The lingering smell of rain and the chilly nighttime air blanketed them as she moved up against his body, nearly touching.
Very slowly, clinging to his hand and staring into his eyes, she whispered, “I am hoping, Thomas, that we will kiss over and over again in the days and weeks to come. Because you see, what made your kiss so wondrous was not your style, experience, or lack of it, but the fact that it so totally engaged you. Until last Saturday I had never, in my life, been kissed by a man and felt, for that brief moment in time, as if I were the center of his universe.”
She watched his smile fade, his lips part just slightly, and silently she pleaded for him to lean over and take her mouth again, to feel that heady power between them once more.
“Will you kiss me again?” she asked in a small, challenging voice.
His eyes narrowed as he focused intently on her, his scar twitching as the side of his mouth curled up. “You seem to be doing all the thinking, Madeleine,” he returned dryly.
She fought the urge to laugh. Instead, she reached up and touched his face with a gloved palm. “I think you will.”
His smile deepened. “Confidence becomes you.”
She did laugh at that, very softly. “Have you thought about our kiss since Saturday?”
“Constantly,” he said forthrightly.
Again she felt that sudden rush of warmth. “And?”
“It went beyond my dreams, Madeleine.”
That took her breath away. She sighed audibly, faltering in her stance, unable to offer a suitable reply.
He reached up and grasped her palm that still lay across his cheek. Then without further comment, he rubbed the knuckles of both gloved hands, released one, turned, and began to walk again, pulling her along with him.
They paced themselves, rounding the corner so that they were finally heading west, nearing the property line where they would pick up the well-drawn path Baron Rothebury used when he rode each morning.
“I am not a virgin, Thomas,” she said moments later, deciding it might be best to bring that into the open.
He never slowed his step although he was silent for several seconds before responding. “I can either say that I assumed as much, Madeleine, in which case I would be implying that I think you are loose. Or I can act surprised and say I don’t believe it when we both know you’re a twenty-nine-year-old, independent woman who is merely being honest. In either case I’m insulting you.”
The perfect answer. She grinned again as the tension left her. “You should have been a solicitor.”
“An upstanding profession that would better pay my living expenses, I’m sure.” As an afterthought, he added, “But then I wouldn’t be here with you.”
That made her insides turn from warm to hot. He wanted her physically but he also enjoyed her. He could never know how much that meant.
“How did you feel when you learned you’d be working with a Frenchwoman on this assignment?”
He straightened just enough for her to know the question put him a little on edge.
“It was my decision to bring you here, Madeleine,” he murmured.
She had no idea how to take that revelation either. “Why?”
He continued to stare straight ahead. “Your professional reputation is excellent. I also thought help from a woman would be invaluable, and that although you’d draw some attention of your own, as a Frenchwoman you’d never be considered a serious threat. You’d…rouse the social scene in this community without being suspected for more than you are.”
Another logical answer, and probably correct. “Why won’t you call me Maddie as I asked you to?”
He hesitated. “It’s rather personal.”
An owl hooted in the distance; a small gust of cold wind came from nowhere and rustled through the trees, rippling the water on the lake, creating waving lines of black and moonlit silver. His shoulder brushed hers as they had to move closer together on the path, and she reached up with her free hand to grasp his coat sleeve, holding his arm against her tighter than was probably necessary. He made no move to disengage her.
“Personal because your reasons are private in nature,” she probed with growing interest, “or personal because it would imply a greater intimacy between us?”
He thought about that for a moment. “When my feelings are centered, I imagine I’ll call you Maddie again.”
His feelings? “I’m certain I don’t understand that explanation at all, Thomas.”
He stopped short and turned to face her fully once more. Staring down at her with shadowed eyes, he stated softly, “I have reasons for not getting intimately involved with you, Madeleine.”
“And they are?”
“Personal,” he repeated.
That annoyed her a little. “And the fact that it would complicate our working relationship, as you said before.”
“Yes.”
“But you want to,” she goaded brusquely.
Slowly his gaze swept what he could see of her face. “Yes, I want to,” he whispered. “But not now.”
“Thomas—”
He lowered his lips to hers. It wasn’t the kind of kiss she’d been hoping for after a discussion of one so heated, but it was a lingering one, gentle enough to silence her rebuttal and weaken her legs. Then without warning he withdrew.
“Time is short,” he said through an unsteady breath. “We’re getting close and shouldn’t risk the talk.” With fingers still wrapped around hers, he resumed walking.
She didn’t argue. They didn’t speak from that moment forward as they traveled along the edge of the water, now on Rothebury’s estate and nearing the house from the east. A thin layer of clouds had begun to move in to partially conceal the moon, forcing Thomas to keep his full attention on the path.
The problem the two of them shared, Madeleine decided, was the lack of emotional intimacy of any kind between them, and it suddenly occurred to her that maybe Thomas was reluctant to pursue a deeper physical involvement without it. Two reasons for this came to mind. Either he held much sadness over the death of his wife, having loved her deeply, and refused to give in to quick sexual desire out of respect for her memory; or his insecurities got the best of him because he considered himself too physically impaired to attract the attention of a vibrant woman. Perhaps he feared rejection, or being hurt in the end. She’d never known a man who didn’t place great value on his masculinity. Then again, she’d never met a man who couldn’t accept a physical relationship without emotional involvement.
Still, one fact was paramount. He desired her as she desired him. There was no question now. He possessed a strong self-control and he never would have kissed her if he’d intended to keep their relationship perfunctory. They would be lovers eventually, and she was equally certain he knew it.
Abruptly he halted beside her, shaking her from her pleasant thoughts, pulling her tightly against him and hushing her quickly with a finger to her mouth.
She glanced to his dimly outlined face, and he nodded once to the left.
And there it was. A faint glow of light in the distance, moving jaggedly through the far cluster of trees to the south of the main house, probably a good three hundred yards from where they stood on the baron’s riding path.
Thomas left the trail and began to move toward it, his pace careful and slow as he assessed the brush, his body cautious, his gaze as intent as hers.
At closer observance she realized it had to be lanterns. Two of them, their dull yellow glow cutting into the surrounding darkness, with no voice to accompany them through the quiet, nighttime forest.
Then suddenly, just as quickly as they saw them, the lights disappeared—first one, then the other—into the blackness of night.
For a moment Madeleine was baffled. Those holding the lanterns weren’t yet close enough to the house and certainly not on any distinguishable trail. Why extinguish them in the middle of the forest? Unless they’d detected intruders, heard some sound she and Thomas were trying so carefully not to
make. But she didn’t think so. Then the memory of Desdemona’s comment came to mind.
I’ve heard rumors of lights in the night and ghosts on Baron Rothebury’s property.
It wasn’t a rumor, nor were there ghosts. This is what Desdemona herself had seen. Madeleine was sure of it. But when? Under what circumstances? And why was an innocent young woman out in the forest at night?
Thomas continued to walk very slowly until they were nearly on the main house grounds. The lights had been to their immediate left as they stood there now, gazing out into the distant trees. He guided her to a large, round stump, and she sat upon it while he knelt beside her, waiting.
Nothing happened. No movement, no sound, and no more light as the minutes ticked by.
Finally, shivering from the crisp, cold air, surrounded by darkness as the moon dropped in the western night sky, they wordlessly returned to the cottage at nearly half past two in the morning.
Chapter 9
For five nights in a row now, before they’d set out for the baron’s estate, they’d played chess. The first night he’d let her win, and she knew it; but their subsequent games were played fairly on his part, and she’d very nearly beaten him. She was out of practice but she was very good. Her mind worked with careful evaluation and logical thought, which he supposed she’d learned and perfected during the years she’d served England in her profession.
Madeleine relaxed on the sofa, facing him as he sat in his chair, wearing her morning gown because Beth Barkley had taken her day gown to launder when she’d left earlier that evening. With only a dim lamp and bright firelight to illuminate the shiny strands of reddish-brown in her plaited hair and the tiny creases in her forehead, she concentrated on the chessboard between them. Thomas knew, as she probably did from simple observance, that he had the most difficult time taking his eyes from her and her beautiful form. That made him smile to himself. Let her speculate on his appraisal of her, on the depth of his attraction. He would intensify their relationship soon, kissing her again tonight if luck was on his side.
“I keep thinking about those lantern lights, Thomas,” she tossed in from nowhere.
That’s what he admired about her intelligence. She could concentrate on the game as she pieced together complications regarding work. She was thoroughly polished.
He moved his bishop forward to the left five squares, in line to take her queen. “Thinking again, Madeleine?”
“Haven’t you been thinking about it?” she asked with only a trace of excitement to escape her steady tone. “Something very strange goes on in that house, and Desdemona Winsett knows more than she told me.”
He drew a full breath and nodded minutely. “Probably. Although it’s not ghosts or any other nonsense.”
She lowered her eyes back to the chess pieces and moved a pawn to block his bishop. “He’s smuggling.”
“Probably.”
“He is,” she stressed, “and although it might be a very organized operation, he’s not very careful.”
“You deduced all this from lantern lights we saw for thirty seconds two nights ago?” he teased, capturing her pawn.
“And other things,” she replied, trying to hide her smile as she studied the board.
“Oh, yes, those other things,” he said with feigned remembrance. Then, “What other things?”
She shrugged but didn’t look at him. “Intuition, for one.”
“I often work from intuition,” he admitted freely at once.
“So you agree with me.”
He shook his head. “Not exactly. Hard evidence is what we need. The problem with relying on intuition is that it changes one’s focus without facts.”
Slowly she ran her fingers up and down her long braid as it draped over her shoulder and down her right breast. “Explain that to me.”
He paused for clarity of thought, watching her movements. “The baron probably is smuggling the opium for reasons unknown, likely for nothing more than monetary gain. But if we decide he’s the smuggler based on intuition only and a few unusual happenings we’ve chanced to witness, we might be shifting our focus for nothing if it’s not him—”
“It is him.”
Thomas smiled. The woman in her was clearly shining through. “I agree that we need to find out what Desdemona knows. Beyond that I think we should refrain from drawing any conclusions.”
“We also need to get into his house.”
“We will.”
“Soon.”
“We will,” he repeated.
Her brilliant blue, mischief-filled eyes shot up to meet his. Then with a triumphant grin that melted his heart, she moved her knight forward to capture his bishop. “Check.”
He looked at the board again. He was in trouble.
“I believe, Mr. Blackwood, that you are nearly defeated,” she noted with radiant pleasure. “Is this the first time a woman in your presence has taken control and made you succumb?”
Her smooth intimation did not go unnoticed.
Thomas stretched out his booted legs, crossed one over the other, and leaned back in his chair to plainly regard her.
“How did you learn to speak English so well?”
A subtle widening of her eyes told him she was surprised by the question.
“Are you trying to change the subject because you’re losing?” she asked softly, raising her arm to lay it comfortably along the back of the sofa.
“No, I never lose,” he answered wryly, his gaze locked with hers in candid arrogance. “I just think it’s time to deepen our friendship.” He paused for effect, then murmured, “Don’t you?”
She waited long enough before responding for him to know she was slightly puzzled by his meaning and unsure how to answer. Her expression never changed.
“A close friend taught me English at my request.”
“A close friend?”
She smiled and relaxed fully into the soft cushion; her lovely countenance filled with tender memories. “His name was Jacques Grenier, the disowned but wealthy son of a French count. He was also a magnificent poet, singer, and a brilliant man of the stage. He took special interest in me during my formative years and taught me…the ways of the world.”
“Disowned because he was an actor?”
“Precisely,” she replied with a tip of her head.
“He was your lover,” Thomas added levelly, his insides churning because he knew this already but was suddenly irrationally jealous of it. What surprised him, though, was how much more he was affected by saying the words aloud.
Her perfectly groomed brows raised minutely, but she didn’t try to hide anything. “Yes, he was my lover. I was fifteen and a virgin when he first bedded me, and I suppose he seduced me. We were together for almost six years, intimately for three of them, and in that time he was generous enough to teach me the English language. He was very well educated, and spoke it fluently.”
“Why did you desire so strongly to learn it?” he asked quietly, although he also knew this answer.
She assessed him, hesitating for either her own recollection of events, or perhaps with curiosity about his interest, unsure how much to reveal. After a moment, her expression grew serious.
“My father was English, Thomas, a captain in the British Royal Navy. He died of cholera in the West Indies when I was twelve. I only saw him four very brief times in the years before his death, but our days together were wonderful—my happiest childhood memories. He told me once that he had wanted to marry my mother when he found out she carried me, but she wouldn’t dream of it. The woman has always been manipulative and selfish, and she despised everything he was—a British subject, soft-spoken and conservative, a decorated veteran, second-born son of a middle-class but well-respected family.”
Sighing, she folded her hands in her lap and turned to stare into the glow of the fire. “I’m not entirely certain, but I think he bedded her for only a short time while he was on duty and she traveled with the acting company somewhere near the Mediterranea
n coast. It was apparently a fast and torrid affair. He said he had truly cared for her, but my mother denies it. She early became addicted to opium, and was never more than a mediocre actress, raising me as her servant girl, toting me along from one smelly, crowded theater to the next, ordering me to do her bidding, while caring little for me. She considered me one of the stiff, arrogant English, and indeed I was—half English—but she refused to let me claim my English heritage or even come to England as a child to meet my father’s family.”
She paused, lost in memory. The fire crackled in the grate; the bitter wind and rain outside clamored with the force of winter, but she didn’t appear to notice. Thomas didn’t interrupt either, for fear that she’d cease her disclosure and change the subject. But after taking only a few seconds to collect her thoughts, she soberly continued.
“I was not informed of his death until well over one year after the event. I found a note from my father’s family tucked into a side pocket of my mother’s wardrobe that described his fate in detail. She, it seems, had forgotten to show it to me when it arrived because she was too self-centered to take the time. At the moment, Thomas, when Jacques read to me that crumpled letter informing me that my precious father had been dead for nearly two years while I waited each day with hope for his return, I decided that I would take my life, my future, into my hands. I was as much English as I was French. My mother was disgusted at the sight of me, so the French in me was of no consequence. It certainly didn’t matter to her. She kept me only because she used me. My father had loved me and had wanted to raise me, therefore I would, from that moment forward, consider myself to be his English child. I would learn his language as my own, and I did, studying it for years, with Jacques and then after him. It became my work, my goal. My only obstacle, and the reason I do not pass myself off as an Englishwoman today, is that I cannot lose my thick accent. I also know France and its people and culture so well that I’m invaluable to the British cause there. For the first time in my life I am useful for something truly worthwhile.” She let out a heavy breath and cocked her head. “Perhaps it is irrational, but in my heart it did, and still does, make sense to me. At thirteen, I decided that outwardly I am French, inwardly I am and will always be English.”
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