Rafe found himself fervently praying that Jervis would be able to ferret out some information that would enable him to avoid becoming involved in a burglary.
“I’ve sent Jervis to have a look around,” he said. “When he returns, we’ll see what he’s found out and proceed from there.” Silence fell between them, and Rafe cast about in his mind for a way to change the subject from the prospect of committing a crime in a city that currently was far too sensitive to suspicious behavior. Something too that would keep his mind off what lay covered by his nightshirt.
“Chess,” he said hoping his voice didn’t reveal the disquiet he felt. “Do you play chess?”
The raspingbreath of the woman on the floor was disturbing his concentration. Lamartine stepped over her writhing figure, pushed aside a tumbled chair and went outside. He glanced back briefly, not at Solange Chaumier, but at the neat farmhouse. The Chaumier’s single-story stone home was not much different from the one he’d grown up in. Except for the yard. Lamartine’s eyessurveyed the well-kept vegetable garden and the plump chickens and geese roaming about the house. His father had been too busy drinking and beating his mother for their yard to ever have been so well tended.
He shook his head as he picked his way through the noisy clusters of foraging fowl. He had explained in his most pleasant manner that he needed to find Alix de La Brou, that it had been the comte’s wish that he look after her. Solange had not believed him, had kept insisting that she knew nothing about where Alix had gone. The moment she’d opened her mouth, he’d known she was lying.
So he then suggested the local revolutionary tribunal might be interested in searching the Chaumier home, said he hoped the citizeness had all her papers in order. Solange had turned as white as her mobcap. It had been an idle threat; he’d never dreamed she’d have been so foolish as to lend her identity papers to Alix.
He reached the tree where his horse was tied. Solange had not wanted to tell him where Alix had gone, but he knew how to get answers. He flexed his small hands, remembering the feel of her throat, her skin, the flexible cords, the way her eyes had bulged and her mouth had gaped. She’d resisted, held back details, but in the end, she’d told him what he needed to know.
Alix had gone to find her mother.
He sincerely hoped she hadn’t been hauled off to prison or executed yet. That would be most inconvenient.
He unknotted the reins of his horse and drew them back over the gray’s head. He supposed it might be possible to send someone else to retrieve her. But no, he thought, as he climbed into the saddle, if you wanted something done right, you had to see it through yourself. Lamartine brought his crop down with a sharp crack across the gelding’s flank, and set off in the direction of Paris.
Six
Rafe tapped the black pawn lightly “I believe, Mademoiselle de La Brou, your king is in check.”
Alix was staring at the board, her brow furrowed, a look of intense concentration in her eyes. Suddenly she stiffened and looked towards the door. “Did you hear something in the sitting room? Is that Jervis?”
Rafe released the piece and turned his head toward the door, listening. It had been three days, and they hadn’t heard a word from Jervis. “I don’t hear anything.”
When he glanced back at the board his bishop had been moved and his pawn was nowhere in sight. Alix’s gray eyes were twinkling.
Rafe raised a brow at her. “Mademoiselle, this is no way to win at chess.” He held out his hand. “My pawn please.”
She laughed. “Ah, monsieur, I fear you have gravely underestimated your simple pawn.” Then she forced her face into a serious expression. “He is, in fact, a noble in disguise, a loyal servant of the white king, and when youso foolishly looked away, he leapt upon his faithful steed Hermes and raced to warn the king of your evil plans.”
Rafe looked down at the board; his knight was missing too. “Alix,” he said warningly.
She sighed. “You English, no sense of romance.”
He laughed. “You French, no sense of discipline.”
Alix leaned over the table to replace the missing pieces, but as she did so her shawl trailed across the board and swept the remaining pieces to the floor.
Rafe shook his head. “You do hate to lose don’t you?”
He smiled at her, a now familiar smile, a smile that made her heart race and her skin grow warm, made her want to reach out and trace the sensuous curve of his mouth. Alix’s hand stole unconsciously to her own lips as she thought of the way he’d kissed her so unexpectedly that day in front of her mother’s house. She’d been kissed before, cold wet kisses stolen by the Marquis de Beincourt, breathy damp kisses from a few bold suitors at court, but never had she felt more than a faint curiosity to kiss anyone back.
Now every time Rafe smiled at her she wondered what it would be like.
She turned to look out the window, trying to hide the flush she could feel spreading across her face. In the street below, vendors hawked their wares and horsemen jockeyed for position with carriages while the people on the sidewalks tried to avoid being splattered with mud. In short, life in Paris was continuing as usual while she was locked in a room with Rafe Harcrest waiting for Jervis to return. She should be out looking for her mother, she told herself, not playing chess and flirting with Rafe, and certainly not mooning over his smile.
She heard the rattle of chess pieces and glanced back to see Rafe picking scattered pieces up off the floor. “Here, I should really be doing that,” she said, bending to help.
“I’m wretched company, I know. It’s just that I wish I could be doing something, anything beside waiting and worrying.”
“And playing chess?” he suggested.
“And playing chess,” she agreed. “Though I did beat you four out of six times.”
“Seven,” he said with his crooked smile. “If not for that little accident.”
