Lady of Intrigue

by Sabrina Darby

  The reasonable thing to do was to demand Gerard never bother her again, to pretend the sad matter of Powell was of no interest to her. To act as if she were still the same simple Lady Jane Langley who wished to assist her father in his diplomatic dabblings.

  Simple. Dabblings. These alone were words she would not have previously used to describe either herself or her father. They seemed accurate to her now when nothing was simple.

  Why was she drawn to a man who professed to be a villain, to kill for money with no greater, more honorable goal? Would she have formed such a tendre for any other man with whom she shared an intense experience? Or was it that when he listened, he focused entirely on her and he thought about what she had said? He didn’t underestimate her or assume that her sex made her inferior in any way at all. And he saw beneath the facade she had presented to the rest of the world, found the woman who needed desperately to be cared for and loved.

  Were those reasons to love a man? Were they reasons to throw everything else that she valued away?He was strong, intelligent and handsome, but he used his skills for his own gain. Did not respect human life, though he had let Lady Powell live. Had let Jane live.

  Gerard’s breath was warm on her cheek. His lips touched her ear again, and liquid warmth slid through her body, gathered low between her thighs as his lips moved to her neck. Her own lips parted in a desirous question, full of the need he had awakened.

  There was this as well, the heat of his touch, the way her body wanted his.

  “What I intend is that we convince him your interest in Powell stems from your work for your father. But I need your assistance to do so.”

  “Which is why you are revealing so much.” She quickly discerned what was said and not said. “Now I know that Powell’s death was due to something other than his work for the crown. I must assume his shipping interests.” Gerard’s sigh sent a little thrill of triumph through her. “I’m certain Lady Heathland would know who his partners are, if any live here in Vienna. I’m getting close, aren’t I?”

  “This isn’t a game.”

  “No,” she agreed. It wasn’t a game. She had first wanted to know more to better understand Gerard. Then, she wanted to know because he would not tell her. Now…the threat was directly against her life. It was her right to know. “Well, then. How may I help you?”

  “There is someone here tonight, a woman, who we must convince. Hearing Powell’s name from your lips, she will relay the information to others concerned.”

  “So, I shall say…to someone—”

  “To me.”

  “Is that not a risk?”

  “She does not know me.”

  Jane raised an eyebrow. “I think you are overconfident.”

  “Jane—”

  “As you wish,” she said dismissively, ignoring the look of outraged male pride. She did not wish him to lie to her and she would not do so to him. “I shall say to you that I suspect Lord Powell had other loyalties. His family will be outraged by the suggestion of treason. But if I only say that he is missed, then why was I asking questions? And who are you that you would be interested in this discussion? Perhaps I’d better drag one of the junior clerks into this. Confuse them with a story about how I’ve ascertained that…” She wracked her brain for something and thought of the conversations she had been having with her father just before Gerard arrived. “…Lord Powell did not in fact have any ties to Saxony and that we may rest easy.”

  “Saxony,” Gerard mused. “That is a good choice.”

  A small pleased pride snaked through Jane.

  “And you are right. One of the junior clerks might be safer.”

  That pleased tendril grew inside her. As if she needed his approval.

  “If all goes well, I shall leave tomorrow.”

  The conversational switch was abrupt, and that tendril withered, replaced by a nervous sort of fear and anticipation.

  If he left…if he spoke with his grandfather, asked for help in forging a life accepted by English society, he would understand at last that a union between them was impossible, that— She couldn’t think beyond that, would not let herself. If he left Vienna, he was setting in motion more than simply an illicit affair, more than this ominous intrigue in which they were currently engaged.

  These few days in Vienna, these few nights, each morning he had said he would go and then there he was again, brightening her life. Here, where royalty and the people of Vienna intermingled freely, there was less to separate Jane from Gerard, less to make the idea of them together impossible.

  “You’ll come to me tonight?”

  He stilled, as if she had somehow offended him.

  “What is it?”

  He did not answer.

  “It is one thing to not tell me about Powell, but it is another entirely to hide your thoughts from me now about this. When you claim you are leaving for London tomorrow because of your love for me.” She felt a bit like a shrew using his love to manipulate him into answering, but she was frustrated, too, tired of being kept in the dark except for when he chose to eke out some small bit of knowledge. Tired of him thinking he controlled everything, their fate, their lives.

  “It is just…this is the first time you are asking me to come to you.”

  Her breath fled as she took in his words, his pensive expression, the gaze that was half embarrassed at his confession. She had not expected vulnerability. But he was right. It had always been Gerard pushing her, invading her space, taking over her life. In return, she had pushed him away. She had never before invited him in. He thought it meant more than it did. It was no great sign of love. Instead, it was one of lust. She wanted one more night. One more night before it was over.

  “Then you will come to me? I will make it easy for you and leave my window open.”

  He laughed and then shook his head. “I cannot. I will need to ensure our work tonight took root. But there is an inn on the edge of the woods. Das Holzbeisl. Meet me there tomorrow.”

  She frowned. “You will not leave for London?”

  “For one day for us to be Jane and Gerard, away from intrigue and Vienna, away from the world, knowing everything? For that I will wait one more day. Soon enough you will be mine in every other way.”

  “Knowing everything…” She laughed. “To know you is to know a man of secrets he will not reveal.”

  “I have not lied to you.”

  “I must take you at your word on that…and I do,” she said with a sigh. At the very least, he would still be in Vienna one more day, one more chance to convince him not to go to Landsdowne, not to seek absolution from society if doing so was in pursuit of her.

  He escorted her back into the ballroom much later than the end of the dance she had promised him. She looked for her father but, if possible, the ballroom was even more crowded than before.

  “She’s here.” She followed Gerard’s gaze to a woman not all that far away, bedecked in jewels and frills, with a riot of curls and a hoarse laugh. A merchant’s wife or a mistress perhaps. Jane looked at the woman’s companions, tried to ascertain more. “Jane,” Gerard said, a note of warning in his voice. “No questions, simply the conversation conducted near her.”

  “I understand.”

  They didn’t speak again until he delivered her to her father’s side, until all the small and necessary pleasantries were said. Then Gerard was gone, absorbed back into the crowd.

  A sea of faces out of which she would need to find one of those junior clerks, and that woman once again. Her stomach clenched, but she took a deep breath and focused on the task at hand, idly fingering the silk rope that edged her dress. It was a trifle, a small matter of erroneous gossip to be imparted. Really, the sort of thing woman of the ton did on a daily basis for far less dire reasons. And she was not alone. Gerard had not said, but she knew—he would be watching until the deed was done.

  Gerard wanted to speak with Bohm, but he didn’t dare. The ex-pugilist still had his devotees, was not unknown in Vienna. It w
as part of what made him the perfect guard for Jane, especially at these peculiarly Viennese gatherings where all of society seemed to mix.

  Instead, he circled the perimeter of the room, keeping an eye on Elda Schmitt, Szabo’s mistress. She seemed to be having an enjoyable time. Though Szabo kept a tight rein on his household, he also liked to make his mistress happy, and encouraged her to attend as many social events as she wished. There were only a handful of these that Szabo ever attended as well.

  He caught the glint of gold in Jane’s brown hair as she walked arm in arm with a young, blushing man. A junior clerk, Gerard presumed, who had little idea that he was being maneuvered into exactly the position Jane wanted him. Jane laughed, and clung to the man’s arm. Flirting.

  Jealousy tugged sharply in Gerard’s gut, even as he marveled at this view of her. From the first moment that he had held her cheek in his hand, their world had been the intensity between the two of them. Even though he knew the wide smile and knowing eyes were intended to obfuscate, it still startled him to see her use such a tool. Jane’s natural flirtatiousness stemmed from her seriousness, her willingness to meet a man’s eyes while discussing the most complex or the simplest matters. She did not shy away from life, and that was arousing and appealing in and of itself. But this…it was not in Jane’s nature and yet she did it brilliantly. The poor clerk was clearly under her spell.

  There. They were a mere hand’s breadth from Szabo’s mistress. He knew exactly when Powell’s name was dropped, not from the shape of Jane’s lips as she rounded her lips around the word, but from the way Szabo’s mistress turned her head sharply, and then back again, studiously pretending she wasn’t listening when everything in her posture clearly indicated to Gerard that she was. Excellent. He had little doubt that this information would come back to Szabo this night. Szabo would still keep an eye on Jane, no doubt, but if she stopped asking questions altogether, he would assume this matter of Saxony had been the reason, some other political intrigue that did not concern him directly.

  Gerard stayed a little longer, watched Jane disentangle herself from the hapless young clerk. Observed her enter a dance with a minor German prince. He wanted to rip the prince’s hand from hers. He wanted to hold her in his arms, dance with her here before the orchestra, amidst all the other dancers. But she had not invited anyone else to come to her room this night. Only Gerard, despite everything. Despite the way he had threatened her life and then continued to do so merely by having let her live.

  She loved him. She had said she did, and the words were a balm to Gerard’s scorched soul. Soul. That word again, as foreign and as natural as its twin, love.

  He knew well enough that she claimed love was not enough for her, that she needed security and a life in which she was accorded the same respect as a wife as she had as Langley’s daughter. She deserved that and he would give it to her. He would find a way.

  But first he had to keep her alive.

  As he left the ball and stepped out into the dark of night, exhilaration quickened his pulse, made him breathe deep of the cold air that ached in his lungs. If all went well, this night would be his last night of intrigue, the final piece in a job that had been both unwanted and profoundly affecting. After this he was truly his own man and would never work for anyone other than himself. He could nearly taste the freedom that idea invoked.

  Freedom. Soul. Love.

  What had become of Gerard Badeau?

  Chapter Twelve

  The room at the inn on the northern outskirts of the city was in his name, or at least the name he went by here in Vienna, and she did not give hers. She met him in the bold light of day, no spies, no servants, and no need for extraordinary secrecy. Anticipation soared through her as she climbed well-worn wooden stairs to his room. This time she was coming to him of her own free will.

  The third door on the left, the proprietor had said. The door was a dark wood, the center polished smooth by the touches and raps over the years. She knocked. The door opened. Her stomach gripped and tumbled at the sight of his dark eyes, his dark gaze, the intensity of his desire.

  Gerard.

  Space, light, extinguished between them. The thump of the door closing, the turn of the lock, sounded distantly in her head as that desire devoured her, lips on lips, bodies overlapping. They pulled at each other’s clothing, undressing at first in a frenzy and then more languidly, taking their time as he unlaced her stays, his thumbs caressing circles onto her back.

  Finally naked they stood, their skin golden in the afternoon light. She had never had a chance to admire him before. Now, her heart as full as her desire, she could. She traced the hard planes of his chest, trailed her finger down to his hip. He reached out and she stopped him, trapped his hand in hers, lifted it to her mouth. She pressed a kiss to his knuckles and then to the bones of his wrist. The length of his arms intrigued her. She had admired his lean strength before, but now it was hers to explore. The suntanned skin, dusted with hair, the corded muscles. She wanted to lick it all and she wanted to cry.

  “Gerard,” she whispered, her voice breaking.

  “Ma chere.” He pulled her against him, whispered to her in French, soothing her. “My love, my beautiful, brave, intelligent Jane.” She understood the words but it was his voice and the language that washed over her with the comfort of home. His home. His language. He had said he had no country that was his, but now in his voice it was clear that the language of his childhood was his first, the one he dreamt in. The one he loved in.

  He loved her.

  Loved.

  His love had overwhelmed her at first, felt impossible. But now…

  Such an amazing, incredible thing to have grown out of death, out of the strangest of circumstances. To have met a man who could see her for who she was, not as someone’s daughter or a flush dowry or any other superficiality. Not that money is a superficial— She thrust the pragmatic thought from her head. It did not belong here in this room, where all that mattered was this moment together. Here, emotion reigned. Here, she could love him.

  She lifted her hand between them and touched the warm skin of his chest, reveled in the beating of his heart beneath. He had marked her with his love that last night in Frankfurt, but she could not and did not wish to mark him. She could make no promises. No promises but this afternoon.

  She trailed her fingers over his sculpted chest, over the small nipples so like and so unlike her own, explored the nubs that hardened at her touch. Desire surged like a wave within her, powerful and all consuming, drawing her under. She gave into it, drowned in it willingly. She kissed his chest, the delineation of muscle, with her tongue. Every sense was centered there as she breathed him in, tasted him, listened to the rhythmic beating of his heart. Primal music.

  “How…”

  She paused infinitesimally, but his question trailed off, continued the trail of her tongue down his beautiful body as she waited for him to continue. She knelt as she reached his hips, the male part of him, which was erect and intriguing. She took him in her hands and marveled at the contrast of hard and soft, rough and smooth, beautiful and strange. This she had taken inside her, was how they had joined hip to hip, until nothing separated them, until they were nearly one being.

  “How do you manage to unravel me?” His voice was hoarse, nearly guttural. “This isn’t simply pleasure.”

  She had no measure for comparison but the wonder in his tone filled her with a deep, very female sort of satisfaction, made her feel for the first time the wonderful power of being a female. Here, in the privacy between two people, a man and a woman, they were utterly equal.

  “No?” She was unsure what to do next, other than what she wanted to do, and yet, that seemed so… “May I kiss you?”

  There was a moment of silence, a hesitation, and she wondered if he had understood what she meant. Then he choked, “Yes.”

  Yes. Then this was something that was done. Not some strange creation on her part. She breathed in deep, then feathered her lip
s over the hard length of him. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the movement of his hand, closing into a fist, his wrist and forearm radiating with suppressed tension. But he made no other motion or sound. If she were hurting him, he’d surely say something.

  She touched him experimentally with her tongue, and his hips rocked toward her. She licked the length of him, slowly at first, and then, encouraged by his soft moan, at her will. His hands gripped her upper arms firmly and she loved the pressure of his fingers on her flesh. She slid her tongue under the slight ridge that encircled the tip.

  “Jane, come here.”

  Dizzily, she let him pull her up against him, let his mouth plunder hers once more. She could feel him hard, hot, throbbing against her and the simple knowledge of it sent a damp heat settling between her thighs.

  “My turn.” The gravelly rawness of his voice as he matched it with forceful action thrilled her. He swept her off her feet and, breathless, she looked up at him from where he placed her on the bed, looming over her, never more than a few inches away.

  She reached for him and he grabbed her wrists, pulled her arms over her head and held them there with one arm. “Let me pleasure you.”

  Let me pleasure you. The pleasure she knew was his kisses, his touch, his body joined intimately with hers. Her body tingled in anticipation. He let go of her wrists and bent his head. She gasped as his mouth lowered to her neck and she arched her head back to give him more access. But he had moved on, down her body the way she had explored his. It felt as if he was everywhere, his hands, his mouth, his tongue. Even the simple contact of his thigh against hers sent fire running across her skin. It was as if each lick, each caress, were a strand, a thread, a piece of some grander tapestry of pleasure that he was weaving across her body. She followed each thread until he moved on and that one was left trembling, a maw of desire. He managed to find places she had never imagined would be sensitive, she had never thought of beyond the bath, and turn them into greedy centers of need.