"Perhaps you're right," she whispered, inexplicably wanting to weep. "But passion… is safer than love."
He braced himself above her, his wide shoulders blocking the sun, filling the world so that there was nothing real but him. "Safe isn't good enough."
Unable to bear his probing gaze, she closed her eyes and tried feverishly to recapture the mindlessness of passion.
Sharply he ordered, "Look at me!"
Though she didn't want to obey, her eyes opened.
She was appalled to realize that she seemed to have no will of her own.
More quietly he said, "You deserve more than simple safety, Margot. You've already suffered the pains of loving-let yourself feel the joy."
Piece by piece, her defenses had been flaking away, and abruptly the last of them disintegrated, pitching her into a maelstrom of fear, pain, and anger. She had survived devastation by never allowing herself to fully experience the horror of the past, but now the memories swept over her with a ferocity that splintered her spirit. Her father's agonized death cry, and his blood spilling over her face. Clawing hands and the excruciating defilement that forever destroyed her innocence. Unspeakable acts that had been literally unimaginable to a sheltered eighteen-year-old girl.
She cried out with terror, desire vanishing as brutal sobs racked her to the core. She was cold, so cold, and absolutely alone…
Instantly Rafe released her wrists and enfolded her in his arms, using his body and spirit to shield her from the storm. "I love you, Margot!" he said urgently. "I always will. You don't ever have to be alone again."
She had known, in the very marrow of her bones, that if she ever faced the full horror she would die.
Yet she didn't. Rafe was around her, within her, his tenderness and strength protecting her, his forcefully repeated words of love a lifeline that saved her from annihilation.
Gradually the maelstrom of terror began to lose its power and her rasping breath eased. The past had not changed; her memories were still bitter, the scars still deep. Yet his love was dispelling the clouds of terror as inexorably as the sun burned off the morning fog.
Fear ebbed, leaving emptiness. Then slowly, like the flow of the tide, the hollowness at the center of her soul filled with love. The warmth of his caring banished the dark shadows and suffused her with light.
And with love came a rekindling of desire. It was not the desperate craving that had ruled her earlier, but a powerful upswelling of emotion in which love and passion were inseparable.
Though he had softened while holding her against the storm, they were still locked together as intimately as man and woman could be. She arched against him, letting her body speak to his. As passion rose again, she whispered, "I love you, Rafe."
He exhaled roughly as he moved into the primal rhythms of mating. There was no trace of the distance she had sensed in him the first time they made love. Now he was wholly with her, spirit as well as body.
As they tried to merge their separate bodies into one, his powerful thrusts created another storm, this one the white wind of desire. She cried out and clung to him as she spun out of control. Savage contractions blazed through her, searing outward from the place of their joining. Her cry was echoed by his heart-deep groan as he released his seed deep inside her.
The descent from ecstasy was slow, a swirl of tranquility and light. As her fragmented consciousness slowly returned, she found that Rafe was shaking as badly as she. She stroked his sweaty back until her breathing steadied. "How did you know that I felt so alone?" she murmured.
Rafe lifted himself on his elbows and studied her face, his strained expression revealing how much her emotional cataclysm had cost him. "Recognition, I suppose. When I looked back, I realized that fear of loss had made me withdraw from the hazards of deep emotion. Yet what I found was not safety, but loneliness. I guessed that it was the same for you."
"That's it exactly," she said slowly. "I never forgot what happened, yet I never let myself fully feel it, either. To survive, I had to retreat from the terror. By doing so, I cut myself off from everything-and everyone."
"You speak as if that's in the past."
"It is, because you wouldn't let me retreat this time. Thank you, Rafe." As she looked into his clear gray eyes, her mouth curved into a smile. "In case I didn't make myself clear earlier, I love you."
He returned the smile with entrancing warmth. "As I believe I mentioned forty or fifty times, I love you, too."
She laughed a little. "It appears that for once we are in agreement."
A shadow touched his face. "I'm sorry that I forgot myself so entirely that I didn't withdraw." He hesitated, then said, "I hope that… there won't be any unwanted consequences."
Joy blossomed within her, and a pleasing sense of female power. "Such consequences would not be unwelcome to me," she said serenely. "And surely you would like an heir."
He looked startled. Then, with dazzling suddenness, his face lit up, as radiant as the sun above them. "Does that mean you'll marry me?"
Tenderly she ran her fingers through his tousled hair. "If you're sure that you want a lady with a shady past, there is nothing I would like more than to be your wife."
"If I'm sure!" Laughing, he caught her in his arms and rolled onto his back so that she was sprawled on top of him. "I've never been more certain of anything in my life."
"You were right, Rafe. Love is stronger than fear, and it feels a whole lot better." She rubbed her cheek against his. "Bless you for being braver than I."
"It was a risk worth taking." He stroked her bare backside lovingly. "You were concerned that I would be unable to resist the charms of other women, but remember, it's said that a reformed rake makes the best husband."
She hesitated, then decided that there must be complete honesty between them. "Frankly, I've never believed that. I know that you meant what you said-but leopards and unchangeable spots come to mind."
"I have always liked women in direct proportion to how much they reminded me of you, but no one else has ever held a candle to the original Margot." He grinned. "Will you find it easier to believe me if I say that I have grazed in enough fields to know that the grass is not greener?"
"You've just convinced me." Laughing, she laid her head on his shoulder. "Why is it that an ignoble assertion is so much more persuasive than a noble one?"
"Human nature, I'm afraid."
As they lay languidly together, it occurred to Rafe that he'd better protect Margot from the sun, for her fair complexion would burn much more easily than his dark hide. Gently he deposited her on the luxuriant grass, then propped himself on one elbow so that she was shaded by his body.
"You were lovely by candlelight, and you're even lovelier in the sun." Delicately he touched one of the fading bruises on her ribs. In the last several days, it had gone from blue-black to yellow-olive. "I'll be glad when these have faded away." His voice tightened. "You're a miracle, Margot. What you survived would have destroyed anyone with less strength."
She caught his hand and clasped it to her heart. "Nothing is without value, love. From the day my father died until ten minutes ago, fear was a constant companion, as close as my own shadow. Yet curiously, I was not afraid of small things, because the worst that I could imagine had already happened. In most ways I became stronger, capable of actions that would have been unthinkable earlier. That's why I could be an effective spy."
He kissed her forehead. "My indomitable countess and soon-to-be-duchess."
Hesitantly she said, "I have a request."
"Anything," he said simply.
She considered a dozen ways to express what she meant before saying, "Robin is my family. He always will be."
Rafe gave her a wry smile. "And you don't want me to act like a jealous, possessive idiot of a husband. Fair enough. I like and respect Robin enormously. If I work on it a bit, I think I'll be able to convince myself that he's your brother. He will always be welcome in our home, and I genuinely hope that he is a frequ
ent visitor. Is that what you wanted to hear?"
"Yes, my love." A silky object pressed sensually along her side, and she looked down to see that Rex had decided that it was safe to sprawl along her bare flank. With a grin, she asked, "How about Rex?"
Rafe laughed. "He's welcome, too. Every household needs a tomcat, and now that I've reformed…"
Her joyous laughter chimed through the garden as she lifted her face to Rafe's, running her fingers through his black hair, molding her body against him in the sheer delight of closeness.
As their lips joined again, she had a fleeting moment of gratitude that this garden was so very private. They had a lot of years to make up for.
Historical Note
Though the Congress of Vienna is well known, the Paris peace conference of 1815 is relatively obscure. Nonetheless, it was a vital event that finally concluded the Napoleonic Wars.
Though I have taken some liberties, the background events of the story are true. Paris in the summer and autumn of 1815 was a hotbed of conspiracies, assassination plots, and political crosscurrents. Lord Castlereagh was indeed kicked by a horse in mid-September, and for some days after, the important meetings took place in his bedchamber at the British embassy.
Both art and Bonapartist political prisoners became topics of great controversy, and the events at the Louvre and the Place du Carrousel are accurately depicted. The French, however, had the last laugh on this; while the final treaty sent the stolen art treasures in Paris home, no one thought to include the many fine works that had been sent to provincial museums.
Some of the top Bonapartist military men were executed, causing outrage throughout Europe. Marshal Michel Ney, "the bravest of the brave," died with great courage before a firing squad. With the aid of three British subjects, another high-ranking officer escaped from prison dressed in his wife's clothes, proving once again that art has nothing over life when it comes to farce.
The Congress of Vienna and the peace settlement of 1815 are sometimes called reactionary because the tsar's nonbinding Holy Alliance is confused with the Quadruple Alliance, which was the actual peace treaty signed on November 20th. It was the Holy Alliance that came to be used as a tool of reactionary forces, while the Quadruple Alliance had one splendid new idea: that in times of future trouble, the great powers would gather together and discuss the situation. This was the seed that flowered into the League of Nations and the United Nations in this century.
The statesmen who engineered the settlement were tough, pragmatic men who sought to have peace in their time, and who had to work with the materials available on a shattered continent. They succeeded better than any of them dreamed of: Europe did not experience another continent-wide conflagration until 1914.
Meanwhile, the British embassy is still housed in the mansion that Wellington bought from Pauline Bonaparte, the Princess Borghese, and I'm told that on great occasions her plate still graces the table.
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