Consumed by Fire (5 page)

The two British matrons were arguing, as they always did, in their crisp, bird-like tones. They wore tweed skirts, twinsets, and sensible shoes, and she imagined the British matrons, or spinsters, or whatever they were considered, had worn the same uniform for the last eighty years. They tended to fight about money—one of them was frugal, the other a spendthrift—and she wondered if they were lovers. She hoped so. They certainly treated each other with the air of long-term partners. Though they didn’t hold hands.

The Italian couple from Rome looked amorous, and the elderly scholar who had little use for a mere researcher sat in his corner, reading. Was that what she’d be like in ten, twenty years? There was no sign of Mr. Corsini, which surprised her. The Italian gentleman liked his food and his company, and he usually occupied the seat of honor for the entire duration of the evening meals, from seven until close to midnight, or possibly later, but after then Evangeline had sought her bed. He had kind eyes, and he always treated her in a most decorous manner. She liked him, and she hoped he wasn’t still asleep up in the mountainside church. Maybe he’d moved on after all—it was a good thing she hadn’t waited for him. And in the end she’d had no reason to be nervous about accepting a ride from James Bishop, thinking he might make a pass at her. In fact, he’d stood her up.

At least she wouldn’t have to worry about making small talk with a gorgeous man. She was absolutely relieved . . .

“You do clean up well, Miss Morrissey,” came a low, liquid voice in her ear. “Clearly it was worth the wait.”

So why was her heart leaping instead of sinking in disappointment? She wasn’t going to think about it. She turned to face her dinner partner. “Are you chiding me for being late?” she asked him point-blank.

He smiled down at her, those dark eyes enigmatic. “Never. A beautiful woman is always worth waiting for.”

“But the plain ones better be on time?”

He laughed. “In fact, Evangeline,” his voice caressed her name, and she felt an odd little ripple inside, “I find all women beautiful. I don’t discriminate.”

“That busy, are you?” she said caustically.

His forehead wrinkled, that high, perfect forehead. “Why so combative? Have I done something wrong?”

She was being an idiot. “No, of course not. I’m just tired and hungry and crabby.”

“I can take care of that.”

She raised her eyebrows. “What, all three?”

“Well, at least two of them,” he said.

The dining room was packed, the noise level high, which would help with having to make conversation. She wondered idly where they were going to squeeze in.

“Everything set?” Bishop said when Silvio arrived, his usually perfectly pomaded hair slightly awry.

“Of course. This way, signore and signorina,” he murmured, moving away from the noisy dining room.

Evangeline immediately froze. Did Bishop think she was stupid enough to agree to dinner in his room this soon after meeting him? Whether she trusted him or not, whether she had an instant, reluctant, incredibly potent attraction to him, she wasn’t going to . . .

But Silvio was leading them away from the stairs, and she felt at least the first few layers of icy distrust melt. She had layers inside her that would take one of those things that drilled into the arctic core to get past, but she wasn’t worried. She was like a hedgehog—too much trouble to get to and not worth the effort.

She’d forgotten that the terraces on either side of the dining room could be set up as well. There was only one table there, set for two, candlelit and romantic, the smaller of the two fountains splashing behind it.

Silvio had already pulled out her chair, and she had only an instant of hesitation before she sank into it gracefully, fumbling with the heavy linen napkin Silvio draped across her lap. “This is lovely,” she said, hiding her doubts. “The water you sent up was very kind as well.”

“As well as what? I’m glad that you liked the water, but I wasn’t aware I had done anything for you.” He took his seat.

“Mr. Bishop,” she began.

“Please. James. It’s been a while since I’ve talked with a fellow American and I miss our informality. Relax, Evangeline. It’s only dinner. Two strangers in a strange land, sharing a public meal. There’s nothing to be nervous about.”

“I’m not nervous,” she said, a lie that fooled neither of them. “I’m just not used to small talk.”

“Then we can dispense with small talk. Tell me about your work instead.”

“You wouldn’t be interested,” she said, reaching for the glass of yellow liquid. Limoncello, her favorite.

He noticed her surprise, but then, she had the impression he was a man who noticed everything. “Silvio told me about the Limoncello,” he said, answering her unspoken question. “Why do you keep looking at me like I’m Jack the Ripper?”

That finally made her laugh. “Hardly. But this is the third year I’ve spent a month travelling around Italy on my own, and I’ve learned that it only makes sense to be cautious.”

“Is that caution I see in those gorgeous green eyes of yours? Or acute paranoia?”

She squirmed. “I’d look a lot less paranoid if you stopped trying to shower flowery compliments on me.”

“Saying you have gorgeous green eyes is hardly overdone. Now if I said you had eyes the color of the heart of jade, now that would be flowery.” She made a face, and he laughed. “I tell you what. I’ll let you do the talking, and I won’t say anything nice at all, I promise. Tell me where you come from, what you love, why the hell you picked medieval clerical architecture, in particular walled towns, to devote your life to. Tell me who your best friend is, whether you hate spiders, why you love Italy, who gave you your first kiss. I’ll just listen. It’s been so long since I’ve heard an American accent.”

She looked at him. “There are tons of Americans overseas. You must hear it more often than you think.”

“Then it’s your accent I like. Pacific Northwest, I’m guessing.”

Now that was unnerving
. “I don’t have an accent.”

“Of course you don’t,” he said soothingly. “People in the US don’t think they do. I like regional accents—I can usually tell where someone came from, if not the actual state. And in some cases, like Texas or Massachusetts, it’s easy enough to even place what part of the state that person comes from. For the Pacific Northwest accent, it’s a bit of Scandinavian with a touch of Venice, and I’m talking California, not the gorgeous city to the north of us. Which I hope you’re going to see on this trip. There are obviously no walls, but lots of medieval architecture.”

He was probing so delicately, and she wasn’t sure whether it was wise to tell him her itinerary. “Depends how much time I have,” she said carefully. “Venice has been overdone. And I grew up in Port Townsend, Washington.”

“One can never have too much of Venezia.” He leaned back, a faintly ironic smile on his mouth. The mouth she kept glancing at and then jerking her gaze away. He really was something else, she thought, momentarily distracted, dreamy. If he really put his mind to it he might be almost impossible to resist.

Except he wasn’t going to put his mind to it. This was simply to ease his boredom, listen to an American accent, and maybe even make a desultory attempt to get her in bed, but it wouldn’t really matter. She was used to men like him, though she seldom spent time in their company. Now she was glad she hadn’t.

Because he unnerved her, seducing her when he probably didn’t even realize it. Despite the emptiness in his dark, dark eyes, he had the most devastating smile, a soft, drawling voice that made her want to curl up inside it, a mouth so luscious it didn’t bear thinking about. Maybe she should just give in, assuming he did make a pass at her, which was still up in the air. It wasn’t as if she were frigid, or a prude. She’d had enough therapy to get past any lingering . . . issues, and her sexual relationships had been satisfactory. She knew the rudiments of self-defense if he got kinky, and besides, she’d read
Fifty Shades of Grey
with horrified fascination. It might be interesting . . . no!

“What in heaven’s name are you thinking about now?” Bishop demanded good-naturedly. “You do tend to wander off when I’m talking to you. I never realized how boring I am.”

She met his gaze, that dangerous, ironic gaze. He was trying to unsettle her, surprise her. Well, two could play that game. She gave him a stern look. “You know perfectly well how seductive you are, and you don’t hesitate to use it,” she said flatly, “and don’t pretend you don’t. You reeled me in like I’m some poor salmon, gasping for air, and even if I struggle I’m still flapping around on the floor, fighting to survive.”

He laughed. “Do you think you’ll need mouth-to-mouth? I’ve never kissed a fish before.”

Trumped again. She fumbled for her lemon drink. She didn’t need to be thinking about kissing him. Thinking about how she wanted to kiss him. She raised her eyes again. “I’m not quite sure what game you’re playing, but I should make it clear that I’m not the type who goes in for one-night stands or hops into bed with any man I happen to find attractive.”

“You find me attractive? That’s a step in the right direction,” he said lightly, and she could still feel the intensity of his gaze. “So what kind of woman are you? What kind of man do you hop into bed with?”

This was getting entirely out of hand. Why had she used the word “seductive”? Why had he talked about kissing her? “I got my PhD when I was twenty,” she announced abruptly.

He raised his eyebrows—dark, arched, almost satanic eyebrows. “A prodigy, then. So if you’ve already got your doctorate, why are you scrambling around Italian ruins on your own?” He took her change of subject with equanimity, and she breathed a small sight of relief.

“Publish or perish,” she said. “Besides, how can I teach if I don’t have firsthand knowledge of what I’m talking about?”

“One should always have firsthand knowledge,” he said innocently. “Do you like teaching? Do you like your students?”

“I do,” she said, surprising herself. “They can be pains in the ass, but every now and then you find one who’s genuinely passionate about learning, and if I can find the right hook I can draw the slackers in as well.”

She couldn’t keep from staring at his mouth, and the smile that flitted across it was different than the others—it somehow seemed more honest. “I can imagine,” he murmured. “So tell me how you do it.”

It was an odd interlude—she knew he was drawing her out just as she did with her students, and yet she was helpless to resist. No, that wasn’t true. She’d never been helpless in her life, not if she could do anything about it. But he smiled at her, spoke in that low, easy drawl, and she could feel all her caution and doubts melt away beneath his practiced charm. She found herself telling him things she’d never told anyone—her stage fright when it came to teaching, her perfect older sister, her remote parents. She told him about the beauty of the Pacific Northwest, a beauty she’d left for Massachusetts, where she was alternately freezing and roasting, and he listened, his eyes on her, his attention never straying, and she felt herself slipping, slipping, underneath his lazy, tempting charisma.

No one could be that seductive by accident—he had to have had lots of practice, and he was exerting everything he’d learned on her. She knew it, and even though she did, it worked. She was melting, and she slapped down that tiny warning voice inside. Other women did this, all the time, and she could count it as another milestone in her goal of putting the bad things of the past behind her. She was hardly a romantic—sex was a pleasurable, physical sensation, one that was much more enjoyable with a partner. She suspected he’d be a very good partner. He knew what she wanted to drink, he’d ordered for her, and he’d chosen perfectly. He was attuned to what she liked, what she wanted, picking up subtle cues, and he asked just the right questions, ones that had her telling him far too much, more than she’d ever told anyone. They say the real opposite of talking isn’t listening, it is waiting. Waiting to get in your own two cents, your opinion, your experience. Not with James Bishop. He seemed content with listening to her, gently prodding to keep her talking.

Having sex with someone like that, someone so keyed in to her, could be quite extraordinary, she thought, gazing at his elegant, unreadable face. Maybe too extraordinary. She considered herself an ordinary young woman, a little stubborn, perhaps maybe even boring. She was too practical, too wary. She wasn’t made for grand passion, for throwing caution and responsibility, and even duty, to the wind for the sake of a man. She’d worked hard to get where she was, and she had more hard work ahead of her that she couldn’t afford to jeopardize, even for one night, especially one that could go disastrously wrong given how skittish she could be.

But this man might be worth it.

“Now what are you thinking about?” he said lazily, leaning back as he stirred his espresso. “You haven’t said anything since they brought dessert.” The tiny, perfect pastries sat between them, delectable, and she had the sudden thought that she’d rather lick him. Color flooded her face—she must have had too much to drink.

“Just what a lovely evening this has been,” she said with a good stab at nonchalance. It failed, but she deserved credit for trying.

Once more he gave her that enchanting smile, the one that didn’t meet his eyes. “You’re looking nervous again. I thought you’d gotten over that.”

“I’m not!” she protested. What would his hands feel like on her body? No one had touched her in almost a year, and Lester had been more enthusiastic than skilled. This man would be both.

Wouldn’t she like to have just one time with someone who knew what he was doing? She could feel the color mount her face again, and she was ashamed of herself. Of course Lester and the others had known what they were doing, and she’d been fine, orgasmic, once she’d gotten over her initial fears. She’d just longed for something . . . more.

She suspected the man across from her was an expert at providing that elusive
more
, if it even existed. Except that he didn’t seem to be making much of an effort to offer her more—his gently teasing manner, his flattery, was probably unconscious on his part. It was just what he did. She was sitting there in an absolute pool of irrational longing and he was leaning back in his chair, sipping his espresso and smiling, perfectly relaxed. She felt like a tightly wound violin string, ready to snap, and he didn’t even seem to want her.