Alix ran an exasperated hand through her hair. It was almost as if she were back at Valcour arguing with her father. He just wouldn’t listen, and she was suddenly past tired of being told what was best for her. Her father had thought remaining in Valcour was best for her and look how that had turned out. Now Rafe was telling her marriage was best for her, and she could just imagine how that would end. He wanted a reason she wouldn’t marry him, well then she’d give him several.
Rising from her chair she eyed Rafe as if he were a horse up for auction. “You’re attractive enough, well-built, not too old, and you have all your teeth.” She began to circle his chair and noticed how the firelight played across his tawny hair, casting softening shadows on the harsh planes of his face. He turned to follow her movements and it struck her as unfair that a man should have such long lashes. Her eyes swept the length of his body, lingering on the cream colored britches molded to his muscular thighs, and the bulge between his legs, and her thoughts trailed off and her mouth went dry.
“Well?” he prompted an eyebrow raised.
“I barely even know you.” It was a lame excuse, and she knew it even as the words formed themselves.
The corners of his mouth twitched slightly. “That’s certainly never been a problem for one of your class before. Try again.”
“How do I know that this isn’t some sort of trick to bedme, and that you won’t abandon me as soon as you’ve had your way with me?”
“Alix,” he said, shaking his head and taking another sip of wine, “if I wanted to have my way with you, I doubt that I should have to resort to marriage.”
What an incredibly arrogant and overbearing assertion! She straightened to her full height and pointed a finger at him. “You, sir, are an ass.”
“And you,” he growled, rising to tower over her, “haven’t the good sense to know what’s best for you.”
She stared up at him with clenched fists. “And I suppose what’s best for me is being carried through the streets like a sack of washing, being ordered about, and told to hide in a trunk.”
“It’s a damn sight better than breaking into fashionable homes in the Faubourg Saint Germain dressed like a man.”
“It served its purpose didn’t it?” she demanded.
They stood glaring at one another.
It struck Rafe that this proposal was not going at all as he had planned.
“Alix,” he said, lowering his voice with effort and touching her arm. “Don’t you understand the seriousness of your situation?” The room fell silent again, and he stared at her, willing her to understand.
“You know how my father died, how can you even ask me that?” she finally whispered. His fingers were rough and warm against her skin, and she felt suddenly overwhelmed by the heat of his body. The scent of leather and soap, sun-dried linen and his flesh was dizzying. “I can’t make a decision like this, a decision that might save my life now only to destroy it later.” She stumbled backward and he followed. “I can’t marry you.”
“Oh yes you can, and you will.”
Alix opened her mouth to refute him and found it covered with his own. Rafe’s lips were rich with the taste ofwine. She tried to twist her head away, but his mouth persisted, his tongue dancing and darting along her lips, then plunging into her mouth. And suddenly it was as if sparks were flying along her nerve endings.
She ought to push him off, she thought as the pounding in her blood raced through her chest and reverberated in her head, drowning out all coherence. His hands swept up her waist to cup her breasts and her nipples jutted their response. It’s the wine, she told herself, too much wine, unable to stop her hands from tangling in his hair, drawing his face closer. One more kiss and she’d demand that he stop, she instructed herself, as his mouth burned a path down her neck. His hands were working at the top buttons of Jervis’s waistcoat, and he pushed her gently back to release the lower ones—then suddenly he stopped.
Alix’s eyes flew open, smoky with desire and confusion.
“No,” he said, closing her shirt so he couldn’t see the flush of passion across her skin, the rapid rise and fall of her breasts. “Not like this. We’ve both had too much wine.” He found the discarded nightshirt she’d worn earlier in the day and handed it to her. “Put this on, and get into bed.”
Turning on his heel, he left the room.
With trembling hands, Alix stripped off Jervis’s clothes. The warmth of the hearth fire was nearly unbearable against the heat of her aroused skin. She slipped the nightshirt on and scrambled into the big bed, grateful for the coolness of the linen. She breathed deeply, trying to calm the pounding of her heart and found her nostrils filled with the scent of him. She could not let desire cloud her judgment, nor, she thought as her head spun dizzily, wine. There had to be some means of getting to London without marrying Rafe Harcrest.
She was still trying to come up with one when her eyes closed heavily in sleep.
Rafe satin the adjoining room staring into the dying fire, the wineglass and bottle long emptied. It had been sometime since he’d heard any movement from the bedchamber and he hoped Alix had found sleep more easily than he. He’d known as soon as he’d seen Madame de La Brou’s note that he would have to propose marriage. It was the responsible thing to do and the only way he could think to get Alix safely out of France. He hadn’t been able to sway her mind, he mused wryly, but he’d come unexpectedly close to convincing her body.
Rafe thought of the warmth of her lips, the pressure of her firm young breasts against his chest, the way her arms had wrapped around his neck to draw him closer, and he groaned involuntarily. Alix would come around to his proposal. She had no other choice. And neither, he reflected, suddenly grim, did he.
Jervis stumbled wearily into the room just before dawn, a bulky package tucked under one arm. “You sleeping here?” he asked the lean figure sprawled in the chair by the cold fire.
Rafe passed a hand across his eyes. “Not exactly.”
Jervis dropped down on the rope cot and began pulling off his boots. “I got everything done,” he said, dropping one mud-encrusted boot onto the floor. “Cost you a right penny, but I got the identity papers, the passport, and the visa. And,”—he said patting the package—“some new clothes for the lady.” He yawned, dropping his other boot. “So what time are we leaving tomorrow, or is it today?’
“We leave,” responded his master, “right after the wedding ceremony at the Place de la Grève.”
