Véronique could feel the veins straining at her forehead as she turned to meet her sister’s gaze. “Are you sure about that? Even if it means losing his inheritance?”
Gabby sat back. “I have to believe it, for the alternative is unthinkable.”
Looking across the lawn to where Pierre was hobbling back to the stables, Véronique rose to her feet. She then stomped up the stairs. “You had better be right about that, Gabby, because the alternative is indeed unthinkable.”
“Where are you going?” Gabby asked. “What will you do?”
Véronique stopped and turned to look down the steps. “I am going to unlock Prince Nicholas’s door and have a private word with him. You had best pray to God that he will be our friend and not our enemy when this over.”
She picked up her skirts and hurried into the house to fetch the key.
Chapter Six
When Véronique unlocked Nicholas’s door, she could barely contain the fear that was blazing in her bloodstream, for it seemed as if her whole world was falling apart.
All she wanted to do was see him, apologize for everything, pledge her loyalty, and put herself—and her family—in his capable, heroic hands. There was never a moment in her life when she needed a hero more than she did now.
God willing, he would repay her actions today by ensuring that her parents would not be evicted from their home and tossed out onto the streets like yesterday’s garbage. And he would protect her and Gabrielle from Pierre’s unwanted attentions.
Everything would be better from this moment on, she told herself. It had to be. Surely it was, as he said … destiny.
Quietly, she pushed the door open and stepped across the threshold. The bed was unmade and in shambles, and the window was open. A cool breeze blew the curtains in giant undulating puffs of movement. She felt a slight shiver run through her, and continued to gaze about the room cautiously.
A pile of books covered the floor by the upholstered chair in front of the enormous fireplace, as if the prince had cracked the spine of each one, found it lacking, and tossed it onto the floor to burn later.
She frowned at the stillness, and wondered suddenly if he had escaped out the window while she and Gabrielle were distracted on the other side of the manor, fighting off Pierre’s lecherous attentions and discussing their hopeless futures.
Then a hand covered her mouth. She gasped with panic. An arm snaked around her neck, and she was dragged roughly around the back of the door.
Prince Nicholas violently kicked it shut with his boot and hauled her across the room at such speed, her feet barely touched the floor as she struggled to kick free and shout for help. Words were nothing but a muffled plea against his palm, however, while his grip tightened around her neck, choking the very life out of her.
Before she could fight back, he swung around and flung her onto the unmade bed. She landed in a sideways roll and ended up on her back, horizontal across the center.
She barely had a chance to catch her breath before his hand covered her mouth again. He leaped on top of her and straddled her hips with murderous rage in his eyes while his other hand braced her arm at her side.
She continued to kick her legs and tried to swing a punch at him with her free arm, but he leaned back and dodged the strike.
“Where’s the key?” he demanded to know, ducking and darting to avoid her flailing arm.
She tried to speak but could only murmur into his palm, which he still held over her mouth, so she bit into it instead.
He yanked his hand away and shook off the pain, then wrapped it around her throat to hold her down.
She gasped for air while she clutched at his muscled forearm.
“Tell me where the key is.”
“It’s still in the door,” she ground out as blood rushed dizzyingly to her head.
His angry gaze darted to the door, but he did not release her. “Damn.”
She bucked like an animal to free herself, and only then did he seem to realize that he might kill her—or she might kill him—if he didn’t soon back away.
He let go of her throat but grabbed both her wrists and pinned them to the mattress over her head.
“I ought to let you choke,” he said, “for what you did to me.”
Véronique would have liked to respond with a few colorful retorts, but she was too busy sucking air into her burning lungs.
Finally she managed to utter a few words. “And I ought to stab you in the eye with that key!” Chest heaving, she glared up at him with ferocious intent, while he glared down at her like a lion with lips drawing back to reveal a sharp set of teeth.
For the longest moment they stared at each other willfully until Véronique shouted at the top of her lungs and bucked her hips in all directions. He was too strong and heavy, however. The fight was futile. He simply covered her mouth again with that stifling hand and held her down until she tired of the exertion.
“Are you finished?” he asked with growing impatience.
Out of breath and accepting the fact that she was indeed conquered—at least physically—she shut her eyes and nodded, which was a humiliating moment and completely frustrating in all ways.
Slowly he slid his hand away, and his steely muscular body relaxed on top of hers.
She remained very still. “I thought I was your rescuer,” she said, “and you were mine. Do you not remember that conversation?”
He almost smiled, but it was a bitter amusement that glimmered in those piercing blue eyes. “I remember. I also remember waking up after the ball with a pounding headache and no memory of how I came to be in this room. You lied to me, Véronique. You tricked me and betrayed me.”
“I apologize,” she said.
He shook his head as if he did not accept it.
“Fine,” she said. “Hate me if you want. But where do we go from here? Are we enemies now? Will you tie me up and leave me here while you make a run for it? Or do we still have an agreement? And what about the kiss?” she asked foolishly. “Was that just a lie to win my allegiance? If so, did you actually think that it would sway me? Because I will have you know—I did not steal that key for a kiss from you, sir. I stole it because I believed you were a man of honor who would keep your word and help me get back what d’Entremont took from me.”
“And what was that?” Nicholas asked, leaning over her on all fours. “You have yet to reveal it.”
She felt suddenly overheated and wet her lips. “He took my home,” she explained. “Or rather … he took my father’s home. He won it in a card game, knowing full well that my father was flat broke and drunk, and had nothing else left to wager. He encouraged the bet, and when he won the hand, he did not give my father a chance to win it back. It’s a large property not far from here, worth a great deal, and it has been in our family for generations. D’Entremont wanted it for his son. He was going to reward him with it after Waterloo. But now his son is dead. The worst part is that my mother is ill and they have nowhere to go. D’Entremont told my parents they must be out by the end of the month, and she cannot stop weeping. It breaks my heart to see her like that. She is a good woman with the heart of an angel. D’Entremont is a monster. He trapped my father at the gaming table because he wanted our land.”
Nicholas’s eyebrows pulled together in a frown, but there was no sympathy there. “That’s quite a woeful story,” he said. “And what has he promised you for the task of abducting me? Has he agreed to give you back your home? Do you have it in writing?”
She nodded. “He holds the deed of ownership, which is why I did not think you could help us. But if you could purchase it from him, or charge him with kidnapping and force him to give it back to us…”
Nicholas rolled off her. At last she could breathe freely.
He lay beside her on his back and cupped his forehead in a hand. “Ah, Véronique. There is a part of me that wants to drag you back to Petersbourg right now and throw you in prison for life.”
She leaned up on an elbow and
looked down at him. “But there is another part of you…,” she said hopefully, urging him to continue.
He dropped his hand to his side and gazed up at her. “The other part of me must honor the promise I made to you through that locked door.”
“Because you are a prince and a gentleman,” she added as her heart unwound with relief.
He regarded her coolly. “Prince? Yes. Gentleman? Absolutely not. I am a rogue and a scoundrel. I will help you now only because I cannot have you sounding an alarm.”
For a long moment she peered down at him in the fading afternoon light. “Well, that is disappointing—just when I was beginning to think your reputation was undeserved.”
He sat up and looked at her with a dark note of warning. “I assure you, it is completely deserved. If there is a scandal in Petersbourg, I am at the center of it.”
Véronique remembered that the key was still in the door, and he had not yet gone to fetch it. “Perhaps it is time to redeem yourself and prove everyone wrong by doing something heroic in this matter,” she suggested. “You could save my family. If you did that, I would sing your praises, and so would my father and mother.”
He rose from the bed to go and retrieve the key. She took note of the fact that he had changed into the clothes the marquis had provided for him—clothes she suspected belonged to his late son. He looked less like a prince. More like a normal man.
Nicholas slipped the key into the pocket of his waistcoat and moved to the window to survey the surroundings.
“Are there any guards out there?” he asked, ignoring her last comment, as if he did not care in the least about his reputation, and wanted only to narrow in on the most important issue at hand—his escape.
“No,” she replied as she inched to the edge of the mattress and stood. “There have never been any guards except for Gabrielle, Pierre, and me. Even the servants have been kept in the dark about your presence here. Only the butler knows. This part of the east wing is usually deserted, except for Pierre’s room, which is closer to the stairs. They have been informed about Gabrielle and me, but that is all. The marquis left instructions for Pierre, and no one else, to deliver meals to us while he is away.”
“That is rather worrisome,” Nicholas replied. “If no one knows I am here, it seems too easy for me to disappear without a trace, do you not agree?”
She nodded as she walked to the trapdoor in the wall, which was located behind a large gilt-framed portrait that swung open on hinges. The compartment for the dinner trays was empty.
“I honestly don’t know what he has planned for you,” she said absently, then stiffened with shock when Nicholas clasped a hand around her wrist and pulled her around to face him.
She backed up against the wall until she was trapped there by his lean, muscular body.
“There is something else we agreed upon,” he said, “and I believe I will claim it now.”
In a smooth, swift wave of motion, his mouth found hers. The kiss was firm and demanding, and before she could comprehend what might happen next, she wrapped her arms around his neck and began kissing him passionately in the last of the afternoon light.
As she drank in the exquisite taste of his lips and tongue, and the warm damp sensuality of a hard kiss she should not find pleasurable—she knew that he was not expressing passion, affection, or love. This, for him, was something else. Something vengeful. He wanted her to know that he would take what he wanted from her, whether she liked it or not.
She should have been outraged by this show of disrespect, but she had been dreaming of a kiss from him for days, and it was disconcertingly easy to remember those fantasies as he kissed her now, mere minutes after he had held her down and she had fought against him with all her might.
His hips pressed forward and pinned her snugly up against the wall while his hands cupped her face, then gracefully stroked down her neck to the tops of her shoulders, where he squeezed gently until she sighed with a delicious swell of satisfaction.
Her knees were just about to buckle beneath her when he drew back and rubbed the pads of his thumbs across her cheekbones.
At last she opened her eyes.
“Thank you for bringing the key,” he said in a soft, husky voice.
Véronique felt a deep shudder in her core, caused by a flash of heat that raced through her senses. “Does this mean you will help me recover my home?” She would do anything—anything—to get it back.
He released her and stepped away. “I gave you my word and I will keep it. Once we are free from here, I will bring a hammer down on d’Entremont’s head like nothing you’ve ever seen. Everything he owns, I will take from him, including his freedom, for I will have him arrested and charged, at the very least, for unlawful confinement.”
She was surprised when the scorching vengeance she saw in Nicholas’s eyes caused a spark of arousal in her core, for it was a vengeance that she wanted, too, with all her heart and soul.
She hated d’Entremont and she wanted him to pay for the pain and humiliation he had inflicted upon her family. The rage felt like a dark monster inside her, awakened by what Pierre had just done to Gabrielle, who was pregnant and in danger because the man she loved could not marry her.
D’Entremont had stolen everything from her family, and Véronique wanted to see him punished. She wanted to see it again and again until the marquis atoned for all the pain he had caused.
“I hate him,” she said. “I did this to you only so that we could rid him from our lives forever. It wasn’t anything against you or your country,” she explained. “I should have thought it through and told you the truth sooner. Perhaps we could have been allies from the start.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “We are allies now.” He moved to the door, carefully opened it, and peered out into the corridor. “Where is your sister, and can you both ride?”
“Yes,” Véronique replied. “I could go to the stables and see about taking a few of d’Entremont’s horses. If I can sneak them out, where should I take them?”
He closed the door and faced her. “No, do not attempt anything like that. You might be discovered. We will simply wait until midnight and go to the stables together while the servants are sleeping. If you are sure there are no guards.”
“I am sure.”
“Good. Here is what you will do: Find our best escape route from here. There must be a servants’ staircase in this wing somewhere. Make sure that it will lead us to an unlocked exit. Tell Gabrielle about the plan and be ready to leave at midnight.” He paused to think for a moment. “What about the driver, Pierre? Will he be asleep by then?”
“I am not sure. He is always skulking about, keeping an eye on us. I must tell you … he just tried to assault Gabrielle in the gardens. I do not trust him.”
Nicholas tapped a finger on his thigh. “He assaulted your sister? Just now?”
“Yes, but I saw what was happening, and I stopped him.”
“How?”
Her body tensed at the memory. “It’s all a bit of a blur … but if you must know, I kicked him where he was most vulnerable. He crumpled to the ground like a wet rag.”
Nicholas pondered that. “Well done.” He then walked to the window and looked out again. “We must finalize our plan for later.” He reached into his pocket for the key and held it out to her. “You’ll have to lock me in again. Otherwise, Pierre may discover our plan. Can I trust you?”
“Of course.”
Before handing the key over, however, he studied her carefully with hooded eyes. Then, at last, he relinquished it. “I don’t suppose you have any laudanum left from the other night, do you?”
She understood his intentions instantly. “I believe I do. It would be in my reticule.”
“Excellent. Now, one last thing,… do you know where my sword is being kept? I shall need it.”
“I already have it in my possession,” she told him. “I stole it out of Pierre’s room just now.”
Nicholas’s eyebrow
s lifted, as if he was surprised that she had thought of it and accomplished so much already. “Good.”
For a moment their gazes locked and held. No doubt, he was gauging whether or not he could trust her, as she was thinking the same thing. When he took in the full length of her body, however, she experienced an unexpected sensual thrill and remained fixed to the spot, inviting his intense scrutiny, feeling invigorated by thoughts of what would occur in a few short hours.
They would leave this place together and ride into the forest.
And d’Entremont would finally get what he deserved.
Feeling unnerved by the sinister arousal that coursed through her veins, Véronique turned toward the door, but Nicholas grasped her arm.
“Before you leave,” he said, his voice quiet and low, “you should know that I still haven’t forgiven you for what you did. But I am pleased that we are at least on the same side.”
“As am I,” she shakily replied, for her body was on fire beneath heat of his touch.
She pulled her arm free, quickly walked out, and locked the door behind her.
Chapter Seven
After the sun went down, heavy drops of rain began to fall from thick clouds in the sky. The wind blew hard and rattled the windowpanes.
Why must it rain tonight, of all nights?
Fighting a relentless impatience, Véronique paced back and forth across the carpet while Gabrielle sat in a chair, watching the flames dance wildly in the grate.
“Come and sit down,” Gabby said. “You’re making me nervous, and you’re not making the time go by any faster.”
Véronique shut her eyes and massaged her temples. “You’re quite right. I must try to relax.” She glanced up at the clock on the mantel. “Only one more hour…”
She wondered if Pierre had consumed the wine yet, for she had managed to wrestle his supper tray out of the maid’s hands in the corridor, slip the laudanum into the decanter, and deliver it to him herself—under the pretext of speaking to him about what happened in the garden earlier that day.
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