Chapter Fifteen #2
“I went to the shopkeeper and gave him the four hundred Louis for the painting and his window. He refused it. He said he knew it was not worth that amount and so he would not take the money. But I said, ‘You are minus the painting and cannot sell it, even for a small amount.’ He said, ‘I too have learned a lesson, monsieur. I will not try to pass a fraud to another.’”
Her gaze darkened. She gulped back some emotion that made her wince and tore away to stand before the window to the garden.
He waited for her explanation.
“I am proud of you,” she murmured. “You learned so well a fine lesson. Would that we could all do so from our mistakes.”
He went to her, his hands to her shoulders, pulling her to rest against him. “I told you to enlighten you as to who I am, not to send you from me.”
“I know. I know. But you see,” she whispered brokenly, and turned into his embrace, “I have done many things thinking them for the best.”
“Working for Scarlett Hawthorne?”
“Oui. Much of it was…useful. Valuable. Very much to the cause. But I have done things that I can never discuss, never reveal to you, because they are so secret that…” She caught a sob and clamped a hand over her mouth.
He crushed her near to him. “I don’t need you to tell me.”
“Those acts?” She pulled back to stare into his eyes. “I did them with good intentions. Not for money. Or for fame. Mon Dieu, I could never do that.”
“Whatever you did, my darling, you did for good reason and fine intentions. And you were obviously very good at it, too.” He produced a handkerchief and wiped tears from her cheeks.
“You are here. Saved by Scarlett and her group of agents. And I am so glad you are, because who would I marry but someone so bold and brave?”
“Oh,” she said. “You flatter me, sir.”
He lifted her chin. “I do. I am allowed. I am your husband and I value you. I care for you.”
Her gaze was watery with her misery. “I hesitate to rejoice in that, dear sir. I fear one day you will discover my true nature. That I did many things for which I cannot go to the ones I deceived and neither apologize nor compensate for the trail of tears I left in my wake.”
He wrapped her close. “Do you deceive me?”
#
She shook with her sadness and tried to leave him.
“Stay.” He caught her back, an arm around her waist. “Tell me what you can.” I want to believe what my instincts declare.
“I am yours, all yours. As you see me now.”
He dared to ask, “Do you care for me now?”
She dug her nails into the strong binds of his fingers. “I do. I do. More than any other man I have ever known.”
He turned her around and brushed hair from her temple, her cheek, and her ear. “I would guess you have not known many men.”
“My brother, his friends, and others who were my enemies.”
He had no right to ask if she had had lovers.
“And others…others believe I have had men to my bed. I know it. I have seen some here in London whisper and look at me, wondering about my past.”
“The gossip means nothing.” He believed she told him as much truth as she could.
“In France, others believed it.”
He did not breathe. Nor did he want to know why they believed it.
She searched his gaze. “Whatever illusion of that I gave was”—she rolled her shoulders—“was necessary to my mission. Can you bear it if others believe I am…une prostituée?” She pulled away, put her hands to her ears.
“Non! Ne me dis pas! Do not tell me. If you think it, I must leave you. For I am not that. Was not that.”
“I have known from the very first moment I looked at you that I wanted you as you are. I saw then, knew then as I do now, that whatever you have done, you did it for good reason. Not for power, status, or wealth. No. But for your beliefs.”
“Oui. Certainment! But one day”—perhaps not soon, but eventually—“you will be told by a host of others that I”—seduced a very important Frenchman—“befriended an important man and that he was so taken with me that he believed a thousand lies that I fed to him. How could anyone believe I did such a thing without giving my body and soul and love to that man?” She broke then, ragged sobs against his chest.
He caught her up. “Sweet wife of mine, I have taken countless women to my bed. I did not love them. Certainly, I liked them. I wanted to claim that I had had them. Only that. Never was that claiming compelled by more than lust. Never was that a hope for a lifetime of pleasure with someone I admired.”
She looked miserable. “Oh, mon cher, you simply cannot admire me. J’en ai ruiné tellement. I have ruined so many—”
“Look at me. No tears. Now tell me, was there any other way for you to succeed without ruining others?”
She sank in his arms. “No.”
He slid her close to him. “I love you, my darling. Let me love you as you are, for all you are.”
She shook her head to and fro. “You cannot say this. I am like that painting.”
“Never.”
“I am!”
“I do not want you for my reputation. For my self-importance. For my gratification. I want you. I love you because I see beneath the varnish. I see you are sweet and loving. Kind and considerate. You have ethics and, most of all, you are bold. Courageous as I have never known any other woman to be.”
“You do not know that!”
“Oh, but I do. You would not be so torn to have me if you did not have some secret you dare not tell me.”
She went still.
“Inès, I want you. I need you beside me. And I married you because I love that woman, the one most do not see because they look at the mere veneer, not beneath, to the vibrant colors of her character.”
Her anguish died and in its place he saw a reverence for him. “How do I merit you?”
“’Tis I, my darling wife, who asks that.”
She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and sank her fingers against the rich, thick curls of his scalp. She sniffed back her tears. “How proficient, mon cher, are you with lacings and froufrou?”
He spun her around. “Mon amour.” He traced kisses down the back of her neck. “All these years, I did little but practice for this night.”
He went to work, his fingers tugging and threading, spreading wide the back of her gown, his big hands splaying over her back, pushing down the gown, the petticoat, and the delicate muslin of her chemise. She stood naked in her stockings, then stepped from her shoes only to whirl into his embrace.
“You smell divine,” she whispered as she again wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Her body was cool, and he enfolded her to cover her with his own warmth. She kissed his jaw. “I like the way you taste, too. I want more of you. Your fragrance, your essence. Mon Dieu, Je te veux. I want you.”
He cupped her face and held her steadily as he said, “You are my jewel. My wife. Never was there another, nor will there ever be.”