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enchanted, he thought, his heart still pounding as he lounged against the pillows. Defining his feelings was disturbing, as he’d always assumed once he’d had carnal knowledge of the elusive English countess, he would be able to walk away as he had from so many other women.
    Somehow, he was not sure that was possible this time.
     

     
    Holding up the crimson satin, the modiste smiled with a cat in the cream expression on her face, her small eyes narrowed and delighted.
    “This, with the darkness of madame’s beautiful hair, will make him go mad for her.”
    Anton was amorous enough as it was, Lara thought with jaded cynicism, but saying so would do nothing but fuel the already rampant rumors flying around the elite social circles of the city. “I do not wear red,” she murmured instead. “Give me the cream silk, and the blue brocade.”
    “And new lingerie, yes?” Disappointed, but still trying, Madame Dupont suggested hopefully, “Perhaps something so sheer, you will look like an angel, barely veiled, come to this earth just to tempt the hot-blooded Roussel, yes?”
     
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    Emma Wildes
    “Madame, I am ordering the gowns and paying for them myself.”
    Patient and polite, Lara smiled to take the edge out of her words.
    “Whether The Comte de Roussel will like what I select is not the issue. Please, just the two gowns for now, and slippers and stockings to match. I also need a new chemise, something in Belgian lace, if you would oblige me.”
    Unfazed by the rebuff, the woman shook her head. “The comte sent word to me himself. He will be paying your bills from now on, and you have his carte blanche to order whatever you desire, Countess. So, perhaps the red, with the bodice cut so,”—she drew a scandalously low line across her own ample bosom—“just for him.
    You need not wear it in public, but perhaps on those evenings you dine in and desire an intimate encounter with your oh-so handsome lover, you could thus display your bountiful charms. He will not be able to take a bite of his food if he should so see you.”
    Incensed that Anton would do such a thing as actually contact the most popular seamstress in Paris and announce he was essentially keeping her, Lara could hardly speak for a moment. Used to complete independence and a reputation for virtue, it was mortifying to realize her personal life was being discussed so freely. Standing there in her stockings and a thin, lacy shift, she wished she could simply turn on her heel and leave the room, but that didn’t seem possible halfdressed as she was.
    Oblivious to her distress, Madame Dupont bustled across the room. Perpetually harassed and always untidy, she nevertheless was patronized by every woman of consequence in Paris. Retrieving pins and more tape, she turned, beaming. “Leave everything to me, Countess, I promise you a wardrobe that will make his knees weak.
    The virile comte is a man of exquisite taste. Let us indulge him, shall we? You are so beautiful together, I am told, you so fair…he so sublime…”
    “Madame,” Lara began in a strangled voice, then stopped, remembering that just that morning she had received a very discreet
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    note saying that Leon Medes had been taken to a hasty trial and easily convicted. Perhaps, even if it was a little humiliating for everyone to know Anton had bedded her, it was best to seem the compliant mistress. He had promised to protect her.
    God help her, maybe she did need him.
    “Whatever you think,” Lara murmured without inflection. “I guess if you feel he would like the red, I’ll take it. And the lingerie, too, of course, if it would be pleasing to him.”
    Madame Dupont gave a delighted cackle. “Excellent.”
     

     
    It was most certainly like being in a duel, the riposte and thrust similar but in this case, only verbal. He’d been in the stuffy, little office for twenty minutes, trying to get around to the question that was impossible to ask outright. Anton leaned back