Miss Fortescue's Protector in Paris

by Amanda McCabe

  ‘I never want that, either.’ He reached out and gently touched her hand, a warm, comforting brush of his fingers. ‘I want to help, Em, truly I do. I knew I went about it all in the most wrong way, that I was blasted clumsy, but I do want to help you. I want you to be safe.’

  Emily swallowed hard, trying not to burst into tears in front of him. Trying not to let him see how very much his words meant to her. ‘Yes. I do believe you, Chris. I could never think you were—well, anything like the man who attacked me.’

  Chris gave her a crooked, rueful smile. ‘You just think I am a careless ne’er-do-well.’

  Emily remembered her doubts about him lately, those flashes of something solemn, serious, hidden behind his eyes. Could she trust him? Were there more secrets in his life? ‘Not entirely.’

  He turned her hand lightly on his palm, studying her fingers against his skin. ‘Do you have any idea at all if someone you know might have been the one who followed you in the street? If it could have been someone besides an opportunistic vagrant?’

  She thought back, remembering all the sleepless nights she had spent trying to decide that very thing. Trying to remember everything, everyone she had ever met. She studied Chris carefully, and realised she could truly confide in him. That he could be trusted. ‘I—something did once happen, in my first Season. I felt so foolish about it all and I never told anyone. Not Father, or even Alex and Diana. But the memory has rather nagged at me.’

  His brow creased in a concerned frown. ‘You can tell me. I promise your secret is safe.’

  She thought of the masks Chris wore, layers and layers of them, just as she wore her masks. Masks of strength and work, but they weren’t all the story of her. Just as his were not all of him. Yes, he probably could keep a secret. Lock it up safe.

  ‘Well, for a time, a very short time, I rather fancied myself in love with someone. We had always read some rather silly novels at Miss Grantley’s and I think they turned my head, even though I always laughed at them. This man seemed quite charming. But then...’ Emily forced herself to go back to that night, to the girl she had once been, even as she wanted to run away from it all for ever. ‘Then he tried to take advantage of me at a party. I had gone out on to the terrace with him, thinking he might be about to propose, but instead he kissed me, tried to reach under my skirts. He laughed when I was outraged, said I was just a girl in trade and should appreciate his attentions. I slapped him and ran away. I tried to forget it all. But I thought I saw him at the races.’

  Chris looked outraged. His fingers closed tightly over hers. ‘And you think it could be this person following you, sending the notes?’

  ‘Not really. Maybe? No. He seems to move from lady to lady as easily as changing his stockings, I’m sure he didn’t think of me at all after that night. As far as I know he’s gone to India And I haven’t heard he is in Paris, though I did wonder if I saw him that day at Longchamp.’

  ‘I’m sure you have many admirers, some with just such mistaken ideas. Has anyone else dared to behave so outrageously?’ he asked tightly.

  Emily wondered if he was angry with her suitors—or with her. She felt a hurtful pang that he might think that. Surely they knew each other better than that? ‘I don’t encourage anyone, Chris! I have no time for romance now. I would never be less than honest with anyone.’

  ‘Of course you would not. You are Emily. You’re never less than honest. Even when it could wound a fragile male heart.’ He laughed and kissed her hand quickly.

  ‘Oh, you’re teasing!’

  ‘Not at all. Have any of your suitors become—more insistent lately? Have you received any more strange letters here in Paris?’

  Emily thought of James Hertford, how he always seemed to appear where she was. But he seemed harmless enough. ‘No one that I can tell. But every time I travel somewhere new, I’m always looking over my shoulder now.’

  ‘Yes.’ Chris squeezed her hand, his silence heavy, his face serious and thoughtful. He stood up, drawing her with him. ‘Come, let me show you something.’

  ‘Is this another tease?’ she asked suspiciously.

  ‘Certainly not. I’m just going to show you a few things I’ve learned in my disreputable life. Going to prize fights and such, you know.’

  ‘Oh, really!’ Emily clapped her hands in delight. ‘Will you show me how to break someone’s nose in one blow?’

  ‘Two, maybe. Just come here, I’ll show you. It should help give you an element of surprise, at least, some time to get away.’

  Emily leaped eagerly to her feet, only to realise that her borrowed skirt was much too long to engage in fisticuffs. She tied it up like bloomers and hurried to follow Chris to an open patch of carpet by the fire.

  ‘Now, if someone comes after you, you need to move fast, aim for their most vulnerable points. Their, er, trouser area.’

  Emily giggled. ‘Yes, I see.’

  ‘Kick, or punch. Or drive your nails into their eyes, with a twist up into the socket...’ He took her hand and showed her the correct gouging motion. ‘Or if they come from behind you, drive back your elbow into their midsection, as hard as you can, and stomp back with your heel on their instep. This is especially good if you’re wearing those heeled shoes.’

  Chris went around behind her and, before she knew what he was doing, grabbed her around the waist. Her instincts took over and she did just as he had instructed, driving back her elbow and stamping down with her foot. It felt surprisingly empowering and, when he gasped, she whirled around and landed a blow to his cheek.

  ‘Ouch!’ he shouted as her fist made contact with his jaw. ‘Very enthusiastic.’

  ‘I’m rather good at it, aren’t I?’ she said, half-gleeful and half-sorry she had hit him harder than she intended.

  ‘Rather too good. There is also the method of distraction.’

  ‘Distraction? Like shouting, “Look over there!” and then running? Is that how you get away from all the ladies pursuing you at parties?’

  ‘You underestimate the power of pointing out an eligible duke across the room and then ducking into the crowd. Works a charm.’

  Emily laughed in delight at the image of Chris bobbing and weaving through a ballroom, a pack of misses in white tulle in pursuit. But when she spun around to face him, she found he wasn’t laughing at all. He watched her, his expression thunderstruck, almost as if he had never seen her before.

  ‘What is it?’ she whispered.

  Chris shook his head. ‘It’s just—you’re so very beautiful when you laugh, Em. It’s like the sun coming out and lighting up the whole world.’

  Emily couldn’t breathe. ‘Oh, Chris.’ She took a tentative step closer and reached up to touch his cheek with her fingertips. His skin felt like roughened silk under her touch, warm and alive. ‘You are so much like the sun all the time. Too dazzling for us mortals to look at. You are a distraction just in being yourself.’

  ‘Perhaps I should distract you like—this.’ Before Emily could tell what he was about, before she could think at all, he reached out to clasp her by the waist and pull her close, so close there was nothing between them at all. His lips descended on hers in a quick, crushing kiss, full of hunger and need.

  Emily arched back at first, startled. But her own desire and confusion, all the fun and excitement and strangeness of the last few Parisian days with him, sparked into a roaring flame. It burned away all rational thought, all the complications of their past, and left only pure, hot emotion. Pure need.

  She threw her arms around him, her fingers driving into the rough silk of his hair, holding him against her as her lips parted for his kiss. He groaned, a deep, primitive sound of need to equal her own, his tongue touching hers, tasting, their mouths and bodies and even spirits enmeshed. He seemed as caught as surely she was, bound by something they could never be free of.

  What did it all mean? Emily didn�
�t know and in that moment she didn’t care. She only knew, only wanted, his kiss, his touch. How could he make her forget, with only a certain look, how wrong they were for each other? How different their lives were?

  Pulling him with her, Emily stumbled backwards until she fell on to the chaise, sinking down into its cushions. She drew him down on top of her, their kiss frantic. She wrapped her legs tightly around his hips, kicking the knot of her borrowed skirts free. She felt the roughness of his woollen trousers on her skin, the heavy proof of his fierce desire pressing against it. But it wasn’t enough for her now, not nearly enough.

  She let her head arch back against the cushions, revelling in the shivery sensations of his lips against her jaw, the arc of her throat. The hot rush of his breath, his heartbeat, all around her, part of her. How alive he was, how real and vital! She had lived too much in her mind, keeping her distance from everything else, and now she wanted his impulsive heat. His passion. No matter how maddening he was, how frightened she was, she knew now they had been coming to this moment ever since they met.

  When she was with him, she knew real emotion, the primitive urgency of craving and passion and life. When she was with him, she felt alive herself. She didn’t want to let that go, not yet.

  Her eyes still closed, absorbing every feeling, she slid her hands over his strong shoulders, down the lean line of his chest, until she found the buttons of his waistcoat. She made quick, hungry work of them, pushing the heavy cloth back so she could unfasten his shirt and could at last feel the heat of his skin against her palm. The beat of his heart.

  Chris groaned, his face buried in the curve of her neck as he let her explore him.

  She had never seen a real naked man before, only cold marble statues, flat oil paintings. She had never imagined the male body could look this way, feel this way. She traced her fingertips over hot, smooth flesh, roughened by a sprinkling of coarse, pale golden hair. His breath caught under her caress, but he didn’t move away, didn’t try to snatch control from her in the moment. He lay wrapped in her arms, his lips against her shoulder where her gown drooped away, and let her explore.

  Emily tightened her clasp on his shoulders, rolling him to the chaise as she rose above him on her knees. She could hardly breathe, dared not think! All she could know was him, that unbearable need that had been building inside her for so long. She’d tried so hard to deny it, push it away, fight against it.

  She couldn’t do it any longer. It was like a dam breaking open.

  She shrugged off her dress, letting it fall to her hips, and Chris moved at last, sliding off her chemise so that she knelt above him wearing absolutely nothing. She suddenly longed to hide behind her hair, but she knew she had to be brave now. She shrugged the loosened, damp strands back over her shoulder and held her breath, staring down at him in a tense, silent moment that seemed to last for ever.

  Chris’s bare chest, golden as a gilt god, rose and fell with the force of his own breath and he couldn’t look away from her. As she looked into his eyes, as dark blue as a storm, she knew that he did want her, just as she wanted him. She had half-feared that once she offered herself to him, he would not want her. Would change his mind. Then she felt the slide of his touch on her bare waist, easing her away so he could sit up. So they were eye to eye, in that moment together, nothing else outside them.

  ‘Will you—kiss me?’ Emily whispered.

  Chris groaned and their mouths met again in a desperate, hungry clash that held nothing of artful romance or cool seduction. She couldn’t deny it any longer. Love him, hate him, he was a part of her and always would be, no matter what happened after that moment.

  She broke off their kiss only to pull off his shirt, then wrapped her arms around him again, leaning into the sharp edges of his lean body to feel the press of naked skin to naked skin. Heartbeat to heartbeat. They fell down to the chaise, limbs entangled.

  ‘Emily,’ he gasped. ‘You’re a lady, and I—we shouldn’t do this.’

  ‘I don’t think we have a choice, do you?’ she cried, suddenly desperate at the thought he might leave her now. That she might lose that moment. ‘I might be young, and, yes, a virgin, but you know I’m not such a squeamish miss as all that. And I—well, I know some things. From women in the League. Things I can do after so we don’t have to worry about—consequences.’ She felt her face flame bright red at the words and let her hair fall over her cheeks.

  He gave a startled laugh and she dragged him back on top of her, silencing his words with a kiss. Soon there could be no words at all, no rational thought, just emotion, sensations, the joy of being together and alive.

  He quickly shed his trousers, sliding into the welcome of her parted legs as if he was always meant to be just there. Their bodies fitted, their movements perfectly co-ordinated like the most beautiful dance. Emily closed her eyes, revelling in the feel of his mouth at her breast, the delicious friction of their hot, damp skin, the frantic need that built and built inside of her.

  Then he joined with her and she didn’t know anything else at all.

  * * *

  The rain was heavier against the window and roof now, a loud, soothing song that seemed to move in time with Chris’s heartbeat against her cheek. Emily closed her eyes and let the moment wrap around her like a soft eiderdown.

  What had happened between her and Chris was so very momentous, she could hardly take it in. She certainly couldn’t think about it coldly, clinically, with distance, to decide how to deal with any possible consequences at all. She knew that would come later. That real life would crowd in on this hazy dream.

  But not yet. Not until the storm outside passed and they had to step out into the world again. Had to be their separate selves with their separate lives. She could see no way they could join them, could reveal all their secrets and live like other people in their conventional houses and lives.

  Emily closed her eyes and curled up closer to him, letting his heat and strength hold her up. It was very strange, she thought, how a man so known for being so careless, so unreliable, made her feel safer and more at peace than anyone else ever had.

  Chris’s arm tightened around her. ‘Are you cold, Em? Should I build up the fire?’

  ‘Not at all. It’s very cosy here. Don’t move just yet.’

  ‘I don’t think I could, anyway.’

  She glanced up to see that his eyes were still closed, but a small smile curved his lips, and he looked so young and carefree in that moment. She ached with how beautiful he was.

  ‘I do love the sound of the rain,’ she said. ‘It reminds me of when I was a little girl and rainy afternoons were the only time I wasn’t strictly marched around the park by my nanny. I would hide in the attics when she wasn’t looking and listen to the fall of it on the roof.’

  ‘How shocking of you. I would imagine you were always diligently reciting your lessons in the schoolroom, no slacking at all.’

  Emily felt a tiny pang of hurt that he would think her so lacking in fun. ‘I usually did. Except on rainy days.’

  He smiled lazily and his fingers trailed lightly over her arm, tickling and making her giggle. ‘And what did you do there? Sneak cream cakes up from the kitchens? Read novels?’

  ‘Sometimes there were cakes. But mostly I looked through my secret box.’

  ‘Your secret box? That sounds intriguing.’

  Emily remembered her box, an enamelled case her father brought her once from Switzerland, with its own little lock and tiny velvet compartments inside where things could be hidden. ‘Mostly it held things that were my mother’s. Some pressed roses from her wedding bouquet, her photograph, a baby bonnet she was embroidering for me but never finished. My father will talk about her a little bit now, but back then it would make him too sad. I never wanted to see him sad. I just wanted to know her in some way. Up there, with just the rain, I felt like I was with her.’

 
‘Oh, Em,’ he said softly. She felt him press a gentle kiss to her hair and she tried not to cry. Her throat felt tight with the tears she had always held back. ‘I am sorry you went through that.’

  She just nodded, trying not to cry. Not to let even an instant of sadness into that moment. She felt safe there, with Chris. ‘What were your childhood secrets?’

  ‘Hiding sweets, mostly, or refusing to do my lessons. My parents were both there, of course, but sometimes I wished they were not. I liked going off to school, after Will was gone. Our house was such a quiet, cold place.’

  Emily could well imagine that the Blakelys did not make ‘home’ a fun, welcoming place. Every time she saw them, they were disapproving of something. Yet they had not managed to crush Chris’s irrepressible spirit. ‘I do sometimes wish I had a house like this one.’

  ‘This one?’

  ‘Yes. Old and cosy, full of character and stories. Even better if it’s in the French countryside, of course, with lovely vineyards all around. Maybe a goat in the yard.’

  Chris laughed, a golden, merry sound that made her very toes warm. ‘And will you be a milkmaid? Gather eggs, crush grapes to make your own wine?’

  ‘Why not? It would be so—simple. Useful.’ She remembered what waited outside those old walls, real life with all its work and responsibilities, and she wished she could hold it back a little longer. But it still waited there, patient. Ready to swallow her up.

  ‘Simple and useful. I think you might be right about something like that. I can barely imagine what life could be like then.’