Three Lessons in Seduction

by Sofie Darling

One hand cupped her bottom, pulling her into full, erotic contact with his erect shaft, the other slipped inside her bodice and lifted a breast out of the confining fabric before squeezing her taut peak between thumb and forefinger. Instinctively, her leg wrapped around his waist as his manhood ground into her. Her body alternately screamed and ached for more . . . for everything.

  Drat these layers of clothes between them.

  He broke the kiss and took her breast into his mouth. Her head arced back, and a long moan escaped her.

  “We are better than that,” he murmured, his hand snaking up her bare thigh. “Do you require additional proof?”

  “Yes,” she exhaled, a plea to the heavens above.

  The heavens ignored her entreaty, for the next moment, Nick went stock still and pressed a staying finger against her lips before she could cry out in protest. She followed his gaze and found what had caught his attention. A gendarme stood, not five feet away, patiently awaiting their attention.

  Mariana knew she should feel absolutely mortified, face flaming with embarrassment and shame. But she felt not a bit of it. She’d only just coaxed Nick into lowering his defenses and revealing something true about himself—that he desired her . . . madly, wildly—and this officer of the silly law had come along and denied her. She didn’t feel ashamed; she felt thwarted.

  The gendarme motioned for Nick to step aside with him. “Monsieur, s’il vous plait?”

  Nick straightened and locked eyes with Mariana for the briefest moment, the message in them clear: she was to stay put and keep quiet. She was to prove she’d learned her lesson and make herself invisible.

  Ha. That ship had sailed.

  She watched his wildness recede and the civilized take over as his fingers ran through his shorn hair and smoothed it down. She suppressed the desire to reach out and stay his hand. Desire and possibility faded fast, replaced by a devastating sense of impossibility. Desire wasn’t enough to fix what ailed her and Nick. It never had been.

  She instantly sobered. “Neither wife nor whore,” fell from her lips.

  ~ ~ ~

  Nick felt the words with the force of a slap, but he had no time for them now. The gendarme was waiting. Appeasement must be his first concern. Mariana would come later.

  He closed his eyes and inhaled. No, Mariana wouldn’t come later. Not like that, anyway. There would be no appeasement tonight, or ever, for them.

  He moved away from her. “You may want to”—He darted a glance toward her bare breasts—“adjust yourself.” The gendarme was getting an eyeful.

  Nick stepped toward the officer of the law, a practiced, sheepish smile on his lips. Oui, he knew this wasn’t the place, but sometimes a man had . . . needs. It was the gendarme’s turn to smile sheepishly, tapping an empty hand against his thigh. Oui, oui, but next time. Oui, oui, next time. The gendarme’s hand returned to his pocket richer than it had been a few minutes earlier.

  The gendarme strolled away, a satisfied whistle on his lips, and Nick again faced Mariana. There couldn’t be a next time. As he watched her arrange her hair, slender arms raised and breasts all but exposed to the night sky, and anyone else who happened along, the resolution rang hollow.

  “This scheme isn’t going to plan.” He adjusted his cravat. “You’re not exactly spy material.”

  “Ah, I see.”

  Startled, he glanced up, expecting to find her vibrating with betrayal and disappointment—it seemed his destiny ever to disappoint her—except he read neither emotion there. He read challenge in her eyes.

  “I find Paris suits me,” she continued.

  “This is bigger than us,” he pressed, except even he could hear that his words lacked conviction. He wasn’t certain anything was bigger than he and Mariana. Not even the fates of France and England were more important—not in this moment.

  “There is no us, Nick. There never was.”

  He flinched. Even he knew that wasn’t true. Once upon a time, there had been a them, and it had been a glorious frolic in delusion—until reality had come knocking.

  Again, he called upon the requisite words. “The stability of Europe is at stake here.”

  A brittle laugh escaped her. “And, of course, you’re the only man who can insure Continental stability. You always did overestimate your control over a situation.”

  A sudden, hot urge to tweak her overcame him. “Not always.” The words came out a hard growl. “There are certain situations I control very well.”

  ~ ~ ~

  A blush warmed Mariana’s cheeks, and she glanced away, hoping to hide her body’s reaction to his words, to the promise in his eyes when he spoke them. It was a desire that must be quelled. They had gone too far tonight.

  Not far enough, her body protested.

  Nick stepped out into the street and hailed an approaching hackney. A staying hand held out to the driver, he turned and waved her toward the conveyance. Her feet felt mired in sludge as she crossed the few feet between where she’d stood and the open door. The absinthe had sailed away into the ether without her, leaving her earthbound and deflated.

  Yes, absinthe. She wouldn’t consider what else could bring on this feeling of gloom. What was the word from earlier? Crapulent. It was the perfect word. Absolute crapulence.

  His arm, angled at the elbow, extended and awaited her hand, so he could assist her into the carriage.

  Memory, unbidden and unwelcome, pushed at the corners of her mind. Once, she’d stood like this, her hand poised above his forearm; she’d been dressed in virginal ivory and he in tailored blacks and whites. Their “I do’s” just spoken, they’d faced the aisle before them, friends and family to each side. Her shaky, silk-gloved hand had lowered to a light rest on woolen superfine, and the gratification of having well and truly caught him swelled up. This gorgeous, cunning, untamed man was hers, forever.

  Bitterness mingled with memory. A flash was all it had been; there had been no substance, no lasting truth in it. She ignored his waiting forearm and grabbed hold of the carriage’s open window frame, mounting the first step unassisted.

  “It was a foolish idea, Mariana, to think that you—”

  “Could be useful?” she finished for him.

  “You are useful, just not to—”

  “You?” She stood perpendicular to him, her gaze fast on the interior of the carriage. “Well, isn’t it your job to make me so?”

  “Mariana—”

  “One more lesson, Nick,” she said, hating her inability to keep an imploring note out of her voice.

  After a moment’s hesitation, he said, “One more lesson.”

  She finished her ascent into the carriage, and Nick shut the door behind her. He gave the boot two quick taps, and it lurched into motion.

  Mariana resisted the urge to peer out the window and watch Nick recede into the distance until he blended with the shadows. Instead, she pressed her back flat against unforgiving leather and turned her thoughts to her nerve endings.

  Not ten minutes ago, she’d been focused on their pleasure. Yet it was the other side of a raw nerve ending that claimed her attention now that the pleasure had receded: pain. As a midnight Paris streamed past her window, she sensed a nascent, yet familiar, pain held at bay, a pain she would rather avoid.

  If this was truly the case, then why had she all but begged for another lesson? She knew why. It was for the same nervy, hedonistic reason she’d staked her locket last night.

  While there was a fifty percent chance she would find pain once she reached the end of this particular nerve, there was another fifty percent chance she would find pleasure there. After all, she’d vowed to follow Nick’s example and ignore their past. Such a gloomy past was better left in gloomy London. This Paris idyll was a time and place for unreality to rule the day.

  And if a
few nerve endings were pleasured along the way, well, wasn’t that what Paris was for? People risked more for less.

  She shifted uncomfortably on her seat.

  A risk greater than a heart? a tiny thought nagged.

  Chapter 14

  Comfortable importance: A wife.

  A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

  Francis Grose

  Feet cutting a brisk clip across the mist-slick cobblestone byways of an early morning Paris, Nick dared not let up the pace. He’d kissed her.

  No, kiss was too simple a word for what he’d done. He’d ravished her mouth with his and would’ve done more if the gendarme hadn’t appeared.

  But the gendarme and even the kiss itself weren’t what troubled him most. He’d lost control . . . again. From the moment she’d whispered the taunt, “Am I invisible enough now?”, he’d had to have her. There had been no question of it in his mind. He’d wanted her to understand precisely how invisible she wasn’t.

  His first instinct upon seeing her inside La Grande Salle had been correct. Trouble had arrived. And here his prediction was playing out as he’d envisioned. Only the passing gendarme had saved him from himself tonight. Who would save him from himself next time?

  He looked up and slowed his pace. His feet had carried him to the banks of the Seine, where he inhaled air ripe with sewage and river stench. How smooth its murky black surface appeared in these last hours before dawn, as if its façade of tranquility continued deep below the surface, but nothing could be further from the truth. Just beneath that calm surface roiled a river teeming with vibrant life, straining to arrive at its final destination, the Channel.

  How like a person a river was. How like Mariana.

  Her surface was a sleek and sophisticated exterior similar to so many ladies of her class. A cursory glance might tempt one to assume her depths uncomplicated by the world outside her rarified orbit. After all, in that way she slotted in seamlessly with her peers. One, however, would be mistaken.

  Strong currents lay below Mariana’s surface. Many had dipped in a toe, only to find themselves swept along by the force of her tide. Like the Seine, Mariana, too, had inevitable destinations. Only she willed where they led.

  And one of her inevitable destinations was him. Indeed, they were fated in certain ways.

  He turned away from the river and set out across the bridge. One more lesson.

  Blast. Why hadn’t he followed Villefranche into the night? If he’d come into the café, wasn’t it possible he’d have other unexpected stops on his way to meet his agent?

  But these weren’t the questions that bothered him most. A different question plagued him: why had he agreed to one more lesson?

  He knew the answer, too. He was losing focus, unable to resist the pull of her current. He’d never been able to, not really.

  Eleven years ago—eleven years next month, in fact—that reality had come home to roost, belying the half-truths he’d been telling himself about his feelings for his wife.

  ~ ~ ~

  London

  10 October 1813

  Inside Whitehall, Nick had sat, pen to paper, writing a brief, the banal reverse of espionage that little boys playing at cloaks and daggers never dreamed of.

  He’d just gotten into the meat of the report when the low-level agent he’d assigned to keep an eye on the house burst into the office. “Sir, they’re coming,” the man exclaimed.

  A low buzz expanded inside Nick’s head, providing a buffer between him and the outside world. No one needed to explain who they were, or why it mattered that they were coming.

  They’re coming.

  On the move, he snatched his overcoat off its knob, his feet gobbling up great swathes of yardage with each stride. Several city blocks and two parks stood between him and Mariana. He would reach Half Moon Street in twelve minutes at a steady sprint, having prepared for this day with a run-through last week. Twice.

  “Sir!” he heard behind him, his heels already a swift click-clack across a blessedly dry sidewalk. “Your carriage!”

  The plea fell ignored on his back. The carriage wouldn’t cut the time—it would likely take longer—and he couldn’t sit passive inside while the minutes ticked by.

  He hooked a quick right at the Horse Guards, his figure a phantom along the meagerly populated paths of St. James’s and Green Parks. By the time he reached the reservoir in Green Park, he was a winded, sweaty mess, but a focused one, too. He was only a few blocks from home now.

  They’re coming.

  Mariana wasn’t overly concerned about giving birth to twins. “After all,” she’d repeated more than once, “my mother came through just fine, and, like her, I’m not a small woman.”

  The logic had done little to allay his fears. This was Mariana who was about to give birth to twins. What had he been thinking by getting her with child? With children? A twin herself, he’d known the danger.

  He flew through the front door of their townhouse, taking the stairs three at a time, a bevy of servants at his back, all calling out, “Sir, Sir.” It wasn’t until he reached Mariana’s closed bedroom door, the bedroom kept up for appearances as she spent every night in his bed, that he stopped, gathered breath in his lungs, and attempted to collect himself.

  They’re coming.

  “Nick,” sounded Olivia’s low, calming voice at his side, “she’s doing great.”

  “I’ll be present for the birth,” he said, pugnacious, ready to fight his way inside if need be.

  “It’s most irregular,” she said, a half-smile in the words.

  A long, keening wail sounded through hollow birch, and instinct took over. Nick pushed open the door, past the retinue of doctors and nurses he’d hired for this day, and past the frowning midwife who first scolded, then mumbled over and again, that his presence was quite unnecessary.

  White knuckles gripping the blankets at her sides, sweat streaking in thin rivulets down her face, Mariana’s eyes met his across the room. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

  His feet froze in place. He hadn’t considered the possibility that she might not want him present. “I could leave.”

  “Don’t you dare,” she said, equal parts levity and steel.

  His feet closed the distance in two strides, and he took her hand. “Squeeze as hard as you can. Transfer your pain into me. I can take it,” he said, wondering at the words emerging from his mouth. They were words born of fear, of powerlessness.

  “Nick,” she said, “everything will come out all right.”

  “Now,” the midwife called out from her place at the foot of the bed, “when I say push, you push until you feel like the top of your head is about to pop off. Understood?”

  Mariana nodded, and Nick sensed her go deep inside herself, leaving him behind at her side, helpless, unable to protect her from here on out. This was between Mariana, her maker, and the midwife.

  Mariana’s grasp on his hand tightened, and the midwife said, “All right, milady, the contraction is coming”—Another persistent wail emerged from Mariana, gaining volume on a rise—“Get ready . . . to . . . push,” the midwife commanded.

  Mariana’s torso crunched forward, her heels dug into the bed, and she crushed Nick’s hand. How he wanted her to squeeze harder, even take his hand off, if it would ease her suffering a jot.

  Her body released, and she collapsed back into feathery pillows, her breath a shallow, rhythmic pant. The doctor stepped forward, and the midwife waved him away.

  “Two more like that, milady, and we’ll have a babe screaming down the house.”

  Another groan gathered in Mariana’s chest, demanding release, and Nick remained helpless at her side, unable to reach her inside the deep, womanly place she’d gone.

  “Another contraction alread
y? All right, milady, start panting.”

  The still room filled with the sharp, staccato shush of breath whooshing in, out, in, and out of the rounded “O” of Mariana’s pursed lips.

  “Now, again, push,” the midwife commanded.

  A moan, the deepest, loudest yet, rose from the depths of Mariana’s guts and threatened to rattle the windows loose. A fresh layer of sweat beaded her forehead. Nick’s heart pounded in his chest at the pace of a thousand thoroughbred horses. Fear, stark and bright, threatened to drive him out of his skin.

  “The head is crowning,” the midwife shouted out. “Now, rest a moment.”

  The sound of panting filled the air, and Nick felt a cool, damp cloth being pressed into his hand.

  “For her forehead,” Olivia said at his back.

  He swiped cotton across Mariana’s forehead, down cheeks flush and hot.

  “It’s time this baby was born. The one behind him won’t appreciate him dillydallying,” the midwife said. It was clear she relished her occupation. “Now, bear down and push!”

  Again, Mariana crunched forward, and Nick’s world went white. Fear and helplessness pressed in at every angle as he returned Mariana’s crushing grip with his own. He’d never felt so linked to another person, so dependent on another, for his happiness, for his entire being. There was no point to being without her, this brave, formidable woman who strode through life without fear.

  But that was all right. He felt enough fear for them both. He felt it, so she’d never have to. He vowed to move heaven and earth to keep her safe, always, and without fear. So long as they got through this day.

  A haze, black at the edges, coated the periphery of his consciousness. First came Geoffrey, then Lavinia, one right after the other. “The Lord’s work is done,” the midwife intoned, standing and plunging her hands into the washbasin.