“The only thing I want is to see your back as you leave.”
“Fine,” he consented, his sigh sounding sufficiently martyred. “I’ll go. But I require one thing before I leave.” He closed the small distance between her lips and his, and tasted her sweetness.
Her hands fluttered like the wings of a dove before settling into the crook of his neck. Every muscle in his body trembled in response. God, how he had missed the simple pleasure of her touch. No matter what he did, he had not been able to put the feel of her from his mind.
He had not touched Olivia since Bliss left. Olivia thought he was angry that she’d ruined his chance to get back Northcote, but it had stopped being about the damn house the moment Bliss had surrendered to him, as she did now, her soft whimper spiking his temperature.
He nudged her back until she sank down onto the bed, her head tipped up for his kiss. His hands fisted into the coverlet to keep hold of his sanity, when what he really wanted was to drive his body against hers and bring out the passion she only revealed when they were like this.
It took his fuzzy brain a moment to realize Bliss had stiffened and pulled away from him. It took another moment to realize that the startled sound he heard had not come from her.
Slowly, Caine turned his head and discovered a petite, auburn-haired woman staring wide-eyed at him, the doorknob in her hand, as though the sight she witnessed had frozen her in place.
The woman appeared to be an older version of Bliss, who now sat stock-still on the bed…while he hovered over her, half-dressed and looking anything but saintly in his intentions.
“Pardon,” the woman said, her soft voice tinged with a French accent. “I am interrupting.”
Caine didn’t expect her nonchalant attitude. He had envisioned a different scenario entirely, one that entailed his body parts littering the floor, the most rigid member of his anatomy the first to go.
Bliss, plague take her, didn’t do a single thing to ease his discomposure. Instead she sat there, her lips bruised from his kiss, appearing to all the world like a virgin about to be sacrificed on the altar of lust.
“Should I go?” the woman inquired, an amused smile playing about her lips as her gaze moved between the two of them.
“No, Mama,” Bliss said, confirming Caine’s suspicions, a groan strangling in his throat. “His lordship was just leaving.” She looked up at him, daring him to say otherwise. “Weren’t you, my lord?”
“Yes…I was just leaving.” He retrieved his clothes much quicker than he’d divested himself of them, and Bliss had to stifle a laugh. Never had she thought to see the day when the mighty Earl of Hartland looked like a shame-faced lad caught red-handed with his fingers in the pie.
He fumbled, dropping first his cravat and then his waistcoat on his way to the door, which he practically dove through. Had Bliss known that all she needed to do to make him leave was call in her mother, she might have done so before he had kissed her—though in truth, that was doubtful.
She should be ashamed of herself, but she had missed him desperately. Missed the way he kissed her, with rough tenderness, and the way his large hands never remained still when he touched her, and how the slight stubble on his jaw gently rasped her cheeks when he hadn’t shaved, and how the deep cadence of his voice never failed to make her skin tingle. She had even missed his gruff barbs and brooding looks.
Yet the man she had met today was a far greater danger to her heart. An angry, mocking Caine she could defend herself against. But not a Caine whose eyes held a different light, whose words bespoke a newfound tenderness, who could easily charm if he so desired.
“So that is the man you have been mooning over?”
Her mother’s voice roused Bliss from her reverie, and she heard herself repeating what she’d told François. “I’m not mooning.” She smoothed an imaginary wrinkle in her skirt. “Between you and François, I don’t know who’s worse.”
Her mother tipped her face up, regarding her with knowing green eyes. “François and I are French, my love. We know all about—”
“Mooning. Yes, I know. But you are both wrong. The day I moon over that irritating, sapheaded, arrogant…” Bliss searched for words.
“Handsome?” her mother supplied.
“Highhanded boor,” Bliss countered, “is the day I will become a model of feminine behavior.”
“If you say so, daughter,” she replied, with an airy shrug. “But you are hopelessly infatuated, nonetheless.”
“I am not!” Bliss protested far too vehemently.
Her mother spoke over her denial. “I have found infuriating men to be the most passionate, and quite often the most devoted of lovers. It comes from an excess of pride and an overwhelming virility. And from what I saw, that lovely specimen possesses those traits in abundance. You really should have painted him nude. I imagine he is stunningly built.”
“Mama!”
Her mother glanced at her, all innocence. “This bothers you, ma douce? Such conversations never disturbed you in the past.”
Bliss shrugged helplessly. “This is different.”
“Ah.” Her mother nodded. “You have feelings for this man. I knew something had transpired during your trip to England. You returned with the look of the lovelorn.” She sat down on the bed and took hold of Bliss’s hand. “Tell me what happened.”
When Bliss was a child, her mother had the uncanny ability to get her to confess every wrongdoing simply by giving her that look that said she could confide anything—which she usually did.
Bliss capitulated with a resigned sigh. “I might have felt something for him. Something small and hardly worth mentioning, as I don’t feel it anymore.”
“Non? Your eyes, my love, they give you away. They always have.” Her words mirrored Caine’s, and Bliss decided she would have to start wearing a blindfold. “You still feel strongly about this man. I wish I’d had the opportunity to speak with him. He must be quite spectacular to have ensnared you so thoroughly.”
“He has not ensnared me. And he is not spectacular! He’s a liar, and a cheat, and a bully.”
“All that?” A note of amusement laced her mother’s voice.
Bliss sprang up from the bed and whirled around to face her mother. “Just once, I wish you’d be like other mothers and swoon or cry, or take something heavy and smash him over the head.”
Her mother folded her hands in her lap and regarded her. “You have never needed me to smash anyone over the head, most especially a man.”
Bliss held onto her indignation for another moment, then sighed and flopped back down on the bed. “Well, maybe this time I do.”
“This sounds very bad.”
“It’s horrible. I shouldn’t feel a thing for him.”
“But you do, oui?”
“It makes no sense whatsoever. He used me and then made a fool out of me, and still, every time he’s near, I…”
“Feel lightheaded?”
“Yes. It’s utterly preposterous.”
“My love, take what I am about to impart in the kindest of terms, from mother to daughter.” She patted Bliss’s hand gently, her smile warm as she said, “You are being a ninny.”
Bliss’s mouth opened on a protest, which her mother forestalled with a raise of her hand. “Stop pushing everyone away, or someday you’ll be all alone. Like me.”
“I’m not pushing anyone away!”
“Whenever a man has shown the slightest interest in you, you have found a way to punish him in some form.”
“I have not!”
“What about Jacques? He adored you, would have thrown rose petals at your feet for the rest of your life had you but given him an encouraging word, yet you barely acknowledged his existence.”
“He was only two inches taller than me!”
“So now your affections are based on a man’s height?” Her mother shook her head. “I did not think this was how I had raised you.”
“It was more than that. He was…boring.”
/> “Perhaps, but he cherished you.”
“He could speak of nothing beyond banking.”
“But when you spoke, he hung on your every syllable.”
“He slurped his tea.”
“He thought the sun rose and set at your feet.”
“He had hair in his ears!”
“He existed just to see you smile.”
“He—”
Her mother’s soft laugh cut her off. “So many excuses,” she said with a knowing smile. “You must face the truth this time. You have met your match in this Englishman, and you were looking for a reason to break free. He may have used you, as you say, but I imagine you had a hand in your own downfall. I know you too well, ma petite. No man could ever take advantage of you if you were not willing. If he forced you, of course, we will take action. He shall be imprisoned in the Conciergerie this very evening. Are you telling me that you were not willing?”
Bliss shivered at the thought of anyone being sent to the Conciergerie. It was a bleak, dismal place, and had a bloody history. Nearly three thousand men and women had been imprisoned there during the Revolution before they were beheaded.
Hugging herself, she glanced away from her mother. “No, he didn’t force me.”
“Tell me what happened.” Her mother waited patiently for her to begin. Bliss poured out the whole story, including the revelation Olivia had made. Her mother digested the tale before saying, “Your young man sounds greatly troubled. Quite a bit like your father at the same age.”
Bliss stared. “Father? Why, he’s the soul of morality! He’s nothing like Caine.”
“There is much you don’t know about your father. He was quite the man about town once.”
Bliss couldn’t picture her sweet but stuffy father being anything close to a rake. “Perhaps you’re exaggerating just a bit? I suppose all men have their reckless moments,” she said dubiously.
“Oh, your father was indeed reckless.” A wistful smile flickered across her lips. “A true hellion. Big and bold and arrogant and ready to fight anything or anyone.”
“My father?”
Her mother nodded, her eyes alight with remembrance. “He came into my life like a whirlwind, and though I was quite able to stand up to him, when other women simply flapped their fans coyly and swooned ridiculously whenever he smiled, I knew I could not resist him forever. In truth, my heart belonged to him from the first moment I saw him, though I denied it until he forced me to realize what I felt. He took my virginity beneath that ancient Scots pine by the stream on the edge of Exmoor’s borders.”
Bliss could do no more than gape at her mother, who chuckled at her stunned expression. “I never thought to see the day when I left my headstrong daughter speechless.”
“Well, you can hardly blame me. You’ve never told me any of this.”
“I never felt the need to do so, until now. There are so few times these days when I have the opportunity to impart any wisdom. You do not need me as much as you did when you were a little girl.”
Bliss gently squeezed her hand. “I’ll always need you.”
Her mother smiled lovingly at her. “And I, you. But perhaps I should have stepped in earlier, when I saw how you closed yourself off from men who became too interested in you. I fear that perhaps you did not want to end up like me, separated from the man you love.”
Bliss felt as though she was finally getting a glimpse inside her mother’s heart. “Do you really still love Papa?”
“Yes, ma douce,” she said softly. “I still love him. And I suspect I always will.”
The question that had haunted Bliss since she was ten years old and standing motionless in the hallway listening to the horrible fight between her parents, believing she was the cause of it, lodged in her throat. She had run away from the truth then, and she was still running from it now. To speak the words would make it real.
Warmth glowed in her mother’s eyes. “When a woman falls in love, she follows her heart, even if it might not be the most sensible thing to do—as you already know. Men are fickle creatures. Ask for marriage, and they will run faster than the wind to elude the bond. Show the same disinterest they do, and they cannot get you to the altar fast enough.”
Bliss shook her head. “This is all quite a bit to take.”
Her mother’s arms encircled her shoulders. “Would you prefer me to swoon like a proper mother, so you may revive me accordingly?”
Bliss laughed. “Thank you for the offer, but I believe I can muddle on.”
Her mother gave her arm a reassuring pat. “I always knew you could. You are very much like me, my love: you like your angels fallen. Have faith that the answer will come to you when you are ready to hear it.”
Eighteen
I presume you’re mortal, and may err.
James Shirley
The Cimetière du Père Lachaise was Paris’s largest and most impressive cemetery, with its grand gothic architecture and ornate tombs, their extraordinary statues rising up from beds of granite as though they had heard a noise or had turned to stone without warning in the midst of a dance.
The mournful image of Jacob Robles peered at Bliss as she strolled down the Rue du Repos, his face and gesture of finger to lips invoking a reverent silence.
The residents’ most faithful companions, the hundreds of cats that made Lachaise their home, rested peacefully in the shade of trees or on the tops of headstones.
Bliss breathed the cool, crisp air deeply as she walked, the serenity a balm to her soul. The French did not consider cemeteries depressing, or fascination for them morbid or unnatural, but rather an extension of life itself.
And Lachaise was one of the lovelier burial places, especially now as dusk fell, painting the sky with vivid streaks of light plum and dark sapphire, ribbons of crimson-gold sparking hints of fire amid the silvery gray headstones, and fingers of mist rising from the dew-laden grass, the remnants of a light afternoon shower.
Today she needed to feel her grandparents’ presence, to hear in the stillness and silence the words of advice they would impart, perhaps hoping they would lessen the guilt she felt about her role in the dissolution of her parents’ marriage, and to help her sort out the confusion she felt over Caine.
When he had left the night before, she had thought he would return, materialize in that startling way of his, and tell her again that he had missed her. She had remained home all day under the pretext of working, but he had never appeared.
Perhaps he had returned to Devon, whatever reason that had prompted him to come to Paris dissolving upon seeing her. And wasn’t that what she wanted? For him to leave? If only he hadn’t come in the first place and reopened the wound, forcing her to think about him, to want him.
All night Bliss had told herself that she would not have succumbed to his kisses, yet he had managed to position her on the bed with devastating speed.
Had her mother not arrived when she did, Bliss could not say what might have happened—which frightened her desperately. She feared her mother might be right, and Caine was the one man she would not be able to put from her mind.
Have faith, she had said. Perhaps that was what Bliss truly hoped to find here.
Her thoughts heavy, she turned down the final tree-lined path, her steps echoing faintly on the flagstone. She came to a stop in front of two tombs nestled side by side, the figure of a man carved on top of the first and a woman on the other, captured at the height of their youth and vitality, their bodies turned toward each other for all eternity.
Bliss pressed a hand to the hard stone, a sudden aching wrench of emotion tugging at her heart. “Bonsoir, Grandmama et Grandpapa,” she murmured, removing the wilted flowers from her last visit and replacing them with fresh sweet williams and larkspur.
She sat down on the small marble bench at the foot of their graves. The last time she had seen them alive she had been ten years old, and France had been in the middle of a building revolution that would usher in the Second Republic.
<
br /> Her grandfather had been gravely ill, and her mother had decided to visit, fearing that once the borders were closed, she would not see him before he died. Bliss had been determined to go with her to France. Her father protested that it was too dangerous, but her mother had defied his edict and they had gone, traveling clandestinely to keep out of the arms of rebelling factions.
What happened that December changed her life forever. She had lost both her grandparents within a week, and afterwards, her parents’ abiding love for one another had irrevocably begun to crumble.
If only she had heeded her father and stayed home where she belonged. If only she hadn’t been so headstrong, perhaps her father would not have blamed her mother for nearly getting herself and his only child killed.
A tear slid down Bliss’s cheek, falling on to her sketchpad, the wet spot blossoming as other tears mingled with it. She could not seem to stop them. She didn’t want to end up like her parents—alone, unhappy, full of pride that would not allow either of them to heal old wounds. But she feared she was heading down the same path.
The sensation of being watched brought her head up, a pang of awareness propelling her to her feet. She whirled around to face the intruder, her heart lurching in her chest.
And there, only a few feet away, was Caine, his body cast in moving shadows of dark and light, an elegant silhouette against the backdrop of the descending sun, standing as still as one of the statues and regarding her with unfathomable eyes.
“Y-you frightened me,” she told him, tears stinging the back of her eyes, emotions threatening to bubble forth.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I thought you heard me walk up.”
She didn’t want him to see her like this, yet she ached to lean her head against his shoulders and allow her tears to fall.
She averted her gaze for a moment and blinked them away. “What are you doing here?”
“I saw you leaving your house as I was arriving, and I followed you.”
“Why?”
The Pleasure Seekers Page 19