Susan Johnson (56 page)

But in the next instant Etienne’s dark head dipped, his mouth traced a path down her throat, and all she felt was overwhelming terror.
I’m not ready
, she thought agitatedly,
I can’t … I can’t
, and breathlessly she began pushing at his chest.

“Don’t be afraid,
ma petite
,” he murmured, drawing her back, his hands soothing her as they would a frightened child. Confident in his expertise, the Duc knew he could rouse her, intrigued after so many practiced women to find such artless virtue. How enticing her simple, unsophisticated reserve! For the first time in years he felt more than a moderate excitement. “I won’t hurt you, darling,” he said, holding her face in his hands. “Kiss me now,” he murmured, “and I’ll show you—”

“Monsieur Le Duc, could I have a moment of your time?” The familiar voice, deadly quiet, paralyzed Empress. The Duc’s hands dropped from her face, and they turned, seeking its origin. Trey, lounging in a chair near the window, rose slowly and stepped out of the shadows into the faint glow of the firelight.

At ease, a half-smile on his face, his dinner jacket unbuttoned
and his tie loosened, the costly diamond and lapis studs twinkling, he gave the appearance of casual tranquility, but underneath the gently put words was an unmistakably hard edge to his voice and a primitive desire to devastate them both. They stared at each other for a moment, and then Trey smiled and bowed, a sardonic gesture. And all Empress could think in that instant was: How can he always look so handsome?

The Duc took in their expressions, the hushed expectancy. Trey’s words and audacious, uninvited presence; he could almost feel the young male impatience kept tightly leashed. This suitor was determined, and his face had changed, the insouciance stripped away. Warfare over a woman. It reminded him of feelings he hadn’t experienced in years, had forgotten until this explicit moment that he’d ever felt them at all. With a compassion he rarely showed and an inherent aplomb that was universally agreed de Vec had perfected to a fine art, the Duc rose graciously to the occasion. “Of course, Mr. Braddock-Black,” he responded politely. “Would you prefer the library or my carriage?”

And when Trey brusquely said, “The library,” without taking his eyes off Empress, Etienne turned to her and gallantly said, “Excuse me, my dear, for a brief interval.”

“Trey!” Empress exclaimed sharply, finally coming to her senses, Etienne’s words returning her to the present. “Damn you”—she exhaled softly—“who the hell do you think you are, breaking into my boudoir?”

“A friend,” Trey replied sardonically. “A very
dear
friend,” he added with pointed emphasis.

“Etienne!” Empress appealed. This couldn’t be happening to her. If Trey thought he was going to start playing guardian to her virtue—or call Etienne out, or interfere in any way in her life—
damn him
, he had no right! “Damn you, you arrogant bastard,” she hissed, turning on Trey with snapping eyes.

“Hush, darling,” Trey said dryly. “Etienne will be frightened off by your ungovernable temper.”

“Or your damnable presence!” she stormed.

“That remains to be seen.… Now, if you’ll excuse us …” he drawled lazily.

It was Etienne who calmed her. “I’ll be back, darling, as soon as Mr. Braddock-Black and I have settled things.” He
was serenely undisturbed, as though bedroom scenes were commonplace for him.

The two tall, dark men stood facing each other in the library, both exquisite in evening dress, the Duc still wearing his black cape, their eyes of a height and matching hardness.

“I could kill you,” Trey said very low.

“You could try,” the Duc replied, and untying the braided silk cord at his throat, dropped his cape on a chair.

Trey carefully assessed the lean man who had replied in a mild, expressionless voice and saw a member of an ancient, powerful family, perhaps fifteen years his senior but hard and trim, obviously conditioned by more than idle frivolity.

“I’m the father of her child,” Trey said with distinct querulousness.

“I knew that the moment you stepped into Empress’s drawing room, your first day in Paris. The resemblance to your son is”—there was the slightest pause—“exotically obvious.” The Duc had heard of Trey’s reputation with women. In previous visits, apparently, he’d slept with nearly every highborn woman in Paris. It surprised him—the adamant tone when speaking of Empress’s son. Surely a man who’d enjoyed so many women would be blaśe about children. “It’s not enough to be the father,” the Duc went on, disagreeing amiably. “Every child has a father. What I’m interested in is whether Empress wants you, and quite frankly, in the last fortnight it appears very much as if she doesn’t. Perhaps,” he continued with the beginning of a smile, “you haven’t persuaded her properly.”

The Duc was no tyro in interpreting the female sex. It was his greatest asset, his ability to see beyond the sparkling repartee. He’d also attentively watched the farewell scene that night between Empress and Trey at LeNotre’s and had perceived a wrenching display of unrequited love. A surprise to him. It had almost made him give up his own pursuit of the fair Mrs. Miles, and if he’d been a less selfish man, he may have. But he’d wryly concluded when the young people’s sad parting was complete that Empress would need a shoulder to cry on and eventually … other things. All of which he was more than willing to supply.

Trey thought of his brutal possession of Empress the previous night and winced inwardly. Damn, it probably
was
his fault. But instantly he reconsidered taking the entire blame, thinking Empress was at fault, too, driving him to distraction with her damn courtesanlike ways and endless admirers. “Oh, hell,” he swore softly, his dilemma no nearer solution than before, the Duc’s reasonable words disconcerting, the hours of drinking that day not conducive to clear and rational thought. He had come on heated impulse and now was indecisive beyond the knowledge that he wanted Empress for himself alone. And that feeling wasn’t novel to this particular time and circumstance. He’d felt the same from the first night he’d met her. “I need a drink,” he said quietly, with an exasperated sigh, and stalking to a side table stocked with liquor, uncorked a decanter, tipped it up, and took a healthy draft. Rinsing his mouth with the liquor to wash away the dozen hours of drinking, he swallowed the cognac and, turning back to the Duc, who had been watching with amusement, said wryly, “Maybe we don’t have to kill each other tonight, after all. Care for a drink?”

They were seated a few moments later, gazing at each other over brandy snifters and an ornate marquetry library table.

“My apologies,” Trey said first. “I feel like a damn fool. I don’t know what there is about her.” He smiled then, a faint, private smile, and added, “Actually the list is quite long, but I won’t bore you. I’m sure you’ve discovered yourself; she’s most unusual.”

“She’s the only woman I ever considered leaving Isabelle for,” the Duc said in a musing tone. “There’ve been many women over the years.” He shrugged in that particularly Gallic way. “Ours was a dynastic marriage entered into with practicality. Not unusual. But I’d never seriously considered another woman with any permanence … not until I met Empress. She’s like fire in your blood.”

“And in your soul,” Trey said with chafing discontent.

“Ah,” the Duc said, smiling over the rim of his glass. “It did rather look that way at the ball tonight.”

“I almost shot you out of hand when you walked into Empress’s boudoir.”

“I understand. I once shot a man like that—not over love, over jealousy. I was very young.”

“I’m jealous of every man who looks at her. And there’s too many,” Trey concluded bitterly, lifting his glass to his mouth and draining it.

“There always will be with a beautiful woman like Empress.”

The Duc’s words only reinforced Trey’s own unpalatable conclusion. “
Merde
,” he swore softly into his empty glass.

Whether it was a philosophical expletive concerning life’s inequities or, more prosaically, notice of an empty liquor glass, the Duc was uncertain, but of one thing he
was
certain. Empress was not likely to seek comfort from him that night with this wild ex-lover lurking about, so he rose and, looking down at the despondent young man seated at the Boulle table, said, “Thank you for the drink, and please make my regrets to Empress.” Etienne was a practical man and long past the rash eagerness of youth when it came to matters of
amour.
Empress would still be here tomorrow, and if not … no one died of love.

“Regrets,” Trey replied caustically, looking up, his luminous eyes cynical. “Don’t we all with her?”

The Duc, while gracious, was not excessively benevolent, and additionally, his own feelings apropos the beautiful Empress were less philanthropic than carnal. Not inclined at the moment to serve as father-confessor to this disillusioned swain, he only smiled in reply. They would have to deal with their problem without his assistance.

Trey hardly noticed when he left.

Empress paced the floor after the men had gone, wondering what outrageous idiocy Trey was disgracing her with now, fretting over his incredulous intrusion into her evening with Etienne, becoming increasingly out of temper at his damnable presumption. Sitting in a chair by the window, she drummed her fingers restlessly on the chair arms, looked out into the black night, and tried to visualize the conversation in the library. The possibilities were appalling; she could see her entire life permanently destroyed by scandal, and she nervously turned her thoughts to less disastrous reflections. She rose impatiently a few moments later, picked her cape up from the bed, and hung it in the armoire as if a fit of neatness would
restore order to her life. Looking at herself in the armoire mirror, she smoothed her hair with agitated fingers, then made a face. Damn men, anyway. Surely Etienne would be back soon. It was disconcerting being left alone, utterly preposterous to have been bearded in her own boudoir in the first place. Leave it to Trey to be unconventional. Fitfully she returned to her seat on the gilded chair, and the drumming began again, this time on the windowpane.

How long would this “discussion” go
on
? she pondered exasperatedly, on her feet again a few seconds later. It had begun to rain, she noticed distractedly. When the small clock on the mantel chimed some time later, she looked away from the rain-wet window and was startled to see how late the hour was. Why, she thought indignantly, was she waiting here like some penitent child? This was
her
home, she was a
grown
woman, long since independent enough to make her own decisions. Additionally, she was not some damn chattel that Trey Braddock-Black, with his bloody imperiousness, could command at his whim!

And on that heated thought she stalked to the door, jerked it open, and, holding up her silk skirts, ran down the stairs to the library. This was not a medieval century! She was not going to wait submissively upstairs while two men discussed her like she was some
commodity!

Livid with growing rage at the whole anachronistic drama—long,
long
outdated—she pushed open the library door and swept into the room, ready to do battle. “If you think you can order my life around, Trey,” she began hotly, already several steps into the room before she noticed the absolute silence. Stopping, she searched the dimly lit interior, her gaze drawn to Trey’s powerful form, seated at the library table. “Where’s Etienne?” she snapped.

“Gone,” he said quietly.

“Did you threaten him?” she inquired heatedly, incensed at his actions, his intrusion into her home, the very way he commanded the room with his presence.

“Naturally.” His voice was flat, the answer simple.

“Why?” she almost said in anger, until she reinterpreted his curious intonation and uncharacteristic mood. “Why?” she asked then in a hushed, hesitant voice, all her anger draining
away, her nerves suddenly on edge, like a general waiting for a scouting report that could prove disastrous.

Trey sighed softly. “I don’t know.” He’d been drinking all day. Rubbing his head with both hands, he tried to clear his thinking, then, abstractly raking his fingers through the black silk of his hair to smooth the disheveled roughness, he slowly looked up at her from under heavy brows. “Yes, I do know.” And after another deep exhalation of breath, he said quietly, “Because I wanted to kill him when he touched you.”

“You can’t do this,” Empress declared softly, “every time I bring someone home.”

Leaning back in the heavily carved chair, he rested his head wearily against the intricate design. “I know that too,” he murmured with a faint grimace. She was everything he needed, and the awful truth was … only she made life sweet. Abruptly rising from his chair, he pushed it aside with a harsh gesture and strode away from her to the window overlooking the rain-swept garden. The odor of brandy was pungent as he moved across the room, and underlying it was the faint essence of ambergris.

“You’re drunk,” she said quietly.

He shrugged, his powerful shoulders in his black evening clothes outlined against the glistening glass. “Maybe,” he murmured. “Probably. It wouldn’t matter,” he replied softly, standing motionless before the window, looking out as though there was something to see in the desolate winter garden.

“What do you want? Here, tonight?” Empress rested her hands to steady them on the inlaid table, her heart beating very rapidly, like a young girl’s, under the magenta silk and black lace and yards of silver ribbon of the magnificent, sophisticated gown that should have shielded her in worldly wisdom.

“What I shouldn’t,” he muttered gruffly into the black night, his pride wanting an accounting of all the men, a denial, an apology … her new life wiped away. Turning, he faced her, in shadow still, his expression shrouded. He took a step forward, and the glow of the fire underlit his face, the stamp of weariness stark against the fine bones. “It’s unendurable,” he whispered, “seeing you with other men. My feelings are—” There was a flat silence, and then he said softly, “It
frightens me.” And for the first time Empress saw him devoid of arrogance.