And, as she continued, it worked. “Have you ever experienced the pleasure of scouring the sick beds of La Salpêtriere for a missing, presumed dead, man?”
A slow, insufferable shake of his head was all the response he gave.
“Well, it’s possible that I’ve conferred with every doctor and nurse in Paris, and every prostitute, too.”
Amusement danced in Nick’s eyes.
“And the stench.” She couldn’t control a shiver of disgust. “Well, we won’t discuss the stench. Except to say, while we’re on the subject of stench”—She couldn’t seem to stem the flow of words, now that she’d gotten started—“have you enjoyed a trip to the morgue along the Quai du Marché-Neuf?”
“That particular pleasure, Ihaveexperienced.”
“But not as a dead man, I assured myself earlier today. With bodies laid shoulder to shoulder like sardines in a tin, a more wretched place on earth I can’t imagine.”
“It was anabattoirbefore it was converted into a morgue,” Nick stated, his tone that of a supercilious popinjay. She’d known this persona well over the last ten years. But it hadn’t always been so . . .
She cleared her throat. “By my estimation, it never ceased being a butcher shop.”
“Are you finished?”
Mariana’s cheeks flamed, hot and mortified, and her mouth snapped shut. She’d been scolding him like a fishwife.
“Now,” he continued, “I’m certain the letter you received was nothing more than a mere prank.”
“A mere prank?” Mariana asked, unable to believe her ears. She swung around. She couldn’t bear to look at him a moment longer. “Foreign Officewas scribbled as the return address.”
“Was it signed?”
“No.”
A particular note sounded in his voice, a fine mixture of concern and curiosity she might have missed had she been facing him. Nick tended to overload her senses when she took him in all at once. His subtle, but commanding, physical presence . . . his overwhelming handsomeness . . . his direct gaze that held too many secrets, both his and hers . . . all sparked too much curiosity within her.
He was safer experienced one sense at a time, because only then could she see through the layers of deceit to ferret out the truth. And there was definitely a truth at the heart of his response.
“You must leave Paris,” he stated, low and hard, his voice unaffected and real. Gone was the supercilious popinjay. This was Nick’s true voice speaking.
“I must?” she bristled.
“You’ve accomplished what you set out to do.”
“Which was?”
“To find me. It’s time for you to go.”
She swiveled around to face him. “I may make a holiday of Paris.”
Now that Nick was safe and sound—well,safemight be a stretch—she could resume her long-established habit of opposing him when given half a chance. It was the only delight she’d derived from him in the last ten years, albeit a mean one.
“Everyone goes on at length about the shopping to be found in Paris these days.”
“You find no pleasure in shopping, Mariana.”
The assuredness of his words stopped her cold as a hot fury flared within her. “And what do you know about what does and doesn’t give me pleasure? It has been over ten years since we . . .” She stopped herself mid-sentence. No good could come of speaking aloud what they hadn’t done in ten years. “Parted ways.”
Although separated by a distance of no more than five feet, a chasm the breadth and depth of the Atlantic Ocean expanded between them. It was a distance impossible to bridge, especially after his affair.
She cleared her throat—tight with emotion. “What have you been doing on the Continent all these years? Somehow I don’t think it’sceremonial consular duties.”
“Have you really not puzzled it out?” He raised his brows, speculation in his eyes. “I collect information for the Foreign Office.”
