The Corrupt Comte (3 page)

She’d made so many exceptions for Sabien Purvis, starting with a dreaded dance in London several months ago and ending tonight, when she’d followed him from the main party to the parlor.

Tonight was the night he would kiss her. If she could convince him to kiss her, she knew it was only a matter of time until she could convince him to wed her.

Claudia needed so desperately to be wed.

She allowed him to lead her from that dratted parlor, unnerved and thrilled by the casual familiarity with which he touched her—his fingers curling just beneath the curve of her bosom. He’d never dared such close contact before, and she stifled a pleasant shiver as their footsteps echoed on the hallway’s cool marble floor.

Her hands scrabbled for the blindfold, but he stopped her, releasing his hold on her gown with a gentle hand to her wrist. “Not yet.” His voice was different than she remembered from London. A little…rumblier.

She liked that rumble.

The hand at her wrist slid down to clasp her fingers, and she stumbled. His bare palm was
so warm
, the skin rough, abrasive with calluses.

She hadn’t known a man’s hand could feel like this. His fingers felt heavy wrapped around hers, firm and strong, and heat wound itself like a satin glove over her wrist, up her forearm to her elbow until she realized she was leaning into his side.

His hand on hers was the most glorious sensation she’d ever experienced.

He halted, and she heard the quiet click of a doorknob turning, and then he drew her forward. The overwhelmingly clean smells of vanilla and lavender hit her nostrils, and she knew they had entered the linen closet. He released her hand to close the door behind them, a telling
snick
as the key rattled in the lock.

Her hand fisted in the folds of her skirts at the loss of his touch, skin chilling immediately. “S-S-Sa—”

He silenced her with one of those workman’s fingers to her lips. “Trust me?” he whispered, bending close to her ear.

She found she didn’t mind being shushed when the reward was physical contact, and nodded. Perhaps she wouldn’t have to beg him to kiss her, after all. Perhaps he would kiss her of his own volition.

Perhaps she was nearer to freedom than she’d imagined.

His fingertip fell from her lips, hands coming to rest lightly on her shoulders as he positioned her to face another direction. The blindness began to nauseate her, and she reached for his arms to find gravity, a foundation to steady her in the midst of this sensory deprivation.

“Step back.”

Taking a deep breath, she did so. His hands left her shoulders.

“Again.”

Another step.

“Again.”

Her shoulders hit something sharp and unyielding, but as she reached behind her to feel for what had halted her progress, there was a tug on one of her wrists, and the slip and catch of cool, cheap linen against her skin. “What—?” She managed to rip free the blindfold before her other hand was snatched and subjected to similar treatment—knotting her wrist to what appeared to be a shelf’s post. The forced span of her arms stretched her until she feared her bodice would rip in two.

She whipped her head forward to glare at Sabien…only to find a stranger looming over her, one hand lifted as though about to touch her face.

“
Je v-vous en p-p-prie…
” she begged, attempting to flee and halted by the sturdy wooden shelf at her back, the bindings at her wrists. She was trapped.

Panic suffused her.

Escape. She needed to escape. She leapt forward, arms straining against her bonds. The linen didn’t give, instead snapping her back into the shelf with a violent rebound. Her skull cracked loudly—painfully—on the sharp edge, and she cried out as her eyes watered with stinging tears.

Her chin dropped to her chest, panting heaving breaths. She squeezed her eyes shut, fighting for calm, but there was none to be found—not with a big, terrifying man invading her space more and more with every passing moment. She could feel the warmth emanating from his body, and his scent wrapped around her.

His scent.
The daughter and granddaughter of gifted perfumers, she should have known it wasn’t Sabien by his scent. Sabien had always smelled faintly of cinnamon and cloves.

This man was…a forge. His scent was pure heat. Sparks. Something burning and metallic that hovered in the scant air between them.

Foreign, his scent was foreign and intimidating, and Claudia suddenly remembered the whispers she’d heard over the years. Years spent listening to everyone and speaking to no one had taught her there were outcomes far worse than a ruined reputation.

She didn’t know the French, words failing her as always, though this time not due to her condition. Switching to English, she whispered, “Are you g-g-going t-to…
rape
m-me?”

“
Non
.” But he traced one blunt fingertip over her cheekbone.

A shudder wracked her—not entirely repulsion. Was she so starved for affection that she’d allow a dangerous stranger free rein over her person?

No. No, she wouldn’t allow that. “Let m-me go.” She opened her eyes, searching out his, imploring. “P-please.”

The faint light of the lamp sitting in the closet’s corner cast flickering shadows across the stranger’s face. Handsome, but not beautiful like Sabien. Where Sabien’s aesthetic called to mind fairytale princes, this man was starkly attractive, menacing, with an angular jaw and blunt chin, and cheekbones sharp enough to chip diamonds. His long nose had very obviously been broken and reset once upon a time, and light brown hair spilled artfully over a high forehead. His eyes were heavy-lidded and deep-set beneath slashing brows of darker brown.

She couldn’t discern the color of his irises in the dim light, didn’t care to, and anger slowly began to mix with the fear icing her veins. No one could save her but herself—a lesson she’d learned the hard way. “Let m-me go,
n-n-now
.” Her chin lifted, her jaw tight.

He dropped his hand. “
Je ne préfere pas.
”

Claudia recognized the words she’d stumbled through in the parlor. “Are you m-m-mocking m-me?” Oh, that stung, even coming from this villain, who she didn’t believe for a second intended her no harm.

Men with innocent intentions didn’t tie women up.

“
Je n—
” He broke off, that low-pitched rumble halting on a burst of frustrated-sounding air. “I do not mock you.” His English carried the jerky cadence of someone unused to speaking it with any sort of regularity.

He tugged at his coat sleeves, gaze dropping from hers to the fall of rich white lace that spilled from his cuffs. Such a feminine adornment, outdated too, but it matched the extravagance of the rest of his ensemble—the dark blue velvet jacket dressed with mother-of-pearl buttons, the plum-colored cravat set with a brilliant jeweled pin and providing a crisp contrast to his pristine white shirt and shining silver waistcoat. Snowy trousers clung to his legs like a second skin.

An indecent second skin. “Who are you?” she asked, tearing her gaze from the worrisome lower half of his body. She wasn’t a tall woman, and the height and breadth of this man intimidated her. “Why d-did you t-tie me up?”

“I am Gaspard Toussaint,
le comte du Lorraine-Mâche
.” His arms crossed over his broad chest. “I bound you, Claudia, to…to introduce myself.”

“It’s Miss P-Pascale,” she whispered, tamping down a fresh surge of panic as she stared up at him.

None are more dangerous than the nobility, child. They have so much to lose.

Her grandfather’s words echoed in her ears as dread trickled down her spine. She’d thought Sabien, as a military man, was safe to pursue. He would likely have need of her dowry, but as decorated a soldier as he was, he wouldn’t be desperate for it. He would be respectful and not derogatory, less apt to think a merchant heiress beneath him.

An aristocrat such as the one who stood before her—who had
imprisoned
her—was an entirely different creature. This
comte
would be able to see every chink in her armor, every gap in her pedigree. Worse, he could toy with her as he was now without consequence.

No one would protect her in the aftermath of the closet. Her entire body went cold at the realization.

His solid shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I prefer Claudia.” His stance widened, and she shrank away, feeling the press of shelves at her shoulder blades, the small of her back, just above her knees and again low on her calves. He frowned at her. “You should not fear me.”

His tone was so sincere, his statement so ridiculous, that it broke through the ice shrouding her. “Of c-course not,” she bit out. “Because this is a p-perfectly normal m-means of introducing oneself.”

She blinked. With those words, Claudia had said more to this
comte
than she had to all others in the past weeks in Paris combined. Perhaps she possessed hidden depths, filled to the brim with previously untapped bravery. Perhaps every past instance of cowering before a stronger hand was a mere fluke, and this burst of confidence represented the real Claudia. The Claudia who was going to leave her parents’ house once and for all and never feel tiny or diminished or scared ever again.

Unlikely.

He unfolded his arms with such fluid surety that she didn’t have time to react, much less breathe, as he gripped her chin between surprisingly gentle fingers. His shadowed gaze delved hers, searching. “You want Sabien.”

She blushed. She would admit nothing.

His fingers tightened. “When I ask a question, you answer.
Avec des mots. Vous comprenez?
”

Her eyes narrowed on his stern face. “I understand.” She’d been obvious, it seemed, to the point where this stranger not only knew she wanted Sabien Purvis, but assumed she harbored a deeper affection for the man. “B-but that wasn’t a…” she concentrated on the hard consonant, “…question.”

“Clever
fille
.” His thumb stroked over her chin, back and forth, a petting designed to make any female melt in his arms.

Any female except Claudia, because Claudia refused to melt. Staying immune to his touch was a Herculean task, however. A stronger woman—one who’d spent her youth nurtured by nannies or tackled by siblings or hugged by friends or kissed by loving parents—would be able to stand quietly under the
comte
’s simple caress. A stronger woman would remain unaffected by this skin-to-skin contact, rarer in Claudia’s life than a sentence free of stutter.

But Claudia wasn’t that woman. Her mother had never held her. Her nanny had never embraced her. The governess her father had hired had been a strict witch of a woman who obviously hated teaching as much as she hated children. There had been no friends whose hands Claudia could hold, and her grandfather… Well,
Grandpére
had disappeared to Hampshire ten years ago with what she’d been told was a case of acute dementia, and with him went her one chance of ever being thought of as something more than a blight to her family’s name.

So was it really a shock that her spine lost its starch, the longer the
comte
touched her? Or that she had begun to lose her fear, as he’d yet to fall on her in a frenzy of unchecked lust—as she presumed rapists were wont to do?

Shame heated her cheeks. Perhaps not a shock, but rather sick, nonetheless. Her past had shaped her, leading her to this moment where she might very well be assaulted and stripped of her virtue by this intimidating man. This man, who thought she was
clever
. “Yes, I want him. N-now untie m-m-me.”

“I untie you, you run.”

That’s what any sane woman would do, and Claudia considered herself sane, melting spine and all. “P-please, let m-me…let me g-go.” He was too big to fight, too broad and shadowed and his hand was still on her chin. Still holding her. One sharp jerk to the side, and her neck would snap.

She’d seen a man’s neck snapped, so long ago it might as well have been a dream. But it hadn’t been. She knew it hadn’t.

“I do not want you to run.” His fingers slid over her jaw to curve along the side of her neck. So light a touch to induce such dark sensations in Claudia’s belly. “I want to talk to you.”

Her heart missed a beat. No one ever wanted to talk to her.

His other hand lifted to her nape, fingertips digging gently into the tense muscles knotted at the top of her spine. “You want Sabien. Why?”

The situation grew odder by the second. “I d-don’t understand. What’s s-s-so important about S—” She swallowed, and watched as his gaze dropped to her throat. “About him?”

Those rough-skinned fingertips began to knead, small circles that somehow slowed her hectic breathing and loosened the stiff set of her shoulders. “Sabien is my friend, and he…knows.”

“Knows what?” A pointless question, because he meant that Sabien was aware of her fixation. As soon as she’d decided on him back in London, she knew she’d been somewhat less than subtle, but here in Paris she’d barely seen him—only at the occasional soirée—and she hadn’t dared approach him. Until tonight, after overhearing her parents’ conversation as they dressed for this soirée. Her limited sands were trickling through life’s hourglass, and soon she’d be empty and utterly powerless, forced to accept the husband they would purchase for her.

“You wanted him to capture you, yes?” The
comte
’s hands brushed down, down across the faint jut of her collarbone until the heel of one palm rested over her pounding heart. “What did you plan for him, here in the closet?”