His Forbidden Liaison: A brotherhood of spies in Napoleonic France (The Aikenhead Honours Book 3)

by Joanna Maitland

  She was remembering exactly how she had behaved during their journey from Lyons, tempting, teasing, trying to make him lose control. A Frenchman might have found that amusing, but an English gentleman would be insulted. Jacques had lost control in the end, but not in the way she had hoped. There had been no passionate kisses. Rather a passionate outburst against her "outrageous behaviour". Exactly what she would have expected of an Englishman.

  She sank back into her chair and closed her aching eyes. In spite of everything, she still loved him. There was no help for it. But she would never let him know it. Not now. No English gentleman could ever learn to love a woman like her. She was a lowly weaver, and a failed temptress. But she still had her pride. Painful though it had been, she had not allowed herself even the tiniest touch since she had learned of his true identity. She would never allow him to despise her.

  She straightened her back, rose and began to walk back and forth across the little parlour. He would return to her eventually, and she must be ready for him. She must concentrate on their mission. It was her duty to protect him, and there was only one way to do that now. She would have to behave as if they truly were brother and sister. It would require cool detachment. She would have to find a way to recover the common sense which her sister so admired. And to bury her feelings. She would have to learn to be calm and composed, no matter how much heartache it cost her.

  She would begin to practise. Now. She forced herself to smile, and crossed to the window.

  Down below, the quiet cul-de-sac was empty except for a one-legged soldier leaning on his crutches in a doorway opposite, playing a mournful melody on a tin whistle. It suited Marguerite's melancholy mood too well. The man had been playing the same tune at odd intervals ever since their arrival.

  It was beginning to rain. The old soldier ducked further back into his doorway. Down at the very far end of the alley, where it joined the bright, noisy bustle of the main road, a flicker of movement caught her eye. A man was hurrying down towards the pension, the skirts of his coat flapping awkwardly around his knees. With one hand, he was holding his hat against the rain and the swirling wind; the other was deep in his pocket. He did not look up, but Marguerite recognised his long-legged stride at once. Jacques was taking no chances. That pocket contained his money, and probably also a pistol.

  Jacques was about to cross the alley to the pension when he stopped to exchange a few words with the old soldier. Marguerite was too far away to hear, but she saw the man's toothless grin and the nod of thanks. Then he stowed his whistle carefully inside his jacket and limped off towards the main street, his crutches slipping occasionally on the wet cobbles. In spite of the rain, Jacques stood watching the man until he disappeared round the corner.

  Marguerite stepped back from the window before Jacques could see her. She did not want him to guess that she had been looking out for him. She certainly did not want him to suspect that she had been worrying about his safety.

  She heard his quick, light step on the stair. By the time he reached the landing, she was sitting by the tiny fire with her hands folded demurely in her lap. She was determined to play the part of a sister, both in public and in private, at least until the terrible danger was past. It did not matter that she was having to suppress her own longings. They would never be fulfilled. Not now. What mattered now was to save Jacques from the risk of arrest.

  The latch rattled. Marguerite resisted the temptation to go to meet him at the door. It was best to remain where she was, calmly seated and suitably distant.

  He flung the door wide and stepped inside, throwing his hat on to the small table alongside the fireplace. Some of the raindrops fell on the hearth with a sizzle. Marguerite risked a single enquiring glance and then looked quickly away. He frowned in response. That was clearly not the reaction he had been expecting from her. However, he made no comment. Instead, he quietly closed the door and shrugged off his heavy coat, before crossing to the fireplace to warm his hands.

  Marguerite stared at the flickering flames. "You have been a long time," she said matter-of-factly.

  He turned his head a fraction, but she refused to lift her head. It would be much more difficult to maintain the distance between them if she looked into his face. Besides, she was afraid of what he might see in her eyes.

  "I apologise if I have worried you, Marguerite."

  She shook her head, hoping she looked impatient rather than concerned.

  "I clearly don't know Paris as well as I thought I did, for it took longer than I had expected to find the Lyons coaching agent. He was delighted to have the chaise returned, naturally. He has queues of customers wanting to journey south, in spite of Bonaparte's advance. Must say, that surprised me, but perhaps they are all sympathisers."

  "Will he provide us with a chaise for Calais?" Marguerite sat back in her chair and forced herself to appear calm. She let her gaze drift idly over Jacques's person, avoiding his eyes, and all the while reminding herself to think of him as a brother. Only a brother.

  "No, he's on the wrong side of the river. He deals only with journeys to the south and east. I had to start all over again on this side of the Seine. Sadly, I had no luck at all, no matter how much money I offered them. It seems there is not a chaise to be had anywhere."

  "What are we to do?" To her annoyance, she detected a slight tremor in her voice as she spoke. He was bound to think she was afraid. She was, but for Jacques, not for herself. It was imperative that he leave Paris.

  "The diligence for Boulogne and Calais leaves at noon each day from the rue Montmartre. It is fully booked today and tomorrow, but I have purchased the first two free places. We should reach Calais on Thursday."

  She clasped her hands more tightly together. Only a few more days and then he would be safe. But in the meantime—?

  "Marguerite, what is the matter?" He pulled forward a rough wooden chair and sat down so close to her that their knees were almost touching. He tried to take her hands in his, but she snatched them away. "Marguerite, I can understand your worries, and your fears, but I promise I will take every care of you until we leave here. We—"

  She jumped to her feet, almost knocking him over in the process, and began to pace. She took refuge in anger. "I am grateful for your concern, Jacques, but you misread the situation. I am not afraid." He had risen, too, and was leaning casually against the fireplace with his eyes fixed on her face. She frowned at him. "We are here as brother and sister. You acknowledge that it is safer for us to travel so, and yet you go off alone for hours, making a spectacle of yourself while you demand post-chaises and instant seats on the diligence. You even try to bribe the chaise owners. What sort of way is that to behave? The Bonapartists will mark you down for a royalist, trying to escape from Paris. They will bide their time, but if that monster does reach the city, you will be arrested."

  He smiled wryly at her. "They would have to find me first, my dear. And I can assure you I was not followed back here. I do have some basic skills as a spy, you know."

  "Oh!" She turned away before she could give in to the urge to stamp her foot like a child in a tantrum. She strode angrily across to the window, chewing at her lip. The more dangerous their situation, the more devil-may-care he became. Did he have no common sense at all? And how dare he address her as his "dear"?

  She stared down into the street, which was now totally deserted. The rain had stopped but, in places, the cobbles gleamed with a slick, metallic sheen. As Marguerite watched, a skinny cat emerged from a cellar and began to pick its way daintily around the puddles, making for the end of the alley. If she had been at home, she would have given it a saucer of milk. She—

  His warm breath stroked the back of her neck like a fine velvet glove. She had not heard him move, but he was standing immediately behind her. She could feel the heat from his body, even through all the layers of their clothing. It felt as if she had her back to a blazing fire. If she turned, her face would be almost against his chest. And her lips would be only inches fro
m his.

  She did not move.

  "Come back to the fire, Marguerite." Each soft syllable of that rich voice was a caress on her naked skin. She shivered. "You see?" There was a hint of masculine triumph in his voice, even though it was still barely audible. "It is cold here by the window."

  She continued to focus on the distant cat. After a moment more, she felt the heat receding. She turned and saw that he was back by the fireplace, waiting for her to resume her seat. As if nothing at all had happened. She nodded coolly and returned to her chair so that he, too, might sit down.

  He had put his chair back in its normal place, a respectable distance away from hers. It seemed that he had understood the rules she was trying to impose. When he began to speak, she was sure of it.

  "We have gleaned a lot of information on our way here, information that will be useful to the Allies, I think. My wanderings today have shown me that Paris is much like Sens, where we stopped last night. Rumours everywhere, and royalist sentiment almost invisible. I could understand that at Sens, but here, in Paris? I would have expected at least a pretence of loyalty while the King remains here, but I found none. The loudest voices belonged to Bonapartists plotting their revenge on their enemies. You have heard about the proclamation?"

  Marguerite shook her head. It was all starting to sound very bad.

  "Bonaparte issued a proclamation after we left Lyons. It stated that the Bourbons are unfit to reign and all troops are to join the 'great Napoleon'. By all accounts, they are already doing so."

  "Ney will arrest him. He has sworn an oath to the King." Marguerite raised her eyes, hoping to see agreement in his face. There was none. His expression was a blank. It seemed he had no faith in Marshal Ney, and possibly none in the King either.

  "Let us hope you are right. No doubt we will learn soon enough." He rose and reached for his coat. "Since we are marooned here for at least two days, we might as well continue with our plan. Today being Sunday, you cannot wait upon the Duchess of Courland or any other potential customers. So I suggest we walk out calmly together, as brother and sister, to take the air after the rain and find ourselves a decent meal. I, for one, am starving."

  It had taken Jack some time to persuade her to accompany him, even though the Pension Beauregard did not serve food. Jack knew that Marguerite had not eaten since their arrival, but she refused to admit that she was hungry. In the end, he resorted to underhand tactics, telling her that they were both needed out on the streets in order to find out what was really going on in Paris. That was untrue. The situation was already clear enough. Jack doubted whether anything else of use would turn up.

  She would not be easily fooled, he knew. So he led her through the streets to the Palais Royal, where the cafés and gaming rooms were renowned as a hotbed of gossip and rebellion. The place would be full of Bonapartists, and therefore dangerous, but it was what she was bound to expect. She was as fearless as ever. She walked calmly by his side, looking about her, watching carefully. She did not speak. Occasionally, her heels clicked on the wet cobbles, but she showed no sign at all of losing her footing. And she flatly refused to take his arm, no matter how politely he offered.

  Something had changed. Jack had been trying to tell himself that his imagination was playing tricks on him, but he could not swallow such a whisker any more. Marguerite had started their journey from Lyons by teasing and taunting him, to the point where he had thought his frustrations might boil over. He had been very tempted to turn her over his knee or, better, to kiss her senseless. But, after that first encounter with the soldiers, she had become very proper, almost like a true sister. He had been glad of it at first, since it gave him a chance to regain control of his unruly body. Unfortunately his control had not been as good as he would have wished. Not because of anything Marguerite had done—she had behaved impeccably—but because of his own memories of her seductive teasing. No matter how primly she looked at him, he kept seeing the sensual enchantress beneath. It had taken him two days of stern warnings to himself to put those pictures aside. And even then, they had returned at night in his dreams.

  Playing the part of a sister had not stopped her from touching him in perfectly ordinary ways, or giving him a peck on the cheek when they retired for the night. After his initial surprise, Jack had come to expect her goodnight kiss and to relish it in a strange sort of way. It was totally innocent, but the touch of her soft lips against his skin had been a glorious memory to carry to bed with him, even if it had tended to disturb his rest.

  So why had she stopped?

  What had be said? Or done? He understood now, too late, that he had enjoyed their time together, even when she was teasing him. It suggested that there might be some attraction between them, that Marguerite might— No. He must not allow himself to think such things. He had sworn an oath, to treat her honourably, as a sister. He could not break it.

  But she was no longer allowing him to behave as a brother. Why?

  The answer was obvious as soon as he began to consider it coolly and logically. He had confessed that he was an Englishman. Since then, she had not allowed him to lay a finger on her, even in the most innocuous way. And her goodnight kiss was now only a memory. She was a royalist who would do her duty for her cause. That might include helping an English spy to escape from France, but it clearly did not include allowing such a man to touch her. If only he had not told her…

  "Good gracious." Marguerite had stopped in her tracks. Ahead of them, in a passage leading between one stall selling clocks and another selling toys, there was an apparently respectable young woman holding up a highly coloured print which was anything but respectable. Jack cursed himself for forgetting. The booksellers in the arcades of the Palais Royal were renowned for the range of their erotic wares, and not in the least embarrassed about displaying them.

  "Come away, sister." He put an arm around her shoulder and forced her to move. For once, she did not attempt to shake him off, though he knew she would do so as soon as she regained her composure.

  "That woman. Was she a…a prostitute?" Marguerite's voice was trembling a little. Her face was very white.

  Jack gave her shoulders a tiny squeeze and then removed his arm. "No, sister. She is a Palais Royal bookseller. You may not believe it, but she considers herself highly respectable. They all do, in spite of what they sell."

  "Oh. I'm afraid I did not know. I have never visited the Palais Royal before."

  "You would have been unwise to do so, without an escort. But now that we are here together, you will allow me to show you, I hope, that we may eat as well here as anywhere in Paris." He pointed to the row of restaurants, each with its bill of fare on display, and many with criers outside, encouraging potential customers to enter and sample the establishment's excellent cuisine. "A restaurant of the middling sort for us, I fancy," he added softly. "One where we are unlikely to meet anyone we would prefer to avoid."

  The restaurant was almost full when they arrived, but they managed to secure a table in a corner from which they could study the whole room. As Jacques had predicted, the food was excellent and plentiful, and wine was included in the very modest price. Marguerite found her attention straying from her plate. Her mind was full of that extraordinary picture, of a man and a woman coupling on a sofa in a rose garden. She had never before seen such a thing. She had always assumed, perhaps naïvely, that sexual encounters took place in a bedchamber, in the dark. Such an outrageous print should have disgusted her, but in fact it had merely surprised her and started wild questions in her mind. The naked couple seemed to be enjoying each other very much. Was that what love-making was really like? Was it possible to delight in a lover's body? And in the open air?

  She was sure she must be blushing. To divert her unruly thoughts, she focused on the mistress of the establishment, a stately woman with a resplendent bosom, dressed in a gown of deep purple trimmed with lace. Neither the silk of the gown nor the lace was of the first quality, but they did not need to be; the patronne's m
anner was condescending enough for a duchess.

  It was well after seven when they spilled out into the muggy darkness in the centre of the Palais Royal. The trees were almost invisible but, all around them, the cellars and shops and cafés rose in layers full of light, as if the dark centre were surrounded by a ring of fire. Marguerite tried unsuccessfully to swallow a giggle. She had had a sudden vision of the patronne cavorting within that fiery ring, her enormous bosom heaving.

  "Do I detect that you have had one too many glasses of wine, sister?"

  "Certainly not." She straightened her face, with difficulty, and shot a glance back over her shoulder. Madame was nowhere to be seen. "No, I'm afraid that the airs of madame la patronne were becoming too much for me. She oversees her empire like a bountiful deity." She thought for a moment. "No, perhaps not bountiful. I doubt she would be kind if her underlings failed to do her bidding."

  Or if her lover failed to come up to scratch.

  Marguerite was at a loss to know where such a wicked thought had come from. Perhaps she had drunk too much wine? She forced herself to remember their mission and her resolve. "That was a splendid dinner, Jacques, but the customers were …er… somewhat subdued." In truth, they had overheard nothing useful. "Shall we return to the pension?"

  He shook his head. "I thought we might take coffee up there." He pointed to the upper storey. "But stay close by me. Some of the cafés here are full of prostitutes, and worse. I would not have you distressed in any way."

  He tucked her hand under his arm as he spoke and turned towards the stairs. Marguerite was too surprised to protest or pull away. Judging by the noise coming from some of the lighted windows, not all of these establishments were respectable. She could hear drunken laughter and all kinds of music—violins, and drums, and even what sounded like a tin whistle.