by Louise Allen
‘There is nothing there but standard male equipment having a rest.’ Jack sounded amused as she caressed him. ‘And if you are hoping to provoke me into further activity, I give you fair warning, it will take a little while.’
‘No, I’m not,’ Eva assured him, meeting his eyes with a smile of fulfilled satisfaction. ‘It is just that I’ve never been able to do this before, you see. As I said, I’m exploring.’
‘What?’ Jack levered himself up on his elbows, looking down the length of his torso to where she was cupping his testicles, gently weighing them in her palm.
‘This. Louis would always leave my bed as soon as we had finished making love. I have never been able to examine a naked man like this, so closely. Your body is fascinating,’ she explained seriously, then leaned forward and blew lightly as an experiment, intrigued by the way the skin contracted. ‘This is all very sensitive, isn’t it?’
‘Very,’ Jack said emphatically as she teased him with the back of one pointed nail. ‘Why would your husband always retreat like that?’
‘I don’t know.’ Eva pondered it, realising it had never struck her as odd before. But then, she had no basis for comparison. ‘I think perhaps he would see it as a sign of weakness to be naked and vulnerable, and not at his most potent. Louis would always want to be rampant—like the lion on the Maubourg coat of arms. But I think it is more a sign of strength to be able to trust, like this.’ On impulse she leaned even further and dropped a kiss onto the half-hidden flesh.
‘Come here.’ Jack sat up, pulling her almost roughly into his embrace, then lay back with her against him. Under her cheek the sound of his heartbeat was reassuring, his skin was warm, slightly rough from his chest hair. ‘It must be trust for two people to do what we have just done, together. We made love together. That is new for me, that feeling of partnership.’
‘I know,’ she said sleepily burrowing into his shoulder. ‘I felt it, too: counterpoint.’
‘Music, yes,’ she heard him agree as she drifted off, feeling him draw the blanket over her, cocooning her safe against his body.
Eva woke to warmth and to the drift of hands over her breasts and stomach. Sleepily, eyes closed against the daylight, she snuggled back into the hard body she was curled against.
‘Good morning,’ Jack whispered in her ear, and slid into her with one slow thrust. She gasped, shifting to accommodate this new position, then relaxing as he continued to move gently within her, his hands the perfect complement as they caressed with a total lack of urgency, focused only on pleasuring her.
It was bliss, but she could not touch him, could not kiss him. Except one way. Eva tightened her muscles around him, playing with the effect it had both on her and, from the gasp as she did it, on Jack.
It was blissful, languorous, sensual beyond belief. Eva had no idea how long they lay curved together, only that when it came she lost herself entirely in the peak of sensation he brought her to, shuddering with delight in his arms.
She must have dozed again, for when she opened her eyes she was alone in the nest of blankets, water was heating on the fire and Jack was standing knee deep in the stream, washing. Eva got up and took herself off into the bushes, treading cautiously in bare feet. When she got back Jack was just rinsing off by the simple expedient of lying flat in the water. He emerged, shaking himself like a wet dog, and saw her.
‘It’s cold. Come in,’ he invited.
Was she ever going to get used to looking at him? Get used to the way he looked and the effect it had on her? It wasn’t simply the lines of his face, or that he was beautifully made and superbly fit. It was the fact that he did not appear conscious of those things that was so attractive. And that a man so self-contained, so disciplined, should let down his guard so totally with her still filled her with awe.
‘Only if you get out first. Or we’ll get…distracted again.’ Eva kept the shirt firmly wrapped round her body.
‘All right.’ He splashed to the bank and climbed out, pausing beside her. ‘I could become very easily…distracted.’
What if we never go back? What if we stayed here for ever? Eva tossed her shirt to one side and stepped off the bank. The cold water was enough to recall her to the real world—danger, duty and a small boy who needed his mother.
Chapter Fourteen
They rode on again all that day, up through the rich and gentle landscape of the Côte d’Or, halting at noon for their rendezvous with Henry in an inn in the little wine-growing village of Auxey Duresse, just south of Beaune.
Jack watched Eva as they rode. She was easy in the saddle now, apparently unaffected either by her ordeal in the river or their lovemaking. The memory of her supple body answering his, following where he led—sometimes, as her confidence grew, leading him—had him hard, the thought that tonight she would be even less inhibited, even more unreserved, had him aching with longing to hold her again.
From time to time, apparently prompted by some thought, she would turn in the saddle, her eyes warm and happy as she smiled at him. No one had ever looked at him like that, he realised, impossibly flattered when she reached out her hand and touched him fleetingly on the knee, as though it gave her pleasure just to know he was there.
Henry was at the inn already when they arrived. He had made himself thoroughly at home as usual, Jack noticed, sitting on a bench under a spreading tree, a tankard on the table in front of him and a serving girl with a twinkle in her eye flirting as she talked to him.
‘Here they are now. You be off inside, mam’selle, and bring out the luncheon, just like I ordered it.’
‘Found an admirer?’ Jack asked in French, swinging down from his gelding and keeping half an eye on Eva. It wouldn’t do to draw attention to her sex by making too much of a fuss, but she dismounted easily, handed him the reins and went to sit beside Henry at the shadowy end of the bench.
‘Huh.’ Henry sniffed at the teasing, but smiled at Eva. ‘Bonjour, madame.’
‘Are you all right? No adventures along the road?’ she asked anxiously as Jack walked the horses round to the stable yard.
She looked serious when he returned, but the girl setting a laden tray on the table and laying out tankards and plates kept him silent until they were alone. ‘Quietly, and in French,’ he warned. ‘Trouble Henry?’
‘I think I’ve set eyes upon madame’s brother-in-law.’
‘Antoine?’ Eva went pale and Jack put his hand over hers. She sent him a flickering smile of reassurance and freed herself. Embarrassed at the show of affection in front of the groom, Jack guessed.
‘If he’s a sharp-nosed streak of misery?’ Henry asked. ‘Brown hair, Maubourg uniform with enough silver braid for a general?’
‘That’s Antoine,’ Eva nodded. ‘But in uniform?’
‘With a mounted troop behind his carriage, all pale blue and silver.’
‘That is our uniform, but this is France. We’re a neutral country, he cannot bring troops across the frontier like that, for goodness’ sake!’
‘You can if Maubourg is now allied to the Emperor,’ Jack pointed out, then snatched his hand off the table as Eva slammed her knife, point down, into the wood. Henry jumped. Both men regarded her furious face with guarded interest; Jack had not seen her lose her temper since that first glimpse through the castle window.
‘The bastard!’ She glared as Jack tried to shush her. ‘Oh, very well, I know, becoming angry does no good. But he has no right to take us to war with half Europe, the maniac—only Philippe can do that. How many men had he?’
‘About fifty,’ Henry estimated. ‘Hard to see, they made so much dust.’
‘Excuse me.’ Eva slid off the bench. ‘I cannot eat while I am this furious. I will be back in a minute.’
They watched her while she strode off towards the little river that vanished beneath the mill.
‘They had outriders checking every vehicle going north,’ Henry added, tearing a lump of bread off and spreading it liberally with pâté. ‘Cantered up alongsi
de, peered in, then off. Here, guv’nor, try this.’ He pushed the pâté towards Jack, who took it and began spreading his own piece of bread, his attention half on Eva, who was standing, hands thrust into her breeches pockets, staring at the water.
‘You didn’t take any notice of what I said back at the inn, did you? Knew you wouldn’t,’ Henry said gloomily. ‘You shouldn’t have done it, you know, guv’nor, for all that she’s a nice lady, and lonely with it.’ He ignored Jack’s glare. ‘Look at her, she’s all of a glow. Lovely to see, that is, but what about when you get to England?’
‘Damn your impudence.’ Jack grabbed the tankard and half-drained it. ‘Of course she’s glowing—she’s furious.’
‘No, before then. I could see when you arrived. She was all sort of soft and…glowing. And have you had a look in a mirror yourself lately?’
‘If you tell me I’m all soft and glowing, I’ll darken your daylights for you,’ Jack warned ominously.
‘You look happier than I’ve seen you look since I’ve known you, and that’s since you were a lad,’ Henry said frankly. ‘I just hope you can stay that way. You don’t want it all ending in tears.’
‘Damn it, man, we’re in the middle of a mission, this is no time for your romantic tarradiddles.’
But the impudent old devil’s words struck home. So that was what it was he was feeling: happiness. An odd sensation he seemed to recall from a long time ago. Different from satisfaction, gratification, relaxation, contentment. Something deeper. Something that threatened to make him weak. Damn it, he was sitting here, eating pâté and listening to his groom, however trusted, however much of a friend, lecture him on how to behave with the woman he—
Jack’s thoughts juddered to a halt. No. He was not going there, he was not going to think about Eva beyond the pleasure of making love to her between now and their return to England. He was not going to analyse this strange, warm, profound sensation and he was certainly not going to speculate on how he would feel when he handed her over in London.
‘Jack?’ She was there by his side, a rueful smile on her lips. ‘I’ve sworn at a poor innocent moorhen, kicked pebbles at an inoffensive water lily and I feel better now.’
‘Good.’ He moved so she could sit down on the bench again. ‘Eat up, this is good food.’
‘No doubt tested on your way south.’ She was tucking in with a healthy appetite, he was glad to see. The elegant toying with her food had vanished; this was a healthy young woman getting a lot of exercise in the fresh air. He caught himself grinning, recalling exactly what sort of exercise might have contributed to the appetite, and got his face straight before Henry noticed.
‘Yes,’ he acknowledged. ‘And the wine is good, too. Henry will be collecting a number of cases before he leaves.’
‘Wine?’ Eva stared at him, then burst out laughing. ‘You English! Such sangfroid. Here we are in the middle of Continental upheaval, the return of Napoleon, you are on a dangerous mission and you stop to taste wine? I had forgotten the English aristocrats’ way of behaving as though nothing is a crisis, everything is a bit of a bore.’
‘It makes us look like ordinary travellers, madame,’ Henry supplied, then, with his regrettable tendency to over-explain, added earnestly, ‘No aristocrats here.’
Her gaze slid sideways to Jack’s face. There was speculation behind the amused brown eyes. ‘Indeed?’
‘Saving your presence, madame.’
‘Hmm. So Jack, do we travel with the wine or are we taking to the back roads again?’
‘We ride.’ He had been intending to resume travelling by coach, but Henry’s encounter made him wary. Prince Antoine could be taking those troops to Paris as a very visible pledge of his allegiance to the Emperor, or he could be intending to throw a cordon across the roads further north. Or both. ‘Henry, we’ll meet at the rendezvous near the frontier. If we aren’t there by the seventeenth, or if you run into trouble, push on to Brussels. Have you supplies for us?’
‘Aye, enough for a week if you get your fresh stuff in the villages. That’ll get you there so long as you don’t have to go making any big detours. There’s bacon, some hard cheese, sausage, coffee and sugar. I reckoned you’d want to stay on the back roads when I told you about Monsieur Antoine and his little army. What’ll you do if it rains?’
‘Find some small inn off the beaten track.’ The idea of making love to Eva on a goose-feather bed was powerfully attractive. Not that the prospect of another night under the stars was any less so. He caught her eye and saw she was having the same thoughts. She blushed and hastily reached for the cheese. Henry rolled his eyes.
Eva sat watching the carriage roll away down the dusty road towards Beaune. ‘He knows about us, doesn’t he? Did you tell him?’ Jack was checking the pack horse’s girth and she was amused to see the flush on his cheekbones at her question.
‘Of course not. It is not something I would ever speak of—to anyone. But he has known me a long time, the insolent old devil. He says I look happy and that you are glowing.’
‘Oh.’ Eva was so taken by this unexpectedly romantic side to Henry that she had to urge her mount to a trot to catch up with Jack. ‘I think that’s lovely. But I expect you bit his head off.’
‘I did. You don’t need to worry that he would ever gossip.’ Eva shook her head—no, she wouldn’t imagine Henry ever doing anything that was against his master’s interests. ‘I’m not at all sure I like being so transparent, even if it is him.’
‘You have a good gambler’s face, I would guess.’ Any excuse to gaze at Jack as they rode along was welcome—she had the urge just to sit and stare at him all day.
‘I have. At least, I had thought I could bluff anyone. It seems I am wrong. You are a bad influence on me, Eva.’
‘I am?’ Eva’s amusement fizzled out, leaving a hollow feeling inside. Jack had enviable focus and concentration—was she undermining that, distracting him? Even weakening him? Was that what Henry was anxious about? She had put his disapproval down to moral objections to a liaison, now she wondered.
Mortified, she rode in silence, picking up pace when Jack spurred on, wrapped in examining her conscience. Jack was a professional. He might have been attracted to her, but he had been keeping that attraction well in check. She had stormed straight through that armour.
He could always have said ‘no’, she told herself defensively. Or perhaps she was not doing any damage and was being over-sensitive. Just because I have fallen in love, it doesn’t mean that he…
Eva swallowed hard. Just because I have fallen in love. Oh, my God, I have done just that. She thought she simply wanted comfort—physical comfort and the emotional relief of being close to someone who seemed to care about her. But she loved him. And it was impossible. She was a Grand Duchess, he was a King’s Messenger at his most respectable, an adventurer at worst, even if he was the younger son of a good family, which she guessed he must be.
I can’t ever tell him. She stared at Jack’s broad shoulders, relaxed almost into a slouch as he rode at an easy hand canter. He even managed to be elegant when he was slouching. But it was not his physical beauty that made her feel like this, even if that had been a powerful attraction to begin with. She loved the man under that hard, cool, competent exterior. And she must not let him guess.
She had said that this could only be while they were out of England and he had agreed. Now she knew she must persuade him otherwise, without betraying her innermost feelings for him. She could not lose him so soon, it was too cruel.
‘Eva?’ He reined in and circled back to come alongside her. Eva realised with a start that she had come to a halt and was sitting gazing blankly into space. Hurting. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes. Yes, of course, I am sorry I was just thinking…about England.’
Jack reached over and touched her cheek fleetingly. ‘You miss Freddie, I know. I’ll try and get you back as soon as is safe. Come on, let’s get past Beaune before we stop again.’
Guil
t washed through Eva as she followed the black gelding along the vineyard terrace path. Freddie. His reaction to this had never crossed her mind. He must never know his mother had taken a lover, and she could not hope to keep it a secret in England under the close scrutiny of court and society. If Henry could see it, then others could, too. She had told Jack she would have no regrets if they were to become lovers, and she must never let him guess how she felt, how she had broken her implied word not to become involved.
Some people are never able to consummate their love, she told herself fiercely. I have been fortunate, I have him for this little span of time. It must be enough. It must.
Four days later they were across the border, the River Sambre just behind them after the bridge at Thuin. The days had been hot, the nights dry and they had not had to take refuge in an inn yet. Somehow Eva managed to push her knowledge of her love for Jack away to the back of her mind, not to think about it, only to feel—and in that way hide her feeling from him.
Or she tried. ‘What is it, sweet?’ he would ask, capturing her face between his big hands and staring deep into her eyes. ‘Tell me what is hurting you.’
‘Nothing,’ she said every time. ‘Just worries.’ And she would stand on tiptoe and kiss him until he forgot whatever betraying expression had crossed her face. Until the next time.
By the fourteenth they had begun to hear cannon fire. At first it was so distant and irregular that she thought it was thunder out of a clear blue sky, but Jack shook his head. ‘There’s fighting up ahead, border skirmishes as they all sort themselves out, I expect. Now we begin to take great care.’
Dodging small groups of French troops became routine. Jack seemed to know the uniforms, jotting notes whenever they sighted them. Sometimes they were seen themselves, but Jack would let the horses walk, wandering along, doing nothing to raise suspicions that they were anything but innocent local riders. No one challenged them.
Making love by starlight in owl-haunted woods, or in meadows so soft and sweet you could almost taste the goodness of them, became completely natural. They had never made love inside, on a bed, and somehow that did not seem a loss to her, so it was a surprise when Jack sat studying the sky in the late afternoon.
