Louise Allen - Regency Surrender - Passion And Rebellion

‘So,’ she said coldly, ‘why didn’t you?’ What possible excuse could he give for ending it the way he had, if he’d really been dreaming the same dreams she had?

A muscle bunched in his jaw.

‘Because I was an idiot. A young idiot. I had no confidence in my own judgement. I believed...I was persuaded...that it was better to pursue a career, than to live my life in obscurity.’

Persuaded...

Her anger ebbed. Just a touch.

‘I know what it’s like to have an implacable, domineering father,’ she said, reaching for his hand. ‘And since we parted, I learned a great deal more about yours than I’d ever guessed when we were...’ She couldn’t quite bring herself to use the word courting, even though she now knew that was exactly what they’d been doing. ‘It is obvious, with hindsight,’ she said bitterly, ‘that he wanted better for you than a virtually penniless clergyman’s daughter from an obscure parish. He forbade the match, is that it?’

He groaned and flung up one hand to cover his eyes. He only wished it had been that simple. ‘It wasn’t exactly like that,’ he admitted ‘But if it’s any consolation to you, I definitely got my just desserts for not keeping faith with you,’ he said with a hollow laugh.

His breathing grew laboured as he considered flinging himself off the precipice of a total confession.

But as he lowered his arm and looked at her pinched expression, he took a mental step back from the edge. He hadn’t earned her trust yet, even though she was claiming she’d forgiven him. And if she knew it all...the thought of how she might react made his insides freeze.

‘I shouldn’t have brought it up, should I,’ he said ruefully. His selfish urge to salve his conscience had spoiled what had been a beautiful moment between them. ‘It is just,’ he said, rolling his whole body to one side to stare down at her, ‘that I want to get to know you again. The woman you are now. And we don’t have long, do we? You are only spending a short time in Paris.’

‘So there is little point in trying, is there?’ She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, struggling to keep the quilt covering what modesty she had left, and began to search for her scattered clothing.

As she attempted to fumble one stocking on to her foot without letting go of the quilt, he rolled off the bed and reached for his breeches.

‘Would you prefer me to leave you in privacy to dress?’

‘Yes. I would, thank you,’ she said, flushing, for it seemed foolish to feel shy after he’d had his hands and mouth all over her.

But he didn’t mock her sudden attack of shyness. He just smiled at her and walked to the door. Though he hesitated on the threshold, leaning his arm on the jamb.

‘I can see you are determined to leave,’ he said. ‘But I hope I can persuade you to spend tomorrow with me.’

‘Oh, and just how do you propose to do that?’

He chuckled. ‘Not the way you seem to think.’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said crossly.

He raised one eyebrow. Then straightened his face. ‘Of course you don’t. So I will just point out that the mouse and her Frenchman will be so wrapped up in each other that they will drive you to distraction. What’s more, they won’t even notice whether you are there or not. So you need have absolutely no qualms about spending every moment you have left in Paris with me.’

Which was all true. She had no stomach for trailing around behind Fenella and Gaston. And there was going to be an awful lot more time to endure in Paris, while Monsieur le Prune attempted to strike a deal with the contacts she’d made. Time she might as well spend with Nathan, rather than moping about the changes she’d have to make to her life once Fenella married.

Because she couldn’t deny she did enjoy being with him. Tonight, before they’d started talking about the past, and what had gone wrong, she’d enjoyed his company tremendously.

Yes—as a distraction from the prospect of potentially having to spend a bleak lonely future with one hired companion after another, he would be perfect.

‘And I still need you to sit for your portrait,’ he reminded her. ‘That could take hours,’ he said, stalking back to the bed and cupping her face before placing his mouth firmly on her own.

Her knees went weak at once. And after only a little longer, she was wriggling out of the quilt and winding her arms round his neck so that she could pull him back down on to the bed. Only the aggravating man drew back, gave her naked body a scorching look and said, ‘Hours and hours.’

The portrait. He was talking about the hours he would spend painting her portrait. Not the hours and hours she could have with him in bed.

Or was he?

That was the trouble with men like Nathan. They could say one thing and mean another. They called it flirting.

Well, no matter. As long as she didn’t believe his apparent eagerness to spend time with her was something on which she could base her life, the way she’d done when she’d been younger, she would be fine.

She returned his smile with a brittle one of her own.

‘Well, I’d better come for a sitting tomorrow then, hadn’t I?’

* * *

‘It occurred to me after you left last night,’ said Nathan as he handed her into the fiacre he’d hired to take her...well, he hadn’t told her where he was going to take her, yet. Aggravating man, ‘that you never finished telling me about those two.’ He jerked his head towards the window from which Fenella and Gaston were watching them drive away. ‘And there was something you wanted to rebuke me for, specifically,’ he said, folding himself into the seat next to her. ‘I think you should get it over with now, don’t you? Then I won’t have to live in terror of the moment when you decide to bring it up.’

‘Are you deliberately trying to provoke me?’

‘Is it working?’ He leaned back in his seat and spread his arms wide in a gesture of surrender. ‘Come on, do your worst. I can take it.’

She breathed in slowly through her nostrils, then lifted her chin and turned her head to look out of the window on her side of the carriage.

‘Not in the mood for fighting yet? Very well,’ he said, sitting up again and nudging her with his elbow. ‘But you really do need to finish the tale from which I...distracted you last night.’

‘I don’t see why. And anyway,’ she said haughtily, ‘I cannot recall exactly how much I told you.’ And she didn’t want to bore him by repeating a story that hadn’t been able to hold his attention the first time.

‘Just that they saw themselves as Romeo and Juliet, with you as both sets of parents. And how you grappled with your very natural desire to turn him off because he’d not only seduced your friend while she was foxed, but because he was trying to come between you, persuading her you would judge her for falling from grace.’

Goodness. He had not only been listening to her prattling on, as they’d made their way slowly up the Wilsons’ staircase, but had committed the whole thing to memory.

‘I was waiting with bated breath for you to get to the part where he confessed his real name, since you accused me of alerting you to the fact he’s currently using an alias.’

‘You knew, all along, that Monsieur Le Brun is in reality the Comte de...’ she frowned. ‘Well, he rattled off a very long list of names and honorifics, but I was so stunned that I cannot recall any of them now. It was the last thing I expected to learn about him.’

‘What did you expect?’

‘Why, that he was wanted by the law for some crime or other...’

‘In a way, he is, or was. His parents went to the guillotine, you know. And he only narrowly escaped with his own life.’