Judith Ivory by Angel In a Red Dress Page A

Christina said her name differently. “Christina, stand up,” Adrien whispered. “I can’t get to the back of your dress.” He was lifting her to her feet.
    It was like coming up out of a drugged stupor. The air on Christina’s face—on her bare shoulders and bosom—felt cold. Reality washed over her. And suddenly, she couldn’t look at the man in front of her.
    “Come on. Turn around,” he whispered.
    She did so, clutching the top of her dress.
    He lifted her hair and draped it over her shoulder. His hands nimbly took hold of the back of her dress. The fastenings began to close, a precise movement at her waist moving upward. “Tonight,” he spoke near her ear as he worked. “I have to speak to the doctor about Miss Chiswell’s arm, then I have to get her home. But she doesn’t live far. I’ll be back by nine—”
    “No—” The word was physically difficult to get out;as if she had lost the power to express her own will. “No,” Christina reaffirmed. “I—I think we’d best leave things where they are—”
    “I won’t be late—”
    “No.” She turned, letting her dress remain incompletely fastened. She needed to stop the delicate touch of his hands, needed to move him away from her. She took his fingers in hers and pushed him back. In the distance, Evangeline could be heard, splashing in the fountain, calling in the wrong direction. Christina wanted to get through this as quickly as she could. “I’ve done a horrible thing, I know, letting you believe—”
    “You’re done nothing horrible—”
    “I’ve let you believe I would”—she could think of no nice way to say it—“that I would be”—a pause—“available to you.” God, what an awful way to put it. She bowed her head.
    But his fingers took her jaw and brought her face up to look at him squarely. She glimpsed the angry tilt of his head, the querying brow that was trying to imagine any other explanation. “Available?” he asked.
    “Don’t make me explain. I don’t understand it myself. But you mustn’t touch me—”
    His frown deepened. “Why?”
    She became aware of a ring on his finger, the hardness of gold and stones pressing into the bone of her chin. She lowered her eyes. “Because there is a woman upstairs with a broken arm.”
    “I didn’t break it.”
    “Not her arm.”
    “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
    “And there was a woman before that.”
    “You want to be the only one?”
    “No—” she stammered. Is that what she wanted? “No.”
    Evangeline had at last found the right path. Leaves rustled. Footsteps tapped along the stones in their direction. While the two of them stood there facing each other.
    He let her lower her face. “What do you expect from me, Christina? Love? I don’t know you well enough to love you. I only know what I feel at the moment. I’m fascinated by you.”
    “Like a cat in heat.”
    He let out a breath. “Christina, you knew what I was when you came back here with me. In fact, I think that was part of the attraction—”
    “All right,” she snapped. “I was curious. It was wrong of me, but I was. I’m very sorry—”
    “I want to sleep with you.”
    Her eyes flashed up at him. “Well, we don’t all get what we want.”
    His jaw tightened. He drew himself up. And Christina experienced a moment of regret. She tried to mitigate the brutality of her remark.
    “Honestly,” she offered, “I would have no idea how to go about having an affair with a man like you. I would make a mess of it, saying, wanting all the wrong things—”
    But his eyes had frosted completely.
    And the next moment, there was a tap at one of the windows.
    “Am I disturbing something?” Evangeline was coming around to the door.
    She opened it, stepped in. She smiled a quizzical, almost mischievous smile. “There you are, Christina. I’m so sorry. John-John threw up this morning and there was no getting away from the house until he was quieted down—oh dear—” She looked