The Duke of Andelot

by Delilah Marvelle

  He drank more. And more.

  She lowered her chin. “You certainly are enjoying that flask.”

  It was one of the few things he could enjoy given everything he had been through. He tilted the drink toward her. “Do you want some?”

  She leaned forward, primly taking the flask. “Merci.” She peered into it and sniffed its rim. “What is it?”

  “Brandy. ’Tis fermented fruit mashed into liquid perfection I cannot do without. Of all the spirits in the cupboard of cupboards, that there is my definition of true refinement. It hits me faster and harder than the wine, rum, whiskey, gin or anything else. Those do nothing for me. A complete waste of time.”

  Both of her brows went up. “So are you a connoisseur or a drunk?”

  How utterly charming. This one thought she was now his wife. “I am a drunk first and a connoisseur last. I drink about a decanter every night. Get used to it.”

  She sat up. “Are you being serious?”

  “Yes. I started drinking shortly after my mother died. Even prior to her death, I was always partial to the taste of brandy. The sting wakes your soul.”

  She hesitated. “I am ever so sorry to hear about your mother.”

  His throat tightened. He shrugged, trying to pretend it didn’t matter. “Her carriage was robbed. The driver was ignorant enough to try to fight the men, instead of letting them take the goddamn money. One of the men fired a pistol, and she got hit. The three men were hanged, but my father ended up beating that driver to near death for instigating the violence.”

  Gérard swallowed, refusing to linger on how his mother’s limp, bleeding body had been carried into the house by his wailing father. “’Tis painfully wrong and morbid to see this world full of so many vile people living and breathing, doing nothing but wrong, whilst someone so good, who had done so much for the world, is no longer part of it.” He swiped the flask from her hand and indulged in several swallows of liquor.

  A small hand touched his and slipped between his fingers.

  The unexpected affection made him swallow. He dug his fingers into that hand, wanting to believe her concern was genuine and not paid for.

  He swallowed a mouthful of brandy, hissing out against the sting from swallowing too much. “By the age of fourteen, I was passing out in my room every night. It was not until the butler informed my father why all of the brandy kept going missing that he figured it out. He had it removed from the house, but I still find a way to get it.”

  She scooted closer, tightening her hold on his hand. “I doubt your mother would have approved of you hurting yourself like this.”

  Her overly honest observation pinched. “I know.”

  “Do you?”

  He wondered if her concern had been paid for by the lifestyle he was now offering her. He couldn’t tell. “I am addressing it.” He took another swig.

  Releasing his hand, she grabbed hold of the flask. “Addressing it means not drinking it.” She pointed at him. “In my opinion, you ought to refrain from even carrying it if it holds this much power over you. What are you doing? You are more than this.”

  Was he? How did she know?

  The haze was already crawling into his head and into his mind. It was nice not to think about anything anymore and to know he had finally found a way to choke out secrets from the Republic. He was exhausted. He was done feeling like every day was his last day and was tired of caring too much for a world that didn’t give a damn at all. “I like getting drunk before I retire. It allows me to stop thinking about my life.”

  She drew the rim of the flask closer to her mouth, brows coming together, and dabbed her tongue against the rim several times. “’Tis overly strong. How can you even drink this on a regular basis?” She paused and dabbed her wet pink tongue on it again.

  He stared at her, his body and mouth tingling. Why was his damn flask getting more tongue than he was? He felt bloody underappreciated.

  He leaned in, swaying, and tried to kiss her.

  A hand popped up between him and his tongue. “You, Gérard, are soused. You may kiss me in the morning when you return to reality.”

  “But I want to kiss you now,” he slurred. “I paid for it.”

  She gave him a withering look. “How about I give you a slap in the face for free? Now leave off and lie down. You are no longer yourself.”

  Women were so damn predictable. They used every excuse not to have sex. He pushed at her hand and leaned back in exasperation. Diamonds and pearls sure as hell didn’t seem to get a man far these days. “How about I get you that zebra then? So I can kiss you?’

  She tsked. “If I accept a zebra from you, it means we are heavily involved.” She held up the flask in a mock salute. “You may not remember this in the morning, aristo dear, but this is me agreeing to our alliance for however long you need me. May France arise to the level it genuinely deserves: money for everyone.”

  He blinked against the haze. “Money is for the devil. It makes you think you have everything when in fact you have nothing.”

  She lifted a blonde brow. “’Tis fairly obvious you need someone to keep you out of trouble. And I know how to keep men out of trouble. I have ten brothers. Now. The sooner we get rid of this brandy, the sooner you have nothing to drink. Santé!” Leaning toward the rim of the flask, she lowered her full lips to the edge of it and tilted it back. She kept tilting further back and back, clearly waiting for its contents to find a way out.

  He pointed. “Do be…careful. It has a tendency to—”

  It filled and spilled well outside of her mouth. She choked, sputtered and gagged, her features twisting as if she were incapable of untwisting it. She dropped the now empty flask and frantically waved at her now tear-streaked face with both hands, trying to be as dainty about it as possible. “Gggggggg….” She shook her head, over-inflating her cheeks that were still stubbornly filled with the brandy she refused to swallow.

  Gérard rumbled out a laugh. She was going to do more than entertain him. She was going to set his damn world on fire if he wasn’t careful. He staggered toward her. “Come here.” He leaned over and grabbed her face.

  She stilled, gaping at him with still puffed cheeks.

  He grinned sloppily, taking far too much pleasure in the moment she set up for him. Because he wanted to do more than kiss her. He wanted to make love to her all over again.

  “Hold still.” His chest tightened as he captured those pinched, soft lips with his mouth.

  Gérard leaned all the way back onto the blanket, forcefully dragging her curvaceous body to lie on top of him. His hands dragged down to those large breasts he had gloried in earlier. He inwardly dissolved knowing he was never going to forget touching her. Something about her made him want to believe she wanted far more than his money.

  He cupped those breasts, rubbing them. He squeezed them. Hard.

  She gasped, the brandy in her lips spilling out into his mouth.

  He leisurely swallowed what he knew would be the last of whatever brandy he would have until Paris and still holding her face hard, forced her mouth open against his. Tilting her head to one side to better suit him, he tongued her, taking full command of that velvet mouth that tasted of the very thing he loved: brandy.

  She grabbed his face and feverishly kissed him back, her tongue moving faster and faster against his. She tugged at his shirt, stuffing her hands beneath to touch his chest.

  Christ. This was more like it. This is what money bought a man. This.

  Lost in her and what he wanted, he tongued her faster and harder, ready to show her that sex was only the beginning of what he would offer her if she remained true.

  He rigidly rolled his hips into and against her thigh to soothe and rub his hard cock that desperately wanted her body again. The urge was too overwhelming.

  He flipped her on her back and shoved her skirts up and past her waist. Frantically freeing his thick erection, he found her wet opening and rammed himself deep into that tightness.

&nb
sp; She gasped. “Gérard, for heaven’s sake, I…slow down!”

  He glared. “Damn you, woman, I am not one for slow. Maybe you should keep up.”

  She glared back. “I will end this in two breaths if you do not do it my way.”

  Point well taken. “Allow me to give the queen her crown.” He captured her mouth and slowly tongued her back into submissive silence.

  Fighting the more aggressive side of his nature, he skimmed the curves of her body with his hands and in her honor, delivered very slow, very precise smooth pumps into her, letting that sweet tightness squeeze him. While the climax he desperately needed and wanted required pounding into her, he refrained. Barely.

  She moaned and arched her hips up and up against him.

  He stroked, keeping a rolling, easy pace to ensure she kept moaning.

  Her hands jumped to his hair and gripped it hard. She cried out against his mouth, shuddering.

  Gritting his teeth, he mindlessly thumped into her and then rammed himself deep into that tight womb in an effort to altogether keep himself from spilling. It was too late. He gasped and spilled his seed, allowing that glorious, glorious sensation of rapture to overtake him.

  A hand smacked the side of his head hard, making him wince and roll off to the side.

  “Christ, Thérèse, what are you—” Gérard didn’t even bother to button his trousers. He heavily flopped his arms to his sides and stared up at the now starry night sky he could see swaying through the branches. “That was hardly necessary.”

  She sat up and thudded a fist against his chest.

  “Stop—” He sat up and sloppily grabbed at her hands. “What are you doing?”

  She stilled, no longer meeting his gaze.

  Dragging in a long breath, he tilted his head toward her. “What is it?”

  With the flip of her braid, she glared.

  “What?” he slurred. “Why are you glaring and hitting me? What did I do?”

  “Do you need a list? First, you pound yourself into a virgin. A virgin. Twice now! As if getting pounded is every woman’s fantasy. Second, you—”

  His brows went up. “Are you telling me I am a bad lover?”

  She pointed. “That is exactly what I am telling you.”

  He snorted. “You would be the first woman to complain.”

  “Maybe because you were paying them not to,” she icily countered.

  His breath burned. He sat further up, feeling more than his dignity being slapped and leveled her with a hard stare. “I have no trouble doing it the way you want. Go on. Educate me.”

  She glared. “Oh, I will educate you. I will open a school in your honor. Did no one tell you being rough with a woman during her first few times is likely to rip something?”

  Christ. “Did something rip?” he echoed.

  “No!”

  “Then why the hell scare me like that? I thought I did!” There was no such thing as a perfect woman, was there? “Slow and gentle is for people who know nothing about passion. Without a few bruises, my dear, there are no mementos of what has been. And in my opinion, I was gentle. Incredibly so. I simply prefer things a bit rough. Always have. So I suggest you get used to it. Because that body of yours is going to get pounded.”

  She gasped. “The only thing about to get pounded is your head!” Gritting her teeth, she used her foot to shove him away. “Make room on the blanket knowing you will never touch this body again because you obviously know nothing about control. And do not dare think you can change my mind or your pistols will be put to use well before the Legislative Assembly can get to you.”

  He hissed out an exasperated breath at the very mention of the Legislative Assembly and grudgingly scooted over, still lying on his back. Fils de salope. He just lost fornication rights to the most beautiful woman he ever met.

  She corked the flask, using her skirts to dry the silver, and tossed it onto the blanket beside him.

  It was obvious she did not enjoy the sex. He puffed out a breath. “Did you not climax?”

  She swung her torso toward him. “My climax is not the problem.”

  “Then what is the problem?” he demanded. “Because I cannot address whatever is plaguing you if you intend on—”

  “You spilled seed into me!” A faint thread of hysteria overtook her voice. “So much of it, in fact, I think it will continue to run down my legs for another hour!”

  He swallowed past the haze, gaping at her. Oh, shite. He did not even remember pulling out. Which meant he— Christ.

  She glared. “You are a blaireau. A blaireau!”

  A nauseating, sinking feeling seized him knowing he had broken her trust. Usually it was the women who broke their promises. “Thérèse, forgive me,” he pressed, trying to better see her face. He wished he hadn’t gotten so drunk. “That was…I did not spill intentionally. I…the brandy…I…”

  She muttered something and chewed on a fingernail.

  He tried to focus through the blur. “I give you permission to deliver as many blows as you need to. Go on. Make yourself…feel better.”

  Chewing on her nail, she said nothing.

  He swallowed. “Thérèse. I have never gotten a woman pregnant.” Of course, he hadn’t spilled into a woman before. Ever. He never engaged them while drunk or without a sheath. What the hell was he doing?

  He leaned in close, swaying. He squinted at her. Was she still chewing on her nails? “What are you— Cease doing that. ‘Tis hardly becoming.”

  She held up her finger and then put it back into her mouth, chewing more enthusiastically.

  He reached out and tapped her hand. “Enough. Are you a lady or a goat?”

  She eyed her finger and pinched her lips.

  Women. They always tried to control him when they could barely control themselves. If being a drunk was the worst he could be, he would take it over what most men were.

  With his outstretched hand, Gérard grabbed up the flask she tossed, uncorked it and grudgingly tilted it upside down. She had spilled all of it. Christ. He tried corking it several times, but kept missing the rim. He kept trying.

  She rolled her eyes, leaned in, swiped the flask and cork from his hands and popped the cork into the rim with the quick hit of her palm. “There.” She thrust it back toward him.

  Meeting her gaze, he took the flask back and smiled. “You see? You still like me.”

  She narrowed her gaze.

  Maybe not. He sighed. Lifting his head from the blanket just enough to see what he was doing, he carefully tucked it into his leather satchel, closing it. He tucked the entire satchel beneath his heavy head, ensuring its safety through the sway of the world.

  Eyeing the thick satchel he rested on, she said, “I saw all those papers earlier. What are you carrying?”

  This one just got curious.

  To ease some of the coiled tension not even sex and brandy could free him from, he shifted his neck enough to let it crack. He knew it was best she know nothing about the documents. Trust aside, it was for her own safety.

  The documents, after all, chronicled disturbing secrets that were going to blow a few massive cannons through the heart of everything the new Republic stood for. That the revolution so many lower classes and bourgeoisie were so damn proud of, was being privately led and funded by the very root of its corruption: a fellow aristocrat, the Duc d’Orleans.

  Gérard had met the man on a few occasions, given they were distant cousins. The sword-swinging, long wigged man had millions in coin to distribute, much like Gérard’s family, and was so vile in his personal endeavor for power, he had repeatedly tried to seduce the queen of France. A queen who resisted each and every one of his overambitious advances.

  Was it any wonder pamphlets started showing up all across France calling her a whore?

  Some of the documents Gérard had in his satchel also detailed how the Bastille had been seized by a disgruntled, angry mob of a thousand who had strangely not all come out of the regular eight hundred thousand inhabitants
of Paris. Most had been gathered and hired. The morning of the massacre, more than a dozen witnesses claimed groups of well-dressed men extravagantly tossed countless coins into the gathered crowd, shouting directions and instructions as to what was supposed to happen next.

  And that didn’t include the greatest lie of all.

  The famine had been devised.

  While, yes, weather had affected a good number of crops throughout the land, the main allocation of stocked grain had been more than sufficient to feed most of France. The staple of grain, which was usually held by the state itself, had gone missing. Various assignats in ledgers found by royal spies were able to determine that the monopoly of grain had been almost entirely bought up by the Duc d’Orleans who allocated most of it out of the country.

  Conveniently…the man was next in line to be king.

  It was a viciously brilliant way of assuming power. Creating a famine manipulated the greatest basic need humanity was willing to fight and die for: food.

  After Gérard figured out how to talk to his godfather, he planned on getting the documents into Austria’s hands before they were destroyed. For he had a feeling this new grab for power was going to try to erase the truth from the world. An entire generation was going to believe the next set of men in power were going to represent them.

  He called horse shite on that.

  In the meantime, the less his darling actress knew, the better off she would be. “If I were to tell you what was in this satchel, too many people would want you dead. Which is why you will never ask me about it again. It does not exist. Do you understand?”

  Lowering her chin, she stared. “Which means you are in possession of something the Republic will destroy you for.”

  He smirked drunkenly, wagging a knowing finger. “Exactly. But I intend to destroy them all first. They will not write history. I will.”

  Her brows flickered and her features now softened with concern. “Do not put yourself in anymore danger than you already are. Wealthy though you may be, you are only one man.”