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meant, sir, was to entice me into your lair, to get me into your power so that you could…you could…”
    “So that I could…?” He grinned wickedly at her.
    “Oh, you are a wretch, Benn. You know perfectly well what I mean. You simply wish to put me to the blush.” She put her hands to her hot cheeks.
    While what she said was perfectly true, she was completely ignoring the most obviously improper aspect of this strange tête-à-tête that Ben was wearing nothing but a thin folded sheet, tied around his middle. He ought to ask her to leave so that he could make himself decent, but after that mind-shattering kiss, he was quite incapable of letting her go. If she could treat a nearly naked man as if she were meeting him in a drawing room, who was he to object?
    “I apologize, Suzanne. I shall now attempt to make amends by changing the subject. Tell me about your silk store. I presume that is where this door leads? I did try it several times, but it was always locked.”
    “Of course. It would have been improper to have it otherwise, since there is another door on the far side which leads straight into my bedchamber.” She pulled the door wide. “See?”
    The silk store was a dark, narrow room, little more than a wide corridor. Immediately opposite the door into Ben’s room was another. It stood wide open, letting in the light from the bedchamber beyond. Ben could see the end of a bed, and a delicate lace-edged nightgown lying across it. He tried not to imagine how Suzanne would look when she was wearing it, but it was all too real. The fabric was as thin as gauze.
    Goaded, Ben marched smartly into the store and pulled Suzanne’s door closed. He was suffering enough temptation already, with Suzanne standing beside him, fully clothed.
    When he returned to his room, she was frowning at him. “I thought you were interested in our silk.”
    “I was. I am. But with my door open, there is more than enough light. Will you show me the wonders you have created? I would welcome a chance to admire your skill before I leave Lyons.”
    Her expression froze for a second, but then she smiled brightly at him. “It will be my pleasure,” she said in a rather brittle voice. “Though some of the work is Marguerite’s, not mine.”
    Ben stood back to let Suzanne precede him into the silk store. Her walk was unconsciously alluring. He found he could not take his eyes from the seductive sway of her hips. The folds of her light muslin skirt were opening and closing with a hypnotic rhythm, like an oyster responding to the ebb and flow of incoming waves. This oyster concealed a pearl, for she was a pearl of a girl. She should be gowned in silk and lace, not workaday muslin, he decided. Her lustrous beauty should shine against a backdrop of the finest fabrics.
    He followed her into the depths of the silk store. In seconds, he found he was shivering.
    She turned at that moment. “Oh, how stupid of me,” she exclaimed. “It is cold in here and you have nothing to keep off the chill.” She looked round the storeroom, but there were neither blankets nor shawls, only the finest silk and velvet. She allowed a tiny smile to tug at the corner of her mouth as she reached for a bolt of dark blue velvet. With a practiced flick of the wrist, she unrolled the sumptuous cloth. “That will do, I fancy. Light as a feather, and warm enough. Also delicate enough to ensure that no weight will fall on your poor wounded shoulder,” she added, with a note of sarcasm in her voice.
    Without giving Ben a chance to object, she slipped behind him and draped the velvet around his body like a cloak.
    She was right. The velvet slithered across his skin like a caress, yet it weighed no more than gossamer. But it was much too beautiful for a man to wear, especially a man hung with coarse bandages.
    Suzanne stepped round in front of Ben to assess the effect. “You should have a lighter blue, I think.” She cocked her head to one side. “Something closer to the