The Lost

He did not rise to the bait but asked, “How long were you in the convent?”

“Three years. The order helped me find a scholarship for nursing school, which is what I had an aptitude and inclination for. I finished my training as a nurse, went to work and found an organization that would train me as a physician’s assistant if I would work for their relief group for two years. I finished that work with the clinic in New Orleans after Katrina.

“Two weeks later I was in church when Father Joubay asked for a volunteer to come here for a year and here I am, sitting beside you on a gorgeous night wishing I was talking about anything but my past.”

“Such a colorful life it is.”

“I’m not sure if you’re joking or not. But since I left Nebraska it has been one adventure after another.” Isabella straightened and made sure she had his attention.

Oh, she certainly did.

Sebastian was watching her the way a child stared at a treat just out of reach or a shark biding its time until it could pounce. She looked away before the list of comparisons grew even more threatening.

“I’ve worked with prostitutes in Mexico and with the homeless in Thailand after the tsunami. I’ve treated child soldiers in Africa and seen a saint martyred.”

Tears threatened again, but Isabelle had had enough of them and she prayed, not for Joseph, her martyred friend, but for the lost souls, the men who had killed him.

“I have seen people die for lack of the simplest things and seen amazing recoveries. God works around us, through us and in us all the time. I know that as well as I know the hymns I sing.”

When Isabelle stopped talking, she was afraid he had fallen asleep. “I’m sorry, but you did ask.”

“And through all that you are still a virgin?”

“Yes, and if that is the only thing you care about, then I am sorry I told you the story.” She was more than a little peeved by his question. “I think you have some kind of sex addiction. It’s considered a disease now, you know.”

“Oh, what I have is worse than that. Much worse.” He scooped her up into his arms and set her on her feet. “I do not see how any man in his right mind could not pursue you.”

“They have. But I decided that I would wait until it meant more to me than another way to feel good.” She thought of something else. “Sebastian, in 2009, a woman has a right to say no and be respected for that decision.”

They watched each other in silence. Finally Sebastian said, “But you are not saying no to me. You would not have told me your story if you did not want to be closer, would you? And I would not have asked if I did not want to be closer to you.”

Exactly, she thought.

“It’s growing cool here, Isabelle. Come and have some tea or wine.” He started toward the stairs.

“Sebastian, it is hardly ever cool here.”

He looked over his shoulder and showed his dimples. “Pretend, Isabelle.”

When they reached his sitting room, he paused before he opened the door.

“Yes,” Isabelle said, looking at him with her heart in her eyes. “Tea, I think.”

His smile disappeared and he bowed to her as though she had just given him the greatest gift.

Nine

Sebastian could tell by her smile that Isabelle had just given him the greatest gift she could bestow. Not her virginity, but her heart. Her smile said it all. How he loved that smile. Ignoring the dread that came with the word “love,” he bowed to her, following her into his bedroom.

Isabelle ignored the long settee and walked over to the bed. “Tea, later.” She half asked, half suggested, and he knew for a fact she was a mind reader.

Sebastian watched her take off her shoes, brush sand from her feet. Her toes were as sweet as the rest of her, and he realized she did not know the first thing about seduction.

“Isabelle, I’m supposed to help you take your clothes off.”

She wriggled out of her pants and thong and was naked from the waist down. “Oh, no, really?” she said with a tone that told him she knew exactly what she was doing. “Let me help you undress first.”

She climbed up on the bed, giving him an arousing view of her backside, from the waist down, and then turned to face him, kneeling up on her knees, so that they were of the same height.

“I was hoping you would be wearing that Regency costume from the other night. Untangling that cravat would be fun, and we could use it for so many other things.”

She unbuttoned his shirt. The placket ended in the middle, so she pulled it up over his head. When they were face-to-f ace again, she pressed her lips to his.

That kiss was more than Sebastian could stand. He pushed her back on the bed and she let him, laughing and tugging at the fly on the cotton pants he wore. They wrestled like puppies as they undressed, helping, hindering and teasing. They came together as though the other was all the covering they would ever need.

He should go slow, Sebastian reminded himself. She was unschooled, untouched.

When he moved from her lips to kiss her neck and caress her breast, she sighed with such anticipation that he knew slow was not what she wanted. In a wordless communication he had never experienced before, Sebastian knew what she wanted, when, where, how. Her first orgasm came when he touched her between the legs, using his hand to cup and caress her silkiness.

She threw her arms out and then around him, pulling him closer so that his manhood could feel her warmth. “Don’t stop.”

Obeying her, Sebastian pushed himself into her, not as gently as he might have, and she arched up under him. They moved together and when his seed spilled into her, she held herself tight against him as if she needed every bit he had to give.

They played and slept and made love as the moon passed their window and the night waned. When the sun began to lighten the sky, the bed was a tangle of linen, the pillows long gone. Sebastian pulled the curtains around the bed while Isabelle slept, to give them some privacy when the servants brought hot water.

Sebastian watched the dawn and wondered what love meant.

He felt her hand on his back and then her lips where her fingers had touched. “I feel like we are in our own Eden. Come, my Adam”-she held up her arms offering herself to him-“ help your Eve greet the day.”

Lovemaking gave her a glow that made her more womanly than she had been twelve hours before, but Isabelle Reynaud was as fresh and sweet as ever.

His world had not changed either. The battery-operated clock on his nightstand still pointed to midnight as it had for fifty years. If he had harbored the tiniest hope that truly making love with someone so generous and untouched would change his life, then he was disappointed. He did not dare hope that Isabelle would spend her life with him. There were too many forces who would not allow him that kind of happiness, that “living life to the fullest,” as she said.

As he leaned down to kiss her, Sebastian wondered if he was Adam to her Eve, who was going to play the serpent?

When Sebastian invited her to share breakfast with him, Isabelle accepted, hoping, praying that this was the begi

“Sebastian, I know about the curse. Esmé gave me the details weeks ago.”

He answered with no more than a slow, considering nod as he poured her coffee. Isabelle could not tell how he felt about her a

She tasted her coffee and found the brew too strong for her taste. After adding enough milk to temper the flavor, the coffee was more white than brown.

“Angelique drank hers the same way.” Sebastian’s eyes burned into her as he spoke. “But that is the only way the two of you are alike.”

“Good,” Isabelle said, “because I do not believe in reincarnation.”