“He marries Polly only to avoid being hanged,” she said stubbornly.
“Which is what you were offering me, I think. A shackle rather than a noose.”
She pressed her palms to the sides of her head and closed her eyes. The flutter of dark lashes along those silken cheeks practically invited a kiss. “It was so long ago. Must we discuss it?”
“You deserved more, Mad. You deserved better.”
Her eyes flew open. “Better than you?”
“That man—the man I was years ago—he would not have been good to you. And I knew that.”
“Very well,” she said, forcing a brisk tone into her voice. “No need to rehash the matter. Better to leave it well and truly behind us.” She gestured toward the open doorway. “Shall we return to dinner? They’ll be looking for us.”
He’d been looking for her, certainly. He’d been able to bear no more than ten minutes in that drawing room without needing to see her again. It was like an itch beneath his skin. He wanted to confirm he hadn’t had a momentary vision or a stroke of madness.
Needed to know if it were the mere surprise of seeing her that had jolted him, or if Madelina had become a surpassing dream of loveliness, the chime of a delicious clock telling him that now was the time, now.
Her allure increased with every detail he noted. The delicate tendrils of dark hair escaped from her coiffure to form a soft halo about her face. She hadn’t powdered her hair, or applied cosmetics, and the hectic flush of her cheeks was due only to him. The light frill of lace along her bodice didn’t disguise the delicate flare of her collarbones or the kissable hollow at the base of her neck.
Even her ears were tempting, the soft lobes hung with pearl drops. He wanted to pull the drops—and the flesh beneath them—between his teeth.
He leaned back against the leather top of the desk, marked with Barty’s scrawl, and now his own. “You haven’t said what you wanted from my desk.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Afraid I will find out aboutyourintrigues?”
He grinned. “My mistresses don’t write letters. They make their demands in person.”
She made to sweep past him. “I’ll be missed next door.”
He flung out an arm to halt her exit. He’d been missing her. He’d been missing out on her for three years—for his entire life. But the time for denial was over.
“I don’t know where Constantin is.” That wasn’t entirely true; he had some idea. Guilt pinched when her eyes flared with hurt and eager hope.
“But Barty did. He was writing letters for me. He said he had contacts, knew people.” She swept a hand in the air, a delicate gesture that encompassed the sturdy desk and all its secrets. “He muttered something, in his fever, but it wasn’t coherent. I was hoping to find out what he knew.”
“I would have found it already. Or you,” he added, “as I imagine this isn’t your first time searching my study.”
In truth, he’d found those letters, and had removed them, along with the later ones addressed to him as Barty’s replacement. He wouldn’t leave sensitive information lying about, and he wasn’t about to share their contents. He feared the news meant danger, and he couldn’t allow danger to shadow his Madelina. It meant nothing to put his own neck at risk; that feature wasn’t worth much anyway. But Mad must be protected at all costs.
She scowled at him, and there were so many memories attached to that gesture. He’d forgotten how much his life was wrapped around her. All the summers when a petulant Mad had stomped her foot and thrown her thick braid over her shoulder and declared, with a thrust of that lower lip, “I want to come with you.” The dogged way she’d climbed stiles and trekked fields in his wake when he purposely tried to lose her.
She’d been better at climbing trees, keeping her head even at the crown of the tallest beech and poplars. She’d held her ground against Guy of Warwick, the ornery Wiltshire ram who owned the Glebe Farm and who had more than once snagged a hole in Garrick’s breeches with one of his thick, curling, and surprisingly pointy horns.
Of course such a girl would brazenly stroll into his house and poke through his drawers to find what she wanted. She’d do worse without batting one of those long, dark eyelashes that made her look innocent and seductive all at once.
Her lovely lips drew down at the corners. “Constantin left in July when the National Assembly decreed that French émigrés were to return and prove their loyalty. The deadline is set for the first of the new year. Any émigrés who have not returned by then will be condemned as traitors.”
And as traitors, their lands and property could be confiscated to fill the national coffers. “He will be safe at Chateau Vallon, living a life of reckless dissipation.”
“Like you?” she challenged. “But we have heard nothing. There was the massacre at La Glacière in October—”
“Over the pope, and that was in Avignon, far to the south,” Garrick rushed to reassure her. It was the Paris massacres she need fear, but he didn’t want to tell her that. Damn and blast. Keeping secrets from Madelina had always been next to impossible. She let her curiosity lead her into all sorts of unwise situations.
When she swallowed, the column of her neck convulsed. Such a tender, vulnerable neck. The sight made something hot and thick lodge in his own throat.
“They might have decided we are traitors anyway because he and not my father returned. He could be in prison. Or worse.”
Her frightened expression, the anguish in her voice, had him reaching for her. “Do not think it.”
