The Courtesan

by Susan Carroll

  Remy pressed himself between her thighs. Even through the folds of fabric, she could feel the hard evidence of his arousal bearing down on the soft core of her sex and the familiar flutters of panic took hold. She stiffened.

  “Remy, please. Sto—” Her words were smothered beneath the heat of his mouth as he kissed her again, his mouth both coaxing and demanding her surrender. He shifted his weight and started to ease up her skirt. Gabrielle’s panic flared to full-blown terror.

  Suddenly it was no longer the rugged planes of Remy’s face hovering over her, but the leering countenance of Danton.

  “No,” she shrilled, thrashing wildly to get away from him. “Stop it!” Not giving him a chance to respond, Gabrielle lashed out frantically, clawing to be free.

  Her heart pounded as she braced herself to feel her arms pinioned ruthlessly above her head, followed by the searing pain of his conquest. But the man braced above her froze for a second, then wrenched himself off her. His blurred features cleared, resuming the clean, hard lines of Remy’s face, his eyes roiling with frustrated desire and confusion. He backed away from her, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he sought to subdue his passion.

  Gabrielle sat up slowly, her cheeks burning with shame over her bout of near hysteria. Remy was not Danton. In her heart she knew that Remy would never seek to take any woman by force and that only made her response all the more irrational.

  Her fingers trembled as she worked her gown back up over her shoulder. She could not bring herself to look at Remy, realizing he must find her the most contemptible of jades, teasing, tempting a man to the brink, only to thrust him away. What was it Danton had called her that terrible day? A dishonest little slut.

  Remy must be furious with her and he had every right to be. But his voice was more raw with despair than anger. “I don’t understand you at all, Gabrielle. Am I that repulsive? You seem willing to make love to any other man in Paris. Why not me?”

  “Make love? Is that what you think I do?” Gabrielle gave a hollow laugh. “I survive. I endure. The only way I can ever tolerate bedding a man is to go through the motions, while I pretend that I am somewhere else.”

  And she knew she would never be able to do that with Remy. He was not the kind of man any woman could pretend away. He’d make her want, ache, and burn for him, but in the end she would shatter with her brutal memories of Danton.

  Remy studied her with frowning intensity as though waiting for her to explain further. But Gabrielle feared she’d already said too much. She fumbled with her lacings, getting them in a hopeless snarl. When Remy stepped toward her, she tensed.

  “I was only going to help you do up your gown,” he said, drawing back.

  “Well, don’t. We are both in danger of forgetting that our betrothal is to be in name only. I will belong to your king, so it is far better if you never touch me again.”

  “Very well. I—I promise. I won’t.”

  Rather than reassuring her, his promise inspired her with an unreasonable urge to burst into tears. The sooner she got herself out of here the better. Haphazardly finishing with her laces, she looked about for the straw hat she had lost earlier. She found it wedged between the foot of the bed and the wall, along with some of the garments Remy had discarded last night. She retrieved the crimson-lined cape, smoothed out its folds of midnight blue, and handed it to him.

  “You really ought to take better care of this. Satin doesn’t clean easily and that cape must have cost you a pretty penny. Where did you—” Gabrielle broke off as a horrified thought occurred to her. “My God, Remy. You and that Wolf friend of yours, the thief— You—you haven’t been . . . been . . .”

  “Picking pockets and waylaying innocent travelers? No.” Remy’s gaze still rested broodingly on her face. He tossed the cape down on the bed as though he could not care less about how expensive the garment was.

  She pressed him uneasily. “Then where did you get the money?”

  “I hired out my sword to some English barons.”

  “You were a mercenary. For the English.”

  Remy had always claimed that he loathed war, that he only ever fought in defense of his countrymen. Discovering this compromise of his ideals troubled Gabrielle more than the loss of her own innocence.

  “I see. So I am not the only one who has been selling myself.”

  Remy flushed. “I never looked at my activities in that light. I needed funds to help my king and unfortunately soldiering is the only thing I am good at.”

  “Just as seducing men is the only thing I—”

  “Don’t say that. Don’t you ever say that.” Remy started to grasp her shoulders, staying the gesture as he appeared to remember his pledge. Eyes dark with frustration, he fisted his hands and held them rigid at his side.

  “Damnation, Gabrielle, can you not forget all this bloody nonsense about becoming Navarre’s mistress? Let’s leave Paris. Now. Let me take you back to Faire Isle.”

  This unexpected offer astonished her more than anything else had. She did not think he could possibly be serious, but never had Remy appeared more in earnest.

  “But why—why would I ever want to go back to Faire Isle?” she faltered.

  “Because that’s where you belong. That is your home.”

  Home . . . Remy had no idea the images he evoked with that simple word, of the snug manor house nestled in the valley, smoke rising in lazy whorls from the chimneystack. Of the breeze that crept past her bedchamber window, stirring the bedcurtains and carrying with it the distant tang of the sea and sweet scents of Ariane’s herb garden. Of romping with Miri through the cool, mysterious shadows of the wood. Or sitting before the fire while Ariane patiently worked the tangles out of her hair.

  These pictures were so vivid, so real, it was as though Gabrielle had painted them on her memory when her magic was at its strongest. Preserved them in the leaves of her sketchbook, a book that she slammed closed.

  “I can’t go home,” Gabrielle said hoarsely. “Ariane—she—she wouldn’t want me there. She’ll never forgive me for coming to Paris, the things I’ve done.”

  “Of course she will. She’s your sister. She’ll forgive you anything.”

  “And what about you? Could you forgive me?” Gabrielle peered searchingly up at him. “If you whisked me away to Faire Isle, would you stay there with me?”

  Remy hesitated over his reply, but he didn’t need to answer. The regret in his dark eyes told Gabrielle everything she needed to know. She turned away from him, gathering up the tattered ends of her pride.

  “Never mind. Thank you for your kind offer, Captain, but I must decline. I am not looking for absolution or a way home. I am quite happy where I am.”

  “Gabrielle . . .”

  She ignored him, fearing that one word more might overset the icy grip she had on her emotions. Jamming her hat on her head, she strode toward the door.

  “I must be going.” She managed to toss Remy a cool parting smile. “And you really should see about finding a good locksmith.”

  Remy leaned out the window, craning his neck for the last view of Gabrielle as she made her way down the crowded street below. Even clad in that old gown and straw hat, she carried herself like a duchess and other women moved instinctively aside to let her past, while the men— They fairly snapped their necks, staring at her with naked appreciation and lust-filled glances.

  Much as all that ogling made Remy want to crack a few skulls, he could scarce blame other men for their reaction to her sensual beauty. Not when his own body still throbbed with such aching need, he could have pounded his fists against the wall in pure frustration. Or better yet, his head. Why had he just stood there like a bloody fool and let her walk out on him that way?

  Why hadn’t he been quicker to answer her questions? Could he forgive her? Would he have been willing to take her back to Faire Isle? Could he have forgotten the quest that had brought him to Paris and stayed there with her?

  Ah, that was the hitch. The part he’d
stumbled over and still did. Ever since St. Bartholomew’s Eve, the only thing that had sustained him, kept him sane, was his mission to rescue Navarre. He’d been a soldier all of his life, no home, no family. His duty and honor had been all he’d ever really had and he feared he had compromised the latter.

  It had stung when Gabrielle had accused him of selling himself, but she’d been right. He’d bartered his honor for English gold and now he was parceling off the rest of it by consenting to Navarre’s nefarious command. To be a husband to Gabrielle, but no husband. To don cuckold’s horns before he was even wed.

  As he watched Gabrielle vanish into the crowd, he could still hear the echoes of her astonished demand. “Why on earth did you ever consent?”

  Remy sagged wearily against the sill. His duty. That was what he’d told Gabrielle and he even managed to convince himself that was the reason before he wakened this morning to find her in his bedchamber.

  Remy gritted his teeth. If Gabrielle had to descend upon him unannounced, why couldn’t she have come in one of her fancy gowns looking all high and mighty? Why’d she have to go all soft and gentle on him, soothing away the nightmare and his ravaged pride? When she had caressed his ugly scars without flinching, her blue eyes so sweet and sad, she had reminded him of the girl who had fashioned his dreams for so long, the Gabrielle of their days on the island, the one she insisted didn’t exist.

  He’d known right then and there that it was no sense of duty that had made him promise to marry her. He’d agreed because he wanted Gabrielle more than he’d ever wanted any other woman in his life. If he hadn’t consented, he feared the king would have given her to someone else. And he couldn’t endure that—the thought of Gabrielle being another man’s wife, some unscrupulous bastard who’d only wed her for the sake of his own advancement. Who’d stand up with her before God and pledge to love, honor, and cherish her, never meaning a word of it.

  And you would? a voice inside him mocked. The way you tried to cherish her earlier? Remy’s gaze flicked to the rumpled bed and he flinched with shame at the memory of how he’d flung Gabrielle to the mattress and all but ripped off her gown. He’d never had a great deal of finesse as a lover. His couplings had always been with camp women, hot, hard, and quick, a swift satisfying of a mutual lust.

  He’d imagined that he’d be different if he had ever been fortunate enough to have Gabrielle in his bed, slow, tender, and patient, carefully overcoming her maidenly modesty.

  Modesty? Remy’s lips curved wryly as he remembered how hotly she’d kissed him, digging her nails in his back, just as fiercely passionate. At least in the beginning, until that sudden look of fear had descended over her face. Nay, more like terror when she shrieked at him to stop, then struck out at him as though she feared he wouldn’t. As though she actually thought he might try to force her.

  Remy frowned, picturing the way her hands had shaken as she’d dragged her gown back up over her shoulder, the tremor in her voice.

  “Make love? Is that what you think I do? The only way I can ever tolerate being in bed with a man is to go through the motions and pretend I am somewhere else.”

  She had looked nothing like an accomplished courtesan in that moment. The bleak expression in her eyes triggered a memory. Of the devastation he’d seen on other women’s faces in the aftermath of some battle or siege that had spared their lives but taken their souls. Women brutally ravished by soldiers drunk with bloodlust.

  Was it possible that Gabrielle had ever been— The mere thought of such a thing was enough to make him sick with rage. Because if he ever got his hands on the bastard, he’d cut him apart by inches until the miscreant begged to die.

  His hands clenched as though he already had his hands around the villain’s throat. Remy had to force himself to relax. For all he knew there was no such man and nothing had ever happened to Gabrielle. He might well be letting his imagination run wild.

  But one thing he was sure he hadn’t imagined. No matter what Gabrielle declared, she was deeply unhappy with her life as a courtesan and this so-called glorious future as a royal mistress she had planned for herself. The woman needed rescuing even more than his king.

  But there would always be a major impediment to helping Gabrielle and that was Gabrielle herself. How the devil did a man even begin to play knight-errant to a woman who swore she didn’t want to be saved?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Gabrielle wandered down the bustling street, still reeling from her encounter with Remy. The stubborn pride that had enabled her to walk out the door with her chin held high had long since deserted her. When she blundered headlong into a stout matron, the woman jabbed Gabrielle with the corner of her marketing basket.

  “What’s the matter with you, young woman?” she snarled as she skirted round Gabrielle. “You’d best get your head out of the clouds and heed what you are doing.”

  “Sorry,” Gabrielle mumbled. Heed what she was doing? It already seemed a little late for that. She had just agreed to marry Nicolas Remy out of sheer defiance.

  But it would never happen, she assured herself. The next time she saw him, she would tell him she had no intention of going through with such a farce, that he and his king could both go and be damned. Except that some wistful part of her kept wondering what it would be like to be Remy’s bride if things had been different. If there had never been any Danton, any Navarre, any Dark Queen. If she was still an innocent girl . . .

  She would have been married on Faire Isle, wearing a simple gown, fashioned of soft blue cloth by weavers on the island. Ariane would have lovingly arranged a circlet of flowers in her hair while Miri danced around them, unable to contain her excitement. Even though Gabrielle was the daughter of a Catholic knight and Remy a Huguenot, differences of religion would not have mattered on Faire Isle. They would have exchanged their vows in the glade behind Belle Haven, sealed with a tender kiss.

  She would have given Remy a wedding gift, a scabbard that she had etched with fire-breathing dragons to remind him of the day he had pretended to be her knight in the woods. And that night when she surrendered her virginity, Remy would have been so patient and gentle. Their desire for each other would have been beautiful . . .

  “Oh, wake up, Gabrielle, and stop this idiotic dreaming,” she told herself fiercely. Damn Nicolas Remy! Before he exploded back into her life, she had at least been sure of her ambitions and her destiny. But he had confused her, made her long for things that were lost to her; her home, her innocence, her magic . . . her love.

  Her love? Remy?

  Gabrielle came to a dead halt in the middle of the street. A merchant clattering by on horseback cursed out a warning. Gabrielle leapt to one side to keep from being trampled, flattening herself alongside one of the shops. Her heart beat wildly, but not so much from her narrow escape as from the thought she could no longer suppress.

  She was in love with Remy.

  No, she cared about him. She considered him a friend, that was all.

  What a terrible liar you are, a voice inside her mocked. You’ve been in love with that man ever since the day he knelt at your feet and vowed to protect you forever.

  Gabrielle shook her head, still wanting to deny it. How could she possibly be in love with a man who . . . who was only every woman’s dream of valor and chivalry? Who was so confident in his own strength, he was not afraid to be gentle. Whose honesty shone as bright as polished armor among the corruption she had found at court. A man who did his best to keep the promises he made, a man, who, unlike her father, would always be there for his wife and family.

  Unless, of course, it happened to conflict with Remy’s duty to his king. It was good to remind herself of that, otherwise she would be crushed by regrets for what could never be. She was no fit bride for Remy, not the sweet, patient, kind lady he deserved. She was sharp-tongued and quick-tempered, cynical and devious, her virtue tainted beyond any hope of redemption.

  But even knowing that hadn’t been enough to stop her from falling in l
ove with him. Gabrielle closed her eyes, giving way to despair before rousing herself with a brisk shake. There was only one thing she could do for Remy, and that was to keep him safe, which meant driving him as far away from her as possible.

  In the meantime, she was going to have to convince Catherine she had succeeded in her seduction. God forbid the Dark Queen should ever guess how Gabrielle, the noted courtesan, absolutely shattered at Remy’s touch. And she was going to have to work on Navarre. While usually the most easy-tempered of men, occasionally Henry did remember he was a king and could be cursed stubborn when he took an idea into his head.

  Gabrielle was going to have to charm Henry out of his notion to marry her off to Remy, stop him from participating in Remy’s dangerous escape plan, persuade him to order Remy to leave Paris. Of course then, Remy truly would hate her.

  “Oh, lord, Ariane,” Gabrielle thought bleakly. “How did my life become such a tangled-up disaster?”

  More than ever did Gabrielle wish she could go to Ariane and pour out everything to her. Her sister had such a calm, clear-eyed way of seeing things, a wisdom that Gabrielle had never fully appreciated until now. But there was no sense longing for the impossible, whether it was Ariane’s love and forgiveness or Remy’s.

  Gabrielle heaved a deep sigh, feeling more alone than she ever had been in her life. She desperately needed to talk to someone, preferably another wise woman. And there was only one person she could even come close to calling a friend here in Paris.

  The Maison d’Esprit was a different house by the light of day, not nearly so dark and sinister as much as sad and neglected. This time it was not the dog, Cerberus, who greeted Gabrielle with a snarl, but Finette.

  The maidservant pounced upon Gabrielle as soon as she set foot in the decaying hall. Arms locked over her scrawny bosom, she barred the way with a fierce scowl.