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LATER THAT EVENINGHonoria opened the door to the room she and Alex had shared to find Laurent lying on her bed, fingers linked together and under his head. His chest was bare and the bedclothes stopped at his waist. She wondered if he wore anything under the covers. From previous experience, she doubted it.
She closed the door, and he rose on one elbow to watch her progress across the room. “Did Ffoulkes say anything else about the new mission or the Pimpernel’s orders?”
“Nothing.” She began to take the pins out of her hair. As she set the first few on the dressing table and her hair began to uncoil, she heard him take in a breath.
She loved that he had that reaction to her. Once she would have hated the effect her beauty had on him, but now she knew he saw her as more than an attractive face and body. He cared for her, Honoria Blake—the person she was inside. And thank God she’d finally seen the person he was behind the façade. He, too, was more than a pretty face. He had flaws aplenty, but he had good qualities too. The good qualities—loyalty, selflessness, courage, cunning—were stronger than his arrogance and entitlement...most of the time.
“What are you thinking?” he asked as she finished taking her hair down.
She smiled at him. “About your flaws.”
“What flaws?” he asked, his voice indignant. He sat up, the sheet falling down about his slim hips. He was definitely not wearing anything beneath.
“Oh, I don’t know.” She began to unpin her bodice. “Your arrogance?”
“How is that a flaw?”
She shook her head. “Only a member of the French nobility would think arrogance a virtue.” She opened one side of the bodice and began unpinning the other.
“It isn’t modesty that helped me into your bed.”
She looked up at him. “Is that all you want? A place in my bed?”
“Hardly.” He rose, crossing to her without any regard for his nudity. Not that she minded. He was a very fine specimen of masculinity. He had reason to be arrogant in some respects. “What I want,” he said, taking hold of her hands, “is a place in your heart.”
“You earned it,” she said, the heat of his hands warming her fingers and her entire body. “I think I fell in love with you at first because you loved the princess and dauphin so much. No man who loves like that, so wholly and unselfishly, could be all bad. Or so I reasoned.”
He lifted her hands to his lips, kissed her knuckles. “And I first fell in love with you when you threw that wineglass at my head. No one had ever thrown anything at me before. No one had ever dared.”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t believe you. You mistake love for lust. Don’t think I don’t know how much you enjoyed having me cuffed in your bed.”
“You are too clever by far.” He kissed her gently. “And I suppose you are correct that I cannot pinpoint the moment lust became love. I just know you have become as necessary to me as the air I breathe.” He leaned in to brush his lips over her cheek and nuzzle her ear. She shivered.
“You Frenchmen and your charming words.”
“Shall I cease speaking?” His hands began to loosen the ties of her corset.
“Maybe just for a little while,” she agreed. “You should busy your mouth with other duties.”
And she kissed him, wrapping her arms around him. When she’d left the British Museum, she had hoped for adventure and excitement. But in Laurent, she had found so much more. She’d discovered love and fulfillment and purpose. In the midst of the turmoil outside, his arms were an island of peace, and she relished the joy and sanctuary of his love.
Want to read more in the Scarlet Chronicles series?
Here’s a sneak peek of the next book in the series,To Tempt a Rebel,available March 12, 2019!
“We have him now,” Sir Andrew Ffoulkes said, slapping a stack of papers on the table where Alex sat cleaning her pistol.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s unwise to startle a woman holding a loaded weapon?”
Ffoulkes glanced at the pistol. “My nanny drilled it into me daily, but your pistol isn’t loaded.”
“This one is.” She pointed to the one she’d finished cleaning and set aside.
“In any case, you heard me come in.” He took a seat opposite her in the cozy attic room above the house she’d rented on a narrow street off the Boulevard du Temple.
The new safe house was close to the theater, which made it convenient for work. It was also near the lodgings of other actors, which made it inconvenient. She’d taken it anyway because the attic was large enough to accommodate half a dozen and the house was built in such a way so that the uppermost room was not visible from the street below. The National Guard had a penchant for searching private residences, usually in order to loot weapons and food, but they often stumbled upon fugitives and former nobles in hiding as well.
Before Alex had moved in, with Lord Edward Hastings acting as her lover, several agents of the Scarlet Pimpernel had made structural changes to the house so that secret panels opened in the walls allowing access to the attic from an internal stairwell. They’d also created an exit from the cellar to the alley behind the house. Washing was always conveniently hung out to dry here, providing cover so the members of the League might leave without being easily spotted.
