Free Nicole Jordan by The Prince of Pleasure

sagely, but another gentleman contradicted him, suggesting that the Corsican’s overthrow would take years longer—which began a fierce argument.
    Across the crowded salon, Julienne caught the eye of the hostess, Madame Brogard. The Frenchwoman was one of her few London acquaintances whom she knew well enough to call friend, but Solange was closer to her late mother’s age than her own.
    Adele and Solange had been neighbors in their youth and had escaped the Terror at nearly the same time, but Solange had come to London fortified by the Brogard jewels and had soon established a salon where émigrés and bluestockings and poets gathered for clever conversation and exquisite food, both more satisfying to French palates than the stodgy prattle and bland fare most of the English thrived upon. Often the conversation was literary in nature, but today it was all political talk of the war and the new treaty and the chances for Napoleon’s defeat.
    Julienne accepted a glass of sherry from a footman and slowly moved through the crowd, smiling and conversing and flirting effortlessly. She was expected to be gay and dazzling and witty, even if her spirits had plunged so low they were more suited to a walking corpse.
    At least forcing herself into company served to keep her emotional tumult and heartache at bay. She had been a fool to let Dare make love to her again, for it brought back such painful memories of what she had lost. Worse, she had taken no precautions against pregnancy. Seven years ago, she hadn’t known how, but she couldn’t claim that excuse now. It had been criminal to risk conceiving Dare’s child. What a disaster that would be!
    Over the past four days, she’d had abundant time to reflect on his motives for pursuing her. She could draw only one conclusion: Dare North hated her and was bent on exacting his pound of flesh.
    The knowledge set a hollow pain churning inside her. It wasn’t hate that Dare woke in her but hunger. Being with him again had left her shaken with the realization of her own need and stirred to life the fervent yearnings she had thought long-buried.
    She had meant merely to defend herself that night, and perhaps give him a taste of his own medicine—to torment him a little as he was set on doing to her. But her plan had gone drastically awry the moment he touched her. Her reserve had melted under the heat of his passion, along with any notions of resisting him.
    What an utter fool you are,
Julienne swore at herself for the thousandth time. She should have been so much stronger.
    Since that evening, she had made certain all their encounters were public. She had to concede, however, that Dare had won the first points in the game he had initiated.
    He had appeared at the theater nightly to watch her, and once he’d distracted her so badly that she forgot a crucial line. When Dare called down to her on-stage, prompting her, much to the titillation of the audience and the ire of Edmund Kean, Julienne inwardly gritted her teeth while giving him a deep curtsy to acknowledge the hit. Later, upon taking her bows, she had commended Dare on his thespian talents.
    “If you will permit me, my lord,” she had suggested sweetly, “I shall arrange an audition for you with the theater manager, Mr. Arnold. No doubt you could enjoy a splendid career treading the boards.”
    Her offer had made both him and the spectators laugh.
    She was forced to maintain the spirit of the game, for the crowds were coming to watch the byplay between them as much as the theatrical drama. But Julienne determinedly avoided any more private meetings with Dare. When she went out, she deliberately surrounded herself with her beaux. The rest of her time she focused on her grueling schedule of work—her nightly performances and rehearsing the lines of the next play.
    Still, that left too many hours to think of Dare as she tossed and turned in her solitary bed each night. She couldn’t let his planned vengeance go any further.