A Scoundrels Kiss

by Shelly Thacker

  Nanette smiled. “The fresh air will help your convalescence. Though you already have a new glow in your cheeks, madame. Especially this morning.”

  Marie felt a flush of warmth. Could the older woman tell? Perhaps it showed in her face, in her eyes, the intimacy that she had shared with Max last night. The fact that she was different today. That she knew all the exquisite secrets of the boudoir.

  “Y-yes,” she agreed finally. “I’m feeling much…better.”

  Better didn’t begin to describe what her husband had made her feel with his touch and his kisses. The direction of her thoughts made her blush deepen.

  Nanette curtsied. “I am glad your health is improving, madame. I wish you an enjoyable journey and a pleasant stay in the countryside.”

  “Yes, I’m sure it will be most pleasure—I mean pleasant.” Her cheeks afire, Marie covered her mouth with her hand before she could say anything else. Dieu, what was happening to her? One night in bed with her husband and she could no longer control her thoughts or her tongue.

  Max came out the front door of the town house, talking to Perelle, carrying a large leather satchel under one arm. He wore the black greatcoat and tricorne again, the clothes emphasizing his height, the breadth of his shoulders, the fluid way he moved. Marie felt her stomach and her heart both make odd little flips.

  He and Perelle stopped a few paces away. Max handed the butler a coin purse, shook his hand, then came striding toward the coach.

  Despite all her uncertainties, Marie couldn’t help smiling. “Good-bye, Nanette.”

  “Bon voyage, madame.” The maid curtsied to Max as he went by. “And to you, monsieur.”

  “Thank you, Nanette.” He nodded to her and signaled to the driver, then swung up into the coach and shut the door behind him.

  He took the seat across from her as the vehicle jolted and started moving forward, the wheels clattering over the cobbled street as they sped away. Marie waved farewell one last time, watching the town house grow smaller as they quickly left it behind.

  She felt an unexpected rush of sadness. For a short time, this had been her home.

  The only one she could remember.

  And already it was gone.

  Max leaned forward to shut the curtains over the windows. “Sorry, Marie, but we have to be very careful about being seen. At least until we’re out of Paris.”

  “Yes, of course. I understand.” She smiled at him tentatively, feeling that no matter where they went or what the danger might be, he would keep her safe.

  She waited, expecting him to say something more about where they were going. About last night.

  About how he felt about last night.

  Instead, he opened the curtain over his window a fraction and looked intently outside, his other hand on the leather satchel beside him.

  Marie shifted uncomfortably in her seat, not sure how to act or what to say. She felt as if what they had shared last night had changed her, in ways she couldn’t begin to explain—but he seemed unaffected. Apparently, he didn’t think the subject required any discussion.

  Of course, she reminded herself, the two of them had probably enjoyed such pleasure many times in the past. It was nothing new to him.

  But it had seemed completely new to her.

  She felt her gaze drawn to his mouth, to his hands. The blush in her cheeks spread lower as she remembered the incredible sensations he had lavished on her last night. Just thinking of it brought a rush of melting warmth to every part of her that he had touched…and kissed. Her whole body felt sensitive, her corset and pannier uncomfortably restrictive, the tips of her breasts chafed by the lace and fabric covering them.

  She couldn’t stop looking at his left hand as it rested on the polished leather satchel. Couldn’t stop remembering the gentleness and strength of his long fingers, the magical way he had seemed to know her body so well.

  As if he felt her regard, he turned to look at her just as she lifted her gaze to his face. Their eyes met and held.

  Her heart fluttered. She glimpsed a spark in his gaze, the same one she had seen last night, the smoke that became fire. Neither of them moved. Or blinked.

  “Did you enjoy your breakfast?” he asked, so quietly it was hard to hear him.

  She couldn’t breathe.

  “Yes.”

  His gaze held hers a heartbeat longer, then slowly traced over her, from her lips to the deep bodice of her green gown right down to her slippered toes. For a moment she thought, sensed—knew—that he was about to reach for her, to pull her across the scant distance between them and into his arms.

  But he didn’t.

  He returned his attention to the window. “I’ve hired the coach to take us all the way out of Paris. We’ll stop at a village to the south and continue on horseback from there.”

  Marie felt as if he had doused her with cold water.

  But perhaps this was the way it was supposed to be between husbands and wives. Perhaps it was inappropriate to speak by day of the intimacies that took place by night.

  But she felt hurt. “I see.”

  “It’s important that you stay with me every minute, Marie. No wandering off on your own to explore. All right?”

  “Yes.”

  He still didn’t look at her.

  Another possibility presented itself, one that pained her more than the others. Maybe he was displeased with the way she had acted last night, the way she had pleaded for his touch and then responded so eagerly and completely.

  He had said when they arrived that he didn’t want to pursue his husbandly rights until her memory came back. She also remembered what Nanette had told her: a wife was always supposed to be modest and demure.

  She had been neither in Max’s arms.

  But she couldn’t remember how to be modest and demure. The feelings she had for Max were so strong that she had simply expressed them—in a way that had seemed quite natural and wonderful at the time.

  She lowered her gaze to her lap, feeling embarrassed and foolish. She had assumed she now knew all the secrets of the boudoir, but clearly there was a great deal about the experience that she didn’t understand in the least.

  All she knew was that what they had shared had made her feel closer to him.

  And she wanted him to feel closer to her.

  The coach rushed onward, the wheels and the horses’ hooves making a rhythmic clacking against the cobbles. But in the plush interior, the silence stretched out until it felt like a wall had sprung up between his side and hers.

  She wrestled with the words bubbling up inside her. She wanted to be a good wife, to do as her husband wished, but it was difficult.

  How could she do as her husband wished if she didn’t know what he really wanted or how he felt?

  It was a simple, logical question.

  And it demanded an answer.

  Marie feared she was never going to be modest or demure.

  She gazed down at her left hand, at the gold band gleaming on her finger. “Max,” she began, “I would have enjoyed breakfast more if I could have shared it with you.”

  “I’m sorry, Marie. I left early and I didn’t want to wake you.”

  His tone was steady and smooth, but there was something about his voice that disturbed her. She wasn’t sure what—only that he sounded different from the way he had sounded last night.

  “Max?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you think my memory will ever come back?”

  “Yes, Marie. We just have to give it…” He paused for a long moment. “Time.”

  “But I-I don’t really mind anymore.” She lifted her gaze. “That I’ve lost my memory, I mean.”

  He turned away from the window, looking at her with surprise. “Why not?”

  She took a deep breath. “Because it…it makes every moment with you, every time you…kiss me, every…touch…feel like it’s the very first time. It gives me the chance to…” She almost lost her courage, then said the rest. “Fall in love
with you all over again.”

  He didn’t say anything, but the coolness about him vanished, replaced by a surge of emotions in his eyes—wonder, longing, confusion—that looked very much like what she was feeling.

  “I-I may not remember anything else,” she whispered, “but I remember one important thing now, Max. I remember what it feels like to love you.”

  His mouth opened, but he didn’t speak. Words, it seemed, were beyond him at the moment. Marie felt breathless with hope.

  Perhaps he wasn’t displeased with her after all. Maybe what they had shared last night had affected him as deeply as it had affected her, and he simply couldn’t express it.

  The rest of her fears and questions spilled over. “Max, I’m…I’m almost afraid to get my memory back now.”

  He tensed. Again she had the powerful sense that he was about to reach for her.

  But again he did not.

  He clenched his hand tightly over the leather pouch beside him. “Why, ma chère?”

  “I’m afraid that…” She swallowed hard. “That if I remember everything that happened before the accident, I’ll lose everything that’s happened since. If the ‘old’ Marie comes back, what…what happens to me? What happens to the new Marie?”

  “The new Marie,” he said hoarsely, a dusky swirl of emotions in his eyes, “is not so different from the old Marie.”

  “Then I’ll always feel this way?”

  He let go of the satchel, moving to her side of the coach and pulling her into his arms. He held her tight and brushed a kiss through her hair. Marie wrapped her arms around him, pressing her cheek against his chest.

  “Yes.” His voice sounded ragged and deep, just as it had last night. “We’ll always feel this way…as long as we’re husband and wife.”

  His rough words flooded her with relief and joy. Her troubling questions vanished like clouds floating away to reveal the sun.

  She could hear Max’s heart pounding hard. As the coach sped through the streets of Paris, she found that she didn’t even mind anymore that he hadn’t yet told her where they were going.

  They had all the time in the world. It didn’t matter where they went. As long as they were together.

  Armand LeBon had never before set foot in the town of Loiret. The village south of Paris, with its sleepy, quiet air, wasn’t the sort of place he usually frequented. As afternoon faded into evening, a handful of peasant farmers talked in the market square, while servants and bourgeois housewives ambled toward home, their baskets laden with the day’s purchases along with baguettes, cheeses, and jugs of wine for supper. The town shepherd had just brought the communal flock in from the meadows for the night, and his bleating, fluffy parade jammed the narrow streets for half an hour.

  The shops began to close. A few tradesmen made their way across the square to the town’s large inn with its mullioned windows, timber-framed plaster walls, and thatched roof. A curl of smoke drifted from the chimney up into the red-gold sky, and Armand almost swore he could smell roast meat and baking bread every time the door opened, though he was a hundred yards away.

  His stomach growled. He sat among a group of about thirty men gathered on the stone steps around the village well. The steps formed a broad terrace leading up to the watering place—which was actually a splashing fountain that boasted a statue of Louis IX in the center. Here as in other small towns throughout France, the central well served as the traditional place for talk and trade. Those present this afternoon included travelers, townsmen…and a few who were not what they appeared to be at all.

  Dressed as humble merchants from Paris, Armand and his three companions halfheartedly took part in a heated discussion about how many of Loiret’s young men should be sent to join the militia. Mainly they kept their gazes trained on the roads leading into the village.

  All in all, Armand thought as he focused his attention on the inn, Loiret was a picture of bucolic peace and charm. Almost like something out of a childhood storybook.

  Not a very good place to die.

  He swallowed hard as another coach entered the village. At least a dozen vehicles had come and gone today and the day before, none carrying his sister. He was beginning to wonder whether Holcroft could be mistaken about D’Avenant’s route. What if the “reliable” information the turncoat claimed to have was incorrect?

  Dieu, Marie might already be halfway to England. Might be suffering unknown torment in her captor’s hands.

  And here he sat, accomplishing nothing.

  The coach pulled to a stop in front of the inn, and the driver hopped down from his seat to open the door for his passengers. He reached up to assist a lady dressed in a fashionable shade of green. Her features were concealed by a hooded cloak.

  Armand felt a nudge in his ribs.

  “Is that her?” Chabot sat beside him.

  Armand shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  It was impossible to see the woman’s face, but the stylish garments, the fact that she accepted the driver’s help, the way she tread lightly on slippered feet didn’t seem like Marie at all.

  “Make sure.” Chabot surreptitiously handed him a tiny brass spyglass, a miniature version of the kind used aboard ships.

  Armand slouched lower on the step and tipped his tricorne to one side. Keeping the spyglass concealed within his palm, he trained it on the coach. Guyenne waited silently on his other side, Holcroft behind him.

  He adjusted the lenses to bring the woman into focus just as she turned to wait for another passenger—and he caught a glimpse of her face.

  Marie!

  A jolt of surprise and relief shot through him. It was her! She was all right! She was here! She was—

  With the English spy.

  A tall man garbed in a black greatcoat and tricorne stepped down behind her.

  “Is it her?” Chabot whispered urgently.

  “I’m not sure,” Armand lied. “It’s hard to tell with that cloak.”

  “You’re telling us that you don’t recognize your own sister?” Guyenne hissed.

  “I’m telling you that I can’t see through solid cloth,” Armand shot back. He adjusted the spyglass. “Give me a moment. It could be her.”

  It was her. He had to get her out of here. Away from that Englishman—and away from Chabot and his lethal associates.

  His heart pounded against his ribs as he studied Marie’s abductor, gripping the spyglass. D’Avenant wasn’t at all what he had expected. He had imagined a swarthy, villainous-looking hulk of a man. Or perhaps someone with dead eyes and a cold sneer. Like Holcroft.

  This fellow looked almost civilized. As D’Avenant paid the coachman, Armand could make out handsome, almost aristocratic features. He appeared the very picture of a nobleman on holiday, with his elegant leather satchel and traveling clothes. The Englishman glanced around the square with a sharp eye—paying an extra second’s attention to the group of men gathered around the well—then took Marie’s elbow with a familiarity that made Armand’s empty stomach clench.

  “He matches the description I received,” Holcroft said silkily, studying D’Avenant through his own spyglass.

  “LeBon?” Chabot demanded. “Have we found our quarry or not?”

  Armand shrugged. “They look more like a newly wedded pair on their honeymoon,” he muttered.

  He almost choked on that fact.

  The truth of it hit him like a fist: Marie wasn’t trying to get away. She didn’t object to D’Avenant’s hold on her arm. She even smiled up at him as the coach pulled away, then covered his hand with hers.

  It was all Armand could do to stifle an exclamation of surprise and disgust. Sacrément, what kind of despicable game was this bastard playing with his sister?

  And how had the Englishman transformed fiercely independent Marie into this…this compliant, fluttery-eyed female? Amnesia or no amnesia, what Armand was witnessing amounted to an astonishing display of feminine affection from a woman who had always been a solemn, logical scient
ist devoted only to her work.

  Armand didn’t even want to guess how the change had come about. His sister was a complete innocent in the ways of men. Easy prey. He clenched his jaw, feeling a furious urge to put a bullet in D’Avenant on the spot.

  Unfortunately, Chabot hadn’t allowed him to carry a weapon.

  He reminded himself that he had to play this very, very carefully. One mistake might get both himself and his sister killed.

  “Whoever they are,” Holcroft observed, “they’re going into the inn.”

  “Perfect,” Chabot said. “I suggest you go and take a closer look at the woman, LeBon. If it is your sister, speak to her and persuade her to come along quietly. I’ll give you twenty minutes to bring her out of there.” He signaled to his men. “After that, we’re coming in.”

  A dozen soldiers—all garbed in civilian clothing, muskets hidden beneath their cloaks and greatcoats—detached themselves one by one from their positions around the square and among the crowd at the well. They moved swiftly to surround the inn.

  “Chabot…” Armand tried to keep his voice steady. “I seem to recall that you said there would be no shooting. I thought we brought these men along only as a last resort.”

  “And they are.”

  “We don’t want the mademoiselle injured,” Guyenne assured him.

  Holcroft checked his pistol. “Her companion, however, is another matter.”

  Armand could feel the traitor’s eagerness. Holcroft couldn’t wait to kill someone. The man’s amoral motives had become disturbingly clear over the past two days: he was a born killer, he loved the hunt, and the only prey he considered worthy of his talents was human prey.

  Forcing a smile, Armand handed the spyglass back to Chabot. “I don’t suppose you’d like to give me a gun before I go in there?”

  “Do you actually need to ask that question?”

  “Didn’t think so.” Armand rose, chilled by an unnerving premonition that there was a bullet with his name on it looming in the all-too-near future.

  “Remember, LeBon.” Chabot stealthily drew his own weapon. “Twenty minutes.”