Maybe it was time the woman began to see what danger she was courting. He touched a powdered curl that lay coiled on her bosom. As his fingers moved, he watched the curl tremble, rising and falling rapidly on the full breasts confined against low, lace-trimmed satin. “To be perfectly blunt, my dear, this is how I treat encroaching females.”
He caught her with a hand to her slender waist, pulling her into the shadows, pulling her to his heat, to his fury. There wasnot even a hint of subtlety in his fingers circling her neck and holding her still beneath his exploration.
But he did not touch her red lips, not then. Instead he worked along her jaw, her neck, her shoulder. Slowly he caressed the soft powdered curl at her bosom.
Geneva’s breath caught sharply. His was not a touch but a possession. Later, she would realize it was not so much a kiss as a conquest. But for the moment, she did not think or analyze, swept along on the dark power of his touch. She did not flinch, not even when Gabriel’s mouth shifted the powdered strand aside and tasted the lush rise of her breast.
Her hands slid to his shoulders. Her blood was a storm in her veins. She hated the man for his arrogance and his harshness, but Adrian had told her this was the only person who could help her, and Geneva knew he was right. Only a man of utter ruthlessness would face the terrors of revolutionary France. Only a man of total callousness could snatch her sister and her sister’s children from the looming shadow of the guillotine. And the darkness in Gabriel Montserrat’s eyes told Geneva that he had witnessed the fury of the guillotine many times.
For that service she would pay any price he named.
But Geneva had not been prepared to like the task, to feel her pulse sing and her blood drum as an utter stranger bent her to his will.
Inches away, Gabriel cursed harshly. She was even more sweet than he had imagined, a creature of silk and springtime. Her skin rose and fell, flushed and hot with her arousal.
She would be his, Gabriel knew. She did not even understand the significance of her fingers threading through his hair and the pebbling of her nipples beneath the tight satin.
But Gabriel did, only too well. The sight of her passion, so sweet and new and untried, was like a brand to his groin. Hetraced the thrust of her breast with his lips and felt her shiver, her fingers sliding deeper into his hair.
Right now, she could be his, all ivory skin and breathless moans as he shoved up her skirts and brought them both to reckless passion. Suddenly Gabriel was shocked by how much he wanted that.
But he did not allow himself to pursue it by even one more motion. It was Geneva’s very response as she trembled against him that made him curse and release her.
Because she was too young and he was vastly too old.
He looked down and cursed to see that his fingers were shaking, while hers were perfectly steady. Grimly he caught up her domino and tossed it over her pale shoulders. “Leave.”
“I don’t understand.” Her voice was husky with passion. “What you did—how it made me feel—”
“Was wrong. Damnably wrong. And unless you leave, it will happen again. Along with something far worse.”
“Worse?” Her eyes were dazed, confused. “It was very nearly heaven, my lord. How can you call it wrong?”
“Damn it, have you no sense? My reputation is as black as that domino you wear. People whisper that I consume innocent virgins by the dozen. And if you are even glimpsed in my company, then your reputation will be blackened, too. What would your parents say then?”
“My parents and family are dead, swept away in one of the cruel waves of cholera that ravaged the East India Company settlement in Madras.”
“And you are left alone in the world?”
“Except for my sister in France.” Her chin rose. “But you needn’t worry about me. I have a substantial inheritance from my father.”
“All the inheritance in the world won’t protect your reputation as a woman alone here in London, you little fool. Leave now, now while you still can.”
Geneva did not move. “Is it true?” she asked softly. “Are you truly as black as everyone says?”
Gabriel laughed bitterly. “What does the truth matter? Either way you will still be ruined.”
“It matters to me, my lord.”
“In that case, you are a greater fool than you seem,” Gabriel said harshly, striding across the room and drinking from the glass of fine Bordeaux that he’d poured, even though he knew it would taste like the cheapest vinegar to him.
Without a word Geneva slid her hand into the folds of her domino. Her eyes glinting, she held out a pistol, silver-etched and double-barreled. “Now, my lord, you will gratify me by sitting down and listening for once.”
Gabriel did not betray his surprise by the slightest motion. “Is that weapon you are clutching supposed to frighten me?”
“Without question.”
He threw back his head and laughed.
And as he did Geneva took an angry breath, leveled the sight, and shot the glass from between his fingers. “Does that? I am a crack shot, I assure you. The next bullet will land between your eyes!”
“Shoot away. I’ll be of no use to you laid out in a coffin.”
“I am serious. I will shoot.”
“I am quaking in my boots, as you can see.”
“As if you would ever quake,” Geneva scoffed. “But you are far too practical a man not to do exactly as I say. As long as I hold this pistol, at least.” She smiled grimly. “And I do not mean to let it go, I assure you.”
At that moment Gabriel’s butler appeared at the door, his face the color of raw dough. “My lord? I was certain that I heard a—” His voice trailed away as he saw the broken glass and crimson stain spreading over the fine Persian carpet. “Then I did hear it. You are wounded!”
“Go away, Stanton. That is only a glass of Bordeaux down there, not my blood. There are those who say my blood is not red, but black, after all.”
“But my lord—”
“Begone! And close the door behind you.”
As the servant fled, shaking his head, Gabriel settled his long length into a wing chair. Templing his fingers, he looked measuringly at Geneva. “Well? You have me captive. My attention is all yours, Miss—” His brow rose in a mocking question.
“Miss Russell.” Geneva felt the bite of his sarcasm, but raised her chin defiantly. “It was necessary. I am sorry to spoil your wine and your carpet, but my sister’s life is at stake.”
“How enormously affecting,” Gabriel said with a yawn.
“Only the man known as the Rook can save her.”
“As I said before, I’ve never heard of the fellow.”
“No?” Smiling grimly, Geneva reached to the desk behind her. “Then perhaps you will explain this black silk mask, which the Rook is well known to fancy.”
Although Gabriel’s mouth hardened, he merely shrugged. “Left over from some masquerade, no doubt. I do not keep track of such things.”
“Indeed.” Geneva tossed the mask onto his lap and held up a letter written in French and sealed with a bloodred crest in the shape of a rook. “And this is from the same masquerade, I suppose?”
Gabriel pushed to his feet, his body tense. “Where did you get the key to my desk?”
“I had no need for a key. I merely picked the lock. One of our servants used to be an attic thief and he enjoyed teaching me his tricks. All it took was a corset stay, worked in exactly the right place,” she explained.
Gabriel’s eyes darkened as he moved toward her.
“Stay back,” Geneva ordered. “I still have my pistol and there’s a bullet in the second chamber.”
Gabriel’s pace did not slow.
“I’ll shoot, I warn you.”
“Be my guest.”
His chest was before her. All she had to do was pull back the trigger. Geneva swallowed, focusing, preparing. Did the man know no fear? “Stop tempting me, blast you!”
The earl only laughed.
; Her finger tightened. Sweat dotted her brow. She had to shoot, if that’s what it took to make him listen. The situation was too desperate, and she had no one else to turn to.
Gabriel’s hand circled her wrist. “Go on and shoot,” he ordered, his chest level with the barrel of her pistol. “I fancy you couldn’t miss at this distance.”
“I would not miss at two hundred paces,” she said irritably. “In this position, I would certainly blow away half of your chest.”
“As I said, my dear, fire away.”
“You’re mad.”
“So I am told. But don’t let that stop you.”
She felt his heat and his utter indifference to her choice. Geneva knew then that there was no doubt he was the man who had time and again bested the finest officers of revolutionary France. “I will, I tell you!”
His eyes were coldest granite. “So you have said.”
She meant to. She tried with every shred of her being. But her finger locked and would not close.
And then she let the barrel waver.
He moved in utter silence, shoving the pistol aside and wrapping his hand around her chin. His eyes glinted, gray and savage upon her face. “And now, my little hellion, you’ll learn two lessons. Never make promises you can’t keep. And never carry a weapon if you do not mean to fire it. Especially,” he added grimly, “when it is leveled against your worst enemy.”
“Are we enemies?”
He looked down at the naked sweep of her shoulders, and his eyes darkened. “Without a hint of a doubt.”
“But why? I came here for your help, not as an enemy.”
“Women and men are always enemies.”
“Only because you think of them so. Indeed, you treat women most shabbily. You have had your pick of far too many, I think.”
“So now you are a philosopher?” Gabriel pulled her hands to his chest, drawing her toward him. “I merely treat women as they wish to be treated, Miss Russell, as beautiful jeweled objects to be coveted, admired, and beautifully maintained. Never do I treat them more seriously than that.” His eyes darkened. “Except in bed, of course. And there I treat them very seriously.”
Geneva swallowed. A dark tendril of sensation coiled through her chest. “You are intolerable!”
He offered her a mocking smile. “One tries.”
“Let me go.”
“Not just yet, I think.” He eased her backward until the mantel brushed her shoulder. “Not until I’ve had my fill of that honeyed mouth of yours.”
“But I don’t want to—”
“You will,” he said silkily. And then his mouth hardened, fell, joined to hers. In conquest it began, but in silken exploration it grew. Geneva put one hand to his chest and shoved, but her strength was as nothing against his. She felt the cold metal at her fingers and remembered the pistol. She would use it, she swore. This time he would not escape her. But only if she had no other choice. Only if he continued to mock her, to tease her.
To run his lips so hotly, so sweetly across hers, until she wanted to cry out in wonder.
Heat spiraled through her. Inside her satin slippers her toes curled. Never before had she felt such a touch, such perfect skill that left her thoughts reeling. If only her head weren’t suddenly so muddled, and her knees so weak.
On a sigh of breath, she rose to her toes and brought her fingers to his shoulders. Only for stability, she told herself.
Her forgotten pistol lay balanced precariously beside Gabriel’s head.
He didn’t even notice.
Geneva’s eyes closed as his tongue touched the soft center of her lips and teased an entrance. She shivered beneath his heat and raw power, driven by a wild curiosity. What would he taste like? What would he do if she, too, tasted his heat?
Still holding the pistol, she brought her hand to his neck and ran her tongue gently over the hard curve of his lower lip. He muttered a curse and brought their bodies together, thigh to thigh, working her backward until her shoulders were crushed against the mantel.
His heat surprised her, as did the shudder that tore through his angry muscles. She had expected power and confidence and ease, but not that betraying moment of shock, nor the lash of his own desire. He wanted her, she realized. At that moment his body told her he wanted her very badly.
Geneva felt a wild surge of triumph. She had thought to tempt him, to yield to whatever price he wished to extract for his services in saving her sister. But never had she thought to taste such heaven in the process.
He muttered hoarsely, his fingers molding her soft hips, his lips pure velvet.
Geneva’s hands trembled. Her pistol dropped forgotten from her fingers. An instant later the barrel discharged and a bullet cracked through the silence, sending a rain of plaster from the hole that now marred the damask-covered wall.
Somewhere a door creaked open. The butler’s voice rose in panic from the corridor. “My lord! You cannot—the pistol—”
“Get out, Stanton. I’m busy.”
“But the wall!”
Gabriel spun about. “Out!” he ordered.
“Yes, my lord.” The door slammed shut.
The sound was like cold water hitting Geneva’s face. She stared at Gabriel, her face pale, her eyes amber and gold in the firelight. “It meant nothing,” she said hoarsely. “Nor did I feel anything.”
“On the contrary,” Gabriel said silkily. “You felt everything I did, and that was vastly more than I had expected.”
She gave a calculated laugh, which broke slightly at the end. “La, my lord, how easy you are to fool.” Her voice rose in a titter. “’Twas all an act, I vow, just to entrap you. And you have fallen for it.”
His fingers bit into her shoulders. “It was no act, my sweet. And no pretense of passion. I felt it in the heat of your body pressed against me, and in the drum of your blood.”
“A lie,” Geneva gasped, shoving at his chest.
His fingers settled on the pale curve of her cheek. “A lie, you call it? No, by heaven, I’ll have the truth.”
“Does it matter?” she said bitterly. “You’ve had your sport with me, and now it’s over. For myself, I don’t choose to waste words on a man with no heart and no scruples.”
Gabriel laughed grimly. “You’re right in that, for I have neither. But I have a great curiosity about this mission you’ve been so busy tossing in my face.”
He watched pride war with need in her face. She turned away. Picking up a poker, she nudged a log in the grate and watched sparks shoot up the chimney. “It’s my sister, you see. She is married to the duc de Verney, whose estates run along the Garonne Valley in France. She assured me that she and the children were fine, but last month I received a letter written in desperate haste. She wrote that the villagers were in turmoil and she feared for her life.”
Gabriel’s jaw hardened. “Am I supposed to find this story interesting?” He lifted his glass and tossed down the fine wine as if it had no taste at all, wishing she would leave him, wishing he could forget the sight of the blood he’d seen darkening thePlace de la Concorde the week before. “Besides, I’m foxed. I’d like to enjoy my inebriation in peace.”
“I do not believe that you are cup-shot,” Geneva said softly. “I think that you are tired and very sad.”
Ashton felt impaled on the clarity of those fine gold eyes. He cursed silently. How did she see so much, things that no one else even suspected? “Well, you’re wrong,” he said, pouring himself another glass. “I’m three sheets to the wind and I mean to stay that way till morning. If you have any sense of self-preservation, you’ll get yourself gone while you still can.”
“I’m not leaving. Not until you hear the whole tale. It is the children that my sister fears for most.”
Always it was the children who suffered. Ashton frowned as he remembered three dark-eyed children he had lost in Paris. His coachman had been an accomplice of long standing, and Gabriel had never had reason to doubt his loyalty.
But he’d been wr
ong, and three innocent children had died because of it.
Never again.
He pulled the poker from her hand and raised her face to his. “It’s no good, Miss Russell. The valley of the Garonne is impossible to enter. I know from personal experience that the peasants are rioting there. No foreigner would get a mile before they stopped him.”
“But for you anything is possible.”
Ashton tried to ignore the hope and admiration in her eyes but found he could not turn away. Suddenly he wished that he were all she thought him. He wished he could see the people she loved spirited away to freedom. But he had failed too often of late. He had been forced to watch the prisoners fall, one by one, as the new leaders in Paris offered a bitter example to all who offered any hint of opposition. Now even women and children were murdered under the ruthless tyranny begun by Marat.
No, he could not help her. The plan was impossible. He turned to the fireplace and stared down at the red embers. “Go home, Miss Russell,” he ordered. “Go home to your balls and your beaux. You’ve come to the wrong place and you’ve found the wrong man to play at hero.” He was exhausted from three weeks of continual travel and the endless horrors he had endured on France’s muddy roads. But Gabriel knew he was sick of life as well. Perhaps he’d seen too many things that no man should ever have to see. “I want nothing to do with you and your schemes.”
But even as he spoke, her scent assailed him, all sweetness and summer lilacs and the infinite innocence of youth. He knew she must be close behind him, for he heard the faint rustling of silk.
In the small, still room it was a damnably intimate sound and it sent a wild stirring through his blood.
“I fear I have not made myself plain enough, Lord Ashton. I do not ask you to risk your life for nothing. I would of course be beside you to help in every way I can. In addition I offer you anything among my possessions—or myself. All this I give freely and willingly, if only you will aid my sister and her children.”
A muscle flashed at Gabriel’s jaw. She was too damnably close, her scent a torment. The little fool could have no idea what she was saying.
Yet her offer lingered, haunting him. He wondered how it would feel to hold her and hear her breathless little sigh when he sank deep inside her. “Damn it, don’t you understand English?” he said harshly. “Be gone.”
Enchantment & Bridge of Dreams Page 20