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Why was she so intent on keeping him at bay? Why didn’t she just give in to their mutual attraction? She had been right not to trust him initially, but now he’d proved over and over again that beneath his arrogance and conceit lay a man who cared for others more than he wanted the world to see. He cared for her. Honoria knew it. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have been so tender with her. He wouldn’t have stopped kissing her and touching her to secure her consent. He would have thought only of himself and his own needs.
She knew many men like that, and she had thought he fit among their ranks. But she’d misjudged him. She’d looked at his lazy smile, his indolent walk, his soft hands and too-handsome face, and hated him for being like so many other men who’d wanted to own her for her beauty and couldn’t care less about the person she was underneath.
She’d been wrong about him. His life had not been always full of diamonds and silver. He’d known fear and separation and understood what it was to be an outcast. Perhaps that was when he’d acquired the traits she so admired. He had protected her even when he had nothing to gain by doing so. He’d rescued her even when it put him at great risk. He’d honored her wishes to stop their lovemaking even when it was quite clear those wishes were not his own.
Honoria did not want to realize, at the hour of her death, that she loved him and she’d wasted her chance with him. If one more hour, one more night, was all they had, shouldn’t she make the most of it?
She glanced at him again. He’d rested his elbow on the table and his chin on his hand. He seemed deep in thought. How to tell him she’d changed her mind about bedding him? Should she simply blurt it out? What would she say?Take me to bed...
Her cheeks flamed hotter even as she thought it.
Perhaps she might do better not to use words at all. She could rise, walk around the table, and when he looked up at her she could pull him to his feet and kiss him.
But did she have the courage to be so bold?
Honoria supposed there was only one way to find out. She took a deep breath, pressed her hands on the table, and began to push up. In her peripheral vision, she caught a movement outside—white fluttering against gray—and glanced fleetingly at the Tower.
A young woman entered the garden, her dingy white dress still clean enough that it looked stark against the gray stones of the prison.
She was young. Honoria could see that much even from this distance. Her hair was fair and pulled away from her face in a neat coil at the back of her neck. She was slim and pale, and she walked slowly and gracefully, with the elegance of a ballet dancer. Her posture was straight and regal, more so than one would expect of a person so young. A guard accompanied her, but he walked a few steps behind her, giving her some measure of privacy.
His eyes were sharp, though. Honoria noted the way they scanned the wall of the garden and then darted back to the young woman. He seemed reluctant to allow her out of his sight.
“Monsieur.” Honoria reached across the table, her hand shaking as she touched a finger to the marquis’s sleeve.
“Hmm?” He seemed engrossed in his thoughts and didn’t even look up at her.
“Monsieur, look out the window.” She closed her hand on his sleeve, and he glanced down at her fingers with annoyance. And then the import of her words seemed to filter through the wall of concentration, and he looked first at her and then out the window.
He gasped in a breath and rose so quickly he all but overturned the table.
“Is it she?” But Honoria knew without having to ask that it was indeed Madame Royale. No one else would have caused that response.
The marquis went directly to the window, almost pressing against it. His desire to be closer to the girl in the garden was almost palpable. His entire body seemed to lean toward the young woman and anguish etched into the lines the formed between his brows and at the corners of his mouth.
Honoria wanted nothing more than to allow him this moment. He’d waited so long to see her, the young princess, but his actions put them both at risk.
“Monsieur,” she murmured, touching his shoulder. He was as hard as rock, his shoulders like boulders. He didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge her touch in any way.
“Monsieur,” she said again, this time giving him a little shake. When he still didn’t respond, she moved to face him, partially blocking his view of the girl in the garden. “Laurent, you must move away from the window.”
“Marie-Thérèse,” he whispered. Her name sounded almost reverent on his tongue, as though he uttered a prayer.
“I know, and I know you have waited so long to see her.” She took his face in her hands and forced his eyes to meet hers. She knew the moment his attention finally shifted away from the princess because his eyes widened as they always did when he looked into her eyes. She’d always hated her strangely colored eyes, but the marquis made her feel as though they were beautiful.
“You will be seen if you stand here. The guard who is with her is studying the walls of the garden and the buildings.”
His gaze flicked back to the garden, and with a suddenness she didn’t expect, he moved aside and pulled her with him. Honoria was pressed between Laurent and the wall, his chest pressed against her bosom as he stared out the window over her shoulder.
“I should move...” she began.
“Shh.” He gestured to the guard whose mouth was moving. The young princess looked back at him, nodded slowly, and continued walking.
“Merde!We are too far away to hear what they are saying. If only we could be on the other side of the wall.”
“If you risk it, you risk being discovered and imprisoned. It’s unlikely the guard is saying anything useful to us, probably telling her to stay where he can see her.”
He nodded, and she wondered if he realized he’d snaked one arm around her waist as they stood pressed together. She had wanted to be close to him, but perhaps not quite in this manner. “If you release me, I could sit and sketch her.”
