Knave in Grain: A knave of the first rate: a phrase borrowed from the dyehouse, where certain colours are said to be in grain, to denote their superiority, as being dyed with cochineal, called grain.
A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
Francis Grose
As the carriage transported her across a grid of indifferent Parisian streets, Mariana sank into brittle leather upholstery and allowed her head to thump back against the unforgiving cushion.
What had she done? Again.
Yet, even as mortification blazed through her—had she really just donethat. . .again. . . with Nick in theJardin du Luxembourg?—regret refused to take hold. She’d wanted Nick. Despite their past. Despite everything.
And she’d had him.
In all honesty, she wanted him again. Shecravedhim the way an opium eater craved the poppy. The more she had, the more she wanted. Her transformation into an amoral, hedonistic Parisienne seemed complete.
Her gaze found the river Seine to her left as the carriage rolled alongside. Tonight, she was to play wife to Nick at the Capet family’s soirée. Hysterical, even unhinged, laughter bubbled up her throat. If the libidinous feeling flowing through her veins was any indicator, it seemed she and Nick excelled at playing husband and wife.
She shouldn’t go. Her dealings with the Comte de Villefranche were done, for better or for worse. And her dealings with Nick?
A flood of nervous energy filled her. She would burst if she remained trapped inside this confining carriage a moment longer. She tapped the roof twice and was through the door before the wheels came to a complete stop.
“Monsieur,” she called up, “I shall meet you on the Rue de Rivoli outside the Louvre Palace one hour hence.”
“Madame,” the outraged driver called down in his thick French accent, “it is not so safe—”
“My safety is my concern,” she snapped. Without another word of protest, the driver set the carriage into motion.
The breeze from the river swirled off the water and gusted over her. As she took in the magnificent view of the Notre Dame, she willed the riot of emotion to release and flutter away. What remained were two prevailing, and conflicting, emotions. One, expected and correct; the other, unexpected and utterly wrong.
Correctly, she was angry at Nick. His mistresses hadn’t been opera singers and dancers all these years. Rather he’d had one formidable mistress: the Foreign Office. The man had blown their marriage to smithereens to play at cloaks and daggers. But . . . He hadn’t betrayed the intimacy between them.
What if it’s a lie?her rational mind nagged. The man told lies for a living.
But it wasn’t. Her irrational heart knew his confession for the truth, a thought not easily dismissed or erased by anger. In fact, this knowledge led her directly into the other unexpected and utterly wrong emotion: hope.
Hope was an emotion she hadn’t allowed herself to feel for a decade. It would have crushed her. But now that Nick had revealed the truth to her, hope expanded within her heart to bursting. It seemed a few days in Paris with Nick were all it took to spark the inconvenient emotion alive.
It only takes two.
Unable to process the enormity of those four simple words and her reaction to them, she’d run. Still, she ran, but she couldn’t outpace them no matter how hard she tried. Within those words lay the dashed dreams of her twenty-year-old heart.
And her thirty-year-old heart? How did she feel about them?
Mariana had had to get away from him as fast as her legs could carry her . . . before he saw the truth in her eyes. It seemed her heart hadn’t aged past twenty. Hope competed with the anger, and the hope might be winning.
An involuntary groan escaped her, and she spun away from the river, as if her mind could match the motion and change her thought pattern as readily as she changed her view. The trick didn’t work. Nothing worked. Truth, and hope, refused to be avoided.
Why had her heart chosen this man all those years ago? And why was she even thinking about hearts after having it ripped from her chest all those years ago?
Weary of standing still and thinking too much, she set her feet into motion and soon found herself rambling through a jumble of narrow lanes. As her heels clicked across medieval cobblestones, her confusion of energy found an outlet in the brisk walk. She’d never walked so much in her entire life as she had in Paris. This trip had revealed to her an unexpected pleasure in the activity. It cleansed. It revivified.
In fact, not only had she never walked so much in her life, she’d neverthoughtso much in her life. She wasn’t a thinker; she was a doer. Yet in Paris she found herself inside her own mind more often than she would like, sorting through thoughts that refused to be sorted.
Twice in less than twenty-four hours.
She groaned aloud. It seemed everything she did lately elicited a groan. Oh, that didn’t sound right.
Twice in less than twenty-four hours.
