Humbled (13 page)

He named a price he hoped was neither too high, nor too low.

“I will take twenty-four,” Montpelier said, handing it back.

It took all his effort not to gulp in surprise. “Thank you, monsieur. I will get to work on them straight away.”

Montpelier waved a hand, dismissing him, returning to scanning the papers at his desk.

He stood and bowed, though the gentleman did not look up. He walked out on shaky legs, hardly daring believe his fortune had held.

* * *

Corinne stood at the window, watching Jean-Claude climb into the hired carriage.

“So, he is your silversmith. I pictured someone quite a bit older and not nearly so handsome,” Madame Montpelier remarked.

“Indeed,” said Mademoiselle Delacour, another aristocratic refugee living on the generosity of Monsieur Montpelier. “You traveled all that way with him, unescorted?”

“He was a perfect gentleman!” she exclaimed, her face growing warm.

“You are not interested in the young man, are you?” Madame Montpelier asked.

Irritated, she drew in her breath but could think of nothing to say.

“You would consider marrying beneath you?”

“I would be proud to be a silversmith’s wife,” she said, lifting her chin.

“My dear, you have not met all the eligible gentlemen here yet,” exclaimed the older woman. “Do not rush into a commitment before you have even been to one ball.”

“I am not rushing, as I do not have a commitment. I am only interested in repaying the favor Monsieur Armand gave me in assisting my escape,” she lied.

Madame Montpelier looked at her skeptically. “The more you speak, the more I think you love him. Montpelier and I were a love match, you know.”

“Were you?” she prompted, relieved to divert the conversation from the subject of her own heart.

“Yes. My father wanted him to marry my elder sister. He insisted I could not be wed until she first found a husband. His parents, too, pressed the arrangement, but he had already fallen head over heels in love with me, and I with him. He threatened his parents we would elope if they would not help him to arrange the match.”

“So what happened?”

“His father relented and the two paid a call on my father. I do not know what passed between them, but when they emerged from the study, Garen formally asked me to be his wife and come with him to Louisiana.”

“How beautiful. Have you ever regretted it? Louisiana, I mean, not Monsieur Montpelier?”

Madame Montpelier shook her head. “Certainly not. Here I am like the queen. In France I would be a nobody. Or worse still, I might have lost my head to the guillotine by now. Forgive me,” her hostess said, seeing the shock on her face.

“No, you are right. If only my parents had come. My father spoke of it.”

“Yes. But enough about me. We must introduce you to the gentlemen here. They will be charmed by you, dear.”

She frowned.

Madame Montpelier continued, “Unless you hope to be courted by your silversmith?”

She felt her cheeks color and gave a little shrug.

“Ah. I see. But you have no promise from him?”

She hesitated. She did not have a promise. Jean-Claude’s intent had seemed clear enough, but now she had doubts. “No.”

“Well, we shall see what Garen thinks of it all. He met with your gentleman today. He will have an opinion on whether you could sustain the match and still circulate in society.”

Corinne was taken aback by this pronouncement—she had not considered whether the marriage would take her out of society.

* * *

At dinner that evening, Madame Montpelier pumped her husband for information. “You met Monsieur Armand, Corinne’s silversmith today, did you not?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You know I did.”

“What was your impression?”

“Of the man or his work?”

“Well, both. If you please, monsieur, do not be difficult.”

He fixed Corinne with a speculative glance, causing her to drop her eyes. Turning his gaze back to his wife, he said, “You take a great interest in the young man.”

“Yes, I do,” she said, lifting her chest.

“Why?”

She gave an exaggerated sigh. “Please, monsieur!”

“He told me you financed his new business with the sale of your jewels, Mademoiselle de Gramont.”

She started, surprised Jean-Claude had revealed such a thing. But then, Monsieur Montpelier was a shrewd man who would ask many questions.

“You must trust him,” he said.

“Of course I do. I trusted him with my life already. Why not my wealth?”

Montpelier gave a sardonic smile. “The two are not always quite the same thing. Do you have a contract with him? A promise of return?”

She flushed. “Yes,” she lied.

He nodded. There was a moment of silence, everyone at the table looking to Montpelier for a pronouncement. “I liked your young man,” he said finally. She released a breath she had not realized she had held. “He has good character and his workmanship is high quality. He will do well here.”

Your young man.
Was he her young man? He had forbidden her to visit, rushing her out of his room after their tryst. He had all her jewels now, but she had nothing from him—neither a promise of marriage nor a contract. He had not even stopped to call on her when he visited. Madame Montpelier had said she saw the way he looked at her, but it proved nothing—the lady’s romantic notions would cause her to see love in anything. Perhaps it had been guilt she had seen glinting in Jean-Claude’s eyes.

* * *

A few days later found the ladies shopping in town. When they stopped for tea, she realized Jean-Claude’s workshop was not far away.

“Madame, I believe I left a glove at my hotel before I checked out. Do you mind if I take the carriage on a quick errand to see?”

“Just send the driver, he will pick it up for you.”

“Oh,” she stammered. “Well…”

Madame Montpelier peered at her. “Unless it is an errand you need to do yourself?” she asked with the knowing of a woman who is not easily fooled.

“Yes,” she said hastily. “It is.”

“Shall I send Mademoiselle Delacour to accompany you?” she asked, as if testing her theory.

“No, no, I will just be a short while. I shall return before you finish tea.”

“Very well,” Madame Montpelier said with a slight smile. “Enjoy yourself.

“I—” she stopped, not wishing to further implicate herself. “Thank you.”

She climbed in the carriage and gave the directions to Jean-Claude’s workshop, her fingers trembling in her lap.

When she arrived, she marched into his workshop, lifted her chin high and demanded, “Do you intend to marry me, Jean-Claude?”

* * *

He gaped, incredulous. “Do you doubt me? Have I not escorted you across all of France and then the ocean? Did you think I would take all your jewels and leave you with nothing?” he demanded, his indignation mounting.

Corinne’s face flushed. “I know not, Jean-Claude. You will not allow me to visit and you have not come to call. You sent me off to the nobility so I can promote your career so you can become a gentleman…”

“Why do you think I want to become a gentleman?” he demanded, exasperated.

She looked uncertain.

“I wish to make myself worthy of you—not that I believe nobility to be above peasants, but because I want to provide you with something of what you are accustomed to. I want to give you the sort of comfort you expect. And I never want—” he hesitated, finding it difficult to admit his worst fear. “I never want you to be embarrassed of me,” he muttered.

Her eyes filled with unshed tears and she stepped toward him. “I would be content as a blacksmith’s wife,” she said through trembling lips. “I only wished you to become a silversmith because it is work you love, not because I would be ashamed of you or because I wanted you to better provide for me.”

“Corinne,” he croaked, his throat closing with emotion as he stepped forward to gather her into his arms. She pressed her face into his chest and he stroked her nape.

Easing her head back to gaze into her eyes, he asked, stroking her cheek, “Will you marry me, Mademoiselle de Gramont?”

She gave a half-giggle, half-sob. “Yes, monsieur.”

Still holding her eyes, he lowered to his knees before her, grasping her hips and pressing his face into the fine satin of her dress.

Taking her bottom into his hands, he stroked down her thighs until he arrived at the hem of her skirt, where he slipped his hands underneath, traveling up her stockinged legs, past the garters, to touch her bare flesh. His body shuddered at the pleasure.

He kneaded the firm muscles of her buttocks, breathing in the smell of her arousal. Sliding his hand between her legs, he brushed a fingertip lightly over her slit, satisfied to find it moistened, opening to him willingly.

“Corinne,” he murmured.

Throwing her skirts over his head, he faced her sweet sex, parting her lips with his tongue, pulling her hips against his face so he could fully access the tang of her ripe peach. He swirled his tongue over the sensitive pearl at the juncture below her inner lips, earning a soft moan from his lover.

He ought to lock the door to his workshop to protect them from any walk-in customers, but he could not bear to pause. Besides, standing behind the counter, fully dressed, they were safe enough.

He slid a finger inside her and felt her thighs spasm. She attempted to close her legs, but he gave her bottom a gentle slap and forced her stance wider, continuing to torment her sex with his tongue and fingers. He followed the sounds of her moans, bringing her to the edge, slowing down, then repeating until she gave a pleading mewl, and then he thrust his fingers in and out rapidly, bringing her to climax.

Retreating from her skirts, he stood and walked swiftly to the door, closing it and placing a board in front of the window as he did not have curtains yet. When he returned, he scooped Corinne into his arms and carried her to a chair, where he sat and settled her on his lap.

Her eyes were still glassy from her pleasure, and some of her pins had fallen out, freeing the dark locks he loved so well.

“You belong to me now?”

She nodded, love lighting her eyes. He cupped her face, stroking her smooth skin with his thumb.

“What if I cannot keep you in the way you are accustomed?”

“You kept me quite well in a hammock on a ship. And in a forest underneath a log. You will find a way to keep me here.”

He felt his chest would burst wide at her words.

“If not, I could always steal a pig,” she jested.

He laughed, pulling her face to his, stroking her soft lips with his own, tasting her. “You are not obedient enough to be my woman,” he teased.

“You shall bring me to heel,” she said reasonably.

“You know my methods.”

“I know them.”

He pulled her in for another kiss, more passionate this time, sucking her lips, invading her mouth with his tongue.

“I will make you swear I am your master,” he warned.

“I shall refuse and you will be forced to teach me one of your lessons.”

His cock, already eager, surged at her words and he groaned. He grasped her breast and squeezed, pulling it up out of her stays and the low neckline of her gown. “I will teach you a great many lessons,” he said, his voice husky. He looked around the workshop. “But not here. Is Madame Montpelier’s carriage waiting outside?”

“Yes.”

He helped her to stand and stood up behind her. “Then you should go. We’ve been alone too long as it is.”

He saw her disappointment. Bringing her hand to his lips, he kissed it. “I am going to court you like the lady you are, mademoiselle. We are not going to elope, if that is what you had in mind.”

“But how long must I wait, Jean-Claude?”

He considered. Montpelier already knew the farce but had still supported him. He had his first order and could only assume more might come.

“I will come tomorrow and ask Montpelier for your hand, as if he were your father. If he refuses, I will drag you out like a Viking claiming his prize and we can elope.”

She giggled and lifted her lips for another kiss. “Until tomorrow, then.”

He cradled the back of her head and gave her a kiss to remember. “Are you sure you want me?”

She smiled up at him. “I think I always have. Since that night in the woods when you let me lay my head on your shoulder to sleep.”

He kissed her again, then tipped her head to the side to speak low in her ear. “I should punish you for coming to see me when I forbade it.”

She promptly stomped on his foot.

“Ow!” he cried, releasing her. “You will require taming, will you not?”

She stepped back, her hands at her hips, color high on her cheeks.

“I cannot believe you wish to be spanked here, in the middle of my workshop, with Madame Montpelier’s carriage driver sitting out front.”

She looked uncertain, still backing away.

He could not help but smile, the thought of a lifetime of battling wills with Corinne too great a joy to play stern. “Do you, Corinne?”

“Of course I do not!”

“Then apologize and I shall forgive it this time.” He walked forward, slowly, giving her time to think.

She held her ground, though her chest heaved with breath. Taking hold of her shoulders, he walked her backward, then turned her around and placed her palms on his workbench.

“No,” she said.

“I require your obedience, Corinne,” he said, dragging up her skirts. “Is this not how we began?”

“If you have a switch, I shall stomp on your foot again,” she said, though her demeanor lacked confidence.

He ran his hand over her bared bottom. “I shall think of many ways to punish you, Corinne. We will explore them all. And sometimes you will find yourself over my knee for no reason other than that I want you there, and you must obey.”

Corinne looked over her shoulder and he saw heat in her eyes. He gave her bottom a pat. “Apologize, dearest.”

“I am sorry,” she mumbled.