Guarded Heart

by Jennifer Blake

  "I go to my fate," he said, reaching for his gloves and sliding them on. "Whatever that may be is in the lady's hands, as it must always be in any meeting between a man and a woman."

  "And if it's not?"

  "That, stripling, is one reason you learn to wield a sword, to see that a lady always has a choice."

  He left the atelier with a jaunty step and twirl of his cane that came, he recognized in wry amusement, from anticipation. Though Ariadne, Madame Faucher, had been upset when last he saw her, there had been no message canceling their lesson this evening, and so he must suppose it would proceed.

  It might be better if it did not; this particular client was absorbing far too much of his time. Not that their meetings had been lengthy; rather, they were so often on his mind. The lady, what she wanted of him and what she intended, was fast becoming an obsession.

  The way she moved, the turn of her head, the curve of her breast and the faint impression of a nipple under the linen of her shirt flashed across his mind a thousand times a day. He seldom gave an instruction or illustrated a point on the piste without some thought of how he might present the same idea to her. Sleep was only possible if he exhausted himself with teaching bouts, and his dreams were haunted by encounters that woke him with a racing heart and state of arousal so painfully acute it seemed it might become permanent. If he had an ounce of intelligence or self-control, he would sever the association this very evening. Unfortunately, those qualities had deserted him.

  The rain had ceased for the time being, but the streets, even those paved with stone, were awash with mud. Further away from the central Vieux Carre, where the paving ended, they were bottomless quagmires. Not for nothing were the city blocks called islets, or little islands, as they were often surrounded by streets of running water. Treading the banquettes of the streets beyond Rue Royale, he took extra care. Made of wood taken from the gunwales of discarded keelboats, the sidewalks were known as dandy traps since the heavy wood lay half afloat in muddy water and an unwary step could force a geyser of it upward to splash pantaloons and polished boots.

  Gavin arrived at the Herriot town house unscathed. It was not Solon who opened the door to him, however, but a maidservant he had not seen before. The butler was laid up with a cold in his chest from doing the marketing in the rain, she said, and would the so beautiful monsieur care to step into the salon while she went to fetch her mistress?

  This was a change from the discreet entry of his prior visits, but Gavin thought it might serve to bolster the impression that his was merely a social call upon Maurelle. He followed the girl's switching skirts up the stairs and tread lightly into the room she indicated.

  His client was not present. Instead, it was Zoe Savoie who occupied the salon in solitary state, with her feet in scarlet leather boots propped on a stool and a chocolate pot at her elbow. "Monsieur Blackford, what a delight," the haunted by encounters that woke him with a racing heart and state of arousal so painfully acute it seemed it might become permanent. If he had an ounce of intelligence or self-control, he would sever the association this very evening. Unfortunately, those qualities had deserted him.

  The rain had ceased for the time being, but the streets, even those paved with stone, were awash with mud. Further away from the central Vieux Carré, where the paving ended, they were bottomless quagmires. Not for nothing were the city blocks called islets, or little islands, as they were often surrounded by streets of running water. Treading the banquettes of the streets beyond Rue Royale, he took extra care. Made of wood taken from the gunwales of discarded keelboats, the sidewalks were known as dandy traps since the heavy wood lay half afloat in muddy water and an unwary step could force a geyser of it upward to splash pantaloons and polished boots.

  Gavin arrived at the Herriot town house unscathed. It was not Solon who opened the door to him, however, but a maidservant he had not seen before. The butler was laid up with a cold in his chest from doing the marketing in the rain, she said, and would the so beautiful monsieur care to step into the salon while she went to fetch her mistress?

  This was a change from the discreet entry of his prior visits, but Gavin thought it might serve to bolster the impression that his was merely a social call upon Maurelle. He followed the girl's switching skirts up the stairs and tread lightly into the room she indicated.

  His client was not present. Instead, it was Zoe Savoie who occupied the salon in solitary state, with her feet in scarlet leather boots propped on a stool and a chocolate pot at her elbow. "Monsieur Blackford, what a delight," the diva exclaimed as he strolled toward her. "Pray come sit next to me and tell me something scandalous. Maurelle has just now descended to the kitchen to see to our supper so there is no one to prevent you from regaling me with your worst. Or failing that, you may give me your critique of my last performance, though I warn you I pout at anything less than fulsome compliments."

  "Pure as the nightingale, soft as the dove and all as required—you were in excellent voice as you very well know," he said, bowing over her hand. "On the subject of bird life, where is Napoleon this evening?"

  "At home with his head under his wing. He doesn't care for night air, you know. Was I truly all right? You did not hear the flat note in the second aria?"

  "I refuse to believe you could be flat in any respect," he answered at his most droll as his gaze brushed her rounded form.

  "Devil." She dimpled at him, not at all insulted. Then she sighed. "I hope you may be right about the note. It's only that I know I cannot go on forever, and I hear faults from dread of failure. Still, I have had a nice long run and should not complain."

  Candlelight glanced across her strong face, caught in her fine, clear eyes to illuminate the diffidence inside her. As with most great artists, Gavin knew from some years acquaintance, she had little concept of her enormous gift thus was in need of constant reassurance. "You have no peer, madame," he said. "And have had none these many years except, perhaps, an angel or two singing in excelsior."

  She laughed, a gratified sound. "Yes, and I am also madly fond of you, and for good reason, mon brave. I would even share my chocolate with you, if you insist, though I prefer to direct you to the wine decanter."

  "I would not dream of depriving you." He had embarrassed her, he thought, though she hid it well. Moving to the wine tray on a side table, he kept his gaze on the glass of cut crystal as he filled it with the red-brown sherry. "Where is Maurelle's houseguest this evening?"

  "Ariadne? Dressing, or so I believe. Something to do with a special delivery from the fine needle of Madame Pluche. She may not join us. She has had a shock, you know."

  "Yes. Regrettable, that she should be at the levee when the Natchez packet came in. But I had not thought it a personal misfortune." He spoke over his shoulder, keeping his tone carefully noncommittal.

  "Then you do not know? But I understood you were there."

  "I was present when a young girl was brought off the steamer, also when her mother claimed her. That the lady's grief was trying to watch, I can attest, but it should not have been shocking." He paused with the wine decanter still hovering over his glass. "Unless..."

  "Just so, mon ami. Unless the woman and her daughter were known to Ariadne. Which they were, you comprehend."

  He had suspected as much. Turning to face the diva with his wine glass steady in his hand and his lashes shielding his eyes, he said, "I meant to ask if they were among your acquaintance, since the elder lady was the same who appeared in Maurelle's box at your benefit."

  "I did not see that, being otherwise occupied, though Maurelle told me of it later." Madame's Zoe smile was brief. "The woman is the ambitious mother of several daughters. She has apparently married off a number of them but exhausted the husband possibilities of her home ground upriver so came to the Vieux Carré for fresh hunting. Her husband and youngest daughter were to join her, but now, alas..."

  "And her name is Madame Arpegé."

  "Does it convey nothing to you?" She sipped her ch
ocolate, her eyes brightly watchful above the rim.

  "I depend upon you to enlighten me."

  "She is Ariadne's mother."

  He had half expected something of the sort as his brain quickly made sense of face shapes, voices' textures and long, loose tresses of familiar shining black. And yet he was puzzled. "I thought her mother and father—all her family, in fact—dead these two years and more."

  "That was her foster family."

  "Which one acquires, usually, when there is no other. Or am I missing something?"

  She told him then, speaking in tones from which all sympathy and meaning were so carefully expunged that they struck his mind like blows. Rosebud-tender Ariadne, given away like an unwanted kitten, spitting and mewling in helpless fear. Petted and cuddled close through tender girlhood, she had then been mated to an old torn for the absolute safety of it—until she became as still and hidden inside herself as a sphinx, a she-lion of the desert which can rend and feel nothing for the victim.

  When Madame Zoe's voice stopped, finally, he stared into his glass for inspiration but could find no reason to avoid the pertinent question. "The name of the foster parents?"

  "They were her marraine arid parrain, the godparents chosen for her at birth from among cousins of her mother, thus all in the family so to speak. Monsieur and Madame Dorelle were their names."

  "The honored parents of a young man late of this city, one Francis Dorelle." His voice, he hoped, was rigorously even. He had made every effort to keep it that way.

  "So I believe. He died..." The diva stopped, her face blanching a little while her eyes darkened with sudden comprehension.

  "Yes, at my hand. To my infinite regret."

  "How very strange," she said, her voice tentative.

  "That I should now instruct his foster sister in the use of the sword? The jest of a malignant fate, you think? Or is it merely my folly?"

  "I wonder," she said, her expression impenetrable as she brought her chocolate cup to her lips.

  Gavin did not wonder at all. The outline of a daunting peril gathered shape in his mind, the contemplation of which brought a silent but virulent curse to his lips.

  Madame Zoe glanced at him and her mouth opened. Then she turned away, proving herself a woman of great good sense by remaining decently silent.

  Maurelle joined them a few minutes later. Gavin summoned his usual fulsome appreciation and urbanity, at least on the surface. He said nothing of his discovery, in part because he had no idea how much the widow Herriot was in the confidence of Ariadne Faucher, but also because he was not yet certain what he meant to do about it. He was still contemplating the possibilities when a trio of musicians, among them the fabled violinist known as Old Bull, crowded into the salon. While Maurelle discussed with them the program of entertainment for what was apparently to be a musical evening, he made his excuses and escaped to the garçonnière wing.

  She was waiting, the lovely Madame Faucher. At the opening of the door, she turned toward him in the full blaze of four-dozen candles dancing on their wicks in the draft, capering as well in their reflections in the windows on either side of the long room.

  His blood paused in his veins. All coherent thought was wiped from his mind as cleanly as if someone had polished a silver server.

  "You are late," she said, her voice far more dulcet than the look in her black, black eyes.

  "Detained, rather. Was it for the sake of the spectacle?"

  She unfolded her arms from over her chest and pushed away from the table where she leaned, coming toward him with a lithe glide made all too obvious by the form-fitting pantaloons of tan doeskin which encased her lower limbs. Spreading her hands, the better to display the wide corsair's sash of multicolored silk that cinched her slender waist and held fast the lovingly fitted linen of her masculine shirt with its diving decolletage unfettered by cravat or scarf, she asked, "You don't object, I hope?"

  "By no means, not being bred from idiot stock." The wonder of it was that he could speak at all, given his view of hips and long, long legs that had heretofore been a petticoat-protected mystery. Had he not pictured her just so at their first meeting? It was as if she had divined and brought to life his most secret fantasy. It was gratifying beyond imagining, but also disconcerting. "Your tailor is to be congratulated, mon vieux."

  Her smile turned crooked as she absorbed the masculine form of address, but she did not take him up on it. "My dressmaker, rather. You agree the ensemble should make injury less likely?"

  "It should indeed, being singular enough to stop any opponent in his tracks."

  "By singular, I take you to mean vulgar."

  "Oh, assuredly."

  "So you disapprove."

  She was almost urging him to say it, or so it seemed to Gavin. Closing the door behind him, he began to unfasten the big silver buttons of his redingote with their bas relief of St. Michael triumphant over the dragon. "I am not just any opponent, so endorse the change wholeheartedly. It will take more than an alteration of dress to stop me. Unless that is a secondary purpose?"

  She arched a brow. "I would not think of it."

  He hesitated in the act of tossing the outer garment over a chair seat, his attention on some faint shading of provocation in her voice. An hour ago, he might have thought it sensual in nature. Now it fringed the edges of his soul with ice.

  Dropping the redingote, he slipped his cuff links from their holes and rolled back his sleeves, then turned to the table where their equipment lay ready. Taking the foils from their resting place, he handed one to his client and then stood testing the other in his hands while his thoughts took a circuitous path to reach a straightforward conclusion. At last, he lifted a hard gaze to her face. "Are you quite certain you wish to continue this game, madame?"

  "You mean because of our last meeting and the small hurt you could not help?"

  "Because of one that I could, and should," he answered at his most cryptic.

  "I don't understand you, monsieur."

  Nor did he entirely, but he must at least make the attempt at fairness. "Duels of the kind you intend are not fought by the faint of heart. They are the province of sweaty men with bad stomachs, insufferable pride and the Herculean method of unraveling knots of honor. There is no exaltation in it—no laurels for the victor and precious little real satisfaction on either side. You may feel, like a Spartan harridan with her shield, that a breast is a small price to pay to rid the world of whoever has injured you, but that will be no consolation to a future babe in arms."

  Color mounted to her cheekbones, flames of rose-red that spread over her pale skin. "You are suggesting I abandon my vengeance?"

  "Or allow me the honor of collecting it for you."

  "You..." she whispered as her eyes grew black with the expansion of her pupils.

  "Appoint me your champion and I will see that your enemy pays whatever recompense will best satisfy you."

  A flicker of pain crossed her features. "Even...even death in that sweaty contest you just described?"

  "If you demand it." Gavin's breathing was light, even, barely moving his chest, as he waited for her answer.

  She searched his features with care, meeting his eyes with such steady appraisal that he could see himself in her dark irises as a figure who seemed on fire from the candle's glow behind him. Then her lips opened and a single word emerged like a sigh.

  "Impossible."

  It was, he was certain, the exact truth as they both now knew it. Impossible, yes, because she was who and what she was. Impossible, because of the past which lay behind them. Impossible, because he could not seek revenge against himself. Impossible, because he, Gavin Blackford, was the man who had killed her foster brother. Impossible, because, despite all his skill and strength and a thousand other advantages bred into the bone, he was still the man she meant to kill.

  "En avant, madame," he said with a sweeping gesture toward the fencing strip that ran down the room before them. "Let us have at one another for as
long as the lessons last. And while they do, you will be well-advised to guard your person with care."

  Thirteen

  The man facing her this evening was different, Ariadne thought. Watchfulness lay in the sea-dark depths of his eyes, and the corners of his mouth were firmly tucked, almost grim. His movements had lost their casual grace, becoming more purposeful. His stance, when he had moved to the strip to begin their first phrase, held a distinct threat, one she responded to on some primal level she had not known she possessed.

  Finally, or so it seemed, he had become serious about her training. Heated excitement spread through her, beating up into her brain, flooding the lower part of her body. She tingled with it in an exquisite prickling of goose bumps, more alive than she had ever felt in her life.

  He saluted her as she stepped forward to join him, a movement she copied exactly before standing at ease. Then she waited while glorying in the freedom of movement in her masculine-style pantaloons, and also the wafting of the night wind through the open windows as it glided around her hips and thighs. She was dressed as a man but could not remember when she had felt more womanly.

  "Anger in a passage at arms being a liability," Gavin said, recalling her attention, "we will attempt to avoid it this evening with an oblique approach and without padding or masks as in our last lesson. I will hold my foil unmoving and you will come to me. Lift your blade, like so."

  She complied, stepping lightly toward him and taking the stance she had practiced again and again while alone in her bedchamber. Once in place, she raised a brow in inquiry to make certain she was correctly placed.

  He nodded as his gaze moved over her, a thorough appraisal that lingered here and there. The intentness of it created an odd tingling in her breasts and at the apex of her thighs. She narrowed her eyes.

  "Now," he went on after a moment. "Using only the end of your blade, you will touch mine. Gently, gently and only at the point."