“You have a very slight, very charming hint of a French accent, mademoiselle,” he opened casually. “Have you spent time in that country?”
“Most of my life, although we spoke English at home. My family is English.”
“Ah. Allow me to say you wear the new French fashion most beautifully.”
Her chin came up. “Thank you.” She suspected he was baiting her.
“The English, of course, are quite backward in such things. They see these French styles as harbingers of atheism and social collapse. You mustn’t pay them any mind. In a year’s time, I daresay every woman in London will be wearing a Galatea gown or Diana dress.”
Cass felt absurdly comforted. “You’re very kind. But if I’ve been embarrassed tonight, the fault is my own. I’ve only been in England a short time, not long enough to gauge the national tolerance for nudity, it would seem. I assure you, in Paris this dress is thought quite modest.”
“Indeed?”
His tone was friendly, but the frank, admiring glance he swept across her seated figure was anything but brotherly. “Oh, yes,” she rushed on. “Ever since Marie Antoinette was painted in her robe du matin, without evidence of stays or even a corset, Parisiennes have been disrobing with great enthusiasm.” She frowned; that hadn’t come out quite right.
“I suppose it’s amusing to enter into the skin of the ancients by showing as much as possible of one’s own,” Riordan drawled, enjoying himself.
She let that pass. “It raised quite a furor, of course; people were shocked that the queen had let herself be painted in her chemise. Still, it set a style for liberating, egalitarian garments.” There, she thought with satisfaction. He could pursue that or not, but she’d made a beginning in the portrayal of herself as a woman of the people.
“Was it the violence in Paris that brought you to England, Miss—”
“Merlin. Cassandra Merlin.” She watched his face for a sign of recognition, but at that moment a waiter came out of the shadows with two glasses of wine on a tray. Riordan took them and handed one to Cass. This time their fingers made contact. She’d read in a dozen cheap novels about the stupefying effect a casual touch of hands could have, and had always dismissed the phenomenon as absurd, exaggerated. Until now. She took a hasty sip of claret and nearly choked. Eyes watering, cheeks blazing, she set the glass down on the grass beside her and folded her hands in her lap. A moment passed before she remembered his question. “No, Mr. Wade, it wasn’t the violence that brought me. It was the arrest and execution of my father for treason.”
There was no sound but the distant din of gambling from inside the club. Riordan looked into the wide, guileless, slightly challenging gaze of the woman seated before him and gave her high marks for boldness. “I knew him,” he said slowly. “Slightly.” The last thing he’d expected to feel was a reluctance to lie. The next words he spoke from the heart, surprising himself. “I’m deeply sorry for your father’s death. It must have been terrible for you.”
Cass heard genuine sympathy, and felt like a fool when tears sprang to her eyes. She blinked them back briskly. “Thank you. But he died in the service of a cause he believed in, as many others are doing today in France, sir. I expect there are worse ways to meet one’s end.”
Riordan congratulated her again on her directness, and decided it was time for some of his own. “And do you share your father’s…enthusiasms, Miss Merlin?”
She let a noticeable pause fall before she answered. “If I did, I would be very foolish to say so, wouldn’t I, Mr. Wade?”
“I expect that depends on to whom you said it.”
Cass stared up at him, trying to think of a suitable response. Things were moving too fast. Mr. Wade was disconcertingly tall and broad, and his wide shoulders blocked the moon, making it difficult to see his face. His dress was conservative, yet the tailoring of his black breeches and rust-colored coat was immaculate and obviously expensive. He gave the impression of a man who paid tailors and valets a fortune to insure he made a proper turnout in society, then forgot all about it himself. She remembered with a queer feeling that he had a wife. An invalid, Quinn had said, living in Bath. Was that why he took mistresses? Did he have one now? She looked away, then started when she saw he was holding out a hand to her.
“Do you care to walk?”
She rose. He tucked her hand under his arm and they began to amble along a thin, hard-packed path beside a thorn hedge. There were no rush-lights here, but the moon illuminated the way sufficiently to see. Beyond some shrubbery to their right a woman’s shrill laugh sounded, and the moment of apprehension Cass had felt at their seeming isolation vanished. They moved well together, she couldn’t help noticing, in spite of the fact that he was probably six stone heavier and a foot taller. It was strange, she reflected, that she could think of him as an adversary, but not yet as an enemy. But Quinn said he’d betrayed her father and sent him to his death. For the first time, it occurred to her to wonder if Quinn was telling the whole truth.
“Why didn’t your father send for you when living in Paris began to be dangerous?” Riordan wondered aloud. It wasn’t a calculated question; it was something he was curious about.
Cass stared straight ahead. That still hurt, but it wouldn’t do to let Mr. Wade know. “Because he knew I sympathized with his ideas and that I would want to join in whatever plans he was making in England,” she fabricated. “He did it to protect me.”
A bold stroke, thought Riordan; probably too bold. “And how do you like living here?”
“I hate it! I find the class system repulsive. You saw how I was treated tonight because I don’t fit into their bourgeois mold. I tell you, Mr. Wade, they may have hanged my father, but they can never kill the ideals of liberté and fraternité!”
He admired the proud tilt of her chin, and especially the way the thrusting back of her shoulders made her breasts stand out against the material of her dress. But he had to hide a smile at her patriotic outburst. It was too melodramatic, and she’d gotten her terms mixed up. Revolutionaries glorified the bourgeoisie; it was the nobility who scorned it.
But he was ready to acquit her of being Patrick Merlin’s henchwoman. After all, if she’d wanted to help Wade, she’d have told him by now of the plot against him—“Mr. Wade, you’re in terrible danger!” or some such thing. Instead she had made skillful overtures and conversed carefully but naturally, exactly as he would coach her to do when the real time came. Now the question was whether she had the wit to pull off the long-term, elaborate masquerade he had in mind. If not, she could be in danger. It was important to him that she not be in danger.
They stopped walking under the low-hanging boughs of a beech tree. Cass leaned against the trunk, and Riordan reached both hands up to grasp a thick limb. “Were you among the women who marched to Versailles for the king’s head, Miss Merlin?” he asked mildly, enjoying the stretch in his shoulder muscles.
“No. That was”—she calculated swiftly—“three years ago, Mr. Wade. I was only fifteen.”
“But I thought many in the crowd were children. With their mothers.”
“Y-es. I recollect now my aunt was ill at the time. Else I’m certain we’d have gone.” Her lips quivered as she tried to imagine Lady Sinclair marching to Versailles with the mob to demand bread. “ ‘We have the Baker, the Baker’s wife, and the Baker’s boy!’ ” she recalled the slogan for his benefit. “It must have been a glorious day.”
“What quartier did you live in?”
“The Palais Royale.”
“Ah, you’ve lived through exciting times, then. Besides being the center of café life, I recall the Palais Royale being the meeting ground for all manner of political agitators and amateur orators. It must have been quite stimulating.”
Actually, Cass had found it quite tiresome. She hadn’t a political bone in her body. From her narrow vantage point, all the Revolution had accomplished so far was an end to outdoor concerts, the necessity to pay twenty francs for a simple frock, and
a tendency in her favorite cafes to water the wine. She murmured vaguely.
“You wear the tricolor, I see,” he went on after a moment. She hadn’t pursued his last lead; he would try again with this one. “What was the mood of the city after the invasion of the Tuileries?”
She stared blankly. She’d heard of it—but what had she heard? It had happened in June, just before she’d left for England. Something about the mob holding the king and queen prisoner, but the rest of it eluded her. “Tense,” she hazarded, tensely. “Nothing like that had ever happened before.” She hoped. “But everything is back to normal now.” Was it? She hadn’t the slightest idea. Oh, she was botching this! She sounded as much like a revolutionary as Freddy!
“Do you feel more politically compatible with the Jacobins or the Girondins, Miss Merlin? Or perhaps the Feuillants?’?
Cass raised her eyes to heaven, but no divine intervention was forthcoming. “Oh, the Jacobins,” she answered positively. Why was he smiling? “And you?”
“Oh, the Jacobins.”
Was he mimicking her? He looked huge, hanging by his hands from a limb and swaying slowly back and forth. She still couldn’t think of him as a villain, but there were moments when it seemed as if he were playing with her.
“Do you like Rousseau?” he was asking now.
Rousseau, Rousseau. Some French writer. “Above all men,” she answered sincerely.
“Then you must admire Edmund Burke as well.”
“A genius. Par excellence.”
Riordan dropped his arms and straightened his waistcoat. The interrogation was over. Cassandra Merlin couldn’t convince a grammar school dunce she supported the Revolution, or indeed, that she’d even heard of it. They would either have to take another tack with Wade, or Miss Merlin would have to undergo a fast course in political reality.
Question two was answered. That left question three—his favorite. How far with Wade would she be willing to go?
He heard murmured voices and watched a young couple pass, arm-in-arm, along the path twelve feet away. There was no real privacy here, but at least their spot under the beech tree was dark and out of the way. The girl’s white dress might even be an advantage: lovers seeking seclusion would see it and search elsewhere.
A twinge of conscience surfaced momentarily, but he scuttled it without difficulty. This was no innocent maid he was sparring with, after all. She might look like an angel, but she was no different from all the empty-headed lightskirts he’d been trifling with for years. Until he’d met Claudia. Tonight’s bit of business, it occurred to him, was destined to be added to his lengthening list of unsavory doings about which Claudia was better off not knowing.
Anyway, he only wanted to test this girl’s willingness. A kiss or two and he would have her measure. To go beyond that would be—well, unsportsmanlike. That she’d come out here with him at all, alone, on the strength of a cast at hazard, said much for the quality of her moral discretion.
When he leaned his hands against the tree on either side of her face, Cass knew he was going to kiss her. Her first emotion was relief—at least he would have to stop asking questions! Apprehension followed quickly. But then, what could he do with her in a garden that she hadn’t already allowed half-a-dozen suitors to do with her in a closed carriage or Aunt Beth’s drawing room? That was a singularly uncomforting thought. Then she remembered that Quinn’s “liaison” was supposed to be lurking about somewhere. Some mole-like person with huge ears from listening at keyholes, she didn’t doubt, probably spying on them right now. Good. If things went too far, she would start screaming and he could rescue her.
Riordan watched as Cass wet her lips and tilted her head back. Desire spurted through him unexpectedly and he slid his hands down to her waist. “Good lord,” he murmured without thinking.
“What?” Her eyes were shining with a silver radiance in the leaf-filtered moonlight. “What’s wrong?”
Should he tell her? What the hell. “It’s only that I’ve never touched a clothed lady around the middle before and been able to feel her real body under my hands. No stays or corset or whalebone whatchamacallits.”
“Oh.” She looked away, embarrassed again.
He pulled her chin back to face him. “It feels like heaven.” He stroked her slowly, back to front, enjoying the feel of soft muslin rubbing against softer skin. A fragrance he couldn’t quite name came to him from the place between her breasts; he wanted to bury his face there and inhale the sweetness. “And I’ve never seen anyone with gray eyes so clear and perfect, no other color but gray. Like a slate roof after a rain.” He was in complete earnest, so the amused twinkle in the very eyes he was extolling took him aback. “Do you doubt my sincerity, woman?” he demanded gruffly. He rubbed his thumbs along her ribcage and felt her shiver.
“No, indeed,” she answered breathily. “It’s only that I’ve never heard my eyes compared to a slate roof.”
“After a rain, don’t forget that.” He brought his hand to her throat and touched it softly, feeling the pulse quicken under his fingers. “I won’t even tell you what your skin is like,” he said in a husky whisper, “for fear you’d mock me unmercifully.”
“I wouldn’t—” She broke off with a little gasp when he bent his head and put his lips in the hollow of her throat. A moment later she felt his tongue there, warm and teasing and dangerous. She reached back blindly for the tree and he followed, pressing lightly against her with the full length of his body. What was he doing with his mouth? she wondered disconnectedly. What could he be doing to make her feel this way, as if her bones were melting, her skin catching fire where his lips were—
And then he was straightening, and the air was cold and wet on her throat, and he was running his palms up and down her bare arms in a distracted way. “You make a man lose his wits, Cass Merlin,” he murmured, trying for a light smile.
Her voice came out too high. “You make a woman lose hers, Colin Wade.”
Riordan tensed at the name. He dropped her arms and stepped away. Confused, Cass hugged herself, watching him. “Who did you come here with, Miss Merlin?”
“My cousin,” she answered, bewildered by his cool tone. “Frederick Sinclair.”
“Cousin, eh? Not much of a chaperone, is he?”
She spun around. Below the beech tree the ground sloped gently to a low brick wall; she could see an alley beyond it, the moon silvering the cobblestones. A tabby cat on top of the wall seemed to be staring directly at her. From the club came a man’s muffled shout of triumph. Cass took a deep breath of night air, the better to comprehend what had just happened. Had she done something to offend him? She couldn’t think what. Always it was she who broke away from an embrace, never the man. He seemed almost angry with her. What could be the matter? Why did she feel so stricken?
Her hands tightened on the rough bark when she felt him touch her again. She stood rock-still while he stroked her shoulders, then delivered a light massage down her back with his thumbs. What was his game? she wondered almost desperately, feeling herself starting to respond. Was he toying with her on purpose? If so, she didn’t like it; it was childish and silly. Oh, but now he was pulling the dark, heavy hair away from the back of her neck and teasing her there with light, playful nibbles, and then hot, open-mouthed kisses.
“Miss Merlin, you taste as sweet as wine,” she thought he murmured. The sound of his voice set off the uncanny vibrating in her chest again, but now it was happening to her whole body. She felt his lips, then his teeth, pull lightly at her earlobe, and the weakness in her knees became a helpless trembling. She knew where his hands, clasped over her midriff, would wander next unless she did something. She did nothing. Touch me, she pleaded silently; please, please touch me.
But at the moment when he would have, she lost her courage and twisted around to face him. His eyes were glowing blue fires. Moonlight on his strange silvery hair made her think of a predatory lion. “Cass,” he growled in his throat. He took her shoulders and slammed her
gently back against the tree. Holding her face, he ran his thumbs along her lips until they parted. He nodded, satisfied, and brought his mouth down. Her hands went to his chest, as much to steady herself as to touch the hard smoothness of muscle under cool silk. His kiss was gentle, reined in, introductory. He sucked softly at her lips, nudging them farther apart. She didn’t know whether he was saying her name or only sighing. His tongue flicked across her lips, then across his, before thrusting sleekly into her mouth.
Lights exploded before Cass’s tightly closed eyes. She flung her arms around his neck and arched her body against him. Never, never had she been kissed like this. “Oh!” she breathed, and the intoxicated sound of her own voice thrilled her even more. Riordan’s breath hissed through his teeth and he pressed closer. When he began to stroke the roof of her mouth with slow, sensual laps, her knees gave way. She might have slid to the grass if he hadn’t tightened his arms around her waist and ground his hips against her.
He pushed higher, wanting her to feel his hardness between her thighs. “I want to touch you everywhere,” he whispered against her mouth. He put both hands on her buttocks and pulled her hard against him. “I want you under me. I want to see you lose all control, Cass, all restraint.” He saw a tear shining on her lashes and immediately gentled his hold. He took her mouth again, and her long moan of helpless pleasure was like music until he remembered where they were.
“Hush, love, hush,” he murmured, pressing light kisses on her cheeks, her eyelids. This couldn’t go on, but it couldn’t stop. “Come home with me, Cass. Come now. Say you will.”
“I can’t!” She could barely speak. Her answer was automatic, unconsidered, the one she’d been giving in situations like this—but not really at all like this!—for years. Then all at once the shocking thought struck that she could go with him—she was supposed to go with him! Her breath caught and her hands tightened on his arms. She had permission to go home with this man and to finish the splendid, terrifying thing they’d started!
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