Elizabeth Boyle (14 page)

She reached over and patted his sleeve with her mitten- covered fingers. “There, there,
mon fils
, it is not so bad. You will find yourself a companion tonight. But use caution.”

She looked around as if to check and make sure they were not being watched. “The Committee frowns on such pastimes,” she warned with a dire shake of her finger. “Ah, this regime, they know nothing of
amour
.” She wheezed out a sigh. “If you were just a few years older . . .
mais non
, I am afraid I would wear you out.”

She turned to leave, hobbling in the shuffled gait of an old woman. Giles wasted no time, reaching over and catching her hand within his grip.

With one deft motion he stripped off her mitt.

The old woman howled in protest, her bundle falling from her arms. Her colorful oaths and curses continued until he held up his prize.

A hand, smooth of lines or veins or spots. Soft, tapered fingers that could only belong to a young woman. A woman capable of stroking his senses beyond reason.

He held it up in front of her face. “Now, shall we start where we left off?”

“Where we left off?” she repeated, continuing in her disguised voice.

Again, he shook her hand in front of her face.

This time the voice that answered held the same sensual charm that had teased his senses in the Parkers’ ballroom and even more so on the night in his study.

“You’ve done well, Lord Trahern. You found me more quickly than I gave you credit for. Unfortunately, though, I haven’t the time for you tonight. Return to London, and I promise one night I’ll come calling.” She twisted to leave, but he held her fast.

They stood for a moment, her body well within his grasp. Even now his imagination brought forth his last vision of her in his study: her ivory skin glowing by the firelight, her kiss-swollen lips open in invitation, the provocative tip of her head and smile bidding him to hurry back.

Dammit, she was a witch. Casting her spells and enticing him to forget. Forget his mission, forget Webb, forget everything except her.

The memories of her touch and the silken warmth of her skin beneath his fingers left him tight and straining against his trousers.

When he blinked aside the passionate recollection and found himself staring into the face of a wretched old hag, it was easy for him to make reason sweep aside what his body refused to. He let go of her hand and stepped back from her. “Your offer has lost the appeal that it had the last time we met.”

“I suppose so,” she admitted, smoothing out her worn wool skirts. “But give me my freedom and I could be anything you want.” Through the wax and paint distorting her face, her blue eyes flashed with an invitation of passion.

Giles did his best to ignore her suggestion, for he well knew she could transform herself into any man’s fantasy. Even his. As if she could glimpse into his soul and pluck from it the secrets of his own desires.

He crossed his arms over his chest, blocking her tempting offer. “I have no intention of letting you go, not just yet.”

She sighed. “And I told you I have other plans.”

Looking up and down the empty boulevard lining the Seine, Giles shrugged his shoulders. “You appear sadly lacking for a rescue tonight, Lady Brazen. No carriage to whisk you to freedom. No friends to create a calculated diversion, nor any windows to climb out.” He stepped closer, aware of how she stiffened with a stubborn resolve at his approach.

Her defiance and arrogance in the face of her defeat brought out the worst in him. If she’d had any part in Webb’s death, he’d see her brought to justice no matter the cost.

“You cannot escape me,” he said, more of a vow to himself than a promise to her. “Not this time.”

They jerked apart at the sound of footsteps. Without hesitating she turned to flee. Giles caught her by the elbow and held her fast.

“The guards,” she whispered over her shoulder as she tugged against his grip. “It’s well past curfew.”

She turned and tried to pry his fingers open, but he clung to her, refusing to let go.

“Are you insane?” she asked. “They will not look kindly on an Englishman lurking about Paris in the middle of the night. Save yourself.”

He shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere. Not without you.”

She looked about to continue the argument, but her features betrayed her anxiety at the approaching regiment. “Under the bridge then. Hurry.”

With agility that belied her costume she towed him down the banks of the Seine and under the Pont de la Concorde. Damp and muddy, her hiding place perched dangerously at the edge of the rain-swollen river.

Moments later the bridge above them reverberated with the sound of marching feet.

With martial law and a curfew in effect, few citizens ventured out at night. Giles knew that to walk the streets after dark invited unwanted inspection of one’s papers, followed by a visit to the local committee. With a single nod by any member a citizen could well find himself riding in the tumbrils without the benefit of a trial or a hearing.

“Do you hide here often?” he whispered, lifting his once-clean boot out of the sucking mud.

She peered up at him from beneath her tattered mobcap and gray wig and frowned. “Complaining when I’ve all but saved your neck. If I were smart I’d be well rid of you with only a word,” she shot back, nodding up above them to where the troops marched over their heads.

“It wouldn’t do you much good, for I’m sure those men would find what is hidden beneath this horsehair”—his fingers tugged lightly at her wig—”not only an unlikely surprise, but something worthy of a lengthy investigation.”

“You wouldn’t dare. It would mean your death as well as mine,” she shot back, her powdered gray brows drawing up in disbelief.

“I’m not the one in disguise. So the hand is to you. Turn me in, my lady. Turn me in and see what I’m willing to wager.”

She twisted away from him, an exasperated sigh escaping her lips.

Giles allowed himself a small smile at the sound. It had been a calculated risk to see what she would choose.

If she was with the Revolutionaries she would have had no qualms about calling out to the troops. But she hadn’t. So she was either waiting to obtain more information before adding him to the executioner’s list, or she was the rogue agent Lord Dryden suspected—though her consistently rash behavior argued against that possibility.

As the last of the marching overhead receded, she prodded him. They scrambled carefully up the slick bank.

She reached the top first, but before she could take off again, he caught hold of the back of her skirt.

“I said I have business with you, and I meant it.” But as she struggled and fought against him, Giles realized that antagonizing her would gain him neither the information he needed nor her cooperation. Perhaps it was time to turn the tables on the lady and use her own game against her.

Sophia continued to pull against his grasp, but to no avail. Why had he ever followed her? Did he suspect who she was? No, she realized, he still hadn’t made the connection, for he would have said something immediately. Maybe he’d been sent by Lord Dryden for all the thefts she perpetrated. Though she couldn’t believe the English government would send one of their top agents after her. She’d chosen her victims to avoid that type of scrutiny, targeting men whose vanities would never allow them to admit they’d been robbed by following their own misguided lust.

Suddenly, she thought of the one thing Lord Dryden would very well risk his best agent to uncover.

Sophia closed her eyes. How would she ever be able to deceive him about that?

Trahern’s arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her toward him until her back bumped up against his chest. As he gathered her even closer within the confines of his arms, his hand slid higher, until it pushed against her breasts.

Damn you, Lord Trahern
, she silently cursed,
why did you follow me?

“You should be thankful your head is still attached to your neck and begone with you,” she told him, trying to break free of his dangerous embrace.

Her fool costume, she realized, would make it impossible to outrun him. She stilled her struggles for a moment and concentrated. There were other ways to elude a man.

Twisting in his grasp, she turned until she faced him. Instead of smiling, she continued to frown at her captor as a new plan formed in her mind. “You have no right even being in Paris.”

“Your concerns for my welfare, Lady Brazen, are duly noted.”

“Don’t look so smug,” she snapped. “My only concern is that you’ll get us both killed.”

“And here I thought you’d developed a
petite tendre
for me.”

Oh, the outright arrogance of the man. As if she could expect anything less from the man who’d marched into her aunt’s house and demanded he be allowed to wed her immediately, sight unseen.

If he weren’t holding her so tight she’d haul him out to the middle of the bridge, push him over the rail, and be done with him. Then maybe she could forget about him once and for all.

“I’m the one who left, remember,” she prodded. “
You’re
the one who followed
me
here.” Sophia allowed herself a smug smile in this small victory.

“So I did. And since you mention it I would have certainly preferred to conduct this business in the safety and comfort of my London house,” he whispered into her ear, his warm breath and innuendo teasing her senses. “Certainly, we could find someplace to be alone, rather than playing cat and mouse with the
Fédérés
all night.”

“Maybe you should have stayed home if you find Paris so disagreeable,” she said, trying to ignore the heat of his body, which seemed to touch her everywhere—her legs, her breasts, her neck. He had a way of holding her so she knew every point of contact between them and regretted every one for the way her body angled closer to his. “Go home if you don’t like it here.”

Go home and wait for me
, she wanted to plead.
For I will come back to you. I have no choice
.

He shook his head, his fingers toying with her stringy wig, brushing aimlessly down the sides of her neck. “Would you really want me to leave?”

“Yes,” she lied, in spite of the quick, hot sensations his touch raised everywhere it brushed. And she wanted him to touch her—everywhere.

“I thought so,” he said, a smile on his lips. “But first, we have unsettled business. Perhaps you can suggest someplace where we can finish what we started in London.”

There was nothing she wanted more than to continue the passionate interlude in his study; it had kept her awake every night since she’d stolen out of his house like a thief. Now it was he who was trying to steal from her, robbing her of her reason and senses.

“No,” she mumbled under her breath, not having meant to say the word out loud.

“I had only thought to finish our discussion,” he told her in a sensual whisper that belied his words.

She shook back her tangled emotions. Emma couldn’t have been more wrong. Sophia didn’t love this man. Loving this man would be impossible. With his arrogance he’d take everything she possessed, right down to her soul.

Talk she’d give him.

Fall into his arms again and risk eternal damnation at his hands? Never.

She would hear him out and then send him on his way. It was the safest thing for him, and for her heart.

But the small voice that had whispered its warning to her in the tavern now changed to that of mocking laughter.

Buoyed by her newfound resolve and tamping down her doubts, she considered her choices. “I might know a place,” she began slowly. Two things were for sure: She couldn’t take him to her lodgings, and she had no intention of being alone in his. She didn’t trust the traitorous spell he cast over her senses with his teasing kisses and heated promises.

“We’ll be safe there until morning,” she continued. A place sure to cool his ardor, as well as her own. “I’ll
listen
to you ‘til dawn, but then you have to promise to let me go and leave Paris immediately. Agreed?”

“That depends on you, Lady Brazen,” he whispered as she started to lead him across the Pont de la Concorde.

She muttered a rather salty French curse under her breath, shaking off the lingering effects of his touch. “You leave at dawn, Lord Trahern. I’ll not have any more deaths on my conscience.”

C
oncealed in the shadows of a doorway, Sophia waited for the group of drunken men to pass before she continued. In the meantime she stood with her back pressed against Lord Trahern’s chest. His arm wrapped protectively around her, concealing her in the dark sweep of his coat.

This was how she’d imagined him since her aunt informed her of their betrothal—warm, protective, strong.

How she wished it could always be.

What was she thinking? She pinched herself, as she’d done as a daydreaming schoolgirl, to bring her wayward thoughts back in line with what she needed to do now. She hadn’t time for schoolgirl fantasies.

She glanced up and over her shoulder at him. “How did you find me?”

A wry smile curved his lips. Fishing in his pocket, he held up his evidence.

Before her eyes dangled a bracelet, one of the Delaney pieces she’d stolen. She stepped out of his protective reach and stared at the brilliants. “Damn Gauthiér. He promised me he would sell it immediately to an Italian vendor.”

“Do not blame your Swiss friend too harshly,” Giles told her as he returned his prize to the safety of his jacket. “He had agreed to sell it to another merchant. It wasn’t until I offered so much more that he capitulated. He also seemed to think you had more jewels available, ones that I might be interested in.” Tipping his head, his gaze swept her from ragged boots to the top of her tattered lace cap. “So do you? Have more jewelry?”

“Bags of it. Some pieces I think you might find quite amazing.” She laughed softly to herself, relieved that she hadn’t also sold the engagement necklace he’d given her. While the money it would have brought might come in handy, it wasn’t essential to her current scheme.