“Sounds heavenly,” she replied with her own smile. She had missed the way the French made eating an experience for all the senses. She was looking forward to seeing Arlo Kenworthy savoring the dishes.
“I’m sure everything will be delectable.” The heat in his eyes made Marena wonder if Arlo was referring to the meal, or other things he’d already sampled this evening.
Within seconds they each had a glass of champagne, accompanied by a small mother-of-pearl spoon laden with caviar and topped with crème fraîche. After that, they were left alone, with the promise of returning shortly with the first course.
Marena wanted to say something silly or droll about the caviar, or Monsieur Benoit’s mustache, but Arlo’s mood seemed to have shifted, his expression more serious now. Marena found she desperately wanted the smile that had been appearing constantly on his lips to return.
“You brought your spectacles.”
“I brought my spectacles so I could read the menu. Everything looks so delicious,” she said, pointing at his menu.
Arlo looked at the card on his plate with disinterest and returned his focus to her. Marena was no stranger to stares or close examinations. Being the child of a Black woman and a white man seemed to be a source of endless fascination and scrutiny for Londoners. She’d learned to ignore it, dismissing it as ignorance for which she had no time. But that was not how Arlo looked at her.
Arlo’s eyes caressed her, like he could see right through her clothes and find all the places that warmed to his attention. He shifted in his seat, his back pushed against the chair, as he distractedly ran his index finger over the stem of the champagne coupe. With every passing second the beating of her heart increased until she felt a thrumming at her temples, and still the man would not speak. Finally, after taking another sip of wine and licking his lips in that way that made liquid heat gather low in her belly, he opened his mouth.
“I’m looking forward to feasting on you, darling. I’d take you right here if you’d let me,” he said darkly, voice like gravel scraping across her over-sensitized skin. Her hands tingled and her breath quickened until she had to hold the sides of her chair to keep from listing. “I should’ve tried harder to skip dinner, because right now all I want to do is put my mouth on the places I didn’t get to yet.”
“I appreciate your candor.” She kept her gaze locked with his as she leaned forward, enough to flaunt a bit of the attributes on which he was so riveted. “And I look forward to once again seeing you apply yourself to such a worthy task.”
He shifted in his chair, predatory blue eyes on her, but before he could ravage her on the spot, Benoit and his assistants marched in with the first course.
Chapter Eight
Dinner had been exquisite torture. Arlo’s upbringing at the hands of a loving but practical woman had taught him to harness impatience and relish anticipation. Beatrice would always remind him that waiting meant a deeper satisfaction when the thing he desired was finally his. And for most of his life, he’d considered his composure one of his most valued attributes. He could keep a cool head and a steady hand in almost any situation. It had served him well a decade earlier, when his father’s poor judgment had put the substantial holdings of the duchy in dire straits, and had required Arlo—with the help of his grandmother—to bring them back from the precipice of financial ruin.
It had also been a valuable skill in the past year when he tried to appeal to the peerage to pass bills that expanded rights for and improved the living conditions of women, children, and the poor. Arlo could wait anyone out. He’d seen far more dignified men than he work themselves into a frenzy while he remained calm and collected. But that was before he, the man known to the peerage as “that unflappable stone-cold bastard,” had to sit through a full hour of Marena Baine-Torres licking her lips and moaning in ecstasy as she made swift work of three courses of the best gastronomic offerings in Paris.
“You never told me how you became involved in women’s suffrage.” Her voice was redolent with the smile that had been on her lips through the meal, and it blessedly pulled him out of his fevered thoughts. Arlo was not a fanciful man, but something possessive and not a little primal pulsed in him with the need to keep this woman glowing. The thrill he felt from knowing he’d been the one to do this for her, to feed her, fill her senses with things that delighted her, was a revelation. And now she was looking at him like she wanted to know him, the distant, wary woman of mere days ago replaced by a whirlwind of curls and bright smiles.
Arlo usually kept his past, his true self, close to his chest. He’d learned early on that being the Duke of Linley could erase who he was completely. So he kept the two Arlos separate. The grandson of Beatrice Brooks, and son of Clarice, only appeared for those who had known him before the move to Linley house. That Arlo needed to be hidden from the world into which he had been thrust, lest the peerage recall he was not one of them.
Not because he was afraid of losing his title; if there was something aristocrats were good at, it was making sure their kind could do and say what they wanted with absolute impunity. His fear was that he’d gotten so good at wearing that mask, he wasn’t sure he could take it off. But for the past day he’d been letting her see him. It felt like he was finding his way back to a place from which he’d strayed, and to which he yearned to go back.
“My grandmother grew up in a Quaker family.” She nodded as if that meant something to her and leaned in slightly. “Her parents were abolitionists and believed in the equality of the genders and races. They were wealthy, owned the biggest newspaper in Boston, and they put money into the cause.” Arlo never had many reasons to feel proud of his family’s legacy, especially when it came to his father, but he was proud of this.
“That’s—” Marena paused, lifting her gaze to the ceiling for a moment as if searching for the right word. When she looked at him again, her eyes were bright in a way he had not seen before. Curiosity perhaps, but Arlo hoped it was more than that. “Your mother’s family sounds very unusual.”
“If you mean unusually aware of the world for a lot of rich tossers, you’re right.” He smiled at her horrified expression. “Those are my grandmother’s words. She never misses a chance to remind me that the least we can do is work to uplift others when we have been handed so much. Even as a child, she was vexed with the ability of the wealthy to ignore their hand in the plight of everyone else. That’s partly why she never went back to America. She arrived in England with the plan to take me back to New York with her, but then decided she could do more here,” he explained. “When my grandfather died, he left her a very wealthy woman, but it was 1850 and slavery was still a fiercely protected institution. She stayed and continued to support efforts there, helping advocates for the cause visit England and gain supporters. My father was always away.” He shrugged, noticing that the ever-present sting of his father’s abandonment, felt somehow less acute tonight. “I spent my formative years sitting with some of the most brilliant free thinkers of Britain and America. By the time my father fell into this dukedom, I had already been steeped deeply in my grandmother’s beliefs.”