Triumph in Arms (14 page)

“You think Monsieur Vinot may have killed Theodore?”

“It makes sense, doesn’t it? His wife died years ago and the daughter was his only child. She kept house for him in the apartment above his atelier. They say he was half-crazed by her death.”

“But to be avenged in such a way.” She winced from the thought of it.

“I agree it makes no sense. It should have been a clean, quick blooding from a sword instead of a cowardly attack. Yet Theodore refused to allow Vinot satisfaction on the dueling field.”

He would, Reine thought. Admitting his faults and facing the consequences had never been Theodore’s way. That he would desert a young girl in her need, refusing to acknowledge that he was the father of her child, seemed all too likely, as well.

How she wished she had known the facts two years ago. She might have grieved less for the life she had lost, that of a respected young matron of good family and impeccable repute, safe in her natural role of wife and mother.

“Vinot doesn’t appear so fearsome,” she said, continuing Paul’s thought.

“Neither does Christien, but I would not depend on it.”

“No,” she said, the memory of swift-moving shadows and the vicious clash of blades in St. Anthony’s Garden rising in her mind. She took a deep breath and released it again in an attempt at calm. “But if Vinot did away with Theodore, what of the attack on Chris-tien? I had begun to think one might have led to the other.”

Paul scowled at her. “In what way?”

“I’m not sure, but doesn’t it seem something beyond mere happenstance must be at work?”

“Particularly as Vinot is here now, I do see what you mean. What reason did he give?”

“Only that he is a friend of Christien’s. As I was leaving the room, he mentioned something about hearing he had been hurt.”

“Friend.” Her brother’s voice was shaded with doubt.

“They are both sword masters,” she said in an instinctive search for reason in an unreasonable situation.

“Something to remember.” He looked away from her. “Could be I should look in on them.”

“You were on your way to find Papa, were you not? I’ll go back up.”

“But what if—”

“Surely Monsieur Vinot doesn’t intend violence against me. I’ve done nothing to him, after all.”

The grim look did not leave Paul’s face, though he turned away from her toward the front door. Over his shoulder, he said, “I’ll be there as soon as I can, with or without Papa.”

Yes, but what would he say when he got there?
Reine asked herself. What would he do? For that, there was no answer.

At the door of Christien’s bedchamber again a short time later, she didn’t bother to knock but swept inside. Behind her came Alonzo bearing a laden tray. She heard Christien’s voice raised in what sounded like anger.

“I am in no danger of forgetting that she is the key—”

He broke off the instant the door opened, but the echoes lingered. Reine pretended oblivion to everything except her duty as a hostess as she directed Alonzo in placing his tray, dispensing cakes and wine and making everyone comfortable. When all was settled, she embarked on the kind of meaningless chatter that filled the quiet without straining civility.

Yet all the while, the phrase she had overheard rang in her ears with the dissonance of a cracked bell. It was all she could do to speak pleasant nothings while her thoughts clashed in her head.

What did it mean, what could it mean, that the man she was to marry was a friend to the father of the girl her dead husband had wronged? As with the attacks upon Christien and Theodore, there had to be a connection. That she was concerned seemed clear, for who else could Christien have been speaking of if not her?

Yet what an elaborate scheme it would have to be to encompass so much, from the disappearance of Theodore’s body from the house to Christien’s presence outside the Théâtre d’Orléans on that fateful
night. From her father’s gambling losses and the proposal that she marry the new owner of River’s Edge to a duel in a dark garden. Revenge, though a powerful aim, hardly seemed sufficient for such a charade.

Yes, and what did it mean for her? Was the marriage proposed between her and Christien a farce? Would it be retracted at the last minute, or carried to its ultimate end as some particularly intimate form of reprisal?

She could feel the strain in her smile. It went with the weight in her chest, the leaden ache in her heart. How blighting it was to realize just how much she had begun to look forward to being married to Christien. That was at an end now, for how could she be happy with a man who might well see their alliance as an act of vengeance?

Her father arrived, panting from haste and with a pillow wrinkle in his face, as if he had been snatched away from a nap in some corner. Paul was close behind him, looking flustered yet older than his years. More stilted conversation ensued while wine and cakes were consumed.

After a time, Reine turned to Vinot. “Are you summering in the neighborhood by chance,
monsieur?
” she asked rather desperately.

“No, no,” he replied with a small smile for the suggestion. “Though well aware that these open-crop lands are known to be less given to fever, I prefer it in town. If you are thinking of the ride along the river road, it’s not so far for the sake of a friend.”

“You must come to the wedding, then.” She turned to Christien. “You did invite him?”

“It was in my mind to do so.”

The glance he gave her was quizzical. She looked away, unable to bear the intimacy and remembrance in it. “That’s settled, then. It will be pleasant for Christien to have someone present who is so well known to him.”

“Surely the others will be coming,” Vinot commented with a lifted brow. “The Conde de Lérida and his lovely condessa, O’Neill, Pasquale, Blackford, Wallace and their wives?”

“Wallace is in Kentucky just now,” Christien answered. “He and Madame Sonia may or may not return to New Orleans come winter. The others are scattered here and there, but I have hopes they will be present, along with their baggage train of children and servants.” He turned to Reine. “Marguerite should be entertained by the company. Speaking of which, where is she? It seems unlike her to miss the party here.”

It hurt that he should think with such naturalness of her daughter’s pleasure, Reine discovered. Also that he had considered those he would wish to be on hand for the wedding. He spoke so easily, it seemed impossible there should be anything sinister to the occasion.

Swallowing on an obstruction in her throat, she said, “Marguerite was in the kitchen just now, seeding raisins to be used as the eyes and coat buttons for the gingerbread men Cook is baking. Everyone will be expected to sample them in good time.”

“Not I, if you will forgive me,” Vinot said, getting stiffly to his feet. “It’s time I said my adieus. With such cowardly attacks in the vicinity as Christien has suffered, I would not be on the road after dark.”

The comment effectively ended the gathering. Though Reine’s father tried as a matter of courtesy to persuade Vinot to stay to supper, the effort was halfhearted. Bowing with great cordiality, that saturnine gentleman took his leave.

Her father followed after the guest to show him out and wave him down the road. Paul made some excuse and departed in their wake. Reine was left alone with Christien.

She rose to her feet while marshaling a glib excuse having to do with preventing Marguerite from sampling too many gingerbread men. As she moved to set her glass with its dregs of
eau sucre
on the silver tray placed on the bedside table, Christien reached out and caught her wrist.

“Don’t go just yet,” he said, his gaze steady on her face. “Not until you tell me what is wrong.”

“Nothing. Why should it be?” Her smile felt stiff, and a shiver moved over her skin, spreading from his warm clasp to every inch of her body.

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”

She could tell him, could demand answers in anger and suspicion, but what would be the point? If he was involved in some nefarious scheme, he would only lie. If he was not, she would have revealed herself as an untrusting harridan. It was better to be certain of her ground before she said things that could not be taken
back. “I’m tired, I suppose,” she said in prevarication. “It’s been a trying few days.”

“You’re sure you aren’t angry over Vinot calling here?”

She met his gaze for an instant. “Should I be?”

“By no means. He has few friends, poor soul, and wants only to hold on to those that are left. But he is hardly your kind. Could be you were uncomfortable in his company.”

“If I gave that impression, I’m sorry. You must have whoever you please to visit. This is your home, after all.”

“Throwing my words back in my face, are you?”

Her lips tilted in the briefest of acknowledgments. “They seemed apt.”

He watched her for a moment, his eyes searching while his thumb brushed back and forth over the pulse in her wrist in an absent caress. “We’ve become formal again of a sudden. Is it because you see in Vinot what I will one day become, a sword master who can no longer take to the piste?”

The slow caress of his thumb was driving her mad. She could far too easily imagine it elsewhere, skimming over the tips of her breasts, over her abdomen and lower, much lower. Her gaze rested on his mouth that looked parched from the fever that had only left him the day before, and her thoughts scattered in such disarray that it was an enormous effort to gather them up again.

“Why should it matter if you are unable to fence?” she asked, her voice husky in her throat. “You swore to lay down your sword when we are married.”

“I did, didn’t I? Is my pledge, by chance, the reason you’ve taken the pair of them away?”

She glanced around the room in puzzlement. “I don’t know what you mean. I’ve done nothing with them. When did you last see them?”

His attention remained on her face for a considering instant before he lowered his lashes. “Never mind. Perhaps Paul has them. But if you’re tired, why not join me here.” He patted the mattress beside him. “There’s plenty of room.”

In her newly alerted suspicion, she questioned if his invitation might be a ruse to distract her from the subject of his swords. The pair of them in their flat box had been tied to the back of his saddle as he rode to New Orleans. They had been used in the impromptu duel there, but what had become of them afterward? Their box had not been with him when she found him.

“That’s hardly a proper suggestion,” she answered almost at random.

“I thought we were past that.”

The low timbre of his voice awakened memories of a gaming table and her precarious perch upon it. It seemed possible he was right. More than that, the urge to simply abandon reserve and give in to his appeal was staggering. She would not have thought it possible a mere week ago. Now she longed for the illusion of safety she had found in his arms, for the comfort of lying down beside him and letting everything, all her duties, concerns, doubts and fears, drift away.

“What can be the harm,” he asked in soft reason. “We will be man and wife in a few days, so free to take
all our evening rests together. Besides, what is the difference between sitting here with me behind closed doors for hours on end and lying next to me for a few minutes? Everyone knows by now that I’ve been injured. Vinot even heard of it in New Orleans.”

It was true enough. He must be seen as incapable of the physical exertion required for truly scandalous conduct. Added to that, she had no idea how long she might be at River’s Edge once he healed. Anything could happen if Paul was right. One day soon Chris-tien could simply tell her he had changed his mind and she and her family must leave his property. He could declare everything a mistake and ride back to New Orleans. A few days, maybe less, and she might never see him again.

He met her eyes once more in searching intensity. What he saw there she could not imagine, but he exerted a slow, even pressure on her wrist. She gave in to it, allowing him to draw her down beside him.

Weak-minded fool.

She castigated herself with that label in despairing silence as she kicked off her slippers and lifted her feet to the mattress, easing along his long length with care so as not to jar his wound.

Depraved female.

That description floated through her mind as she lay back, accepting half his pillow as he shifted over to offer it, then turned to rest in the curve of his arm that closed around her.

Stupid, unprincipled wanton.

She railed at her weakness as she rested against
him, but it was halfhearted at best. She really was tired, more so than she realized. The longer she lay at his side, the weaker she felt, the more depraved and less principled.

“Reine,” he whispered, his warm breath stirring the tendrils of hair at her temple.

She drew back to look into his face, meeting the rich sable-black of his eyes, becoming lost in glimmering passion that lay there like a gold coin at the bottom of a wishing well.

“Stay with me,” he said.

She heard but could find no answer. The choice wasn’t hers to make while he held both her and River’s Edge in his thrall like some ancient robber king. What did it matter, anyway, when this moment might be all she would ever have? To die a widow, unloved and unloving, as she had once planned, was not so great a thing, after all.

“A
re you comfortable?” he asked, his voice like a caress.

She managed a nod. “I’m not hurting you?”

“Not my side, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“You…you mean to say you’re in pain elsewhere?”

“Reine, Reine,” he said with laughter threading his voice. “What did I tell you about the danger of saying such things?” Taking her hand, which lay on her waist, he uncurled her fingers and spread them over the firmness at the juncture of his thighs.

Her eyes widened as she felt the heat and steel-like hardness of him. Inhaling sharply, she snatched her hand away.

He made no move to stop her, but lifted a brow as he smiled into her eyes. And abruptly she was lightheaded with the onrush of purest, unbridled desire. Under its assault, she could not move. Warmth suffused her and she could feel a pulse begin to flutter in her bottom lip. Through her mind drifted his promise to show her just how Theodore had been a fool when it came to making love.

“Don’t look like that,” he whispered, his eyes growing darker as their centers expanded.

She could not answer. Her hand came to rest on his chest of its own accord. Beneath her fingers now she could feel the thick edge of his bandaging and, above it, the throb of his heart. Slowly, she spread her fingers, flattening her palm against that strong and steady beat.

“I did warn you,” he said, the words almost inaudible before he reached to close his free arm around her, drawing her against him from breasts to ankles. His long, hard swordsman’s fingers splayed across her back, a hold from which it might be impossible to break free.

She didn’t want to be free, had no will to move away from the entrancing strength and firmness of him, the incredible rightness of being there with him at that moment. She reveled in the rich sensation flooding through her, tingling from every point where they touched, gathering in vibrant, near-painful pressure at the center of her being.

His lips were warm against her temple, her forehead, her eyelids. Perfect, perfect, the sense of being cherished that it brought, in spite of everything. Amazing, the heat of it that melted her very bones. It seemed she had been moving toward this place, this time, since the night they met, waiting for this moment. The glory of its arrival and his acceptance of it brought an ache to her throat and pressure behind her eyelids with the sting of salt tears. Mutely, she lifted her mouth, and sighed with a small moan as he took what she offered.

He tasted her, absorbed her, the touch of his lips a little dry from fever yet infinitely tender. He smoothed the surface of her mouth with his, collected the sweetness at the corners of her lips with the warm edge of his tongue, traced the line of their joining. She didn’t mean to part her lips so soon, so eagerly; didn’t know she had until it was done.

His hold tightened and a tremor ran along his arm. He rolled above her while deliciously invading her mouth. He swirled his tongue around hers, seeking her flavor, inviting imitation, inciting honeyed joy.

It rose inside Reine so fiercely that she strained against him, sliding her hand over the ridged muscles of his shoulders, curling her fingers around the taut column of his neck and pushing them into the crisp waves of his hair. She could feel the tight buds of her nipples pressing against the hard wall of his chest, her breasts molding to its muscle-sheathed planes. Rapture danced along her nerves to leave her pulsating in its wake, so exquisitely sensitive that she could identify the linen weave of the nightshirt he wore, sense the breath he held trapped in his lungs, recognize without effort the rigorous restraint he exerted over his needs, his impulses.

His taste, a mixture of wine and his own sweetness, intoxicated her. She twined her tongue with his, softly abrading it, following his withdrawal to skim the silken inner surface of his mouth. Drowning in languor and repletion, she let go of time and place. There was only wonder and the man who cradled her in magic and his sure strength.

He glided his hand from her back to the slender turn of her waist and over her hip. For an instant, he spread his hand there, drawing her tighter against him. Before she could absorb more than an instant of his heated hardness against her, he skimmed lower, gathering the fullness of her skirt in his fingers, sliding underneath to caress the bend of her knee. Even through the batiste of her pantaloons, she could feel the callused hardness and the heat of his palm as he brushed upward to her thigh.

He slackened his grasp, released her and eased away a short distance. Distress touched her. Then she saw that he was tugging at his nightshirt, gathering its fullness with one hand, trying to drag it off over his head. She aided him, freeing the yards of cloth, whipping the shirt away and letting it fall over the side of the bed.

Even as she stretched out her arm for that move, his hand was at her bodice, tugging the blouson summer shirtwaist she wore from her skirt and pushing it upward. Her arm became entangled. While she attempted to free it, he bent his head and nuzzled the soft valley between her breasts that he had exposed. A shiver moved over her skin, though whether from trepidation or anticipation she could not tell. In its wake, she was consumed by the need to strip away the layers of fabric that encased her, and with them to be rid of conventions and prohibitions, doubts and fears.

She pushed away a little and sat up to throw off the shirtwaist, unfasten the side hooks of the wide black band that held her skirt and the tapes of her petticoats.
With his eyes hooded, Christien tugged at the bow that tied her corset laces and loosened its tight pinch with a few quick jerks. He sent it flying then, along with its cover. While she kicked free of her skirts, he soothed the small red channels pressed into her skin by her whalebone corset stays, making gentle circles with his fingertips, following them with his lips.

She was enraptured by the concentration in his face as he performed that service, and by the concern. Yet all thought fled as he shifted his ministrations to the gentle mounds of her breasts, circling one peak until, in a sudden assault on the summit, he took the nipple into the heat of his mouth. It grew tighter, aching as he laved it, drew carefully upon it.

Heated pleasure surged through her. She arched her back, allowing greater access, offering unimpeded permission. Her pulse made feathery thunder in her ears. Heaviness gathered below her waist, throbbing between her thighs.

Even as he continued the delicate ravishment, he flattened his palm over her abdomen, smoothing in circles as if enthralled by the soft yet resilient surface. He eased lower in slow increments and questing intent.

He was no bungler, all inept arrogance and certainty that her pleasure was the same as his own. He knew the sites that stoked bliss, spreading it in engorging waves. Careful, unhurried yet certain, he closed his hand upon her, capturing her soft, moist folds, gently holding, pressing with the heel of his hand, separating with his long fingers.

Reine caught her breath, her stomach muscles shuddering
in spasms at his slow incursion. Internal muscles fluttered, holding, opening again in invitation. She sighed as he pressed deep, stroking with such sureness that she was consumed by the most fervid of needs, the wildest of impulses.

She clasped his arm in her extremity, feeling the supple glide of the ropelike muscles as he moved. She needed, yearned for something more, something deeper. Her lips felt swollen, her brain on fire. She wanted him, wanted all of him, had to know what it was to make love to this man, to feel his strength against her, around her, within her.

He was so very strong, a latent force in the iron musculature of his body held subject by his iron will. His aura of power, in abeyance these few days spent in invalid’s guise, surrounded them both, an effortless emanation that refused to regard his injury. It drew her strength from her, leaving her defenseless against him, also against her own urge toward surrender.

She didn’t care. It might never come again, this perilous blending of bodies and intentions. Whatever happened, she would have this to remember. Whispering his name, she gave herself to the moment and to him, a gift he might not keep, might not value, but was his all the same.

He took instant advantage, exploring firm curves and soft hollows with a touch so thorough it could never be erased. Where his hands went, his mouth traced, as well, and the insistent lap of his tongue. Slow, painstaking, with no constraint upon will or imagination, he loved her while her breath sobbed in
her throat and she writhed in his arms. And in her throes, she followed his example as best she might, learning his taste and texture while avoiding the bandage that wrapped his rib cage, listening for the catch in his breathing that marked his pleasure.

No access was denied her, no impediment given. She was free to take him as he would. And so she did until flesh and mind could stand no more. Lying beneath his perspiration-slick body, she captured his hard, silken length between her thighs, holding it poised against her softness while her very soul pulsated with rhythmic contractions and hot longing.

“Now?” he asked, the single word husky and not quite even.

“If you will, if you can. I do so need—” Her voice caught as he nudged against her and heat inundated her in rolling waves.

“No more than I. As for my will, it’s as yours. For my ability, shall we see?”

She should not have doubted. Hard on his words, he gave a slow twist of his hips that opened moist, hot flesh, allowed him to surge inside in a single, swift plunge.

She caught her breath, holding it while the inner core of her expanded, throbbing in fierce welcome. Brushing lightly over his injury, clasping his hips, she pulled him deeper, wanting to be filled, needing all of him, aching to have him touch the wellspring of her existence before the meshing was too soon over.

Christien whispered wordless praise and promises against her hair, then raised himself above her. She
almost cried out in protest at that small withdrawal, might have except for his steel-like slide against her inner walls. The muscles of his thighs bunched and gathered before he came down upon her again, plunging to greater depths.

It was an endless tumult then, rising and falling, blending without surcease or pause. He rocked her, gathered her, carried her with him into a physical realm where she had never before ventured, never dreamed existed. The gratification was beyond expectation or belief, an incredible upheaval of mind, body and senses. She reveled in it, met his fast and rhythmic pace, yes, and matched it while her chest heaved with gasping breaths and silent sobs.

With her eyes tightly closed, she exulted in the shuddering impact of his warm flesh upon hers that was warmer still, shivered with the inexorable mounting of sensual joy. No fastness inside her was left untouched or unclaimed. Thorough, tireless, as absorbed as a miner in avid search of gold, he moved with her, against her, letting her feel his strength, absorb his power, until she felt as if her utmost self was dissolving, molding to fit his.

Lost in infinite sensation, the spiraling apex of fulfillment caught her unawares. She cried out, tensing in every muscle while its spreading grandeur took her. He grasped her close, filling her so she pulsed against his hard heat, prolonging the pleasure to near insanity.

He began again then.

Gasping, swallowing tears, Reine soared with him, locked to him hot skin to hot skin, heart to heart. She
opened her eyes and stared into his face, though it blurred above her. His gaze burned black and hot, almost primitive in its possessiveness. His teeth were clamped together so the muscles stood out in his jaws; his hair was damp with perspiration. And yet his restraint would not, did not, give way.

Exaltation sang in Reine’s blood. She felt elemental, splendidly naked and glorified with it. They were, could well be, the only man and woman in the entire world to find this ultimate beatitude.

The sweet splendor took her again. The tears came, tracking into her hair, a salute to beauty and grandeur and the purpose of life, a backward look toward what had been glaringly absent in her marriage, an ecstasy beyond mortal dreams.

He plunged into her with a quick twist of his hips, and yet again with a harsh whisper of repletion. For long moments he hovered unmoving, a statue in bronze. Then he sighed and gathered her to him, sinking down beside her, burying his face in her hair. He held her while his chest heaved and their breathing, harsh and near-winded, slowed and grew even in the echoing stillness.

“Are you all right?” he asked, his mouth against the wet track where her tears had dampened her hair.

“Perfectly.” The word seemed inadequate.

He shifted a little, rising up on one elbow as if to see her face. “You’re certain I didn’t hurt you?”

“I’m certain.” She kept her eyes closed, in part to hold on to the feelings that were seeping away from her, but also for self-protection. She didn’t want to see what he thought of her. “And you? Are you well?”

“Exceedingly,” he answered with the ghost of a laugh in his voice.

“I only meant—I was speaking of your wound.”

“It’s well enough. Movement may have made it less sore—or could be I’m too sated to care. But we were speaking of you. If I was too rough—”

“No. Not at all.”

“Why these, then?” He touched a thumb to her temple, collecting a tear on its hard edge.

“It’s—nothing to do with you,” she said over the knot in her throat. “Just all the things I never knew, might never have felt if…if you had not come to River’s Edge. Yes, and how close I came to never knowing.”

He was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice had a contemplative note in it. “The matter of Theodore’s complaints, yes? You do see that men often blame bedchamber difficulties on their partners to cover their own lack.”

“Why can’t they simply learn what to do?”

“That would require admitting the fault, no easy thing for those whose pride is tender and easily damaged.”

“They also have to care.”

“That above all,” he answered, his voice vibrating deep in his chest.