Lyn Stone - The Wilder Wedding

“So you will simply look at this painting, decide if it’s real, and buy accordingly?” she asked.

“Of course not. I’ll check the provenance and establish how it changed hands through the years, as well as examining the brush strokes, colors, composition and so forth. Burton and I did that together with a fourteenth-century Duccio a few years past in Florence, though I’m not really well versed on Italian painters. I’ve acquired lesser pieces for him since then. This is the most important thing he has trusted me with alone.”

Her eyes looked a trifle glazed as she said, “I’m fascinated!”

Sean laughed aloud and shook his head. “You are not, you little liar! You’re bored to tears. Come on, you wanted sordid disguises, flying bullets, mad dashes through the back streets. Admit it.”

“Childish, aren’t I?” She laughed, too, and blushed. Sean was delighted to see color in her cheeks, whatever the cause.

“Wonderfully so,” he said, standing and offering his arm. “Now let’s go to Paris, shall we, Mrs. Wilder? On my word, I promise you won’t be bored there.”

They arrived at the Hotel Lenoir very late that evening. Both were travel weary, but Sean noticed nothing faint about Laura. She seemed to have bounced back readily enough from her ills of the day before. While that relieved his mind somewhat, he couldn’t feel completely at ease.

There would come a time—probably quite soon—when she would not rally. Something vital shrank inside him every time he let himself think of that.

He tried to picture it, though, so that he could accept it when the worst happened. Laura still and white, beautiful in her final repose. Himself, stoic without and crushed within. It was no use. He could not make himself imagine. There was no preparing for such a thing anyway. Almost as heartbreaking as facing the actuality would be the pretending beforehand, the smiling and making of ordinary conversation, living as though there would always be a tomorrow for Laura. That much he must do for her, no matter how difficult or painful.

Facing the most deadly, knife-wielding bully in Whitechapel had not prompted such dread as he felt now.

Sean knew now that he hadn’t fully understood what he faced until Laura had fallen sick on the ferry. Death was no stranger to him, of all people. Sean could not begin to count the bodies he had viewed over the years, in the bowels of London, on battlefields, during days with the Yard and afterward. But thinking of Laura lifeless? His mind rebelled.

How could he go on this way, wondering if every breath Laura drew might be her last? And if it was this miserable for him, what the devil must it be like for Laura? Surely she marked the apprehension in his eyes every time he looked at her.

If only they could forget she was to die. Like being ordered not to think of elephants, he thought with an inner scoff. He could at least make her forget for a time. That would be something, anyway.

Sean glanced around the modest bedroom of Hotel Lenoir and thought perhaps he should have taken Laura somewhere fancier. Somewhere grand with a suite of rooms. Instead, he had selfishly chosen this place with its antique patina and its shared necessaries down the hall because the memories of his times here gave his soul comfort.

Right now he could use all the comfort to be had. For three school vacations during his adolescence, he had come here with his new friend, Eugene Campion. He and Camp had been the odd men out at Eton their first years there. Camp was the bastard of Baron Nesbitt Lorne, who had the good grace to see his natural son educated. And Sean, a product of the London stews, had a noble grandmother who had finally seen fit to rescue him.

Both benefactors believed they were doing the right thing by their respective charges. But neither Camp nor himself had had the background or a good enough grip on the king’s proper English to make themselves accepted. In the interest of self-defense, they had befriended and protected each other.

Accompanying Camp to his mother’s family in France for a few weeks of summer holiday had given Sean the only semblance of normal family life he had ever experienced. If life in a Parisian hotel could be considered anywhere near the norm, he thought with a wry smile. It ranked far above a brothel or the halls of Eton, Sean knew for certain.

When the boys had gone on to university, Annette Lenoir Campion had married and moved to Florence. Later, he and Camp had enlisted together and served two years in Africa. On returning, Sean had sought employment with Scotland Yard and Camp had gone on to medical school in Italy. Madame and Monsieur Campion, Camp’s aging grandparents, had sold the hotel to a cousin whom Sean had never met.

Now, whenever he or Camp traveled to Paris, whether their visits coincided or not, they always came here. With its fond memories, the old Lenoir had become a sanctuary of sorts. He had never even noticed its genteel shabbiness before today.

Laura returned from the bathing room down the hall looking refreshed and rosy in her prim white robe. He noticed bare, pink toes peeking from beneath the hem.

“Into bed with you,” he ordered with a forced smile. When he had tucked her in like the child she looked, he kissed her brow and turned to leave.

“Where are you going?” she asked before he could escape.

“To scrape off some travel dirt,” he replied, knocking dust off his trousers. “Go to sleep, Laura. We have a big day tomorrow.”

She squirmed impatiently and smoothed the covers over her knees. “I thought you might want to…well, you know.”

“No!” he said, rather too quickly. In view of her confused look, he felt compelled to offer some sort of explanation. “It’s too soon, you see.”

Her eyes widened as though to take in this new bit of information. “Too soon? You mean you can’t…manage?” The gears of her mind were nearly visible as she considered that. “How often can you, then?”

Oh Lord, he had spun a web now. And tangled himself up in it. He thought she would assume he meant it was too soon for her . He could not make love with her again. He would be totally, completely lost in her if he did. She already had half his heart. How was he supposed to guard the rest? He’d have nothing left to go on with.

“Well,” he said, looking everywhere but at her, raking his mind for something, anything, to extricate himself. “Once a month,” he declared, warming to the prevarication. “You understand your woman’s cycle, don’t you? Men have cycles of a sort, as well, you see. It’s not exactly the same for a man, but there must be a bodily change for the…uh…emissions and such to…to work. Yes. One has to wait.” He sucked in a deep breath and bit his lips together over the outrageous lie. “For the next cycle, you see.” He lowered his head and shook it in frustration. “It’s very complicated.”

“You lucky fellow!”

“Lucky?” he asked. His head came up smartly. He caught her slumberous gaze and watched it travel down to the buttons below his belt.

“Mmm-hmm,” she cooed with a knowing smile. “Your cycle seems to have…extended itself.”

Laura bit back a laugh at Sean’s distressed expression. His mind and body were at such odds, he had lost his usual equanimity. He obviously wanted her, but had decided she was not up to lovemaking because of her recent spell of sickness. If he only knew how gloriously energetic she felt right now. Excited.

She watched him with one brow cocked, her eyes traveling from his face to his groin and back again, curious as to how nimbly he would account for that blatant erection of his.

He didn’t disappoint. “Swelling,” he explained. “Too much recent activity, I suspect,” he explained somewhat breathlessly, still frowning down at his errant member.