Free Time for Eternity by Susan Squires

was a threat was obvious. It wasn’t that. All of this seemed … familiar somehow. That strange sensation of déjà vu one got sometimes usually lasted only for an instant. But she just couldn’t shake the feeling that she knew this man and she’d done all this before.
    And that it hadn’t turned out well.
    He glanced up at her entrance. He blinked once, twice. “Well, that is an improvement.”
    She blushed. How could she? She had to appear strong, not naïve and vulnerable. “Anything would have been an improvement.”
    Another footman joined Jean to take the covers from the dishes on the sideboard.
    “I hope you don’t mind an informal dinner. I like to dispense with servants whenever possible. ” He was looking at her quite strangely, no doubt comparing her unfavorably with the last wearer of this marvelous dress.
    She set her teeth. Be polite. Get him talking. “I trespass on your hospitality. However you choose to be served can only please.”
    He looked faintly … pained. Well, perhaps that had struck a false note. “Oh, very well. I actually like informality.” She breathed and smiled. “It was one of the nicest things about living with Madame LaFleur. She treated me quite like a friend. Cook and her girl and Robert were our only servants. So we often dined informally. I find it comfortable.” Liar. How could one be comfortable with an attractive devil like Avignon ready to steal your soul?
    Now who was being dramatic? Stealing souls. These thoughts seemed entirely foreign.
    He kept his own counsel, but the pained look had been replaced by one of … speculation. The footmen took away the covers after pouring white wine in two glasses and red in two others, and leaving the decanters. The duc picked up a plate and began putting tidbits on it. She picked up another.
    He frowned at her, took her plate, and set it back down. “Allow me,” he said firmly.
    He was going to serve her? How odd for a wicked duc. He didn’t ask what she’d like to eat, but chose for her. That seemed entirely in character. The sideboard held platters of oysters on the half shell with mignonette vinegar, chicken Dijon, beefsteak, a ragout of sweetbreads, spinach in a cream sauce, haricots verts, a platter of buttered lobster tails among a dozen others—the largesse was embarrassing. She hadn’t seen so much food in one place for several years. And there was a whole shallow dish full of salt.
    “You … you set a fine table,” she murmured, at a loss for words. Salt was precious these days; taxed by the government until it was too dear for almost all households.
    Her mouth began to water in earnest. This food would have been cooked with salt.
    “Ahhhh, I see you are admiring my little import. One likes to command the elegancies.”
    “Salt. Brandy. Well water. Wherever do you get such luxuries?”
    “Well, the water is easy. I own the system of wells, at least until they are nationalized.”
    Really? That was surprising. Had he bought them, had them dug? “God forbid the wealthy should drink water from the Seine like everyone else.”
    He glanced at her, his eyes unreadable. “Those who pay for it finance wells for those who cannot. The latest is going in upriver, near the slaughterhouses.”
    She bit her lip. “I would not have thought you so generous.”
    “Generous? No. It keeps my wells from being vandalized.”
    She should have known. When her plate was full, he set it on the table and drew out a chair for her. She seated herself. “Thank you.”
    His bare hand brushed her shoulder as she sat back and she felt it through to her bones, as though he had been rubbing his shoes on a carpet. Goose pimples rose on her neck and coursed down one side of her body. She had never felt anything quite like it.
    He walked back to the sideboard, rubbing the hand that had touched her shoulder surreptitiously on his coat. Had he felt the touch as she had? The coat was of a satin, blue so dark it was almost black. He was strongly