Villefranche blanched as the implication of her words sank in.
“But at what cost?” she pressed.
“Is there a cost too high forliberté?”
“Hasn’t enough young blood been shed on France’s fields?”
“There will be no war,” he stated with finality.
Mariana couldn’t contain a cynical laugh at his certainty and his naiveté. “With power, money, and control hanging in the balance? There will be war.” She cut the distance between them in half. From afar one might think them engaged in a lovers’ quarrel instead of a struggle for life and death. “Like me, you’re a pawn in their game.”
“And who arethey?” He scoffed dismissively. “You are deranged.”
“They will use you,” she said, her words an insistent whisper, “and they will discard you. It is what they do. Do you want England involved in your country’s politics? Once you let Whitehall in, good luck getting them out. Would your countrymen welcome such a radical step?”
“Lady Nicholas, you know nothing—”
“What was in the packet you handed that man?”
A sheen of perspiration glistened against his pale skin. “You saw?”
“I told you that neither of us is any good at this.”
Again, the analogy of the conductor came to her. There was a time for bombast and drama, but also a time for subtlety and sensitivity.
Her voice emerged on a low and steady note, the sort sounded through a woodwind instrument. “Is it too late?”
His eyes went wide, calling to mind a spooked horse. She knew enough about spooked horses to tread with light feet.
“You will lose everything,” she continued. “Your family will lose everything. France will lose everything. And for what reason? For the actions of a naïve and spoiled boy?”
She took a step back to allow him a measure of space for reflection. A heady feeling grew and expanded within her. She saw how one could become addicted to it, this influencing the fate of nations.
Her gaze returned to Villefranche, expecting to find him reflective and possibly penitent. Instead, she found a man intently and singularly focused on a point above her shoulder.
A sensation stole over her as if the very air she breathed had changed its molecular composition. This must be how wild animals felt the moment they realized they were being stalked. She glanced over her shoulder and followed Villefranche’s gaze across the pool and down the opposite path.
She blinked. Then she blinked once again for confirmation that her mind wasn’t conjuring visions. If Villefranche was seeing him, too, it must not be fiction.
It must be true that approaching them was none other than Nick, returning their twin dumbfounded stares with a polished aplomb uniquely his own.
Chapter 19
Dimber: Pretty. A dimber cove; a pretty fellow. Dimber mort; a pretty wench.
A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
Francis Grose
Yes, Mariana decided,polishedwas the correct word for Nick, impeccably dressed in a sage green cutaway jacket, buff buckskins, and a freshly laundered, starched linen shirt complete with an intricately knotted silk cravat. He was a vision of the fashionable English gentleman, except for his unfashionably cropped hair, which only heightened the angular beauty of his face. The whiff of French prison that had hung about him a few days ago was gone.
It struck Mariana that this was the first time she’d seen him in the daylight since her arrival in Paris.
He stole her breath away.
She’d made love with this man last night.
Just before Nick stepped within polite speaking distance, she snuck a glance at Villefranche. He’d arranged his features into a mask of utter disregard. She almost felt badly for him. Villefranche didn’t know it yet, but he didn’t stand a chance against Nick.
