The Courtesan

by Susan Carroll

  He wondered how Gabrielle came to be living here on her own in Paris, so far from her sisters and the Faire Isle. When her father, the Chevalier Louis Cheney, had been lost at sea, it was said that the knight had sunk most of the family fortune with him. So how then could Gabrielle afford to maintain this costly mansion?

  Remy knew what he had heard murmured in the streets about her, lies that even now caused him to grit his teeth and long to cut out someone’s filthy tongue. The most dazzling courtesan to descend upon Paris in many a day, the old woman in the wine shop had cackled about Gabrielle.

  Courtesan . . . a fancy name for a whore. If that hag had been a man, Remy would have run her through. By damn, he’d always hated Paris and this was but one of his many reasons. It was a viperous den of gossip from the palace to the backstreets, all scandalmongering and deceit. Small wonder that a woman as lovely as Gabrielle would become the target of such cynical and envious small minds.

  If they had but known Gabrielle as he had that summer, none would dare to slur her honor. A woman-child, striving so hard for sophistication and yet so touchingly innocent in the ways of the world. Warm and cold, kind and cruel by turns, her moods came and went like the wind. Her blue eyes could sparkle with laughter or be haunted with melancholy, but only when she thought no one was looking. He’d often glimpsed a sadness shadowing her face, an expression that had gone straight to Remy’s heart, the more so because he had never been able to discover the root of her sorrow.

  He only hoped Gabrielle was happy now. She had always dreamed of traveling to vast cities, living in a fine house, and enjoying grand parties and balls. The one thing Remy was certain she had never dreamed of was him.

  When he’d made the unfortunate mistake of hinting at the nature of his feelings for Gabrielle that summer on Faire Isle, she’d made it clear she wanted none of him and the sooner he departed, the better. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that Gabrielle would greet his return with such welcome arms, such fire on her lips. Her embrace had stirred desires in him, fantasies of her that he’d always been too wise to ever indulge. But he couldn’t stop his mind from running riot now.

  Could any woman kiss a man the way Gabrielle had done and feel nothing? Could she swoon with happiness at his return if she was as indifferent to him as she’d once claimed? Was it possible that she cared for him after all, maybe even loved him?

  And what if she did? a grim voice inside him demanded. You have no more to offer her now than you did three years ago, even less. The thought brought an abrupt halt to the mad hope flaring inside him, as effectively as if he’d been doused with cold water.

  “Captain Remy?”

  Remy had been so absorbed in his own reflections, he had failed to hear the click of the bedchamber door as Bette emerged. He straightened away from the wall at once, regarding the maidservant anxiously.

  “Gabrielle? How is she? Is she awake? I mean—has she—”

  “The mistress is fine.” Bette interrupted his harried string of questions in a soothing tone. “In fact, she is asking for you.”

  “Thank God.” Remy breathed in relief, his shoulders sagging as some of the tension melted out of them. He pressed Bette’s hand. “And thank you as well, mademoiselle.”

  “It is both my duty and my privilege to look after Mistress Gabrielle, monsieur,” Bette replied with a dignified sniff.

  “I know that. I meant thank you for intervening on my behalf earlier, not letting me be arrested.”

  “It is the footmen who should be thanking me. You looked quite wild at the prospect of being parted from my mistress and I remember your skill with a sword from the night the witch-hunters attacked Belle Haven. And you were then still recovering from your wound.”

  Bette’s face dimpled in a coy smile as her gaze swept appraisingly over him. “May I tell you, Captain, despite the fact you need a haircut and a shave, you look remarkably fit for a dead man.”

  Remy’s own mouth curved wryly. “You don’t seem all that surprised to see me still alive, mademoiselle.”

  She shrugged. “When one has been in service to a family of wise women as long as I have been, very little surprises one. Now you had best go in. Mistress Gabrielle is waiting.”

  Remy turned to the bedchamber door and opened it. He expected to have Bette hard at his heels, maintaining fierce chaperone over her mistress. He was surprised when the maid slipped away, leaving him to enter the room alone. Remy took a hesitant step inside, closing the door behind him quietly.

  The candlestick had been moved so that all light centered on the bed. The bed curtains were drawn, affording him a glimpse of the figure tucked beneath the costly brocade coverlet. Remy crept forward, his heart beginning to pound. He felt as uncertain as some raw peasant lad invading the bower of a princess.

  “Gabrielle?” he called softly. He reached for the bed curtain and drew it back.

  Gabrielle was propped up against the pillows and his breath stilled at the sight of her. Her hair spilled down over her shoulders in a halo of gold, framing a face that was pale except for a high flush of color spreading across her cheekbones. Remy had always been enchanted by Gabrielle’s beauty, the more so because it seemed to emanate from some intense light that burned within her, finding expression in the glow of her jewel-blue eyes.

  She was undressed, stripped down to little more than her shift and she peered up at him, clutching the coverlets high over her breasts in a way that was both demure and childlike, the gesture leaving Remy curiously moved. He experienced a strange urge to sink to his knees before her as he’d done that day on Faire Isle and renew his pledge.

  “I vow by my life’s blood to serve and protect you forever.”

  Instead he simply stood and stared at her until Gabrielle reached one hand up to him. Her soft, slender fingers curled around his, drawing him down to sit beside her. He sank on the edge of the bed. “You—you are well? You are recovered from your shock?”

  “Recovered? I hardly know.” She gave an odd choked laugh and continued to devour him with her eyes. “So I did not dream you. You really are here?”

  If anyone was dreaming, Remy thought it was him.

  “Yes, my lo—,” he replied, the word almost escaping him before he could prevent it, a word he’d never dared utter before, even to himself.

  Gabrielle did not seem to have heard. She tipped her head to one side, a tiny furrow appearing in her brow as she pursued her own line of thought.

  “And you have been alive all this time.”

  “If you want to call it that.” Remy cradled her hand, but Gabrielle slipped her fingers away from him, sitting up straighter.

  “I thought that you were dead.”

  “Er, ah, yes—” Remy began.

  But Gabrielle interrupted, her voice becoming sharp. “You let us all believe you were dead.”

  She screwed up her face like a little girl trying hard not to cry. Ducking her head, she disappeared behind her shimmering curtain of hair. Remy regarded her in complete consternation. He had never known the proud Gabrielle to weep, not even when the witch-hunters had abducted her sister and she’d been terrified for Miri’s life.

  “I am sorry, Gabrielle. Please . . . please don’t cry,” he murmured, seeking to brush her hair back.

  Gabrielle’s head whipped back. Her eyes blazed, not with tears, but with a fury hot enough to reduce a man to ashes on the spot.

  “I am not going to cry. I’m going to kill you!”

  Gabrielle doubled up her fist and cracked it into Remy’s jaw. The blow caught him completely off guard and sent him flying backward off the bed. He fell to the floor, sprawling on his backside, blinking as much from sheer astonishment as the force of the blow. Gabrielle fought furiously with the bedcovers, flinging them off. She leaped to her feet and stood towering over him like a wrathful goddess.

  “Bastard. You bloody bastard!” she cried. She stormed past him in a flurry of flapping night shift and bare feet.

  Remy ran his t
ongue over his bottom teeth, tasting a trickle of blood from his split lip, feeling stunned. As he struggled to his feet, Gabrielle paced up and down, rubbing her bruised knuckles and swearing, using invectives Remy was shocked to discover she even knew.

  All modesty was forgotten in her fury and she didn’t seem to realize that the candlelight rendered her fine lawn shift all but transparent, revealing the soft swell of her breasts to him, every womanly curve of her body. She might as well have been naked.

  The sight was a more formidable blow to Remy’s senses than the punch she had given him. Looking frantically for something, anything to throw over her, he seized upon the coverlet and yanked it free of the sheets.

  He came up behind her and wrapped the coverlet around her shoulders. “Gabrielle, calm yourself and let me see how badly you’ve hurt your hand. Give me a chance to explain.”

  Gabrielle flung the coverlet to the floor and smacked his fingers away from her. “What is there to explain? You’ve been playing dead for three years. Three God-cursed years.”

  She heaved with such indignation, her breasts looked in danger of entirely spilling out of her low-cut shift. Remy tried gallantly to avert his eyes, a struggle he was in danger of losing.

  “Where the devil have you been?” she shouted. “What have you been doing all this time?”

  Remy would have found it difficult to answer that question even without Gabrielle half-naked in front of him, looking as though she wanted to rip out his throat. Ever since St. Bartholomew’s Eve, his life had been a struggle to survive, to contain the horrors in his head, above all else to let himself hope for nothing, feel nothing. Within mere minutes, Gabrielle Cheney had managed to strip his heart raw again.

  “I—I have been out of the country,” he said at last. “Ireland, then England mostly.”

  “Oh? And they are having a parchment and ink shortage over there, are they?”

  “I was a fugitive again, Gabrielle, still alive only because my enemies thought me dead. It hardly seemed prudent to be sending letters.”

  “And there was no messenger you could trust to bring me word?” she asked with cold fury. “Or were you struck dumb as well? Something happened to your tongue, perhaps? From the way you were thrusting it into my mouth earlier, it seemed to be working well enough.”

  “Gabrielle!” Remy rebuked her, finding it almost profane for her to speak so crudely of the kiss they had shared. “I am sorry if you were distressed by the report of my death, but allow me to point out one thing, milady. From the way we last parted, you gave me very little reason to believe you would care.”

  Although she flinched at his words, she went on fiercely, “All right. I suppose that I didn’t. But what of my sisters? You must have known that Ariane had grown very fond of you. And—and Miri. She regarded you as the brother we’d never had. Do you know how many nights I comforted her while she grieved and wept for you? How many nights I—”

  Gabrielle broke off abruptly and flounced away from him. Even though she retreated into the shadows by the windows, he could see what she fought so hard to hide, that her anger was no more than a mask for the hurt she had endured. She had mourned for him all this time. She did care. But any elation Remy felt was swept aside by the realization of how much suffering he had inflicted upon her.

  Tears trickled down her cheeks. She was crying in a way that Remy doubted the proud, stubborn Gabrielle had ever let anyone see her weep before. And those tears were a worse reproof than any hard words she could have hurled at him. He approached her as carefully as he would have done some injured woodland creature likely to lash out or take flight.

  “Gabrielle. I am sorry if I caused your sisters or you any pain. I would cut off my right arm before I ever—”

  She whipped away from him, presenting him with the rigid line of her back. That treacherous shift slipped, baring one smooth white shoulder. Remy eased the fabric back up, his fingers brushing against her soft warm skin. He struggled manfully to ignore the effect that the feel of her had on his body.

  “There is one thing you must understand about me, my dear,” he said, placing his hands on her upper arms. She stiffened as he forced her gently around to face him. “I have lived a rough life, not accustomed to any of the softer influences.”

  Gabrielle kept her dampened lashes lowered, refusing to look up at him.

  “I never had a mother or sisters to worry and weep for me. Even my father is long gone and I have no other living relatives. Any friends I’ve ever had have been soldiers like myself who well understood the realities of our profession, that death always marches just a step behind. I am sorry for my thoughtlessness, but quite frankly, I am simply not used to thinking my life of any consequence to anyone.”

  “That—that’s because you are a very stupid man.” Gabrielle sniffed, but she relented enough to rest her forehead against his chest.

  Remy brushed a light kiss against the golden crown of her hair. “Forgive me?”

  She didn’t answer, but she melted against him in a way that was far more eloquent than any words, nestling her face against his shoulder. Remy’s arms wrapped about her, straining her close, holding Gabrielle in a way he’d always dreamed of doing.

  He felt as though he could have been content to hold her thus forever, but Gabrielle squirmed free, dashing aside the last of her tears with the back of her hand. She no longer appeared angry, but her tone was still aggrieved, as she demanded, “So exactly when were you planning to announce your presence? Why have you been skulking after me all evening?”

  “I wasn’t skulking,” Remy started to protest, then grimaced. “Very well. Perhaps I was. I have been waiting for an opportune moment to approach you and when I saw you set out tonight on some reckless errand, I felt I had no choice but to follow.”

  “To see what I was up to?” Gabrielle scowled.

  “Yes,” Remy replied, refusing to be daunted by her frown. “It was very imprudent of you, Gabrielle, to be out wandering in this cursed city alone at night, to visit some decrepit, abandoned house. What on earth were you doing there?”

  A mutinous expression settled over Gabrielle’s face and he thought she would refuse to answer him. Then she shrugged. “If you must know, Nicolas Remy. I was trying to bring you back from the dead.”

  “What?”

  “There is a witch who hides in that old house who is especially skilled in the arts of necromancy. We were holding a séance to contact your dearly departed spirit.”

  Remy gaped at her. For most of his life, he had been a plain and practical man, skeptical of anything that smacked of magic or superstition. But his experiences with the Dark Queen and the Cheney sisters had altered his simple views of the world forever. In particular, he had seen and learned enough from Ariane that summer on Faire Isle to make him react to Gabrielle’s calm pronouncement with horror.

  “Necromancy!” he exclaimed sharply. “That is black magic of the worst kind. What were you thinking?”

  “I was desperate. I had to see you one last time, to speak to you.” Her lip quivered and she bit down to still it. “To beg your forgiveness.”

  “Gabrielle, what have you ever done that I would need to forgive you for?”

  “I thought that I had gotten you killed.”

  “Gotten me killed?” Remy echoed in astonishment. “The massacre on St. Bartholomew’s Eve was none of your doing. Even if I had died, how could that have been your fault?”

  “Because I gave you back your sword, sent you away to Paris to—to die.”

  “You did not send me. I had to go. My king was in danger.”

  Gabrielle shook her head. “I should still have stopped you from leaving. I knew how attracted you were to me. I should have been kinder to you. I should have kept you safe on Faire Isle even if it meant holding you my captive. Even if—if I had to seduce you in order to do it.”

  “My God, Gabrielle!” Remy cupped her face between his hands and chided her. “Do you ever think that I would have allowed yo
u to do that? That I am the sort of man who would have so lightly set aside my honor and what is worse, have taken such advantage of your virtue? No, my dear, and what is more, you could never have behaved in such a fashion either. Your own sense of honor would never have permitted it.”

  “My honor,” Gabrielle echoed softly.

  “Yes, you were but an innocent slip of a girl, although the most beautiful one I’d ever seen.” Remy stroked her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. “I admit that I was fairly bewitched by you. But my duty to Navarre had to come first. No matter how much I cared for you, nothing could have been any different.”

  Gabrielle had gone very still beneath his touch. Curling her fingers about his wrists, she slowly pushed his hands away from her. “Yes, you are right,” she said dully. “Nothing could ever have been any different. Thank you for reminding me of that.”

  She drew abruptly away from him, leaving Remy with the dismayed feeling he’d just said something terribly wrong. He always had been a clumsy dolt when it came to any dealings with women and most especially Gabrielle. Instead of prating on about his duty, perhaps he should have told her how much he adored her, that leaving Faire Isle, believing he would never see her again, had been the hardest thing he’d ever done.

  But the expression that had settled over Gabrielle’s face was far from encouraging. Something had shut down in her eyes as she stalked over to her wardrobe and dug through her gowns and petticoats. He should have been relieved to see her seeking to cover herself up, but it was like watching her armoring herself against him. She selected a dressing gown of gold brocade that looked more costly than anything he could have earned by soldiering in a year.

  “So after all this time, what finally brings you back to see me?” she demanded.

  “I need your help with something,” he admitted reluctantly.

  “Oh?”

  “And—and I did want to see you again,” he was quick to add. That was putting it mildly. She had never been far from his thoughts or out of his heart these past years, but it seemed futile to try telling her that now. Not when the smile that she offered him was as cold and glittering as some distant star.