A Scoundrels Kiss

by Shelly Thacker

  She fell silent, clearly doing just that.

  His heart pounded so hard he felt light-headed. He ignored the unsettling dizziness, tried to sit up, but managed only to pull himself higher on the pillows. He had one chance here, one advantage—and only now did he realize it.

  She was very much like him.

  She responded to problems by thinking them through, step by rational step, according to the rules of logic. If he could present her with enough facts, facts that she couldn’t deny…

  She would come to accept the truth. She would have to.

  “Marie, I’m not a professional spy. British Intelligence only approached me for this mission because of my scientific background and my skill with a pistol. And because of what happened to Julian. I was expendable to them. I wasn’t even their first choice. I had never done anything like this before.”

  Her gaze flicked around the room again. “All right,” she said slowly, grudgingly, “perhaps that’s true.”

  Hope tightened its hold on him. “I accepted because of what happened to Julian. Because I wanted to save lives, potentially thousands of lives—”

  “And because you wanted vengeance.”

  Sharp pain shot through his chest, and he couldn’t tell if it came from his wound or from the hurt that had suddenly pierced her cool facade.

  “Yes,” he admitted reluctantly. “At first. All I knew about you was that you had created this chemical and sold it to the French navy. I thought you were some kind of heartless scientific mercenary who was only interested in profit. You were supposed to be the enemy. I expected to hate you. I tried. But I…”

  His voice choked out and for a moment he couldn’t continue.

  “Right from the beginning,” he said hoarsely, gazing at her across the room, “there was something about you. Something…sweet and gentle and caring. I started to suspect that you weren’t what I had been led to believe. And then I started to question what I was doing. I realized that your brother was the one who had forced you into creating this weapon for—”

  “You realized what?” She blinked at him in disbelief.

  “I realized that you never would have created a weapon intended to kill thousands. That your brother forced you into it. He was the one who made the deal with the military—”

  “Armand didn’t force me to do anything.” She came away from the door at last, a flash of anger in her expression. “And it wasn’t created to be a weapon at all! I would never purposely create something so destructive. Never. Even if someone held a pistol to my head.” She abruptly halted a few paces from him, as if realizing she had gotten too close. “It seems, my lord, that you’ve completely misunderstood what it is you’ve been chasing after all this time.” She crossed her arms. “A fertilizer.”

  He stared at her blankly. “A what?”

  “A fertilizer! I wasn’t trying to create a weapon. I was trying to create a fertilizer. To end the famines in France. To save lives! It wasn’t until my field test went terribly wrong that I realized it had destructive properties. And Armand didn’t seek out the military. He was trying to secure financial backing in Versailles. He didn’t realize who they were when they first approached him. They had apparently learned of my field test, and after they used the sample he gave them, they wanted more. They followed him to our manor and we tried to escape but…”

  She started shaking, covering her eyes with one hand, obviously trying not to cry.

  He knew the rest. The carriage accident. Her head injury.

  Her sister’s death.

  He had never felt so low or so frustrated in his life as he did in that moment, longing to go to her, to wrap her in his embrace and comfort her while she sobbed out her grief.

  But he couldn’t even find the strength to reach for her.

  And she didn’t give in to the tears. After a moment, she raised her head, clenching her fists at her sides.

  Yet she couldn’t stop trembling. Her facade of cool and calm was crumbling rapidly. “So you see, my lord, you had everything wrong. And it doesn’t matter that you weren’t a professional spy. You didn’t have to be. Because I’m such a naive fool I made it easy for you to—”

  “It was not easy, Marie. Nothing about this was easy. I tried my best to carry out my duty and do what was honorable but—”

  “Honorable?” she choked out. “You kidnapped me, tricked me, and deceived your way into my bed. Which was the honorable part?”

  “None of it! Damn it, that’s what I’m trying to tell you! I don’t even know what honor is anymore. You wreck my logic like no woman I’ve ever met in my life. I kept telling myself I could carry out the mission I’d been assigned and then go home and forget you. But it was a lost cause from the moment I first held you in my arms—”

  “But that didn’t stop you. Nothing stopped you. You kept lying to me. Kept playing your role perfectly. And I tumbled right into your plans! I gave you everything. I told you I loved you. I practically begged you to—”

  She cut herself off and looked away, but from her furious blush, Max knew she was thinking about their first time in bed together in Paris.

  And the stormy night in the shed.

  And their last passionate encounter in the leather chair at the cottage. Only two days ago.

  “I was such a fool,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. “But when you’re twenty-three and you’ve lived your whole life in the country and you’ve never even been kissed by a man before—” A sob broke from her as she admitted that. “And you’re very plain and a man who…who’s tall and handsome and charming comes along and tells you you’re special and beautiful…you believe him.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Because you want to believe him.”

  Max shut his eyes, wishing the bullet had killed him.

  Better that than to live to see how much he had hurt her.

  “Marie…” His voice was rough with anguish. “That’s not how it was. I didn’t set out to seduce you. Don’t you remember? I insisted on separate bedrooms. I did everything I could to avoid touching you—”

  “Yes, you were very careful to make it all convincing.”

  “I wasn’t trying to convince you of anything! I was trying to fight what I felt—”

  “But you were so madly attracted to me that you couldn’t resist?” she asked with a self-deprecating laugh. “Do you really expect me to believe that? I don’t have amnesia anymore, my lord. I know exactly who and what I am.”

  He clenched his jaw, remembering the first time they had spent the night together in bed, in Paris. She hadn’t believed then that she was pretty or desirable, and she didn’t believe it now. She couldn’t see herself as he saw her.

  And if he tried to tell her, she would only think it was a lie.

  “I didn’t want this to happen,” he said quietly. “I didn’t plan for it to happen. I never intended to fall in love with you, but I did. And I still love you.” He stared directly into her eyes, trying to make her believe by sheer force of will. “I’ll always love you.”

  She flinched as if he’d struck a nerve. “What is the point of clinging to that lie?” She looked angry enough to hit him. “What good will it do you now?”

  “Obviously it isn’t doing me a damn bit of good. But it’s the truth. I love you.”

  “How can you love me when you don’t even know me?” She backed away from him, turned and walked over to the windows. “I don’t even know myself anymore. And I certainly don’t know you!”

  “You’re right, I don’t know you—not the ‘real’ Marie. I only know a gutsy, independent, brilliant lady who risked her life to save mine, who cares more about others than she does about herself, who would rather go around barefoot with her hair down than wear silks and jewels, and who loves chocolate more than champagne.” He couldn’t catch his breath. “And I don’t know myself anymore, either. Because when I look at you, words like honor and duty lose all meaning and it’s been that way from the start. If you could read the letter I
gave you—”

  “It’s missing. It’s gone. And I wouldn’t believe it anyway.” She stared out the window, refusing to look at him. “You convinced me once before that you were in love with me—and you didn’t mean a word of it. You gave me tokens of your love then, too. The portrait of the two of us together. The jeweled combs that you said were your wedding gift to me. The white roses that you said were my favorite. A black-and-white dog named Domino. And it was all a sham.”

  He couldn’t reply. He was guilty on every count. There was no defense.

  “And then there was our supper al fresco.” Her voice broke again. “I’ve had lots of time to think about our romantic night under the stars.” Her gaze cut to his. “There was something in my wine, wasn’t there? You drugged me to try and get the formula.”

  He could feel hope being ground to dust inside him. “Marie, I’m sorry. I know that doesn’t help right now, but I’m sorry. I’ve done a lot of things I regret in the past weeks—”

  “You regret them?” A single tear slid down her cheek. “Not nearly as much as I regret them, I assure you.” She suddenly turned from the window, stalking back toward the door. “I’ve heard enough, my lord. I only agreed to see you so that I could ask one question.” She stopped with her hand on the latch, her back to him. “At the inn in that small village south of Paris,” she asked unsteadily, “what happened to my brother, Armand?”

  Max felt a cold nausea assault him. Bloody hell. That was one transgression that he’d dared hope she wouldn’t ask about.

  He had shot her brother. Perhaps killed him. The last surviving member of her family.

  Her question was like a desert wind that blew away the last scattered dust of his hope.

  But he owed her the truth. He answered flatly, honestly, stating the wretched facts without embellishment. “I used smoke devices to cover our escape. There was a lot of confusion when I set them off. I let him go and turned to follow you—but he grabbed my gun. It went off. He was hit, and he went down, and after that…I couldn’t see through the smoke. I don’t know what happened to him.”

  She stood utterly still for a moment, her back straight and stiff.

  Then she slumped against the door as if something inside her had given way. “He might be dead.” Her voice was an anguished whisper. “You might have killed him.”

  “It was an accident—”

  “You have an explanation for everything, don’t you, my lord?” she sobbed quietly. “You’ve taken everything from me. Everything.”

  He felt a burning in his eyes, in his throat, her tears scalding what was left of his heart and soul. This was the moment he had known would come, the one he had dreaded. The end. The end of all they had shared and all they would ever share. She was going to leave without even looking at him again.

  But instead she did something utterly unexpected.

  Turning on her heel, she stalked back toward him. Closer than before. For an instant, he thought she might finally slap him. He braced himself for it.

  But she didn’t. Of course she didn’t. Wouldn’t. Not his gentle Marie.

  She stopped next to the bed, holding out her palm to hand him something.

  It was the ring he had given her. The wedding band.

  “You told me one true thing,” she whispered shakily. “In the shed during the storm. The woman is the one who feels the pain.”

  His vision blurring, he stared at the circle of gold, refusing to take it. “Marie…two days ago you said that nothing could change your love for me. Two days ago. There must be some shred of that feeling left. If it had all been destroyed, you would have left me to die when you had the chance.”

  “I wouldn’t have left any human being to die.”

  “Some part of you still loves me,” he insisted desperately.

  “No.”

  He raised his head. “Look into my eyes and tell me that,” he challenged.

  She lifted her glistening dark gaze to his.

  And did as he told her.

  “I don’t love you.”

  Before he could say another word, she threw the ring onto the table beside his spectacles.

  And ran out the door.

  The grandfather clock at the end of the hall chimed midnight as Saxon paced up and down the corridor. He had drawn middle watch enough times aboard ship that he was used to getting by on little sleep, but middle watch had never been quite like this.

  He stopped for a moment, holding his daughter snug against his bare chest, listening. Little Jacinda wasn’t making the restless, disgruntled sounds anymore. Her breath felt light and even against his skin. She was…asleep. At last.

  With a tired but pleased sigh, he tiptoed back into the nursery.

  He settled her in her cradle, handling her like fragile, precious porcelain, and bent to brush a kiss through her wispy golden hair. For a moment, he stood looking down at her, smiling as the lamplight glowed over her round cheeks, her tiny hands, her ebony lashes—her mother’s lashes.

  He brushed a fingertip over the curve of her face, his sea-roughened hand looking impossibly large and dark against her delicate skin. That he could feel this much love and pride and protectiveness for someone so small and new still astonished him at times.

  A whisper sounded behind him. “I think our Jacinda misses your ship.”

  He glanced over his shoulder, smiling at his wife, who stood in the door joining their room to the nursery. “You’re supposed to be asleep, mahila veer. It’s my turn on watch tonight.”

  Ashiana’s blue eyes sparkled with tenderness. “She’s four months old now. She’ll soon learn to sleep through the night without the rocking motion of the Lady Valiant,” she said hopefully.

  He turned down the lamp and quietly crossed the chamber. “It’s difficult for a D’Avenant to be landlocked. Especially one who was born at sea.” He slipped an arm around Ashiana’s waist and she rested her head on his shoulder.

  For a moment, they stood gazing at their child, their sense of wonder all the deeper for being silent and shared.

  “Sometimes,” Ashiana whispered, “I wonder how it’s possible that I could have such happiness in my life. How the gods managed to bring you to me across half a world.”

  He led her back into their room, silently closing the nursery door, leaving it open just a bit. “I’m not certain about celestial influences…” He lifted his wife’s left hand, twining their fingers together, and kissed the deep-red rose tattooed on her wrist. “But I’ll be forever grateful to Emperor Alamgir the Second for giving you to me.”

  Smiling, she sighed. “I’m grateful for so much in my life, I only wish…”

  She didn’t finish the thought, but he knew what was troubling her. Because it was the same thing troubling him. “You wish that Max would be able to share this kind of happiness with his lady scientist.”

  Ashiana nodded. “I’ve been thinking that it’s much the same as with you and I—that they’re meant for each other. That the gods have brought them together despite all the distance and differences between them, for a reason…but I’m afraid Marie is not going to forgive him.”

  “You forgave me for various beastly behavior.”

  She gazed up at him with love sparkling in the sea-blue depths of her eyes. “We forgave each other for a great many things.”

  He dusted kisses over her cheek, her neck, found an exquisitely sensitive spot where her jaw curved into her throat. “It’s a good thing that you proved to be a failure as an assassin.”

  “Mmm.” She smiled. “A very good thing, mere pyaar.” Her mouth sought his and they kissed deeply, long and slow.

  Lifting her in his arms, he carried her to their bed.

  But even as she slid between the rumpled sheets and waited for him to join her, her voice took on a familiar, musing quality. “If only we could find the letter Max wrote to Marie…”

  “My men didn’t find it when they searched the cottage.” He took off his dressing robe and tossed it over one of th
e padded brocade armchairs in front of the hearth.

  Ashiana shook her head. “She wouldn’t have left something so personal out in the open. She may have hidden it somewhere. It requires one to think like a woman…specifically, a woman in love.” She rolled onto her back, looking up at the canopy. “I might be able to find it.”

  Sitting on the bed, Saxon braced his arms on either side of her. “Ashiana, Fleming is still unaccounted for, and I don’t want any member of this family going near the cottage.” He used his most commanding tone. “You are not to consider for one second doing anything that might be dangerous.”

  She gazed up at him with a wide-eyed flutter of her lashes. “When have you ever known me to do anything dangerous?”

  “Only at every available opportunity,” he replied with a pained smile. “You are the adventurous sort, meri jaan—and marriage and motherhood haven’t tamed you in the least.”

  “I could bring along some guards,” she pointed out. “And it wouldn’t take long. And I do want to see Nico.”

  “Nicobar is doing just fine. I told you, the local veterinarian stitched the wound in his shoulder and feels certain that he’ll recover completely.”

  “But the local veterinarian is used to dealing with horses and sheep—not tigers.”

  He tilted up her chin on the edge of his hand. “Ashiana, the answer is no,” he said seriously. “I forbid you to go.”

  She gave him a frustrated, mutinous look and muttered something he couldn’t quite make out.

  Something about a club.

  He slid beneath the covers and stretched out beside her. “I’m sorry to be such a tyrant, meree mahila veer.” Slipping an arm around her waist, he pulled her toward him. “But where the safety of my family is concerned, I will not compromise. I must insist that you obey orders.”

  “Obey orders?” she sputtered, trying unsuccessfully to wriggle out of his arms. “Stubborn, unyielding…sometimes, Englishman, I do not think you have changed very much at all.”