She was right. Why hadn’t he done it? It was not like him to be careless and yet the thought had not even occurred to him. His hand moved slowly across her belly again, and once more he felt possessiveness ripple through him. “Perhaps I decided it was time I had a child.” He added dryly, “As you’re so fond of telling me, I’m over thirty and no longer in my first youth.”
She looked at him in astonishment. “You want a child by me?”
“I didn’t say that, but it’s not impossible. I hadn’t thought about it until this moment. You do have certain qualities I admire.”
She shook her head. “It would not suit me at all to have a babe.” Her brow wrinkled in thought. “It’s strange that I didn’t consider the possibility before of having a child. I think I must have wanted you to do this to me very much to have ignored the danger.”
“It’s an act that has a way of banishing good sense.” He moved down on the bed and laid his cheek on her abdomen. He slowly brushed it back and forth, savoring the smoothness of her flesh before lifting his head to look at her. “But you wanted it no more than I did.”
“Having a child without being wed wouldn’t destroy me as it would have Catherine, but it isn’t a good thing. A woman may have lovers as long as she’s discreet. A child would have to be hidden away.” She met his gazesoberly. “I would love my child. I couldn’t hide him away in some village with strangers as if I were ashamed of him.”
“Do you think I’d abandon my child or his mother?” Jean Marc asked harshly. “I’d make it safe for—sacre bleu, why are we discussing this? It is quite unlikely that you would conceive these first few times with me.”
She lay back and her fingers tangled in his hair. “It’s done now and too late to worry, but once we reach Spain and leave theBonne Chancewe mustn’t do this again, Jean Marc. It was quite splendid, but it would not be fair to beget a child.”
“Nonsense, didn’t it occur to you I could just as easily prevent getting you with child as I did the women who—”
“But I could not trust you,” she said haltingly. “You said yourself you might want my child. I must guard myself from the harm you might do me. No more, Jean Marc.”
“No?” The intensity of his response to her rejection startled him. He should have known she would react in this fashion. All her life she had been forced to trust herself alone for protection. Still, in some outlandish way he felt as if the child they had spoken of was already a reality and she was stealing both it and herself from him. His hand slid down her stomach to cup her womanhood, his thumb finding, pressing, rotating the sensitive nub.
She gasped and a shudder of pleasure quivered through her.
He moved over her and entered her with one deep thrust. “Then I must obviously take advantage of our time together now,ma petite.”
Dupree leaned back against the brick wall of the house across the road from the Marquise de Clement’s casa and smiled with satisfaction. It was an adequate but not a grand house, and since the marquise was not a woman who would stint herself if she had the funds toindulge her fancies, the woman must not have sold the Wind Dancer.
The small stone casa stood high above Andorra on one of the twisting streets overlooking the town on one side and a rock-strewn ravine on the other. Scarlet bougainvillea splashed over the whitewashed walls of the house and ivy climbed the high stone walls surrounding both the house and the enclosed courtyard. The house had no near neighbors and the location was isolated enough to provide him with the privacy he would need in which to do his work. The woman had only the one female servant and a cook who would be easy enough to frighten away when the time came.
Of course, there were still problems to overcome. He had made extensive inquiries since he had arrived in Andorra a few days before, and though the marquise had the reputation of being aloof and contemptuous of her bourgeois neighbors, she was spreading her shapely legs for one Colonel Miguel de Gandoria, who paid her almost nightly visits. An officer in the Spanish Army could prove very awkward to his plans, Dupree thought. He had encountered considerable difficulty with the localpolicia, who didn’t appreciate either his nationality or his position in the French government. Extreme care would have to be taken to avoid landing in a Spanish prison after he’d accomplished his mission.
Oh, well, he had plenty of time to concoct a ploy in which to draw the Spanish colonel away from Andorra for the few days he needed to wrest the Wind Dancer from Celeste de Clement. He smiled as he savored that pleasant prospect in store for him. Marat had been very annoyed at the bitch’s perfidy, and his orders had been both explicit and entirely satisfactory to Dupree. Yes, he must have at least three days with the enchanting marquise to make her realize she could not trifle with his employer without suffering the full consequences.
He straightened away from the wall, frowning as he flicked a trace of dust from his gray brocade coat and started back down the winding street toward the inn where he’d taken rooms. Andorra was proving a fiendishly uncivilized and inconvenient town, he thoughtpeevishly. It was dusty, the wine was atrocious, and the steepness of the cobblestoned streets caught at the high heels of his silver-buckled shoes. If he had to endure this annoyance longer than he’d planned, he would see that the marquise suffered for it.
EIGHTEEN
François slowly opened his eyes and focused on Catherine sitting across the length of the salon.
Catherine tensed, straightening in her chair. “How do you feel?”
François raised himself gingerly on one elbow on the brocade-cushioned sofa and lifted a hand to his forehead. “As if I’d been bludgeoned.” His words were slurred.“Merde, my head’s exploding.”
“I’m sure you’ll be fine tomorrow.” She rose to her feet. “I’ve had a chamber prepared for you. Let me help you up the stairs.”
“I believe you’ve helped me quite enough.” François swung his feet to the floor and struggled to a sitting position. “It was the wine. I didn’t expect the wine.” His gaze met hers. “And I didn’t expect you. It was very clever of Jean Marc to use you.”
“He didn’t use me. I knew nothing about it.” Her lips tightened. “You were a guest in my house and he had no right to do this to you.”
François studied her a moment. “Mother of God, I believe you really didn’t know.”
“Of course I didn’t.” She added quickly, “But that doesn’t mean I believe Jean Marc to be totally in the wrong in trying to rid himself of you if you were spying on him. You should not—”
“Neither do I.”
“What?”
“I don’t blame him for trying to get rid of me. I would have done the same. In truth, all during the journey from Paris I expected him to make an attempt.” He grimaced, and rubbed his temple again. “I only wish he’d chosen a way that wouldn’t have given me this hellish headache.”
