The Courtesan

by Susan Carroll

  He could possibly be the one, although Cass was not yet certain of that. Or how she would go about finding Remy. But Cass knew that she would, once she had made up her mind that the Scourge truly was the man she sought. She licked the last drop of brandy from her lips and smiled.

  Her dear friend Gabrielle would be amazed to discover that poor blind Cass Lascelles had a few dreams and ambitions of her own.

  Chapter Four

  The mist that had softened the sharp edges of the city had faded, leaving only dark streets that seemed colder, harder, and more dangerous than when Gabrielle had traversed them earlier. As she approached the gates leading to her own courtyard, she fought a strong impulse to flee for the safety of her house. A feeling far different from the determined spirit that had inspired her to march through Paris on her secret errand to Cassandra Lascelles.

  Now Gabrielle could only marvel at her folly in venturing out unescorted. She knew the city well enough to realize how perilous it could be for a lone woman traveling by day, let alone at night. What had made her think herself so invulnerable?

  Unfortunately she knew the answer to that. Her hand groped toward the hilt of the weapon strapped to her side. Remy’s sword. Wearing it had always made her feel safe, untouchable, as though the blade were a sort of magic talisman infused with the strength and courage of its former owner.

  Now when she curled her fingers around the hilt, all it felt like was cold, comfortless steel. It was as though any magic had fled that moment when the séance had failed, when she had been forced to accept the fact that Nicolas Remy truly was dead to her. She would never be able to speak with him, beg his forgiveness, or see his smile one last time. He was never coming back to her, not in any sort of conjuring, perhaps no longer even in her dreams.

  She should have felt relieved to be released from her memories at last. Instead all she felt was strangely frightened, alone, and at a time when she most needed protection.

  She was being followed.

  Gabrielle had been aware of that ever since leaving the Maison d’Esprit. She was being stalked and this time not by any phantom of her imagination. The dark sinister man who dogged her footsteps was no ghost. Each time she chanced to look back she caught the menacing stranger ducking into alleyways, melting behind a drunken crowd that had spilled out of some tavern, fading into doorways, but not quite quickly enough. There was no longer any fog to disguise his relentless pursuit of her.

  Gabrielle sensed him lurking behind her in the darkened street, watching her and waiting. But waiting for what? If he were a common thug or footpad, he could have attacked her already. He’d had dozens of opportunities, as careless as she’d been tonight. What if he wasn’t stalking her at all, but spying? She had forgotten to don her mask upon leaving Cass’s. Gabrielle experienced an urge to do so now, as if that would somehow shield her.

  If he was a spy, the threat to her person was not so immediate. And yet the danger remained, peril of a far more subtle and insidious kind, but one that made her more angry than afraid. Gabrielle lingered near the gate, pretending to bend down to release a pebble from her shoe, all the while thinking furiously.

  Who did she know who would dare set a spy loose upon her? She had enemies enough in the French Court, not the least of whom was the Dark Queen. Catherine tended to keep a close eye on Gabrielle when she visited the Louvre. Had the Dark Queen started mounting watch on Gabrielle outside the walls of the palace as well?

  Gabrielle had mocked poor Cass for being so nervous about the Dark Queen, but perhaps Cass had been right. Gabrielle frowned as she thought back to the man she had seen earlier in the mist, the one she had dismissed as a figment of her imagination. What if the same man who tracked her now had followed her to the Maison d’Esprit?

  No, surely Cerberus would have driven off any intruder who came too close. There was no way anyone could have known what she and Cass had been doing down in the hidden cellar. But report of Gabrielle’s visit to the abandoned house might be enough to rouse Catherine’s curiosity, impel her to investigate the Maison d’Esprit further. Gabrielle could have drawn the very peril Cass dreaded straight to her door.

  Or Gabrielle could be merely letting her imagination run wild. There was only one way to know for certain. Slowly straightening, she resisted the urge to glance behind her again. Lifting the latch, she swung the gate open. It had been left unlocked according to her instructions. Gabrielle had wanted no curious eyes registering her coming and going this evening, not even any of her own servants. Now she was doubly glad she had left no guard posted, for it would enable her to set a trap.

  She entered the courtyard with seeming casualness. Only when she was sure she must be out of view of the street did her demeanor change. She darted into the shadows, flattening herself against the stone wall that surrounded her property, positioning herself only yards away from the gate. Gabrielle inched Remy’s sword free of the scabbard and winced, the rasp of the blade sounding as loud as cannon fire to her ears. Her pulse thudded as she waited for what seemed an interminable length of time.

  Perhaps her pursuer would not be rash enough to follow her onto her own grounds. Or having seen her return home, he would conclude there was nothing more to be learned of her movements tonight and simply vanish.

  She almost came out of her hiding place when she heard it. The chink of the latch and the creak of the gate as it was being slowly opened. She quickly crouched back again. Gabrielle held her breath as the lean silhouette of a man stole through the open gate.

  Moonlight washed over his features and Gabrielle could see that he was indeed an ill-favored varlet with long, tangled hair and a thick beard, his black jerkin and venetians worn and tattered. He paused, glancing from the abandoned walkway to the distant outline of the house and Gabrielle imagined that he must be puzzling over her sudden disappearance. She had best make her move before he had time to figure it out. Her heart banged hard against her ribs, but it was more from excitement than fear, a righteous anger at this interloper.

  Gabrielle slipped from her crouching place beside the wall and circled behind him. Her footsteps whispered across the grass as she raised the sword and brought the point to bear directly in the center of his back.

  “Don’t move a muscle,” she growled. “Or I’ll run you through where you stand.”

  Gabrielle saw him tense, flexing his shoulders. She experienced a fraction of alarm as she realized he was taller and more muscular than she had first assumed. She also noticed too late that he had a weapon strapped to his side.

  She had some skill with a blade, but no idea how she’d fare against some strange cutthroat in the dark. It occurred to her that perhaps she’d been a trifle rash to attempt to capture this spy alone. But she had him now. She had to do something with him.

  “Raise your hands,” she said fiercely. “Unbuckle your sword and drop it.”

  “I can hardly do both, Gabrielle,” he murmured. There was something familiar about the voice that caused her heart to miss a beat. He chose to obey her first command, raising his hands in the air.

  Gabrielle recovered from her shock at hearing him use her name so intimately. She infused her voice with hauteur. “So you know who I am, do you, sirrah? I should like to know who the devil you are and why you’ve had the impertinence to spy upon me. Turn around, but do it carefully. One move toward your sword and I vow I’ll slice your hand clean off.”

  “I verily believe you would, mademoiselle.” She heard his voice more clearly this time, deep, a little hoarse like a voice that had permanently roughened from roaring out commands over the smoke of a battlefield . . . Nicolas Remy’s voice.

  Gabrielle’s heart skittered and then seemed to stop entirely as her captive swung about to face her. Moonlight etched a gaunt visage all but lost in a wild tangle of hair and beard. The only things soft in that hard face were his eyes of rich, melting brown. Remy’s eyes shining down at her. What madness was this? As he lowered his hands, Gabrielle felt far too stunned to tr
y and prevent him.

  “If you were bent on capturing an intruder, why didn’t you go summon your servants? Do you have any idea how easily I could have disarmed you? Only you would be this rash, Gabrielle Cheney.” He was scolding her, but his teeth flashed in a smile of rare and unexpected sweetness. Remy’s smile.

  Dear God, she was losing her mind. She had to be. Gabrielle’s hand trembled. Her sword wavered and he attempted to come closer. She sprang back with a terrified cry, bracing her weapon again.

  He froze in his tracks. When his voice came again, it was soothing, gentle. “Please, Gabrielle. Don’t be afraid. Don’t you recognize me? It is me, Remy.”

  “N-no,” she choked. “Y-you lie. You can’t be Nicolas Remy. He—he’s . . .”

  “Dead? I swear to you I am not. Please don’t look at me as if I were a ghost.”

  Gabrielle backed away, trembling. A ghost was exactly what she was looking at. A phantom with Remy’s voice, Remy’s eyes, Remy’s smile. But he could not be Remy, this rough-looking man with his wild, unkempt hair and haggard face. Not unless he’d marched to her across the plains of hell or back from the depths of the underworld. The mad thought seized hold of her that Cass’s séance had worked after all, dragging Remy’s tormented spirit from the recesses of his grave.

  Gabrielle shook so badly she could no longer hold the sword. The weapon slipped from her fingers, tumbling to the ground with a dull thud. The stranger with Remy’s eyes took a hesitant step toward her.

  “I am sorry that I have alarmed you. I never meant to reveal myself to you this way, but you rather forced my hand. I had hoped to choose a better time.”

  “A better time?” Gabrielle stared up at Remy, still unable to credit the evidence of her own senses. “Is that why you did not come when I called for you earlier?”

  “You called for me? I never heard you.”

  Gabrielle bit down hard on her lip to still its quivering. “I cried out to you in the mist, but you wouldn’t come. I thought you had rejected me and turned back to the land of the dead.”

  Remy looked rather confused, but he cast her a gentle smile. “Gabrielle, I would never turn away from you, even if I was no more than a ghost, but I promise you I am not. If I were, your sword would have gone straight through me. Please let me get close enough for you to touch me and you’ll know I am real.”

  Gabrielle wanted to beg him to stay away, but she could not seem to find her voice. She didn’t want to touch him. She had an irrational terror that if she did, he’d evaporate like Nostradamus, vanish in a hiss of steam.

  Remy kept coming closer. When his fingers curled around her wrist, Gabrielle couldn’t summon the will to resist him. He raised her hand and pressed her palm against his chest, over the region of his heart. He was not a man made of mist, but solid rock. The plane of his chest was all hard muscle and beneath his worn jerkin, she could feel the steady thud of his heart.

  The hand that held hers was strong, callused, and warm. So was the other one that Remy used to caress her cheek. Gabrielle reached up and caught that hand, trapping it against her face.

  She closed her eyes, savoring the rough texture of Remy’s palm against her skin. She could almost feel the blood pulsing through his veins. The truth struck Gabrielle with all the force of the earth heaving beneath her feet.

  Nicolas Remy was alive.

  Her eyes fluttered open. Remy was gazing down at her.

  “There. You see?”

  Gabrielle nodded, her breath escaping her in a strangled half-sob. Still hardly daring to believe, she ran her hands wildly over him, his chest, his sinewy arms, his broad shoulders. Her fingers roved upward, feverishly caressing his hair and beard, his brow and his cheeks.

  She heard Remy’s breath quicken and she reveled in every rise and fall of his chest. When she traced her trembling fingers over the outline of his mouth, felt the warm rush of his breath, Gabrielle gave a broken laugh that bordered on hysteria.

  “You are really not dead,” she whispered.

  “No,” he replied huskily. Catching her hand, he pressed his lips fervently against her palm. “And for the first time in three years, I am actually glad about that.”

  She lifted her face, gazing straight into Remy’s intense dark eyes. Her own misted with tears. By some miracle, she knew not how, the fates had brought Remy back to her. Not as a ghost, but wondrously, gloriously alive.

  With a glad cry, Gabrielle flung her arms about his neck and she did something she realized she should have done years ago. She buried her fingers in Remy’s hair and crushed her mouth eagerly to his.

  She felt Remy stiffen in astonishment, but only for a moment. Then he was kissing her back, ravaging her lips with a hunger and passion that left her dizzy. Gabrielle clung to his shoulders, returning his kiss just as greedily, seeking his mouth again and again, unable to get enough of him.

  “Remy . . . my dearest Remy,” she breathed. Her lips parted before his, giving him deeper access. Gabrielle moaned low in her throat as she felt the heat of his tongue against hers, tasted the vitality flowing through him. Her pulse seemed to thunder the wondrous tidings in her ears. Remy is alive . . . alive.

  Gabrielle’s heart swelled with such joy, it was painful. When their lips parted, she was panting hard and so was Remy. He gave her the uncertain smile of a man who could scarce believe his good fortune.

  Gabrielle attempted to return his smile, but the full shock of Remy’s return from the dead overcame her at last. Remy’s features blurred before her eyes and she felt her knees tremble and begin to give.

  Then Gabrielle Cheney did something she had never done before in the entire course of her life. Her head falling back limply, she swooned in a man’s arms, sinking into a dead faint.

  Nicolas Remy had walked the paths of nightmare ever since the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Eve, but tonight he felt as though he had strayed into a dream. His thick boots sank into the luxurious Turkish carpet of a bedchamber fit for a princess, with a high vaulted ceiling, tall latticed windows, and magnificent paintings adorning the walls.

  A stately bed carved of mahogany and hung with pale cream-colored silk curtains embroidered with roses dominated the room. Gabrielle seemed all but lost in the middle of that vast bed, her blond hair fanned across a large feather tick pillow. Gold-tipped eyelashes rested against her cheeks, her face so white and still that Remy’s heart wrenched with a fear he’d never known on a battlefield.

  “God in heaven, I—I’ve killed her,” he muttered hoarsely.

  “No such thing,” the brisk voice of Gabrielle’s maid replied. Bette was a buxom young woman with a competent air about her, her face completely calm beneath her lace-trimmed cap. She elbowed Remy aside, bending down to chafe Gabrielle’s wrists.

  He should have thought of that himself, Remy reflected, but both his mind and his limbs seemed to have gone numb. The quick reflexes that had enabled him to leap to the aid of many a fallen comrade seemed to have utterly deserted him. He felt completely helpless before the pale slip of a woman stretched out on the bed.

  Remy was only galvanized into motion when Bette ordered him to fetch some water. He carried an ewer over from the washstand, sloshing half the contents onto the carpet in his haste.

  Bette dampened a cloth, which she applied to Gabrielle’s brow. As she started to loosen Gabrielle’s bodice, she said, “You’ll have to leave now, Captain Remy. Wait out in the hall.”

  “No!” Remy protested. “I can’t just—”

  “You can and will,” Bette said. “When mistress comes round, she’d hardly thank me for displaying her teats to you.”

  Remy flushed at the maid’s blunt words. “By God, madam, I would never look—”

  “Out!” Bette splayed her hands against Remy’s chest and propelled him firmly back toward the door. He allowed her to do so, but only because it was Bette’s goodwill that had permitted him to remain with Gabrielle in the first place.

  He had alarmed Gabrielle’s entire household
with his sudden arrival on the doorstep and Remy could scarce blame them for that. Such a desperate vagabond as he must have appeared, bellowing for help, bearing their unconscious mistress in his arms.

  It was a miracle he had not been overpowered, Gabrielle wrested away from him while he was arrested and hauled off to face the nearest authorities. He had Bette to thank for the fact that he was not even at this moment clapped in irons.

  She had been one of the serving girls at Belle Haven. Bette had grown up and filled out considerably, changed into the very semblance of an elegant lady’s maid, so much so that Remy had scarce known the woman. He was fortunate that Bette’s memory of him was far clearer and that she had not been as overwhelmed by his return from the dead as Gabrielle.

  Remy craned his neck for one last glimpse of Gabrielle before Bette shut the bedchamber door in his face. Gabrielle still had not stirred and Remy tried to not let his mind leap to such dire things as heart failure and apoplexy. Gabrielle was young and healthy. Despite her resemblance to the fair and helpless damsel of folklore, Remy had long ago detected a strength and resilience in Gabrielle.

  She would be all right. All he had to do was wait, not the easiest thing for a man accustomed to action. He forced himself to lean back against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest when what he really wanted to do was march restlessly up and down the hall. But he thought it less than wise to draw any more attention to himself. He was aware that he was being watched from the landing below by Gabrielle’s footmen, the servants regarding him as warily as if he’d come to steal the silver plate. Their supercilious stares made Remy all the more conscious of his disheveled state.

  He supposed that under normal conditions a vagabond such as himself would not even have been permitted inside the kitchen door of a grand establishment such as this. At this hour, most of the building was left in shadow, but when he’d carried Gabrielle up to her bedchamber, Remy had glimpsed enough of the place to discern this was a town house of opulent proportions.