Nick straightened and locked eyes with Mariana for the briefest moment, the message in them clear: she was to stay put and keep quiet. She was to prove she’d learned her lesson and make herself invisible.
Ha. That ship had sailed.
She watched his wildness recede and the civilized take over as his fingers ran through his shorn hair and smoothed it down. She suppressed the desire to reach out and stay his hand. Desire and possibility faded fast, replaced by a devastating sense of impossibility. Desire wasn’t enough to fix what ailed her and Nick. It never had been.
She instantly sobered. “Neither wife nor whore,” fell from her lips.
~ ~ ~
Nick felt the words with the force of a slap, but he had no time for them now. The gendarme was waiting. Appeasement must be his first concern. Mariana would come later.
He closed his eyes and inhaled. No, Mariana wouldn’t come later. Not like that, anyway. There would be no appeasement tonight, or ever, for them.
He moved away from her. “You may want to”—He darted a glance toward her bare breasts—“adjust yourself.” The gendarme was getting an eyeful.
Nick stepped toward the officer of the law, a practiced, sheepish smile on his lips.Oui, he knew this wasn’t the place, but sometimes a man had . . .needs. It was the gendarme’s turn to smile sheepishly, tapping an empty hand against his thigh.Oui,oui, but next time.Oui,oui, next time. The gendarme’s hand returned to his pocket richer than it had been a few minutes earlier.
The gendarme strolled away, a satisfied whistle on his lips, and Nick again faced Mariana. There couldn’t be a next time. As he watched her arrange her hair, slender arms raised and breasts all but exposed to the night sky, and anyone else who happened along, the resolution rang hollow.
“This scheme isn’t going to plan.” He adjusted his cravat. “You’re not exactly spy material.”
“Ah, I see.”
Startled, he glanced up, expecting to find her vibrating with betrayal and disappointment—it seemed his destiny ever to disappoint her—except he read neither emotion there. He read challenge in her eyes.
“I find Paris suits me,” she continued.
“This is bigger than us,” he pressed, except even he could hear that his words lacked conviction. He wasn’t certain anything was bigger than he and Mariana. Not even the fates of France and England were more important—not in this moment.
“There is nous, Nick. There never was.”
He flinched. Even he knew that wasn’t true. Once upon a time, there had been athem, and it had been a glorious frolic in delusion—until reality had come knocking.
Again, he called upon the requisite words. “The stability of Europe is at stake here.”
A brittle laugh escaped her. “And, of course, you’re the only man who can insure Continental stability. You always did overestimate your control over a situation.”
A sudden, hot urge to tweak her overcame him. “Not always.” The words came out a hard growl. “There are certain situations I control very well.”
~ ~ ~
A blush warmed Mariana’s cheeks, and she glanced away, hoping to hide her body’s reaction to his words, to the promise in his eyes when he spoke them. It was a desire that must be quelled. They had gone too far tonight.
Not far enough, her body protested.
Nick stepped out into the street and hailed an approaching hackney. A staying hand held out to the driver, he turned and waved her toward the conveyance. Her feet felt mired in sludge as she crossed the few feet between where she’d stood and the open door. The absinthe had sailed away into the ether without her, leaving her earthbound and deflated.
Yes, absinthe. She wouldn’t consider what else could bring on this feeling of gloom. What was the word from earlier?Crapulent. It was the perfect word. Absolute crapulence.
His arm, angled at the elbow, extended and awaited her hand, so he could assist her into the carriage.
Memory, unbidden and unwelcome, pushed at the corners of her mind. Once, she’d stood like this, her hand poised above his forearm; she’d been dressed in virginal ivory and he in tailored blacks and whites. Their “I do’s” just spoken, they’d faced the aisle before them, friends and family to each side. Her shaky, silk-gloved hand had lowered to a light rest on woolen superfine, and the gratification of having well and truly caught him swelled up. This gorgeous, cunning, untamed man was hers, forever.
Bitterness mingled with memory. A flash was all it had been; there had been no substance, no lasting truth in it. She ignored his waiting forearm and grabbed hold of the carriage’s open window frame, mounting the first step unassisted.
“It was a foolish idea, Mariana, to think that you—”
“Could be useful?” she finished for him.
