“I would imagine you wanted my help,” she said. “Only, on your own, you have already committed theft and highway robbery and disguised yourself among Blackhaven society. I doubt there’s anything I could do for you if I wanted to. Except keep my silence.”
“Do you really have family and friends fighting in the war?” he asked unexpectedly.
“No,” she admitted. “I don’t have friends. And none of my family could afford a commission if they wanted one. Or at least they couldn’t before my brother married a Braithwaite heiress.”
“Then why did you help me?”
“I really don’t know,” she said. “But trust me, it’s an impulse I’m regretting.”
His thumb moved over her gloved fingers, sending a jolt through her body. It should have been unpleasant, and yet it wasn’t. “I don’t think you are, though I don’t understand why not. Have you ever been to France, my lady?”
She blinked. “How the devil could I have got to France? We’ve been at war for as long as I can remember. Are you stuck, sir? Do you actually need my help getting home to France?”
“I might,” he said. “If I had any intention of going there.”
She stumbled, and he tightened his grip, steadying her while she stared into his eyes. “You don’t want to go home?” she asked. “If that is true, sir, why did you bother to escape in the first place?”
His lips quirked. “That is a very good question and the answer is likely to exhaust me. I’m afraid my desires, yet again, outweigh my strength. I need to sit down and I know the very alcove.”
She allowed it. Now that he had begun to talk, she would have gone anywhere with him. But she wasn’t prepared for the excitement of the escape, of dancing toward the edge of the dance floor and all but spinning into the corner alcove. The concealing curtain fell behind them before she could even draw breath.
For an instant, she stared up into his face. The earth seemed to tilt. She didn’t want to move.
It was he who did so first, releasing her to sink onto the sofa provided for those wishing a rest away from the bustle of the ballroom.
She swallowed and sat beside him, recalling reality with an effort. “Why do you not wish to go home?”
He shrugged. “I have enemies in France.”
Her heartbeat quickened once more. This was a better beginning than she’d hoped for, than even Henry had hoped for. “What kind of enemies?”
“Powerful ones.”
She met his gaze. “It can only be a month or two more until the war ends at last. You should have stayed safely in prison.”
“I wasn’t safe. I was meant to die in October, on the day the prison was attacked.”
So, Henry had been partly right. The attack was what had drawn Henry’s eyes to the prison inmates and to the discovery of M. L’Étrange. He had assumed the attack had been to rescue the valuable spy. Could it have been to kill him? Why would the French go to such trouble to kill their own man? Unless he had a good deal of information that would benefit the British if he chose to divulge it.
“Why?” she asked bluntly.
“Because they think my…knowledge is dangerous. Because they are afraid I will take revenge. And change sides.”
Her heart leapt into her throat. It was proving to be simple, after all, this task that had given her so much trouble. “Will you?” she asked.
“Change sides?” He smiled. “No.”
He did not even think about it. He meant it. Which was a blow after her surge of hope, but at least he was still here and still talking.
“Then what do you want of me?”
“Your silence,” he said softly.
She dropped her gaze. “I already told you, you have that. On the conditions I made.”
“Why?” he asked.
The lie was easy. She’d told similar ones before. And yet for some reason it stuck in her throat. Not because it was a lie, but because she was suddenly afraid it was the truth.
She stood, swinging away from him. “Because I like you,” she said, carelessly. “I was sorry for you, and then I liked you.”
She had thought him too tired to move. But without a sound, he stood suddenly in front of her. Neither of them had removed their masks. She jumped when his fingers tilted up her chin.
“Then why,” he asked softly, “do you flinch when I touch you?”
The intrusion was too much. Fury surged and she swung up her fist. Just as he caught it in his free hand, the curtain swished. The Frenchman’s face swooped down and his mouth covered hers.
Shocked beyond belief, she could not move. A woman’s voice, surely Serena’s, seemed to be talking, mercifully on the other side of the curtain. Relief flooded Anna. He was not assaulting her, but providing a romantic excuse for their assignation, whose true purpose was much more dangerous for him. With the rush of knowledge, her instinctive fear disintegrated and she realized the light pressure of his lips, softly caressing hers, was not unpleasant at all.
Butterflies stirred in her stomach. Without meaning to, she actually reached up and touched the silk of his mask. And then the curtain swished again with more purpose, and this time, someone definitely came in and halted in their tracks.
“Sir, unhand the lady and deal with me,” Tamar’s voice said ominously.
A hiss of quite inappropriate laughter escaped Louis’s lips as they left hers. He straightened and turned to face her outraged brother and Serena.
“Sir,” Louis protested. “I have absolutely no desire to kiss you.”
Rupert was still protecting her, because what had happened all those years ago still tore him up. It warmed her, and yet she couldn’t let him ruin everything.
“Go away, Rupert,” she managed. “I thought such things were meant to happen at masquerades.”
“Not if you don’t want them to,” Tamar growled.
She regarded her brother until a smile flickered over his face.
“Really?” he said, sounding more pleased than angry. He was an unusual brother in many ways.
Anna, unsure yet exactly how she felt about the kiss, began to walk to Serena. Escape seemed to be necessary after all. However, she cast a flickering smile back over her shoulder at the Frenchman before she said carelessly, “I presume this gentleman may call on us?”
“Not until we know who he is,” Serena said at once.
“Lewis, my lady,” the Frenchman said. “Sir Lytton Lewis, at your service.” Though he didn’t remove the mask, he bowed elaborately.
Lewis. Louis. “You should be clapped up,” Anna said unsteadily. “In Bedlam.”
“Anna!” Serena objected. Anna gave in and walked out of the alcove with her sister-in-law before she was dragged out.
*
Louis regarded the marquis with interest. He had been involved in thwarting the autumn attack on the fort. In fact, so had the lady who now appeared to be his wife. Lord Tamar, distractedly turning a pack of cards in his hand, stared back at him, with more suspicion than aggression.
“How do you know my sister?” he asked abruptly.
“We met by accident in the woods last week,” Louis said readily. “I was much struck by her as you might imagine and managed to secure myself an invitation to tonight’s event.”
Tamar scowled a little and scratched his head as though wondering what the devil he was supposed to do now. Then his hand fell back to his side.
“She seems to like you, so I won’t come the heavy-handed brother,” he said at last. “But you’ll treat my sister like a lady, or you’ll answer to me.” His lips twisted. “And to her.” He seemed to become aware of the packet in his hands and cocked one eyebrow at Louis. “Game of cards?”
“Why not?” Amused by the sudden change in the marquis’s manner, Louis sat down in the chair Anna had vacated and stretched out his legs.
However, after a couple of games with Anna’s amiable brother, exhaustion drove Louis from the ballroom and he returned somewhat wearily to his hotel. His mind wanted to stay
for the unmasking, to seek her out and spar with her, not just for information but for the pleasure of her company. Alternately sweet and sharp, funny and prickly, brave and timid, her contradictory character drew him like the proverbial moth. And he could still taste her lips, stunned, virginal lips, which he had taken to conceal the true purpose of their meeting. And yet there had been a moment…
He curled his lip at himself. A moment when he’d imagined a true awakening passion? Keep dreaming, coxcomb. The woman eats men like me for breakfast.
Only they didn’t usually get to kiss her. He understood that much. They ate out of her hands, probably, in the vain hope of those kisses.
Easing off his coat, he all but fell into the chair by the window and splashed some brandy into the waiting glass. There was a lot of French brandy in Blackhaven, which meant smugglers. They could bring people in, too, and take them away. Gosselin would have to come himself now. No one else would be able to recognize him in person.
And when Gosselin was dead…then he could think beyond vengeance. He could never go home, of course. France was surely denied to him now, whoever ended up in power when Bonaparte finally fell. There was a certain charm in losing himself in England, in becoming Sir Lytton Lewis for good. A man like him could always hide.
But Anna knew the truth. She had kept silent already, and so he’d told her a little more to engage her help as well as to watch her reaction. She could be exactly what she said, the wayward sister of an eccentric and poverty-stricken nobleman. In fact, he didn’t doubt that part. But there was more to Anna, much more.
He raised the glass to his lips, drinking while he remembered how she had felt in his arms, how her rigid shock had slowly relaxed. He wasn’t sure she needed protection, and yet he wanted to shelter her, hold her… Her beauty, the scent of her hair, every movement of her graceful body, stirred his blood. The way her eyes laughed, the curve of her lips, the humorous twitch of her eyebrow… It all captivated him, coiled his body into a ball of lust he was too tired to do anything about.
A knock sounded at the door.
Or was he?
The chamber maid had been fluttering her eyelashes and flirting. Perhaps she was here now. And perhaps he should take up her offer and assuage the hunger.
It wouldn’t work, of course, but just for tonight it might make things better.
He swallowed the remains of the brandy in the glass and reached for the bottle. “Enter.”
A quick glance showed him not the chamber maid but a lady in a black domino cloak and mask, leaning against the door she had just closed. Just for an instant, the black fooled him, because it wasn’t red, but a moment later he stumbled to his feet. “Anna.”
Chapter Six
He was the epitome of the carelessly attractive male. Anna regarded him from his rumpled blond hair to his shirt sleeves, and even the casual way he reached for the bottle while poised, she suspected, to use it as a weapon if necessary. He reminded her of a large, dangerous cat who hadn’t yet decided whether to sleep or to hunt. Though he shot to his feet quickly enough when he recognized her.
“Anna.”
“Louis.”
“Every instinct tells me you have not come to while away the night in carnal pleasure. And yet, I can’t shake off my natural optimism.”
Anna, who was well aware of the one-sided nature of such pleasures, laughed at him. “Abandon hope,” she mocked. “I’ve merely come to look at your wounds and change your dressings. I assume you haven’t been near a doctor.”
“How did you find me?” Louis asked.
“There is only one hotel suitable for Sir Lytton. I bribed one of the maids to tell me which room you were in. She still gave me the evil eye.”
“I think she likes me. Does your brother know you are here?”
“Of course not. He is aware I have no interest in dalliance.”
There was a faint pause. Across the room, his eyes seemed to glitter. “Have you not?” he said with deliberation.
Her body flamed. Without meaning to in the slightest, she recalled the feel of his sensual lips on hers, the rough warmth of his jaw beneath the mask, the heat, the scent of his body so close to hers.
She lifted her chin. “You think that because I like you, I am prepared to be your lover?”
“As I say. I am optimistic by nature. Please, sit down. I only have brandy, I’m afraid, or I can send for tea.”
“No, thank you.” She untied the domino and threw it over the back of the sofa. It was only black because she had reversed it. “A simple disguise,” she observed. “More for Tamar and Serena’s sake than mine.”
“Where are Lord and Lady Tamar?”
“Enjoying supper, so I don’t have long,” She untied the mask, which had also been reversed, and threw it on top of the cloak before indicating he should sit on the sofa.
He didn’t obey at once. Disconcertingly, his gaze remained steady on her face for several seconds before it dropped unhurriedly to her throat and lower over the rest of her body.
“Louis,” she said impatiently, peeling off her long, silver-grey gloves.
A choke of laughter escaped him. “You have not come for dalliance,” he said, as though making an agreement, or perhaps just remembering. He advanced to the sofa, pulling his shirt over his head and dropping it on the floor before he sat on the sofa. He clearly felt no modesty at thus revealing his broad, naked chest and his thickly muscled arms and shoulders.
For some reason, Anna’s throat felt dry. Somehow, it had been easier in the cold forest, by the lantern light, when he was simply a task, and not this very physical human being. She had never thought before that men could be beautiful.
He is still a task, she reminded herself. Nothing more and nothing less. He is merely, a harder task to accomplish than most.
Forcing herself, she went to him, her heart beating an annoying tattoo as she unwound his bandage. He’d changed it for himself, clearly, and hadn’t made a bad job of it. The wound itself looked clean and was clearly healing. She only hoped he was healing inside, too.
She nodded. “Do you think we should leave the stitches in for a little longer?”
“Yes,” he said, without further explanation.
She took the little jar from her reticule and, with a very odd feeling in the pit of her stomach, smeared the ointment over his wound.
“Do you always carry such things to a ball?” he asked.
“Everywhere,” she said. “Just in case.”
“How many wounded people do you encounter in a day?”
“You’d be surprised. But there is no room in my reticule for dressings. Do you have something clean I might use?”
“In the drawer by the bed.”
She knew his eyes followed her as she walked across the room and bent over the drawer in the bedside cabinet. “You have done this before,” she observed, taking the pads of soft cloth and closing the drawer.
“Like you, I am always prepared.”
“Then how did you come to be captured?” she retorted.
He smiled faintly, and she thought that Henry had been right. He had been prepared for capture, perhaps even intended it. Which presented another mystery.
“You are an enigma, Sir Lytton,” she said lightly.
“I try, in the hope it makes me more appealing,” He tilted his head, watching her as she bound his wound. His skin was warm and velvet-smooth whenever her fingers brushed against it. And she, who never touched anyone if she could avoid it, knew a sudden desire to lay her palms flat against his chest and his back. Which made her uncomfortable in a completely different way.
She drew in a breath. “Louis, if your own people are trying to kill you, you must come to some agreement with ours.”
His lips twisted. “Who would not, of course, ever consider killing me.”
“They wouldn’t,” she insisted. “Not if they knew you had severed ties with Bonaparte’s France.”
“France is still France, whoever claims to lead it
.”
“Then you are prepared to take your knowledge to the grave?”
“That depends,” he said, cynically. “Is blind loyalty more appealing than mystery?”
“It is not me you have to appeal to.”
“Who, then?”
“I don’t know,” she said, carefully reserving Henry’s name for now. “But I can find out. My brother has a new-found ambition to go into politics, and Serena’s brother, the Earl of Brathwaite, will know exactly who you should talk to. Between us, we know many people who could help you.”
Having neatly tied his bandage, she swept his dropped shirt from the carpet and handed it to him. “It’s your only hope, Louis. Please think about it, because you will be discovered here eventually, by people who have no idea that you possess such knowledge. They might kill you from ignorance. I must go.”
She took a step away from him, but his hand closed around her wrist and her gaze flew back to his face. It bothered her that she had no urge to hit him.
“Will you tell them, Anna?” he asked steadily.
“I have kept silent this long.”
“Will you tell them?” he repeated.
She stared into his face, listening to the rapid beats of her own heart. “Even I have loyalty to my country.”
“The war is almost over. It will not matter soon.”
“It must matter or you would not have done what you have. Louis, you have my silence for the moment, but you need the protection of my government.” She meant it. Her urgency and sincerity must have stood out in her voice and face, for after a moment, he released her wrist.
“I almost believe you care,” he said flippantly.
“I care,” she muttered, hurrying around the sofa to grasp her domino, which she swung around her shoulders, black side outward.
The mask had fallen to the floor, but before she could retrieve it, he had already picked it up. “Turn around,” he said.
She almost snatched it. But he was her task. She obeyed, every nerve alert and sensitive as he slipped the mask over her eyes and tied it at the back of her head. The faint brush of his knuckles against her cheek, of his fingertips in her hair, set her skin tingling. Then he walked around and gazed down at her before making a minor adjustment to the mask’s position.
Blackhaven Brides (Books 5–8) Page 49
