She went on. “Even in the privacy of one’s home, there is always some responsibility, some new trouble. The maid has given notice or the drains are bad or the neighbors are unquiet. Where may a person refresh themselves? Give themselves up to the sheer joy of being cared for?”
“That is what you think this place is about?” I inquired. “Caring for the clients?”
“Guests,” she corrected gently. “But of course it is! Here they are treated with all the love and tenderness of a favorite nursemaid. When they are hungry, they are fed, exquisite foods that are beautifully cooked. When they are tired, they repose themselves in the softest beds. There is music for the ear and the finest wines for the palate. Everything is done to gratify the senses.”
“And when a guest wants more than a nice nap and a blancmange?” I asked.
“They are given what they desire. It is like being a child again and visiting your grandmama’s house, where you are indulged in every whim. Only here, the whims are not so childish,” she said with a meaningful gleam in her eye. It was the first real glimpse she had given me of a sense of humor, a lightness I found relatable.
“I had not considered it in that light,” I told her. “But it makes a sort of sense.”
She smiled. “I wish only to bring joy, mademoiselle. To help bring light and glamour and pleasure to people’s lives. Such as you and your paramour.”
I stuffed the last of the chocolate bun into my mouth and said nothing. At my feet, Vespertine had begun to snore, a gentle, rhythmic sound that was oddly soothing.
She gave me a reproachful look. “You think I have overstepped myself, but why should women have secrets among friends?”
“And we are friends?” I asked. “You do not even know my name.” I paused deliberately, wondering if she would betray knowing my identity.
But if she did, she was more careful than her page. She merely smiled again. “I know your heart, mademoiselle. That is sufficient.”
I sipped at my champagne before making a reply. “What do you know of my heart?”
“I know that you wish to give yourself fully to your companion but you are afraid.”
There was challenge in her voice, but I could not deny what she said.
“Perhaps,” I said slowly.
She made a dismissive gesture. “Let us be frank! You and this man are all but lovers. You move towards each other and back again, never quite succumbing to your passions.”
“How can you tell?”
“Seduction has been my life’s work, mademoiselle. I know how a man looks at a woman when he has had her. And I know how a man looks when he is suffering for want of her.”
For reasons I would never understand, I blurted out the truth just then to this woman I hardly knew. “I wonder if we have missed our opportunity.”
She nodded, her eyes warm with sympathy. “I know what you mean. It is not good to wait. When you know what you want, you must move towards the culmination, but carefully,” she warned. “These things must be done with delicacy, with grace. But there cannot be delay. A man will lose his nerve, and if his nerve is gone . . .” Her voice trailed off and she turned down the corners of her mouth.
“Yes, well. One would hate to see him lose his . . . nerve . . . as it were,” I agreed.
She leant forward, her expression serious. “The time is ripe, my dear. You must not permit further delays to wreak the havoc upon your amoureux.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“I suggest that you choose one of my private rooms, now, quickly. Before you succumb to doubts. A lovely woman has no need to perform, to seduce. She has only to offer herself,” she counseled.
“And if he puts me off?”
“Then you must play the bull! You must seize him and be the dominant one.”
I considered this. My attraction to Stoker was a complicated thing, not least because of the complexity of the man himself. His muscular masculinity concealed a gentle heart that throbbed to a poet’s rhythm. He was sentimental, tender even, where I was pragmatic and logical. In spite of his prodigious scientist’s brain, he was the most delightfully romantic soul I had ever known. Music could rouse him to passion or pity, and a few lines of Keats were as necessary as bread to him.
In contrast, my own emotions had so often to be buttoned and corseted and strapped into place, I hardly knew how to let them off the leading rein at times, preferring the tidy taxonomies of my work and robustly unsentimental couplings to unfettered feelings. It was not surprising that I was won over by a soul so different to my own in its expression and depth of affection.
But it was not his soul that kept me awake at nights, not his tenderness that drove me to chilly cold-water baths and vigorous exercise. No matter what I tried, there was a clamor in the blood that would not be quieted. Too often I had glimpsed that gorgeously developed physique, sculpted by the hand of Nature to perfectly suit my taste, I had no doubt. Every inch of him was firmly muscled and sleek, his thighs and shoulders beautifully molded, his flanks . . .
I dragged my thoughts away from Stoker’s flanks with a great deal of effort and even more regret. There was no help for it. I desired him in every sense of the word, and it was his masculinity, so pronounced and defined, so opposite my own form, that enchanted me. And the power of that masculinity was no small part of its attraction. Stoker offered the delicious paradox of a man who could easily force submission but would never attempt it. With him, I could surrender every bit of the control I had fought so hard to achieve. I could unbuckle the clasps, unbind the ties; I could simply be. And that notion was the most seductive of all. So Madame Aurore’s idea that the best way to resolve the situation was to play the aggressor was unsettling. I had my doubts it would work with Stoker—he could be maddeningly stubborn when he chose. And if it did work, did I even want him on those terms?
“You have given me much to think on,” I told her. “Thank you.”
She shrugged. “Of course.”
I dragged my thoughts back to the reason for our visit to the club. My gaze fell to the diamonds scattered over her gown. “Your stars are very beautiful,” I told her in a casual tone. “I have been admiring them.”
She dimpled at me. “Gifts. From my generous admirers.”
“They are all so similar, I wonder how you can tell them apart,” I ventured, hoping she would invite me to look more closely at them.
But she merely smiled her inscrutable cat’s smile. “Believe me, mademoiselle, I know them, each and every one. Of course,” she went on, “I cannot wear them all at one time. There are too many of them. I wear only a few tonight, and all of these are from an American gentleman I knew long ago.” I remembered what Tiberius had told us about her American millionaire and felt a rush of satisfaction. The prince’s Garrard star was not on display.