Hearts Beguiled

by Penelope Williamson

  "You took so long to answer the door." And you were so incredibly handsome, she thought. It wasn't fair.

  "Purple eyes," he said. "I'd never seen purple eyes before. I was instantly hard."

  She sucked in a shocked breath. Laughing softly, he pulled her head forward until her mouth was a bare inch from his. "You came for Fornication, remember? You were lucky I didn't give it to you right there on the floor."

  "Max!"

  He pulled her down on him, rolling over at the same time and slamming his mouth down on hers in a fierce, bruising kiss. When the kiss ended every inch of her flesh felt aflame, alive with desire.

  And he wanted her again. His manhood, pressing against her thigh, had begun to harden. He stroked between her legs, where she was slick and ready for him. He lowered his head to kiss her—

  There was a timid knock on the door.

  "Go away," Max said.

  "Monsieur, madame?" came a faint, feminine voice. "My father thought you might be hungry."

  Grunting, Max rolled away from her and pushed himself off the bed. She enjoyed watching the play of the muscles in his buttocks as he walked across the room—until she realized he was going to answer the door just as he was!

  She sat up, snatching desperately at the counterpane in a vain attempt to at least cover herself as he pulled the door open. She heard the girl gasp and the crockery rattle.

  "Thank you, mademoiselle," Max said, taking a tray of food from her hands—roasted fowl, bread, cheese, and wine. He turned away from the door, the tray balanced in one hand, and Gabrielle saw a round, pocked face crowned with braids, with two big round eyes and a huge round mouth. The eyes went from Max's partially erect manhood to Gabrielle, then back to Max.

  "Oh, Jesu!" the girl cried, fleeing with a slam of the door.

  "You are absolutely shameless, Maximilien de Saint-Just. And you embarrassed that poor girl—"

  "She didn't see anything she hasn't seen before," he said matter-of-factly, setting the tray of food on a small stand by the bed.

  Gabrielle went rigid. "Oh, really? And when, pray tell, did she see it before?"

  A perplexed look crossed his face. Then a deep, delighted laugh rumbled from his chest. He knelt beside her on the bed, one knee between her legs, and leaned into her.

  "You're jealous!"

  She clutched the velvet material, bringing it up under her chin. "Don't be ridiculous . . . Was that girl your mistress?"

  "I never saw her before in my life, you silly idiot. I only meant she couldn't have reached adulthood without seeing a naked man." He lowered his head to give her a hard, swift kiss. "How old were you when you saw your first yard, Gabrielle?"

  Her eyes opened wide with shock at his frank language. "Max!"

  He laughed, kissing her again. "Such outraged innocence!

  Don't pretend you haven't heard that word before. That and a hundred different others. I didn't realize you Parisian shopgirls had such sheltered childhoods. I thought only a gentlewoman had to wait until her wedding night for a glimpse at a man's bayonet and balls."

  Gabrielle's cheeks burned and she was sure he could read the truth in her face. For of course he was right; she had heard all the words. What was the old saying—you can't sleep in the gutter and wake up clean? But she had been innocent once, too. And not so long ago. Even in Maman's house, with her lovers coming and going so freely at all hours, Gabrielle had never seen a man without his clothes. Until Martin. She had been sixteen, and it had been her wedding night . . .

  Tell him, she thought. Tell him now.

  But Max had stood up again, turning away from her to pour wine into glasses from the jug on the tray. When he turned around to put the glass into her hand, there were still traces of laughter on his face.

  He raised his glass to hers in a toast. "May this night last a hundred years and our love survive eternity," he said, his silky voice turning the words into a song of love, and she knew she couldn't tell him yet.

  It was growing dark now, the shadows falling heavier in the room. She watched the movement of his throat as he drank. It gleamed with sweat for the air was still and hot. Her eyes moved over him possessively, savoring the fall of his hair against his neck as he tilted back his head, the flex of his shoulder and arm as he raised the glass to his lips, the ripple of the muscles that corded his stomach as he swallowed.

  My husband, she thought. It filled her with a warm sense of security. It wasn't a feeling she was used to, and she was seized with a sudden and overwhelming fear of losing it. She brought the glass of wine to her lips, and her hand shook so badly the rim clattered against her teeth.

  She felt his eyes on her, and when she looked up she saw that he was staring broodingly at the ring on her hand. She set her glass of wine back onto the tray and spread her fingers, really studying the ring for the first time. The band was thick, though worn, and etched into a fiat oval of gold was the famous Saint-Just crest, a lion's head between two crossed swords.

  The ring suddenly felt heavy on her hand, and she curled her fingers into a fist around it. "Did ... did it belong to your father?" she asked, hoping that it did not, for she didn't want to be bound by another family heirloom.

  "My father used to wear it. A long time ago." He sat down beside her on the bed, leaning back against the headboard and balancing the glass of wine against his stomach. He picked up her hand, rubbing his thumb over the etched metal of the ring. "He had it cut down to fit my mother. He gave it to her on the day they were wed."

  "But I thought you said—"

  "I did. The wedding was a sham, conducted by a phony priest hired by my father to play the part."

  "Your father only pretended to marry your mother? But why?"

  "Why do you think? She was beautiful and a virgin and he wanted her. But she wasn't of his class and he was already married anyway." His lips tightened into a bitter smile. "I suppose the randy bastard didn't want to bother with trying to seduce her honestly, so he pretended to go through with a marriage ceremony."

  "What a wicked thing to do!"

  "Wicked?" He laughed harshly. "He's the comte de Saint-Just and a marichal of France. It made for an amusing anecdote to tell the king the next time they went hunting together." He turned his head to look at her, and through the dusky twilight she saw his face. She saw anger and shame, and the terrible hurt of a child who learned too young of evil and cruelty and sin.

  "She died a whore, Gabrielle," he said, bitterness roughening his voice. "From a disease that whores get. But she never stopped loving the bastard. I can forgive her everything else, but not that."

  He sat up abruptly and, bending one leg, leaned forward to pour some more wine. Tentatively she stroked his back, and when he didn't pull away from her, she pressed her face into his bare flesh. "I love you," she said. It seemed inadequate, but it was all she had to offer him.

  It must have been enough, for after a moment he sighed, releasing a pent-up breath. He turned back to her, embracing her with one arm and pulling her against him. He stroked her hair, shutting his eyes. "Gabrielle," he said. It sounded like a prayer.

  She held him, pressing his head against her breasts. She thought of mothers and sons. Dominique's love for her was unconditional now; she was the sun to his world. She wondered what he would hate her for when he became a man.

  "What do you think Dominique will say when we tell him we are married?" she asked, voicing only one of her many fears.

  Max squeezed her shoulders. "Dominique will be all right." He tossed back a swallow of wine. "He's bound to be a bit jealous at first, but he'll come around."

  She raised her head from where she had tucked it into the hollow of his shoulder. "I've never spent a night away from him before."

  "Simon will tell him something."

  Agnes, she thought with a despairing laugh, had probably informed all of the Palais Royal that Gabrielle was spending the night with her lover. But Simon, Simon who had once named her the daughter he'd always wanted . . .r />
  "Simon's probably frantic with worry."

  The smile he gave her was suspiciously smug. "No, he isn't."

  "How do you know he isn't?"

  "Because he knows you're with me."

  "You men think you know everything."

  "We do."

  "Hunh! Who says so?"

  "I do."

  She pretended to pout. "It seems I've wed myself to a bullying tyrant."

  He slid his hand around her neck, pulling her head closer to his. His bent knee had fallen sideways against her breasts, and he moved it back and forth across her hardening nipples. "I'll bully you day and night if it makes you stick your lower lip out in that adorable fashion."

  He took the lip in question between his teeth. He chewed on it lightly, then the kiss became more ardent, his tongue moving deep inside her mouth, and she tasted wine.

  Something wet and cold splashed on Gabrielle's breasts. "Max! You're spilling . . ."

  He pressed her back against the pillows and leaned over her. His eyes met hers, and her chest tightened at the look of desire, of raw, naked need, she saw in those sooty gray depths. She drew in a deep breath, and the pungent, rich aroma of wine filled her senses. Together they looked down, where two big red rivulets trickled through the valley between her breasts, spreading out onto her flat stomach. Slowly, while she watched, he lowered his head, and his tongue came out and licked the ruby liquid from her skin. Her eyes slid shut, and she began to drown in the rising, enveloping feel of him loving her.

  His face rose above hers, and once again their eyes met.

  I want you, his said.

  Take me, hers answered.

  He kept his eyes locked with hers as he dipped two fingers in the wine. He brought them, dripping with the sticky red juice, between her legs and pushed them deep inside her. She shuddered, her muscles jerking reflexively in surprise and pleasure. Then his head followed his fingers, licking up stray drops that had fallen on her stomach, moving lower and lower until she felt the exquisite shock of his tongue thrusting into her.

  "Max!" She gasped as a jolt of white-hot sensation ripped through her like a flash of lightning.

  She had seen pictures—the Palais Royal had several pornography shops that brazenly displayed their wares. Pictures of men doing this to women, and of women—

  Surely she shouldn't let him . . .

  But she was letting him, for he was licking and sucking her sweet, slick cleft, and the jagged lightning bolts of pleasure came faster and hotter, until she didn't think she could bear it. She grasped his hair. "Please," she moaned, not sure if she was begging him to stop or go on.

  He cupped her buttocks, lifting her. "Open to me, Gabri-elle," he murmured, his breath hot, his lips moist against her. "Let me love you."

  She surrendered then to the glorious, conquering assault of his mouth and lips and tongue. The canopy above her head began to whirl and licks of fire sizzled over her skin. He entered her at the peak of her climax so that it went on and on until her heart felt as if it were pressing against her chest, pushing against its fragile prison of bone and flesh, and she thought the inevitable explosion would surely kill her.

  She opened her eyes to see his beloved face floating over her.

  He cradled her head with gentle hands. "God, I do love you, wife."

  Love for him filled her, so intense she felt smothered by it. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she squeezed her lids shut to hold them back.

  But one escaped and he brushed it away with his thumb. "Gabrielle? Don't cry."

  "Max, you shouldn't have done this. I shouldn't have let you."

  He misunderstood. "There's nothing wrong or sinful in what we did. How could there be?"

  She shook her head wildly, and the tears flowed freely now. "You shouldn't have married me. I'll only bring you trouble."

  He held her tightly. "Cherie. There won't be any trouble. I've been a disgrace to the name of Saint-Just since my birth.

  Even in my father's eyes this marriage will seem the least of my crimes."

  "No, no, you still don't understand."

  "Then explain it to me."

  She couldn't.

  "Tell me, Gabrielle." He leaned over her. It was too dark now for her to see his face, but she didn't have to. She could feel her own fear emanating like sweat from the pores of her skin. "Tell me, Gabrielle. Tell me who you are." He said it softly, but he might as well have shouted, for the words were torn from his heart.

  He was her husband and he was asking for her faith, her trust. And still she said nothing.

  "Gabrielle ... I love you. No matter what, I will always love you." It was his final plea.

  Now, she thought. Tell him now.

  And Max would . . . hate her.

  He would hate her for not telling him sooner. He faced imprisonment and exile because of her, and he didn't even know it. She should have told him long ago, should have warned him to stay away from her. Instead she had married him, and now it was too late.

  Because if he left her . . . She loved him so much, she couldn't bear—

  Tell him.

  —losing him. But she would survive. She had survived before, she could survive—

  Tell him.

  —almost anything, but not that. She couldn't survive losing Max.

  Chapter 10

  Gabrielle's grandfather had been a galerien, a galley slave.

  For eight years Sebastien de Servien rowed the Mediterranean chained to an oar. Naked, his head shaven, ruled by the whip, he learned that only one thing mattered in this life—to survive.

  It was a lesson he passed on to his daughter. And she in turn passed it on to Gabrielle.

  Sebastien had been born a Noble of the Sword, one of his illustrious ancestors having won the title during the Crusades four centuries before. As the marquis de Servien, Sebastien could have attended the king's coucher had he so wished. But Sebastien disdained the frivolity, the licentiousness of court life. He had no desire to join the fawning multitudes at Versailles, begging for crumbs from the king's largess. Instead he stayed in his country chateau and worked his land along with his peasants and serfs. He was poor, poorer than many of his own tenants. Yet he was still their seigneur, their lord.

  When he was thirty, Sebastien fell in love with a girl from a neighboring estate. The girl, Charlotte, was noble; she even had a dowry. But there was one not-so-insignificant problem—she was a Huguenot, a Protestant.

  At that time the king was putting terrible pressure on the Huguenots to give up their faith and convert to Catholicism. When the Huguenots tried to escape conversion by leaving France, the king forbade them to depart the country under pain of a life sentence to the galleys. Anyone, even aristocrats, foolish enough to aid or shelter a Huguenot was to receive the same sentence.

  Sebastien didn't care about Huguenots or Catholicism or the king's laws. He wanted Charlotte in his bed and he saw that one sure way of getting her there would be to put her devoutly Huguenot father safely on board a ship bound for America. But they were caught by the king's men, and it was Sebastien who found himself on a ship—chained to an oar.

  For eight years Sebastien endured the hell of the galleys. Then one day a great plague broke out in the port of Marseilles. The dead stacked up in the streets like cords of wood, for no one could be found to bury them. As the death toll mounted to one thousand a day, the provincial intendant became desperate. He offered the gruesome job of clearing the city of its dead to the galley slaves, who would earn their freedom if they survived the disease.

  Sebastien survived.

  He returned to his estate to find his fields overgrown with weeds, his manorial walls crumbling, and Charlotte waiting for him. They married and had one child—a daughter with the red-gold hair and violet eyes of her father. They named her Marie-Rose.

  Her parents died together of a fever when Marie-Rose was fifteen. Alone and penniless, with nothing but her father's striking looks and his tough determination to survive, Mar
ie-Rose left the crumbling Chateau de Servien and went to Paris. She took to the stage, creating such a sensation that the chef of the famous cafe de Caveau named a dessert after her. Within three years she had acquired a titled husband, a daughter, and a rented hotel on the Rue de Grenelle in the fashionable part of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. She had also accumulated enough debts to paper the walls of the palace at Versailles. The husband didn't last long, but the daughter and the debts remained.

  Marie-Rose opened her salon to the elite of the artistic and literary world, and before long some of the most famous names of the time passed through her doors. Some found their way into her bed as well, and the gifts they gave her— the jewels and the silks and the money—all helped her and her daughter, Gabrielle, to survive. She never went to the court at Versailles; the court came to her.

  Some of Gabrielle's earliest memories were of her mother's salon. The room, decorated in blue and silver, seemed to glitter with rich clothes and bright conversations. Until the early morning hours, poets recited their verses, writers read from their manuscripts. The philosophes argued among themselves about the power of reason, the general will, and the tyranny of kings. Everyone spoke about liberty.

  But Gabrielle couldn't remember a time when she felt the carefree existence of a child. She grew up learning Latin and philosophy—and how to use a smile and a promise to get credit from a tightfisted shopkeeper. She could speak fluent Italian and do complicated sums—and she knew the location of every secondhand clothing store in Paris. She wore silk gowns in the latest fashion, while underneath, her chemise would be in tatters. She learned to pretend not to be hungry when lackeys dressed in fine livery would pass half-empty platters around her mother's table.

  Gabrielle learned very young how to survive.

  And then one day, the only son and heir to the duc de Nevers came to the salon on the Rue de Grenelle. There he saw Gabrielle, and there he fell in love.