by Gaelen Foley
“You expect me to wait?”
“The Bazaar takes place in a few days, Ange. I have to go. I don’t even know yet where I’m traveling to. Come on. I need your help.”
“And you shall have it,” she breathed, arching against him. “But first, I need you.”
His heart sank, and a rush of vicious curses at this waste of time blazed wrathfully through his mind, but he was a consummate actor and didn’t have time to argue.
He scooped her off her feet with a roguish laugh. “Oh, do you, now?”
She wrapped her arms around his neck in breathless delight and started kissing him as he carried her over to her bed.
He set her on her knees on the edge of the mattress, where she proceeded to help him pull off his coat and start taking off his clothes.
Once upon a time, it had been easy to perform for her with reasonable enthusiasm. But something had changed. The moment she slipped her hand into his trousers, Nick experienced an inexplicable malfunction.
For the first time in his life, his member simply refused to cooperate. He glanced down at himself, aghast: Angelique looked up from his peacefully slumbering cock to meet his stunned gaze. She arched a brow in mildly vexed amusement.
“What’s wrong, darling?” she drawled.
“I-I don’t know,” he stammered, reaching up to touch the back of his head. “Maybe it’s the concussion . . . Bloody hell!” And I thought prison was humiliating.
“Don’t worry. I’m sure I can remedy this,” she said, but she couldn’t.
Good God, had Virgil’s daughter ruined him for all other women? Angelique had mastered every sensual trick known to man, and did her best with mouth and hands, but it was clearly no use. Someone simply wasn’t interested in her, and within minutes, to Nick’s relief, she lost patience and backed off angrily. So much for his legendary status as a stud.
Still at a loss, he saw he now had a bigger problem: Angelique took it personally. “What’s wrong with you?” she demanded. “Are you ill?”
“No! No, I—” He bit back the truth. I just don’t want to do this. With you. At all. “I don’t know. Worried about the mission, I guess, maybe. Tired.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “Or maybe you just don’t want me anymore.”
“Don’t be absurd. You’re the most desirable woman on the Continent,” he lied, as he quickly fastened his trousers again, there being no point in leaving them open.
“Hm, but that doesn’t include England, does it, darling?” She pinned him with a cold stare full of suspicion. “Who is this English baroness you’re out to rescue, exactly?”
“She’s no one,” he said flatly.
But the underworld queen stared into his eyes and slowly shook her head at her realization of the truth. “You bastard.”
“What? Come on! It happens to every man at some point.”
“Not to you. Your mind is obviously elsewhere—or should I say your heart. Hell must have frozen over, because Nick the bastard Forrester has finally fallen in love. And it clearly wasn’t with me.”
He opened his mouth to deny it, knowing from experience what her jealousy could cost him, but the words would not come out.
Angelique looked askance at him in cynical understanding, but for his part, Nick was baffled.
What the hell was wrong with him? He couldn’t fuck another woman, and now he couldn’t lie? He was a goddamned spy. What the hell had that redhead done to him? “Angelique, please. I can account for this. I got bashed in the head with a brick earlier today—”
“Poor boy,” she said, bored, as she turned her back on him and finally saw fit to close and tie her robe.
“I still need your help,” he forced out. “I’m begging you.”
She laughed and lit herself a cheroot. “Usually I like it when you beg, but this is just pathetic. Get out of my chamber.”
Nick shut his eyes and banged his head once softly against the bedpost with a low groan of self-disgust.
“She must be really something else,” Angelique continued, as though she couldn’t help herself.
Nick opened his eyes wearily and found her staring at him in withering scorn.
“I knew there was something different about you, but I assumed it was from everything you’d been through, prison and all. How dare you come in here and think that you can use me?”
“You do it to me all the time!” he barked back without warning, glowering at her as his true feelings burst through the façade.
She blinked.
He had never raised his voice to her before, but Nick was past caring. “Can’t you just once in your life, do something decent for somebody else? I thought we were friends.”
“And I thought we were much more than that,” she said icily. “Apparently not.” She threw his shirt at him. “Get out of my house and don’t come back.”
He floundered at the order, his heart pounding. He pulled his shirt on slowly, stalling for time. But, God, if he didn’t have his body with which to barter with her, how was he supposed to get the cutthroat seductress to go along with his plan?
He had to get into the Bacchus Bazaar.
There had to be something he could offer in exchange.
Something else. He bit his lip, racking his brains as he found his cravat and put it around his neck.
Give her the emerald?
Can’t.
He might have to use it to buy Virginia’s freedom.
He had no gold, no information to pass along, no nothing, he thought with a furious curse under his breath.
But then, as Nick wearily picked up his coat, cringing at the thought of having to return empty-handed to the carriage where the boys waited, and having to admit to Phillip that he had failed, a diabolical inspiration suddenly flashed across his mind. He froze.
Maybe he had one item, after all, that might interest Angelique . . .
Oh, but I can’t, he thought, shaken that he should even think of such a thing. It’s too evil. Even for me.
“Would you leave, or do you want me to call for security?” she snapped.
What choice did he have?
“Angelique,” he said tactfully, taking a wary step toward her. “Before I go, I actually do have a present for you.”
“Oh, really?” she asked dubiously. “What is it?”
“A new toy. May I?”
She shrugged, skeptically willing to accept a parting gift.
“One moment,” he said.
She watched him in suspicion as he stepped out into the hallway, where he called for a servant and sent him on his errand.
She slanted him an aloof, questioning look when he returned to the doorway of her chamber. “What are you up to?”
He shrugged. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”
“Who?” she demanded.
“You’ll see,” he said, leaning in the doorway to wait.
Mere minutes later, the servant he had sent out to the carriage returned with the sacrificial lamb.
Nick beckoned to him, and into the room stepped Virginia’s beautiful boy, John Carr.
The young man gazed at Nick in question, but Nick steered him firmly into Madame’s chamber.
The minute she saw him, Angelique stopped scowling.
Her stare homed in on him, scanning him from his princely golden locks to his dusty black boots. “Well, well. Is it Christmas?”
An intrigued smile curved the rouged lips of the vampire queen, her silk dressing gown mysteriously falling untied again as she glided toward the lad.
Carr stared, mesmerized by the way the garment skimmed her white, pearlescent body.
She was equally pleased with the offering.
“Wherever did you find him?” she murmured to Nick, but did not take her eyes off John Carr. “Look at you
. . .”
He backed up a few steps in blushing confusion as she prowled toward him. But she laughed in delight. “Don’t worry, I won’t bite. Yet.” Then her hands alighted on his chest. “Come in, you pretty thing. We must get acquainted.”
Nick did the introductions.
“Angelique, allow me to present Mr. John Carr of England. John, this is Madame Angelique. She is very rich and powerful.”
“And also very beautiful,” he answered breathlessly.
“Oh, you’re too kind! Isn’t he adorable?” She was hanging on him, caressing him and licking her lips like she could already taste him. “How old are you, Monsieur Carr?”
He swallowed hard, bewildered by her attentions. “Twenty-three.”
“Là!” she exclaimed, probably because the lad was half her age. “And do you have a wife?”
“Oh, no!” he answered, wide-eyed, already half her slave.
“That’s good. Very good. Poor thing, you’re hurt. What happened to your shoulder?”
“I got shot, ma’am.”
“How awful.” She cupped his boyishly smooth face and whispered, “You can call me Angelique.”
“One of Limarque’s men shot him,” Nick informed her. “Just a flesh wound. It’ll heal soon,” he added like he was trying to sell her a horse. “Until then, you’ll have to go easy on him.”
“Young man, you’re staring at me.”
“Sorry.” Carr swallowed hard. “It’s just, your, um, your dressing gown isn’t . . . quite . . . fastened.”
“Really?” She slipped it off on shoulder, showing him even more, and Carr moaned softly, averting his fevered gaze to the wall.
Nick rolled his eyes.
Angelique laughed in delight. “Ah, look at him blush! You never did that. Very well, I accept. He’s adorable.”
“We have a deal?” Nick demanded.
Carr turned to him with a questioning frown.
“Maybe,” she answered, sidling closer to her prospective new plaything. “Face of an angel,” she murmured, returning her attention to the lad. “Oh, you beautiful thing, you could have anything you want out of life with a face like that. What do you want most of all? Tell mama.”
Carr stared at her, finally sensing that his opportunity here was real.
“Well?” she whispered.
“To be rich,” he confessed.
“Mmm, I can teach you that. Among other things. Would you like to stay here with me for a while as my very special guest?”
He nodded mutely, his chest heaving as she stroked him. Then Carr surprised even Nick, gamely made a move and kissed her.
Angelique dove in, running her hands all over him. Her sure, sensual explorations produced the effect that was to be expected from any healthy male in his early twenties being caressed by a beautiful, depraved seductress.
Well, as long as that man wasn’t he, Nick thought wryly as he looked away, heaving a sigh of impatience.
Carr ended the kiss, letting out a small gasp when her fingers found the growing bulge in his trousers.
“Mmm,” she purred, “now that’s more like it.”
“Sorry,” he croaked.
“Don’t be ashamed, darling. Honestly, I’m flattered.” She cast Nick a pointed look of mocking reproach as she played with Carr’s erection through his clothes. “Does that feel good?”
“For God’s sake! Can we please finish our business first?”
She kissed Carr’s neck in amusement, holding Nick’s angry gaze. “Leave him here with me, and you can take your guns. Have Luc load twenty crates of rifles on a wagon.”
“I want a few howitzers, as well.”
“Fine. But my proceeds from the sale had best be sitting inside my bank by the end of the month, or you’re dead.”
“I understand.”
“And Nick?”
“Yes?” he asked, pausing as he turned to go.
“I don’t ever want to see your face again.”
“You won’t,” he answered, then he pulled the door shut and left the couple to their pleasures.
Match made in heaven, he thought in annoyance, or more likely, the other place. An insatiable sophisticate with a taste for domination, and a spoiled prince who craved the pampered life of playing stud to a wealthy patroness.
Those two deserved each other.
Nevertheless, Nick felt a little guilty about bringing them together. The lad had arguably saved his life.
But it was not as though John Carr was going to be corrupted. He was already well on his way to that condition on his own before their paths had ever crossed.
Nick gave Luc the message about the twenty crates of rifles and the half dozen howitzers that he’d be taking to the auction for Madame.
While Luc got some men on the task of loading up the wagon, Nick returned to the carriage to check on Phillip.
The boy was waiting anxiously, consumed with curiosity, craning his neck to take in the view and watching everything. “What’s happening? Did it work?”
Nick nodded. “They’re loading up the wagon for us now.”
“What took so long? Hey! Where’s John?”
“He’ll be staying here,” Nick answered vaguely.
“Why? Is everything all right?”
“He’s going to be keeping a lady company here for a while.”
“A lady! But don’t we need him?” Phillip exclaimed.
Not as much as she does.
“We’re better off without him. He might’ve saved my life dragging me out of that alley, but he’s the one who stole your mother’s book. He’s proved he can’t be trusted. Better to leave him here, out of trouble.”
Phillip studied him. “All right. You’re sure about this?”
“Trust me, he’ll be very happy here. Can you drive a carriage?”
“Pfft!” Phillip answered with a scoff.
Nick laughed, startled by the boy’s indignant response. “Good,” he drawled. “Then get up on the driver’s box and follow me. I’ll take the wagon. We need to get back to Paris before dark.”
There was no time to waste. With the game piece in his pocket and the shipment of weapons for the auction secured, all that remained was to rush back to L’Hôtel Grande Alexandre and register at last for the Bacchus Bazaar.
Meanwhile, back in the criminals’ hideaway, Gin waited while Limarque conferred with his mates in the other room.
Unfortunately, her fierce satisfaction with having scared him off was short-lived.
After all, her threats of doom about how Nick and his brother warriors would descend on Limarque’s gang to avenge her would quickly prove hollow if Nick had died in that alley, or even if he simply couldn’t find her.
Since the thought of his dying was too agonizing to contemplate, she reminded herself of all the many scars on his body that proved how hard he was to kill. Then she focused her attention on listening to the low-toned exchange among the men in the adjoining room.
Maybe her dire warnings were enough to inspire them to release her, simply let her go.
Or . . . maybe she had frightened them into killing her as soon as possible to hide the evidence of their crimes.
Her hands still bound, she got up and crossed the room silently, listening at the door.
The fear clouding her mind made it more difficult to translate their quiet, rapid words from their French, but it seemed fairly clear that Limarque did not relish the thought of becoming the target of Nick’s wrath. She closed her eyes and concentrated.
“The bitch claims to be a baroness.”
“What do we do?”
“We need to get rid of her. Fast.”
“But she can translate the book, no?”
“We don’t need her. She revealed enough about the codes just now to give a leg
up to whoever buys it from us. It’s a book cipher crossed with old Masonic code.”
“Ahh,” they said, much to her satisfaction, considering she had been lying through her teeth.
The real code her father had used had been a Viginere cipher—a much more difficult affair. Still, they or their clients were sure to figure it out eventually.
“All right, if we don’t need her, what do you propose? Kill the wench or let her go?”
“I don’t dare let her go! She’ll run straight to the gendarmes and make such a noise, with her title, that they won’t be able to cover this up for us.”
“So we kill her, then.”
Limarque was silent. Gin listened in dread although without surprise.
“If we do, we mustn’t leave a trace of her.”
“Burn the body?”
“That, or dump it far out at sea,” he replied. “If we do this, no one must be able to trace it back to us, or there will be hell to pay.”
“Would it be simpler to keep her alive? We’ve got places we could stash her—”
“It’s not that easy! She’s a hellcat and tricky as a witch. She could escape. And be warned,” Limarque told them, “somebody taught her to fight.”
“I’ll beat the fight out of her,” one of his henchmen said, probably Brou.
“We’re not animals!” Limarque rebuked him.
Oh, yes, you are. This claim of chivalry on his part was nothing but a cover for his cowardice.
“We need to back away from this,” Limarque concluded. “She’s got connections.”
There was a silence as they pondered the problem: Gin listened keenly at the door to learn her fate.
“I have an idea,” one of the men suddenly spoke up.
“What?” Limarque replied.
“Why don’t we give her to Rotgut?”
Gin’s eyes widened.
Limarque let out a sinister laugh. “Ah, Cagnard, I could kiss you! What an excellent idea! But not give her. That piece of shit would be suspicious. We’ll sell her to him.”
