Brenda Joyce - Seduction

Where is she? Who has done this? she silently translated. He thrashed again, even more forcefully, and Julianne was afraid he would hurt himself. He moaned loudly, in obvious pain.

She sat back down on the bed, by his hip. She stroked his hot shoulder. “Monsieur, je m’appele Julianne. Il faut que vous reposiez maintenant.”

He was breathing hard now, she saw, but he wasn’t moving and he felt warmer than before. Yet that had to be her imagination. And then he started to speak.

For one moment, she thought he was trying to speak to her. But he spoke so rapidly and furiously, so desperately, that she realized he was delirious.

“Please,” she said softly, deciding to speak only in French. “You have a fever. Please, try to sleep.”

“Non! Nous ne pouvons pas nous retirer!” It was hard to understand him, but she strained to make sense of the rapid-fire, jumbled words. We cannot go back now, he had said. There was no doubt in her mind that he was French. No Englishman could have such a perfect accent. No Englishman would speak in a second language while in a delirium.

Julianne crouched by his side, trying to understand him. But he was thrashing violently, enough so that he rolled onto his back, all the while shouting. He cursed. They could not go back. They could not retreat! Was he speaking about a battle? He shouted. So many had died, but they had to hold this line! No, no, he screamed. Do not retreat! Hold the line! For liberty!

Julianne clasped his hot shoulder, tears blurring her eyes. He was most definitely reliving a terrible battle that he and his men were losing. My God—could he be a French army officer?

“Pour la liberté!” he cried. “Go on, go on!”

She stroked his shoulder, trying to offer him comfort.

The river was filled with blood… Too many had died… The priest had died… They had to retreat. The day was lost!

He wept.

She did not know what to do. She had never seen a grown man cry. “You are delirious, monsieur,” she tried. “But you are safe now, here, with me.”

He lay panting, his cheeks wet with tears, his chest shining with perspiration.

“I am so sorry for what you have suffered,” she told him. “We are not on the battlefield. We are in my home, in Britain. You will be safe here, even if you are a Jacobin. I will hide you and protect you—I promise you that!”

He suddenly seemed to relax. Julianne wondered if he was sleeping.

She inhaled, shaken to the core of her being. He was a French army officer, she was certain. He might even be a nobleman—some of the French nobility had supported the revolution and now supported the Republic. He had suffered a terrible defeat in which many of his men had died and it was haunting him. She ached for him. But how on earth had Jack found him? Jack did not support the revolution, yet he wasn’t exactly a British patriot, either. He had told her once that the war suited him immensely—smuggling was even more profitable now than it had been before the revolution.

The man was so hot to the touch. She stroked his brow, suddenly angry—where was Amelia? Where was the ocean water? “You are burning up, monsieur,” Julianne told him, continuing in his native tongue. “You must be still and get better.”

They had to get his fever down. She re-wet the cloth, and this time, stroked it over his neck and shoulders. Then she laid the cloth there, picking up and wetting another one.

“At least you are resting now,” she said softly, then realized she had lapsed into English. She repeated what she had said in French, sliding the cloth across his chest. Her pulse accelerated.

She had just laid the wet cloth on his chest again, where she meant to leave it, when he seized her wrist violently. She cried out, shocked, and her gaze flew to his face.

His green eyes were blazing with fury.

Frightened, she gasped, “Êtes vous reveillé?” Are you awake?

He did not release her, but his grasp gentled. So did his eyes. “Nadine?” he whispered hoarsely.

Who was Nadine? Of course, she knew—the woman was his lady love or his wife. It was hard to speak. She wet her lips. “Monsieur, you have been wounded in battle. I am Julianne. I am here to help you.”

His stare was feverish, not lucid. And then suddenly he reached for her shoulder, still holding her wrist.

He winced, breathing hard, but his gaze did not waver. An odd light flickered there and she became breathless.

He slowly smiled. “Nadine.” And his strong, powerful hand slid across her shoulder, to the back of her neck. Before she could protest or ask him what he was doing, he began to pull her face down toward his.

In shock, she realized he meant to kiss her!

His smile was infinitely seductive, confident and promising. And then his lips were plying hers.

Julianne gasped, but she did not try to move away from him. Instead, she went still, allowing him the shocking liberty, her heart lurching, her body tightening. Desire fisted, hard.

It was a desire she had never before felt.

Then she realized that he had stopped kissing her. She was breathing hard against his motionless mouth. She was acutely aware of the fire raging in her own body. It took her a moment to realize that he was unconscious again.

Julianne sat up straight, in shock. Her mind scrambled and raced. He had kissed her! He was with fever; he was delirious. He hadn’t known what he was doing!

Did it even matter?

He had kissed her and she had responded as she hadn’t dreamed possible.

And he was a French army officer—a revolutionary hero.

She looked at him. “Whoever you are, you are not going to die—I won’t allow it,” she said.

He was so still that he could have been a corpse.

CHAPTER TWO

THERE WERE DOZENS of men in the mob, screaming in rage, fists shaking in the air, and he knew he must run… As he did, the cobblestones beneath his feet changed, turning red. He did not understand—and then he realized he was running in a river of blood!

He cried out, as the stately Parisian buildings vanished. Now, the river of blood was filled with screaming, dying men. Panic and fear consumed him.

And he knew he must wake up.

He felt cotton beneath his hands, not dirt, not blood. He fought the bloody river and saw Nadine smiling at him, her eyes shining, the moon full and bright behind her. He had kissed her—except, that wasn’t right, because Nadine was dead....

Nadine was dead, and he was lying in a bed— Where was he?

Terribly drained, Dominic realized that he had been dreaming. His memories remained jumbled, and dread and fear filled him, but he fought the rising panic. He had to think clearly. It was a matter of life and death.

It wasn’t safe for him to remain in France now.

Someone knew who he really was.

And he recalled being ambushed outside Michel’s apartments. He tensed with more fear and alarm, fighting both emotions. And all of his memories of the past year and a half returned forcefully then. He had gone to France to find his mother and fiancée and bring them home to England. He had never found Nadine, but he had found his mother, hiding above a bakery in Paris, her townhome destroyed. After seeing her safely aboard a Britain-bound ship at Le Havre, he had returned to Paris, hoping to find Nadine.

He had never meant to stay in France, gathering information for his country. Although his mother, Catherine Fortescue, was a Frenchwoman, his father was the earl of Bedford and he was an Englishman to the core. Dominic Paget had been born on the family estate at Bedford. An only child, he had been educated at Eton and Oxford. With William Paget’s passing, he had inherited both the title and the earldom. Although he took up his seat in the Lords several times a year—he felt a duty to the country as a whole, for he must also look after Bedford’s interests—politics had never interested him. In fact, several years ago he had turned down a position in Pitt’s ministry. His responsibilities were clear—and they were to the earldom.