Nina Beaumont - Surrender The Heart

“I have interests here that require looking after. But I am certain that being in Paris will also be a pleasure.”

Valmont nodded, marginally relieved. After all, a man who had business interests in France was most likely not a complete barbarian, even if his shoulder-length hair and insolent eyes made him look like a Viking intent on plunder.

His gaze drifted to his daughter and he swore to himself. It was the very devil to guard the virtue of a daughter—especially when the daughter had more intelligence and energy than was good for her. Too bad her intelligence had not extended to choosing a husband from one of the many perfectly acceptable sons of the other landowners.

Well, he thought, he was going to make sure that she had a husband before they left Paris. A husband who would give her the sons to inherit the fortune he had built. With a sigh, he returned to his duties as host.

Ariane held herself aloof from the conversation, irritated at the way her parents were quizzing this man. The American was not very loquacious, she remarked, responding to questions in faultless French, but volunteering no additional information. Paradoxically, she found his reticence annoying, although she deplored those self-important mentions about lineage or wealth that most other men made.

“We are looking forward to seeing you at our ball.” Roger turned to Ariane. “My sister Justine has spoken of little else since she made your acquaintance the other evening.”

“And I am looking forward to seeing her.” And she-truly was wanting to see again the young girl who was everything that she was not—tall and willowy, with hair the color of pitch, and perfectly at ease in the whirl of balls, carriage rides and flirtation.

He was watching her, Ariane thought, as she kept up the stream of polite chatter. She could feel it as surely as if he were touching her. He was challenging her again, just as he had before. Only this time, she understood that he was challenging her to look at him because he knew perfectly well that she was avoiding it.

She was being rude, she knew, but that thought disturbed her less than the thought that he might think her a coward. Or worse, that he was laughing at her.

Taking a deep breath, she turned toward him. His eyes, which were the clear, cool green of a mountain stream, held a faint amusement that had her forgetting her unsureness, her embarrassment in the face of the surge of annoyance.

He knows just how attractive he is, she thought with an instinctive understanding that went far beyond her experience. He is so aware of the power of his charm that he expects all women to fall at his feet. But despite her irritation, she found that she could not remove herself completely from his allure.

“What do you think of all this, Monsieur Blan-chard?” She made a small circular gesture with her fan. “How does it compare to California?”

“Paris is Paris, of course,” he said smoothly, “but people, in essence, are the same everywhere.”

“Do you really think so?”

The sharp inquiry in her tone pleased him far more than docile agreement would have. “You don’t?”

“Actually, no.” Her eyes moved over him boldly, as if her uneasiness of a few moments ago had never been. “I somehow doubt that you are anything like anyone I have met in Paris.” Her shoulders moved in a delicate shrug. “Or elsewhere for that matter.”

“Is that a compliment or an insult?” He grinned, making it perfectly clear that he considered it the former.

Unable to resist, she grinned back. “I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve made up my mind.”

Helpless, Valmont watched Ariane flirt with the large, handsome American. She was truly impossible, he thought. He had never seen her quite as animated with other, more suitable men.

“Shall we have some champagne now?” Valmont signaled to the waiting footman to fill the champagne flutes.

“To a pleasant stay in Paris for all of you.” Roger de Monnier raised his glass. “And a long one.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Chris said, his eyes not moving from Ariane’s face.

Ariane lifted her glass and sipped, watching the American over the rim of her flute. His eyes of that unusual transparent green were lit with male interest. In the past week she had been the recipient of enough such looks to be able to identify it. But while she had easily shrugged off the interest of all those insipid, dull young men, she suddenly found herself unwilling to look away from this man’s eyes, which held heat and challenge and that maddening trace of amusement.

Chris watched her, waiting for her to flutter the golden-tipped eyelashes that fringed her fabulous eyes, which were the rich color of amethysts, or send him a flirtatious smile, or hide coquettishly behind her fan. But she did none of those things. Instead she kept watching him, her eyes and mouth serious, as if she were measuring him. It occurred to him that he had never seen a woman with such a capacity for stillness before.

“And you, comtesse? Are you looking forward to it?”

His voice was soft and insinuating and, despite her lack of experience, Ariane recognized the ripple of excitement that traveled down her spine for what it was. She smiled, for the first time in weeks feeling no rancor that her parents had dragged her off to Paris.

“Yes,” she said, “I am.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

A melodious gong sounded, signaling the end of intermission, and Chris stood and bowed over the hand she held out to him.

“The first waltz tomorrow night,” he murmured, just loud enough for her ears. “The first and the last.”

“I’ll have to check my dance card.” She tipped up her chin. “I don’t know if they’re still free.”

“The first and the last waltz, comtesse.” His smile was very white and very wicked in his bronzed face. “Some things are not negotiable.”

Ariane felt her pulse skitter as he held her eyes for a long moment before he turned toward her parents.

“I thank you for your hospitality.” Chris bowed over Marguerite de Valmont’s hand.

As he turned away, his gaze brushed over the woman staring at him from the adjacent box. And all the old, ugly memories came flooding over him.

“What insolence,” Ariane said to no one in particular when the box door had closed behind the two men. Shrugging with a not quite successful attempt at nonchalance, she turned back toward the audience. “But at least he’s not boring.”

“Really, Ariane,” Valmont said, “I fail to understand you.”

“Don’t worry, papa,” Ariane said without looking at her father. She knew just what kind of face he was making. “I’m not planning to marry the man.”

“Good God,” Valmont sputtered. “I hope not. Not when you have men like the Duc de Santerre dancing attendance on you.”

Chris sat staring into a glass of brandy he had yet to touch.

Nothing had changed, he realized. The moment he had seen Comtesse Léontine de Caillaux in the box, he had been catapulted back in time.

He had stood, his small, sweaty hand in his father’s larger one, looking up with longing at the tall, fair-haired woman who resembled his father so strongly. She had smelled like some kind of flower and he had desperately wanted her to stroke his cheek with her soft hands, just like maman had always done before she had gone away to live among the angels.

But she had not touched him. She had not even really looked at him.

“I don’t know what you could be thinking of to subject me to the presence of your filthy, little bastard,” she’d said. “Really, Charles, apparently living among those savages in America has made you forget good manners completely.”