Guarded Heart

by Jennifer Blake

  Still, her lashes jerked as with palsy before they obeyed her will, lifting until she could meet his gaze. How bright it was, how limitlessly blue yet marked by pupils that were so wide and dark that he appeared drugged with passion and some desperate longing that glazed his eyes with pain. "I know well who you are, Gavin Blackford, and will never forget you."

  He breathed lightly, if at all. "Hail and farewell? I do see. Partir, c'est mourir un peu, to part is to die a little, or so it's said. Then let us seek together the small and glorious death that is nothing of the larger one."

  The ache inside her swamped thought, blotted out the world and everything in it except the dim bedchamber and its soft feather bed shadowed by flickering firelight. Her voice barely stirred the air as she answered. "It shall be exactly as you wish it."

  His hold tightened while his vision lost focus. "If every parting is a death, then every return should be a resurrection," he said, the words perfectly even. "Prepare yourself, for this may be a promise you will regret."

  Hard on the words, he eased into her, penetrating her engorged flesh in a purposeful and heated slide. He filled her, stretching her resilient softness to the utmost. A wordless cry rasped her throat. Sliding her hands down the ridged muscles of his flanks, she grasped his hips, holding him against her while she took him deeper, embracing him with spasmodic internal contractions.

  His breath hissed through his teeth in his grasp at control. His eyes were closed now, squeezed shut, while his mouth set in a hard line. Then he began to move, swirling in abrading contact, testing her depths with small forays, withdrawing against the resistance in her every muscle only to plunge forward again. With every movement he came closer, and closer still, to a conscious rhythm, found it finally in an implacable beat as full and steady as a thudding heart.

  Rapture gathered inside her, spilled over to pebble the surface of her skin with gooseflesh, bathe it in a dew of perspiration. Tentatively, she moved with him, against him, gasping at the perfect union, the sounding touches that ignited a fiery gladness inside her. It spiraled higher, too strong to be denied or encompassed alone. He felt it; she knew he did, could sense it in the fierce expression on his face, the shuddering effort of his muscles. They plunged with it, rocking while the mattress jounced on its rope supports, creaking in protest. Her breasts brushed his chest in tingling abrasion; the flat hardness of his belly was sublimely hard against her own softness. Her very bones were dissolving, her body becoming infinitely malleable as if it would conform entirely to his shape, absorb him until they were one. And the ecstasy of it rose higher, reaching, reaching for something just beyond her grasp.

  Still, they surged upon each other in a frenzy of yearning, holding with panting breaths and tender, aching bodies, seeking to deny the future that glimmered just out of sight.

  He scooped her up with one hard arm beneath her, holding her against him while he rolled onto his back with her hair twining around them. Setting her on top, he pulled her down, down onto his swollen member. She cried out with ecstasy for the deeper penetration, deeper melding.

  It was primal joy, an eternal physical indulgence that obliterated rank and position, time and place. They hovered, striving with locked muscles and racked breathing. Somewhere inside her, Ariadne felt the insidious gathering of unbearable tension. She moved back and forth upon him in a liquid slide until her every muscle jerked and quivered and her very skin felt on fire.

  Abruptly, Gavin heaved above her once more, lunging with his hard, swordsman's muscles, delivering shuddering impacts. She arched upward, welcoming, wanting, needing every stroke. He gave her what she required, throbbing and powerful inside her, his every movement fueling the wondrous rush that mounted, irresistibly, to her brain.

  It swept in upon her, a miraculous upheaval that banished differences, united minds, hearts and bodies. Stunning in its force, it held her immobile while her heart cried out in silent wonder and desperate, unending grief for all that was impossible, impractical, and too, too final.

  With a last plunge, generous in its thoroughness, he allowed his own pleasure to overtake him. Surrendering, they clung, breathing hard, forehead pressed to forehead, connected from breast to ankle. They did not let go, even when the moment passed and their hearts slowed, beating in muffled synchronization.

  He eased to his side at last, hovering above her with his head propped on the heel of one hand, drawing her against him. The flickering candlelight burnished his arm where it enclosed her, turning it to bronze, glinted with tiny gold lights on the dusting of hair along his legs. His hand was tinted with shades of yellow and gold, pink and peach, bronze and ivory and blue from firelight as he began to caress her once more.

  It could not be—or could it? She felt him stir against her, felt the languid resurgence of her own acutely sensitive responses. She turned her head to stare at him, searching his face. He returned her gaze with one lifted brow and a faint smile curving his mouth.

  Yes, he could. He would. And so would she. Closing her eyes, swallowing salty tears, she turned toward him, pressing fully against him while hiding her face in the curve of his neck. Neither noticed when the candle died and the firelight faded into the night.

  Twenty-Six

  Gavin came awake with a start. Alert yet unmoving, he surveyed the dim room where dawn was just seeping in around the edges of the window draperies. He was in Ariadne's bed still, with her slender form pressed to him in a way that caused his body to stir in turgid response. That was what had roused him. It was beyond exasperating. He had no control where she was concerned. And never had he needed it more.

  He had slept more soundly than in weeks, months, perhaps even years. The fire had flattened to dull gray coals. The candle on its stand was only a puddle of cold wax with a black curl of wick. The rain had died away. No sounds came from the rest of the house, not even from the kitchens in the courtyard below. He did not usually leave his departure from a lady's bed so late, but it seemed his timing might still be adequate.

  Raising on one elbow, he began to slide from under the covers. He stopped abruptly. A long strand of Ariadne's hair tethered him to the bed, wrapping around his waist. Carefully, almost hair by hair, he pulled it free then lay caressing it between his thumb and forefinger. It was so silky, with a faint scent of violets. Lifting it called attention to the long swath that draped her like black lace. Through that dark veiling, her skin shone with an unearthly gleam, picking up hints of pink and blue from the dawn light. He was irresistibly reminded of the way the long strands had swirled around her as she feinted and parried, now concealing, now revealing her curves under her fine nightgown. He had avoided, most assiduously, any chance of cutting the silken length as he slashed at the edging of black she wore. That would have been as much a sacrilege as causing a mark on her amazing skin.

  Dear God, but she had been magnificent in her wrath and lethal intention. It had been worth every slice, every drop of blood he shed—to see her, to face her with the firelight behind her giving him tantalizing glimpses of how little she wore underneath her fancy robe. That was before she had removed it and handed him a sword.

  He should have expected it. That he had not was mere self-delusion. He had dared think the intimacy they shared had meant more, that it moved them beyond such things as past injury.

  His mistake. He had paid for it in full this time. Or so he hoped. It was impossible to be sure.

  It was also impossible to say what had brought her to him at the end of it. Was it the inevitable farewell, as he suspected? Or was it, just possibly, the coup de grace, the final touch of a woman's less obvious vengeance?

  It might well be deadly, more deadly than anything she had done with a blade, more deadly than she could ever be allowed to know.

  Setting her hair carefully aside, he eased from the bed. It was the work of only a moment to step into his pantaloons, ease into his frock coat and vest and pull on his boots. His shirt was beyond repair and he could not find his cravat. He left them
behind as he stepped silently to the door.

  He did not mean to look back. In fact, he intended deliberately to refrain.

  It was impossible to resist that one last glance, an indelible imprint in his mind's eye that he could carry into eternity. With the way out clear before him and fingers on the handle, he turned his head.

  Ariadne lay unmoving, huddled on her side with the sheets pulled around her as she watched him go. Her eyes were wide and liquid, almost black, in the soft morning light. She met his without expression, without the least sign of what she might want or expect from him.

  Nothing, she wanted nothing. He had no part in her life, certainly none in her future. So he sketched a bow with as much grace as he was able, and as little conscious irony.

  "Ingratitude, you think, departing without kiss, promise, favor or yet more repetition? The first is insufficient, the second unwanted, the third inappropriate and the last unwise. What is left then except a sensible exit and my most sincere compliments. You were a worthy opponent, ma chère madame. None has ever been more so."

  She made no answer, but then he expected none. With extreme resolution, he passed from the room and closed the door softly behind him. Then he walked, one foot in front of the other, along the gallery and out of the Herriot town house.

  He could have stayed. He could have slept until mid-morning in his bedchamber before gathering up his belongings and Nathaniel, making his goodbyes to his hostess and leaving in decent order. But then he could not have been certain he would go at all, nor that he would keep to his own bedchamber.

  No, it was better this way. He would send a note to Maurelle with apologies and a request for Nathaniel to retrieve all that was required and return to the Passage. If there must be an end, then let it be clean and let it be now.

  Discretion, he had found, was often a decided handicap. It might save a great deal of public embarrassment, but its effect on private pain was another matter altogether. He had no memory whatever of walking the blocks to the Passage de la Bourse, could not recall who he saw or whether he acknowledged friend or foe.

  When the sun rose finally on a clear and bright day, Gavin saluted it with the last of a demi-bouteille of fine Napoleon. Removing his booted heels from the window sill of his own bedchamber, he rose from his chair, stretched and sighed, then set about the day he had outlined for himself during his hour of introspection.

  He bathed, shaved in cold water and changed his clothes, then left the atelier. At the firm of Bourry d'lver-nois on Chartres, he purchased a fine lawn nightgown that was edged in delicate Italian lace, though its trim was most assuredly not in black. Since he could not have it delivered without causing unwanted speculation, he carried the paper-wrapped package away with him. Some blocks away from the shop, he paid a street boy two bits to deliver it to Madame Faucher at the Herriot town house. By the same messenger, he sent his note to Maurelle and summons to Nathaniel. That done, he went in search of breakfast.

  He was not hungry by any stretch of the imagination; still it seemed best to order his day in the accustomed manner. Besides, he was at loose ends with no clients scheduled, due to his supposed incapacitation, no appointments with friends, no visit or lesson with a certain widow in black lace.

  Black widow, lovely, deadly and entirely too...

  No, he could not allow her into his thoughts. She had no place in the life he had made for himself with its masculine company and pursuits. In a day or two, when he was a little less sore from his sundry cuts, he would take up his accustomed schedule again. Work and obligation would assure that she seldom crossed his mind. Everything would be as it had been before.

  Everything. Something. Or possibly nothing.

  He had finished his breakfast of poached eggs and shredded ham on a bed of creamed spinach when he looked up to see Nathaniel bearing down upon him. The boy's face was set and he carried a paper-wrapped bundle under his arm. Reaching the table, he slapped his burden down upon it, then put his hands on his hips.

  "Good morning," Gavin said, all affability. "Did Madame Herriot give you breakfast? If not..."

  "Why'd you sneak off without me is what I wanta know," the boy interrupted with mutiny in his eyes. "What've you been playing at?"

  "Playing?" Gavin fingered the paper of the bundle on the table before him. He did not remember it being quite so slick or so yellow-brown.

  "You and Madame Ariadne were at it again last night. I heard the swords clanking, though you never said nothing about another lesson. She went after you, didn't she? What'd you do to set her off?"

  "You wouldn't, I suppose, believe me innocent?"

  "Not with the rattlesnake tongue you got on you. You said something. I know you did."

  "My main fault, insofar as I can recall," Gavin said, pushing the bundle to one side, "was an excess of caution. Well, and the unpardonable sin of being alive."

  Nathaniel frowned with a shake of his head, then nodded at the package. "You not gonna open that, see what she sent you?"

  "I know well what it contains. I sent it to her this morning."

  "Not that one, you didn't. I saw what you're talking about, saw the maid take it to her room while she was out. This one she gave to me when she come in, just as I was leaving."

  Gavin stared at the boy a second, then pulled the bundle toward him and tore it open.

  A shirt lay in the wrappings, pristinely white, of finest, smoothest linen, meticulously hand-stitched. She had replaced the one she had destroyed. Their impulses, it seemed, were curiously identical. It gave him an odd sensation under his breast bone, like the first numbness of a sword thrust, before the pain begins.

  He should return it. He would, except he could be sure the nightgown he had sent to her would arrive back at his atelier before he did. Better to let it go, to accept this example of her generosity as the parting gift it was no doubt intended. Though how he was to ever wear it, he could not say. A hair shirt as a reminder would be as likely.

  "Well?" Nathaniel demanded.

  "The lady merely replaces the shirt the Russian destroyed," Gavin answered with deliberate mendacity. "No doubt she felt responsible, seeing she was the cause of the meeting."

  "Didn't know she felt that."

  "Nor did I. Never underestimate the generosity of a lady, mon viewc." Gavin got to his feet, left money on the table, gathered up his package. "It can be, and often is, quite lethal."

  "She's packing, you know, leaving New Orleans."

  "Is she. For Paris?"

  "Didn't say. Wasn't my place to ask."

  "Like mummers at a funeral, we worry overmuch about our proper place even if no one else notices," he said, almost to himself. Glancing as his companion's set face, he went on. "You came to appreciate her while we were in residence, I think."

  "She'd guts. When she saw a problem, she did something 'bout it 'sides sit around and moan. She made you sit up and take notice, something I never thought to see."

  "So she did," Gavin murmured.

  "You liked her, too."

  "I was an admirer, if you will."

  "More than that."

  "For what good it may do me. We do fully understand our places, you and I, from so much thinking on it."

  Nathaniel gave a moody shrug, but did not contradict him.

  The day did not improve as it progressed. Gavin could settle to nothing. Leaving Nathaniel to his unpacking at the atelier, he went out again.

  He made the rounds as on other, more usual days, visiting two or three salons of his fellow masters on the Passage. He drank their wine, watched the young dandies practicing on the strips, smoked a cheroot or two while lounging on the balconies in the welcome sunshine. He joined various discussions on the topics of the moment, defleeted questions about the duel with Novgorodcev, and spoke of his particular friends, Caid and the Conde de Lerida, also his brother, Nicholas. Scathing, reproving and enthusiastic by turns, he strolled here and sauntered there, frittering away the time. No matter where he went or what he di
d, it seemed he should be some place else, that he had left something undone. He felt as if he waited for some event, some appearance, some message that never came.

  At the oddest moments, while holding a glass of claret, nibbling an olive or watching a flower seller carrying nosegays of violets in a tray on her head as she passed along the street, he was assailed by images of Ariadne. The color of her lips, the sweet taste of her, her violet scent haunted him. The least tiny thing could send him tumbling into a sensual morass where he held her in his arms while the world shattered around them. It was a true obsession, he thought, one born of the shared remembrance of a young poet who had died too soon. Yes, and of passion forged in expiated anger. This was no gentle thing of hearts and flowers, bluebirds and honeysuckle. It had something wild in it, and something that grieved while saluting life and joy. He missed it, missed his clashes with Ariadne as he might miss a limb, and even, possibly, his beating heart.

  Soon she would be gone. Perhaps he would find some kind of peace then, some deeper healing.

  Or perhaps not. It had occurred to him in the sunrise hour, and again at moments of supreme self-disgust during the day, that he had not withdrawn at the zenith of his pleasure in her arms. He had been too enthralled by the way she felt and moved under him, against him, the pulsating glory of her, the incredible way she encompassed him. What if she carried his child? What then?

  Nothing, nothing would come of it. How could he think otherwise?

  She would rid herself of the babe, or else rear it in some out-of-the-way place. She might pass it off to a woman who, like her own foster mother when she was given away, had no child of her own. She could dispose of his child and he would never know.

  He would never know.

  It was Kerr Wallace who found him on the balcony of the Croquere's salon, alone and morose, as evening began to fall. "Well met, my friend," the large Kentuckian said, clamping a hand on his shoulder, "Rio said I'd find you here."