with determination, but now she was rejecting it. He did not know if it was because she needed the cameo to have value, or if she did not want to accept Artemis had been played for a fool. “Phaedra, I hope you will not be so foolish as to accuse Arditi of that.”

  “I do not care to accuse anyone. I seek the truth for my own purposes.”

  He wondered if she truly understood what her own purpose was. “What if your seeking reveals your suspicions? It does not take an accusation to slander a man’s good name. Whispers alone can do it.”

  She gazed at the remains of her ice, melting rapidly into creamy pools. He hated that she looked for all the world like a wife who had been chastised and who now hid her thoughts.

  One thought was not veiled. It moistened her eyes when she raised her gaze to him. Not yet. We have time still. A little time before we talk about truths and whispers and a man’s good name.

  Her sadness moved him. He regretted his words. He wished they could wait an eternity before again talking about such things.

  “I apologize, Phaedra. Let us avoid old arguments and new ones while we can. The Italian sun may be making me free and mad, but I do not want to block its light sooner than necessary. Shall I tell you what it was that Arditi said you could not see today?”

  She accepted the peace offering. A naughty smile obliterated her sorrow. “I can imagine. I have seen the restricted part of the royal collection, after all.”

  “I wonder if the collection in Naples can match the frescoes still on the walls in Pompeii. I found the creativity of these paintings most impressive. I do not think that a mere description can do them justice.”

  “See? That is why it is so unfair that women are excluded. We are not children. Men want to believe we will be shocked and scandalized, but we rarely are. Don’t you agree I should have been allowed to go too?”

  Hardly. He stood and offered his hand. “The injustice was appalling. Words would not do the frescoes justice, but perhaps a demonstration would satisfy your curiosity.”

  She did not hesitate. No one else would notice the anticipation in her eyes but he did. He always had. Her honest desire increased his own. In possessing her he became possessed.

  He brought her to his chamber, not hers. It lacked the simplicity of their recent rooms in both size and furnishings. They moved inexorably back to his normal life even in the surfaces and materials that surrounded them.

  He did not care about that or anything except his hunger for her. They had avoided an argument at dinner. It would come soon, however. So would disagreements about the desire itself—its future and meaning, his rights and her freedom. He still did not have a name for what they shared, and he did not expect her to accept any of the captions that he might choose.

  He locked the door behind them. He lit the candelabras. Phaedra watched. Just her gaze made him harder. She appeared very self-possessed tonight, much as she had when he first visited her apartment in Naples. He was not the only one whose old self had reawoken.

  That goaded the new impulses that she had revealed in him. The ones that wanted to brand her and hold her and own her. She appeared too worldly and independent in her desire right now. That old challenge poured off her. You want me, but this will only happen because I allow it.

  Which meant that someday, maybe soon, she would not allow it.

  He was past being rational by the time he lit the last candle. She waited, ready to share pleasure. To give whatever she wanted to give of her body and soul, and to withhold whatever she so chose.

  He found the notion of the withholding intolerable. That would all come soon enough.

  Mine. Tonight at least. For now, completely mine.

  Phaedra asked Elliot to help her unhook the blue dress. They had locked out the servants and this normal garment had the normal inconveniences.

  She thought he would undres
s her further. Instead he left her and walked away. She glanced at him while she slipped off the dress and bent to roll down her hose. He shed his own clothes calmly.

  It was different tonight. He was different. Not in a bad way. Just different. Perhaps his aura reflected his expectations. She had promised the unknown in agreeing to demonstrations of the erotic images at Pompeii. That might have been foolish, since she was not certain what those images had shown.

  The difference distracted her. She watched him discard his shirt and strip off his garments. The heat of his arousal burned in his eyes, but other fires flamed deeply in them too. This man did not look drunk when he was aroused. Instead passion made him appear dangerous.

  Dangerous enough tonight that she might be afraid if she did not know him so well. An intuitive fear fluttered anyway, that of weakness facing power. She recognized it for what it was. More ancient than the ruins that they visited, it survived from times unknown, when there were no cities and no civilization, when these acts they prepared for carried implications that still echoed.

  He finished undressing first. She thought he would help her then. Instead he merely watched. She tried to be more deliberate in her purpose, but his gaze actually flustered her. She could not stop looking over to where he stood a good fifteen paces away, so confident in his naked power.

  She finally peeled off her chemise. For the first time with him, her own nakedness made her feel shy. She faced him and waited for him to walk over and embrace her.

  He looked longer. Not at her body, but in her eyes. His own were unfathomable, hot and hard, with too many facets for her to see them all. Yes, if she did not know him better, she might heed the flutters of caution. Instead they only became rapid tiny licks at her excitement.

  “Get on the bed, Phaedra.”

  Her pride frowned at the command. Her body trembled. He was playing the master fairly blatantly tonight. Of course, that was how it would be in the frescoes he had seen. Still…

  “I see that there will be no seduction or ceremony,” she said, to try to lighten the mood.

  He did not respond to that.

  She climbed onto the bed. He came over and she waited for him to lie in her arms. She expected it would be fast and hard tonight. It would be one of those joinings where their pleasure verged on violence in its fury. She would not mind that. Anticipation already teased her without mercy. She already ached for him to fill her.

  He did not lie with her. He did not even kiss her. He grasped her ankles and swung her body so she reclined sideways.

  The movement surprised her.

  “Is it more like a Roman couch this way?” she asked.

  “I think we will wait on those demonstrations.”

  “I trust we will not wait too long.”

  It was a mistake to say that. She knew it at once. Dark humor looked back at her from within the heat and hardness. “Be careful what you demand. The frescoes showed men with whores.”

  “I will not misunderstand. I know that you do not see me that way.” Nor had she referred to the demonstrations at all. She was impatient for him no matter how it would be. He had aroused and seduced her without so much as a caress.

  “Would that I did see you that way. I would have more contentment in the weeks ahead, I think. I would never want to lock a whore away so no man can see her but me. I would never want to devour such a woman.”

  He gave voice to the difference that she sensed tonight. His frankness astonished her. It had always been there, his impulse to possess, but he usually defeated that demon.

  He separated her legs and knelt between them. He hovered tall, looking down, and watched his fingertips slowly gloss over her body. The gossamer caress shimmered through her in a sweet tremble that made her clench her teeth.

  Again that feather of arousal, only now on her thigh. She closed her eyes to what it did to her, and to the evidence of how profoundly he could affect her with such a small touch.

  Another light softness. Warmer now. He kissed her thigh near her knee, then higher on its inner flesh. He bent her knees so his mouth and hands had better purchase.

  She looked down her body at how he made love to her. He treated her legs like something beautiful that he adored. Like precious possessions.

  The pleasure awed her. Unhinged her. All of her reacted, but especially the hot vacancy so close to those kisses. She throbbed there in need and increasing frustration. She felt the damp seeping out of her, forming on the bedclothes.

  He caressed to the very top of her thigh, then gently pressed his palm over her mound. She clenched her teeth to contain the wonderful relief. A groan snuck out anyway.

  He kept his hand there, pressing against her vulva, causing a delicious agony. His breath and kisses still feathered at her thighs.

  His hand moved, touching more specifically. Her breath caught at the intensity of the sensations he created.

  He kissed closer. “You will not stop me.”

  She understood what he meant. She had heard of such intimacies. She knew because her essence begged him to do it. He had not requested. His words had been a command.

  She was beyond shock. Beyond judgment. She did not stop him. She did not want to. His caresses prepared her, then his tongue devastated her. She cried and thrashed in a search for relief. She screamed into the oblivion when the explosion came.

  The bed moved. No, she did. He entered her, so hard and hot and complete that she wanted to say a prayer of thanks. She emerged from the mist to see him standing beside the bed. He held her thighs around his hips. His taut expression promised the fury still to come.

  “Say that you are mine tonight, Phaedra.”

  She almost did. It was only a lover’s petition, one born of the pleasure. Her promise would end with the dawn. It should not really mean anything.

  Except that it did. The heat in his eyes and the firmness in his tone told her that he was serious. His kisses and touches had always aimed to control more than her body. The difference in him tonight now had a name.

  He understood that she would not say it. He did not ask again. He claimed her anyway, and he made sure that she could see him while he did.

  Phaedra read a book by the light of the candelabra beside Elliot’s bed. She looked up from the pages to admire the man she waited for. He sat at a large desk that he had charmed out of the owner of this elegant guesthouse.

  He did not appear to remember that she was in the chamber. He flipped through sheaves of paper and jotted lengthy notes.

  They had been in Portici a week. By day Elliot returned to Pompeii while she played the indolent mistress. His visits to the ancient city had revitalized the historian in him. He and Nicola d’Apuzzo had formed a friendship and twice now the director had joined them for dinner. Other long evenings were spent like this, with Elliot’s mind pouring its thoughts onto paper.

  He did not seem in any hurry to return to Naples. She wondered if that was because his research and writing were going so well. If her own time lacked such serious purpose, she did not mind too much. She could not ignore, however, that although she managed to occupy herself, her activities were merely ways to fill time while she waited as she did now.

  His profile looked almost too perfect with its regular features, but undeniably masculine. This was no pretty, poetic face like those so favored in London society. His expression bore the subtle hardness that both concentration and passion emphasized. The eye she could see reflected depths that hinted at the intensity of his mind’s deliberations, ones on which Phaedra Blair did not intrude.

  He appeared slightly unkempt the way he always did when he had been at this awhile. His shirt gaped open and his hair was mussed from his unconscious habit of combing it back with his fingers. Inevitably a strand would rebel and fall over his brow in a thick arc, inviting that gesture again.

  She had woken the first night in Portici to see him sitting at the washstand. He had removed the bowl to clear the surface and set out his pen and ink. She realized at
once that he had entered a place of isolation and that her intrusion would not be welcome. It might not even be possible.

  So she had waited, as she did now, for him to emerge and rejoin her. Dawn might come before he did.

  She waited for other things, however, with both foreboding and impatience. Mostly she waited for one of them to speak the words that would send them back to Naples. His progress on his book was reason enough for him to delay. When such a current of inspiration comes to a writer he would be foolish to dam the river.

  She was the one with no excuse to linger here. Except for him, of course. Waiting for him. Wallowing in the excitement and the pleasure, drinking her fill. The waiting itself was too reminiscent of the wifely existence that she had repudiated. The warmth of his body and the strength of his embrace always made her forget to care about that when the waiting ended.

  She began to forget now. She recognized the few blinks that woke him to the rest of the world. His posture relaxed. He leaned back in the chair, the feather of his pen toying at his chin. One more thought, one more jot, and he laid the pen down.

  His head turned. The thick strand fell rakishly over his brow. “You are awake.” He rose and walked over to the bed.

  She had been awake for over an hour. “Do not stop your writing on my account.”

  “I am finished for now.”

  “It is going well?”

  “Surprisingly so. I did not expect to do more than make some notes here, but instead I have written two chapters.”

  “The setting inspires you. Did you not anticipate that?”

  “I anticipated that the setting’s inspiration could not compete with the lady I desired. I had begun to wonder if I would ever be able to complete this book.”

  She weighed the flattery, and lack thereof, of his guileless comment. “Well, having desire satisfied does have a way of dulling the fascination. I was supposed to make you work harder to catch me, wasn’t I?”

  “I am grateful you did not. Do you wish that you had?”

  Did she? That was not a game that she believed in playing. She would not want to keep him from his writing and his book. Yet she could not deny that this week they had become almost too comfortable together.