A Scoundrels Kiss

by Shelly Thacker

  And unmistakable pleasure.

  Shards of longing raked him, slicing at the last threads of his self-control.

  He pulled her against him, covering her body with his even as reason battled for control of his brain. He could not do this. Not now. Not ever. She would know it was her first time. Would know they had not been married two years. Would realize he had been lying to her all along.

  Unless he could explain it away.

  Yes. Yes, he could do that. Lie. She would believe him. She remembered nothing, knew nothing of lovemaking. She would believe whatever he told her. In her drugged state, she might not even feel the pain. Or if she felt it, she might not remember it later—

  He lifted his head, shock snapping through his lust-clouded mind.

  What in the name of God was he thinking?

  Chest heaving, he levered himself up on his forearms, taking his weight off her. Marie didn’t move away. She lay trembling beneath him, breathing as hard as he was, her eyes dazed from the drug or his kisses or both. “M-Max?” she whispered.

  He looked down at her, dazed with disbelief. What the hell was happening to him?

  He had thought that this mission wouldn’t change him. But it had.

  Changed him for the worse.

  “No,” he ground out. “No. I won’t hurt you.”

  She blushed profusely. “But y-you…you weren’t—”

  “You don’t understand.” He released her and rolled onto his back, furious at himself for what he had been contemplating. He lay there breathing hard, covering his eyes with one arm, unable to believe the hellish predicament he had gotten himself into.

  Never. He could never make his midnight fantasies of her come true. He never should have allowed himself to harbor a thought of explaining his way into her bed.

  He had always considered himself an honorable man—and deceiving Marie into surrendering her innocence to him would be dishonor at its vile worst. It would endanger his mission, compromise his duty.

  And make him a despicable bastard.

  All in one heedless instant.

  Disgusted by his selfish behavior, he sat up, knowing he had to offer her some sort of explanation. “Chérie, I told you before that I’m not going to—Marie?”

  She lay with her eyes closed and made no response.

  “Marie?” A shaft of fear went through him. Had he given her too much of the drug?

  “Mmm,” she murmured, her eyes opening. “I…feel…sss-sssleepy.”

  Her slurred words and the glassy look in her eyes told him it was time.

  Mercy of God, time for him to begin questioning her.

  He was saved. Saved from having to explain to her why they couldn’t make love. Courtesy of Wolf’s and Fleming’s miraculous potion. One bit of deception had just rescued him from another bit of deception.

  He flicked a glance heavenward, feeling like hell.

  “Good, Marie,” he said soothingly, trying to ignore the tension still burning through his body and the emotions knotting in his chest. “I’m…uh…just going to ask you a few questions. Would that be all right?”

  “Questions…all…right,” she echoed. “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Yes. Now then, what is…what can you…”

  He looked at her lying there with a sweet smile on her passion-bruised lips, and the words lodged in his throat.

  He scrubbed a hand over his face. Come on, D’Avenant! Act, don’t think. You’ve bloody well proven you can do that.

  He clenched his fists. The sooner his mission was completed and their “marriage” ended, the better. The sooner he could get back to England. Back to his family, to his life. Forget that he had ever met her.

  Forget.

  He doused all the heat inside him with icy determination. “What do you remember about the chemical compound?” he whispered, leaning down close beside her. “Tell me, Marie. Tell me everything you know.”

  The Bastille had long ago earned its fearsome reputation. Within these dark walls any person, no matter how aristocratic, might disappear at the whim of the King or his ministers—never to be heard from again.

  At present, according to the gloating geôlier, the ancient dungeon played host to several officials who had fallen into disfavor, two inconvenient husbands of the King’s favorite mistresses, a half dozen authors and booksellers accused of circulating seditious works, and assorted forgers, spies, assassins, and poisoners.

  Not to mention one Armand LeBon.

  Who wasn’t sure which category he might fall into. Charlatan, wastrel, imposter, bastard, he thought bleakly. Any of them would apply.

  In the Bastille’s murky depths, it was difficult to tell day from night, but at the moment he didn’t care whether it was midnight or morning.

  Because he doubted he would live to see another sunrise.

  Perspiration marred his elegant ruffled shirt and silk brocade frock coat. He had loosened the lace cravat knotted around his throat. Sitting in a chair in his cell, he gripped the upholstered arm with one hand while his other hand rested on the satinwood table beside it, his fingers thrumming, thrumming, thrumming.

  Sacre bleu, hadn’t he expected this? Hadn’t he known from the very beginning that it would end this way? Yet an hour ago, he had actually felt surprise upon being awakened from his sleep by the geôlier’s rough nudge to his shoulder.

  “Message from the Rue des Capucins, m’sieur. They’re coming to see you,” the pockmarked little warthog had muttered, his breath as foul as his body odor.

  Armand didn’t need to ask who “they” were—or what they wanted. His gambler’s intuition, honed in some of the most cutthroat card salons in Versailles, told him that his luck and his charade had finally reached their end.

  He had been lucky indeed to make it last this long. It had been almost an entire month since the accident.

  He stopped thrumming his fingers and flattened his hand against the table, shutting his eyes. Luck. His ever-reliable good fortune had saved him that night when the carriage plunged over the hillside. He had been knocked unconscious briefly but otherwise escaped without a scratch.

  When by all rights he should have been the one who died.

  He let his head fait back against the clammy wall behind him, feeling an emotion even stronger than his fear: remorse. Grief. The sorrow had become a leaden cloak that hung on him day and night. In every dream and every waking moment, he kept seeing Véronique.

  Her smiles when she spoke of her beaux. The sparkle in her eyes when she teased her siblings. Her breathless excitement whenever he presented some inexpensive bauble from a shop in Paris or Versailles.

  The youthful, innocent way she had steadfastly believed that the future would be better for all of them.

  Gone. Forever.

  And it was his fault.

  He clenched his fists, choked by a fresh surge of pain. The guilt was like a constant, cold blade in his stomach. He would give anything—anything—if he could somehow go back to that day in Versailles when Chabot had first approached him. Go back and change everything. Starting with his own greed.

  His stupid, selfish greed.

  He came out of the chair with a jerk, pacing across the worn Aubusson rug to the barred door. He had been so blinded by the huge sum Chabot offered. Hadn’t paused to question who the man was or why he was interested in the fertilizer. Armand had taken the money, handed over the sample of the compound, and headed straight to the best tailor in Versailles.

  Thinking of himself. As always.

  He had been overjoyed at the prospect of restoring the LeBon family wealth. But sacre bleu, he should have been more concerned with restoring the LeBon family name.

  And honor.

  Stalking across his cell, he threw himself into the chair again, staring at the door. A new feeling settled over him, one he had never felt before: a cold resolve that almost might have been…courage.

  If Chabot demanded his life for the deception he had perpetrated this past month, so be it. A
rmand only had one sister left. He intended to protect her.

  No matter what price he might have to pay.

  He took a deep breath, tried to calm his pounding heart. He would do what he must. And he would not underestimate these men again.

  When he had first awakened to find himself in military custody, they had been so cordial and apologetic, offering their sympathies as they explained Véronique’s death and the fact that Marie had been hurt. She had suffered a head injury and amnesia but was being treated at the best asylum in Paris, they assured him.

  Chabot and his lieutenant, Guyenne, had personally escorted Armand here to the Bastille—for his “protection”—where they presented him with a fully stocked laboratory and a half dozen assistants from the university. All his notes and books had been destroyed in the regrettable fire at his country house, they said, and they needed him to reproduce the chemical. Quickly. They had used every last bit of the sample he had given them…but of course, he would create more, would he not?

  Armand had stuttered and stalled. They had called on his patriotism. Reminded him of the huge sum he would receive. Told him he would be rewarded by the King himself for re-creating this “work of genius.”

  Never guessing that he simply did not know a beaker from a balance scale.

  When he refused to cooperate, it took only a day for their pleasantries to turn into threats. He would pay with his life if he failed. And so would his sister.

  That had jarred him into action. He knew he had to keep Marie out of this. As long as they didn’t suspect that she was the scientist who had created the compound, they might leave her alone. Perhaps she would be able to escape from the asylum somehow. He knew his sister. If there was one thing she hated, it was any restriction on her freedom. Memory or no memory, she would be doing everything within her power to get away.

  So he had gone to work, explaining that the concussion he had suffered in the accident had left him somewhat confused, and without his notes, the process would be slow. They would have to be patient. Relying on the assistants and on what little knowledge he could fake from years of seeing Marie and Grandfather at work, he had managed a passable pretense.

  Until now.

  He slouched in the chair, trying to look relaxed. No doubt they had finally realized he was incapable of producing anything useful. Decided they would suffer no more of his “absentminded” ways. Knew he could not possibly be the one who had created the chemical.

  In an oddly detached way, he contemplated what they would do when he refused to give them the name of the real scientist. Thinking of Chabot’s cold blue eyes, he knew without question.

  Torture.

  He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, the sound echoing eerily off the stone walls and ceiling. He would have to give them a false name. Keep them off the scent as long as possible. Give Marie every chance to escape. But he couldn’t blurt it out right at the start. He would have to let them beat it out of him. Make it believable.

  As he sat in the elegant chair in the clammy cell, waiting, the irony of the situation actually made a grin quirk at his mouth. He had always longed to be the center of attention, to be sought after by the powerful and fashionable.

  What was the old saying? Be careful what you wish for, because you might get it.

  All his life, he had wanted to be admired…but he had never done anything truly admirable.

  Until now.

  But no one would ever know about this. Because he wouldn’t live long enough to tell a soul.

  Fate, it seemed, had a cruel sense of humor.

  He heard boots in the corridor and a key in the ancient iron lock. The door creaked open. He tensed.

  Chabot stepped inside, with Guyenne at his heels, both wearing perfectly coiffed wigs, immaculate blue-and-white navy uniforms, and sour expressions. Armand had noted that the young lieutenant never failed to imitate his superior in all things.

  Behind them came a dark-haired stranger Armand had not seen before. The man’s rumpled, dull brown garments looked strictly bourgeois—but his height, muscular build, and unnerving, flat stare gave him an imposing, threatening presence.

  Armand could guess his purpose. His heart gave a single unsteady thud before resuming its rhythm. Whatever happened here, he could not allow himself to make another heedless mistake that would bring further harm to his family.

  He shifted his gaze to the officers. “Chabot, Guyenne,” he greeted them with a pleasant, companionable smile. “I trust this is important. I feel certain I’m on the verge of an important breakthrough in my work, but if I’m to be roused from my bed at—”

  “Drop the charade, LeBon,” Chabot snapped.

  Armand kept his smile in place, relaxing into his chair. If he wanted to do Marie any good at all, he had to stay calm. “Charade?”

  “We’re here to discuss your sister.” Guyenne’s tone matched Chabot’s.

  Sacrément! Armand felt a sick twist in his stomach. Did they already know? “You bring news of Marie? How good of you to keep me informed, mes amis. Has her condition improved?”

  The two naval officers pulled up chairs, flanking him, while the stranger remained standing by the door—regarding him with an arrogant smirk that made the hair on the back of Armand’s neck stand up.

  “Her condition has changed, in a manner of speaking,” Chabot replied tightly. “She has been abducted from the asylum where we had her in safekeeping.”

  Armand sat up straight. “She what?”

  “She’s been abducted. Are you deaf?” the dark-haired stranger said from his position near the door. “She was taken three days ago. By the English.”

  The unexpected news sent Armand reeling. Marie! He turned toward the stranger, surprised by his slight accent.

  But of course—he should have guessed by the clothes, if not the attitude. The man had no style. No refinement. No manners. An abundance of arrogance. Clearly an Englishman.

  An Englishman working with the French. A turncoat.

  Mais alors! He fought to remain calm. “I do not believe I’ve had the pleasure, monsieur…?”

  “Holcroft,” he said silkily.

  “And why, Monsieur Holcroft, would the English be even remotely interested in abducting my sister?”

  “Perhaps because she is the scientist who invented the chemical compound,” Chabot spat.

  “While you,” Guyenne added, “are a liar and a fraud.”

  Armand looked from one to the other. “Mes amis, you wound me. Where could you have gotten such a ridiculous idea? Marie is a woman. She could not possibly—”

  “LeBon, you will cease wasting my time!” Chabot declared. “We know that your sister is the one who created the chemical. We know that the English have kidnapped her. We even know the name of the man who took her.”

  Armand laughed. “Really, Chabot, have you been consulting the crystal ball of some pretty Gypsy? How do you ‘know’ all of this?”

  “I’ve no need of a crystal ball. We’ve a far better source. Isn’t that right, Holcroft?”

  The Englishman came away from the wall, his stride as arrogant as his voice. “Indeed. You can believe what we say, LeBon. Our information comes from a most reliable informant.” His smile widened. “One of the two highest men in British Intelligence is a traitor, working in league with us.”

  Armand stared at him. His grin faded.

  Marie was out of the asylum, beyond Chabot’s reach—but in more danger than ever.

  “It took some time for this man to get word to us,” Chabot explained. “He had to be extremely careful about it. By the time the message reached us, an English agent—a man by the name of D’Avenant—had already taken your sister from the asylum.”

  “We immediately went to the house here in Paris where he was supposed to be in hiding with her,” Guyenne continued, “but they weren’t there. We have every gendarme in the city looking for them now.”

  The three men fell silent, and Armand felt one chill after another chas
e down his back. Marie was still here. In Paris. The quarry of two warring countries. The prisoner of some Englishman—and God only knew how the bastard might be mistreating her even now.

  And as for his own fate…

  “Why are you telling me this?” he asked quietly, abandoning all pretense at last. “Why am I even alive, since you obviously know I’m of no use to you?”

  “Ah, but you can be,” Chabot replied. “You see, we intend to get Mademoiselle LeBon back. If our men fail to locate this D’Avenant here in Paris, we will simply rely on our alternate plan.”

  “We know what route he’ll be taking to the coast,” Guyenne said. “We’ll be lying in wait…and we would like you to come with us.”

  “You can understand we would prefer to avoid shooting,” Chabot continued. “Since it might end with your sister getting injured. We would like you to convince her to come with us. Peacefully.”

  “Perhaps seeing you will bring her memory back. And as soon as she’s safely out of harm’s way—”

  “We kill D’Avenant.” Holcroft’s tone was all the more menacing for its mildness.

  “And return here to Paris with you and your sister,” Chabot concluded.

  Certainly, Armand thought, regarding them all with disbelief that he tried to conceal. He didn’t doubt for an instant that a stray bullet would find him the second he was no longer useful to them.

  And the thought of Marie being in their clutches—especially Holcroft’s clutches—wasn’t any more appealing than the thought of her being in D’Avenant’s clutches.

  “So, LeBon? You will agree to help us, of course.”

  He looked at Chabot. And what will you do if I say no? He didn’t bother to voice that question. When it came to the matter of his funeral, he would prefer to postpone rather than hasten the event along.

  And once he was out of here, he might have the chance to actually do Marie some good.

  “Yes,” he replied at last. “Yes, of course I’ll help you.”

  But that didn’t necessarily mean he intended to play by their rules.

  The feeling of sunlight warming his back and a book pressed against his cheek brought Max awake with a start. He raised his head, wincing at the kink in his neck, realizing he had fallen asleep at the desk in his study.