Nina Beaumont - Surrender The Heart

He’d come here to prove to himself that the old ghosts no longer existed. And if they did, that they no longer mattered. But they still existed, he brooded. And they still mattered. And he had no idea what the hell he was going to do about it. Thrusting his hands into the pockets of his midnight-blue cape, he stared down into the swiftly flowing water.

“Just where do you think you’re going?”

“Out.” Ariane finished buttoning her pelisse. “For days I’ve been trussed up like a holiday goose and displayed like a slave on the block. I need some fresh air.” She looked at the reflection of Henriette’s broad face in the mirror, and the tug of tenderness had her regretting her ill-tempered words. “I’m sorry.” She turned around. “I didn’t intend to snap at you.”

Henriette put down the tray she had been carrying. “It’s not proper for you to go out alone.”

“I’ve been going out alone for years and am none the worse for it.” Her eyebrows rose. “No one knows that better than you.” Henriette, after all, had been her nursemaid, then her maid and her confidante.

“But not in Paris.”

Ariane smiled. “You say that as if the devil is lurking in every doorway.”

“Maybe not the devil, but perhaps one of those fops who brought their cards today.” Henriette scowled at the cards, which had been stacked on a small silver tray. “Who knows what’s worse?” she grumbled, giving voice to her French peasant’s healthy mistrust of the capital and its residents.

“Don’t worry, Henriette.” Ariane patted her maid’s ruddy cheek. “I’m just going for a walk and no one is going to accost me.” She grinned. “I’m sure that Parisian fops do not make a habit of lurking about in the Tain.” She winked. “It would spoil their pretty curls.”

“And what will I tell your parents when they ask me where you’ve gone?”

Ariane shrugged and turned back toward the mirror to tie her bonnet.

The older woman sighed, realizing the uselessness of any further protest. Moving closer, she fluffed out the bonnet’s bow of violet silk. “Be careful, then, ma petite.”

“Don’t worry,” Ariane repeated. “With my sharp tongue, I can probably disable one of those fops you are so afraid of at twenty paces.”

Her words reminded her of the previous evening and the American’s reference to her wicked tongue. The memory spun further, slipping much too easily past all the defenses she had spent half the night erecting. She remembered how the American had. looked at her. Remembered how his mouth had felt on hers.

Fireworks of arousal exploded within her. In her innocence she could not have put a name to it, but she recognized it, for it was the same feverish sensation that had pulsed through her the evening before.

“What is it?” Henriette demanded, attuned to every nuance in her charge’s eyes.

Ariane shook her head and slipped out the door. What she needed was a gallop through the fields, she thought, but since that was not possible, a brisk walk would have to do.

As she stepped outside, she filled her lungs. But the cool, damp air did nothing to stem the heat that was still welling up inside her. Deciding that the light drizzle hardly warranted opening her umbrella, she set off down the rue de Lille as quickly as the heels on her elegant half boots would allow.

Even from a block away she could smell the tainted scent of the river. Taking a left onto the quay, she crossed the road and stood at-the low stone wall.

The drizzle had stopped and the watery sun that was fighting its way through the clouds was reflected on the water. The voices of street criers hawking soap and eggs and fish competed somewhere down the quay. A carriage clattered over the uneven sandstone pavement behind her. As she shifted to avoid being splashed, she saw him.

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