Chapter 3
James had said that a woman exerted power over a man through the way she used her body. He intended that she use her power over Lucien on this occasion, though to what extent he suspected she might be moved by something other than pure revenge, Lisette wasn’t exactly sure. One thing she knew, now, though, was that she desperately needed to remember the touch of Lucien’s lips against hers. It would give her power. And right now, in this moment of her greatest vulnerability, she needed to feel she had power.
The surprise and uncertainty he showed at her request seemed out of character. The man who exuded such charisma and confidence was suddenly diffident. “You want me to kiss you, Lisette?” He clarified her request slowly; deliberately.
“I’m not the child you remember!”
“No,” he murmured, smiling at her outburst as he reached for her hands, “you are far from the child I remember.”
Her lungs felt close to bursting as she fixed her gaze upon his strong jaw and watched his full lips draw closer. Exhaling on a soft sigh, she felt the inconvenient pull of want and need resonate through her as he cupped her cheek, and she waited for the inevitable.
Lisette had never launched upon a path of pure seduction, though she’d traded on coquetry before. Tonight she’d intended to set in motion events that would see Lucien lose his life as her parents had lost theirs.
But why not take more? His love? How much greater was the pain of betrayal when the heart was involved?
Everything felt surreal, suspended in time as the distance between them closed. Lisette smiled slowly. Let Lucien think she returned his interest, let him believe she was every bit as susceptible to the dangerous, singular gaze he was fixing up on her as, no doubt, every other female was who ventured within his orbit. Revenge would be all the sweeter for it.
Just as their lips were about to touch he stopped, gripped her shoulders and whispered, “Lisette, I must tell you something.”
She trembled, opening her eyes in confusion and then fear. Would he offer up a full confession? His intensity was deeply disconcerting. Suddenly, she didn’t want to hear it from him. Not when she’d planned how it should go. A kiss that left him wanting more, a glass of wine…the information she needed and…if she had the courage…death.
“Not now, Lucien.” She shook her head, and then his lips fused with hers, and she felt the change inside. Immediate.
A raging desire for so much more subsumed the fleeting need for this petty mastery over him. She pressed against him, desperately aware of the hardness of his chest against hers, his thigh the length of hers. She groaned softly and twined her fingers behind his neck. She would make him want her. Make him suffer as she had suffered.
The ultimate revenge.
Yet it was she who was suddenly in thrall. In his power. The sweetness of his kiss had given way to something deeper, more primal. More dangerous. Her body was succumbing to his power, his mastery. This mustn’t happen. She must not exhibit the weakness that had seen her fall headlong in love with him when she was thirteen years old. She was stronger than that.
She pulled away. No! She would not let this happen. James would never forgive her if she somehow found the capacity for forgiveness within herself.
Deeply disconcerted, she put her hands to her cheeks, smiled, breathless, and tried to set a new path as she stepped back in front of the fire.
He too looked discomposed as he dropped his hands to his sides. Seconds before, they’d contoured the curves of her body and pressed her against him in an escalation of unexpected passion. Now his lips were slightly parted, and his breathing was uneven. His eyes bored into hers, as if seeking a clue to her feelings as she whispered, “That was more than I expected and more than I deserve.”
“Deserve?” He seemed to choke on the word as he raised an eyebrow. Clearly, he was still struggling to regain his composure as he raked an elegant hand through his hair.
“After my parents died by the guillotine all those years ago, I was left with no prospects.” The words came out on a thread of sound, carefully schooled to betray nothing—not the anger, the grief, the thirst for revenge that fueled her, and that would see her go to any lengths to ensure justice. Justice and vengeance were what James had exhorted her to win from him tonight.
So many times she’d practised to achieve the right tone to accompany the half-appealing, half-dignified tilt of her shoulder.
Yet vengeance, anger, retribution, were not words that had any connection to the way she felt now. “Nothing,” she reiterated, reminding herself she was a pauper; a charity case entirely beholden to James’s goodness. If she remembered that er cousin James had rescued her when Lucien would have seen her starve, or worse, after he’d all but sent her parents away to die, she might whip up the necessary emotion she needed to see this through.
Disconcertingly, the truth was that she felt only sorrow.
She squeezed her eyes shut as the energy drained from her. What point was there to this charade? Lucien would feel no sympathy for a callous act he’d set in motion that relied upon seeing his master, the duc, and the duc’s family, reduced to nothing. Besides, Lisette must remember that they were both playacting. Lucien’s dewy-eyed look concealed a heart of stone. At best, he felt lustfully aroused at the idea of seducing the child he’d seen orphaned through his obvious hatred of the duc, or perhaps what the duc represented.
Squaring her shoulders, she began to pace. Let him think he would succeed. Let him get close to her. It was the only way, after all, to achieve James’s desires.
He stepped in front of her and arrested her agitated progress, gently chafing her hands as she blinked at his concern. Pretended concern, she reminded herself. “They were good people, and your father was a brave man to speak up against a regime he believed had lost its way; a regime that had become a danger to the ideals that had given birth to it. None of us thought that he would be hauled up before the Committee for a mock trial.”
“Father knew he’d not get a fair trial.” Though Lisette had been only thirteen, she remembered the panicked conversations between her parents in the days leading up to her father’s arrest. “He had no choice but to hide while arrangements were made for us all to flee to England. But someone betrayed him. Someone revealed his hiding place.” Would he see the flash in her eye? The recognition that she knew it was him? She dropped her gaze to the ground as she pulled her hands away. The close proximity was too much. While she wished more than anything for evidence that proved it was Lucien—yes, she did!—she was also afraid of derailing James’s plan. James had instructed her to seek information regarding the numbers of a bank box. New information had come to him only recently that indicated Lucien possessed these numbers without even realizing it. He might even be able to give her that information tonight.
“I had my suspicions, Lisette. I exercised what little power I had, and as I said, I paid for your safety when I could do nothing for your parents.” He seemed to be musing over something. “Immediately after your parents’ death, I set in motion plans to take you into my own protection when I suspected you were in the hands of the very person who had betrayed the duc.” He shrugged and his expression cleared. “But I realised my suspicions were misplaced. Just because I disliked your cousin didn’t mean he was the architect of your father’s fate. And he has obviously taken good care of you.”
Lisette tried to reconcile his words with James’s version of events. It was difficult to contain her agitation as he continued, “After that, I devoted my life to saving every other innocent I could. But I never stopped thinking about you, Lisette. Hoping you were safe. Happy.”
Angrily, she closed her mind to what he was saying. Lucien was trying to plant the seed of suspicion that James was guilty? “Who did you think betrayed my father? No one knew of his hiding place except…” She couldn’t accuse him directly. Of course, Lucien had been the only one other than the immediate family to know. James had even said he’d overheard him. She hunched into
herself, expecting to feel the lash of his anger for all but exposing him.
But there was nothing. Only silence.
And the heavy, oppressive pall of shared memories.
Glancing up, she saw he was staring through the open window. And then he said it. “The only two who knew your father’s hiding place were me and your cousin, James. Or so I thought.”
“What are you saying?” She had to say it loud and harsh. Her anger had to be made very clear. “James saved me. James has looked after me for seven years. Without James, I’d have starved.”
“I know that now. There must have been someone else. But at the time, I’d thought I’d seen signs. Signs of avarice. I knew James was jealous of your father, and that he also stood to gain by your father’s death. It was James who suggested to your father his hiding place, and James who let in the guards who took your father away.”
Lucien raised one hand to gently touch her cheek and Lisette swallowed, closing her eyes rather than moving her head to avoid his touch. Lucien was sounding far too reasonable for her liking. She remembered the whispers that had swirled about the chateau that night. Whispers that when James had let in the guards, he’d subtly communicated her father’s location. But then, Lisette’s nursemaid who’d repeated the rumor had always disliked James. Shortly afterward, Lisette had found herself James’s ward and with a new nursemaid, living in Paris. The events of that night had been explained to her endlessly over the years. By James.
She looked at Lucien. The devil incarnate, James called him. Lucien was responsible for all that had ruined her life. She could feel the cool metal of her locket against her skin, just out of sight. It still bore the signs of damage from the night it had been ripped from her mother’s neck as she’d been transported from the prison by tumbrel. James had told her that in the melee, it had been crushed underfoot before it had been saved by James. On every occasion that James had allowed her to wear the locket, Lisette had slid her nail down the side of the locket to release the catch. She’d stared at the two ovals—the miniature of her father on the one side, and the blank gold oval where her mother’s image had been lost. And she’d remember those terrible events James had described. James had not known the bank deposit box numbers were scratched in two parts onto the backs of each miniature. He’d taken the locket from Lisette for safekeeping when he’d learned by chance from one of the duc’s former manservants that this was so. Just before tonight’s ball he’d returned it to her.
The touch of the cool gold seemed to give her renewed strength. Tonight may see the image of her mother restored, and with it, Lisette’s legacy from her father.
She eyed Lucien warily as he continued.
“Together, your father and I found a secret hiding place for a great deal of the funds he’d not yet secreted out of the country, fearing the turmoil that would come to pass. Just before he was taken, he gave James all he had—a small fortune to provide for you and your mother. Alas, he did not give me the number of the safety deposit box which held so much of the family fortune and which, by rights, is yours, Lisette. But in the chateau, he had bank notes and all your mother’s jewelry. I see you are wearing the ruby and diamond earrings and the jeweled comb that once belonged to the duc’s mother, your grandmother.” His smile was kind. “They befit a beauty like yourself. I’m glad your father was able to see that James secured those pieces to hold in trust for you and that the jewelry was not confiscated after I left the chateau. James has obviously taken care to ensure you get what is your due.”
Lucien was about to go on, but Lisette stopped him with a convulsive grip about his hands. James had said her father’s entire fortune was held in the gold coins of a deposit box, and that her mission tonight was to gain the miniature of her mother Lucien had stolen from the locket. James had said he’d received nothing for Lisette’s maintenance. She tried to swallow past the blockage in her throat. Lucien must be lying.
But she couldn’t incite his anger. Not when she needed him to give her what she wanted. In response to her look, he moved his head closer. “Lisette, you are pale. I should not have kissed you. You were not ready for such…disordering emotions. Disordering for me also, I confess. I want only to help you, and this was not the way to go about it.”
The softening of his features was even more alarming as he added, “I have dreamed of you so often, but never as a beautiful woman. I knew you as a lively and enchanting child, but you are even lovelier than I imagined you would be. I feared you would be warped by bitterness, but I misjudged James, who has nurtured you while you have been under his guardianship.” He cast an appreciative gaze over her ensemble; a gown James had selected with infinite care especially for tonight. Lisette had few items of clothing and none befitting a grand occasion such as this. “It’s a relief to see that you want for nothing.”
Kindness was not something with which Lisette was familiar, but worse were his words. The more she tried to expose Lucien as a liar, the less sure she felt of James’s version of the truth. Every day for seven years, James had reminded Lisette that she was a charity case, a burden who must repay James’s largesse for taking her under his wing when she’d been left penniless and orphaned. The diamond and ruby earrings, the jeweled comb. James had given her these only tonight, telling her they were his mother’s, but that he would allow her to wear them for Lady Athelton’s sumptuous event. Rarely did Lisette mix in company other than on the three occasions James had dressed her in a gown especially for a night of similar intended seduction. When she was seventeen, and twice the following year, Lisette had—at James’s behest—turned herself from an introverted and isolated young woman who knew little of society, into a coquette who then succeeded in eliciting the admission James required for a conviction. With James and an accomplice listening from the next room, Lisette’s consort would no sooner utter words that indicated his guilt in association with crimes committed during the revolution, than James would appear and the man Lisette had enticed into confessing would be hauled away.
Each time, everything had gone to plan. Lisette had no doubt those men were guilty, and she herself had felt no guilt in helping them face the justice they deserved.
She’d thought that tonight, with her goal being so much more personal, she’d slip easily into the role of coquette fueled by the desire for justice and vengeance.
But Lucien’s words had unleashed a world of doubt. For a second, she wavered, paralyzed in a morass of confusion as to how to conduct herself when lives literally hung in the balance.
What should she do? How should she play the next few vital moments? Fear tickled the back of her neck, thickening her throat and making her voice less sure and steady. Words which James had coached her to say, though he never could have imagined how close to feeling them Lisette would come.
“Thanks to James, it is true; I’ve wanted for nothing except to feel your arms about me, Lucien.” She turned in a swish of skirts, forcing a seductive smile as she looked at him over her shoulder. “You kissed me before, and I liked it.” She indicated the table set with the flask of wine and the two goblets James had arranged earlier. “And tonight is St Valentine’s and we have but a few minutes together to enjoy—with Lady Athelton’s sanction—what we both have admitted we admire in each other.”
Perhaps her words or their tone sounded an odd note to Lucien, who clearly was a young man of greater depths than either James or she had credited. When he did not immediately move forward, she swept toward him, put both her hands on his shoulders, and pushed him backward. As far back from the door as possible.
“Listen to me.” The whispered words that forced him to dip his head so that her lips brushed his earlobe would seal her fate. In the fleeting moment that preceded her actions, she’d balanced on the precipice and come down on the side that threatened every remaining shred of security she had as James’s ward. If she were either mistaken or taken to task, she would die.
“Ask me no questions, but if you value your life—and mine�
��take your cue from me and pretend to like what I suggest. We are being observed and listened to from the next room.”
Before he could respond, she swung away from him and reached for her fan that lay upon the table, her smile beguiling above the points of the intricately carved piece of ivory. James had given it to her as an early birthday present. Tomorrow she would be twenty-one though, regardless of her entitlements, she was dependent upon James as his ward until she was twenty-five.
Lisette was glad that Lucien had his back to the wall with the peephole through which she knew James was watching, for Lucien could not hide the flare of shock that clearly rattled his every perception of her. She prayed James could hear only the words she chose for him to hear.
“A kiss might be enough for you, Lisette, but what if I want more?”
Oh, he was clever. He’d worked out what might be at play here. Fortunately, he was clever enough not to go too far.
“And what if I want more, Lucien? Information about my father’s affairs which you just told me you possessed.”
Let James think that discussion of this had passed between them during the whispers he could not hear.
She let Lucien move toward her while she kept her smile in place, her heart hammering as he allowed her to trail the tips of her fingers from the ragged curl that fell so enticingly below his right eyebrow, down the length of his straight, Roman nose, and across one rough, sharp cheekbone.
“She was not expecting the sudden tug that had her tumbling into his arms, or to feel the pressure of his lips against hers, hard with passion, catching her by surprise as a flurry of unexpectedly wanton impulses coursed through her.
“You like to bargain, to play games, Lisette? So do I.” His heated breath down her décolletage as he pinioned her against him sent desire curdling in her lower belly, and sucked the breath from her. His next words seared her with confusion. Thank god they were whispered and for her ears alone. “Lisette, I have your mother’s likeness against my heart. On the back are the numbers you want. I’ve only now realized they’re what this is all about. That the numbers have meaning. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. When I saw you, I was going to give it to you.”
Her Valentine's Secret (A Georgian Romance Book 2) Page 3
