Quicksilver - Amanda Quick [40]
Rage boiled inside him. The vast majority of glass-readers were weak, insipid creatures like Ratford and Hackett who did not begin to comprehend their own abilities. Many actually believed that the images they saw in the mirrors were genuine spirits. But he knew of one who might have been able to survive the dragon long enough to disable it.
He had saved Virginia Dean for last because he had sensed that she was the one he needed, the glass-reader who might be strong enough to ignite the fire in the mirrors of his Great Engine. She had now proven that she was even more powerful than he had realized. Excitement shivered through him.
Two questions immediately sprang to mind: Why had Virginia Dean come here tonight? And had she come alone?
FOURTEEN
Owen opened his eyes when Virginia started to extricate herself from the chair and his arms. He watched her get to her feet, aware of a deep sense of satisfaction that went beyond the physical. She had no notion of how deliciously disheveled and erotic she looked dressed only in her rumpled chemise and stockings. Tendrils of her sunset-bright hair had come free of the pins and tumbled around her shoulders.
She looked down at her stained chemise with dismay.
“Oh, dear,” she said. “It was new.”
“I will replace it.”
“There is no need for that,” she said, quite sharply. “I’m sure it will all wash out.”
Flushed, she hurried across the room, stepped into the pile of clothing and hastily drew first her petticoats and then her gown up around herself.
As if she were putting on a suit of armor, he thought.
He crumpled the handkerchief he had used to clean both of them a short time earlier and put it into a pocket. Reluctantly he pushed himself up out of the chair, closed the front of his trousers and fastened his shirt.
“Virginia,” he said. He stopped. Not certain what to say next.
“Yes?” She concentrated hard on the last hooks of her gown.
He went toward her. “Are you certain that you are all right?”
She raised her chin. “Of course I’m all right. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“This was your first experience of this sort of thing.”
“Well, yes,” she said. “But that is hardly my fault. Really, society makes it very difficult for a single woman to take a lover.”
“Difficult but not impossible. Many single women find a way around the problem. Why did you wait so long?”
She sighed. “One has to reach the point where one realizes one has nothing left to lose and that there is no reason to save oneself for marriage because it is unlikely that the man of one’s dreams will ever appear.”
“I see.” That certainly crushed any romantic notions he might have entertained concerning the nature of their relationship. She had given herself to him tonight because she had concluded that nothing better was likely to happen along.
“Actually, I did reach that conclusion a few months ago on my twenty-sixth birthday,” Virginia continued. “But unfortunately, the situation did not become any less complicated.”
“Why was that?”
“There remained the problem of employing the right man for the position, as it were.”
“You intended to hire someone?” He had never envisioned himself as a man who was easily shocked, but Virginia had just succeeded in stunning him.
She reddened. “Perhaps that was not the best way to put it. One wants this sort of thing to be accompanied by strong passions, of course.”
“One would certainly hope so.”
“Really, it is not at all like hiring a gardener.”
“I’m relieved to hear that. I think.”
Her brows snapped together. “It is not as if there is a wide selection of suitable gentlemen just lolling about, waiting to be picked up like ripe tomatoes in a market. There are so many requirements to be met. And as it turns out,