When the robe was belted snugly about her waist, she turned and stared into the barrels of the guns again.
“Are they absolutely necessary, m’sieur? As you must have clearly seen, I have no weapons.”
There was another pause, followed by a soft, husky laugh as he tucked the snaphaunces beneath his coat. “I would not be too sure of that, mam’selle.”
His laughter caused another flush of warm sensations to ripple through her body, and she pointed at the night-stand. “May I light the candle again?”
“No. I like it fine the way it is.”
“That you should know me, but I not know you?”
“An unfortunate necessity in my profession.”
For the second time that night, she found herself asking, “You do not trust me?”
“No.” After a pause he added, “Is there any reason why I should?”
“I have hired you to commit a crime,” she said slowly. “Does that not make me un complice?”
“An accomplice? Only if you stand up in court and confess that you hired me. Otherwise it is your word against mine—if I am caught—and my word, I’m afraid, does not carry much weight with the local magistrates these days.”
The wash of warm prickles she experienced this time went all the way to her knees, leaving them perilously unsteady. “Do you have any objections if I sit down?”
“As it happens, I was going to invite you to do just that.”
The only available seat, aside from the bed, put her directly in the beam of moonlight and she recognized the disadvantage at once. If she thought about it, of course, there was not much about this unplanned meeting that was not appallingly to her disadvantage. She was alone in her bedroom, in her bedclothes, with an armed and dangerous man who thrived on flaunting convention. Rape, she imagined, would likely not strain the dictums of his conscience, nor would the use of violence to get what he wanted.
With the skirt of her wrapper belling softly behind her, she went back to the window and took a seat, noting that he moved as well, guarding against the possibility of any reflected light betraying his features.
“And so, m’sieur, have you thought about our arrangement and reconsidered?”
“Have you?”
“No,” she said calmly. “I have not changed my mind. If anything, I am even more determined to see this thing done and leave this England of yours far behind.”
“You dislike our country, mam’selle?”
“I have found nothing here to commend it, m’sieur. The weather is foul, the people stare and whisper and act as if I am here to steal the food off their plates.”
“You do not seem to be lacking too much in the way of creature comforts. Harwood House is not exactly a stew.”
“Que signifie-t-il... stew?” she asked with a frown. "It is food, is it not?"
“Also another name for a brothel. A place where strumpets sell their wares to the highest bidder.”
There was a serrated edge of sarcasm to his voice, and it sent yet another rush of nervous flutters through her body. That he knew the name of the manor came as no surprise; Roth had said the highwayman was familiar with the parish. It stood to reason, then, if he knew the name of the house, he most assuredly knew who owned it.
She ran the tip of her tongue across her lips to moisten them.
“Perhaps to you it looks respectable, but the rooms, the furniture, the bedding always smell of mould and mustiness. There are beetles in the kitchen and mice in the walls; the windows are cracked and the wind howls through at night bringing in the rain and dampness. My toes, my fingers have not been warm since leaving Calais.”
She realized too late it was a shockingly guileless invitation for him to inspect the slender and very bare feet that peeked out from beneath the hem of her wrapper. She held her breath a moment, wondering as she did, if Finn had returned from the stables yet and if so, would he hear the low murmur of their voices as he passed by her door? With her visitor’s next words, however, she forgot her feet, forgot Finn, forgot everything but the two cocked pistols that were no less a threat for not being visible.
“Perhaps you have been looking in the wrong places for heat and succour. The Fox and Hound, for instance, is hardly where one might expect to find such creature comforts … unless of course, you stopped there seeking a more immediate form of heated gratification.”
Renée stared at the shadow within the shadow and felt the blood drain to her feet out of sheer foolishness this time. If he had followed her home, it was only logical to assume he had seen her stop at the inn. And if he was but a fraction as clever and resourceful a thief as he was reputed to be, he would undoubtedly have discovered why she had stopped and who she had met.
Though she willed herself not to react outwardly, inwardly she was one thudding heartbeat after another. She wanted desperately to bolt for the door, but she knew she would never make it. Similarly, she wanted to look anywhere but at the looming shadow in the corner, but she could not seem to tear her eyes away from him. She dared not. He was waiting for her response and if she gave him the wrong one she was quite certain his reaction would be swift and violent. The warning he had given her on the hillside came back to her in a rush, and she knew it to be true: He would not hesitate to wring her neck if he thought she was lying to him.
“You seem to have gone to a good deal of trouble, m’sieur, just to refuse me my request.”
“Only fair, since you seem to have gone through a good deal of trouble to make it. And like you, I prefer to communicate any information I have—good or bad—face to face.”
It was an odd time to do so, with her heart pounding and ice flowing through her veins, but she thought of the jungle cat again. Sleek, black, and deadly, it had prowled constantly from one end of his cage to the other just hoping for some sign of weakness in the bars, some flamboyant indiscretion on the part of the onlookers that would bring one within range of the razor sharp claws.
“You are referring, of course, to my meeting with Colonel Roth,” she said quietly. “No doubt you are curious to know what we discussed.”
The silence stretched past half a minute, then a minute. She was suffocatingly aware of his intense scrutiny, and somewhere in the pit of her stomach, butterflies were starting to beat their wings and fly in panicked circles.
“Do go on, mam’selle,” Tyrone invited quietly. “You have my full attention.”
She bit her lip nervously before she complied. “We discussed you, of course. He is quite obsessed with the idea of capturing you. In fact it—it was his idea that I meet with you tonight. Everything,” she admitted, “the robbery, everything was his idea in the beginning. He ordered me to ride out tonight, as he had on the three previous nights, with instructions for me to make contact, to appeal to your mercenary nature, or, if need be, your— your ’cavalier sense of self-indulgence’—those were his exact words—whichever I thought would be more likely to succeed in winning you over to my cause.”
Renée saw the seemingly casual movement as he folded his arms across his chest and propped a shoulder against the wall. “Dare I ask which one you felt was more apropos?”
“To be perfectly honest, m’sieur: neither. Almost everything I told you was the truth.”
“Almost?”
What she said next, the sound of the words themselves coming out of her mouth, was as strange and startling to her as if she were sitting at a distance, hearing someone else speak. The idea, the outrageous notion, had been there all along, lurking at the back of her mind, but to actually say the words, and to say them with such astonishing confidence …
“What I did not tell you, m’sieur, was that although the colonel may think he is being clever and cunning using me this way, it is I who hope to be able to turn this trap he wishes to set for you … against him.”
Again he said nothing through a long, throbbing pause, and somewhere out in the darkness a dog began to bay at the moon. It was a hollow and mournful howl laden with scorn for all
of man’s more foolish machinations, prime among them being the thought that Renée d’Anton could place her fate, and very likely her life, in the hands of a thief, a murderer, a phantom of the mist.
Tyrone Hart was not a man given to overt displays of emotion. He prided himself, for that matter, on his ability to show absolutely no reaction whatsoever, be it rage, contempt, hatred … or surprise. In this instance, however, he was grateful for the darkness, for he was certain his eyes had widened and his jaw had gone slack and his face had warmed a shade or two beyond ruddy.
He had come to confront her about her meeting with Roth at the inn, but he had not expected her to admit it so casually, nor to neatly turn the tables by suggesting it was her intention all along to double-cross the colonel.
If Dudley had been standing there to give him advice, Tyrone suspected it would be to climb out the window and ride away without looking back, and frankly, he could think of no logical reason not to do exactly that. It had not required a smack in the head with an iron pan to figure out the French minx had been part of some elaborate trap from the outset—for the two thousand pound reward if nothing else. Equally obvious to him was the likelihood that the jewels did not exist and that the coach she wanted him to stop would be carrying a swarm of eager Coventry Volunteers with their muskets primed and loaded.
Just because the invitation had come wrapped in satin and moonlight did not mean the devil had not sent it.
Devil indeed. He had not known what he had expected to discover hiding beneath the cloak and shadows, but a tangled waterfall of silvery curls had not been of the first order. Nor would he have foreseen legs as long as sin, skin as pale as moonlight, and everything displayed before him in a shape-molding wisp of silken nothingness that had had a distinct effect on the way his blood had altered its course through his veins. Even now it was difficult to keep his thoughts focused above her chin, and harder still not to acknowledge the heat that was building in places that should have been able to show better restraint under the circumstances.
“I must confess, mam’selle,” he murmured finally, “you have left me somewhat bereft of words.”
“It is quite simple, Capitaine. I still wish to hire you— for the amount agreed upon—to steal the rubies.”
Tyrone gave in to the temptation and contemplated the shimmer of cloth where it molded around her breasts. Five of his six senses were warning him against listening to anything more she had to say. It was the sixth, located somewhere in the region of his groin, that imprudently encouraged him to let her go on.
“I am still listening, mam’selle.”
Very deliberately Renée unclasped her hands and positioned them on the arms of the chair. It was madness, pure and simple, and if Finn were here, he would tell her so to her face, sparing nothing in the way of deference to her gender or social rank. He would point out, quite emphatically and quite rightly so, the sheer insanity of trusting a rogue and freebooter. Nor would he hesitate to mention the thousand and one things that could go wrong, the very least of which would be Roth discovering her duplicity.
But what if this rogue and freebooter could do it?
He was obviously not afraid to take risks, not afraid of the night or the shadows. He was cunning and clever and handsome—yes, he was handsome behind all that darkness, she had determined it must be so. He was also bold and daring and probably as eager to humiliate Roth as Roth was to see him caged and humbled.
What if he could really do it?
“Colonel Roth has great respect for your skill as an adversary, m’sieur, and it would appear to be well deserved. This was something I did not realize until tonight. In truth, I thought you were nothing more than a common, petty thief who had merely been lucky in managing to elude capture thus far.”
“Is that an attempt to flatter me, mam’selle?”
“Flatter you? No, m’sieur, I only wish you to know that I agreed to do this thing in the first place because I believed you were petty and common, and that you would be caught eventually, if not with my help then surely someone else’s. Two thousand pounds is a great deal of money to someone who does not have two livres to spare.”
“It still is.”
“Yes,” she conceded, “and I would not blame you if you walked away and never looked back.”
“The urge, I will admit, is quite strong. I would have to have a damned good reason to ignore it. And an even better one to believe or trust anything you say from here on out.”
He was right. Of course he was right. Renée could scarcely believe what she was saying herself, let alone that she should be convincing enough for him to believe her. And yet, if there was the smallest chance it could succeed, it would be worth the risk, would it not? She was so tired of being afraid, so tired of being pushed and pulled and bullied and threatened. She was tired of seeing the haunted look on Antoine’s face, tired of finding him cringing beneath the bed or huddled in a corner waiting for the next person to betray him. Tired of feeling like crawling into a dark space herself.
“I agree completely, m’sieur,” she said quietly. “We must be able to trust each other before we can go any further.”
Without taking her eyes off him, she rose and took several tentative steps toward the shadows where he stood. When she was as close to him as she dared go, she reached up and very deliberately gathered her hair in two glossy fistfuls, pushing it into a haphazard mass on the crown of her head.
Shutting her eyes, she tilted her chin up and exposed the slender arch of her neck. “You did warn me, did you not m’sieur, what you would do if I lied to you again?”
Tyrone’s throat swelled shut. She was a glowing, gossamer figure bathed in the shimmering moonlight, and she was close enough to touch. With her arms raised, the sheer fabric of her robe molded snugly to the underside of her breasts, drawing his attention to just how lush and full and infinitely touchable they were. With her fair coloring, he knew her nipples would be as pink as a blush, the skin supple and smooth and warm. Even more tantalizing— and when he saw it, it was all he could do not to come out of his own skin—was the tiny heart-shaped mole that rode one soft white swell, rising and falling with each shallow breath, teasing him with dangerous thoughts of other luscious secrets that might be hidden in the pearly shadows.
If the devil had indeed sent her, he was a canny old bastard, Tyrone thought, for he had not been tempted with such a succulent offering in a long time.
He was quiet and still for so long, Renée risked a peek through her lashes. Seated with her back to the light, her eyes had gradually adjusted to the darkness, and whether it was because of this or because her robe was reflecting some of the light, creating its own glow to penetrate the shadows, she could see vaguely defined contours of his face. The topmost collar of his greatcoat was no longer raised like a shield to hide his features, and his jaw appeared to be square and clean-shaven. His eyes were wide and deep-set beneath an unbroken slash of dark eyebrows, his nose straight and firm, and although it was impossible to prove by these few blurred impressions, he was handsome. Shockingly, dangerously handsome.
Something stirred against Renée’s sleeve and the butterflies in her belly took a sharp swoop en masse downward. His hand had plucked a few hanging strands of her hair, and he was watching the sparklets of moonlight dance off the gleaming threads as he fed them through his fingers. At some point he had removed his gloves, and she could see his hands were masculine and well formed, with long tapered fingers. One of them, she suspected, could crush more flesh and bone than two of Roth’s, with half the effort.
Once, twice he wound the curl around the palm of his hand, drawing so close she could smell the lingering scent of leather and horseflesh that clung to his greatcoat. When the slack and the distance between them was taken up, he paused. His long fingers stretched out to touch the bruise at the juncture of her jaw and neck, and, almost as an afterthought, he traced a feather-light line from her ear down to her collarbone. There, he followed along the collar of her
robe, pausing to edge it aside so that his thumb might caress the dark blush of the mole and verify it was real.
His hand radiated heat like the intense warmth from a candle flame held too close, and she was aware of her flesh responding. There were tremors racing through her belly and the skin across her breasts had tightened with each careless stroke. Her nipples had risen taut and erect beneath the satin, their impertinence as obvious as the quivering folds of her robe where the satin shivered and shimmered around her legs. She had struck a brazen pose, hoping to assure him of her sincerity, but instead she was melting in waves, trembling like a loosely set syllabub inside and out, and if he did not say or do something soon to ease the tension, her knees were likely to buckle beneath her.
“I do not recall seeing any other lights on this floor,” he murmured. “You have no maid?”
She had to swallow before she could answer, and even then the words came out dry and thready. “Finn has a room across the hall. The—the housekeeper and the rest of the servants are all in the west wing.”
“All of them?”
She stared at his hand. No more than the width of a drawn breath was separating it from her breast. The palm and fingers had already assumed a curved shape, as if he meant to cradle her flesh to test the firmness and weight, but at the last possible instant before contact, he lifted it away, and his thumb retraced the route from her breastbone to her collar, up to where the fine blue veins below her ear betrayed the erratic flutter of her pulse.
“There is no one else?” he asked again.
The thought came on a rush of hot and cold sensations: Did he know about Antoine? Was this a test of her commitment to the truth?
Before she could debate the wisdom of answering one way or the other, he was leaning closer, his breath warming her ear. “This Mr. Finn of yours … is he a sound sleeper?”
It was then, between one heartbeat and the next, before the last breath and the one not yet taken that she remembered something else she had told him—something she had declared so offhandedly he might think it meant nothing to her. She had told him she was no longer a virgin, and that no price was too steep to pay in order to win her freedom.
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