by Kresley Cole
She gasped in recognition. "The Scot!" It couldn't be him, yet those eyes, that accent, and his towering height told her it could be no other. She surveyed his face, shocked to find that the man she'd thought was so perfect was horribly scarred.
He stood motionless, as if steeling himself for her reaction. She didn't think he even breathed while she stared at the jagged mark.
"Well, I see now why you wouldn't take off your mask." She tilted her head. "You had to cover up the ten-inch-long scar twisting across your face."
His eyes narrowed. "Aingeal, there is only one thing on my body that's ten inches long, and if you'll recall, the scar is no' it."
"The scaris that long." She gave him a smirk as she said, "Regarding the other, well, I hardly even remember." As if she'd ever forget that searing pain. "How long have you been spying on me?"
"I was no' spying on you. I was making sure you dinna get waylaid by bloodthirsty French barmaids. Now, I think it's time I told you my name. I'm Ethan MacCarrick, and I've—"
"Why?" She tossed aside the umbrella, then skipped down the steps, starting down the street.
When he caught up to her, he was frowning. "Why what?"
"Why do you think it's time I learned your name? Why would you think I care to? I don't, sobonne nuit ." Maddy hadn't thought this day could possibly get worse. She quickened her pace to get home before something else happened. She would rid herself of these torturing boots, crawl under the covers, not to wake for days—and forget she'd ever seen the Scot.
"You doona even want to know why I'm here?"
As ever, she was curious.How did he find me? How much does he know about me? But after his cruelty the last time she'd seen him, and after the day she'd had…
She couldn't think of much more than the money she'd lost on the punch bowl and how badly her feet hurt and how she craved the oblivion of sleep. "No." She paused, tapping her chin. "Not unless you've come to return my virginity, which, regrettably, I misplaced in a cab in London." She raised her brows in question. "Don't have it with you? No? Then…good-bye." She reveled in his expression before she hurried on. Priceless. That bastard had actually imagined that she'd be happy to see him.
"Are you going home?" he called from behind her. "Say hello to the henchmen on your way in." When she slowed, he added, "How much do you owe?"
At that, she snapped over her shoulder, "Why would this be any business of yours?"
He caught up with her once more, striding beside her. "Because I might offer to help."
"And why would you do that? Out of the goodness of your black heart?"
"No. I admit I want something from you. If you'll just listen to my proposition—"
"MacCarrick, is it?" At his nod, she said, "I think I can predict what yourproposition might be, and I'm emphatically not interested!"
"Maybe, maybe no'. Share a meal with me, and we'll discuss it."
"I'm not stupid. You want to go to bed with me again. Which will never happen. I couldn't have been persuaded to evenbefore I saw your face. Now? I won't even waste my time talking about it. There's nothing you could offer that would affect that."
She could almost hear him grinding his teeth to a pulp. "I believe you're in need of a lot of things I could offer."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Winter's coming and you're living in a wet, drafty hovel."
She nearly stumbled. "You were insidemy apartment?"
"Aye, Bea let me in. We talked for a bit."
"So she's the one who told you where you could find me? Why would she do that? Did you threaten her?" she demanded. "Were you cruel to her because she's…because she's popular?"
"No, she helped me because she said youliked me," he answered, raising his eyebrows.
Bea had revealed that? How embarrassing! Maddy sounded like a simpering girl at her first cotillion.
"Corrine told me how to find you at this tavern."
Corrine, too?"I can't imagine why they helped you—my last word on the subject of you was that you were an ass."
"Corrine entreated me no' to let you get hurt by some woman named Berthé."
She slanted a glance at him. "How did you find my apartment in the first place?"
"Quin Weyland gave me an address in St. Roch, and I followed your trail to La Marais."
"You're friends with Quin?"
"I'm a family friend of the Weylands. Even related to them in a way—my brother recently married Jane Weyland."
"That makes no sense. The last I heard, Jane was supposed to marry some rich English earl."
"Believe me, I doona see it either."
"So you knew who I was the night of the masquerade?"
"No, only that you were an acquaintance of theirs as well. Listen, Madeleine, with the rate you've lost weight since I last saw you, the apple I found in your garret is likely the only dinner you're returning to, and the men outside your building are no' the type to show mercy."
She could deny none of it.
"All I'm asking you to do is share a dinner with me and hear me out." When she was still shaking her head, he snapped, "Do you really need to mull over the choice of a warm meal with me or facing those men?"
If Toumard's men were there, she'd be forced to wander the streets again. Yet still she said, "Yes, MacCarrick. Yes, I do. You were hateful that night, and the only thing that got me through it was telling myself I never had to see you again. 'Decide what's to be done with you,' you said. How galling. I want nothing from you—not then, and not now! I've taken care of myself since I was fourteen." She was almost home, to her bed, to oblivion.
"Aye, and a capable job you're doing. With the poverty, hunger, and debts. Seems you might have stuck around Quin's till I came back if this was what you were returning to." He waved a hand at the street.
Homeless men gathered around fires in clay pots, casting long shadows over the buildings. Gunfire popped in the background. Somewhere in the dark a fistfight broke out.
"Quin told me you were intelligent and practical. Surely you've the sense to at least hear me out."
"Quin talked to you about me?" she asked, slowing.
"Aye, and he knows I've come to Paris to see you. He would no' like to learn that you live in a place like this."
She would die if Quin knew! She twined her fingers. But would her pride force her to go along with the Scot? At that moment, she feared pride had just taken a generous lead over curiosity toward her downfall. She finally stopped. "I don't want him to know."
"Then come along," he said in a stern tone that must usually send people scurrying to do his bidding—because he looked perplexed when she only raised her brows at him. "Come with me, and I'll get you a room at my hotel, and you'll enjoy a nice hot meal."
"Now it's to yourhotel ? Do you think I'm a fool? Besides, I thought you preferred intercourse in moving conveyances."
He made a sound of frustration, then dug a small jewelry case from his pocket, presenting it to her. "Have dinner with me, listen to my proposition, and I'll give you this. No strings attached."
Her hand shot out for the case so swiftly that he had to blink. She whirled around, opening it. A diamond ring! "You don't mind if I examine this more closely?" she asked over her shoulder.
He quirked a brow, waving her forward. "No' at all."
She needed a streetlight. Of course, the sole one in La Marais had been torn down, its iron sold for scrap. But she could feel the stone's weight and knew it couldn't be paste.A diamond, a real one. This would pay off Toumard and keep her foryears . "One dinner earns me this?"
"Aye, you can keep the ring, regardless of your decision."
"Would you vow you won't try anything unseemly with me?"
"Unseemly? Aye, I can vow that."
She could tell the ring wouldn't fit her thin fingers, so she pulled her key ribbon from her skirt pocket. After untying the red ribbon and threading the ring along it next to her apartment key, she stowed it back into her deep pocket.
When she faced him again, he appeared to barely check a smug smirk, no doubt thinking she'd just agreed. "It's obvious you always get what you want," she said. "Maybe it'd be good for you to be turned down flat by a girl from the slum."
At that, he obviously reached his limit. He took a step forward, looking as though he planned to toss her over his shoulder.
"Ah-ah"—she wagged her finger at him—"I wouldn't do that. You won't catch me, not in my neighborhood."
He seemed to grind his teeth again, then clearly lit on an idea.
From his jacket, he pulled an apple—it washer precious apple, abducted from her home.
"No!" she cried, forced to watch as he took a big bite, chewing with exaggerated relish.
"So I take it we have an engagement for dinner," he said between bites.
Chapter Seventeen
When Ethan tossed the core away, she looked as though she would cry, and for some reason he almost felt guilty. He gentled his tone. "Come with me, Madeleine. I promise your apple will be a worthy sacrifice."
Even now, dressed as she was, she seemed so out of place in La Marais. She was tired, but her hair shone in the street fires, and her eyes were bright, not like the sunken eyes of the denizens all around them. She appeared so fragile, yet she had no reaction to the shots fired at regular intervals not more than a couple of blocks away in any direction.
"I still have to go home to let my friends know I didn't get hurt," she said. "They'll be worried."
"So you plan to wade into a dangerous area in order to inform your friends that you're safe? That's ridiculous."
"It's notdangerous ," she scoffed.
The mere idea of her down here at night was insufferable. "Do you no' hear the guns going off?"
She gave him a look that said he was daft. "Well, it's not as though they're aimed atme . If you're afraid, then stay here until I return."
Little witch. "I'm no'afraid —"
"Then you won't mind waiting here. You can't tell me Corrine and Bea were worried and then expect me to ignore their worry."
At another time, he might have been impressed with her loyalty and concern for her friends. Now, it only irritated him. "If you think I'm letting you go down there alone, you're mad."
She put her hand on her hip. "And what will you do about it?"
He lunged forward, seizing her elbow, and began dragging her back up the hill.
"MacCarrick, Ilive here. I only want five minutes." She cursed him in French. "You can't order me about, Scot!" Her hard little boots connected with his shins.
He grated, "Damn it, Madeleine, we'll send them a message from the hotel."
"No one will deliver a message to La Marais after sunset!"
"They will if I pay them enough." He considered throwing her over his shoulder, but he risked opening his stitches. When she still resisted, he said, "We'll send them food as well, then. Would that sway you?"
She eased her scuffling. "Howmuch food?"
"I doona bloody care. As much as you like."
She got a gleam in her eye that he thought he'd soon be growing familiar with. "I will hold you to—"
A woman cried out from just behind him. Ethan shoved Madeleine back as he twisted around. In a murky alley, a prostitute was pressed up against a wall, studying her nails and feigning moans as one man took her from behind. Another man awaited his turn.
When Ethan turned to Madeleine, she shrugged at the sight of people having intercourse just feet from the two of them, with the same indifference she'd demonstrated the first night he'd met her.
He couldn't imagine all the things her young eyes had witnessed.
Stitches be damned. "I doona want you here," he said simply, about to sling her over his shoulder, but the waiting man strode forward from the shadows and addressed them in a strange tongue.Argot , Ethan thought, the French cant of criminals. The man pointed to Madeleine with raised eyebrows.
She gave a bitter laugh and muttered, "He wants to know if you've finished with me."
A haze fell over Ethan's vision. He dimly heard her answering retort, speaking argot herself. The bastard thought Madeleine was a whore, thought to use her in a filthy alley….
Ethan yanked her behind him as he pulled his gun. The man took one look at Ethan's expression and drew his own pistol. Too late. Ethan had already drawn, cocked, and aimed.
Madeleine glanced out from behind his back, then touched his shoulder. "Don't, MacCarrick." Her voice was urgent. "Allons-y. Let's go. I'm ready to go with you now."
"Why should I no' kill him?"
"Because his gang will come after me and my friends. You didn't want me here, and now I want to go with you. Please, Scot…."
At length, he backed them away, keeping his gun raised and the man in sight until they'd turned the corner. He finally stowed his gun, wincing in pain. His wound had started to throb.
"Do you always carry a pistol?" At his brusque nod, she said, "Why?"
So when a criminal mistakes my woman for a whore, I can kill him.He shook himself, trying to throw off the surge of protectiveness that welled within him.His woman? She was a means to an end.
She tilted her head at him. "I don't understand why you were afraid of gunfire when youhave a gun—and obviously know how to use it. In any case, I wouldn't have let anything happen to you." She frowned. "Well, probably not. Unless it inconvenienced me to step in or I had something better—"
"I wasno' bloody afraid," he grated again.I suspect I'm going to throttle her before all this is done. "Damn it, just come along…."
When they arrived at his hotel, the brasserie downstairs was still open, but Ethan didn't want to take her in there. He didn't care if people stared at his face—he was used to it—but he didn't want her analyzing him, discerning his reaction.
"We'll eat in my room," he said, clasping her hand and leading her to the stairs.
Instead of protesting vehemently, she gazed up at his scar. "It really bothers you, doesn't it?" No furtive glances for her.
He narrowed his eyes. "Wouldn't it you?"
She shrugged, and they ascended in silence to his floor. Inside his room, she whistled and turned in a circle. "Pricey. Nothing but the best, then?"
He rang for a waiter. "Why no'?" he said, carefully shrugging from his jacket.
She'd just returned from surveying the balcony's view when a liveried waiter arrived to take a bill of fare. The man handed the single menu to him to order, but Ethan waved him to Madeleine.
She accepted it with a regal inclination of her head, sitting at the room's polished dining table. "Do you speak French?" she asked Ethan as she skimmed the offerings.
"Nary a word," he lied. "Only Gaelic and English."
"Lobster," she immediately told the man in French, casting Ethan a furtive glance. He gave her a blank look in return. She amended her order to six lobster entrees with accompaniments—soups, cheeses, pastries, fruits, salad.
"And if you box up half of the order and have the porter deliver it to an address in La Marais, my…husband will add a forty percent gratuity."
"La Marais?" the waiter said, choking on the words.
She sighed. "Seventy percent."
While Madeleine scribbled the address on the bill of fare, Ethan told the waiter, "Bring up champagne while we wait." To Madeleine, he said, "Feel free to choose the vintage, lass."
In French, she ordered, "Whatever's most dear."
With a bow, the man departed. When he returned directly with the champagne, poured, then left once more, Madeleine seemed content to drink and explore the room.
Ethan sank back into a plush armchair, content to watch her opening drawers, investigating closets, even rooting through his bag.Sionnach , he thought. She again reminded him of a fox, so wary, so sly.
She touched all the fabrics in the room, brushing her fingertips lovingly over the counterpane, even over his trousers in the closet press, seeming unaware of what she was doing. He, however, was quite aware and wanted her to run
her fingers over those trousers like that when he was in them. She effortlessly made him randy as hell.
When she ambled into the bathroom, he leaned forward to keep her in view. She eyed the plunge tub, which was big enough to swim in. "Unlimited running water?" she asked, coveting it with her eyes.
"Aye. You're welcome to it."
He thought he heard her mutter, "You mean, you'll let meavail myself ."
By the time the food arrived a short while later, she was visibly tipsy, which wasn't surprising considering how thin she was. The sizable table proved too small for all the fare, so she had the server spread out the plates on the room's thick Brussels rug for a picnic.
Once the man left, she sat on the floor, with the dishes all around her. Ethan shrugged and eased down with her, careful with his injury.
"Casual as ever," she remarked.
"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, reaching for a lobster dish, but she changed her grip on her fork to a dagger hold.
He raised his palms in surrender, his gaze flickering over her small frame as he said, "You obviously need it more than I do."
She couldn't seem to decide if that had been a cutting comment or a statement of fact. He couldn't either. "Tell me what you meant," he said.
"You acted so familiar with me that night in the carriage."
"Aye, it happens when two people have intercourse."
She glared at that. "No, you acted as if we'd been together for years—just a night among many between us."
Sometimes it felt that way….
"Here. I'll let you have this to eat," she said, solemnly handing him agarnish . Then she took her first forkful, rolling her eyes with pleasure.
Though he would have thought she'd inhale her food, she savored each bite as if it would be her last. She had a sensual, tactile way of eating that was…stirring. When she ate juicy strawberries and clotted cream, he ran his hand over his mouth. When she licked the cream from her fingers, he uncomfortably shifted the way he sat. Any male could easily imagine her actions in a different light. Finally, he could take no more.
"Enough," he said as he levered himself to his feet. "You're going to make yourself sick." He clasped her hand to help her up.