Napoleon's Woman (5 page)

London, England

June 23, 1811

Aidan Duhearst, Earl of Wessex, stood propping up the gilded walls of the gaming room at Lord Reynolds’s annual ball.

Since his return from the peninsula, he had been recuperating at his estates in Wessex, and it had nearly killed him. If his physicians had their way, he would be there still, but Aiden could no longer sit on his backside, quiescent as the French swept through Europe.

He looked about, tugging at his black evening jacket and thinking how much more comfortable he felt in his uniform. His sister had hounded him into attending the ball in the hopes of raising his spirits. But the grand events that had for so long been a central entertainment of his life now seem insignificant and hollow.

He lifted his champagne flute to his lips, wishing it were filled with something stronger. Aidan sighed as he studied the crowded ballroom. Beautiful woman scurried passed him, adorned with a king’s ransom in jewels and silk. He smiled politely, knowing the ladies had no idea what was befalling their brothers and sons on the battlefields of Europe. Men were dying so that the privilege London elite could continue living the opulent lifestyle they now enjoyed.

Aidan sneered at the fastidious dandies that were so careful to wear the latest fashions. He wondered how the pink-waist coated gentlemen to his left would react to blood seeping through their precious silks as a bullet lodged in their chest. But, of course, they would never know, as they made damn sure to pay other men to fight for their estates.

Men Aiden watched die.

Disgusted, he took another sip of champagne, contemplating how soon he would be able to leave without increasing his sister’s concern for him. All he wanted to do was drain himself between the thighs of the most readily available woman, and then return to his own bed.

"Damnation," he swore under his breath when silver eyes locked on his.

Aidan pushed away from the wall, his first instinct to make a dash for the door. However, he remained where he stood, waiting for the man that was so intent on speaking with him to arrive at his side.

"Wessex," the huge man acknowledged, peering into his eyes as if he might find the answers he sought.

"Glenbroke," Aidan said, nodding a courteous welcome to the duke. "I don’t suppose there is any chance of your telling my sister that you spoke with me and that I am enjoying the ball immensely?"

Gilbert de Clare clasped his hands behind his back and looked over the heads of the twirling couples on the crowded dance floor. "Not likely, I’m afraid. I have never been able to lie convincingly to my wife, and I fear her wrath far more than I fear yours."

Aidan chuckled, exposing his dimples. "She does have a temper, does she not?"

"Ruthless, she has threatened to quit my bed if I did not seek you out." The duke’s luminescent eyes held amusement mingled with a deeper affection that Aidan could not help but envy.

"Oh, the little hellcat does know where to hit a man."

Aidan joined his brother-in-law in watching the decorative couples dance past mountains of flowers and food, food he would have killed for on the peninsula.

The duke leaned toward him as the two men stood shoulder to shoulder. "How are you, Aidan?" Gilbert asked, his voice quiet.

Aidan could feel his jaw clenching as he attempted to sound serene. "I am well, Gilbert."

The Duke of Glenbroke was not deceived, and his eyes narrowed with concern. "It is this for which you have been fighting, Aidan. Our way of life," the man said astutely, understanding the bent of his thoughts.

"I realize that, Your Grace. However, one cannot help but wonder if our ‘way of life’ is worth the cost. And despite Sarah’s desire to see me enjoy myself tonight, I cannot seem to muster any enthusiasm after witnessing my friends’ limbs being hacked away from their bodies."

The duke remained silent, for there was nothing one could say.

Aidan turned his head, pushing his memories aside. "Sorry, old man. No need for both of us to be miserable."

Gilbert smiled and gave Aidan’s shoulder an affectionate squeeze. "It’s alright, old boy. But I must warn you, your sister has decided that you should marry."

He groaned. "Bloody Hell."

"She thinks if you marry and begin a family it will lessen the pain of the destruction you witnessed at Albuera. I believe she has even picked your bride."

Aidan’s eyes flew to his brother-in-law’s. "My bride?"

The duke laughed. "Yes, and I must say I wholeheartedly agree with her selection."

"Dear God, even my own kind has turned against me. You traitorous bastard," he teased. "Very well, who is this paragon of the fairer sex?"

"Oh, no." The duke held up both hands. "Perish the thought that I should ruin all your sister’s clandestine plans for seeing you happily wed." Gilbert smirked, "You shall just have to attend dinner Saturday next in accordance with Sarah’s matrimonial schedule."

Aidan took another sip of champagne, mumbling, "Perhaps the French were not all that bad?"

"Eight o’clock sharp, and do not even consider…"

But Aidan was not listening. His eyes rested on a woman standing on the far side of the ballroom. He could not see her face clearly for she stood at an angle, but something about her …

He tensed as the golden haired women turned to receive a note from a footman. He watched her read the missive and then discreetly slip the communiqué into the bodice of her lavender ball gown.

"Aidan?"

He realized the duke had called his name several times, but he had not heard him. He continued watching the woman as she looked about then retreated into the recesses of Lord Reynolds’s home.

Rage shot through him like a flash of lightening. He shoved his glass at Gilbert, splashing champagne all over the duke’s exquisitely cut evening jacket.

"Wessex!"

He ignore the cry as he pushed his way through the crush, focusing intently on the retreating figure elegantly clad in a shimmering silk gown.

Aidan followed with caution, waiting to ascend the stairs until the fair woman had done so herself. It could not be her, his rational self argued. But his senses had been sparked, and now his gut was contradicting his mind.

He reached the second floor of Lord Reynolds’s town home just in time to observe the woman entering the last room on the left of the corridor. The hall was dark, having been made so to indicate that this area was out of bounds to guests.

His booted feet fell silent on the lush chartreuse carpeting as he approached the door and he noticed that it had been left ajar. Aidan glanced down the hall and then listened to the soft noises emanating from deep inside the chamber. He pushed the door open and slid into the large room, twisting the knob before closing the mahogany door and slowly releasing the latch.

His efforts were rewarded. The woman did not hear him as she searched the small writing desk on the opposite side of the room. Aidan surveyed his surroundings, looking to block any possible means of escape.

An ornate four-poster bed dominated the large room with a massive armoire to its right. A blue brocade settee and large chair of quality leather sat at an angle in front of the marble fireplace. The long windows opposite the door were flanked by luxurious midnight blue velvet drapes, which mirrored the colors woven into the intricate pattern of the oval Aubusson carpet.

The only other exit from the bedchamber was the double doors that led to the adjoining sitting room. His lips curled in a malicious grin as he crept toward her.

He was surprised by the depth of loathing he felt for this woman, this siren that lured men to their deaths by seducing them with her deceptively angelic beauty.

"I see a frog has leapt the pond and landed upon our fair shores," he said ferociously.

Lady Rivenhall stiffened and bolted for the sitting room doors, but they were locked. She spun, lifting her skirts and Aidan was on her, pressing her into the paneled wood while grasping the wrist of the hand that now held her knife.

Aidan could feel her breast rising against his chest. He looked down into her blue-green gaze and saw no fear, only calculation. He held her cold eyes as he squeezed her wrist until he thought it would break, before she finally relinquished her weapon.

There was a reason the French had sent this woman, he thought with reluctant admiration. Aidan was disgusted with himself for admiring any aspect of this traitor, and his revulsion quickly dissolved into anger.

"Why are you here, Lady Rivenhall?" he asked with one brow quirked above empty green eyes.

"I became lost and wondered into this area of the house," the woman replied with no hint of anxiety.

Aidan scoffed, amazed at her capacity for lying. "Why are you in
England
, my lady?" The heat from her bare neck and shoulders rose to warm his down turned face.

"I am a British citizen, my lord."

"Yet, you fight against the freedom that citizenship provides," he stated as a matter of course, wondering who else was fighting against that freedom. "Who sent the note?"

Her eyes remained blank and unreadable. "What note?"

She gasped when his hand dove into her bodice. Aidan traced the curve of her breast as his fingers searched for the concealed missive.

"This note," he whispered, feeling the folded parchment.

He wrapped his finger around the paper that lay beneath her breast then slowly withdrew it, unable to avoid grazing her nipple that had hardened to an enticing peak. She shuddered against him, and Aidan felt a primal satisfaction in her response before he opened the note and read the brief communiqué.

First floor, east wing, last door on the left.

He pulled himself from her lithe body, gripping her arm as he hauled her toward the bed. He needed to search the rest of her and the bed was the nearest place to conduct the examination. He pushed her down on the colorful counterpane, exactly where he wanted her, then stopped.

He looked down at his stunning enemy and realized that she was indeed where he wanted her. He closed his eyes to purge the seductive image only to open them when he heard her scramble toward the door. He leapt, catching her arm before she reached the far side of the bed.

Aidan rolled her over and held both wrists above her head as he lowered himself on top of the struggling woman, crushing her into the mattress. Her face relaxed with shock and he was darkly pleased to see the fear behind those aqua eyes.

He wanted her to feel a portion of the fear her captives felt before being hanged…the fear he had felt. Only then would he turn her over to the authorities.

He reached down and lifted her skirt, telling himself that it was necessary, crucial, that she be searched. His hand caressed her calf then drifted up the outer portion of her right leg as the lady stubbornly held his gaze. Aidan’s fingers skimmed the inner thigh of her leg until he encountered the sheath for her deadly knife.

"Do you have any other weapons?" he asked, holding on by the fingernails to his gentlemanly ideals by giving her one last opportunity to end his search.

She said nothing, and he cursed her stubbornness. He placed his hand on the delicate bone of her other ankle and started drifting up her thigh. Aidan looked into his enemy’s eyes and his baser instincts took over, much as they had on the peninsula, much as he feared they always would.

He fought against it, his hand pausing on her upper thigh. "Do you have any other weapons, Lady Rivenhall? He stared at her lips.

"No," she breathed, staring at his.

It was more that he could take.

"Damn you," he whispered to himself, unsure if he was cursing her or himself, then dropped his head to taste the traitor that had haunted his dreams and his nightmares. But his head snapped up when he heard feminine laughter mere feet from the mahogany door. He leapt off the bed, shoving Lady Rivenhall behind the armoire.

His back pressed against the wood and his left shoulder fell flush to the stenciled wall. There was a good six inches of the armoire to his right. It should be enough to conceal them, provided the visitors did not venture too far into the large room.

Aidan pulled the treacherous woman into his body, one hand splayed across her abdomen while the other clamped firmly over her mouth. Her back rested against his chest, so he was forced to bend forward and whisper.

"If you scream--," but his threat was cut short when the inebriated couple stumbled into the bedchamber.

"Oh, Jonathan. What a lovely room," a woman observed.

"Do you like it?" the man asked, followed by the hiss of a silk cravat being pulled off its wearer’s neck. "My wife chose the color."

"It’s very restive."

Silk rustled, and the woman giggled when the man said, "Not for long. Come hear you wicked wench." More rustling. "Ahh, Fiona, you have the most superb heavers that I have ever seen."

Aidan tried desperately to block out Lord Reynolds’ words, but it was difficult when the weight of Lady Rivenhall’s breast rested against his hand.