The Courtesan (11 page)

“Can I offer you some Rhenish wine, Captain Remy?” she called over her shoulder. “I could also roust out my cook to serve you a late supper down in the hall.”

“You mean on that great table that I glimpsed below stairs, the one that’s the length of a battlefield?” Remy grimaced. “No, I am afraid I hardly appear grand enough for such a setting.”

“Because you clearly have not been taking proper care of yourself. Just like most men when they are left to their own devices.” Gabrielle poured out the wine and marched over to him. “You look as pale as the ghost I mistook you to be. Perhaps some wine will at least put a little color back in your face.”

She forced the glass into his hand, saying sternly, “Here. Drink this.”

“Yes, milady,” Remy replied, his meekness belied by the glimmer of a smile in his eyes. When he took his first sip, he winced, and for the first time Gabrielle noticed the split in his lip where she had struck him.

She forgot her cool demeanor in the wake of her remorse. “Oh, lord, Remy. Did I do that to you?” She feathered her fingertips across his lower lip, dismayed to detect a slight swelling as well. “Oh, I—I am so sorry.”

Although he winced again at her touch and caught her hand, he said, “It is no great matter, my dear. I’ve been dealt far worse blows, but probably none I ever deserved as much. After all you and your sisters did for me, I
should
have found a way to let you know I was alive.”

He pressed a light kiss to her fingers. “It was natural that you should be angry with me.”

Gabrielle’s skin tingled from even so soft a pressure of his lips. She made haste to pull away from him.

“Natural, perhaps,” she conceded, “but hardly civil, Captain.”

“Is that what we are doing now, Gabrielle? Being civil to each other?” Remy asked quizzically.

She thrust up her chin with a determined smile. “Of course. Why should we not be cordial to each other? It has been a long time but we are still friends, are we not?”

“Yes,
friends,
” Remy agreed, but the intense look in his eyes belied the word.

He reached up to tuck a stray wisp of hair back inside her net, his fingers lingering against her cheek. Gabrielle always had marveled how Remy’s hands, so hard and callused, could still be so gentle. His touch was almost a seduction in itself.

She felt a quiver of warmth rush through her. It was all the fault of that heated embrace they had shared earlier. She had always known it would be a mistake to kiss Nicolas Remy. That one moment of folly had cracked a wall of reserve she had built around her heart for years.

Gabrielle shied back from his touch, saying nervously, “Unfortunately I—I no longer have the time to spare for old acquaintances that I might wish. My life in Paris is very different from what it was on Faire Isle.”

“So I have heard,” Remy said. The tender light vanished from his eyes. He took a long swallow of his wine, his brows drawing together in a heavy frown. “What are you doing here in Paris, Gabrielle? So far from your family and your home?”

It was the question she had been dreading. Her heart missed a beat as she wondered exactly what Remy
had
heard about her. She had been told that they were taking bets in some of the taverns regarding who her next lover would be.

But whatever gossip he had gleaned, Gabrielle could tell that Remy didn’t want to believe it. His gaze sought hers as though trying to reassure himself that despite all evidence to the contrary, she was still the innocent girl he always imagined her to be.

So why not make the truth plain to him and be done with it? Gabrielle’s lips parted but no sound came. She just couldn’t bring herself to do it, speak the words that would disillusion Remy, end any feelings he had for her forever. Damning herself for a coward, Gabrielle evaded his probing gaze. She rustled toward an ornate rectangular table positioned along the wall opposite her bed. The glossy surface was laden with an array of bottles of lotion, jars of cream, and those seductive vials of perfume Cass had brewed for her. She removed the gilded lid from one of the jars and scooped out a dab of cream for keeping her hands as smooth and white as possible.

“You always knew I longed to get away from Faire Isle, Captain Remy,” she replied at last, working the cream into her skin. “To travel, to experience all the excitement and diversion of some great city.”

Leaning his broad shoulders up against the wall, Remy positioned himself alongside the table where she could not avoid his eyes. “Yes, but how did you acquire this vast house? Forgive me, but I thought your family’s fortunes were lost when your father did not return from his voyage of exploration.”

“So they were.” Gabrielle smoothed cream over her fingertips, hoping their slight tremor did not betray her tension. “This house belongs to or . . . I should say belonged to a woman named Marguerite de Maitland.

“My father’s mistress,” she added in a flat emotionless tone.

“His
mistress
?”

“Many men have them, Captain Remy,” Gabrielle said tersely.

“I am aware of that. But I had heard . . . I had always thought—” Remy hesitated, taking another sip of wine.

“You heard all the stories about the great romance between the gallant Chevalier Louis Cheney and Evangeline, the beautiful lady of Faire Isle.” Gabrielle believed herself long over the hurt of discovering her father’s betrayal. But the old bitterness crept back into her voice. “Unfortunately, that is all they were—just pretty stories. Even while professing devotion to my Maman, my father was keeping this other woman here in Paris, lavishing Madame de Maitland with gowns, jewels, and this house.”

Remy digested her revelation in thoughtful silence, frowning into his glass. “I still don’t understand what
you
are doing here, living in the home of such a—a—”

Remy didn’t finish, but he didn’t have to. From his censorious tone, Gabrielle could easily guess what he meant. Such a
whore, a trollop, a slut.
Although she kept her expression neutral, some part of her flinched, wondering what Remy would call her when he realized she was little different from Marguerite.

Gabrielle picked up a small stiff brush and doggedly buffed her nails. “After my father was declared dead, Mademoiselle de Maitland experienced some fit of repentance. She determined to retire to a convent. Before she did so, she offered this house and her jewels to my sisters and me.”

“And you accepted, Gabrielle?” Remy asked gravely. “But did that not seem to you like a betrayal of your mother’s memory?”

Gabrielle flushed. “You sound just like Ariane, sentimental and impractical. It was my father’s coin that paid for all of this. Why shouldn’t I accept the offer?”

“I can see the justice of that,” Remy conceded. “But—” Gabrielle could tell there was more he wanted to ask her, but he hesitated, probably because he feared the answers.

Gabrielle tossed the brush back on the table and flounced away, saying, “Enough about me. I would far rather hear about what
you
have been doing these past three years.”

Swirling the wine in his glass, he said, “You would not find it a very interesting tale, Gabrielle.”

“Nonetheless, I insist upon hearing it.” Sweeping over to the window seat, Gabrielle sank down upon the embroidered cushion. In the old days, she would have patted the cushion beside her, inviting him to join her in friendly fashion. Now she indicated a high-backed chair a safe distance away.

“Do sit down, Captain, and tell me everything.”

Remy’s gaze flicked toward the chair, but he made no move to sit. He positioned himself by the fireplace, cupping his glass in his hand. Something had closed off in his eyes with her inquiry into his past.

“Tell you everything? I’d hardly know where to begin.”

“Why don’t you start with what happened to you on St. Bartholomew’s Eve?”

“That would make an even less entertaining bedtime story.” Remy’s fingers tightened around the stem of the glass so hard, Gabrielle was astonished it did not snap. No doubt Remy found it hard to remember or speak of that terrible night and she was loath to inflict any more pain upon him.

But Gabrielle had found it painful too, imagining the horrors of the way she’d thought that Remy had been brutally slaughtered. She desperately needed to know what had really happened.

“Please, Remy,” she said in a gentler tone. “At least tell me how you survived that night. Renard said you had been cut down, mortally wounded. He thought you were finished or he would never have left you behind.”

“I know that. The comte is an honorable and courageous man. I am glad he was able to escape with his life.”

“Yes, but how did you?”

Remy took a long swallow of his wine, nearly draining his glass in one gulp. “I was saved by a wolf.”

“What!” Gabrielle cried. If Remy had not looked so grim, if it had been anyone else but him, she would have imagined she was being teased.

“A wolf? Here in Paris?” she asked incredulously.

Some of the tension melted from Remy’s shoulders. His lips twitched as though at some memory that amused him in spite of himself. “Martin Le Loup, a young pickpocket and thief. He spied my body sprawled in the street and took a fancy to my boots. The lad sought to—er, relieve me of them.”

Gabrielle was horrified, picturing too clearly the scene, Remy, wounded, helpless, while some street rat attempted to rob him before he even went cold. She didn’t know how Remy could smile at such a callous action. She clenched her fists in her lap. “Why—why that scurrilous little bastard. He should have been hung, drawn, and quartered.”

Remy shrugged. “If I had been dead, the boots would have been no use to me. But I let out such a groan when Martin touched me, I nearly gave the lad an apoplexy. He could have finished pulling off my boots and fled. I could never have stopped him.

“Instead he managed to drag me to a place of safety, kept me hidden from the rampaging mobs while he found someone to tend my wounds. An elderly priest highly skilled in the arts of healing.”

Remy gave a bemused frown. “I never even knew his name or why he chose to help me. It was a dangerous thing to do. St. Bartholomew’s Eve was not the best time for any Catholic to be caught trying to save a Protestant soldier.

“As for Martin, I’ve never understood him either. He is generally a very practical lad, good at looking out for his own hide. To this day, I don’t know why he risked his life to help me.”

Remy might not know, but Gabrielle did. There was something about a selfless man like Nicolas Remy, honest, valiant, honorable to his very core, that brought out the best in other people, made them eager to serve him even against their own interest and better judgment.

When Remy fell silent again, she prompted, “So you were saved by this Wolf person and an old priest. What happened then?”

“Martin is a lad of great resource. When I was well enough, he smuggled me out of Paris. Then we went abroad.”

“Where?”

“To Ireland first, then England.”

“And did what?”

“Worked. Traveled. Existed.”

Gabrielle’s gaze traveled up Remy’s tall frame to shoot him a look of pure frustration. Remy had never been a great talker, but she was beginning to feel like it would be easier to extract the man’s teeth than any information.

“So you just spent three years wandering the English countryside and then what? One morning you woke up and decided it was time to come back?” she demanded.

“Something like that.” Remy fidgeted with the finely cut stem of the wineglass. He was not merely being his usual quiet self. The man was being deliberately evasive.

“Why?” Gabrielle persisted. “Why have you returned?”

“I am beginning to feel that I should not have.”

“What? Not have come back to Paris?”

“No, I should never have come back to you.”

Remy’s words cut Gabrielle deep and she could not conceal it. When she flinched, Remy went on hastily, “I didn’t mean that I did not want to see you again. I did. Far too much. I only meant that my life has taken a rather desperate turn and I have had second thoughts about involving you.”

“I was involved in your life once before,” Gabrielle reminded him.

“Not by my choice. I was a bloody fool that summer I descended upon Faire Isle, so obsessed with my quest for justice, I didn’t stop to think what danger I brought in my wake.” Remy finished his wine and set the empty glass down on top of the mantel. “You never fully understood the nature of the evil that I had uncovered, the reason why I became a fugitive.”

“Oh, for the love of heaven!” Gabrielle rolled her eyes. It still annoyed her the way Remy had confided all his more dangerous secrets to Ariane, but had persisted in treating Gabrielle as though she were some innocent child no older than Miri.

She took great satisfaction in informing him, “I knew all about how Catherine de Medici assassinated your queen, Jeanne of Navarre.”

“You . . . you did?”

“Of course I did! You suspected your queen had been poisoned, and you stumbled upon the only evidence, a pair of beautiful white gloves. When you fled Paris, you stole the gloves and brought them to Ariane, hoping that she could help you to prove the gloves had been tampered with. Have I got that all right so far?”

“Yes,” Remy agreed, still frowning in surprise. “So Ariane finally chose to tell you everything?”

“No, I figured most of it out for myself. When I found the gloves she’d hidden down in our workshop, I tried them on.”

“You what?”
Remy looked appalled, then confused. “Then I was wrong? The gloves had not been poisoned after all.”

“Oh, they were poisoned all right,” Gabrielle said wryly. “I damn near died.”

“Gabrielle!” Remy blanched with such horror Gabrielle regretted telling him. He strode toward her and sank down beside her, gathering her hands in his strong grip.

The concern that suffused his face was tender enough to thaw any woman’s heart and Gabrielle had difficulty resisting it. Her fingers involuntarily interlaced with his, returning their pressure.

“My God! I am so sorry,” he said hoarsely. “I should have told you the truth about Catherine and the gloves. If anything had happened to you, I would never have—have been able to—”