She moved across the room, pausing to speak to the princess, making a gay comment on the gathering, before threading her way through the crowd to where de Landes stood. He had chosen a spot somewhat shielded by a weeping willow growing in a lacquerware cachepot and a suit of armor complete with visor. She retained her social smile with an effort as she stopped beside him, but spoke without preamble. “What do you want?"
"How charming you look. That sales assistant was right; bright colors become you."
"You did not come here to compliment me."
"No, but I am beginning to wonder if I wasn't a fool for not giving you some personal instruction in the best way to win a man's—shall we say?—cooperation."
"The prince is most astute. It will not do for him to see us talking together too long since I am supposed to have no remembrance of friends. I repeat, what do you want?"
He looked at her long and hard, then gave an abrupt nod. “The Vicomtesse Beausire will be honored by the presence of the king at her ball. Louis Philippe will be arriving at ten precisely. You will not only make certain that the prince attends, but that he is standing near the entrance through which the king and his guests will pass at that time. Do you understand?"
"Near the entrance? Where? I know nothing about the house or its rooms."
"It doesn't matter. Just have him near the main entrance at the hour of ten o'clock."
"Ten. Main entrance. How is my grandmother?"
"Well enough, for now."
De Landes inclined his head and moved away. It was an instant before Mara realized that it was Roderic's approach that had routed him. The prince was bearing down upon her. He was smiling, but she was not deceived.
"Have I neglected you, have we all, that you must skulk among the greenery talking to strangers?"
Her chin came up. “Skulk?"
"Should I have said hide?"
"I wasn't aware that there was anything clandestine about talking to a gentleman at a literary salon such as this. You might have told me."
"I might have, had I thought it necessary."
"What is it you wished me to do? Stay beside you? But I had the impression earlier that you were trying to warn me away from that course."
His gaze narrowed. “And it rankled?"
She should have known better than to bandy words with him. It had indeed rankled that he had so easily overcome his desire for her, that he had seen fit, ever so delicately, to repulse her advances. But wasn't it better, for now, to admit to it than to have him press her for an answer concerning de Landes?
She lowered her lashes. “No woman likes to think that she has been obvious."
"Doesn't she?"
She was disturbed by the amusement that lifted slowly into his eyes as if at some pleasing memory. “I can't think a man would care for it either."
"It would depend on the man—and the woman.” He raised his hand and opened the visor of the suit of armor, letting it clank shut again.
She had the feeling suddenly that he was ill at ease, that he wished the words unsaid. That could only mean that he regretted them. Why should he, unless they held more truth than he wanted known? Before she could explore the thought, however, he swung back to her.
"Have you met Lamartine? He has the face of an aristocrat and the soul of a butcher, a poet turned politician, the most dangerous kind."
Alphonse de Lamartine had been roundly condemned by Grandmère Helene and her elderly French cousin as a radical, based on his speeches in the Chamber of Deputies and the publication over the past several years of his eight-volume Histoire des Girondins celebrating the rights of the proletariat. They called him a traitor to his class, a poltroon who was trying to pull down the most stable and peaceable government they had had in France in a hundred years, and a fool for refusing the ambassadorship that was offered by Louis Philippe in an attempt to seduce him away from his role of reformer.
He was as aristocratic in appearance as Roderic had suggested, with an upright bearing, a slender form, a narrow, intelligent face, and light brown hair going gray at the temples. He was also witty in a soft-spoken manner, Mara discovered. It was a relief to stand chatting with him after the strain of her earlier exchanges with de Landes and Roderic, and the barbed remarks and scandalous tittle-tattle of the others she had met that evening.
Roderic's attention had been snared by a determined woman in a startling gown of chartreuse silk printed with black polka dots and covered with miles of black silk gimp. He only half listened to what she was saying, however. His gaze was on the woman in dark blue he called Chère. The high color was fading from her cheekbones, and her smile now came with ease and naturalness without the overbrightness of fear or guilt. It brought an odd pain to the center of his being to see it; she was always guarded around him. Still, the angles and shadows cast upon the oval of her face by the gaslight, the purity of her skin and the soft gray of her eyes brought out by the deep color of her gown, gave her a haunting beauty. She intrigued him more each day, not only because of her lack of background and the puzzle it presented, but because of something he sensed inside her.
He was almost inclined to allow her to continue as a mystery, to wait until she remembered her past of her own accord or else trusted him with whatever secret it was that she held. It had even crossed his mind once or twice that he might prefer that she do neither. The return of her memory would mean that she must leave him to go back to where she belonged. If, on the other hand, she was withholding information, it could be that she had come to him for a reason, one that he would rather not know.
He must know, however. There was too much at stake to indulge in such a quixotic gesture as sheltering a woman under his roof who might betray him.
Luca had pointed out de Landes, had identified him as the man who had spoken to Chère at the draper's shop. It appeared something less than a coincidence that he had spoken to her again tonight. De Landes was well-known, not only as an official in the foreign ministry, but as a man-about-town, a devastating fellow among the little seamstresses known as grisettes. An investigation of the man's more recent activities might well yield results. If that was what he himself wanted.
He looked to where Luca was standing. The gypsy tipped his head toward the door, indicating that de Landes had left the salon. Roderic gave a slow nod, his face bleak. Luca, as swift and silent as a shadow, went from the room after the Frenchman.
It was late when the party broke up. As they emerged into the square of the Place Royale, they discovered that it was snowing. The flakes fell with steady persistence, coating the cobblestones an inch deep and forming soft, gold halos around the gas globes of the street lamps. Now and then a gust of wind sent them whirling, dancing, piling against the curb or the bases of the leafless trees of the park in the middle of the square.
"Isn't it beautiful!” Mara cried, holding out her hands to catch the crystal snowflakes. In the lower section of Louisiana where she lived, snow fell perhaps once in five years or more, and even then only a scattering that melted almost before it touched the ground.
Estes snorted, shivering in his uniform jacket. “Beautiful? Bah!"
"Watch your step on the cobblestones,” Jared said, taking Mara's arm, then quickly sliding his own about her waist as she slipped.
Juliana looked around them. “Where is Luca?"
"On an errand,” Roderic said, the words enveloped in ice.
Jacques bent to scoop up a handful of snow, forming it into a ball in his gloved hands. He looked around him with a gleam in his eye. His gaze caught that of the prince. He dropped the snow and brushed off his gloves with elaborate unconcern.
"Uh-oh,” Jared, close to Mara, said under his breath. He looked at his leader, and something he saw in Roderic's face made him remove his arm, leaving Mara only the support of her hand at his elbow.
They moved on in silence toward Ruthenia House.
Had Roderic been jealous? That was the question that plagued Mara as she permitted Lila to unhook
her gown and help her prepare for bed. She thought back to the moment when he had walked up to her after her exchange with de Landes, going over every detail of how he had looked and what he had said. Then she did the same with the incident in the Place Royale, and even went so far as to recall the day when he had seen her caught in the arms of the cadre during their acrobatics. Could it be that he truly desired her, that she attracted him, but that he was resisting the attraction? Was the cost of that resistance the reason for his temper this evening?
She was unconvinced. Some small attraction she might allow, some passing fancy, but she had the feeling that there was more to his failure to succumb to her wiles. He might talk of preventing future regret for her or of having no time for females, but the cause, she was sure, went deeper. He was wary of her. That was the long and the short of it.
Lila held out the nightgown of fine cambric, and obediently Mara lifted her arms to permit the maid to slide it over her head. The maid took down her hair and handed her a hairbrush as she held out her hand for it, then moved to the bed and turned it down. Mara tugged the brush through her hair, her gaze blank and unseeing on the maid at her task.
During the incident with Dennis, it had been, she thought, her physical presence, the touch of her body, that had made him forget himself. Roderic, too, once she was in his arms, had not paused to consider the problems inherent in making love to her until they had been interrupted by the arrival of his sister. If Juliana had not come, the seduction would have been completed. She would be the mistress of the prince and need no longer be tormented by these doubts.
As little as she desired the position of female companion to the prince, as little as she wished to entice him into an affair, she wanted desperately for this waiting, this dread of what must be done, to be over. It would be a relief, if the truth were known, when she was installed in his bed.
Mara paused with her hairbrush in her hand and her hair streaming down her back. What if she simply joined him as he slept? Would her presence, her female form and warmth, make him forget his reservations once more?
Her heart jolted in her chest at the thought. Her hands began to tremble, so she quickly put down the hairbrush. Did she dare? After the summary way he had dealt with Trude, after his warning, his temper of the night, could she bring herself to risk it?
"Is something wrong, mademoiselle?"
"No, nothing, Lila,” she answered, forcing a smile. “You may go."
The door closed behind the maidservant. Mara waited until the girl's footsteps had faded away through the antechamber and down the back stairway. When there was no longer a sound, she lifted the hem of her nightgown and, without giving herself another moment to think about it and grow more frightened, she left the bedchamber.
The floors of the long and empty rooms that formed the passageway leading to Roderic's wing were cold to her bare feet. Chill drafts wafted under her nightgown, fanning it around her knees and thighs. Most of the candles in their girandoles that lighted the way had burned out so that she walked in darkness lit only by intermittent pools of light. Beyond the tall windows was the deep darkness and the velvet silence of the snowy night. All that could be seen was her own pale form reflected now and then at some odd angle on the leaded window glass.
She passed through the center of the house where the corridors of rooms formed a St. Andréw's cross dividing the four courtyards. Ahead of her was a small antechamber that led into the prince's wing surrounding the east court. To the left was a door that opened into the bedchambers of the cadre, all adjoining. Straight ahead lay the personal salon of the prince, and beyond it his bedchamber and dressing room. On the other side of them lay a small room where he kept a table piled high with books and papers. Beyond these, in the wing at a left angle to the prince's rooms, lay the suite occupied by his mother and father when they were in residence. She hesitated only a moment to be certain that no one was on guard. Seeing no one, hearing nothing, she pressed down the heavy brass door handle and pushed open the door, stepping into Roderic's private salon.
The darkness was total here. She would have to move carefully. During her childhood, there had been a summer when there had been much talk of Indians, of their being moved from the Southern states to lands farther west. She and several of the slave children on the plantation had spent weeks playing at being Indians, hiding among the shrubbery in the garden, creeping about the house to jump out at the adults in mock attacks. She had learned how to walk quietly in bare feet, how to move with care and agility so as to avoid any object that might cause a noise. Now, in the dense quiet of the room, it seemed natural to fall back on those ingrained lessons.
She skirted a table, a settee, a chair, a footstool. She remembered the placement of the bedchamber door from her tours of inspection, and, within a few short moments, her fingertips were brushing the facing and outlining the handle. She pressed it down and eased the heavy door open, slipping inside.
There was not a sound in the room: no soft snore, no regular, whispering breaths of one heavily asleep. Was he that quiet a sleeper, or was he out of the room, perhaps working in the next? But not a glimmer of light could be seen in that direction.
Like her own, the prince's bed sat on a platform. The carved and gilded frame that held it was enormously wide and long. Though nothing of it could be seen, the headboard soared up into the lofty ceiling in a massive half-tester carved with the gilded and painted crown and coat of arms of Ruthenia. From it hung silk draperies that were looped back on each side. She must take care not to stir the draperies, for their movement might awaken a man as alert as Roderic.
The edge of her foot brushed the platform. She stepped up onto it, easing her weight upward before lifting her other foot. Still no sound. She moved closer so that the lawn of her nightgown swept against the bedclothes. She located the draperies with a feather-light touch, then leaned forward with her hand outstretched.
Her wrist was caught in an iron grasp and she was jerked forward. She lost her footing as she was dragged across the bed. A gasp of shock rasped in her throat. Her hair whipped around her like a silken flail, and then she was falling. She struck the mattress on her back, and a weight descended upon her, pressing into her breastbone, holding her immobile. A hard thigh descended across her knees, locking them. Her other wrist was captured in a grip like a manacle and wrenched above her head.
"Sweet-scented and pliable, softer than a Mussulman's dream of paradise: Have you come to take me there or merely to dispatch me?"
"What ... do you ... think?” she said, the words panting from the pressure on her chest.
The hard weight was removed, her hands released. “Dare I guess?"
Mara breathed deep, swallowing against the hard knot of apprehension in her throat and a hysterical need to laugh. She was well and truly in his bed. “You ... could search for weapons, if you like."
Taut stillness held him. He drawled, “An interesting offer."
The throbbing heat of his body against hers was at variance with the blandness of his words. His rigidity spoke of stringent self-control directed by an iron will that ignored bodily discomfort. Drawing on every ounce of her own will, she kept her hand steady as she reached to brush her fingers across his chest. The muscles were knotted and hard beneath the fine that of hair. Grateful for the covering of darkness that hid her hectic flush, she trailed her fingers downward over the flat surface of his abdomen, following the descending line of hair.
He drew in his breath and snatched her hand away. The next moment he cupped her face in his hand and his mouth descended upon hers. Directed by fury and restrained desire, it was a devouring kiss, a searing, implacable invasion. Slanting, merciless, his lips took possession of the sweetness of hers. His tongue abraded the tender interior of her mouth, twining with her tongue in sinuous initiation, thrusting deep.
Mara's heart jarred in her chest. The blood pounded in her head and poured in a torrent along her veins. She made a small sound that might have been of distress,
of anger, or of pleasure.
He drew back abruptly, drawing a single, ragged breath. “You are no houri, no harlot, no dispenser of clandestine joy, sweet Chère. What are you doing?"
"Don't—don't you want me?” She felt like a whore, which was, she saw with anguished clarity, what he had intended.
"Want you? What has that to do with anything?"
She flinched at the quiet savagery of his words. “I just—just wanted to be close to you. Can that be wrong?"
He pushed away from her and rolled from the bed. Then came the yellow flare of a sulphur match and its smell of old eggs and burning pine. Bathed in its yellow glow, Roderic lit the beside candle in its silver holder, then pinched out the match.
The candle flame wavered, casting searching rays into the dark corners of the room, flickering softly over Mara as she lay raised on one elbow. It made twin points of fire in the darkness of her eyes and outlined the soft curves and hollows of her body through the fine material of her nightgown, gleaming also on the slender turning of her calves and ankles where the hem had worked upward. Roderic stared down at her, aware of an ache deep inside him that had nothing to do with the unappeased fullness of his loins. How proud she looked, with her chin tilted and the standing lace collar framing the purity of her throat and neck, and yet there was something defensive, humiliated, in her eyes. That he had put it there brought the brush of shame to him also. He banished it with a quick shake of his head.
"The question is,” he said softly, “can it be right?"
"I would never have taken you for a puritan.” She could not seem to look away from the splendid shape of his nakedness above her.
Her mouth was red and swollen from his kiss, in need of soothing. “Nor, I hope, for a fool."
No, he was not that. Mara felt beyond her depth, as if she were floundering in a situation over which she had no control. A shiver ran through her, followed by another, and yet another. Only the thought of Grandmère Helene—so fragile and yet with such joy for living—and of the swift passage of her allotted time forced her to go on.
Royal 02 - Royal Passion Page 14
