Brenda Joyce - Seduction

“Of course not,” she said, instantly understanding.

Finally, he softened. He took her hand and shocked her by kissing it. “I am sorry. You have been nothing but kind, and I have just rudely interrogated you. But I need to know where my enemies are, Julianne, just as I need to know where I am, if I ever have to escape.”

“I understand.” Her heart beat so wildly now she could hardly think. Such a simple kiss—and she was undone!

“No, Julianne, you can’t possibly understand what it is like to be surrounded by one’s enemies—and to fear discovery with every breath one takes.”

He still held her hand to his chest. She tried to breathe, she tried to think. “I will protect you.”

“And how will you do that?” He was openly amused. But his grasp on her hand tightened. Somehow, her knuckles were pressed against the bare skin exposed by the top and open buttons of his shirt. “You are such a tiny woman.”

“By making sure that no one knows about you.”

His eyes darkened. His smile vanished. “Amelia knows. Lucas knows. Jack knows.”

“Only Amelia knows who you are and she would never betray me.”

“Never,” he said, “is a dangerous concept.”

“If a neighbor called, they would not realize you are upstairs in this room,” she insisted.

“I trust you,” he said.

“Good,” she cried fervently, their gazes locked.

He lifted her hand to his lips, but slowly. Now Julianne froze. His gaze on hers, he pressed his mouth to the back of her hand, below her knuckles. This time, the kiss was entirely different. It wasn’t light, innocent or brief. His mouth drifted over her knuckles and the vee between her thumb and forefinger. And then his eyes closed and his mouth firmed. He kissed her hand again and again.

As he kissed her, her heart exploded. His mouth moved over her skin another time, with more fervor, and her entire body tightened—her own eyes closed. His mouth became insistent and fierce, as if he enjoyed the taste of her skin, as if so much more was to come. She finally allowed her mouth to part. She heard a small moan escape her lips. He separated her fingers and nuzzled the soft flesh there. She felt his tongue.

“Are there weapons in the house?”

Her eyes flew open, meeting his hot yet hard green gaze.

“Julianne?”

She was trembling. Desire made it almost impossible to breathe, to speak. “Yes.” She wet her lips. She inhaled. Her body was throbbing, the need acute.

“Where?”

She exhaled. “There is a gun closet in the library.”

He continued to stare. Then he lifted her hand, kissed it and released it. Abruptly, he stood.

If he ever truly kissed her, with the passion that raged between them, she might lose all of her good sense, she thought.

He glanced at her. “Do you know how to use a pistol? A musket?”

She must find her composure, she thought. “Of course I do. I am a good markswoman.”

She added, “You do not feel safe.”

His gaze moved over her features, then met her eyes. “I do not feel safe here, no.”

Julianne slowly stood up. He watched her, and she wasn’t sure she trusted herself to speak now. So she turned and left the room. She went downstairs, her body on fire, wondering if she should kiss him. She was certain he would allow it.

In the library, she paused, finding herself staring through the glass doors of the gun closet.

Three pistols and three muskets were racked within. It wasn’t locked. It never was. When there were revenue men descending on the cove, those guns were instantly needed. Julianne took out a pistol, then closed the glass door. She retrieved powder and flint from the desk before going back upstairs.

Charles was standing by the window, staring at the threshold, clearly waiting for her to return. His eyes widened when he saw her with the pistol, powder and flint.

Their gazes locked. Still tight with desire, Julianne crossed the room. She handed him the pistol. She managed, “I doubt you will need to use it.”

He put the pistol in the waistband of his breeches. She handed him the flint and powder. He slipped the powder bag’s strap over one shoulder. He put the flint in his pocket. Then, slowly, he reached for her.

She went into his arms.

But he did not kiss her. “I hope not.”

Trembling, she slipped her hands up his heavy biceps, which flexed beneath her palms.

He did not smile. He slid his fingertips over her cheek, then tucked a tendril of hair behind her ears. “Thank you.”

Somehow, Julianne nodded—and he released her.

CHAPTER FOUR

HE HEARD HER before she appeared in the open doorway. Dominic pushed the maps she had brought him aside, already having entirely familiarized himself with the southernmost part of Cornwall. He picked up his quill to resume the letter he was writing to his “family” in France. After all, that was surely what Charles Maurice would do, and if Julianne ever thought to spy, she would read the reassuring letter he was writing to the family he did not have. He had learned long ago to take elaborate precautions to guarantee than no one ever suspected he was using an alias.

Julianne arrived on the threshold, smiling. He slowly smiled back, meeting her gaze. Some guilt nagged at him. He owed her greatly; she had saved his life. He now knew she would not be very enamored with Dominic Paget—a titled, powerful Tory. It almost amazed him that his life had come down to this constant game of deception, of plot and counterplot.

He still didn’t know her well, but he knew that she was genuinely kind, as well as intelligent, educated and opinionated. She was also terribly beautiful and completely unaware of it.

He stared openly, aware that she noticed his obvious admiration for her. His body stirred. He was recovering more swiftly now and his body had begun to make demands—urgently.

He knew he shouldn’t seduce her. She was a gentlewoman, without experience, and in love with his alias—not him. She was already clay in his hands. The problem was, he wasn’t interested in being moral. He was fairly certain that his time in London would be brief. His assignment was to ensure that the British resupplied Michel Jacquelyn’s army. Once he had arranged that and was assured that the correct quantity of troops, weapons and other sorely needed supplies were being routed to La Vendée, he would be sent back to the Loire Valley or Paris.

His entire body tightened. He refused to allow his memories of the wars or the mobs to form. He was sick of dreaming of death, of being afraid, and he was sick of how a small gesture or word could cause those memories to come flooding vividly back.

“I have brought tea,” she said softly. “Am I interrupting?”

He had been anticipating her company. She was an interesting woman and their conversation was never mundane. Sometimes, though, he felt like shaking some common sense into her.

She should not trust him!

He took his time answering, considering her carefully. He wondered how she would feel if she ever knew the truth about France—or about him.

Sometimes, he wanted to tell her. Usually that was when she spouted her nonsense about liberty and equality in France, and for all. His anger was instant, but he would hide it. He wanted to tell her that the ends did not justify the means, that France was a bloodbath, that innocent men and women died every day, that he hated the tyranny being inflicted on the country—that it was tyranny, not freedom!

Sometimes, he wanted to shout at her that he was a nobleman, not some damned revolutionary—that his mother was a French viscountess, and that he was the earl of Bedford!

But there was more. Sometimes, when she looked at him with those shining gray eyes, he felt a terrible stabbing of guilt, which surprised him. And then he felt like shouting at her that he was no hero. There was nothing heroic about running a print shop in Paris and fawning over the local gendarmes so they would never suspect the truth about him, or about flattering and befriending the Jacobins so they would truly think him one of them.