Читать книгу Sexual Secrets - Melissa MacNeal - Страница 7

London, 1898

“I see a time of cataclysmic change for you. A time of sexual upheaval so pronounced as to produce a whirlwind—no, a hurricane—of passion! You will feel like a volcano as you erupt with new sensations and delights!”

Camille Bentley gaped at the medium seated beside her and then burst out laughing. “Passion? Erupting like a volcano? Do you forget who I’m married to, Rubio?”

Rubio Palladino’s gaze didn’t waver. “Listen well, my dear. Sex isn’t about marriage, nor is marriage about sex. And you, Colette—you are not to be left behind as your sister revels in untold pleasures, for I sense the coming of a dark stranger…” His eyes went slightly out of focus as he gazed inward. “A charismatic foreign man…a mysterious woman veiled in white…betrayal and revenge—even a death, perhaps! And they will stem from the dissatisfactions you now find in the marriage bed.”

Colette Bentley glanced at her twin sister and then focused on the seer who sat between them. “How much opium did you smoke last night?” she teased, but then she turned deadly serious. “What’s this talk of betrayal and revenge? Someone’s death? And what gives you the right—the nerve—to insinuate such intimate knowledge of my so-called dissatisfaction?”

“Have I ever been wrong? Have I ever misled you?” Rubio’s eyes refocused and shone like jet-black diamonds. He swept his mane of chestnut hair back from a face accentuated by chiseled cheekbones and a nose pierced with a tiny gold ring, like a gypsy’s. “I have laid out the cards you both selected with your own hands, and, as I do each Monday, I interpret the wisdom the Tarot reveals. And I’m telling you,” he added with a furtive laugh, “your lives are about to be turned upside down.”

“When? And what shall we do?” Camille asked in a thin voice.

“Within the week.” The medium swept his cards into his hand with a quick, practiced movement. “Consider your situations with your husbands very carefully indeed, for all you have believed is about to be overturned. Things are not what they seem. Good day, ladies.” With that, the slender man rose from his chair and walked out of their shop, his purple duster aflutter. Only the exotic scent of his cologne lingered to torment them further.

Camille blinked. Every Monday morning before they opened the couturier they consulted with Rubio about the week to come, but this! Today’s reading made her head spin! “What on earth do you suppose he meant?” she whispered. “Rutledge is so old—so impaired—he shows his affection only when others are watching. Only to make his friends believe he’s quite the man, to be satisfying a woman young enough to be—”

“You think I don’t know that?” Colette stood suddenly, her cheeks flaring. “Rubio has his moments—his dramatic little habits—but betrayal! Death! Talk of dark, foreign strangers and women in white? I don’t believe a word of it! He’s toying with us.”

Camille watched her twin snatch up her ledger and pen as a signal that it was time to get to work. “We can’t deny Rubio’s predictions concerning world events,” she mused aloud, “and how all the Queen’s court hangs on every word he—”

“The court can believe as they choose! We have a shop to run. Alice!” she called out. “Alice, where are the gowns Lady Etheridge ordered? She’ll be here within the hour for her fitting!”

“On my way! Comin’, I am!” Their young seamstress bustled from the back room, her eyes widened as though she hadn’t been eavesdropping on Rubio’s reading. She quickly hung three basted gowns on pegs along the salon wall. “Here they be, ready and waitin’! You and your sister approved ’em Friday afternoon and said that if Lady Etheridge keeps eatin’ like a greedy pig at so many parties—”

“Alice Furling!” Camille waved a finger in warning. “She’ll be here any moment. Please fetch us some of those lemon curd tarts she prefers, and then set on the water for tea when you return. It’s in our best interest to provide our clients with everything they desire.”

“And if her mouth’s full she can’t complain about how you miscalculated her measurements, eh?” The seamstress giggled before ducking out the door, leaving the twin sisters in a strained silence.

“Cheeky chit,” Colette muttered as she took up her pen. “You know damn well she’ll come back late, looking like she’s just taken a tumble—”

“Because Rubio can’t keep his hands off her?”

“Because Rubio…” Colette raised an eyebrow, sensing her sister’s mockery. “Why do we tolerate Alice? She’s unpredictable and constantly eavesdropping and flighty and—”

“All the things you’re not, dear sister?” Camille felt her usual good humor returning now that their seamstress was the butt of her sister’s testy mood.

“And what do you mean by that?”

“I think Rubio’s predictions have struck too close to home. And you don’t like it one little bit,” Camille replied lightly.

“And I think your imagination’s taking flight again, dear sister! You’re the one who laughed at the idea of passion and pleasure erupting like a volcano, after all!”

“And because Lord Bentley married me—and set us up with this couturier—you have a husband, too. And a job that gets you out of his bed once in a while!”

Colette smirked. “Envy doesn’t become you, Camille. You’d be hopelessly in debt and behind in your designing, were it not for my accounting talents. You’d have no idea what fabrics you have on hand, or whether the mills have overcharged you. You’d be awash in a sea of—”

The clatter of the brass knocker made them both stand straighter and head for the front door. It was business as usual now; time to set aside sisterly quibbling over predictions uttered by the medium who lived upstairs. What did he know about their marital satisfaction or lack of it?

Sex isn’t about marriage, nor is marriage about sex.

Camille smoothed the front of her gown before opening the door. Truth be told, Rubio Palladino sensed far too much, and as she greeted their morning’s first client, she was greatly relieved to see a plump, matronly redhead rather than a dark foreign man or a lady veiled in white.

“Good morning, Lady Etheridge,” she cooed, allowing her accent to flirt with her words. Never mind that Mama had taught English language and grammar in a French academy: LeChaud Souers clients paid more for the prestige of working with a Parisian designer. “You’re looking lovely today! But just wait until you see the magnificent gowns we’ve designed for you! Gowns we’ve seen on the likes of Empress Eugenie herself!”

She wasn’t lying, after all. It was her calling to create silk purses from sows’ ears, and she did it well.