A Proposition for the Comte

by Sophia James

  Her hand came up and she stroked the skin on his cheek, cradling his face. ‘I did not...before.’

  The yearning in her words made him sad.

  ‘Let me take you to a luncheon tomorrow at Wake’s. It is a private hotel in Brook Street.’

  He should not ask this, he knew, after her refusal for his hand in marriage. His personal life would always be overshadowed by his professional one and any vulnerability would be noticed. But he wanted for once to feel...normal. A man who might take his woman somewhere beautiful and elegant and discreet, to dine together as if no demons lapped at their heels.

  ‘I would like that.’

  A log in the fire shifted, sending sparks across the back of the grate, and they both looked over at it.

  ‘When I was young I used to imagine fairies lived in flame. My mother had hair the same colour as mine and she told me that they did.’

  ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘She died in childbirth along with my baby brother. He was called John.’

  ‘And your father?

  ‘He married again shortly after. I think my new stepmother wished it was only Papa and her in the marriage for I was ten at the time and...difficult.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘In all the ways a girl might be who had just lost her beloved mother. They sent me off to boarding school in Bath and after that I was seldom home.’

  ‘So you were lonely?’

  When she shifted position a lock of her hair fell across the side of her face. The colour always surprised him and he lifted the curl of it away from her eyes.

  ‘“It is observed that the red haired of both sexes are more libidinous and mischievous than the rest, whom yet they may exceed in strength and activity.”’

  She smiled and watched him directly. ‘Where is that from? I think I have heard it before.’

  ‘Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Summerley Shayborne and I devoured that book at school. I think he might be right, by the way.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Swift. You are libidinous and mischievous and strong.’

  ‘Aurelian.’

  ‘Yes, Violet?’

  ‘Make love to me again.’

  ‘Ah, my red-headed libidinous lady, that I will.’

  * * *

  The following day when he came to escort her to Wake’s Hotel he looked more beautiful than she had ever seen him. Dressed in his city clothes, the green of his jacket brought out the gold of his eyes and slim-fitting breeches showed off the line of his legs.

  In the early afternoon among company it was if they were different people altogether, her hand on his sleeve, his courtly manners, the way she could barely glance at him without feeling how he had made her feel when he was inside her.

  The waiters ushered them to an alcove near the double-sashed front windows. Outside it was grey and cold. Inside, though, the burgundy of the plush decor added a warmth and a richness.

  ‘I hope you will enjoy the meal, Violet.’

  Aurelian’s words were quiet and she saw him glance around to take in the faces of the other three or four couples. He sat against the wall, side on, his chair tilted to the room. A place where he could see everything that went on around him.

  ‘It looks lovely.’

  The waiter had come with a bottle of wine and he spoke of its recommendations at length. ‘It’s French,’ Aurelian explained after the waiter left. ‘From the Luberon, a region where the sun shines always. I know it well for my family has land there.’

  The de la Tombers were as wealthy as Antonia had proclaimed them to be and that fact worried Violet. Almost every pound she had salvaged from her marriage to Harland had gone into retaining the town house in Chelsea. She was existing now on the crumbs of money left and, apart from a small amount of jewellery, she had little to her name. She could never have afforded to come to eat at a place like this.

  The bubble of pleasure shivered somewhat and she took in a deep breath. She was ruined in so many ways that it made no sense at all for Aurelian to be here. Courting her.

  She could see others in the room watching them, or watching him, a man who looked as if he was born to the high life. Why had he detoured and become a spy? What had made him turn his back on a life of ease?

  ‘I was relieved when my husband died.’ It slipped out unbidden, this travesty, and could not be taken back.

  ‘Relieved enough to take the blame for his passing?’

  She did not answer.

  ‘I told you of my wife and how I failed to protect her. She was drowned in the river. What I did not say was that Veronique was with a lover at the time, a friend whom we both knew. A man who decided if he could not have her permanently then no one else would.’

  ‘Where is this man now?’

  ‘Dead.’

  ‘By your hand?’

  ‘No. By his own. He found a pistol and shot himself the day her body was brought up from the Seine.’

  These secrets he gave were welcomed because she saw in them a distance she understood.

  ‘I found survival in a cause after that, the cause of freedom and justice and Napoleon Bonaparte’s New France. For even now knowing all that he wasn’t, he was still a man of bravery. He wanted the people who’d been disenfranchised by history to rise up again and take their allotment in what was owed. He wanted the power himself, too, of course, the new leader of a changing France.’

  ‘What of the aristocratic de Lorraine-Lillebonnes? Were they to be a part of this new guard, too?’

  ‘I think my father was too caught in the old ways of privilege and would have found it difficult to have given away any rights. As for me? I have walked in my job in both the camps of plenty and of poverty and once you do that it is impossible not to understand that people are all the same really. They want food and shelter and an occupation that is honourable. They want a dream, too, and the chance for more. And they need to love. A spouse, children, family, a place. To love well is to belong.’

  His words sent a chill across her. She had never loved well or been loved or belonged. Her mother had died when she was ten and her father and his new wife had found her to be a nuisance. Harland had not loved her, either, despite his proclamations of doing so in the first month of their courtship. He’d loved money. He’d loved his position in society. He’d coveted more of both and tried to use her to obtain it until he’d realised he couldn’t and so he had thrown her away, too.

  Amaryllis Hamilton was the closest she had ever come to loving since losing her mother, a woman who mourned a husband taken too soon and whose poor financial position had made it imperative that she seek shelter at her family home of Addington.

  ‘Once I thought I’d be a famous jeweller. I dreamed of necklaces and rings and bracelets wrought from the purest gold imaginable. When I mustered the courage to show Papa the designs I’d drawn in my journal he only laughed. He said that it was foolish to want things one could never have and that I would be married before the summer was out and happy with babies and a great house to run. I truly think that he believed this. He made me believe it, too.’

  She swallowed and made herself carry on. ‘Harland took what was left of delight away from me in his way, as well, and tarnished it with his endless greed. And now...’ she swallowed ‘...now there is only shame left, shame that I should have been the one to lead him into the temptation of counterfeit. Hundreds of years of honesty spoiled in a heartbeat, the gold markings I had always loved blemished and stained. An unrecoverable sin.’

  The wine glass in Aurelian’s hand reflected in the lights above them. She could tell he was measuring his response.

  ‘Nothing is ever as you might think it. My father wanted me to take over the estates in Normandy because he himself once thought that farming and an agricultural life might have made him happy. My grandmother wanted me to becom
e a husband and a father and live in the apartments on the Rue Saint-Honoré near to her. Mama was more complex. She hoped I’d renounce my French heritage and move to the English countryside and a manor house that was hers by right of inheritance. She worried for me and my future in Paris even as she loved my father.’ He smiled. ‘Every person has their own particular belief system, you see, formed by what has made them the happiest.’

  ‘What has that been for you? Your happiest times?’ She asked this even as she tried to think of an answer for herself. The sad thing was she could not really remember a time when she had felt truly joyous except for the nights when she’d lain in the arms of Aurelian de la Tomber.

  ‘Maybe right now, sitting here with you and watching how the light falls on the red of your hair. Perhaps that is the trick of life, Violet. Enjoying the moment.’

  She liked his answer. For so long she had been afraid and lonely and disappointed. Yet now in the aftermath of true peril she saw a glimmer of hope.

  The velvet seats were comfortable and she could smell the meals of the other patrons as they were brought out. There was music close, too, and the snow that had threatened to fall all morning was suddenly thick outside, like a wonderland scene in a book she had bought once for Amara in the shop at the end of Regent Street.

  She had never sat and talked like this with anyone before. Aurelian felt safe and dangerous, foreign and known. He felt like a man who was solid even though he existed in shadows.

  ‘Gregory MacMillan said that you were seen frequenting an opium den here in London.’

  ‘And you are asking if I am a patron?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her directness surprised her, but she didn’t drop her gaze.

  ‘George Taylor was a member there and I wanted to find out more of him. I seldom locate the people I am looking for in more salubrious circumstances. In fact, the opium den was tame.’

  ‘And the boarding house on Brompton Place?’

  ‘I’d been sent a message to meet a man there who had information pertaining to the lost French gold. He tried to kill me as soon as I arrived.’

  ‘So you killed him instead?’

  He leaned forward and looked her straight in the eye. ‘I am not giving you excuses, Violet, only the truth.’

  ‘And I thank you for it.’

  The waiter had returned now with a small list of the day’s meals. It was strange, this juxtaposition of the ordinary and the extraordinary, for she could feel every part of her body alive in a way it had not been before. Harland had palmed her off with mistruths. Aurelian did not.

  ‘I will be away for the next few days. A contact who had connections to your husband has agreed to talk with me. My guards will protect you here.’

  ‘You think it is that dangerous?’

  ‘I hope not, but it is best to be sure. When I return, Summerley Shayborne has asked me down to his estate of Luxford and I hoped you might join me? I think it would be good for you to get out of London for a few days.’

  ‘I would like that.’

  He smiled and she knew then why many women in society had fallen so markedly at his feet. Harland’s beauty had been skin-deep and he had been a vain man. Aurelian de la Tomber, on the other hand, was much more than his clothes and his appearance. He was dangerous to be sure but he was honest with it. When he told her things, it would be the truth. She could barely believe the relief that came with such a knowledge.

  ‘How is your hand?’ It was still bandaged but more lightly now, the dark of his skin showing up against white.

  ‘Compared to all the other injuries I have had in the past it is a mere scratch.’

  Looking down he began to twist the heavy signet ring off his finger.

  ‘I want you to keep this on you, Violet. If at any time you feel threatened, drop the ring somewhere others can find it and I will come.’

  The warmth of the gold sat on her palm, the crest easily seen in the light of the room. She had sent this back to him the first time but now her fingers curled around it.

  ‘This is the best I can offer at the moment.’

  ‘Offer?’ She could not understand what he meant.

  ‘My protection. Reputations like mine are useful sometimes. What was the weapon you held in your left pocket the other day at the park?’

  Her mouth simply fell open. ‘How would you know of that?’

  ‘I watched you. There is much to be seen in the unspoken.’

  Throwing caution to the wind she found another question. ‘What do you see in me now?’

  ‘You are not quite certain whether or not you have a serpent by its tail or by its teeth for you cannot understand how I know things and that worries you. But, the overriding emotion that shows on your face is relief. You want my body and you want to give me yours. Perhaps because you felt nothing with Harland and perhaps because I make you forget. I can live with those emotions because I understand them both.’

  * * *

  She looked as if she might cry, the tears in her eyes pooling and her glance falling away from his own. She looked little and lost and puzzled, a woman who was beautiful beyond belief and yet did not realise it.

  His mother had had the same sort of artless beauty. He shook away this loss.

  ‘Wanting sex is not a sin, Violet. You are a grown woman who has the licence to do exactly as she wills. And I want you as much as you want me.’

  ‘Is it enough though, do you think, this want?’

  ‘I’ve offered more and you declined it.’

  ‘I declined it because lust is not a stable foundation stone for any marriage.’

  ‘Who said it was only that?’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  He smiled. ‘When you work out what you think this is let me know.’

  ‘I’d like to be in bed with you right now. Where is your town house?’

  ‘Close by.’

  ‘And how hungry are you?’

  ‘For food? Not at all hungry.’

  His heart skipped a beat as she nodded and stood, placing the menu down on the unused setting. In a dream he called the waiter over, apologising for their sudden departure and placing a generous amount down on the table to allay any loss of business.

  ‘After you, my lady.’

  He was amazed they managed to get to the carriage without touching each other, but once inside he felt the full force of her want as she lifted his hand and took his forefinger into her mouth, her tongue laving along the side of it.

  His other hand fell to her skirt and the outline of her thighs before climbing upwards.

  ‘I want you naked in my bed. I want to lift your arms above your head and taste you and then...’

  He stopped as she bit down on his hand.

  ‘And then you will understand, Violet, that when you play with fire you should expect to be burned.’

  ‘You promise?’ The words were whispered, dangerous, breathless.

  ‘Oh, but I do, my love, from the very bottom of my heart.’

  He placed her palm across the erection straining against his breeches and she did not pull back but rather sat there feeling his shape. The streets of London passed by outside, the houses, the shops, the park, the people scurrying here and there. Ordinary happenings juxtaposed against what was inside, heat, breath and lust.

  There was only a deep-seated need that he had never before felt with anyone in his life. He willed the town house on Portman Square into vision even as his heart sped into a rhythm that made him sweat.

  * * *

  An hour and a half later he wondered how he had lived without Violet. She lay beside him now asleep. Touching her lightly he watched her stir.

  ‘You did not sleep, Aurelian?’

  ‘I watched you instead.’

  Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes unfocussed. The late sun slanted in the windows and he cou
ld hear all the normal daytime sounds outside.

  ‘I have never wasted away an afternoon like this before,’ she said.

  ‘Wasted away may not be quite as I see it.’

  ‘How do you see it?’

  ‘Loved away.’

  ‘Oh, I like that.’

  Her hand stretched out and the signet ring he had given her glinted on her thumb. He was glad that she still wore it.

  ‘Your town house is beautiful by the way. Has it been newly refurbished?’

  ‘It is rented but I had it done at the same time as Compton Park, my home in Sussex.’

  ‘So you might relocate to England?’

  ‘I’d like to after all this is finished.’

  ‘Then you will leave the game of intelligence?’

  He nodded. ‘It is something I should have done years ago. Shay and Celeste have been prompting me to make a decision, too.’

  ‘What will you do there?’

  ‘Become a farmer, I think. Ingratiate myself into the local community and have ten children.’

  He felt her stiffen and wondered why, her face turned away from his.

  ‘You did not have children with Harland?’

  One tear splashed down on his chest, followed by another and when he tried to get her to look at him she wouldn’t. ‘I can’t.’ Her words were quiet. ‘My husband had offspring with one of his mistresses but not with me.’ She pushed herself away from him, the gap on the bed a lot wider than it looked and though he tried to stop her, she struggled away.

  ‘It is why only this is left to me, this...lovemaking, for I know what it is like to live a half-life with someone who blames you for all that you cannot do.’

  She scrambled from the bed before Lian could find the words to say anything, seizing her clothes and pulling them on, one hand swiping away the tears.

  ‘There will be nothing left, don’t you see that? Harland tried to break me and he couldn’t but you will and I can’t let that happen because I couldn’t stand it.’ Pulling on the last of her clothes she turned to the door. ‘I need to go home.’