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I close my eyes. “There are many things I would never do again.”
He rubs my cheek with his thumb, the faint roughness of it as sensual as any embrace. “For all that my intentions were good, they were mine and not something I shared with you. In doing so, I all but told you that my own justice, my own revenge, was more important than yours. The same when I did not trust you enough to tell you that I was sending the others on ahead to meet us in case of an ambush.”
I am awash in the unexpectedness of his words. That he recognizes my concerns, sees them as valid, feels as if some invisible weight has been removed from my side of the scale.
No. From my heart.
“I took advantage of someone who I knew was grieving, and seized an opportunity for my own freedom. It was wrong, but if I am truthful, and I will be with you, I cannot say I wouldn’t do it again. I could not die in that place.”
His face shifts so that it is as stark and gaunt as when I first came upon him. And of course he is right—for who can turn away the only chance they are likely to come upon to secure their freedom? To continue to live. This feels like the most honest thing he’s said.
“The truth is,” he continues, “we both did the only thing we could under such circumstances.”
“We did,” I whisper, pressing my cheek into his hand. My heart pounds with want. I want him to move closer, to press his lips to mine. When another moment passes, I realize that he is waiting for me. To decide if I can trust him again. To give him permission. To say yes.
In answer, I bring my lips to his. He pauses for the briefest of seconds, then utters my name again, his voice low and gravelly and full of the same desire. Then his lips are where I’ve dreamed of them being since the last time we met. Since the first time we kissed—on the road out of the city nearly three months ago. He is every bit as warm and skilled as I remember, his impressive strength bound by a gentleness that both arouses and reassures. His lips demand, even as they caress. Demand my secrets, my surrender, my trust. And in this, I do trust him. Wholly and completely. I trust my body, and how it reacts to him. That has never been a question between us.
I give myself over to the kiss, to the press of our bodies. He moves one hand to the small of my back, pulling me closer. As his hand begins to slide up my back, caressing the curve of my spine, I remember the chain and jerk away.
He frowns down at me, his face a tangle of confusion. “What’s wrong?”
I have but a moment to decide what to do. I do not wish to lie to him, but when he discovers the chain attached to my necklace, he will have questions. Questions I am not ready to answer.
“We do not have much time,” I remind him as I remove his hand. “Valine said you wished to know about General Cassel, and I must warn you about him.”
He blinks for a moment, like a bear who has discovered bees in the honeycomb. “Warn me about what?”
“How thoroughly he has the king’s ear. The king’s confidence. In all things, not just battles and tactics.” For all of the progress I have made, I’ve not been able to make a dent in that.
Maraud frowns. “But why? He is only a general. He has not been a close advisor to the king before.”
“That is the gall of it. The king is feeling . . . surrounded by opinions that are fighting for his attention. Needing to weigh such decisions makes him feel weak. It is a fear others exploit. The general in particular. He is harsh and brutal and calculating, without an ounce of humanity in him. But he is decisive, and the king is drawn to that. He is also, I think, the sort of man the king was never allowed to be around as a child. He admires all that virility, all that brutal strength, and thinks to fashion himself after it. He sees General Cassel as the man his own father wished him to be.”
Maraud is quiet a long moment, and I cannot help but wonder if his thoughts go to his own tumultuous relationship with his father. “That is most unwelcome news,” he says at last.
“In so very many ways,” I mutter. “The king does not piss without consulting him first. You must tread warily. The king will need to know and trust you before you make any accusations against the general.”
Maraud smiles humorlessly. “And how am I to do such a thing without Cassel recognizing me?”
“That I do not know, but I fear to do otherwise is a loser’s game.” Reluctantly, I take a step away, then another. I do not want our time to end. I should be grateful, I know, that we have been able to reach a greater understanding of each other, but I am greedy and want more.
“When will I see you again?”
My heart skitters at Maraud’s question, as if he somehow snagged the very wish from my head. “It isn’t safe for us to meet.”
He grins, a quick white flash in the dark that is as familiar and welcome as the sun. “And when has that ever stopped us?”
* * *
He is back, my heart sings, even as my skin still hums from his touch. He is back, and holds no grudge nor expects restitution for the wrong between us. Truly, my feet feel as if they are dancing over the gray flagstones of the courtyard.
The giddy feeling stays with me all the way to the palace and through the long galleries toward the grand salon. It does not leave until I see a man standing with his back to me, the set of his shoulders, the lazy tilt of his head both familiar yet so unexpected that it takes me longer than it should to recognize him.
Count Angoulême.
Chapter 47
Angoulême is so busy flirting with a bored-looking noblewoman that he doesn’t see me.
Keeping my movements silent as a shadow, I draw the single knife I carry from its sheath. The noblewoman, growing less bored as Angoulême pays her compliments, does not notice me either. It is not until I stand right behind the count with the point of my knife pressed against his kidney that he becomes aware of my presence. To his credit, though his body grows still, he continues speaking with the woman, suggesting a meeting place for later.
When she has left, he does not move, but simply says, “I thought I spotted you earlier in the crush, but convinced myself I was mistaken. Surely the clever Genevieve, last seen cavorting with a troupe of mummers, would not have the audacity and poor sense to show up at court.”
“Turn around,” I order. When he does, he stands too close, as is his wont. “What are you doing here?”
His sardonic gaze sweeps over me, taking in the fine gown and the even finer necklace. “Attending the coronation ball, as ordered by the king. A more intriguing question is what are you doing here? Last I remember”—he reaches up with a hand and gently probes the back of his head—“you were running away to be a mummer. It seems you have risen much farther in the world than that.” There is no amusement in his face now, only grim intensity.
I set the knifepoint against the green brocade covering his belly. “I am the one asking questions tonight.”
He eyes my blade. “So you are.”
“Why did you lie to me about the convent? Why would you do such a thing? I have spent weeks thinking on it and have yet to find an answer that makes sense.”
“Must it make sense?”
I press the knife closer. “Yes.”
He stares at me a long time before muttering, “Sweet Jesu, you are so very young.” He leans closer to me then, close enough that I can smell the wine on his breath. “To. Free. You.”
“Free me from what?”
“The intolerable limbo you had been living in for at least a year, probably more than that. The convent never contacted me after your initial placement. Never wrote to check on you, to pass on any assignments, or to advocate for any specific training. They ignored every letter I sent, until I stopped sending them.”
“Why would they trust you with such things?”
“They’d trusted me with you and Margot.” His voice, this foolish, foppish, self-indulgent man’s voice, holds true reverence. “I truly believed—still believe—that they had forgotten about you. It was too cruel to keep you on their leash any longer—es
pecially when you were so miserable.”
It is too much. I want to put my hands over my ears and walk away from him. “Then why not just tell me I was free to go?”
“Your own stubbornness would not have let you take such an option had I presented it.”
I feel like a pawn who has been dropped onto a chessboard, not even realizing there was a game in progress.
“If I had said you were free to go, would you have considered it?” I open my mouth to lie, to refuse to give him the satisfaction of being right, but he talks over me. “With the scorn and contempt you felt for me, can you honestly say you would have believed me?”
I nearly squirm in discomfort that my feelings were far less hidden than I had thought. “Probably not,” I admit grudgingly.
“You would have assumed it a trap and refused.”
“I said you were right,” I grind out.
“You were miserable and angry, and needed somebody to fight with. I was an easy focal point for that anger.”
While I recognize the words coming out of his mouth, they do not make any sense. “Are you saying you did all that as a service to me? To give me someone to be mad at?”
He looks at me, all his artifice falling away, and I feel as if I am finally looking upon his true face for the first time.
