by Shana Galen
She held up her bare hand. Curses on her for forgetting her gloves in her hurry this morning! “These ridges.”
“Ah.” He held out his hand, and she placed hers into his. For a moment, he stood and held her hand, his gaze on her face. She was about to repeat the instructions, when he said, “What do I say?”
“Um…” She could think of any number of things she would like him to say, but those suggestions would not help matters. “Well, I have just been introduced to you. So you take my hand. Yes, you have that part, and I suppose you say something like, ‘Delighted to meet you, Miss Bennett.’ Then you bow and ah—kiss the knuckles.”
He nodded, looking very serious. “Delighted to meet you, Miss Bennett.” His voice was so low and husky the words sounded completely foreign coming from his lips. And then he bowed, and she felt the barest hint of his lips on her flesh. It tickled slightly, and she almost giggled like a schoolgirl. But she retained her composure and said, “And you, as well, my lord.”
He had still not released her hand or risen, so she tugged slightly to let him know he should do so. When he did not cooperate, she pulled harder. “You should release me now, my lord.”
“But you smell so good.” And she felt that tantalizing brush of his lips on her flesh again. Her body trembled, and she wondered why his lips on such an innocuous spot as her hand should cause her this much reaction.
“My lord, you should stand and release my hand.”
“Is that a rule?”
Was it? “Yes, I suppose it is.”
He glanced up at her, his cobalt eyes so dark they were almost indigo. “I do not like rules.”
Yes, well, neither did she at times. “Rules are made so that Society runs smoothly. If everyone did exactly as they pleased all the time, we would have chaos.”
“Chaos,” he repeated the word. “That is a bad thing?”
“My lord, you should release my hand.”
Instead, he turned it palm up and leaned closer to… sniff it? “You smell so good. What is that?”
As she had used no lotions or powders that morning, she could not say. And even if she had wanted to speak, she would have most likely been silenced when he bent to kiss the tender palm of her hand. “My lord!” she hissed. “You should not.”
But he was looking up at her with that teasing smile. “Why? You like it, do you not?”
“I do not like that you are breaking the rules.”
“Hmm. Chaos.” And he lowered his mouth to her palm again. The sensation was chaos—her senses were in tumultuous upheaval, and her body was straining to follow. The urge to give in to the chaos only intensified when she felt his lips brush her skin, and then his mouth parted, and his tongue dipped out to taste her.
Felicity struggled not to topple backward at the sharp stab of arousal that shot through her. What was this man doing to her? She tried to snatch away her hand, but he stubbornly held on. “My lord!” His tongue darted out again. “Armand!”
Now he looked up at her, and his blue eyes were so innocent. Oh, but she knew better. He knew exactly what he was doing to her. “I like it when you say my name.”
“What you are doing is not appropriate. If you do this at the musicale, you, they—oh, I don’t know what would happen!” The lady in question would probably faint. Or, considering what she had read about some of the ladies of the ton, she would drag the comte straight to bed. Felicity would have done that herself, except that she was not that kind of lady.
“I will not do this at the music. I will do it only with you.” His lips skimmed up from her palm to the inside of her wrist, where he nuzzled the tender skin. Felicity felt her pulse racing, beating against his lips.
“You should not do it with me. You should probably do this only with your wife.”
Now he looked up at her with interest. The interest made her wary, because she knew there would be questions behind it, but at this point, questions were better than the magic he had been working with his mouth on her skin. “What else should I do with this wife? I can think of many ideas—”
Felicity held up her free hand. “No, my lord. You must not divulge those to me. That is private.” He frowned at her, and she added, “That is between a man and his wife only.”
“But I want you to be my wife.”
Felicity sighed in frustration and finally managed to pull away her hand. “We have been over that, my lord. We have discussed it,” she said to clarify. “That is not possible. I am certain you will meet another woman who is more suitable for that position. In fact, it is my job to make sure that when you do, you impress her with your politeness and manners.”
“Please. Thank you.” He thought for a moment. “Delighted to meet you. Lesson over?”
She couldn’t help but smile. “No, the lesson is not over. We haven’t even discussed what you should do after you say ‘delighted to meet you.’”
He grinned at her. “That is when I kiss the hand.” He reached for her hand again, but she quickly tucked it behind her back and moved out of reach.
“Exactly, but then what?”
He moved closer, and she took another step back. “I will show you.”
“No!” She held up a hand. “No, my lord. Why don’t we talk about it and leave showing for another time?”
“Words,” he grumbled. “Too many.”
And while she could sympathize with that statement, she knew it was the best course of action. Physical contact between them had to be kept to a minimum. And so she spent the better part of three hours explaining the protocol of introductions, rehearsing idle talk and chitchat, and giving him options for ending a conversation with a lady or gentleman. The comte seemed bored, but he tolerated the instruction, perhaps because they were outside and the weather was so lovely. He seemed happier outside, less tense and on edge.
Finally the dowager found them and asked Felicity to join her for a light tea. By then her belly was protesting the long hours without food, and she was more than happy to comply. But she promised the comte they would discuss the basics of fetching punch for a lady later. That suggestion made him look as though he had been shot with an arrow.
“I’m afraid you will have to postpone that lesson until the morrow,” the dowager said. “The duc has agreed to escort his brother to Westin’s. It is our hope the tailor can find something suitable for the comte to wear to the events we have planned.”
Now the comte looked as though he had been stabbed with a knife, and Felicity gave him a sympathetic smile. She knew how he hated to be confined in the tight clothing in fashion for gentlemen, but there was nothing to be done for it. He could not attend the Society functions in shirtsleeves and bare feet. “Then I shall see you this evening, my lord,” she said and followed the dowager into the house. She was glad for the respite from their lengthy lesson, but that was not the only reason she was eager to allow the comte to go. She couldn’t help but wonder what this untamed man would look like in a tailcoat and breeches.
The idea made her heart beat far too fast.
***
Armand prowled the garden until the wee hours of the morning. He had not kept count, but he thought he had circled the town house at least one hundred times. On one of those circles, he had encountered his brother. Armand had expected Julien to ask why he was not in bed, but he did not. Instead, they circled the house together, and then Julien went inside.
But Armand knew even though it was very late, he would not be able to sleep. He could not get the image of the brick out of his mind. It had been a week since the incident. Why had the men not returned to carry out their threat? At his side, his hands clenched. If they did return, he would be ready for them.
When the pale colors of dawn lightened the shrubs of the garden, Armand finally abandoned his post to the hired watchmen and trudged to his chambers. His bed was made with fresh sheets and fluffed pillows,
but he could not imagine crawling into it. For years he had slept on the hard floor, and with exhaustion setting into his bones, the familiar called to him.
Removing his shirt, he lay on the rug and stared up at the ceiling, watching the colors of the morning dance on the flat surface. In his cell, there had never been any light on the ceiling. He would go days, sometimes weeks, without light. He had become accustomed to it, and the light streaming through his window pained his eyes. And that was precisely why he refused to cover the windows. The pain of the light reminded him he was no longer in his cell. Not that he didn’t know that already. He had never had a soft, thick rug in his cell. And his prison had never smelled as clean as this room. Everything here smelled of soap or wax or polish. The smells were strong but so much more appealing than those of unwashed bodies and excrement.
He closed his eyes and allowed himself to drift. As was becoming usual, the first thing he saw in his mind was Miss Bennett—Felicity. He liked that name. Someone had told him—or perhaps he knew it already—the name meant happiness. That was a good description for her. She was always happy, even when she was scolding him.
And how he liked for her to scold him, especially when it was because he was doing something to break one of her precious Rules. But then, he did not see the point in many of her Rules anyway. If he wanted to kiss her wrist—her small, sweet wrist—why should he not? He liked her reaction. He liked the way her sky blue eyes turned gray and smoky. He liked the way her cheeks turned not red—what was the color? Ah, pink. He liked that her blood beat faster. He could feel it against his fingers and lips when he put them to her wrist or her throat. She wanted him to break The Rules.
He began to imagine other ways in which they might break The Rules together and quickly had to turn his thoughts away. That path would only lead to frustration. Instead, he rehearsed the new words he had learned today, and gradually he began to drift off.
In the dream—Armand knew it was a dream, though he was powerless to end it or control it—he was a child again. He was walking through a crowded street in… Paris. Yes, he recognized this as Paris, though it was not the Paris he knew. This was a Paris filled with the hungry eyes of children and their mothers, standing on street corners selling their bony bodies for enough coin to buy a slice of bread. Not that there was any bread to be bought.
Armand picked his way through the crowds and the stench, keenly aware that though his clothes were soiled with soot and grime from his escape, they were still of better quality than any here wore.
He had paused once after escaping the château to turn around, and what he had seen had only made him run in the other direction. His home was on fire, flames shooting out windows and smoke billowing from the roof. He prayed Bastien and Julien had been away that night, out on one of their grand adventures, but he had no such hope for his mother and father.
Until the morning. He had hidden in the forest all night, and when sun rose, he had heard the unmistakable sound of his father’s voice. Following that sound, Armand had seen his father, hands tied, led onto a cart with several of their neighbors. His mother, Julien, and Bastien were not with his father. When the peasants, who were insulting and spitting at his father the entire time, began to follow the cart, Armand did so, as well. From a distance. He knew enough to keep himself hidden. He did not want to be recognized.
The cart led him to Paris, where his father was unloaded and taken inside a building. He could not follow his father inside, and so he had stood in the courtyard, watching.
“Little brat, move on from there,” a man in coarse clothing and with equally coarse speech yelled at him.
“Yes, sir,” he said quickly, then, “What is this place?”
The man gave him a long look. “It’s a prison. Don’t you know that?” He leaned closer, his breath smelling of old wine as he smiled, showing yellow and broken teeth. “Who are you? You sound like an aristo.”
Armand swallowed and stepped back. Something about the look in the man’s eyes frightened him. The man turned to another guard loitering nearby. “Hey, Jacques, come here. I think we have another aristo!” He turned and swiped at Armand, but Armand was fast. He ran until he could no longer breathe, finding himself among the hungry children and the bony women. There were men, too. Men with knives and bayonets. Men who would kill him if he so much as opened his mouth. He could not speak again. Speaking was a death sentence.
And yet he needed food. His stomach grumbled, and his throat was as dry as sand. He needed food, and then he would have to think of some way to free his father from that prison. He passed a tavern where men were drinking, and wandered inside. He was immediately pushed aside, cuffed on the side of the head, and kicked. But he was too hungry and thirsty to care. The tavern was dirty, and he could see the lone barmaid was overworked. She was thin but not as bony as the women he saw on the streets—and that gave him an idea.
She lackadaisically mopped at a spill on one of the tables with a dirty cloth then was distracted when a fight broke out among two of the patrons. She left her towel to watch the brawl, and Armand moved in and snatched up the towel. He began cleaning the table vigorously, and when the fight was over, he righted the chairs and the tables and wiped them down. Soon several of the men were telling him to bring them wine. At first, the barmaid tried to shoo him away, but he pretended he could not understand, could not hear. Eventually, she gave up, and he was soon sweeping floors, cleaning tables, and mopping up wine, among other liquids.
The tavern owner did not pay him, did not even acknowledge him, except to cuff him, but Armand was able to scrounge scraps of bread and sips of wine from time to time. It was better than nothing.
And every day he went to the prison, careful to stay away from the man who had tried to catch him that first day. He knew now that executions were happening in the square. Aristocrats were brought daily to lie down under a shiny silver blade. The men in the tavern called it Madame Guillotine, and Armand knew if he could not stop it, one day his father would lie down under Madame, as well.
It was in front of the prison that Armand first saw the little man. Despite his small size, he did not walk like a child, and he did not look like a child. He was old, even then, old and cruel. And his son walked behind him. His son was huge, three times the size of the father, and his eyes were glazed and stupid.
Those eyes met Armand’s, and he heard a crash.
“No!” He sat straight up, his hands reaching out for something… anything. They caught the covers of the bed, and he blinked in confusion at the softness in his hands. Where? What?
The fog burned away with the sun pouring in through his windows, and Armand was brought back to the present. He was in London. He was at his brother’s home. The tavern, the prison, the hungry children were far away and long ago. Those men were…
But they were not gone.
They were here in London, and they were looking for him. They wanted what was theirs, what they thought was theirs, and they would never stop until they had it.
Thirteen
Felicity felt as though she were the one who would be on display for all the ton to see. As she stood in the Valères’ ornate vestibule, waiting for the comte to join the rest of his family, her heart thudded, and her hands felt clammy.
She was nervous, and she was not even going anywhere! It seemed she had so little time to prepare the comte for the musicale. She had done all she could, but how could she be certain she had not forgotten something? Had she remembered to tell him to address dukes as Your Grace? She thought she had. What about daughters of dukes? Had she gone over their honorary titles?
Curses! She had forgotten daughters of dukes, and surely Lady Spencer would have one or two at her musicale.
“Stop looking so worried,” the duchesse of Valère said with a smile. “Armand will do fine.”
Felicity swallowed the lump in her throat. “Of course he will. I’m not worried
at all.”
“You are pacing like an expectant father,” the dowager remarked as a maid draped a cape over her bejeweled black gown.
“Am I?” Felicity put a hand to her throat. “I suppose I am a tad nervous. Would one of you be so kind as to review courtesy titles for daughters of dukes with the comte? I don’t know how it slipped my mind.”
The duc raised a brow. “I don’t even know courtesy titles for daughters of dukes.” But Felicity knew that was not true. The duc of Valère was so refined, so elegant. She could not imagine he ever worried or stumbled through any type of social occasion. She, on the other hand, could sympathize with his younger brother. She turned and peered up the steps once again. Where was the comte? She was always nervous before any type of social gathering. Once she arrived, she inevitably relaxed and enjoyed herself, but there was always the worry her dress or her hair or her shoes would not be right.
Was the comte fretting over that now? What was taking him so long? Perhaps she should ask the duc to send a servant to assess his progress; the family was going to be late… could one be late to a ton affair?
Felicity couldn’t stop herself from glancing up the stairs once again, but this time she was rewarded. The most handsome man she had ever seen was strolling down them, one hand on the banister, one in his pocket, and rakish scowl in place. She blinked, and for a moment she did not recognize him. And then she all but gasped as she realized it was the comte!
Tonight he looked every inch the aristocrat he was. He wore a dark blue coat of superfine, tailored perfectly to show off his broad shoulders and wide chest. It fit tightly, skimming down to slim hips that were encased in dark breeches. The breeches were also well-fitted, showing off muscled thighs. He wore the requisite cravat, and it was starched to perfection, but most surprising were the pumps. He wore the black pumps every man wore with evening dress. Felicity thought this must have been the first time she had seen him with shoes on.
And actually, she preferred him without them. But she could not fail to admire the spectacle descending the stairs. He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. She wished she could loosen that cravat and free his thick hair from its queue. She wished she had her comte back, but this was the one who would go to the musicale and who would woo all the ladies.