Thief of Hearts

by Leda Swann

  As if by magic, a knife appeared in his hand. “Take off your boots.”

  She reached one hand towards her boots where she hid her own knife. If he wanted a fight, she would give him one, and Heaven help her if she didn’t leave him with another scar or two as a memento of her foolishness in loving him.

  “Don’t even think about it,” he warned her, his brows drawing together as he saw her reach for her own knife. “Just do as I tell you for once in your life and nothing will get hurt. Not even your precious boots.”

  She looked at him suspiciously. “I have your word on that?” He was a Musketeer and a soldier. She was beginning to learn that their word of honor counted for something with them.

  “My word as a gentleman.”

  What harm then in doing as he had asked? She took off her boots, taking only the precaution to slip the knife into her jacket without him noticing. She would not be totally without resources if their disagreement became physical. Her trust only reached so far.

  “Toss me your boots.”

  Who did he think he was? “Come and get them yourself if you want them so badly,” she said, feeling sulky.

  He shot her a grin that made his angel features light up with an unholy light. “So you can knife me while I’m bending over? You must think I’m daft in the head.”

  “How can I knife you? You know I keep my knife in my boots.”

  “If your knife is still in your boots, I will eat it, blade and all.”

  She gave him an evil look and tossed him the boots one after the other.

  He caught them, looked inside them, shook them upside down, and felt around inside them with his hands. “No knife. I didn’t think so.”

  She glared at him again, her knife a comforting weight in her pocket.

  “Can I trust you not to knife me while my back is turned?” he asked conversationally.

  Her glare grew more pronounced than ever. She didn’t trust herself not to knife him while his back was turned. It would be no more than he deserved.

  He shrugged. “I guess I will have to take the chance.” He crossed to the casement window, opened it, and tossed out the boots.

  Miriame squealed with outrage and rushed over to the window. Her boots were lying on the street, a couple of black shapes outlined in the cobbles.

  Behind her she heard the key click in the door. She whirled around to see Jean-Paul pocketing the key. She advanced on him dangerously. “I want my boots.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  She held out her hand. “Give me the key. Now.”

  “No.”

  They stood there for a moment, starting at each other, neither of them prepared to back down.

  She thought of her boots, lying abandoned in the road. She wanted them back. “Give me the key, or I’ll take it from you.”

  “You can try. Of course, I shall fight you for it. It will take you some time to beat me. Your boots may well be gone by then.”

  She took her knife out of her pocket and held it up in front of her. “I’m not afraid to fight you.”

  “Naturally there is an easier way to get your boots back, if you choose to take it.”

  She looked at him, not deigning to answer.

  “I want to talk to you. I want you to listen to me. Once I have done, you can have the key with my blessing.”

  “You did not have to steal my boots for that.”

  “I would not have you walk out in the middle of what I have to say to you. This way you will be quiet and listen to me without interrupting, for fear that your boots will be stolen if you waste too much time.”

  She cast an anguished glance out of the window, hating the way he had trapped her so easily. Fighting him for the key was tempting, but if she really wanted her boots, she would have to hear him out.

  She put her knife away, crossed her arms in front of her chest and stood at the window, tapping her stockinged foot. “Well, hurry up and say what you have to say. I haven’t got all night.”

  “Good. I have your attention at last.” He cleared his throat. “Miriame Dardagny, will you marry me?”

  Did he think to make her laugh with such a foolish jest? She was in no mood for his foolishness. “No,” she said baldly.

  “Wrong answer,” he said cheerfully. “Try again.”

  She grimaced. “Ha ha. Very funny.”

  There was silence in the chamber, broken only by the sound of their breathing. “I gather you have finished saying what you meant to say to me,” she said after a few minutes in which neither of them spoke, and she held out her hand. “Give me the key so I can retrieve my boots.”

  “Will you marry me?” he repeated.

  “No. Now give me the key.” She began to advance on him threateningly. If she had to fight for her boots, then so be it.

  He shook his head. “I fear you don’t quite understand,” he said calmly. “You need to answer my question before you get your boots back.”

  “I have answered it. Twice.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t like that answer. Try another one.”

  She gaped at him, her mouth falling open. She shut it again with a snap. “You won’t give me the key until I promise to marry you?”

  He smiled. “Ah. I knew you would catch on eventually. You’re pretty quick-witted, you know. I like that in a woman."

  With a quick flick of her wrist, she drew her knife out of her jacket and held it in front of her once more, advancing on him with fierce determination. She would promise nothing, and she would not lose her boots. “Give me the key.”

  “Come and take it from me,” he taunted her.

  She made a sudden rush at him, but he sidestepped quickly and she met nothing but air. Only a quick piece of footwork stopped her from falling over on her nose.

  Breathing heavily, she came to a halt, forcing herself to calm down before she faced him again. Anger only made her hasty and careless. She would need to keep a cool head if she wanted to beat him quickly.

  “Promise to marry me and I’ll give you the key.”

  Even before he had finished speaking, she sprang at him again, but he was watching for her and circled behind the fireside chair, using it as a shield between them.

  “You are a soldier with nothing but a soldier’s pay. You cannot afford to take a wife,” Miriame said, as she plotted her next move. “We would be as poor as church mice. I will not drag you down into the gutter.”

  “Not so poor as all that,” Metin said in a voice full of laughter. “Not after the Cardinal paid me so well for his own undoing.” His face grew serious again, his eyes never leaving hers for a second. “I have been living on my soldier’s pay, true, but out of choice rather than necessity. I thought that the family acres could go to my brother Augustin untrammeled, but he will not begrudge me the wherewithal to keep a wife. And children, too, should we ever be fortunate enough to be blessed with them.”

  Her eyes closed for just a moment at the thought of children. Her children and Jean-Paul’s. How she would love to have a child.

  A foolish mistake, to dream of what could never be, in the middle of a fight. In that instant Jean-Paul was upon her. A chop to her wrist and the knife fell from her fingers to clatter uselessly to the floor. His greater weight bore her to the floor and pinned her there.

  She lay there with him on top of her, unable to move. “You’ve won,” she said lightly, trying not to feel the hardness of his body as it pressed against hers. She did not want to think about how good he felt, his body pressed to hers, or of the special hardness of his that was nestled snugly in the juncture of her thighs. “I suppose that means I will have to give you back your boots after all.”

  His breath was hot against her cheek. “I was fighting for a far greater prize,” he murmured into her ear. “A prize that I intend to claim right here and now.”

  Miriame arched her back under him as he pressed his lips to her cheek, with every kiss drawing closer to her mouth, resisting him with all of her strength. She knew only
too well that he had chosen the one weapon against which she could not fight. She knew, too, that in a moment all her will to resist would be gone, and she would be vanquished indeed. “Let me go,” she whimpered. “Let me go.”

  “Not yet,” he whispered back. “Not until I have claimed a forfeit for my victory.”

  His lips touched her mouth, and Miriame knew she was lost. As his mouth kissed her tenderly, with growing passion, she responded in kind, not even caring any more that she had surrendered to his demands.

  She wanted him, oh, how she had ached for him in those long, lonely weeks since first they had touched. She had no strength left to fight her desire for him. All she could do was give in to the feelings that raged through her, the urgent need for the touch of his hands on her body, the delight of holding him in her arms once more. She thrust her hand under his shirt, caressing the planes of his back, loving the smoothness of his skin, the curve of his firm buttocks, the harsh angles of his shoulder blades. She wanted to touch it all, all of him, everywhere.

  He had caught her own urgency, seeming to feel the same need to touch her, skin to skin. He shrugged off his jacket and pulled his shirt over his shoulders, his torso gleaming silver in the moonlight that glimmered through the open casement window.

  She cast aside her own shirt and jacket with feverish hands and pulled him down on top of her once more, his chest on her breasts.

  His face in the moonlight was contorted with painful desire. “Heaven help me, Miriame,” he muttered, “but I want you so badly that I am nigh to bursting with my desire. If you are going to say me nay, then for the love of God say it now.”

  Her tongue could not utter the words. Her heart would not allow her to deny him what they both so desperately wanted. “I will not say you nay. Not tonight.”

  He raised his head to gaze at her. “Not ever?”

  She could only promise him tonight. Nothing more. Not even her desire for his body could make her forget her love for him, for his soul. She was silent. Stubbornly silent.

  “I will have you yet,” he muttered, wresting control over himself with an iron will and raising himself over her.

  She cried out as his body left hers, but he did not go far. He bent his head to her breeches, unlacing the ties that kept them on and pulling them down her thighs and over her ankles. Her drawers and stockings followed an instant after.

  She was naked, utterly naked. She held out her arms to him to come and possess her, but he would not be cajoled. Not yet.

  He bent his head to her belly and began, slowly but surely, kissing his way down past her navel to the mound of hair between her thighs. She squirmed at first, not knowing what to think of such intimacy, but then the pleasure of his tongue on her secret places, kissing and licking the sensitive nub of flesh, made her forget all her caution.

  She lifted her head back and moaned aloud, letting herself float away on the wave of delight that engulfed her, swallowing her whole, drowning her in its depths until she could not breathe.

  Higher and higher he took her with his tongue and fingers, each time taking her to the brink of collapse before letting her down, gently, until she was shaking with the need for completion.

  “Please, do not stop now,” she begged him, when she could stand no more of his torment. “Take me all the way. Please.”

  He raised his head and smiled at her, a wolfish smile that spoke of his joy in having her just where he wanted her. “Promise to marry me, and I will.”

  She shook her head, not yet ready for a complete surrender.

  “No?” He got awkwardly to his knees, astride her body as she lay prone on the floor. His hard cock was nudging demandingly at her opening. How she longed to have it inside her, to feel him filling her once more with his seed. “Then I suppose I will have to leave you.”

  He paused there for a moment. She did not say a word. Slowly he began to get to his feet.

  She couldn’t bear it any longer. “I will marry you,” she promised, grabbing at him and dragging him down to her. “God help me, but I will marry you. Just do not leave me this way.”

  His smile now was a smile of triumph. “I will never leave you again, my love.” Without another word he lowered himself over her and, with one long, slow thrust that seemed to Miriame as if he were piercing her very soul, took her for his own.

  She had never felt so complete before, so whole. Not even the thought of the child she might grow in her belly from his seed could dissuade her. Let the child grow if God willed it to be so. She would look after it and protect it with her life, while she had breath in her body. She would love it, take care of it, keep it safe.

  Then even the thought of a child left her, as Jean-Paul began to take her higher and higher, stroking her as he thrust in and out of her welcoming body.

  In mere moments he had her teetering on the brink yet again. This time, she knew with a savage satisfaction that filled her heart with joy, there would be no turning back for either of them.

  One more nudge, and she fell, her hands clutching him with a death grip. He was her lifeline. She never wanted to let him go.

  He held himself inside her as she spiraled downwards into the darkness of desire. Then with one last thrust, he joined her there, his hot breath caressing her face, his cries of passion singing in her ear, and his warm, wet seed flooding her womb.

  They lay together on the floor, spent, the sound of their breathing the only noise in the darkness. Miriame did not feel sleepy, her heart was too full for sleep. She wanted only to enjoy these moments before they were gone, these moments with the man she loved.

  “I’m glad you are a soldier,” Jean-Paul said at last, just as she thought he had fallen asleep.

  “Why is that?”

  “You promised me that you would wed me. A soldier, especially a Musketeer in the King’s Guard, cannot go back on his word. Or her word, as the case may be.”

  “You took advantage of me in a weak moment,” she protested.

  “A promise is a promise. It was freely given and I intend to hold you to it.”

  She sighed into the darkness. “You do not have to wed me.”

  “I want to,” he said simply.

  “You are in love with Francine.”

  He put his finger on her lips. “Hush, my love. Do not speak her name. This is about you and me – no one else.”

  “But---”

  “I thought once that I was in love with her – until I met you.”

  “I am a liar and a thief.”

  “You had no other choice but starve,” he reminded her.

  “I stole from you.”

  “I have forgiven you long since. Besides, you have given me something far more valuable than what you took from me. You have given me love.”

  There was silence in the chamber as she thought on what he had said.

  “You do love me?” he asked, his voice suddenly unsure.

  She took his hand in hers and laid in on her breast so he could feel her heart beating. “With all my heart.”

  What a relief it was to have the words spoken aloud, the words that she had hugged to her chest for so many weeks, not daring to whisper a hint of them even to the wind.

  “And you will wed me?”

  “I will.”

  She could feel his smile though she could not see it. “You will never regret your promise, I swear it. I will work hard for you and earn gold enough even for your mercenary little heart.”

  She dug him in the ribs for his tease. “If I start to breed, I will have to leave off being a soldier. You may well have to feed more than two mouths before you are much older.”

  “Would that pain you, to give up your sword and dagger?”

  She fell silent, thinking of the respect she had earned as a soldier. Yes, she would miss the free and easy life she had lived, the excitement of danger, and the pride she took in a task well done.

  The thought of Andre’s body lying on the wooden floor was another matter. She would not miss the blood,
the pain, and the death. She had killed once for the sake of Rebecca’s life, and to give her soul ease from the hatred and despair that had once consumed it, but she would not gladly do so again.

  With a glad heart, she would swap her sword for the sake of holding a child of her own in her arms. “No, I will not miss my sword. But as for my dagger,” she added, her voice alight with mischief, “why would you think I would ever give that up?”

  Jean-Paul shifted slightly and Miriame was suddenly aware of the hardness of the ground under her back.

  He pulled her gently to her feet. “Come to bed, sweetheart, before you freeze down there on the floor.”

  They fumbled their way over to the bed in the darkness and crept under the covers.

  A muffled jingle sounded as she knocked the bag of gold the Countess had given her from off the bed on to the floor.

  She took no heed. Her arms held all that was of most value to her in the chamber, nay, in the whole world. They held the man who loved her, and whom she loved in return. Poor though they may be, and struggle though they might have to, they had each other. She could want for no more.

  A single shaft of moonlight crept in through the window as they lay sleeping, shining on the golden coins scattered over the floor, lighting up the writing on the parchment that Francine had given to her.

  A small gray mouse crept in from a hole in the wainscot, its paws scuffling a little on the bare wooden floor. It looked at the paper with its beady eyes, but it could not read the writing on it, the writing that deeded the owner to a fine manor house and all its rents in Burgundy, the writing that would make Miriame a wealthy woman come the morn.

  The mouse twitched its nose and nibbled on the edge of the parchment, but the taste was not to its liking.

  On silent paws it crept out again, leaving the lovers entwined in each others arms, asleep in the moonlight.

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