Lyon (19 page)

Their heads whipped around. The enquiry had come from an officious-looking man, who stood a few yards away on the park walk. Seeing the frustrated blaze in Lyon's eyes, he stepped back.

“It's all right,” Juliette assured the interloper. “I know this gentleman.”

“Such indecency!” he sputtered, obviously noticing the suggestive way she was being held. “Cease this behavior
immédiatement!
Or else I'll return with assistance and see you both ejected from this park. There are women and children about, you know.”

“Go,” Lyon muttered darkly. “
Vite!
”

With a self-righteous snort, the incensed man scurried off and they resumed their conversation.

“You're certain you bedded a woman who resembles me. In your hotel room?” she asked. “Not here, under the bridge?”

“You're becoming tiresome.”

“Answer me.”

“Yes, I'm certain!” he blustered. Then he groaned and his eyes turned unfocused. Bracing a shoulder on the bridge support, he leaned into her and put a hand to his head. “Gods! This is ridiculous,” he said in a chagrined voice. “I'm actually feeling faint.”

“Perhaps
you're
the one who's with child.”

“My trip home is going to be precarious, while I'm in this miserable condition,” he said as if he hadn't heard.

“Home!?” she scoffed. “You're not well enough to manage a trip to Tuscany on your own.”

His eyes watched her lips as she spoke and his hands fell to her waist, lightly holding her. “I won't be alone. You're coming with me.”

She shook her head. “I'll see you to a physician and send word to your family for you, but nothing else. I hardly know you and what I've seen of you over recent days does not inspire confidence. Besides, I've got problems of my—”

Gently, he touched his mouth to hers, cutting short her refusal.

“I've been called home on an urgent matter,” he said, his lips dragging sensation over hers. “And I can't leave you behind. You're in danger here.”

“How did you—?
Mmm…
” She sucked in a breath, going up on her toes as his lips found the sensitive skin of her throat. Her hands crept up his chest and she moaned, angling her jaw to afford him better access. “I thought you were ill.”

Warm fingers threaded hers, fitting their palms together. “There's ill and there's ill,” he murmured, lifting their linked hands to rest against the column on either side of her head. Lips trailed along her jaw to the tendon at the side of her neck where they opened and lingered to kiss.

Her eyelids fluttered closed.
Mmm.

A voice reached them from the bridge then, jolting her from the spell he'd woven. Tilting back her head, she saw that the man who'd threatened them moments earlier was now on Pont Neuf, conversing with another man in uniform.

“The gendarmes,” she whispered. “He's summoning them.”

“
Mmm-hmm
.”

She turned her head, so her chin blocked his access to her throat. When he only transferred his lips back to hers, she ducked them away.

“
Non
! I don't wish to wind up in
la Petite Force,
” she said, referring to the prison for prostitutes in the Rue du Roi de Sicile.

“Come with me then,” he coaxed. “Tuscany is but six days ride, and I have two mounts tethered on the quai. Escort me home…and…I'll pay you. You can serve as my nurse. Gods know I need one.”

She pulled away and searched his eyes, her thoughts racing. It was as though the heavens had known of her need to flee Paris and of her need for funds, and had consequently sent him as some golden god to drive her away in his chariot. However, the heavens hadn't taken into consideration her aversion to chariots.

“
Non
.” Before he could protest, she quickly added, “I don't ride.”

He gazed at her, flabbergasted. “You
don't ride?
”

“I don't get along well with animals,” she felt compelled to explain.

“You
don't like animals?
”

“They make me uneasy,” she admitted defensively. Looking around, she located and retrieved her bag and cloak from where she'd dropped them earlier. “At least, the larger ones do.”

“Wonderful. Just wonderful.” He muttered something about a king and his absurd sense of humor, then he took her arm. “We'll travel by carriage then. Come.”

He tried to guide her toward the staircase, but she held back.

“A carriage pulled by horses?” she asked.

“Is there another kind?”

Her hand tightened on her bag, feeling the shape of the vial within. To survive a lengthy ride, she'd need what it contained. Traveling a few blocks in Valmont's carriage was one thing, but a multi-day jaunt would test her limits.

She stared into Lyon's face, trying to judge his trustworthiness in a mere instant of study. His expression was raw and stormy and his eyes fierce. But when she looked deeper, she saw they were the same guileless, kind eyes she remembered from Valmont's. And though he'd shown himself to be strange that night in his hotel, she was strange in her own way, too. And that didn't make her a bad person.

“Very well,” she heard herself say. She, who rarely took chances, had decided to take a chance. She, who did not trust men, had decided to trust one.

He raised an arm, indicating that she should make a place for herself under his wing. “Come then,
ma petite
nurse.”

She nodded and stepped closer. When her arm curved around his back, his wrapped itself over her shoulder. With his free hand on the railing, he roused himself to ascend the stairs.

When they reached the bridge, Lyon guided her southward, toward the sound of the voices. It appeared that the man who'd objected to them earlier was having difficulty persuading the local gendarme to his cause. Dalliances in the park were not uncommon and the officer was occupied with his morning
café au lait
.

As they passed the pair, she ducked her head too late, for the gendarme was already squinting at her in recognition. Valmont paid him and the rest of those that policed the neighborhood to look the other way regarding any complaints against his establishment. She had little doubt that her departure on the arm of a strange gentleman would be swiftly reported.

“Hurry,” she told Lyon.

The mounts he'd arranged were traded in for the hire of a carriage, and soon they were ensconced inside it and leaving Paris behind. Upon seating himself, Lyon lay his head back against the leather cushion with a dull
thunk
and closed his eyes.

In the ensuing silence, Juliette watched the passing urban sights—Notre Dame, the hospital. Her hands knitted the ties of her bag as she vacillated between joy and trepidation over her departure.

But she would not have chosen to go back. She'd virtually been Valmont's captive for the past three years and the prospect of liberation was sweet. Since she'd taken care not to make friends, she would be leaving behind nothing of value. Except, of course, for Fleur.

Tears threatened again.
Poor Fleur. What had happened to her?

Across from her, Lyon still looked to be dozing. She studied his hands where they rested on his thighs. Beeg, Fleur had called them. And they were. She shifted on her seat, nervous now that they were alone.

Her gaze roved higher to his expansive chest, the thick column of his neck, and the angle of his strong jaw. And on to tantalizing lips as sensuously carved as those she'd admired on statues of Roman gods in the Louvre.

How would they pass the time, here in this confined space? Where would they pass the nights of this journey?

Hysteria blossomed. What was she doing? Now that she'd mixed his brain, he was likely crazier than she. At his hotel, she'd made him believe they'd lain together, and he probably thought that gave him license to share a mattress with her again. If Valmont caught up to them and discovered her any less pristine than when she'd left him, he'd be furious. And dangerous.

Traffic on Rue Mouffetard slowed and her gaze went to the door, as she contemplated escape. It wasn't really necessary to flee Paris, she reasoned. She could simply assume another identity and find menial work in its outskirts, where no one she knew ever ventured. Beyond the city was
countryside
, after all. Not her favorite venue.

As soon as the carriage flagged a bit more, she might be able to leap out without sustaining an injury. Eyeing the door latch, she surreptitiously slid across the plush leather seat.

Thunk!

A booted foot came up, planting itself on the end of her seat between her and the door.

She clutched her bag to her chest and drew back against the squabs.

An amber eye opened. “Stay,” he told her. “You'll come to no harm.”

“You won't…attack me?”

His eyes burned over her. “No. I won't attack you.”

For some reason, she believed him. Likely only because it was convenient to do so. And in truth, she wasn't sure her escape plan had been sound.

She swallowed her mistrust and straightened. “I'll hold you to that promise.”

Apparently considering the matter closed, he shut his eyes as if the weight of the lids made them too heavy to keep open. A great sigh expanded his chest. “You are named Juliette, are you not?”

She nodded, then realizing he couldn't see, spoke her reply. “
Oui.
”

“And have you always lived in Paris, Juliette?”

“We've had this conversation before.”

“Humor me.”

Silence stretched between them. Outside the carriage, she heard the clop of horses on pavement and the honk and splash of geese taking flight from a public fountain. Her palms began to sweat.

“I came to reside in Paris a year ago,” she told him. “Before then, I was in Burgundy.”

“Go on. It's an effort for me to reply, but I'm listening.”

“What shall I say?”

“Tell me…about yourself. Your family. About how we met. Just talk.”

Doing so would help block out any random sounds of nature, so she decided to accommodate him. “I live—lived—in a sort of…boarding house…in Paris, along with other girls. I planned meals for the household, organized entertainments, and helped with the cooking.”

His brow knit.

“You remember that I cook?”

“Vaguely. Continue.”

“As for my family, I was orphaned in Paris as a child, sent to Burgundy, and placed in the care of foster parents. My foster mother taught me to cook and I found I had a skill for it.”

“Why Burgundy?”

She shrugged. “All the orphans were sent to foster homes in the country almost immediately upon their arrival at the hospital. It was considered a better environment for us than dwelling in the city, where we might be tempted by its vices.”

“And was it?”

“Since I don't know who my parents were or how I would've lived with them, how am I to know the answer to that?”

His eyes opened. “How did you come to be at my hotel last Friday night?”

“You invited me there,” she said quickly.

He made a restive movement. “A lone woman visiting a bachelor in his hotel? No, that is not all there is to be said. Begin again. From the moment we met. As if I'm a stranger to whom you are supplying all the details of a mutual encounter about which he knows nothing.”

“Is that the actual case?”

A pause, then he gave her a grudging, “More or less.”

“I see. Well, we met on the Pont Neuf the night you arrived in Paris. You were engaged there with another woman.” She slanted him a glance. “An unusual person. Do you remember her?”

“I don't think so. Unless…does she have a fondness for bananas?”

“What?!” she sputtered.

His lips formed a little half smile. “Nothing. Go on.”

“You followed me home and later called on me and invited me to cook for you.”

“And?”

“And I did.”

He frowned, clearly annoyed at her brevity. “And after you cooked, we fucked, did we not?”

She sucked in a breath at his raw language and half-rose from her seat, slapping at the leg still blocking her way. “Let me out. This was a mistake. Signal the driver to stop.”

Before he could make a reply, the carriage swerved and she was sent tottering forward to the space on the seat next to him. His arm snaked out, folding around her and pulling her close until she was half-sitting on his lap.