A License to Wed: Rebellious Brides (8 page)

She paused to greet a passing guest. Once they’d moved on, she said, “Why are you going to England?”

“I shall carry certain documents of interest to our ambassador there. But that is none of your concern. Ah, Monsieur Naismith.” With a start, she realized he’d steered her straight to Will. Her heart leapt as he bowed in greeting, his inscrutable gaze sweeping over her. He looked splendid. His dark copper hair was brushed back, emphasizing the sharp angles of his cheeks, and the slim cut of his dark evening clothes showed his sinewy form to excellent advantage. “How nice to encounter you here.”

“Madame Laurent was kind enough to invite me.” He spoke with formal courtesy, and if Duret’s approach surprised him, he did not show it.

“But of course, you are acquaintances of old,” Duret said. “Far be it from me to keep two old friends from becoming reacquainted. Madame Laurent was saying she would like to take a turn in the garden. Unfortunately, I must attend to more pressing matters. Perhaps you will be so kind as to escort her.”

“Of course.” He offered his arm. “Madame Laurent?”

Feeling like a fatted calf being offered up for sacrifice, she took it, feeling the taut strength of his arm beneath her fingers. They strolled through the doors leading to the terrace and down the steps to the garden.

“Does it not bother you that he has a wife?”

Her neck heated. “His family life is none of my concern.”

“I find it most curious that you have not asked for news of home.”

A sharp pang sliced through her at the thought of her father and brother. “I trust my father and Cosmo are well,” she said lightly.

“Actually, your father took ill for some time. Cosmo was even more of a profligate after your supposed death. He was racked with remorse because he couldn’t reach Paris in time to save you.” His voice was hard. “But it appears you weren’t in need of saving after all.”

Alarm spiked her insides. “Is my father still ill?”

“He is much improved.”

“Thank goodness.” Longing stretched painfully in her chest. She missed her family terribly. One day soon, she would take Susanna to Dorset, and they would play together on the beach just as she and Cosmo had done as children.

So many lost years. A tear slipped loose. Will’s gaze sharpened at the sight of it. He brushed it away with a tender swipe of his thumb across her cheek. The gentle, almost loving gesture made emotion swell in her chest. She ached to be in his arms, to forget all about Duret and
Le Rasoir,
to be able to lose herself in the warm, comforting press of Will’s body against hers
.

His tone softened. “What is really going on here, Elle? Won’t you trust me enough to tell me?”

The moon shimmered in her glistening eyes, the smoky gray gaze transporting him back to those moments by the pond on the evening of her eighteenth birthday, the night she’d completely stolen his heart.

This evening, when he’d first laid eyes on her, she’d taken his breath away in much the same way as she had that night. She wore a gown of white silk, but beyond the color, there was nothing innocent about it. An elaborate ruffle trimmed the deep round neckline, emphasizing the pale swells of her breasts. A thickly roped gold necklace nestled in the valley between the soft feminine flesh. Just looking at her made his chest hurt.

Then Duret had handed her over to him like an elaborately wrapped gift that was his for the opening. The bastard couldn’t have been more obvious; he’d even gone so far as to suggest they take advantage of the seclusion of the garden. It seemed clear that Duret wanted something from him and expected Elle to retrieve it.

“Oh, Will.” She sighed softly and pressed herself into his arms. He breathed in the feel and scent of her, his blood pounding hard through his veins. “Hold me before I float away.”

The urge to encase her in his arms, to hold and safeguard her, welled within him. It was a ridiculous notion; Elle had made clear that she didn’t need or want his protection. And yet an aura of vulnerability surrounded her this evening, almost as if she’d discarded her battle gear, rendering herself completely defenseless.

She nestled her face into his neck and pressed soft, pliant lips against his throat. His breath caught, and the old pain associated with losing her flared in his heart again. Lust rose in him like a vicious animal breaking free after being caged for too long. He wanted her with a vehemence that drove the air from his lungs.

Over the years, he’d convinced himself the urgent heat that had pulsed between them was the product of youthful lust and infatuation. But now he couldn’t explain the need ravening through him, except to acknowledge that he wanted her in the fiercest way. Even after all this time. Despite the possibility that she might be toying with him at Duret’s direction.

For years, he’d resisted her charms because she was Cosmo’s sister. But now, he was tempted to accept what she gave Duret so freely. Ignoring all rational thought, he removed his spectacles and placed them carefully in his pocket. He’d craved her like this for almost as long as he could remember, even though he could no more hold on to her than he could contain air or time or happiness. Tilting his head down, he touched his mouth to hers in a kiss so sweet and simple, it was almost innocent.

But nothing between them had ever been simple. And all innocence had been lost long ago. Her willing lips trembled under his and, on a soft exhale, she opened them, prompting a mix of joy and urgent desire to arrow through him. He pushed inside the satin moisture of her mouth, voracious for her after too many years of abstinence. She tasted like champagne and strawberries and something he couldn’t define that was indisputably unique to her.

His heart pounding, he slipped his arms around her willowy waist and drew her tight against his body. They had always been a perfect fit this way, on account of their almost identical height. Mouth to mouth. Chest to chest. Hip to hip. His prick swelled at the contact and strained toward her feminine softness.

“Elle,” he said because no other words would come. “Elle.”

“Yes,” she said.

He kissed an urgent trail down the column of her throat, tending to the point where her neck met her shoulder because he remembered how well she liked it. She moaned, and if she was acting, she was doing a damn fine job because he believed her. His hand slipped inside her bodice to fondle the soft flesh there. She’d never be buxom, but she had filled out a bit since the last time he’d known her in this way; she was less of a girl.

Every cogent thought flew out of his brain. His self-control vanished. At the moment there was nothing but Elle. His Elle, the woman he’d loved forever who would never be his to cherish. Pressing her back against a tree, he tugged at her bodice with both hands, revealing her small high breasts. He sent up a prayer of gratitude for this French style of dressing that required almost no undergarments. He cupped her soft flesh, running his thumbs over the raspberry-colored tips. An indecipherable utterance of pleasure that tore from her throat reminded him of just how tender and responsive her breasts were to his touch.

Desire shuddered through him. He ran his tongue down the line of her throat, laying kisses across the top of her chest before reaching the delectable plump flesh. He teased the tip, flicking it with his tongue while he fondled the other breast with his hand. When he took the pearl tip into his mouth, she cried out softly.

He mouthed and laved and worshipped her. Need throbbed in every cell in his body. He could think of nothing but being inside her as quickly as possible. He tore at the placket of his breeches, desperate to bury himself in her feminine warmth.

But the blood began to flow back to his brain, bringing with it some semblance of reason, repeating the dire warnings that this woman could not be trusted. She’d carved his heart out once before. The remembered anguish of her rejection was suddenly as fresh as it had been six years ago. He couldn’t return to that dark place. He dropped his hands.

She leaned into him, warm and languid, her breaths coming in quiet exhalations. She still smelled of violets, her favorite bloom, which she’d cajoled him into picking with her more than once. He inhaled, the elusive powdery scent as ethereal as having Elle in his arms again. Struggling to regulate his ragged breathing, he put his arms around Gerard Duret’s mistress and wondered what any of it meant.

Hungry for more and wondering why Will had paused, Elle sought his lips again.

She’d missed his touch, his taste, the warm scent of his skin. For this one brief moment, she wanted to forget everything and pretend nothing else existed in the world except her and Will alone together in her garden.

Sealing her mouth to his, she tasted him with the urgent, seeking motions of her tongue. She sensed an initial reluctance, but then he caught her lower lip between both of his and lightly touched his tongue to it. Sensation rippled through her, and the place between her legs pulsed with urgency. He took control of the intimacy, his kiss hungry and demanding, prompting her legs to lose all sense of balance. He broke the contact and rained small kisses along her cheeks and throat before burying his face in the crook of her neck.

Her heart beat frantically, every nerve ending taut with the wanting of him. She hadn’t been touched by a man since her husband died. And relations with Laurent had lacked the urgent, animalistic passion Will provoked in her.

“What is it?” The warm exhale of his breath fluttered across the sensitive skin on her throat as he spoke.

“Hmmm?” She held him tight against her, relishing his physical proximity and the feel of his warm, hard body against hers. “What is what?”

“What is it that Duret wants so badly that he’d force you to whore yourself out to me for it?”

The heated desire cascaded out of her, leaving a barren chill in its place. She blinked away tears, forcing herself to breathe through the suffocating disappointment. When Will looked at her now, all he saw was Duret’s whore.

He gently disengaged from her and reached inside his pocket to withdraw his spectacles. Fitting the curved ends carefully around each ear, he spoke to her in quiet tones. “Your French general must have a powerful hold on you to get you to consent to such a disagreeable task.”

“Disagreeable?” She jerked her dress up to cover her breasts and hugged her arms to her chest. He’d found their intimacy distasteful?

“Duret offered you to me like a boy sharing a treasured sweetmeat.”

She heard contempt in his voice, but, strangely, it seemed directed more at himself than at her. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the ragged tree trunk, thinking of the last time they’d been intimate, yearning for home, for her child, for her father and brother, and for the way things might have been between her and Will.

“Do you remember my mare?” she asked, longing to be far away from this place. “The one I used to ride whenever I could steal you away from Cosmo and your books?”

His dark copper brows drew together. “Your horse?” He nodded. “Fancy.”

How she’d loved her animal. She’d always made sure to bring an apple treat every time she visited the stables. The memory deepened her pining for home. One day soon, she would take Susanna to Langtry and set her atop her mount. Fancy would be older now, gentle enough for a little girl.

“Do you ever see her there in the stable?” Suddenly, she couldn’t bear the thought of her beloved mount being one more thing that was forever lost to her. “Has my father kept her?”

“Yes,” he said. “And any time I visit, I take her an apple.”

A throat cleared. “Madame,” called the polite voice of her butler before he came into view. “I’m afraid we have a situation in the kitchen.”

“Very well,” she said, her voice weary. Her cook was excellent, but also extraordinarily temperamental. Elle often found herself in the kitchens soothing the woman’s ego. She looked at Will. “Can you find your own way back inside alone?”

His uncompromising features shone almost harshly in the moonlight. “I always find my own way.”

She held his gaze. “This is not what you think.”

He swallowed hard—she watched the cords slide in his throat—but he did not answer. After a moment, she turned away and hurried back to the house, feeling his gaze on her until she was out of his sight.

Later that evening, while Elle was busily engaged with her guests, Will slipped away from the crowd and made his way to her dressing chamber. He went immediately to the walnut escritoire in the corner of the room and searched through each drawer in a soundless, thorough manner.

He slid his hand to the back of a drawer and hit something cool and metallic. Pulling out the syringe, he examined it. His throat clogged. Whores and prostitutes used syringes to cleanse their womb of a man’s seed. Elle’s reasons for using the device struck him with perfect clarity. She didn’t care to risk becoming pregnant with Duret’s child. Not surprising in the least considering she’d already demonstrated her clear lack of interest in motherhood.

He replaced the instrument just where he’d found it and forced himself to move on. It wasn’t difficult to locate the false bottom in the last drawer. Beneath it, he found two letters tied with a black velvet ribbon. The writing was unfamiliar, but the bold, sharp lines suggested a masculine hand. Unfolding the first missive, he saw it was addressed to
My Dearest Darling Elinor;
he skimmed down to the signature—
Your Devoted Rodolphe.

Realization stabbed at his ribs. He held private communications between Elle and her husband—the man she had chosen over him. He pushed aside any emotion and regained the cold calm required of an agent. The other letter was also from her Frenchman and dated around the time the two had married. He scanned it, his eye catching on the last sentence—
If you are indeed certain that this is the course you wish to take, my dearest darling, then I shall devote my entire being to loving and cherishing you and yours as my very own blood.
He found nothing useful in the letters beyond general comments about shared friends and Laurent’s descriptions of Paris and how certain he was that Elle would come to love the city.

Replacing the letters in their hiding spot, his gaze hitched on a turned-down calling card. He flipped it over and shock spun through him, sucking the air from his lungs. He stared, disbelieving, at the simple engraved image of a bird.

A sparrow.

What the devil was Elle doing with Ham Sparrow’s calling card? The upper right-hand corner of the card was turned down, a clear message in calling-card etiquette that indicated a personal visit. The space on the card where any message would be remained blank. Dread trickled down his spine. Elle knew Sparrow. Had possibly met with him. And he was now missing.

Replacing each item precisely as he’d found it, Will returned to the party, contemplating the very real possibility that Elinor Dunsmore, daughter of the Marquess of Aldridge, one of England’s most respected and widely admired statesmen, had not only turned her back on her child and her family, but had also abandoned her country to work with the French.

Long ago, as an infatuated boy, and even recently, as a simple man, he’d never been a match for Elle’s vital charm and natural magnetism. Few men were. But deceit and treachery were his stock and trade. They were what the spy game was all about.

Elle might not know it yet, but he’d finally become her match.

So naturally, when she invited him to join her for the midday meal a few days later, he did not refuse.

“Where are we going?” he asked as he helped her alight from her coach.

She directed him off the busy street and into a nearby entrance. “To the finest restaurant in all of Paris.”

“Restaurant?” He gazed up at the high ceilings with ornate molding and around the crowded room. Men and ladies conversed animatedly at intimate, cloth-covered tables, which were nothing like the large, common tables found at inns and taverns back home. No gently bred London lady would be seen dining out in public as these Parisians were. “Is it respectable?”

“Perfectly.” She slid him a half-teasing look. “Although, I thought you didn’t have a care for what people think.” They were interrupted by a well-dressed gentleman who greeted Elle by name before showing them to a table at the center of the crowded room.

Once they were seated and alone, he asked, “Do you often frequent this establishment?”

“On occasion.”

He studied her as she picked up a placard on the table and reviewed it while absently curling one loose tendril of hair around her long, slender finger. Today she wore another one of her white sheer concoctions, a dress that alluded to indecency and debauchery. The deep square neck and short capped sleeves were trimmed in ornate silver roping that played up the color of her eyes. The gown was cinched just under her breasts by a belt of the same silver design. She’d never looked more breathtaking.