Chapter 4
All-a-mort: Struck dumb, confounded.
A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
Francis Grose
“Unbutton your dress?” Nick repeated. It wasn’t possible he’d heard those words in that order.
“Yes,” she called out, confirming his worst fear.
A nascent feeling of horror unfurled within him. Mariana had always been a provocative woman, which was precisely why he hadn’t spent time alone with her in a decade. Her ability to upset his equilibrium remained absolute and effortless.
Still, he couldn’t resist the pull toward her. He rose, and a few hesitant strides had him at the threshold of the bedroom, the vision of her propped against a bedpost before him. Mirroring her insouciant stance, he balanced a noncommittal shoulder against the doorjamb.
“This isn’t a good idea,” he protested . . . weakly. If pressed, his flimsy shred of resistance would give way to whatever wish she voiced.
“Have you spent a single minute of your life bound within layers of corset, shift, and tightly buttoned dress? Has this ever been required for one of your spy missions?”
He couldn’t miss the scorn in her voice. “Never.”
“Then you’ll have to trust me when I suggest that it’s a bloody fantastic idea for you to unbutton me. You’ve done it before, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“I haven’t,” he said, his voice incapable of more than a low, gravelly rumble.
She blinked, and a moment passed. “You’re the one who dismissed Hortense. Even if she is a spy, she’s also my lady’s maid.”
As if to illustrate her seriousness, Mariana swiveled around and braced her hands on the bedpost, readying herself for him.
Readying herself for him?
Reason bade Nick exit the room, locate Hortense, and abandon the entire proposition. Under no circumstance should he close the distance between them and place his hands on Mariana’s body. Paper thin layers of chartreuse silk and muslin between his fingers and her skin wouldn’t be enough.
A few quick steps could carry him to her. A few quick steps could undo him.
His eyes swept down the length of gown draped elegantly across her body as if it had been sewn onto her. A brief count yielded fifteen glimmering, jet buttons racing down the ridge of her spine. Fifteen. With any other man and woman, this would be the scene of a seduction. A simple assenting nod of her head was all it would take for them to become those two other people with no past and no future—only tonight.
Except he and she weren’t that man and woman. Not with their history.
He shook his head to clear it, lest he forget the mission that had brought him to this room tonight. Before him stood an opportunity, and in the world of espionage, one didn’t spurn opportunity. One seized it. Second chances were rare and unreliable.
Somewhat fortified, he closed the requisite distance. The heat from her body mingled with his and enveloped them in a cocoon uniquely them. A bead of perspiration trickled down the hollow of his spine.
Oh, no, he hadn’t forgotten what it was like to undress Mariana. A heartbeat later, he took the top button between thumb and forefinger. Smooth muscles contracted across her back, resulting in a slight arch just above her derriere. Impossible she didn’t feel this implacable tension, too. The certainty didn’t make his task any easier. Only a blindfold would.
The tiny button slipped its silken loop. Only fourteen more to go. He cleared his throat. “Mariana?” Her name came out on a rasp barely loud enough to stir the quiet stretch of air between his mouth and her neck. Beneath his fingertips, he felt her breath suspend in anticipation of his next words. He flicked the second and third buttons free in quick succession. “I have a proposition for you.”
At last, he was speaking the words he should have spoken the moment she’d entered the sitting room. He was here in a professional capacity, not as a husband and certainly not as a lover.
“A proposition?”
He couldn’t miss the lilt of interest inflecting her voice. The fourth and fifth buttons slipped free, and he tamped down a stab of disappointment when he saw that she wore a corset beneath her dress. He should have felt relief that another layer of fabric stood between his skin and hers, but he didn’t.
Her corset was black. And lace. It was the corset of a trollop. Lust, pure and strong, shot straight to his cock.
He must ignore that he stood close enough that the fine strands of her upswept hair fluttered with each word he spoke. And that the heat from her body permeated him at an elemental level. And that she wore the corset of a trollop.
“It would be of considerable use,” he began, hoping the formality of his words would neutralize the decidedly informal bent of his thoughts, “if you were to remain in Paris and further your acquaintance with the Comte de Villefranche.”
“Further my acquaintance?” she asked. “Why would I do that?”
“We have no agents so conveniently placed.”
“Is that what I am? A convenience?”
“I wouldn’t go quite so far as that.”
Her response was a resounding silence. Nothing was ever easy with Mariana. She didn’t wilt or defer to his authority. She stiffened her back and challenged his every word. Most men found this sort of woman exhausting. Not Nick. She tended to invigorate him.
The buttons were coming loose in a steady little rhythm now. Six . . . Seven . . . Eight.
“You would be in a position,” he continued, “to collect information.”
“Ah, a collector of information.” A thread of mockery wove through her voice. “What sort of information?”
He began reciting possibilities as if ticking items off a list. “Names . . .”—Nine—“Dates . . .”—Ten—“Rendezvous points . . .”—Eleven—“Snippets of conversation you might overhear . . .”—Twelve—“Notes you might read by chance. Idealism often disguises the deeper motivations of the major players. You would place yourself in the position to get at the core of the intrigue.”
“And how exactly will I accomplish this?”
“By earning Villefranche’s trust.”
Thirteen.
“And how do I go about that?”
Fourteen.
His fingers hesitated above the soft curve of her waist. Could he say to her the words he’d come here to say? After all, they were the same words he’d spoken to countless agents, both male and female, over the years. Never mind that the law stated she was his wife. That particular detail had been a minor technicality for years.
He let the words come. “By any means necessary.”
The air went still in the way it did before a storm broke. Nick braced himself.
“By seducing him?” she asked in an incredulous half-whisper.
Fifteen.
“Any means,” he repeated, his voice hollow to his own ears.
No buttons remained unbuttoned, yet his hands lingered at the small of her back.
“Now my corset,” she said, her words a quiet command.
“Pardon?” Impossible that he’d heard her correctly. A litany of curses, he expected, but not this.
“Loosen my stays,” she stated more firmly.
“Mariana . . .”
It was the plea of a desperate man, but he no longer cared how he sounded. Only a fool kept silent when he was drowning.
She presented him her stubborn profile. “I need a deep breath. Now.”
Shaky fingers felt for the knot holding the stays together, and his mouth went dry. No longer could he ignore her effect on him. Blood ripe with anticipation raced through his veins, pervading his body with a specific craving that demanded to be assuaged in the specific ways only he and she had known.
Did he remember? How could he forget? His cock, hard and ready, certainly hadn’t.
It would be nothing to reach down and gather up her dress, one silk fold at a time, exposing the long length of her legs inch by irresistible inch until—
No. He must resist. Who was he asking her to seduce anyway?
“About Villefranche,” she began. Her voice held a matter-of-fact quality that served to stabilize the moment. “Have you considered that he will suspect I’m getting close to him at your behest? You and I are married after all.”
“Society is well aware that we are estranged,” Nick replied. His fingers began working at the knot again. He needed to finish this task. “Villefranche and his conspirators may think to play you against me, but it’s an opportunity we mustn’t pass up.”
At long last, Nick’s fingers tugged the knot free and loosened the stays. Task complete, nothing prevented him from stepping away from her and collecting himself before he ruined the entire mission. Except his eyes lingered on the transparent swath of muslin that did little to protect the supple, ridged line of her spine from his gaze.
Like nothing, the flimsy scrap of fabric would rend in two. His tongue would trace that exposed line all the way up to the sensitive, fine hairs of her neck . . . That was another sort of opportunity before him. But it was one he must pass up.
“You will answer me one question before you have my reply.” She swiveled around to face him. Her dress draped forward ever so slightly, and he caught a glimpse of black lace peeking above chartreuse silk. She was a picture of womanly dishabille of the most delectable sort. “Why are you dressed in this manner?”
“I have gone underground.”
“And this has to do with someone in the Foreign Office declaring you missing and presumed dead?”
“That makes two questions.”
“Humor me, Nick. It seems that you could uncover the details of the assassination plot dressed as Lord Nicholas Asquith, alive and well. Yet you’re not. What aren’t you telling me?”
She leaned against the bedpost and crossed her arms in front of her breasts to prevent her dress from slipping to her waist. His eyes had no choice but to drop and follow the movement. In a slow blink, his gaze returned to meet hers and held steady. “Before your arrival in Paris, I was assaulted by two men in this suite. I managed to turn the dagger around on one of the assailants while the other fled the scene.”
“You killed a man?” she asked, eyes wide, but lacking any trace of hysteria or fear.
“This can be a dirty business. Clearly, my investigation into the assassination plot has touched a nerve with the wrong people. I thought it best that I not be myself for a time.” Frustrating Nick was that he’d told only the right people of this mission. This led to a single, unavoidable conclusion: his operation was compromised.
“How is Hortense connected to your mission?”
“After the attack,” he began, “she was put in place as a maid to watch for suspicious activity around this suite in case anyone returned.”
“You instructed her to spy on me?” Mariana asked. Her eyes held a mutinous light. Nick felt her slipping from him. He must tread with care.
“That was a stroke of luck.” Truth would best serve the moment. “Once Hortense saw you check in to the hotel, she took it upon herself to become your lady’s maid.” He hesitated before making his next request. Mariana had never responded well to being told what to do. “I would ask that you keep her on. She would be useful in an unsavory situation.”
Mariana’s amber eyes searched his, and the distance between them became insignificant. The only world that mattered was the world he saw in there, threatening to reach beyond the carnal and into a realm he never did understand and never wanted to understand. In this intimate space lay the ingredient for his undoing, yet he couldn’t resist its pull, even as he understood its potential for destruction. “If we are to work together, there is something you should know,” he found himself saying. “Ten years ago—”
A forestalling hand flew up, and her eyes hardened into flat, brittle stone. Cold distance instantly dispelled any false sense of intimacy between them. “Don’t,” she commanded.
“Don’t?”
“Apologize for your affair,” she continued, her tone matching her eyes. “Or is it affairs? The gossip rags do so love to have a field day with your exploits. All done in the course of information collecting, I now see.”
Even after all these years, her words hit him squarely in the solar plexus. Yet he would press on. “Mariana, the opera singer—”
“I shall do it,” she cut in.
“Pardon?” She was turning him into a simpleton.
“I shall collect information for you.” She spoke the words as if she was as surprised as he to hear them emerge from her mouth. “But not if you insist on dredging up the past. It’s done. It has no place in Paris. Isn’t that the way you’ve conducted your life this last decade?”
He cleared his throat, but found no available words. He nodded once, curtly.
“Besides,” she began, the mean hint of a smile playing about her lips, “the Comte de Villefranche certainly is handsome.”
The suggestion embedded within those words cut Nick to his core. But he deserved it, for it had been he who had set the idea of seduction into motion. She’d simply been the one to vocalize it. The matter was moot now.
Mariana was going to seduce another man. And he had no one to blame except himself. His blood boiled at the thought.
“I do have a request, though.”
“Yes?” he asked, the monosyllable hesitant and wary. He wouldn’t like whatever words next emerged from her mouth.
“You lose the voice.”
He didn’t need to ask. He knew the voice she spoke of. He’d long been aware of how his popinjay persona grated on her nerves. Now she was stripping his already meager arsenal of one of his most effective defenses against her. “As you like,” he granted. Surely, he could devise other defenses.
Her smile brightened, dispelling the impenetrable fog of their ticklish past. “It will be a lark.”
A prickle of foreboding raised the hairs on Nick’s neck. “A lark?” The word rang false to his ears. He took a step back, hoping to gain a little perspective. “You’re not the larking sort.”
“No?” A daring glint lit her eyes. “For England. How is that?”
“I’m not certain,” he said, the words emerging syllable by slow syllable in a weak effort to buy time.
What was happening? She’d turned the tables on him.
Of course, she had.
Arrayed before him in a state of partial undress, both impossibly sensual and impossible to ignore, stood the Mariana of his dreams and his nightmares: denuded of jewels; dress falling off her luscious form; gold locket temptingly nestled between her breasts; her face infused with a youthful eagerness he’d believed a memory. She looked so open . . . so Mariana . . .
A problem with his plan hit Nick with the force of a lightning strike: Mariana’s open face. How could he have overlooked the trait that defined Mariana as . . . Mariana? Spies didn’t possess open faces. At least, successful spies didn’t. And definitely not the ones who lived.
A shot of regret tore through him. What had he begun?
“When do I begin?” she asked as if privy to his thoughts.
“Tomorrow you accept Villefranche’s invitation to shop in the Palais-Royal.” Was that panic in his voice?
“I suppose your people reported that conversation back to you?”
Nick nodded. “I shall be in touch.” With that, he pivoted on a heel and fled the room.
Perhaps he fled her keen face.
Perhaps he fled his budding desire to tell her the truth about ten years ago. He definitely fled desire. Except, this desire had naught to do with the past. This desire lived squarely in the present, base and implacable.
And it wasn’t the truth either of them needed.
~ ~ ~
Mariana lay atop the bed’s soft damask coverlet, watching flickering shadows dance about her ceiling. As a child, she would imagine they were the shadows of fairies come to protect her as she slept. This twilight stage between waking and sleep had been her favorite part of bedtime. She hadn’t been the dreamy sort of girl who frolicked about vast imagined landscapes. She’d been too grounded in the present. Except for this one bit of whimsy that came to her every night as she relaxed and sank into slumber.
She understood this would be her last stretch of stillness for some time. Once before, she’d experienced this singular feeling: the night before her wedding. She’d sensed then, as now, that she was about to step over an edge, and there would be no turning back. Gravity didn’t work that way. It pulled one toward an inevitable conclusion, and she never was one to hesitate on the brink of a precipice. She simply went right over.
Tonight, she’d hesitated. She and Nick created a gravity of their own. And they’d reached their inevitable conclusion once before. Ten years. It was so very long ago, and, yet, it felt like yesterday.
When her eyes had held his and his fingers brushed the space between her shoulder blades as his breath caressed the nape of her neck, she’d longed, yearned, ached for the press of his body against hers. Not because she didn’t remember, but because she did.
Her eyelids fluttered shut. As the fairies eased her into sleep, a hopeful note sounded. The grim past didn’t have to push its way into the present. It was true that a gravitational thread linked them, one with no connection to their shared name or children. Nick had always been able to ignore it. Why not she, too?
The past was the wrong direction. The only direction now was forward.