STOLEN CHARMS

by Adele Ashworth

  "I have a key, remember?" he answered before she could finish.

  He shut the door, bolting it, enclosing them tightly inside the small, cramped cabin now filled with her presence, her intimate belongings, the alluring scent of lavender and lilies in creams and powders and perfumes. After only a few hours together he'd come to the uncomfortable conclusion that the most difficult task he'd ever undertaken in his life lay just ahead—not in stealing precious emeralds from dangerous French Legitimists, but in keeping Natalie Haislett's virginity intact.

  He heard her stand behind him as he unfastened the top two buttons of his shirt.

  "I—I suppose you'll be sleeping in the next room, Jonathan?" she stammered in a soft, shaky voice.

  He turned back to her and was nearly brought to his knees by the vivid pleading in her eyes of the hope that he would just go away, from the swell of her full breasts as her opened cloak exposed her form-fitting, tightly waisted gown, from her long, thick hair now free from pins to tumble down the front of her in a luxurious wave of softness.

  So innocent and untouchable.

  He sighed and confessed the inevitable. "I'll be sleeping on your left, Natalie."

  "Oh." The relief outlined on her face was immeasurable. "Then why are you here?"

  He placed both hands on his hips, not at all certain how much he would enjoy this explanation, but ready to get it said. Baldly, without expression, he maintained, "I don't mean in the cabin to the left of us. I mean on your left in this bed."

  Natalie's first thought was that he wasn't making an ounce of sense. Then the picture struck her graphically, and for the first time in her life that she could recall, she nearly succumbed to a burst of hysteria. Her eyes grew to enormous saucers of disbelief, astonishment. He couldn't possibly be serious.

  "You can't sleep…" She swallowed, unable even to say it. He was observing her reaction closely as he stood in front of the door, blocking it from her with his large, imposing frame, waiting for the shock to be absorbed.

  He was serious. And still he didn't say a word.

  Her pulse quickened in panic. "You can't stay here, Jonathan."

  "I have to stay here, Natalie," he insisted evenly, and very slowly.

  Seconds ticked by in deathly stillness before she managed to find enough of her voice to whisper, "Why?"

  He reached for the lamp bolted to the small stand to his right, turning it up for brighter light. Then he leaned back against the door, folding his arms across his chest.

  "For two reasons, really," he replied contemplatively. "The first is that you have placed yourself in my care, my protection—"

  "Protection?" she interjected in wonder, growing more apprehensive by the second. "You're going to protect me after accosting me only hours out of port?"

  "I didn't accost you, Natalie, I kissed you," he asserted with a dash of annoyance. "There's a world of difference."

  She glared at him. "And who is now to protect me from you, sir?"

  "The second reason," he continued, ignoring her question, "is that my reputation matters, too. I have serious business in France that will place me in elite circles. If you wish to go with me you must be willing to pose as my wife. Nobody can ever begin to assume I travel with my mistress, and that's the only conclusion people will draw if they know I brought you with me."

  "We could pose as—as cousins," she blurted in near desperation, thoroughly appalled at his nerve.

  He shook his head. "That would never work, and you know it. We look nothing alike, and the attraction between us will be obvious to everyone. Better to act on it than try to hide it." With a smirk, he added, "It's a challenge, a game to be played, Natalie, and we must start playing it now."

  She gaped at him, finding it truly unbelievable that he would talk about them as if they were lovers, that he would want to pose as such to strangers. He was so matter-of-fact, so blatantly devious! He'd planned this from the start, had known about it all day, and had left her to learn of his intentions when she couldn't do anything, least of all run. Where would she go on a ship in the dead of night? Her only option appeared to be overboard.

  "Why did you wait until now to tell me we'd be sharing a…" She gestured with a flick of her wrist. "A…"

  He leaned toward her. "A bed?"

  She huffed. "Why?"

  He reached up and rubbed his jaw with his palm. "I didn't want you to change your mind and walk off the ship," he admitted prosaically.

  "You…" She faltered at his honest response, flushing ever so softly, closing her arms in front of her protectively and running her fingertips along the lace on her sleeve. "You…"

  "…need you, Natalie," he finished for her again. After a moment's hesitation, he amended, "To pose as my wife."

  "You planned this," she charged vehemently.

  He slowly shook his head, his eyes narrowing to sly, gray-blue slits of conquest. "I believe it was you who walked into my home six days ago in search of help. I'm merely taking advantage of the situation."

  Oh, he was a devil! If he wanted to play games, fine with her. She could act any part magnificently. But woe was him. He couldn't possibly know she was one of the best.

  "What of the Black Knight?" she questioned suspiciously. "Do you still plan to introduce us?"

  He shrugged. "I intend to, although everything will be on my terms, on my time line, as we agreed before we left England."

  They stared at each other, his expression decidedly blank and unreadable, hers weighing the challenge, calculating possible results of decisions already made, decisions made without thought of what lay ahead between them.

  Then finally, with a cunning smirk gently twisting her lips, Natalie turned with resolve and removed her cloak, tossing it over the silk screen. "You may stay, Jonathan, but no more kissing."

  "Husbands and wives kiss," he countered blandly. "I'm afraid we might have to from time to time."

  She knew he'd come back with that. But he had no idea who he was dealing with. "Husbands and wives rarely kiss in public. And since we won't be doing it in private, I see no reason to do it at all."

  She faced him again defiantly, elegantly poised, arms dropped to her sides, with full comprehension that he would have to settle for some of her terms as well if she were going to engage in this silly little performance of his. With fortitude, she insisted, "You must also give me your word that you will be nothing but a gentleman should we find ourselves in an intimate position."

  He blinked, looking for a moment as if she'd startled him with that statement, as if he couldn't believe she'd said it. She could see him wrestle with a rebuttal of playful arrogance, or perhaps just the desire to laugh. But then his expression clouded, becoming one of serious contemplation.

  He leaned back against the door again, watching her, his eyes roving over every feature of her face, her throat and chest and breasts. Cautiously, brows furrowed, he said, "Where you are concerned, Natalie, I've painstakingly been a gentleman since the evening we met years ago." He waited. "Do you remember it like I do?"

  Her entire body stilled; color drained from her face. Within seconds the atmosphere became charged, the air thick and crackling with intensity as he continued to regard her provocatively from across the small and suddenly overheated room. Instinctively she grasped her elbows with her palms, feeling hopelessly exposed but unable to look away.

  He smiled softly, knowingly. "The evening you innocently asked me to meet you in a moonlit garden for a talk of dreams and I mistook it for an invitation, kissing you until you became breathless." He lowered his voice to a rough whisper, his eyes burning through hers. "I like kissing you, Natalie. Very much. It was good then. It's even better now."

  She clutched her sleeves with trembling hands, inhaling deeply to keep from reeling at the intimacy, from the grave, meaningful way the words flowed from his mouth. He was giving her an opening, wanting her to talk about that night. But she couldn't. Not now. Probably not ever.

  "Then I can do nothing but tr
ust you," she murmured, mouth dry, eyes still locked with his.

  After a long, lingering silence his face went slack. "I suppose that's a start."

  He was bothered by her reply, she could tell, or perhaps just confounded by her lack of desire to discuss what took place between them all those years ago. But the topic was too familiar, too humiliating, and she had to get away from it.

  With a deep inhale for strength, running her fingers through her mass of hair, she attempted to brighten the mood. "You'll have to sleep in the chair, Jonathan. The bed is small, and I, too, prefer the left side."

  Light flickered from the lamp on the table, tossing waving shadows along the dark walls. He hadn't yet moved his gaze from her face, and she was becoming overly nervous about that. He started, as if ready to walk to her, then he evidently changed his mind as his lips turned up to form a lazy grin.

  With complete ease, he reached up with one hand and resumed the task of unbuttoning his shirt, looking away at last as he took two steps to the bed, knelt beside it, and pulled what appeared to be his trunk from beneath it.

  "I am sleeping in this bed, Natalie," he announced decisively. "And if you prefer the left side, and I prefer the left side, I will have no choice but to sleep on top of you, which, I might add, will be difficult with absolutely no kissing allowed."

  She blushed furiously, unable to imagine him on top of her for anything. Disgusted with herself for the reaction he was sure to notice, she turned and walked behind the screen.

  "Then I'm sleeping in the chair."

  * * *

  It had to be well after midnight when he felt her crawl in beside him. He knew it would happen eventually; it was just too cold in the room.

  Jonathan didn't move for fear of making her jump out of bed again. He preferred sleeping in the nude, but with everything else he was forcing her to accept, he could never go that far. So, lying there in worn but binding trousers, he hadn't really been able to sleep anyway. And neither could she as he'd listened to her attempts to get comfortable for nearly two hours before she'd finally slipped between the sheets in defeat.

  She curled up behind him, shivering, encased to her chin, fingers, and ankles in a full nightgown of unembellished white cotton, trying to steal his covers, and certainly stealing his warmth. He nearly winced when he felt her feet, now frigid blocks of ice, slithering in between his legs. But as he drifted toward oblivion at last he had to smile at the comforting action, oddly trusting and so very sweet.

  * * *

  Chapter 4

  « ^ »

  Madeleine DuMais was born beautiful. Not in the classic sense, really, for her looks certainly weren't refined, but exotically so. She possessed a quality of bearing unseen in the lower, even middle classes, but perhaps that was because she lived outside one station or the next, if that were possible. Her breeding was mixed, and she knew it; she took advantage of it.

  Standing in front of the mirror in her bedroom, a blazing morning sun filtering through parted chintz curtains, she buffed a final touch of color into her cheeks and lips, then rubbed a bit of kohl above her lids and smoothed her chestnut hair back from her broad forehead.

  She knew she was exceptionally appealing to look at from head to foot. Indeed, it often proved amusing when men tripped over themselves in her presence, but oddly she wasn't self-centered about her physical qualities. She was proud of them, and over the years they had served her well.

  Smiling in satisfaction, Madeleine glided her palms down the front of her silk morning gown, canary yellow with only a touch of pale lace, tightened at the waist and flowing in a thick cascade over whalebone to swish becomingly at the floor when she walked. She took pride in her curves, in her substantial bosom, and a waist that showed no sign of childbirth and hopefully never would. She wanted Jonathan Drake to notice her as well, for he would be arriving at her home in precisely ten minutes for their meeting. And he would be punctual. The English always were when it came to their own national security.

  Pleased with her appearance, she turned and left her bedroom, descending the stairs with grace, and entering her parlor where she would await the arrival of the Englishman. The warm atmosphere of the room always lifted her, as it was so enriched by fine mahogany furniture, padded generously and covered with wine-colored satin. The curtains of the same color were divided considerably so the entire room could embrace the sun, which reflected in a hazy glow off delicately flowered wallpaper. Marie-Camille, Madeleine's only maid, had left a coffee service for two on the small, rounded table between two chairs in front of the now-cold fireplace, and the coffee itself would be brought in steaming when he arrived. Madeleine took a seat closest to the door and waited.

  From her French mother, a woman of the stage but only mildly talented at best, Madeleine had inherited her unusual beauty, her exquisite figure, her heart-shaped face, and ice-blue eyes. But from her father, a captain in the British Royal Navy, she'd acquired everything else—her smarts, her common sense, her humor, and passion for goodness. He had wanted to marry her mother, but alas, Eleanora Bilodeau, self-centered and common, wouldn't have him, had left him heartbroken, and didn't particularly care for his child, the beautiful daughter she dragged from city to city, from one smoke-filled and stinking theater to the next, not because she felt the obligation, but because Madeleine waited on her like a slave.

  For nearly twelve years she begged to be allowed to go to England, to be with her father's very stable family, but her mother had denied her this dream with increasing scorn. Madeleine had only seen him four or five times in her life, but those precious moments had been filled with joy. He had truly loved his illegitimate daughter. Then, in the summer of 1833, she found a note from her English family stuffed into the side pocket of her mother's wardrobe informing them both in a very solemn tone that her father had died of cholera the previous year on duty somewhere in the West Indies. It was that very black day, as her mother paraded across a stage in Cologne, half-clothed and with not an ounce of dignity, that Madeleine's devotion to her homeland died. In her eyes alone, which was all that mattered, she was no longer French.

  When she was sixteen she gained her first employment as a line dancer in a hot, crowded hall, where civilized men by day would become sweaty, drunken, lustful animals by night, offering crude remarks as they tossed coins on stage in the hopeful exchange of favors. It was the only income she could maintain by using her natural assets, but not once in four years of dancing did she allow herself to be purchased sexually. Above all else she'd kept her self-respect intact, as her father had always done and expected of her, refusing to fall into personal disgrace like her mother.

  At the age of twenty, with plenty of money saved and a gratification she hadn't felt before or since, Madeleine very calmly announced her plans to leave her previous existence as servant girl to her now fat and opium-addicted mother, and turned her back on France forever. The actress had been at first shocked, then enraged, shouting obscenities at her daughter as she walked out on her, shoulders erect and chin held high. That had been eight years ago, and Madeleine hadn't seen her since, nor did she even care whether the woman was alive.

  She went to England first, presenting herself to her middle-class, socially refined family who accepted her unconditionally, albeit with quiet reservation, but she didn't expect any more. She was, after all, half French and the illegitimate daughter of an actress. Still, they had treated her with a respect she had never known, and she had relished it, although by that age she knew she would never live the life of an English lady. She had learned their language well enough over time but she could never lose her thick French accent. She could never be one of them. That dream had died with maturity. But with it came the inner discovery that perhaps she could offer something far more valuable to English society, to her English heritage. Her skills could be used to help the people she loved and to the disadvantage of a people she had come to loathe.

  So, at the age of twenty-one, she waltzed with grace into the Br
itish Home Office and presented herself as she was. She wanted to become an informant. Naturally, as she now recalled with humor, the men in charge had laughed her out of the building. "Good God! But you're French, and a—a woman!" they had blurted in shocked unison. But she would not be discouraged. What better guise could there be?

  More determined than ever, and after trying for their attention twice more and getting no response but civility at best, Madeleine changed her approach. She packed her few personal possessions and returned to Paris, there infiltrating government circles on her own by use of her wit, beauty, and her growing skill as an actress—a far better one, she realized, than the woman who bore her. She had, after all, lived her first twenty years with a company of them, and she had learned well.

  Several times during the following three years, Madeleine had uncovered secrets which she in turn had forwarded to Sir Riley Liddle at home—nothing ruinous or even scandalous, but little things to help the British cause in Europe. And always did she begin these pieces of information with the salutation, "Warm regards from the Frenchwoman." She never heard anything in return but she knew her investigatory discoveries were being heeded, as information she passed along began to be used, even in subtle ways. That was all the satisfaction she needed for a while, until they grew accustomed to her doing what Englishmen did as a matter of course, and she knew they would in time.

  Finally, after fixing herself within the French elite, weaving her way through the upper social arena with charm and sagacity, she had been given the priceless opportunity of earning respect from her English superiors. In July 1843, she stumbled upon the news that two very high-profile French political prisoners were to be transferred without delay directly from trial to dreary Newgate, and a plan was in the works to free them while in transit, with force if need be.

  Indeed, on the day of that move, due to the quickness of a Frenchwoman's wit, a small uprising was avoided, as a few stunned, self-serving, heavily armed Frenchmen were apprehended without incident. When she heard the news of victory, Madeleine knew she was in.