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-Cela vous a plu ? demanda-t-il.

- Le souper ? c'était délicieux, merci, répondit-elle d'un ton qui se voulait assuré, espérant qu'il allait se rappeler ses bonnes manières.

- Le baiser.

Elle aurait dû s'en douter...

Elle se rendit compte qu'elle venait de jouer trois fois de suite la même mesure. A force de tournoyer sur eux-mêmes, les danseurs allaient perdre l'équilibre.

Sabrina prit une profonde inspiration.

- Veuillez tournez la page, milord.

De la compassion, songea-t-elle. Les poètes étaient des êtres capricieux de nature, tourmentés par leurs passions.

Le conte s'exécuta, la mine grave, très concentré, mais la jeune femme décela une lueur diabolique dans son regard, ainsi qu'une expression mystérieuse, une sorte de détermination farouche.

Le conte cherchait encore à lui prouver quelque chose.

Sabrina joua consciencieusement chaque note. Une oreille attentive aurait sans doute décelé un peu plus de sentiment dans son jeu. Un spectateur attentif aurait également remarqué ses joues empourprés.

Les danseurs accélérèrent au rythme de la musique.

- On n'est supposé les apprécier, vous savez, murmura Rhys. Je parle des baisers..

Sabrina ressentit alors un sentiment qui ne lui était pas coutumier et qui montait en elle : la colère.

- Pourquoi me tourmentez-vous de la sorte ? siffla-t-elle, les dents serrées.

- Vous devriez ralentir un peu, mademoiselle Fairleigh. Nos danseurs vont tomber comme des mouches. Et vous devriez les entrouvrir légèrement, au début, du moins.

- Entrouvrir quoi ?

- Les lèvres, bien sûr. Quand vous embrassez...

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Extrait offert par Julie Anne Long

(Source : http://www.julieannelong)

Rhys, clever, methodical man that he is, has laid a series of careful traps for Sabrina Fairleigh for days. At last he's lured the practical (or so she thinks) vicar's daugther to his statue gallery using a legend as bait: the statue of Persephone allegedly comes to life when the midnight light of a full moon touches her. But both Rhys and Sabrina are in for a major surprise, and it may or may not actually involve a statue. Read on...

The wind had ceased for the moment to heap more snow up against the house, and the quiet was so sudden and thorough it very nearly had a texture. Moonlight poured in through the soaring arched windows and washed over the rows of statues in the gallery.

Sabrina hesitated on the threshold of the room, and this hesitation, as well as the sharp little curl of anticipation in the pit of her stomach, amused her. She approached the statues almost stealthily, until she was a mere few feet away from Persephone.

But it was another few seconds before she mustered the nerve to lift her candle high enough to illuminate Persephone's face.

Persephone's smooth marble eyes gazed back at her.

For seconds of silence Sabrina watched the statue. Seconds ticked into a minute, then two minutes.

How long minutes are when you're waiting, Sabrina thought idly.

Finally, she grew a bit bored and whimsically decided to rest her candle in Perseus's outstretched hand. She stepped back toward the wall to admire it. It looked as though he was bearing a torch.

"For a moment I thought you were Persephone come to life, Miss Fairleigh."

Sabrina's heart didn't precisely stop, though it most definitely did stutter. And when it leaped forward again it was much more swiftly than before.

Perhaps she hadn't jumped out of her skin because she'd almost expected him.

Still, she didn't dare turn around.

"Forgive me for dashing your hopes." She was proud of her voice, even, cool as marble. The voice a statue would have used, she liked to think. Though her heart was now beating so rapidly she wondered it didn't echo in the gallery.

"Given that I came here hoping to be surprised, and perhaps even…awed… I cannot in all honesty say my hopes have been dashed." Drawled irony in his soft, soft voice.

It washed over her the way the moonlight did. It changed the very room. And her mind knew he was an expert at choosing clever words and imbuing them with innuendo, at all the little things added up to seduction. In this, he'd proven himself an artist, in the way Mr. Brand was an artist, or the way Sophia Licari was an artist.

Oh, yes, her mind knew it. Still, it was not her mind that surged in response to his voice, or set the hair on the back of her neck standing.

And in that moment, she didn't dare speak.

She remained quiet; and now she began to feel the warmth of him behind her, as surely as though he were a fire burning low; she wondered, absurdly, if he was clothed for day or night. Perhaps he wore a dressing gown and a cap, had come creeping down from his chambers dressed for sleep. It would certainly de-fang him, somewhat. She'd seen her father, Vicar Fairleigh, in his dressing gown and cap. She had difficulty imagining that any man so dressed would pose any sort of sensual danger.

And then it occurred to her to wonder what the wan moonlight was doing to her dressing gown, and heat rushed into her cheeks.

She fought a maidenly impulse to pull the shawl more tightly around her shoulders, as she sensed the gesture would amuse him and confirm for him everything he believed about her. For some reason, at the moment, the thought of this was intolerable.

"What…what would you have done if you'd seen her?" She found herself asking instead. She was genuinely curious. "Persephone?"

"Take her to Hades with me at once, of course." He sounded surprised that she needed to ask.

This startled a short laugh from her. "Or to London, at the very least."

"Is there a difference?" He made it sound like a serious question.

"I wouldn't know. Is the entrance to London guarded by a dog with two heads?"

She thought he might laugh.

Instead, it was quiet again. The candle flame snapped upward, tugged by a draft.

"You've never been to London?" He said it softly, but he sounded so thoroughly, genuinely astonished—as if she'd admitted she'd never learned to read, or to eat with a fork, something just that fundamental—that she couldn't resist smiling.

And she finally turned, slowly, to face him.

Which of course required looking up a significant distance.

No dressing gown and whimsical cap. White shirt, open at the throat—it took a moment to get beyond those few open buttons—and those blue eyes fixed upon her.

His expression disconcerted her. He didn't seem inclined to blink, for one thing; his gaze on her face was nearly as steady as the statue's…if considerably more warm. The warmth she could see even by the combined light of moon and candle. But she would also have called it… bemused. It was as if two very different notions were warring inside him, and he was puzzled by at least one of them.

"I've never longed to see London." She heard the prim note in her own voice. Perhaps it was for the best.

He simply continued gazing. She refused to be the first to look away, and so an absurd moment passed during which they merely gazed.

When he spoke, she almost started.

"Miss Fairleigh, do you have a mirror in your chambers?"

"A mirror?" She was puzzled.

He didn't clarify the question for her; he smiled faintly as if at some private joke, and gave his head a slow shake, to and fro. And then absently, almost affectionately, he reached out and gently tugged the ends of her shawl more snugly around her. As though tucking a child into bed.

Just as her own hand had gone up to do the same.

A shock: the backs of his fingers touching hers. His skin against her skin. He was startlingly warm, flame-warm. And this simple touch sent a buzz through her blood and flashed like lightning in her mind, obliterating thought. She went motionless, astonished, and looked up at him, absorbing the sensation. A tide of heat rose toward the surface of her skin.

Rhys knew an opportunity when he saw one, and he'd brilliantly orchestrated this one. Those lovely full lips were parted just a little; her muslin wrapper fell softly over the slim lines of her body, hinting at lithe bareness beneath. Her dark hair should have been twined in a missish braid to keep it from tangling as she slept, and instead it spilled in dark silken handfuls over her shoulders. Her eyes were wide and soft, stunned at the contact of his hand, lulled by the moonlight.

He'd kissed myriad other women for much less provocation.

And so he swiftly calculated his angle of approach, and did it.

He'd meant it be a swift touch of the lips, just enough to scandalize her and to satisfy his own half-whimsical impulse, to prove to himself that he had won: he had lured her here, and his reward was to be a kiss.

But when his lips met hers, something went terribly wrong.

Or perhaps it was just that something went too terribly right.

Because…oh, God. Her mouth was a dream beneath his. So softly, surprisingly welcoming it was as though she'd been anticipating this kiss her entire life.

Pragmatically, he thought it more likely it was because she hadn't expected to be kissed, and therefore hadn't had time to do the sensible thing…which would be to stiffen and slap him in indignation. He knew he had an instant's worth of advantage, and regardless of whether it was sensible, he wasn't about to relinquish it. His arms went around her loosely but decisively and he pulled her into his chest before she could do something silly, like stop him.

Her forearms arms folded up, her hands bunched softly near his collarbone, her head tipped back. And now that he she was gently trapped, he lowered his head. And he kissed her, not as though she was a virgin, or the vicar's daughter, or the almost-fiancée of his resentful cousin. He kissed her the way a woman ought to be kissed: With absolutely no quarter.

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