The roll slipped out of her hand and she had to fumble a moment in the blankets to keep it from unraveling over the side of the bed.
“I—I thought you said your memory was in a blur, m’sieur.”
“After Roth shot me. Before, however”—his fingers curled around a silky crush of blond hair and pushed it to one side, baring her nape—“everything is quite clear.”
She turned her head, intending to censure him, but that was a mistake. Their eyes, their mouths were level; strands of his dark hair had become tangled with hers to fashion a veil of gold and black threads between them.
“I even remember you kissing me by the coach,” he murmured.
“You remember it wrong, m’sieur. You were kissing me!”
“You invited it.”
“I was … merely attempting to express my gratitude. For the brooch. It is the custom in France,” she added, hastily turning her attention back to the bandages, “to thank someone in this way for a kindness.”
“Really?” His thumb stroked the downy softness along her hairline. “Then I would, indeed, be remiss if I did not thank you properly for all you have done for me.”
Renée froze as she felt his lips press into the sensitive hollow just below her ear. Her eyes quivered shut under the immediate rash of cool, tingling goose bumps that rippled down her arms and legs and it was all she could do to keep her knees from buckling beneath her.
“Please, m’sieur …”
“I am only trying to express my gratitude, mam’selle, as feeble an effort as it may be.”
The murmured words vibrated against her skin. His lips, dry and rough though they were, were also bold enough to shock her into twisting free. He remained sitting upright for a long moment, a lopsided grin on his face—a grin that rapidly turned to panic when he realized he no longer had her support. Renée was able to catch him as he fell back, saving him from the worst of the jolt, but the amorous bravado had cost him. His mouth went white and beads of moisture broke out across his lip and brow, and he did not move or speak again until she was finished tying off the ends of bandage.
“And so you have proved what, capitaine?” She reached for the washcloth with brisk efficiency and plunged it in the basin again. “That you would make love to me now and kill yourself in the process, just to demonstrate your virilité?”
“An interesting proposition, mam’selle,” he rasped. “You would naturally have to allow for some minor adjustments in technique.”
“Imbécile” she muttered. She wrung out the cloth and laid it across his forehead, then, fearful of the fever returning, drew the blankets high under his chin and forced him to drink another glass of water, this one laced with a healthy dose of laudanum.
For the hundredth time—the thousandth—she found herself wondering what manner of senseless whim had prompted her to hide the wounded highwayman in the tower room. To hide him anywhere, for that matter. She had the brooch and her miserable hoard of money. She could have been hundreds of miles away from Coventry by now. Perhaps even on board a ship bound for America. Capitaine d’Etoile was enterprising and resourceful and as she had suspected earlier, just too damned stubborn to die. Given no other choice, Robert Dudley could have found a way to carry him home. She should have insisted on it, but no. She was here, nursing a hunted man, threatening to melt into helpless little puddles every time he looked at her. Or touched her.
“I will have Finn bring you some broth. You must try to get your strength back, m’sieur, and then you must leave this place as quickly as possible.”
“Believe me, mam’selle, I have no more wish to remain trapped here than you do. As soon as Robbie returns, I will be off your hands.”
Renée said nothing and when he saw the dubious look on her face he scowled. “In the meantime, I would appreciate some clothes. And my guns. Where the devil are my guns?”
“They are here, m’sieur. Directly beside you on the floor.”
She leaned over, intending to produce one to set his mind at ease, but the motion was halted when his hand closed around a bunch of golden curls and pushed it back off her shoulder, baring the faded blue bruise that marked her jaw.
“How did that happen?”
“It … was nothing. A clumsy mistake in the dark.”
The backs of his fingers brushed lightly along her jaw and ended beneath her chin, angling it toward him again, his touch not quite as gentle as it had been. “You have not yet mentioned Roth’s reaction to all of this.”
“He was angry, naturally, that you escaped.”
Tyrone rolled his thumb carefully over the bruise. “How angry?”
When she did not immediately answer he drew a slow breath and his jaw hardened. “It seems I may just have to kill him after all.”
“Get well first, m’sieur. Then worry about who you may or may not wish to kill.”
His hand dropped down onto his chest and although she could see he was fighting hard to keep his eyes open, the laudanum was starting to take effect.
“I am sorry, Renée. Truly sorry for all the trouble I have caused and sorry for waving my guns and frightening you the way I did. Sorry for … doubting you. Most of all, I am sorry for keeping you here when I’m sure you would rather be anywhere else.”
His words were beginning to slur and on impulse, she leaned over and kissed him gently on the lips. “You are indeed a good deal of trouble, m’sieur, and I do wish I were anywhere else but here. But perhaps not entirely for the reasons you think,” she added softly.
“Can’t think,” he murmured. “Can’t see you either …”
“Because your eyes are closed.”
“Ah. That’s okay, then.”
The tightness around his mouth went slack and his entire body began to sag, as if everything of substance was draining out of him. His breathing slowed, became shallow and measured, easy in sleep.
Renée studied him a moment, and experienced a further moment of panic, for she wanted nothing more at that moment than for him to be able to sit up straight and strong and take charge again. She wanted him to tell her everything was going to be all right. Most of all, to her abject dismay, she wanted to crawl into the bed beside him and feel his heat surrounding her. She had felt warm in his arms, warmer than she had believed it possible to feel again. At the time, she had blamed it on the wild, careless madness of the moment—on the utter improbability of their paths ever crossing again or of her ever having to look him in the eye and acknowledge how badly she longed to share his sense of reckless passion.
She lowered her lashes and stared at her hands. They were still trembling and had been since he had first wakened and twined his fingers through hers. It was not going to be so easy to forget him, she feared—and not at all easy to walk away the next time, knowing she would never see him again.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
It rained all the next day. Torrents of it fell, washing out roads, bridges, turnpikes. Thunder and lightning came in sporadic bursts, accompanied by winds that bent trees in half and rattled furiously against the window-panes. Dudley did not make an appearance until the following afternoon, and then only to report that although the rain had stopped, the banks of the canal were flooded and it was impossible to maneuver a cart to the entrance of the tunnel. Renée had not reacted at all when she heard this. She had begun to resign herself to expect the worst, and when she heard it, at least she was saved having to weather another disappointment.
To his credit, Tyrone was genuinely angry at the further delay. He had behaved like a model patient throughout the first day, drinking as much broth as he could hold, taking bread and a few pieces of meat in an effort to rebuild his strength. He insisted on taking short circuits around the tower room, refusing by sheer dint of will to admit he was too weak to do so. When evening came, Renée found him sitting at the edge of the bed, his face drenched in sweat, his body shaking like that of a newborn foal. Antoine confided that the captain had insisted on climbing up and down the tower stairs, not
once but four times!
By the end of the second day, Antoine had carried up the chessboard, had stolen a plate of cold meat and cheese from the pantry, and provided Tyrone with shaving gear, soap, even an oiled cloth that he might clean and reload his pistols. Renée’s temper, so carefully held in check until then, had flared when she found him showing Antoine how to hold and aim one of the snaphaunces. She had chased her brother from the room and stood glowering at the captain, who had the fine sense to put the guns out of sight.
Just looking at him, brawny and handsome, with his unruly mane of black hair and crooked, careless smile, she should have guessed Antoine would be struck with a wide-eyed sense of awe. Here was the epitome of danger and adventure in the flesh. Tyrone Hart thumbed his nose at everything from social conventions to the laws of the land and to a young, bruised soul who had known only fear of authority, just being in the same company as the legendary Captain Starlight would have been enough to strip him of his sensibilities.
“You must not encourage him so, m’sieur. He told me you were recounting stories about your various exploits this morning.”
“I was only trying to pass the time,” he protested.
“Such time could have been put to better use resting,” she countered. “Look at you, m’sieur. You try to do too much too soon. The water drips off your hair! Vraiment! I vow if you invite your fever to return, the only one who will be listening to your stories is the tower ghost!”
To this point, Tyrone had been sitting with his head bowed and his arms bracing him upright at the side of the bed. At the sound of the threat, he tipped his head upward and gazed sheepishly through the shaggy mane of his hair.
“Be kind to me, mam’selle. I spent the latter part of the afternoon with your Mr. Finn. If his eyes were daggers I would have a thousand stab marks in my body and be mutilated beyond recognition. I gather he knows we were together in your room the other night?”
All the stiffness in Renée’s spine deserted her in a rush. “Yes,” she admitted quietly, “he knows.”
“He does not hide his feelings very well, does he? He made it quite clear I was thoroughly unworthy to touch so much as the hem of your skirt.”
“Finn has been very … protective since maman and papa were killed.”
“And so he should be. Your bloodlines alone should have been enough to curdle mine for even daring to look, never mind touch.”
The pinkness in her cheeks indicated he had touched a nerve and he sighed through an apology. “If I swear to do nothing further to corrupt the moral fiber of your brother or test the patience of your valet, will you stay and talk with me for a while?”
“My uncle is expected to arrive in the morning. I must—”
“Just a little while. The atmosphere in here is a tad too reminiscent of a former gaol cell for comfort.”
“So you have been in gaol before?”
“Once, in Aberdeen. It was a wretched experience I have vowed never to repeat. There, you see?” His mouth curved up at the corner. “If you stay and talk a while, you will discover all manner of things about me that I can tell you are bristling to know.”
“I hardly think I am bristling, m’sieur.”
“Not even mildly curious?”
She sighed with no small amount of exasperation. “Will you promise to lie down and rest?”
“Happily, mam’selle. If I could but have your steadying hand a moment—?”
She approached the side of the bed and he smiled again at the wariness written all over her face. “You and your Mr. Finn have more in common than you think,” he mused. “I should like to sit in the shadows sometimes and watch your face while a room full of pretentiously silly geese debate the shattering impropriety of serving a course of sweetbreads before fish.”
She assisted him to lie back down and fussed a moment straightening the blankets.
“Will you take more broth?”
He glanced at the tin pot propped over the brazier and grimaced. “No. Thank you. I have had enough broth today to launch a fleet of ships.”
“Do you require—?”
“No. I mean, no thank you. I made good use of my freedom while I was up.” A dark, thick lock of hair had fallen over his brow and in a gesture that was almost: boyish, he swept it aside and scowled. “Please … bring the chair closer. You keep moving it back into the shadows and I cannot see your face.”
The irony of the complaint was not lost on either of them and Renée almost smiled. “What need do you have to see my face, m’sieur? Surely you must be tired of it by now.”
“I would have to be dead to admit to that,” he answered. “And besides, it is your eyes I like to look at. They have this incomparable ability to call me a fool and rogue and a wastrel, yet always with such underlying tenderness, I am not without hope for redemption. Come. I promise no flamboyant displays of—of virilité. Not that you would have to worry anyway. Sad to say, I doubt I could rouse enough energy at the moment to impress a gnat.”
Renée dragged the chair a scant few inches closer to the bed and sat on the edge, her back straight as a post, her hands folded primly in her lap.
“Trés formidable” he murmured. “The same gnat would find more encouragement in a convent.”
“I am not here to encourage you, m’sieur.”
“No. And you do your job very well.” He sighed and pressed his head back into the pillows. He closed his eyes, carefully regulating his breathing to compensate for the persistent throbs of pain in his side, and when he raised his lashes again, Renée had left the chair and was wringing water out of a fresh square of linen. He watched her while she bathed his face, noting how her eyes were determined not to make contact with his, how the blush ebbed and flowed in her cheeks when the cloth touched his neck, then the top of his chest. Finn had provided him with a nightshirt, large and shapeless, but the laces had come undone during his repeated forays around the room and gaped open to the top of the bandages. The water was cool and her touch so soothing he almost wished he had a fever again so he could rid himself of the shirt and lie there guiltlessly naked.
For that matter, he wished they were both naked, with the candlelight gilding her hair and the blush warming her entire body.
She straightened and he cleared his throat. “You said your uncle is arriving tomorrow?”
“Corporal Marlborough brought a note from Fairleigh earlier today. M’sieur Vincent is anxious to make preparations for the—the wedding.”
He heard the catch in her voice when she said her fiancé’s name. He compared it to the way she had said his, on long, shivering breaths while her body had arched up beneath him and her hands had clawed into his thighs, urging him deeper into the silky heat.
He closed his eyes, resolved to honor his promise of just a few moments ago; an impossible feat if he had to stare at the luscious pink bow of her mouth much longer. Impertinence had always been one of his first lines of defense, and he fell back on it now.
“Have you not asked yourself why Edgar Vincent is willing to go to such lengths to marry you? And please, I mean no offense, for I am sure there are scores of men who would gladly marry you on a wink, most of them, if not as wealthy, certainly far more respectable than Vincent.”
“Perhaps it is that respectability he craves.”
“I thought so, too, at first,” he admitted.
“But then you thought there must be other heiresses, other daughters of English noblemen who could give him more respectability than a French émigré?”
He smiled at the faint edge of bitterness in her voice. “Never put words in my mouth, mam’selle. Especially if they are the wrong ones.”
“Are you saying there are no English heiresses who would be of more value to him?”
“English heiresses are as rife as apples in September. It is purely a question of suitability. Would your father have let you marry a fishmonger?”
“If I loved him, yes.”
Her answer—obviously not the one he ex
pected— came so quickly and so honestly, Tyrone was taken aback. But only for a moment. “He must have been a very unique member of the aristocracy. The only way an Englishman would allow such a travesty of social mongrel-ism would be if the fishmonger was as rich as Croesus and the peer was so deep in debt his toes were touching hell.”
“My uncle is in debt?”
“His estates are all heavily mortgaged. He has embezzled funds from the trusts and entailments to pay off his gaming debts, which are in turn, so steep they have fostered a separate wagering pool as to who, among his many creditors, will cut his losses and slit the old bastard’s throat in a dark alley one night.”
This was news to Renée, who had been given no indication her uncle was anything but miserly.
“But I have no money, no dowry. Would a man like Vincent not expect such a thing?”
“You underestimate the value of those good bloodlines, mam’selle. It is entirely possible the dowry has gone the other way in order for your fiancé to infuse a little noble blood into the veins of his heirs. As I said, that was what I assumed—before I discovered you had a brother lurking in the background.”
Renée sank back into the chair. “And now?”
“Am I correct in presuming Antoine is the current duc d’ Orlôns, regardless of whether the present government in France recognizes the validity of his claim or not?”
The subject Was rather personal and wholly unsuitable for discussion, but she managed a nod.
“Then marrying you—and please correct me if I am wrong—would be of little direct benefit to Vincent’s heirs, if there are any.”
“You are not wrong. The title passed to my father on the death of his father and brothers. Had the revolution not happened, papa would not have inherited at all— well, nothing more than a small portion of the estates— for he was the youngest of four brothers, and there were several sons born to the eldest and the title would have passed to them. Robespierre was very thorough, however, he eliminated everyone whose claim might supersede my father’s. It was his way,” she added quietly. “Especially if he thought he could manipulate the remaining heir by fear or threats of execution. Fortunes that might have otherwise been hidden or smuggled out of France were added to the treasury of the new republic in this manner. Titles could be forfeited on the stroke of a pen, but jewels and gold buried in the forest could not.”
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