She gazed at him in confusion.
He was stripping off his shirt. “Mother of God, can’t you see I’m trying to spare your delicacy of feelings? Do you want to see me naked?”
“You’re cursing again.” She hurriedly scooted downand turned her back to him. She could hear his movements behind her. He was undressing. Soon he’d slip naked beside her in this bed. She supposed she should be frightened, but she was too bewildered to know what she was feeling.
“Move over.” He was standing beside the bed.
She hurriedly rolled to the far side of the bed. A cool draft chilled her as the covers were lifted and he slipped beneath them. She could feel the waves of heat his body emitted though he was not touching her. Sweet heaven, shewasfrightened. She began to tremble again.
“Stop that.” His tone was rough, yet, in an odd way, comforting. “It will be over soon.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want you. It’s only pretense. Skinny women don’t please me. Men don’t want every woman they see, you know.”
“The Marseilles at the abbey were—”
“That was different. That was a sickness, a fever.”
“Henriette was only ten years old.”
“Not all men are the same. Some men are aroused by only one kind of woman. Some men, like Robespierre, are totally abstinent. There are other men who don’t like women at all but prefer men.”
She was startled. “Really? Do you prefer—”
“No, I’m not a sodomite.”
“Oh,” she hesitated. “Then you…” She stopped, shivering in distaste. “You like to hurt women.”
“It doesn’t have to hurt. If a woman pleases me, I can make her enjoy what happens between us.”
She was silent.
“It’s true. I tell you, there’s no—” A soft knock halted the soft vehemence of his voice.
“Quick!” He was over her, flesh pressed to flesh before she knew what was happening. “Come in.”
The door opened to admit the same stout servant woman who had served their meal. She stopped and murmured something before rapidly clearing the table.
“Hurry.” François’s voice was thick with impatience.
The servant woman giggled and her motions deliberately slowed.
A wild cascade of sensations and thoughts tumbled through Catherine as the warm, hard musculature of François’s chest pressed against her softness.
The tomb! She opened her lips to scream.
His gaze bore down as he whispered, “No!”
Her lips closed as she gazed helplessly up at him. Slowly the terror began to ebb away. It was the same, yet totally different, she realized. This body was warm, sleek, nude, not dressed in rough clothes that scratched her flesh. This body was hard and masculine, yet carefully withheld to save her both unnecessary contact and weight. This was no anonymous stranger above her. This was François, his face square, bold, its fierceness clearly defined in the candlelight. It was odd how that very fierceness offered her the comfort of blessed familiarity.
“Blow out the candles and begone,” François ordered over his shoulder.
Another giggle and the room was suddenly plunged into darkness. The door closed.
François settled as far from her as possible on the bed. “There, it’s over. I told you it wouldn’t be so bad.”
He had left her so quickly, it was clear he found the physical intimacy as distasteful as she had, Catherine thought. Her nipples still tingled from the warm texture of his skin against hers, the slight abrasion of the tight curly hair that thatched his chest. Yet she discovered to her surprise that the feeling wasn’t totally unpleasant. The entire experience had not been the horror she had thought and, as he said, it was now over. She breathed in a sigh of relief. “Do we go to sleep now?”
