Adrien rose and approached her, his brow furrowed. Her nerves jangled; she braced herself, unsure what he was about to do or say.
To her surprise, he cupped her cheek. “Are you all right?” he asked.
It unbalanced her. She wasn’t expecting him to be concerned about her emotional state. Her father and husband never were. She’d learned to stand strong on her own long ago. To lean on no one.
Feeling vulnerable was unsettling in the extreme.
“You can trust me,” he told her.
Did she have a choice? She’d failed miserably to convince him he was mistaken. He could have her arrested at any time. The freckles on her breast would ultimately condemn her.
She’d have to find the courage to open herself up to him and pray for the best.
Adrien saw fear in her eyes. She was clearly skittish. If he didn’t proceed slowly, she’d likely bolt for the door.
He didn’t want her to be afraid. Oddly, he found himself longing for her trust as strongly as he longed for the truth.
Something in the corner of the room caught his eye. An artist’s easel and paintings propped against the wall. He moved toward them. On the easel was a lovely depiction of a valley at sunrise. It was serene. Lush. Beautiful.
“Did you do this?” he asked, marveling at the piece.
She moved to his side and blushed. “It isn’t finished. It isn’t very good …” she replied, quickly dismissing her work.
He leaned in closer to the painting and silently scrutinized it. “I think it’s wonderful.”
The initial look of surprise on her face was precious, as was the joy his praise gave her. It delighted him to see it more than he’d admit.
He motioned to the paintings on the floor leaning against the wall. “May I?”
She bit her lip, and after a moment’s hesitation, gave a nod.
He picked up the paintings one by one and studied them, genuinely impressed. Paintings of gardens, of children, and one of water nymphs were among the works.
“You’re very talented, Catherine,” he said with all sincerity.
She looked embarrassed by his compliment. “Thank you. That’s very kind of you to say, but … I’m rather an amateur …”
Her modesty was endearing. “Do you do portraits?” This was a first for him. He was alone with a beautiful, passionate female, his cock fully alert to her presence, and yet he wasn’t acting on the powerful urgings she inspired.
“I’ve never really tried … My late father and husband both thought painting was a frivolous expenditure of time, especially for a woman.”
“But you don’t. You love it,” he stated. “It’s evident in these paintings. In the painstaking details. Each stroke of your paintbrush brought you joy, no?”
A smile returned to her lovely visage. “Yes. I do love it,” she admitted softly. Dieu, this softer side of her was oh so appealing. The woman was beyond alluring.
“Excellent. Then you’ll paint my portrait and one for each of my uncles,” he said, ignoring the warning in his head against lengthening his involvement with her.
Her eyes widened.
“I’ll, of course, pay for supplies,” he continued, enjoying the astonishment on her face, “and for your—”
“I can’t.”
“Oh? Why not?”
She turned and walked over to the settee. Her back to him, he saw the stiffness in her delicate shoulders. “I’m to be married soon to the Comte de Baillet.” She faced him. “He’ll be here by the end of the week.” Her statement added to the distance she’d just placed between them.
Adrien’s dislike for Baillet grew each time he heard the man’s name.
“I’m certain you think I’m rather shameless …” she said, her words trailing off.
She was still skirting around the issue, discussing matters other than the events that occurred five years ago.
Adrien closed the space between them and took her hand. “I don’t think that.” Lightly, he caressed her wrist with his thumb, relishing in the satiny feel of her jasmine-scented skin.
She didn’t pull her hand away and it pleased him. Her expression was open. Unguarded. And that pleased him as well.
“What happened today … between us … I never intended something like that to happen,” she said.
He didn’t want her voicing any regrets. “We’re attracted to each other, ma belle. Intensely so. There’s no shame in that.”
A small smile graced her lips. “You can be quite irresistible, but I’m certain you’ve heard that enough times.”
“I’ve also heard I’m mildly attractive,” he teased, pleased she didn’t seem to be remorseful.
She laughed, a soft sweet sound. “If no one tries to keep you in check, dear Marquis de Beaulain, you’ll become unbearably conceited.”
“Well then.” He bowed over her hand. “Madame, I thank you for your efforts. I’d hate to become intolerable.” He kept the mood light though a new all-too-insistent question was now plaguing him, gnawing away at his brain.
Smiling, she shook her head. “You’re incorrigible. But definitely charming.”
“Then all hope for me is not lost.” He brought her hand up to his lips and kissed the sensitive spot on the inside of her wrist.
Her smile faded, and she pulled her hand away. Adrien fought back the urge to take it again.
“Do you love him?” He was stunned at himself. The question eating at him just tumbled out of his mouth. He hadn’t intended to ask. It shouldn’t matter a whit if she did.
“My betrothed?”
“Yes.” The last thing he wanted to hear from her were the same ill-placed words of adoration for Baillet his sister had.
To his relief, she shook her head. “No. Nor is he in love with me.”
“Why are you marrying him?”
“After my father’s death, Villecourt gained control of my inheritance.”
“And squandered it,” he surmised.
She looked down. “Yes. He had … extravagant ways. I find myself in dire straits. The château is in a state of ill-repair. I’ve had to let most of the servants go.”
There was more about her marriage she wasn’t saying. She’d mentioned something about a scandal. But none of that was any of his concern. He wouldn’t inject himself into her troubles. It wasn’t why he was here.
Adrien slipped his arm around her waist and drew her to him, her soft form molding against him ever so delectably. Lust licked up his spine.
“Catherine, tell me what happened five years ago.”
Suddenly unable to look him in the eye, she dropped her gaze to his chest. She was vacillating. Concerned she’d renege on her promise, he pressed on, untying the ribbon between her breasts, making quick work of the fastenings on her bodice with his practiced fingers before panic flared in her eyes and her hand shot up, stilling his with a firm squeeze.
He leaned in, the scent of jasmine dazzling his senses. “It’s all right,” he said softly in her ear. “Trust me. Let’s put an end to the denials and lies. I only want the truth.” He pulled back to gaze at her face.
She wouldn’t look at him, her body rigid in his arms. Her hand still clutched his tightly.
“Let me,” he urged gently. “On my word, it will be all right.”
Keeping her gaze averted, she released her hold of his hand slowly.
Adrien opened her bodice and eased down her chemise, uncovering her skin an inch at a time until at last he located the three tiny freckles on the outside curve of her breast. There they were—those pretty freckles that had tantalized and tormented him in so many dreams. He caressed them with a finger.
Seeing them again triggered a rush of memories that weren’t only heated. There was something else about that night that made her unforgettable, the experience unique. More than the intensity of it. More than the discoveries he’d made the next morning.
It was the tenderness.
Somehow she’d infused a certain softness into their carnal e
ncounter.
Interwoven with the salaciousness, there was tenderness in her touch. In her kisses. She’d taken what was supposed to be an anonymous fuck and made it far more intimate. Strikingly different. And most disconcerting—simply by how deeply satisfying it all was.
Taking several steps back, she readjusted her chemise, then covered her breasts with her arms.
She could pull away from him, but she couldn’t backtrack now that he’d seen the freckles. “No more denials,” he repeated. “It’s time for explanations, Catherine. Why don’t you start by telling me how you gained admittance into the masquerade? The guest list was rather exclusive. Daniel de Gallay swore to me that he didn’t invite anyone fitting your description.”
She paused. “The invitation was delivered to our townhouse in error. It was meant for our neighbor, the Comte de Quantin.”
“You know Quantin? You lived on Place Royale in Paris?” It was relatively new, an elegant stretch of homes for the privileged.
“Yes. Once. The townhouse is long gone now.” There was sadness in her tone.
“Thanks to your late husband?”
She nodded. “He lost it in a game of Basset.”
“You used Quantin’s invitation, then.”
“No. I created a copy before I had one of the servants deliver it to the Comte.”
“Why the strong desire to attend?”
Tears shone in her eyes, but she didn’t shed them. “I was desperate. Why else would I go to the trouble of forging an invitation and sneaking out of my home?” She rubbed her arms, as though she were cold. “My family had made its fortune collecting taxes for the Crown. Father was determined to elevate our family into nobility through marriage. I was the sacrificial lamb. To that end, he chose the Comte de Villecourt as my husband.” A rueful smile formed on her lips. “I wish I could have mustered some affection for him. I wanted to like him. Perhaps it sounds hopelessly romantic, but I truly wanted to fall in love with him. I held out hope, until I met him.”
“What was he like?” he asked quietly.
She swallowed hard. Clearly, she was battling her emotions, trying to maintain her composure. He’d never known any female to hold back her tears. It was yet another reason why she stood out from the masses.
“He was … angry,” she said.
Adrien’s stomach tightened. “Did he ever … hurt you?”
“He never struck me, if that is what you mean. He tried to hurt me with words, but over time, I became numb to them. It was then he found different ways to torment me.”
“Why would he wish to?”
She clutched her bodice to her bosom. “Villecourt was very much against marrying me to begin with. A bourgeois was far beneath him—a fact he never let me forget. He hated it that he’d had to accept me as a wife simply to replenish his family’s coffers. We saw each other three times during our betrothal. He made no attempt to hide his disdain. He told me that if he had to suffer me as a wife, he’d make sure I was equally miserable. I begged Father to cancel the marriage contract. To reconsider and look for another. He refused. I knew I would live in sheer misery if I married Villecourt. It all felt so hopeless … and then the invitation arrived. I took it as a sign. A chance to escape my horrible fate.”
The pain in her golden eyes wrapped itself around Adrien’s heart even when he didn’t want it to. “So, you decided to attend the masquerade to—”
“Purposely render myself unmarriageable. I’m sorry for what I did to you, Adrien. I’m sorry for whatever distress I caused you. If it’s any consolation, my plan failed horribly and caused me further suffering in the end. It didn’t break my betrothal, as I’d hoped. A larger dowry than originally promised mollified Villecourt’s debt-ridden family’s objections to my sullied state. As for Villecourt, it only fueled his resentment and made him more spiteful toward me.”
Adrien was amazed. He had considered this scenario a possibility, and dismissed it. A maidenhead was a commodity. Of great value to a woman’s future. Though there had been females who’d surrendered their innocence outside of marriage for a multitude of reasons, he’d never known a woman to go to such lengths to purposely discard it.
“Foolishly, I thought it was the perfect plan,” she continued. “No one knew of my presence at the masquerade, and with a mask, I maintained my anonymity.”
“Except I removed your mask in bed,” he reminded her.
“It didn’t matter. You didn’t know me. You never asked my name. And I purposely didn’t ask for yours, so that it couldn’t be coerced from me by my father later on. I didn’t want to involve you in my situation any more than I had to.”
Adrien arched a brow. “You didn’t know who I was? You didn’t know anything about me when you stole into my room?”
She gave a mirthless laugh. “Only that you were from Vienna.”
“Vienna?”
She shook her head. “It’s what my maid told me—obviously in error. A foreigner was the perfect choice. I wasn’t supposed to ever see you again. Clearly, with my many mistakes, it was a plan doomed to fail. My greatest error was in believing that in the end my father would open his eyes and ultimately choose his daughter’s happiness over his own wants.”
Her words stabbed into Adrien, her remarks resonating inside him.
A single tear slipped down her cheek. Impatiently, she swiped it away. “I was wrong about the depth of my father’s affection. I guess I’d hoped he actually cared.”
Adrien felt as though he’d stumbled upon a kindred spirit. And that was the last thing he thought he’d discover about her.
He turned away and raked a hand through his hair, tamping down the soft sentiment welling up inside him. “Why the aphrodisiac?” he asked, staring at the shadows and light on the wall above the torchère.
“How did you know it had been added to the wine?”
Adrien turned back around. “I found a powdery substance at the bottom of my goblet the next morning. Given the heated intensity of our encounter, it wasn’t difficult to guess what the powder was.” He crossed his arms. “You still haven’t answered my question: why the aphrodisiac?”
“I have no idea how to seduce a man. The aphrodisiac ensured success. I couldn’t very well approach you and say, ‘Excuse me, would you care to bed me?’ What if you had refused?”
Dieu. Could she really have no idea how desirable she was? “Catherine, had you made that proposition to every man in that room, you’d have had unanimous acceptance of your offer. No man would have refused you.”
A pretty blush colored her cheeks, obviously unaccustomed to compliments about her appeal.
“Didn’t your husband ever tell you how beautiful you are?” From the sounds of it, Villecourt had been a colossal ass, but surely in the throes of passion he’d stated the obvious, no? The vision she made naked in Adrien’s bed still haunted him to this day.
“No. Never. He indicated … quite the opposite, in fact.” She lifted her chin a notch. “He had no desire for me, in or out of the boudoir.” Those statements were weighted with hurt and suffering and Adrien couldn’t help but admire her bravado. No doubt Villecourt had had a favorite mistress—thus the reason for his disinterest.
“You said he’d found different ways to torment you. Do those ways relate to the scandal you’ve mentioned?”
Reluctantly, she nodded.
“What did he do, Catherine?” He had no idea why the hell he was asking questions about her marriage. Why did any of it matter?
“He”—she clasped and unclasped her hands—“gleefully made us the talk of every salon in Paris. It was not easy to live in the city as he carried on with his … lovers. After the first few months of our marriage, he made no attempt to hide them at all.”
This was puzzling. “Who was he bedding? What made them so noteworthy?”
She let out a sharp exasperated breath, her expression a mixture of agony and anger. “If you must know every sordid detail of my marriage, I shall tell you from beginning to e
nd, although I don’t understand why Villecourt should interest you. My late husband only came to my bed twice and under duress because of pressure from his family to procure an heir. Each distasteful time he told me he found me repulsive. It wasn’t until I walked in on him having sex with one of the servants that I learned the true reason for his disgust. My husband didn’t desire me because I wasn’t …”
“What?”
“A … man.”
Now there was an answer Adrien hadn’t expected, though he should have. What other reason could there be for a man to find this ravishing woman undesirable?
She approached him. “You asked who he was bedding. He was bedding most of our male staff as well as men of higher rank. His favorite was the Baron de Nogaret. He became quite open about his sexual preferences and even tried to blame me for them. His involvement in a lovers’ triangle—Nogaret the object of interest for Villecourt and the Comte de Ragon—led to his demise. He died in a duel over his favorite male paramour.” She opened her arms. “There. Now you know the horrid truth. All of it. Because of him, I’ve endured pitying looks, mortifying whispers.” She held up a dainty finger an inch from the end of his nose. “I want you to know he didn’t break me. He tried. But I remained strong, despite his vicious tongue, the humiliating gossip, the financial ruin. I don’t want anyone’s pity—”
Adrien pressed his fingers to her lips, silencing her. He’d lost all desire to use her as a pawn. He didn’t have the stomach to put her through more scandal. He’d find another way, another opportunity to drive his point home to his sire. “I think you are strong and brave.” He removed his hand from her soft lips. Those were words he’d never uttered to a woman before.
“Oh.” Catherine’s eyes softened. “Thank you … I truly meant it when I said I was sorry. I regret the trickery. But not our night.” He didn’t know why but her statement pleased him immensely. “If I had it to do again, I would proposition you instead of … doing what I did to your wine. If you will permit me, I have a proposition to make to you now.”
Sleeping Beau: A Fiery Tale Novella (Fiery Tales Book 4) Page 6
