Chapter Four #2
She wove through the crowd and stepped into the long, quiet hall.
She passed an open door where four men played billiards and one picked an argument with another.
Behind the next door, men and women sat at three tables, scowling at the cards they held in their hands.
So then, things were not going well tonight for those who took chances.
The third room, Inès did not bother to enter.
A lady’s handkerchief had fallen to the carpet—and Inès surmised that this was the woman’s signal to her lover that this room was the one in which they would meet.
At the last room on the left, she thrust open the door and admired the moonlight silvering plush upholstered settees and chairs.
The windows were wide and tall in here, reminiscent of her family chateau on the Loire…
and she paused, a lump in her throat at the poignancy of her vision.
She let out a sigh and whirled inside, then shut the door behind her with a small click.
“We wondered when you’d come.” The heavy rasp of a bass voice reached out to her and caressed her skin like the touch of napped velvet. “The news is not good.”
Hunh! Well, she would not know about that…but she’d like to. Secrets were her way of life. She was a creature of her past…and of her present, sad to say.
She took two steps forward, lured, entranced. At the sight of the man with the delectable voice who rounded the end of a tall bookcase, she halted.
Across the divide of sturdy furniture stood Lord Halsey. His eyes danced in the candlelight from the sconces and bored into hers.
From the shadows emerged another figure. Another man right behind Halsey.
“Pardonnez-moi, s’il vous pla?t,” she murmured, “I did not know the room was occupied. I will go.”
“No need, mademoiselle,” offered Halsey’s brawny, wild-haired companion. “My apologies. We are finished, aren’t we?” He faced his friend. “I will find our two friends and tell them we have no news.”
“Tomorrow, I hope,” Halsey said. “Say, at ten? My house?”
“Excellent. Halsey, good night.” Durham, this was.
She remembered his name, the reason being his thick, muscular figure and sharply angled face.
But, of course, she could not recall his title.
In this Society, they each had one. He was not a duke.
But a lord. Of what rank escaped Inès’s memory.
She really did have to read more in that Debrett’s book Gus kept insisting she memorize.
The man bowed to her and took his leave. “Excuse me, Mademoiselle Bechard.”
She responded with a polite nod.
The man was quickly gone.
“Allow me to give you the room, mademoiselle.” This from Halsey surprised her. He had been so forward the other night at the Carlisles’ that his mild manners here confused her. Was he interested in her or not? Had she totally spurned him? And why hate herself for it?
She put up a hand. “S’il vous pla?t,” she said. Why did she lapse into her native language when faced with this dashing man? “I have disturbed you at your meeting. I shall retire.”
“But my friend is gone. You should stay. A notable collection here, so if you came to read,” he said, his brows up in mirth as he indicated the four walls filled with books and pamphlets, “there is much to entertain you.”
She would be pleasant. Why not? “I came to recuperate from my aching feet.”
He put two fingers to his temple. “This is the perfect place, then.”
She caught his gaze. She loved his long-lashed purple eyes, so beguiling in this dark room. Why is that?
As if by magic, he held her in thrall. So tall, so far above her, he filled her senses with his presence now as he had for all her recent days and nights.
Square of jaw, broad of shoulder, infusing her with his sandalwood-and-citrus cologne, he looked at her so intently that she could have sworn he could see the color of her blood and the blackness of her heart.
“You look like you need a good rest. So sit, mademoiselle. I hear your journey from France was quite long and harrowing. I am certain you must rest more to recover.”
She caught her breath. “Is that what gossip tells you?”
“Is it correct?”
She had no need to deny the truth. “It is.”
“Then I am sorry for that. But happy you survived the crossing and that you are here. With us,” he said so low that she walked into a cocoon of his spoken regard and wished to lie down and rest there. “No one should have to endure such peril.”
“I had the fright—” The fright of my life running through Normandy. Where was her mind? Gone to his mellifluous voice and its miraculous seduction? “Forgive me. I will not burden you with my journey. I had good passage. A good captain.”
His dark gaze was on her lips. Her nipples ripened. Her loins swelled. To fall for his charms was not wise. She’d told herself this over and over. Yet he obsessed her.
“Who brought you across?” He drew back an inch, as if he told himself he should not be so near, so bold.
“A friend of the Ashleys and Ramseys. A few of their other friends, too. Maybe more.”
“So then, I venture to guess it was Jacques Durand who spirited you across the divide.”
“I— Oui, Monsieur Durand,” she told him. There she was again, thrown into speaking French in his presence. Was it some sort of retreat? She was experienced, worldly with men. Why did his presence assault the walls of her carefully built tower?
“Durand is known to us. To the revenuers, too. That’s why he gets safe passage on our shores. We know his value.” Halsey flowed closer again, and his aura enfolded her like a cloak. “Durand carries all the precious cargo for the Hawthorne network.”
No one had told her that in those words. But she’d assumed Durand had to be reliable, else her superior control agent would not have insisted she cross the Channel with only Durand.
“And you, ravishingly pretty Mademoiselle Bechard,” Halsey crooned as he lifted her chin just as he had the other day, “were treated to Durand’s special care. I wonder why.”
Her heart fluttered. No one upset her like that! No one! She had to give him a cool response. “I am but a friend.”
“Are you only that?” His words were soft as the stroke of gossamer threads. “I say you are more.”
She wanted to shake her head, but held still. To protest too much would only arouse him further and get her nothing.
“You are more. You were more.” His thumb, his large, warm thumb, took that same journey as the other night along the outline of her lower lip. “I think I will ask Scarlett Hawthorne. What say you? Shall I?”
“Ask whatever you like, sir.” She gathered all her duplicitous skills and gave him a long, daring smile. Scarlett would reveal nothing about her past. “That does not mean you will get a good answer.”
Suddenly, his arm slid around her waist, and he pressed her to his magnificently hard body. Her breasts heaved beneath his strong, hot embrace. His breath was hers, as was his heartbeat. But not his lips, and mon Dieu, she wanted them.
She turned her head away.
“Scarlett’s network works with ours,” he whispered, nearly a taunt.
Yours? You have a network? You are a spy? How is that? She stared up at him.
“We share resources, knowledge, agents.”
Since when? She had to know! But how? She could not ask Scarlett and expect an answer.
“I will learn about you. From you or from Scarlett.” The tip of his nose touched her own, then his lips traced a journey across her cheeks, her jaw and finally, oui, her lips. “Decide which.”
That last shook her. Yet she knew Scarlett would tell him nothing.
“No! No!” She pushed away.
He let her go. Still, ever so near, too near, he inhaled, as if he had fought a battle heavily and now had to surrender the field. “Tell me your answer Friday.”
Befuddled and hating her fevered mind, she tried to remember the importance of Friday. Probably some other social event that she had no patience or reason to attend.
“I owe you nothing, Monsieur le Comte.”
“True. But I do hope you will want to.”
“What makes you think—”
“This,” he whispered, and took her mouth with his.
He was firm, his lips bold, his arm crushing her against him, his other hand plunged into her hair, holding her tightly, claiming her ever so sweetly, treasuring her. He raised his face, looking into her eyes once. Then he groaned and seized her lips again.
He was heaven. He was hell. So mighty, so determined, so devoted to devouring her lips.
She drank him in. Her arms went around his shoulders. Her nails scored up into his hair. One leg went around his.
He growled and picked her up off her feet and sank her against a wall. There, he delved into her eyes and seized her mouth again. “Not enough,” he said, and nipped her earlobe.
“Too much.” She wanted to push him away.
“No lies between us.” His warning was a challenge.
She cupped his handsome face, and though she knew she would try to comply, she also now would agree. “None.”
Then he put two fingers to her lips. Her chest heaving, she watched him in the shadows as he pressed himself to her once more and stole her remaining free will. “Friday.”