“What is it?” she demanded. “Oh, Adrian, you are so generous! The jewelry and gowns you have lavished upon me are outrageous.”
“‘Tis neither jewelry nor gowns, chérie,” he told her.”‘Tis something I believe you will like even better.”
“You are not going to tell me, are you?” she pouted, and he felt his passion rising. He could never get enough of her, and his greatest sorrow was that although she enjoyed his lovemaking, never had he been able to rouse her to the fullest.
“We will take our leave of the king as soon as we dare,” he promised, and kissed her again. It was two hours, however, before they were able to ride back across the countryside to Rossignol. The summer night was warm and still, the air sweet with newly mown hay. A large moon, pale and creamy in color, cast a bright golden light over them as they rode. When they neared the chateau they could hear the song of the nightingales for which the estate was named, singing in the trees. For a brief moment Arabella could not help but consider how perfect it all was.
As they descended from their mounts, the duc said to her, “When may I come to you,ma Belle?”
“I must bathe,” she told him. “I shall not be cool until I do,monseigneur. Lona will knock upon your door when I am ready to receive you.”
“Then I will bathe too,” he told her, leaving her at the door to her apartments.
Arabella attended to herself in a leisurely manner. This might be the last night that she was forced to yield herself to Adrian Morlaix. In a strange way, she felt sad, for the duc was not an unkind man, and had always treated her gently and with respect. He did not know that she had become his mistress merely in an effort to gain information for England. He accepted her for what he thought she was. An impoverished English noblewoman, driven from her country by an unjust king. Lest she feel too sorry for him, however, Arabella forced herself to remember that he had made her his mistress for precisely that reason. Because she was helpless and undefended. He had used her unfortunate circumstances to lure her from the path of virtue, except that a woman who used her body in the way she had could hardly be considered virtuous, Arabella concluded. Well, it was almost over and done with. In time she hoped the memory would be not be so painful. She would, however, never forget this time in her life.
“Well, you’re washed again, though I can’t see that you was dirty to begin with,” Lona said. Then lowering her voice she continued, “Did you speak with Lord Varden?”
Arabella nodded. “I will tell you when there is less danger of being overheard,” she whispered back.
Lona undid her mistress’s long hair from atop her head, where it had been pinned, and brushed it free of tangles. Arabella’s hair fell in waves almost to the floor. “Will you want a camisia?” Lona asked.
“Nay,” Arabella told her. “It is too warm. Open the windows that I may get whatever breeze comes in the night.” She walked across the bedchamber to the great carved oak bedstead, which was draped in rich crimson velvet brocade hangings heavily embroidered with gold thread bumblebees, hummingbirds, and wildflowers. The bed’s mattress was topped with a featherbed and covered in rose-scented linen sheets and a down coverlet which had been drawn down. Arabella reclined seductively upon one elbow atop the bed. “I believe I am ready to receive my lord now,” she said drolly.
Lona grinned wryly at her mistress and bustled about the chamber tidying it up. When she had finished, she snuffed all the candles but the ones on the bedside table and the mantel, checked the wine carafe to make certain that it was full, and curtsying to her mistress, said, “I bid you a good night, my lady.”
“Knock on the duc’s door to let him know I am ready for him now, Lona,” Arabella said.
Lona curtsied again and rapped sharply on the door connecting the duc’s bedchamber with that of her mistress. Then she hurried out.
The door had barely closed behind her when the other door opened and the duc stepped across the room. Like Arabella, he was nude. Walking to the bed, he bent and kissed her.Something was wrong!Arabella started nervously and drew back, wondering what the problem was. Then she heard a familiar laugh and gasped in shock as a second Adrian Morlaix, equallyau naturelle, came through the connecting door.
“You could not fool her, Alain,” he said in pleased tones. “You may be my mirror image, but you do not kiss women as I do.”
“I have never had any complaints about my kisses, Adrian,” the first man said in slightly annoyed tones.
Was she going mad?Arabella’s head swiveled between the two men. “Adrian?” she finally managed to gasp to neither man in particular, for she could honestly not tell them apart. “Who is this man, and why have you allowed him to enter my bedchamber?” Instinctively she reached for the coverlet to shield her body from the bold stare of the man who appeared to be the duc’s identical twin.
“Get into bed, Alain,” the duc commanded his companion as he himself lay on one side of his mistress. He kissed her quickly and continued, “Do not be angry,ma Belle. This is the surprise I have promised you. This gentleman is my half brother, Alain de Morlaix.”
“Your half brother!”Why on earth was she repeating his words?
“Allow me to explain, chérie.”
“Please do,monseigneur. In fact, I believe that you most certainly do owe me an explanation for introducing a stranger into my bed!” She glowered at Alain de Morlaix.
He smiled engagingly at her, and she realized that although he looked exactly like the duc, his eyes, in fact, were dark brown, unlike Adrian’s, which were blue. “Do not be angry,petite,” he said softly. “Let Adrian defend his conduct before you condemn it.”
Arabella found herself sitting, large goose-feather pillows at her back, between the two men. “Well, Adrian?” she demanded.
“Alain’s mother and my mother were half sisters,” the duc began. “Louisa, Alain’s mama, the elder by a year, was my grandfather’s bastard. The girls, however, were raised together and were inseparable. So much so that when my mother married my father, Louisa came with her rather than be left behind. My father was a man of great appetites, and with my mother’s permission, took Louisa as his mistress. Alain and I were conceived at approximately the same time. We were born in the same hour, on the same day, although I am the elder by several minutes. It was important to my mother that I be born first, and the effort of birthing killed her. My father then married Louisa, although the marriage was considered morganatic. We have two younger sisters, Marie-Phillipa, which was my mother’s name, and Marie-Louise. They and I are legitimate. Alain is not.”
“I do not,” Arabella said sternly, “see what this has to do with our situation.”
“Alain is my dearest friend,” Adrian Morlaix said. “I share all my thoughts with him, even the ones that distress me. You,ma Belle, have given me great pain, although I realize that you never meant to do it, chérie. It hurts me that I am unable to bring you into the full flower of passion when we make love. Never before has this happened to me. I realize, of course, that the fault is not mine. The fault lies in you,ma Belle, but I would nonetheless bring you that special happiness, for I do quite adore you.
“It occurred to me that perhaps two men could accomplish what one has been unable to do. Under normal circumstances I should never share my mistress with anyone, but since I have decided to do this for you,mon amour, I could only share you with one man in this whole world, my brother Alain. Like me, he is skilled in the arts of Eros and Venus. Together we shall bring you to the heights of ecstasy,ma Belle!”
Arabella didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. All these months she had been holding Adrian Morlaix in thrall with her cool and elegant demeanor while in the throes of passion. It had never occurred to her that her seeming inability to attainla petite mortewith him would give him such distress that he would propose such a solution! She had even intended that tonight she would yield herself fully so that his memories of her would be happy ones once she was gone. Her sudden disappearance would, of course, be confusing to him. What in the name of heaven was she to do? “My lord,” she began, but he stopped her mouth with his hand.
