He tried very hard not to smile upon hearing her frank declaration, but the corners of his mouth pulled up even as his full lips remained firmly shut.
“Then you have not ruled out the possibility?”
“Of course not,” she shrugged. “I’ve only been in Paris a sort amount of time. However, I suspect the more gentlemen I meet, the less likely your prospects.”
LeCoeur drew his brows together in a great show of concern. “Then you advise a hasty seduction?”
“I should think it your only chance.”
Nicole realized her mistake the moment he stood and she saw that the square was deserted with trees shielding them from view of the surrounding apartments.
Minister LeCoeur reached out with his right hand and grasped her upper arm, pulling her toward him. His left hand settled on her neck and jaw, and she had to stop herself from shivering with revulsion… and a touch of fear.
His lips pressed to hers and she fought an overwhelming wave of nausea. Nicole closed her eyes and told herself that she was playing the seductress, but her tension remained. Any moment the minister would sense her aversion and her interest would become suspect.
She would become suspect.
Nicole opened her mouth and her mind, letting him sweep in as she conjured the picture of Daniel Damont. She pictured that it was him kissing her, holding her as he did last night.
Nicole leaned into the kiss taking the lead, brushing her breast against his chest, giving Joseph LeCoeur a taste of her fabricated fervor. And just when she felt him becoming aroused, Nicole stepped back and slapped him, with very little conviction, across the left cheek.
He smiled, expecting her censure, saying, “Mmm, very good coffee,” whilst rubbing the side of his face.
Nicole turned in a seductive swish and lifted her white gloved hand, waving as she said, “Goodbye, Minister LeCoeur.”
“Would you care to attend the theater with me this evening, Mademoiselle Beauvoire,” the minister countered, full of amusement… and confidence.
Nicole stopped and turned to look at him over her left shoulder. “How close is your box?”
“How close do you want it?”
“Very,” she grinned.
“Eight.”
“The curtain rises at ten. What do you intend to do with me for two full hours, Minister LeCoeur?”
His eyes slid down her body and up again, in one slow, anticipatory assessment.
“Show you the city.”
“I’ve seen the city,” Mademoiselle Beauvoire said, lifting her shoulders in a regretful shrug. “Then I suppose you shall have to retrieve me at nine. Auvoir.”
Joseph LeCoeur chuckled and tilted his head to one side in appreciative observation of the lady’s swaying backside. He watched her walk all the way across the square and noted with keen interest which door she disappeared behind.
He looked up at the many windows of the south façade trying to deduce which was her bedchamber.
A rush of heat came to life as Joseph remembered the feel of those exquisite breasts, pressing against his chest. He wanted to feel them pressed naked against him, to grasp them in his hands, all the while knowing it would be too much for him, any man to hold.
Joseph was becoming visibly erect and he glanced about the square, before turning toward his home. The heavy door closed and he called to the guard on his right.
“Captain Turgeon.”
The man clicked his polished heels and saluted, saying, “Oui, Minister LeCoeur?”
“Mademoiselle Nicole Beauvoire. I want to know everything about her. From where she hails, how she acquired her fortune, ex-lovers.” The captain nodded his understanding. “Find something that I can weld over her. Political affiliations, indiscreet affairs, anything.”
“Oui, but it will take time.”
“How long?”
“Preliminary information…” The captain looked at the ceiling. “A day. A complete history of the woman… It could take as much as a month, dependent upon which province her family resides.”
“You have a week.”
It was a daunting task, but his men knew better than to show even a glimmer of displeasure.
“As you wish,” Captain Turgeon said with a respectful inclination of his head.
Joseph turned, satisfaction pulling at the left corner of his mouth as he bounded up the stairs, opening the door to his bedroom suite.
His mistress stood on the far side of the velvet settee, staring out the window in nothing more than a purple silk sheet. Her golden hair spilled down her back as she turned toward the large four poster bed.
“Who was that?” the woman spat as if she had a right to an answer.
Joseph smiled, stepping around a three footed side table, a bouquet of flowers brushing his chartreuse jacket as he walked toward his paramour.
“That.” He announced, “Was my future mistress,” before grasping the sheet above her breasts and stripping the girl of her last shred of dignity.
“But as I have yet to seduce her.” He raised his left eyebrow, meeting his lover’s green eyes as he removed his jacket. “You will have to do.”
“You bastard!” She drew her hand back to strike him and his jaw set with anger as he caught her wrist.
He twisted her arm behind her back, causing her to cry out in pain.
“Don’t ever try to strike me again.” Joseph stared down at her until the girl felt his threat. “Now get on the bed.”
“You don’t expect me to make love to you after--“
His cold chuckle froze the words of protest in her mouth. He had forgotten how pampered the rich women of this city had become and the general’s wife was more pampered than most.
“I expect you.” He continued to strip. “To do what you are told. Get… on… the bed!” he snapped.
His mistress flinched never having seen his violent nature, choosing to assume that the men who ruled France had acquired their prominent positions by performing noble deeds. And while the general performed his duty in southern France, his whore of a wife sought to bed the men that ran the city.
Joseph had been the third to receive such intimate attention.
The girl climbed on the bed and he stared down at her blond hair and adequate breasts, imagining that she was the stunning Nicole Beauvoire.
“Spread your legs,” Joseph ordered said, hardening with need. He climbed over her, his weight crushing her into the luxurious mattress. “Wider,” he ordered and when she obeyed, he drove into her.
Joseph closed his eyes and rolled his hips, thrusting harder, deeper as his vision urged him toward ecstasy. He had to concentrate to maintain the picture of Nicole Beauvoire in his mind, prolonging his state of excitement.
He shifted the girl’s hips as he plunged deeper. He was becoming light headed and Joseph could feel the coiling of heat that he franticly kindled with long, deep strokes.
The woman beneath him moaned and he ignored her, his breath caught in the web of his own fantasy as he thrust again causing the kindling to ignite in a mind numbing climax that shook him to the core.
Joseph withdrew only to throw himself toward the reverberations of his carnal detonation, reaching desperately for its elusive source.
But he knew its source.
Her name was Nicole Beauvoire and she lived just across the square. Joseph smiled as he lay inside of his ex-mistress, vowing that within a fortnight, Nicole Beauvoire would be the woman in his bed.
Chapter Nineteen
Lady Juliet Pervill sat embroidering with her cousin in the lovely drawing room of Lady Felicity Appleton’s town home. Or rather, Felicity was embroidering while Juliet stabbed herself, staining her entire handkerchief with little crimson dots of blood.
“Ouwww! Why on earth do we not have the servants do this for us? Are we not paying them to do the domestic chores the ton finds beneath them? Why is embroidering not considered one of those tedious tasks?”
Felicity’s fawn eyes concentrated on an i
ntricate stitch as she said in a voice that made it clear she was only half listening, “Embroidery is not a chore, Juliet, it is an art.”
“So says whom?”
“Society and as you have no objection in performing the ‘chores’ within your own home, I fail to see why you are so reluctant to do this one.”
“I’m not reluctant to embroider, Felicity.” Juliet stared at the ugly flowers that would have been prettier had she wadded up the colorful silk threads and tossed it on the linen. “I can’t do it!”
Her fair cousin looked up, startled by the amount of frustration in Juliet’s voice.
“Oh, I see,” Felicity said, smiling. “It is not the embroidery that offends you so. It is the fact that you, the brilliant Juliet, cannot ‘do’ something.”
Juliet’s freckled nose wrinkled and her eyes turned to slits. “Everyone thinks that you, the fair Felicity, are so sweet and kind. But little does the ton know that you are really the mean cousin.”
“True.” Felicity agreed, laughing. “I’ve often wondered why the ton has not noticed that you are by far the superior person.”
Though the comment was feigned, the conviction in Felicity’s voice was convincing enough that Juliet looked up to try and catch her gaze. But her cousin had already bent her head and was returning to her embroidery when the drawing room doors burst open to admit, unannounced of course, Lord Christian St. John.
“Morning,” he said far too cheerfully before placing his left hand on the back of the chaise and jumping over the fine velvet back.
Christian landed hard with legs outstretched, causing the air to rush from the cushion of the expensive chaise in one groaning gush.
Juliet giggled and Christian flashed a look of unrepentant remorse toward his hostess.
“Morning, Felicity. Sorry about the chaise, but I had recalled that I was a bit lighter.”
Choosing to ignore his lack of decorum, Felicity asked, “What might we do for you, Lord St. John?”
Christian sat up and raised fair brows over Nordic blue eyes as he looked at Juliet.
“Lord St. John? Oh, she is angry.” He leaned forward and grabbed Juliet’s embroidery hoop. “Let’s see what you’re working on, Lady Pervill.”
“Give that back!” Juliet protested, embarrassed.
“I just want to have a look.” He stared down at the handkerchief, turning his head from side to side like a child trying to comprehend some mathematical equation but not quite grasping it. “My God, you’re awful at embroidery, Juliet.”
“Thank you, Christian,” she spat, yanking her hoop away from him.
“Now yours, Felicity,” Christian demanded with great humor.
Felicity voluntarily gave Christian her larger hoop and he whistled in admiration.
“The detail is incredible. Did you design this?”
“Yes.” Her cousin smiled prettily. “What can we do for you, Christian?”
“Well,” he said to them both, forgetting the embroidery altogether. “I have been commissioned by my illustrious brother to invite you ladies to the opera Saturday next. Ian is keen on seeing this new production and you are the only females in all of London that will not expect him to make an offer at intermission.”
“True,” Felicity laughed. “Tell the marquis that we would be delighted—“
“I can’t,” Juliet interrupted. “Lord Barksdale has already invited me to the opera tomorrow evening.”
Christian leaned both elbows on his muscular thighs and waggled his brows at Juliet.
“Seeing a lot of Lord Barksdale, are we?” Juliet rolled her eyes and Christian turned a rakish smile on Felicity. “Are you available Saturday evening, Lady Appleton?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
“Excellent.” Christian slapped his knees signifying the matter settled. “Ian will pick you up at seven and I will meet you at our box.”
“Why meet them?” Juliet asked, confused.
Christian grinned like the rogue that he was and said, “Because, I intend to invite, the widow, Lady Graves. Met her outside Tattersall’s last week. She was buying a prime piece of horseflesh and I could not help but notice that she was a bit of prime piece herself.”
Juliet’s eyes where scarcely visible beneath her irritation. “Perhaps you should have purchased a donkey at Tattersall’s.” Christian stared, confused. “As you are such an ass!”
“Juliet!” Felicity admonished.
Christian flushed and made light of his indelicate remark. “My apologies, but I often think of you as younger sisters and siblings share… things.”
“Male siblings perhaps, and not always then, Christian. You have only to look at the McCurrens. Daniel has disappeared without a word to his brothers.”
Christian nodded his blonde head, conceding her point. “They were devastated by Daniel’s lack of confidence.”
“And his parent’s?” her empathetic cousin interjected. “Countess DunDonell appeared quite concerned about the viscount when last I saw her.”
“The countess is very troubled and the earl is determined to locate him.” Christian shrugged exquisitely tailored shoulders. “But if Daniel does not want to be found… he won’t be.”
Felicity nodded and met Juliet’s eye. “We should call on Lady DunDonell.”
Juliet agreed, wondering how one went about finding a man that did not want to be found.
***
Daniel arose well passed noon after having spent the night imbibing and trying to understand what in God’s name was wrong with him.
Mademoiselle Beauvoire was quickly becoming an obsession and he did not know how to stop it, did not understand why he continued to want women that had no want of him.
Not sexually. Nicole Beauvoire desired him sexually. But that was a fleeting want of woman, easily satisfied by one night of physical passion.
No, the desire he spoke of was the need of one person for another, the need to join together, body and soul. The union which, through out his numerous physical encounters, had remained painfully elusive.
Why then, of all the society women who continually chased after him, had he set his sights on Sarah Duhearst? Set his sights on the one woman that had shown no interest in attaining his affection or his fortune.
Why now was he becoming increasingly fixated with Nicole Beauvoire? A woman similarly disinterested.
He had no notion.
All he knew was that the moment he laid hands on Nicole Beauvoire, returning to England was no longer an option. And the idea of her spending the evening with Joseph LeCoeur was altogether intolerable.
Protect, possess.
The two-headed beast of masculine instinct reared their heads, stronger and more resolute than it had been before. And God help him, but he had no idea how to send it back to the primitive recesses from whence it came.
“Minister LeCoeur is dangerous.” Daniel stared, helpless, at the woman’s reflection as she put the finishing touches to an already captivating evening gown.
“Of course he’s dangerous. All the men I kill are dangerous, that is why I kill them.”
“You do not understand, lass.” The woman tilted her head, fastening her left ear bob and giving him a provocative glimpse of the neck he had been kissing just last night. ”You did not see the way the man was lookin’ at you.”
“I didn’t need to see the way he was looking at me, Monsieur Damont.” She glanced in the mirror to verify that her appearance was expectable. “Men have been looking at me in such a manner since I grew these.” She cupped her full breasts and Daniel wondered how any man could look beyond her stunning violet eyes. “At the age of fourteen.”
“Fourteen?” Distaste, wrinkled his nose. “That’s unconscionable.”
“I thought so.” She grasped her reticule and examined the contents. “So, you see, I am well accustomed to dealing with lecherous men.” Daniel felt as if the comment was directed toward him and he replayed in his mind the brandy filtered events of last night. “Now,
if you will excuse me.”
“I should go with you?”
Mademoiselle Beauvoire stopped and stared at him as if he were stark raving mad.
“I don’t think Monsieur LeCoeur would appreciate a third wheel twisting about his little seduction. And, furthermore, I thought you were leaving?” she asked, bending over to smell a red rose from the pretentious bouquet that Minister LeCoeur had sent earlier that afternoon.
“I was, but now that I am a bit more—“
“Sober?”
“Clear-headed,” he glared at the caustic woman. “I think it would be best if I were to remain in Paris.”
She stiffened, her eyes growing wide with… suspicion?
“Why?” she asked.
“The presence of a spurned lover is easily explained and you must admit, proved quite useful. But the disappearance of a man, such a myself—“
“A man such as yourself?” Her stunning eyes widened and she tilted her head, causing the sapphire necklace around her neck to come alive.
“Well, lass,” Daniel gave a self-deprecating grin. “You must admit a man of my ilk is unlikely to give up quite so easily.”
“Then our only alternative, Monsieur Damont, is to pretend that I am the first woman to disappoint you.” Daniel tensed as the image of Sarah Duhearst flashed in his mind, pulling his thoughts a thousand miles away, but the woman continued to talk. “Forcing you to sulk all the way back to where ever it is you hail. Don’t wait up.”
Daniel realized that she was gone with the click of the closing door. He rushed to the window and watched her being assisted into the Minister LeCoeur’s expensive carriage. The clock in the parlor chimed, punctuating how little time he had before the opening curtain.
He walked toward his bedchamber and yanked open the drawer to his side table, pulling out the five cards slipped to him at the masquerade ball. Daniel read the names quickly, placing one behind the other as he mentally reviewed the streets of Paris in proximity to the theatre.
When he had settled on a name, he tossed the other cards on his bed then went back into the parlor, and with a malicious grin, snatched the enormous bouquet of flowers from the sturdy Grecian vase.
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