Hearts Beguiled (33 page)

She heard a knock and whipped around, her heart in her throat, but it was the wrong door that opened.

A serving girl entered bearing a large brass can filled with water. "Monsieur le Vicomte said the vicomtesse would wish to wash off the grime from the journey." She set the can and a pair of thick white cotton towels on top of an ornate dresser with a marble top and gilt bronze mounts. She poured some of the water into a large Sevres porcelain bowl and turned to smile at Gabrielle. She had a friendly face with round, plumlike cheeks and slightly crooked teeth that gave her a gamin look.

Gabrielle tried to produce an answering smile. "Thank you, mademoiselle ..."

The girl curtsied. "I am Henriette, Madame la Vicomtesse . . . Madame, do you desire that I unpack for you now?"

"No, thank you. Later, if you please, Henriette. There's a green silk dressing gown in that cloak bag just there beside the door. If you could lay it out on the bed for me . . ."

"But of course, madame."

"I prefer to undress myself."

The girl curtsied again. "As you wish, madame."

Left alone, Gabrielle rapidly stripped off her clothes. She pulled the pins from her coiffure, shaking her head until her hair tumbled like a mantle over her shoulders. She stood naked in the middle of the- room, shivering, for the place was large and a bit drafty in spite of the thick rugs that covered the floor and the fire that blazed in the grate.

Lavender-scented steam rose from the water in the bowl. Gabrielle spread one of the towels on the floor and, taking a sponge, began to dribble water over her body, luxuriating in the sensuous, oily feel of it coursing softly over her skin. Her eyes drifted closed and she imagined it was Max's hands caressing her flesh, Max's hands setting her blood afire. She rubbed the perfumed water between her thighs, trailing her fingers through the curly, silken nest of hair. She trembled and her mouth parted on a soft sigh-There was a small sound behind her. She whipped around, the blood leaving and then rushing back to her face in a wave of furious color. Max stood just inside the room, within the shadows of the muted winter afternoon light.

She reached frantically behind her for her dressing gown, her eyes unable to leave the dark oval that was his face. She belted the gown tight around her waist. "You—you could at least have had the courtesy to knock," she stuttered, feeling hot with guilt, shame—and something else. Excitement.

He came into the room. Now the firelight fell on his face. It was very pale, and a muscle twitched in his cheek. For a moment his eyes rested on her breasts, where the silk clung to her wet skin, outlining her tautened nipples, and she saw hunger flare hot and bright within the sooty gray depths.

He averted his head, showing her his sharp-boned profile. He had removed his coat, and she saw the thin cambric of his shirt flutter against his chest as he breathed.

"I thought I should tell you," he said, a rough edge to his voice, "so that if you should happen to see us together you won't take it into your head to run away again ..." He jerked back around and looked hard into her eyes. "Tomorrow afternoon I intend to pay a visit to the duc de Nevers."

Gabrielle felt the color drain from her face, and she saw Max's reaction to it in the way his mouth twisted down at one corner into a sneer. Even now, even in the midst of this renewed worry over her son, she wanted to kiss that sneer away, to make him smile at her again, to make him love her.

He lifted his head and stared down at her from beneath half-closed lids. "What's the matter, Gabrielle? Don't you trust me?"

She clenched her fists to control her trembling. "But if you tell him about us, he'll take my son! I'll be arrested. The duc has a signed lettre de cachet with my name on it. And you could be arrested as well. I was forbidden by the king ever to marry again."

He waved his hand impatiently and took a step to bring himself closer to her. She could read nothing in his hard mask of a face, but she felt the heat of his nearness as if his body were a flaming torch.

"What did you plan to do, Gabrielle?" he said. "Skulk inside the house here until Nevers dies, or until Dominique becomes a man? This matter with the duc must be resolved so that we can all live a normal life." Again his lips twisted downward. "Or at least as normal a life as is possible given the circumstances of our marriage."

This was important; her son's future was at stake. She had to consider all the consequences and all she could think was that Max was here in her room, they were alone together for the first time in days, and she wanted him with a raw, primitive hunger that was an ache in her belly.

Sucking unconsciously on her lower lip, she looked down at the floor and missed seeing the telltale muscle in his jaw clench and unclench. "But what . . . what will you say to him?" she said. "How can it possibly be resolved?"

Max lifted his hand, hesitated a moment, then lightly stroked her cheek. The harshness on his face eased somewhat. It was all she could do not to melt against him, not to go into his arms seeking comfort.

"You are the wife of the vicomte de Saint-Just. It's a name that counts for something in this country." A small dimple appeared and disappeared in his taut cheek. "Thanks to my great and noble parent."

"But the duc-"

"Hush and listen." His voice took on that silky resonance that never failed to send chills up and down her spine. "I know certain things about the duc de Nevers that he probably wouldn't like whispered into the ear of the king. I think we can reach a fair exchange. He gives up his persecution of you; in return he can visit his grandson occasionally. Dominique is the old man's heir, after all, and he should come to know his—"

Gabrielle jerked away from him. "Never! I will not let that monster near my son! He would carry him off and I would never see him again."

He clasped her upper arms and turned her around to face him. She shuddered at the frisson of feeling that ripped through her at his touch. But Max, evidently thinking she feared or was repulsed by him, released her so abruptly that she almost stumbled.

He backed up a step and his eyes, under their drooping lids, looked mockingly down on her. "Come, come, Gabrielle, the mighty Saint-Just pride is at stake here. Do you think I'd allow anything to happen to Dominique? He's my son now and I'll protect him." His eyes darkened to charcoal-black with some emotion she couldn't begin to fathom. "I would never let harm come to the boy. Can't you find it in you to have a little faith in me, Gabrielle?"

Her throat closed up and she almost couldn't get the words out. "Oh, Max ... of course, I have faith in you."

He gave a bitter laugh and started to turn away from her, but she grabbed his arm to stop him. Whipping around, he seized her by the neck and slammed his mouth over hers.

Their teeth grated together, and then his tongue, rigid and thrusting, was in her mouth while his hands loosened the belt around her waist and the damp material of her robe fell aside to expose her breasts. He cupped them in his hands, his fingers twisting her nipples to the ecstasy side of pain, and she arched her back, pulling their mouths apart.

His lips swooped down to her breast. His hands cupped the underside of her buttocks, pulling her hips up onto the column of his body, while his tongue and teeth toyed with her nipples. She rubbed her mound against the marble-hard muscles of his abdomen and felt his thick male ridge, tightly encased in his satin breeches, pressing up between her thighs. She lifted her knee and rubbed it against him and she could feel him pulsate and throb beneath the thin slick cloth.

He shuddered and his hands slipped, and she slid down the length of him. Her fingers tore open his breeches and suddenly his thickness was filling her hands. He spanned her waist, lifting her, sliding his shaft smoothly deep inside her until he was buried to the hilt and she wrapped her legs around his waist and drew him in tighter, deeper.

He tried to carry her like that to the bed, but they fell onto the floor, panting with laughter and passion. He rolled onto his back and she was on top of him. She pulled open his shirt, exposing the bare flesh of his chest in a deep V. Falling, forward, she rubbed her breasts across the light that of hair, feeling it tickle and tingle her sensitive flesh. She sealed his mouth with hers, diving into him with her tongue. Then she reared back and began to move up and down on him, and he lifted her breasts like a feast before his eyes as she rocked and plunged wildly in the saddle of his hips.

This, she thought—although it was not a thought at all, more a sudden, primitive awareness—this is what it feels like to ride across broad, windswept plains with a powerful stallion galloping hard between your legs, with the wind in your face and the blood pumping hot and fast in your veins.

She threw back her headland let loose a guttural cry. As the tremors of passion wrung her empty, he filled her up again.

She slumped forward onto his chest, her face nestled into the crook of his shoulder. Their lungs rose and fell together, rapidly at first, then slower and slower, as they began to wind down. Where her skin met his it was moist with sweat. One of his hands was spread over one cheek of her bottom, and he began to knead it gently. He was still inside her, although he had begun to shrink and soften. It always made her a little sad when he withdrew from her. It left her feeling empty, or as if something vital to her life had been pulled out of her.

Perhaps to lessen the sadness this time, she pulled away from him first, rolling up onto her side to look down into his face. She thought his eyes were closed, but as she opened her mouth to speak, he covered it with his palm.

"No. Don't say anything."

The words piled up in her mouth, pressing against his hand, straining to come out. Do you love me? Was it me you wanted just now, or would any woman have served?

In silence he lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed. In silence he settled her beneath silken sheets. Then to her pleased surprise he undressed and joined her. He fell asleep with one heavy arm draped across her breasts, and when he awoke a couple of hours later he took her again, in silence still, slowly this time, and with exquisite tenderness.

But he didn't speak of love. And neither did she.

G
abrielle had her son's hand tucked tightly into hers. They stood beneath the bare and withered branches of a thick-trunked chestnut tree and looked around them at the Palais Royal. The libertines and streetwalkers were as numerous as ever, but now the gardens appeared to be a hotbed of political activity, as well as sin.

The bookstalls were overloaded with pamphlets and tracts, so fresh off the presses that the heavy, acrid odor of printer's ink filled the air. A man standing on a garden bench and reading aloud from one of the pamphlets about the rights of man was gathering quite a crowd. A huge throng of people stood in front of the Cafe' de Foy listening to an orator shout about a plot on the part of the king to starve Paris.

"Maman!" Dominique pulled hard on Gabrielle's hand. "I thought you said we were going to visit Agnes and Simon."

"We are, mon petit. In a minute."

Gabrielle looked up at the sign of the pawnbroker. The three golden balls needed painting again, and she wondered why Simon had not seen to it. A spasm of fear tightened her chest. Was he ill? Had business been bad?

Through the front window she could see the flickering of the candelabra on the desk. She remembered the first time she had stood in this place, trying to summon up the courage to enter Simon's shop. How strange sometimes were the vagaries of fate, for how different her life would have been if she had chosen somewhere else to pawn Martin's ring.

The bell above the lintel rang as she pushed open the door. Simon sat On the stool behind the counter, covering a piece of paper with a loose, bold scrawl. It was a moment before he looked up—not until Dominique pulled out of her hand and began to run toward the back of the shop, shouting, "M'sieur Simon! M'sieur Simon!"

His head flung up and he blinked several times, then Dominique hurled himself onto Simon's knees, burying his head in Simon's plump lap.

Simon's outstretched hand hovered over the top of the boy's blond head, then it fell and a funny twisted look came over his face. "My dear God have mercy . . .Gabrielle. Is it really you?"

Simon's round face blurred and wavered as tears filled Gabrielle's eyes. She stumbled toward him and he stood up, bringing Dominique with him. Wordlessly he wrapped his free arm around her and pulled her tightly against him. She pressed her face into his chest. He smelled of the same old Simon—roseWater and beneath it the musty smell of old coats.

"Gabrielle, Gabrielle," he began to croon, swaying back and forth as he held them both.

A loud shriek made them pull apart. Agnes stood in the doorway to the kitchen, her hands covering her mouth, her face mottled with color beneath a monstrous mobcap. "Is it you? May the devil peel me like a raw onion. Gabrielle!"

Dominique crawled down Simon's leg and ran to Agnes, wrapping his arms around her knees. "Agnes, guess what! I can ride a horse! Her name is Marthe."

"Can you, my precious one?" Tears began to spill from Agnes's eyes and she brought a shaking hand over her mouth again. "Oh, Jesu ... I can't believe you're really here."

Gabrielle felt strangely shy. There was so much to tell and explain and she didn't know where to begin. Instead all she could manage was to mumble, "I'm here."

Agnes picked Dominique up and gave him a smacking kiss on his cheek. Setting him on his feet, she stepped back and put her fists on her hips. "Let me look at you, child. My, but I swear you've doubled in size, just like a boiled beignet. " Then she surveyed Gabrielle up and down. "By God's spleen, girl, you're as skinny as a splinter."

"Don't curse, wife," Simon said.

Gabrielle had been about to laugh, and her mouth stayed open as she whirled to gape at Simon. "Wife?"

Agnes chuckled, but her magnificent bosom swelled with pride. "Can you believe it, Gabrielle? Simon's gone and made himself my husband, the old fool." She cuffed Simon on the arm. "And now he thinks he's God himself."

Simon sniffed. "Whoever said that if it's trouble a man wants, then he should take himself a wife, knew well what he was talking about." But Simon's eyes glowed with happiness as he regarded Agnes.

Gabrielle looked from one round, smiling face to the other. "I don't know what to say . . . except to wish you well." She flung her arms around Agnes.

"Agnes!" Dominique cried, pushing between them. "Do you have any gingerbread?"