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“Mon coeur.”
Dazed, she glanced up and saw Philippe enter the room in a rush. He still wore hat and gloves, and the air around him was redolent of horses and tobacco.
“What transpired?” he asked, sinking to his haunches before her.
Her gaze drifted over his shoulder to the window and she saw how the shadows cast by the sun had moved across the floor.
Time had lapsed and she’d been unaware, lost as she was in her confusion and disquiet.
“Marguerite? Why was de Grenier here? What did he say to you?”
She looked at her lover, the fingers of her right hand releasing their hold on her glass so that she could touch his cheek. He nuzzled into the contact, his blue eyes darkened by concern.
“He says Desjardins is determined to separate us,” she related grimly, “and that I am not safe from harm. He did not say whether it was physical harm or emotional, and I did not think to ask until a moment ago.”
Philippe’s jaw tautened. “This is madness.”
“What?” Marguerite reached around him and set her glass on the gilded side table. “What is happening? He intimated that you were hiding something from me. If you are, I want you to tell me what it is.”
“I do not know.” Growling, he stood and began tearing off his outer garments. Hat, gloves, coat. All tossed on to the settee with obvious frustration. “I cannot make sense of it. You have nothing to do with anything.”
She knew it was foolish to be hurt by the careless statement, but for the first time since she met him, she felt as if she were unimportant. A diversion. A peccadillo.
“Of course not,” she whispered, rising to her feet. Her cream-colored skirts with their bloodred flowers hung heavily around her shaky legs. Her toes tingled with the rush of returning blood.
How long had she been sitting there, picturing life without Philippe in it? For the last year, she had lived under the illusion that they would always be together. This afternoon was the first time she had ever contemplated otherwise.
“You misunderstand,” he murmured, catching her close. “You are everything to me, but nothing to them. There is no cause for them to focus on you. That would suggest there is something else they want. Something they believe you have.”
“You?”
Philippe shook his head. “I offered myself to Desjardins. Told him I would go wherever he required for up to three months at a time, just as I did before, although in truth I do not know how I would survive even three days without you when three hours’ length is torture.”
He pressed his cheek to her temple, the roughness of his afternoon stubble a familiar, welcome sensation. “My only request was that you be kept safe and comfortable here. But he refused. He claims my attention is diminished and he prefers me unencumbered.”
“I do not understand why he cannot replace you,” she complained, searching his face for clues to his thoughts. “Despite how accomplished you are, surely there are other men who can perform the services you provide.”
Lips whitening from the force with which he pursed them, Philippe took a moment to reply. “Would you believe de Grenier over me?”
“I am to choose between his words and your silence?”
“Yes.”
For a moment, she was angered by his arrogance, then she laughed softly. “How do you do it?” she asked, shaking her head.
He caught a swaying powdered curl between thumb and forefinger, and rubbed it tenderly. His voice, when it came, was low and intimate. “Do what?”
“Make yourself indispensable. All afternoon I chastised myself for placing myself in this precarious position. I have nothing in this world but your favor and no certainty that I can hold on to that. Now others are exerting their weighty influence to part us and there is nothing I can do to prevent or deter them.” She set her hands on his chest, her fingertips touching the edges of his skewed jabot. He was dashing clothed, semiclothed, unclothed. “Yet here you stand, mulishly determined to hoard your secrets and I want you regardless.”
“I have no secrets. I tell you everything.” Philippe caught her hand and linked their fingers. He turned toward the door and pulled her along after him.
“You did not tell me that they continue to urge you to set me aside.”
“Because they do not signify.”
As they entered their private sitting room, he released her. He moved to the window and pushed aside the sheer panel to look outside. It was dusk, soon to be night. A year ago, the setting sun would have been a cue to begin initial preparations for an evening of social engagements. Now they had only supper and a quiet evening alone to occupy them. For her, it was enough. Was it for him?
“I can hear your doubts from here,” he said, pivoting to face her. “What did he offer you?”
Marguerite had learned many things about taming a man in the year she had been Philippe’s mistress. One powerful bit of knowledge was the understanding that he could deny her nothing when she was naked.
She presented her back to him, then glanced over her shoulder to watch him approach with heated eyes. “The better question would be: What did he not offer?”
Philippe set his fingers to work on the cloth-covered buttons that trailed her spine. “As you wish. What did he not offer you?”
“His heart.”
His movements stilled. She heard him exhale. “I could contract you, Marguerite. I could reduce our . . . arrangement . . . to terms of goods exchanged. You might feel safer then.”
“Or I might feel like a whore.”
“Which is exactly why I have not suggested such a thing until now.” His hands settled atop her shoulders, then exerted pressure to turn her around. He stared down into her upturned face. His was agonized, his dark eyes roiling with emotions she could not name.
“What can I do?” she asked in a whisper. “How can I fight, when I do not know what I am fighting against?”
“Can you not leave this to me?” He pressed his lips to her forehead. “I do not believe, even partly, that this matter has anything to do with our relationship. Not so long ago, de Grenier was suggesting that I step aside completely and Desjardins was very close to agreeing with that sentiment. Their sudden change of heart does not sit well. There is an ulterior motive at work here and I will learn what it is.”
“Je t’ aime,” she breathed, hating the fear that dampened her palms.
Her lower lip quivered with her distress and he licked across the curve, then deepened the contact into a melding kiss. He stole her breath with his expertise, leaving her panting and clinging to his hard body.
“As I love you. I will not lose you,” he vowed, pulling her tight against him.
This time, it was Marguerite who led the way. With his hand in hers, she tugged him toward the bedchamber, where they could forget their troubles for at least a few hours.
The Comte Desjardins entered his cellar and stopped in the same spot he was ordered to occupy every time L’Esprit called upon him.
“I do not believe de Grenier was successful in luring Mademoiselle Piccard away.” L’Esprit’s grating voice scraped down Desjardins’s spine and made him shiver.
“It is too soon to tell.”
“No. I watched him leave. He appeared dejected, not hopeful. She has forsaken everything for her affair. She has only one thing left to lose.”
“Saint-Martin.”
“Exactly.” There was a smile in L’Esprit’s rasp. “She will not leave him for her benefit, but I believe she will leave him for his.”
Desjardins shook his head. He had no notion of what Saint-Martin had done to anger L’Esprit, but he pitied the man. Desjardins suspected L’Esprit would not rest until everything Saint-Martin held dear was stripped from him. “What would you have me do?”
“I will see to this task myself,” L’Esprit said. “I do not want him dead. That would be too kind.”
“As you wish.”
“You will hear from me if I have further need of you.”
> Turning away, Desjardins opened the cellar door and climbed back up to the kitchen. He jumped as he heard the slamming of the portal L’Esprit used as a shield.
It was fitting that the man came from the bowels of hell.
There was fury in L’Esprit and madness. The comte deeply regretted ever being lured into associating with him.
A pretty bauble for his wife, no matter how costly, was not worth his soul.
With his thoughts firmly directed toward Marguerite, Philippe was too distracted to admire the beauty of the Parisian afternoon. He was lost in his private musings, unaware of anything but the sense that he was missing the obvious. His horse cantered toward Marguerite’s home without direction, the steady clopping of hooves lulling its rider into a thoughtful trance.
Around him pedestrians milled, creating a feeling of safety in numbers.
But he was not safe. Had he considered, for even a moment, that he would be used against Marguerite rather than the reverse, he would have been more circumspect. As it was, he turned the corner and took the devastating blow to the chest without any attempt at self-defense.
Thrust backward while his mount moved forward, Philippe was unseated and tumbled to the ground on his back. The air was knocked from his chest, leaving him dazed and unable to move.
The sky above him darkened as men swarmed around him. A booted foot connected to his side. As Philippe’s rib broke under the assault, a grotesque cracking sound rent the air. More kicks. Shouting. Laughing. Pain.
Agony.
Philippe prayed for the strength to roll to his side and curl, but his body would not heed his command. The violence escalated. His vision dimmed.
Then mercifully went black.
“The afternoon’s post, mademoiselle.”
Marguerite looked up from the dining table, where she was perusing the week’s meal plan, and found the butler standing in the doorway. She gestured him in and pushed the menus to the side.
“Thank you,” she murmured, reaching for the topmost envelope on the silver salver as it was placed before her.
She went through the marginal task with only partial attention, her mind on Philippe and how withdrawn he had appeared over the last few days. She was a veritable prisoner in her own home, barred from even the swiftest of trips into town. Additional servants had been retained to protect her. The sparse amount of correspondence she received was the only contact she had with anyone beyond the walls of her house.
