Reckless Seduction

by Jane Feather

  “Upstairs!” Dominic nudged her between the shoulder blades with the cold silver knob of the whip, and she staggered up the wide flight, conscious of Silas’s astounded expression as she went by. In the bedchamber, which looked amazingly just as it had when they had left an eternity ago, Dominic threw the whip into the corner of the room and strode into his dressing room, slamming the door behind him.

  Silas picked up the discarded quirt, demanding roughly, “You all right?”

  Genevieve now knew Silas well enough to detect the concern masked by the roughness. She nodded, sinking into a wing chair by the fire. “He did not touch me with it. Although, God knows he had sufficient cause.” She eased off her bedraggled slippers with a sigh of relief, beginning to massage her feet through the silk stockings, before offering the confession that she owed Dominic in the face of Silas’s shocked condemnation. “I slapped him, Silas, twice in the middle of the dance floor.”

  The old sailor’s jaw dropped. “And you’re still here to tell the tale!” He shook his head in disbelief. “I’ll fetch you up a mustard bath for those feet.” Muttering inaudibly but with some vehemence, he left the room and Genevieve glanced nervously at the closed door to the dressing room. Her feet hurt, her stomach churned, her head ached, her entire body strained toward the solid feather comfort of the bed, yet she knew that the night was far from done with. Wearily, she pulled up her skirt and untied her garters, rolling her stockings down and easing them off her bruised, frozen feet.

  “Has Silas gone to fetch you something for your feet?” Dominic spoke abruptly from the dressing-room door.

  Genevieve looked at him. He had changed into a long brocade dressing gown and, to her inexpressible relief, the devil she had conjured up had departed again to whatever murky depths he normally inhabited. The privateer was not in a good mood, by any means, but he was well in control of himself. “Yes,” she said in a low voice, shivering suddenly and leaning forward to the fire’s blaze, stretching out her chilled hands. “I am sorry I hit you. It was unforgivable, I know, but you had no right to say those things to me … after everything I have gone through, to be accused of whoring … and then of enjoying it …” She shuddered. “It was beyond bearing and I lost all sense.” Her voice was still low, and she kept her eyes on the fire.

  Silas reappeared before Dominic made any response. He glanced at the two of them and sniffed, setting a footbath before Genevieve and filling it with the steaming aromatic contents of a jug. “You’d best give her some brandy, monsieur,” he advised. “It’s cold to be roaming the streets dressed in those flimsy things.” It was the first time Genevieve had ever heard a note of criticism, even of this faint kind, in the sailor-servant’s voice when addressing Monsieur Delacroix.

  “Leave us,” Dominic said brusquely, but taking the advice and filling a glass with brandy.

  Genevieve shook her head with a grimace as he held it out to her. “I cannot. I feel dreadful enough as it is.”

  “Not as bad as you will feel in the morning,” he said with brutal candor. “But maybe you will be a little more moderate with the champagne in the future.”

  Tears sparked behind her eyelids, but she said nothing, merely immersed her feet in the hot water, which immediately seemed to engender a feeling of relaxation.

  “Would you explain what you meant just now?” Dominic spoke very calmly as if the subject were of only mild interest. “What did you mean by ‘everything you had gone through’ ?”

  She may as well tell him the whole silly truth, Genevieve thought dully. What difference could it possibly make what he thought of her now? “You can laugh at me if you please; it doesn’t seem to matter anymore. But I don’t seem to be able to be a proper spy, and I cannot do certain things even if they are the most practical way of achieving a goal. I am a hopeless adventurer, and I should have stayed in New Orleans and married Nicolas.”

  Dominic stared at her, the slender column of her bent neck, the tumbled ash-blond ringlets glinting in the firelight, the little hands gripped tightly in her lap, the ridiculous contrast of her bare legs and feet plunged in the bath with the richness of her gown and jewels. “I beg your pardon, but I fear I must be being very obtuse, Genevieve. What certain things can you not do?”

  Genevieve sniffed and wished her head did not feel as if it were about to explode. “Whoring,” she said, only it came out as a venomous hiss. “Whatever you might have thought, I cannot go to bed with those men. I can only pretend that I will.”

  The world seemed to spin on its axis, then slowly settled again. Dominic took a deep breath. “Then what have you been doing on those nights when you’ve been gathering information?”

  “Playing piquet,” she confessed, wriggling her toes in the soothing water. “I was the stake. If I lost, then …” She shrugged. “So I had to make sure I always won.”

  Dominic gawked in disbelief. “Those four are among the best cardplayers in Vienna!” Genevieve just shrugged again. He paced the room for a restless moment, then came to stand in front of her, reaching for her chin and tilting it to meet his eyes. “Are you telling me the truth?”

  “Now you accuse me of lying!” Genevieve cried. “First I’m a whore, and now I’m a liar.”

  “I am not accusing you of anything, sprite,” he said carefully. “I just want to be quite sure that I have it right this time. You gleaned your information while playing cards, promising that if your opponent was victorious he would have you. Is that right?”

  “In a nutshell. A little crude, perhaps, but it was all I could think of. Only now I think that they have exchanged stories and they probably realize that I was not what I seemed. I was trying to allay those suspicions this evening.”

  Dominic frowned. “That was not all you were trying to do, my Genevieve.”

  She sighed. “No. But you had made me so angry with your insinuations and criticisms, and you didn’t know the terrible strain it has all been, and I could not tell you because you would say I was having silly scruples—”

  “What the devil could have given you that idea?” he broke in, wondering whether he would succumb to the urge to shake her before he hugged her.

  “Well, you seemed to think it was such an obvious plan and not at all peculiar in me to have suggested it … only I didn’t really know what it would mean when I did suggest it.” Her fingers twined around themselves in an impossible knot in her lap. “It seemed at the time to be very blasé and … and well, appropriate for an adventurer. And that is what we are, after all. We are not respectable or anything, and we do not belong to each other. We are just sharing an adventure.”

  Dominic wondered how long it would take him to persuade her that perhaps there could be another dimension to their relationship. She was so very definite about the way she felt. He pushed that problem aside and returned to the more immediate one. “I do not understand why you could not trust me enough to tell me that this was something you did not wish to do,” he said quietly. “You have been bearing the full burden of an abominable strain quite alone, deliberately allowing me to think something different, which has led me to add to your problems rather than alleviate them.” He thought of all those unkind words, of his tormenting jealousy, all of which would have been avoided if only she had confided in him.

  “But how was I to know you would understand?” Genevieve looked at him for the first time of her own volition. “You agreed to the idea so readily and behaved always when I came back as if nothing untoward had happened and—”

  “I was mad to agree to it,” he interrupted brusquely. “But you seemed so damnably sure of yourself and what you wanted to do that I did not think I had the right to prevent you. And then you seemed to do it so well and came back with all the right pieces of information, and dammit, Genevieve, you deliberately led me to believe that you were enjoying yourself!” She said nothing, allowing the accusation to pass by default. Dominic sighed. “I have been tormented by the most shaming, agonizing jealousy, Genevieve Latour. An utterly de
grading emotion that I have never before felt and was not prepared to admit to. And you fed it.”

  “Jealous?” Genevieve mumbled, removing her feet from the rapidly cooling mustard bath. “You? Because of me?” It was the most extraordinary revelation, and in her wondering contemplation of it she forget her bodily ills for the moment.

  “Exactly so!” he declared with a dry self-mocking little smile. “Jealous because of the games played by a diminutive scrap of femininity who had better promise this instant on her solemn oath never, ever again to keep to herself matters in which I have both an interest and a say.” The turquoise eyes were stern.

  “If you had told me how you felt, I would have told you the truth,” Genevieve said unarguably, deciding that she was not going to be browbeaten into accepting the full blame for this tangle. “You did nothing to encourage the truth, quite the opposite.” Bending, she rubbed her feet dry with the towel Silas had left. “I have such a headache, Dominic. Can we continue with this in the morning?”

  “I want your promise.” Catching her beneath the arms, he pulled her to her feet just as the vigorous hammering of the great brass door knocker resounded through the tall, narrow house. “Who the devil …” Releasing her, he strode to the door and flung it wide, stepping out onto the landing overlooking the hall. Genevieve limped to stand beside him, peering over the gallery rail.

  Silas trod ponderously to the door as the knocker sounded again. He pulled it wide and Monsieur Fouché walked past him without ceremony. “Where is Monsieur Delacroix, man? I must talk with him immediately.”

  “What is so urgent, Fouché?” Dominic called down, his voice deliberately light although Genevieve could feel the instant tautening of his body as he prepared to make decisions, to respond to whatever turn events were about to take.

  “Ah, Delacroix.” Their visitor raised a hand in greeting, then took the stairs two at a time. “You will forgive this unorthodox arrival. Madame Delacroix, your servant.” He found the time to bow punctiliously to the barefoot Genevieve who returned a slightly sardonic curtsy.

  “You are very welcome, monsieur,” she said, moving back to the open door of the bedchamber. To her surprise, the Frenchman seemed to take the movement as invitation and followed her into the somewhat disheveled room where her stockings and shoes lay in a heap beside the footbath and the wet towel. She looked helplessly at Dominic, who bellowed for Silas over his shoulder.

  “What’s to do, Fouché?” he asked directly, handing his unexpected guest the glass of brandy he had poured earlier for Genevieve.

  “I … uh … heard of the … uh … somewhat spectacular events at the Polanski ball,” Fouché said with unusually hesitant delicacy. “It seemed that I had better lose no time in conferring with you about certain matters, since, obviously, your stay in Vienna must now be at an end.”

  “Obviously,” Dominic agreed with another of his dry smiles. “I do not think either of us will be received again.”

  “No.” Fouché sipped his brandy and waited as Silas removed the footbath and collected up Genevieve’s discarded footwear.

  “Time madame was in bed,” the sailor permitted himself to observe as he left the room, closing the door with a punctuating click.

  Fouché seemed not a whit put out by an earringed, pigtailed sailor playing lady’s maid, but then, Genevieve reflected, Fouché had suspected for some time that the Delacroix were a somewhat unorthodox couple. Now he said, “There’ll be no sleep tonight for any of us, not if I can persuade you to join forces with me.”

  Genevieve dropped into the wing chair again as a wave of dizziness brought a nauseous sinking feeling to add to her miseries. Any other time, and she would have responded as Dominic was doing, with brightening eye and alert posture. But tonight she was drained, emotionally and physically, and shamefully close to tears, she realized, resting her aching head on an elbow-propped hand. She could blame herself for the overindulgence in champagne, and supposed that that bore some responsibility for the evening’s debacles, but her forced march through the streets and the intensity of the ensuing truth-telling session that she knew was not yet completed had squeezed the last drop of energy from bone and sinew. She did not think she could care less about Napoleon Bonaparte.

  “Fouché, we will continue this downstairs, if you please,” Dominic said briskly, opening the door again. “Silas will show you into the salon. I will join you directly.”

  Fouché followed his host’s eyes and seemed to take in the whey-faced, drooping Genevieve properly for the first time. “D’accord,” he replied with equal briskness. “Desolated to have discommoded you, madame.” With a smart click of his heels, he left the chamber.

  “I do not know how long you may be able to rest, but a little must be better than nothing,” said Dominic. “Come, I will help you undress.”

  “But since we are partners, should I not take part in whatever these plans are?” she offered in token protest, allowing him to pull her to her feet.

  “At the moment, my child, you could not partner a soft boiled egg,” Dominic told her, unhooking her gown. He had her between the sheets in a matter of minutes, and her eyes closed with a blissful sigh as the cool softness of the pillow cradled her throbbing head. Bending, he brushed her hair off her forehead and dropped a light kiss on the wide brow. “This that is between us must wait for awhile, I fear. But not for very much longer, sprite.”

  Her eyelashes fluttered in a response that he took to be agreement and, snuffing out the candles, he left her in merciful peace and darkness.

  “So, Fouché, now we may be free of interruption.” Closing the salon door behind him, he went to stand with his back to the fire, one arm resting casually along the carved mantel.

  “You are interested in assisting Bonaparte to escape from Elba?” It was posed as a question, but both men knew that it was really a statement, and Dominic merely inclined his head in agreement. “The time is ripe for him to make a move,” Fouché said, “but he will need to slip through the blockade of French and British ships patrolling the channel. You have some expertise in such matters, do you not?”

  Dominic’s fly-away eyebrows formed question marks and he whistled softly. “So you know who I am.”

  The elderly statesman chuckled softly. “Oh, yes, mon ami. I have known for three days. I have informants in America also, you should know.”

  Dominic nodded ruefully. “I should have known, certainly. I should communicate with Napoleon through Bartolucci at Leghorn, or Fesch in Rome?”

  “You have done your homework.” Fouché applauded.

  “Genevieve has,” Dominic corrected him, a shadow crossing the turquoise eyes.

  Fouché pulled at his lower lip. “A resourceful lady, your wife. I congratulate you, Delacroix.” He stared for a second into the fire, then recollected himself. “Napoleon has not sufficient ships on Elba, even if he could commandeer all of them under the sharp eyes of Neil Campbell, to transport some twelve hundred men. Another vessel, maybe two, must be acquired on the mainland. And a crew supplied.”

  Dominic nodded his understanding. “I have my own vessel and crew already at Leghorn, and sufficient men to put a skeleton crew aboard another sizable ship. Purchasing a merchantman should not present too many difficulties in a port of that size.”

  “Good.” Fouché nodded and dismissed that matter as dealt with. “Bartolucci will provide you with introductions to Bonaparte who receives visitors regularly, and I see no reason why you and madame should not join the stream of the curious. When you see him, you will tell him that I am plotting to replace that reactionary with Louis Philippe. That will drive him to action if he requires further incentive.” The wily old fox chuckled. “The people are calling for him. He will be swept on the tide of public opinion once he sets foot in France.”

  Dominic, having warmed his backside thoroughly, turned to face the fire. The Orleans, Louis Philippe, was a liberal, popular man. If he replaced on the throne of France the reactionary Bourbon, Louis
XVIII, who was at present causing so much dissension among the populace, Napoleon would lose valuable support since the people of France would have less reason to clamor for his return. “And are you planning to do so?” he inquired.

  Fouché chuckled. “If Napoleon does not make his move soon, I shall most certainly do my best. The situation cannot continue as it is.”

  “So, we have little time to lose,” Dominic said with complete comprehension. Fouché was a tricky schemer. “If I am to talk with Bonaparte, discover his transport needs, acquire what is necessary, and evolve a plan for circumventing the blockade …” He turned to smile at Fouché, the quietly confident smile of the privateer facing action and decision.

  “They are not light tasks, mon ami,” Fouché said, as if he needed reminding. “But I have little doubt that you will accomplish them to the greater good of France.” Dominic’s eyebrows lifted and Fouché chuckled. “But the greater good of France is not really your concern, is it?”

  “I am a mercenary, Fouché,” the privateer stated with a small shrug. “I have been well paid and will accomplish the tasks I have been paid for.”