Last Chance for Paris

by Farmer, Merry

  She sighed against his lips, sagging into him and circling her arms around him. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had told her they loved her. She had never felt so adored or so safe in any man’s arms ever. Her heart seemed to expand through her, filling up all the cracks in her soul that had been left dark after a lifetime of uncertainty and years of pain.

  “I love you too,” she said, surprising herself, when Louis broke their kiss to shift his hold of her.

  “Good,” he said, his voice deep and rich with passion, slipping a hand over her backside and drawing her leg up until her thigh rested over his hip. “That will make it so much easier when I carry you off to the altar.”

  She gasped, her eyes going wide and her mouth dropping open, but he didn’t give her time to reply. His mouth slanted over hers before more than a strangled sound of surprise could escape from her, and his hands spread across her sides and back, pulling her flush against the heat of his torso.

  It was mad, really. Louis was a nobleman and she was hardly a fit bride for someone of his status. But as their tongues danced and she sighed at the pleasure his touch brought her, she couldn’t imagine any other possible way to move forward with her life. She’d never stopped to imagine what she would do with herself once she brought Lafarge down, but now she knew. She was meant to be Louis’s.

  “I want you,” he murmured, moving from her lips to rain kisses across her cheek, her jaw, and down to her neck. “I want you as I’ve never wanted a woman before. I want you in every way imaginable, until you cry out my name in ecstasy.”

  She tried to answer with words, but all that she could manage was a humming sound of agreement as she reached to undo the buttons of his jacket.

  As soon as the first button popped free, it was as though a starter’s pistol had been fired to begin a wild race. He let her leg drop and tugged her bodice from the waist of her skirt. She fumbled with the rest of the buttons on his jacket, then those of his waistcoat and shirt, all as they backed out of the kitchen and into the flat’s main room. She knew there was a bedroom with a perfectly serviceable bed, but neither of them seemed to have the patience to seek it out.

  Louis tugged her bodice off of her shoulders and tossed it aside, then went to work on the fastenings of her corset. She sucked in a breath of relief when he worked it open, then mewled with pleasure as he slipped his hands under the thin cotton of her chemise to cradle her breasts. Her whole body responded to the touch, jolting alive with arousal as he worked her nipples into sensitive points, rubbing his thumbs over them until a delicious pressure began to gather in her sex.

  “You make me wild,” he growled, leaning in to nibble her neck as his hands worked their magic.

  “And you make me wanton,” she said, then gasped as he pinched her nipples lightly.

  The urgency to mate with him grew overwhelming in an instant, and she tugged frantically at his clothes, desperate to undress him. He must have felt the same need, because he stepped back, tossing his jacket and waistcoat aside and peeling his shirt off over his head. Solange scrambled to throw off her own clothes and made it down to only her drawers by the time he unfastened his trousers and pushed them down over his hips.

  Her heart thrummed in her chest as his cock leapt free, standing at attention. He was so perfectly formed that looking at him made thought impossible. The memory of how he’d felt inside of her the night before made her bold, and she swayed into him, sliding her hand down his belly to stroke his hot length.

  “I want to give you pleasure,” she said, bringing her lips close to his without touching him.

  “You do,” he insisted breathlessly. She could feel the tension rippling from him as he fought to keep still instead of thrusting into her hand.

  “You are beautiful to me.” She kissed his lips, but only for a moment. There was so much more of him to kiss and taste.

  She brushed her lips down his neck to his shoulder, planting a few light kisses there, before moving lower still. Every bit of his body was delicious, from the strong lines of his shoulders and arms to the power in his chest and abdomen. She moved lower, sinking to her knees on the pile of their clothes that had been discarded unceremoniously between them. He sucked in a breath and tensed even more as he guessed what she was after.

  She was too caught up in the heat between them to tease or dally, though she promised herself she would kiss every inch of him at a later time. Instead, she held the base of his cock firmly, kissing his tip, then drawing him lightly into her mouth. She teased his head, licking it softly and tasting salt and musk. He let out a sound of impatient pleasure as she drew him in just a bit deeper, stroking the sensitive spot at the base of his head with her tongue while sucking lightly.

  “I don’t know if you’re an angel or a demon,” he said in a rough voice, threading his fingers through her hair.

  She glanced up at him, mischief in her eyes, and answered by bearing down on him. She took in as much of him as she could, testing herself and her limits. He filled her mouth to an alarming degree, but the cry of pleasure he attempted to hide encouraged her. She moved on him, taking him fuller and deeper with each plunge as his fingers tightened in her hair. Her sex ached with liquid heat as his body hardened and his breath came in shorter pants. It was so arousing that she slipped one hand between her legs to tease herself as she swallowed him.

  “I can’t,” he gasped suddenly, pulling away from her. He drew her to her feet, saying, “I want to come inside of you, but not like that.”

  She opened her mouth to ask how he wanted her, but before words escaped from her, he spun her to face forward, bending her toward the back of the room’s lone sofa. He tugged her drawers off, then nudged her legs apart before surging against her. Even though she knew what was coming, she cried out with surprise and lust as he thrust hard into her. He drove himself deep within her, gripping the back of the sofa along with her as his body arched and moved over hers. The sheer possessiveness of the way he made love to her drove her wild, and she moved with him, reaching for heaven.

  Her climax rolled slowly over her, surprising her with its intensity as her body rocketed into orgasm. She cried out with it, arching against him and letting the pleasure fill her. His sounds grew pitched and his thrusts urgent until he tensed against her, spilling himself deep within her. The risk he took in doing so, the intimacy of what it meant, kept her throbbing and hot for far longer than she would have expected. They rocked together, drawing the moment out as long as possible.

  At last, the hard edge of pleasure subsided into the warm glow of completion. Louis relaxed over her, his body hot and slick against hers as they fought to catch their breaths, still braced against the sofa. It took even longer for either of them to feel like moving. Solange wasn’t sure they would have moved if the chill in the air hadn’t become more noticeable than the warmth seeping through them. He moved away, bending to fetch their clothes from the floor.

  “I don’t want to dress again,” she said, still breathless, twisting to lean against the back of the sofa. A shiver of pleasure shot through her at the trace of liquid sliding down her inner thigh.

  “Once we’re married, we won’t have to dress for days,” he said, draping her skirt, petticoat, and bodice over the back of the sofa. “Though, for now, it would probably be wise, since we’re in someone else’s flat and it’s chilly.”

  A sudden burst of shyness came over Solange. “Do you truly wish to marry me?” she asked, hesitating for only a moment before pushing away from the sofa and crossing to the tiny water closet. Sensuality was one thing, but the practicality of cleaning up a bit before redressing was another.

  “Of course,” Louis answered, following her to accomplish the same thing.

  She glanced cautiously up at him as she wet a washcloth in the sink and handed it to him, then found another one for herself. “You realize the problems inherent in an English lord marrying the illegitimate daughter of a disgraced African woman.”

  He shrugged with fa
r more casualness than he should have. “There are no laws forbidding me from marrying whomever I want.”

  Her stare became harder. “It will be a scandal.”

  “I don’t care,” he said, tossing his washcloth into the sink, then taking hers and throwing it away with the other. He swept her into his arms. “I would rather live happily with a scandal than be miserable without you for the rest of my life.”

  She still wasn’t convinced, but the kiss he gave her made her believe anything was possible. “We do work well together,” she admitted once he let her go and began the process of getting dressed.

  “In so many ways,” he agreed with a rakish grin.

  They were halfway through dressing and Solange had just begun to let herself dream that a life with Louis would be possible, when there was a sharp knock at the door.

  “Solange, are you in there?” Damien McGovern’s voice sounded from the hall.

  “We’re certain you’re in there,” Sebastian’s voice followed.

  Louis glanced to Solange as if assessing whether she was presentable enough for him to answer the door. She sidestepped into the water closet to finish dressing as Louis buttoned his shirt and walked to the door.

  “What do you want?” Louis asked in a voice designed to convince the two men to go away as Solange finished dressing in the tiny room.

  “We need the two of you right away,” Damien said.

  “We have it on good authority that Lafarge is about to publish a special edition of Les Ragots, and that whatever it is he plans to publish in this issue will spell the end for the McGovern family and its friends.”

  “What?” Louis balked. “How do you know?”

  Solange didn’t need an answer to his question. She already knew. As she did up the last of her bodice’s buttons and raced out of the water closet, she remembered the mass of incriminating documents Lafarge had in his trophy room. The McGovern secret would truly ruin them all. No one in the family would survive the shock of what Asher had done before leaving England. One whisper of the whole thing and the McGoverns would never be allowed back into England society, or, perhaps the country itself.

  “One of Lafarge’s employees at his press has gone rogue and came to us,” Sebastian had started to explain by the time Solange joined the conversation. Sebastian and Damien both glanced to her for a moment, but neither of them seemed surprised to see her, let alone not completely dressed.

  “He showed up at the palace only an hour or so ago to warn us what was about to happen,” Damien picked up the story. “He said it would be disaster if Lafarge’s plan is a success.”

  “It will be,” Solange confirmed with a nod.

  All three men glanced to her. “What do you know about this?” Louis asked.

  “Those papers I showed you,” she said. “The ones incriminating Lafarge. They weren’t the only papers he had in his trophy room.”

  “His what?” Damien asked with a frown.

  Solange’s back itched with impatience. There wasn’t time to explain every little bit of Lafarge’s plan every time someone new became involved. “Lafarge has kept things from all the people he has wronged,” she said, opting for the shortest possible explanation. “That includes documents, most of which could be used to destroy people if they were made public.”

  “We have to destroy them,” Sebastian said. “We can’t let him get away with any of this.”

  “We have to stop him from printing that special edition of Les Ragots first,” Damien said.

  “We have to use the papers Solange took from Lafarge to bring him to justice,” Louis added.

  “What papers?” Sebastian asked, seeming to hear what Solange had said for the first time.

  “Letters,” Solange explained. “They detail Lafarge’s political ambitions. His treasonous, political ambitions.”

  “You have to let Marshall know about this.” Sebastian stepped forward, placing a hand on Solange’s arm. “He and Dorothy are waiting outside. We have to let them know about all of this as fast as possible.”

  “The faster we can end Lafarge the better,” Louis agreed, crossing to the sofa to don his waistcoat and jacket, then retrieving his and Solange’s coats from where they had tossed them when they’d first entered the apartment.

  “I agree.” Solange gathered up the last bits of her clothing, sitting on the sofa to put her stockings and boots on. “This needs to end, and it needs to end now.”

  As soon as they two of them were dressed, Damien and Sebastian led them out of the apartment and down to the street. Lord Reith and Miss Dorothy waited there, pacing anxiously in front of the door to the building. Dorothy broke away from Lord Reith as soon as she spotted Solange.

  “Did Damien tell you?” she asked, gripping both of her arms.

  “He did.” Solange placed steadying hands on her friend’s arms in return. “But I fear it’s worse than you imagine. Lafarge isn’t lying when he says he has incriminating evidence that could bring the entire McGovern family down.”

  “We need to move,” Louis said. “The longer we wait—”

  “Arrêtez vous là!”

  Solange nearly jumped out of her skin, and all six of them turned to find half a dozen police officers speeding toward them from the end of the street.

  “What do we do?” Dorothy asked, her fingertips digging into Solange’s arms.

  “We can’t run,” Damien said.

  “Let me handle this.” Lord Reith stepped forward, as if he were the spokesman of the group. “Gentlemen, what seems to be the—”

  “Arrest them,” the lead police officer said, gesturing for his men to move in on their group.

  Before any of them could do more than gasp in reaction, the police officers rushed to surround them. They grabbed Damien, Louis, and Sebastian, securing their arms behind their backs. Two grabbed hold of Solange and Dorothy, though they didn’t manhandle them as much. The lead police officer grabbed Lord Reith’s arm and twisted it behind his back, as though Lord Reith might run.

  “For God’s sake, what is the meaning of this?” Lord Reith demanded.

  “Are you Lord Reith?” the lead policeman asked with a heavy French accent.

  “I am,” Lord Reith answered.

  “And these are your accomplices, Lord Sinclair, Lord Gregory, Mr. McGovern, and these ladies?”

  The fact that neither she nor Dorothy were worth mentioning in the lead officer’s eyes had Solange mad enough to stomp on the foot of the officer holding her.

  “They are my friends,” Lord Reith said, struggling against the man.

  “Then you are all under arrest,” the lead officer said, gesturing for his men to drag them all to a police wagon that had just pulled up on the street beside them.

  “On what charge?” Lord Reith demanded.

  The lead officer grinned. “Espionage,” he answered, then addressed his men. “Take them away!”

  Chapter 8

  “This is intolerable,” Louis shouted, as he paced the length of the small cell he had been thrown into, along with Marshall, Damien, and Sebastian, in the dreary prison in Grenelle. “C'est intolerable! I demand you release us at once!”

  “Do you have any idea who we are?” Marshall added, marching to the front of the cell and gripping the bars as though he could bend them with the force of his anger alone.

  “They aren’t listening,” Solange said from across the hallway that ran between the two sets of cells. She and Dorothy had been tossed in together with a trio of prostitutes whose attitudes ranged from bored to surly to highly interested in the spectacle unfolding in front of them. “They haven’t been listening for an hour.”

  Louis rubbed a hand over his face in frustration. Fatigue was starting to take its toll on every muscle in his body, but rage overwhelmed his need to sit down and think things through. “Lafarge is behind this, to be sure,” he growled as he continued pacing.

  “Of course, he’s behind it,” Damien agreed sullenly. He and Sebastian sat side-by-sid
e, arms crossed in a twin show of quiet desperation, on one of the cell’s two benches. “Why else would we have been arrested for espionage.”

  “That is only the beginning of the charges,” Sebastian added, his face pale.

  Louis’s heart went out to the man. Sebastian had been in prison before, and for the most ignominious of reasons. Louis knew the story, even if he wasn’t Sebastian’s close friend. Judging by the haunted look in the man’s eyes, his previous experience had been a nightmare and he was waiting for their current predicament to turn into the same. Damien noticed and uncrossed his arms to rub Sebastian’s back. The gesture was sweet and supportive, but it betrayed everything between the two men. Given their current circumstances, that show of affection was dangerous.

  “They cannot keep a collection of English nobility locked away in here forever,” Marshall railed on, red-faced, eyes blazing with anger. “Do you hear that?” he shouted toward the front of the prison. “We are Englishmen and nobles. You cannot hold us without charges or without allowing us to engage a solicitor.”

  “Tais-toi, pour l'amour de Dieu!” an unseen man shouted from another cell, then muttered, “Anglais stupides.”

  Louis clenched his jaw, wondering if whoever heckled Marshall would do the same if standing face to face with him. “The officer promised that he would send word of our arrest to the Château de Saint-Sottises,” he reminded Marshall, pausing his pacing to lean against the bars by Marshall’s side.

  “Asher will be here soon,” Dorothy added from across the way. “He won’t stand for this.”

  “I’m not sure he has a choice but to stand for this,” Solange said, the most grim-faced of the group. “We’re trapped.”

  “But we didn’t do anything wrong,” Dorothy said. Her comment was followed by a snort from the bored prostitute in the cell with them.

  “Our relative innocence or guilt is irrelevant,” Louis said, clenching his jaw even harder. “We should have expected that Lafarge had the police in his pocket.”