His eyes flew open, and he broke the kiss, eliciting a tiny gasp of protest from her. He watched with a mixture of self-loathing and thwarted passion as she opened desire-glazed eyes and closed kiss-crushed lips.
“A girl like you is a girl one could marry,” he murmured. They were heedless and dangerous words that fell from his lips, and he couldn’t understand why he spoke them.
“A girllikeme?”
“You.”
“Onecould marry?”
“I.”
“Careful,” she whispered into the space between their lips. It was the only space that mattered in the universe. “I might hold you to such words.”
“I might hope you do.”
Again, words fell from his mouth of their own accord, and he’d proposed to her. There had been no biting it back. And he hadn’t wanted to. At least, not for another five seconds. Then the enormity of the night crashed in on him.
They spoke not another word as they walked back to the house without touching. With barely a murmur of farewell, he left her at the French doors and strode toward the stables, single-minded purpose in every step. He’d proposed to Lady Mariana Montfort, a girl he didn’t know.
That wasn’t precisely true; in the ways that mattered, heknewher.
But it changed nothing: it was wrong. When the time came for marriage—ifhe chose to marry some years into the future—he needed a Society match. He needed the sort of marriage that relied on mutual goals of inheritance, procreation, and the continuation of civilized society. What he didn’t need was a love match, or whatever it was that had sparked between him and Lady Mariana tonight.
A girl like her deserved to be with the sort of man who would know how to make a happy family with her. Nick barely knew how families functioned. In fact, he’d spent his entire childhood witnessing what happened when a love match made on short acquaintance turned to hate. He would yoke neither himself nor Lady Mariana to such a life. He must put distance between himself and the feelings she inspired within him. And the easiest way of accomplishing that feat was to put physical distance between them.
Quietly and efficiently, he saddled his bay stallion in the dark and rode for London like the hounds of hell pursued him. From there, he followed his orders and left for the Continent, where he remained for the next year, confident that Lady Mariana would be snatched off the marriage mart by the time he returned. It wasn’t likely she’d taken his proposal, if it could be called such, seriously.
Of course, wishful thinking was all it had been. Fate had had other plans for him and Mariana. Yes, fate. No matter how much of a realist and pragmatist he was in his everyday life, an unfathomable universal power bound them together. As much as he’d tried, he couldn’t reason it out of existence. The key had been to bury it deep beneath layers of resolve and willpower by focusing on reality. Mariana needed to be protected, and he’d taken the necessary measures.
They were measures which had been successful . . . until tonight.
Tonight, he’d involved her in the very world he’d vowed to protect her from.By any means necessary. A frustrated groan rumbled deep inside his chest, and he squinted against relentless mist that was thickening into a substantial rain. He pointed his feet in the direction of his modest set of rooms across the Seine on the Left Bank.
He did have one last defense in his arsenal against her. Unlike his twenty-two-year-old self from that long-ago night, he now understood her power over him. This understanding lent him his only advantage, and his only hope. For although it appeared he’d made a clean break of their marriage ten years ago, he alone understood the single, tenacious strand that had refused to be severed.
The desire to be worthy of her hadn’t cooled a single degree. And she had no idea. She thought him cold and indifferent to her. If he planned to keep it that way, he needed to better prepare himself against her. But mostly, he needed to prepare himself against himself.
He could take a measure of comfort that in the coming days she would be spending her time with the Comte de Villefranche, not him. She would simply be another spy in his employ.
Before he next saw her, he needed to convince himself of the lie.
Chapter 6
Starched: Stiff, prim, formal, affected.
A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
Francis Grose
Next Day
Twin slivers of anticipation and anxiety snaked through Mariana as she strolled the wide, crowded promenade of a Palais-Royal gallery. She unclenched the damp fists at her sides and attempted to soak in surroundings bright and pulsing with life, even as she watched for the Comte de Villefranche.
From the Rue de Richelieu, she’d passed through a screened entrance and into the rectangular interior arcade of bustling shops and cafés. While she could indulge in shopping and trade on the perimeter, she preferred the view provided by the interior grounds: perfectly aligned rows of apple trees and meticulously manicured gardens. In the center of the space stood a large circular fountain where Parisians of every class gathered to soak in a bit of afternoon sun to the mellifluous sound of bubbling water.
Here, the Revolutionary principles ofLiberté!Egalité!Fraternité! shone like nowhere else. Helene’s words were true: London had nothing on Paris.
The mix of high and low on display both refreshed and invigorated her. Coarse broadcloth mingled amongst superfine; dull woolens wove amongst vibrant silks. Tourists ogled fashionable Parisians; Parisians, in turn, pretended not to notice. The prostitutes, whom she chose not to directly acknowledge, cast jaded eyes over the entire tableau as they waited for second floor gaming dens to spit out the odd, flush gambler.
