1939912059 (R) (34 page)

She gave him a withering look. “Whilst I am thankful for your assistance, Jacques, let us not complicate an already complicated night. You are here to assist the Laroche family out of Paris. You are not here to rescue me or my reputation.”

He grabbed her shoulders hard. “Knowing he was the one who put you through having a child out of wedlock is…” He stared her down. “I will avenge you and your honor.”

She yanked herself out of his grip and glared. “There is no honor to avenge. Leave him be. He has suffered enough. And despite him and I parting ways, I love him. I will always love him.”

“What about me?” He angled toward her. “I at least have proven myself. Was I not the one to place myself before you when that bastard’s father—”

“
Jacques
.” She swallowed, knowing he was still twisting that night into meaning more. “I hardly want to return to that night. How dare you speak of it?”

He averted his gaze. “My only regret is that you cannot see past him.”

“My only regret is that you continue to think we are more than friends.”

He was quiet for a long moment. “I am still your servant. You know that.”

“And I thank you for that, Jacques. These people are depending on you. Now please. Deliver the basket. I will leave the lantern here in the corridor for you.” Gathering her veil, she drew it over her head.

Watching him disappear through one of the farthest doors leading into a small flat, she let out a shaky breath and hurried down the darkened corridor past half-open doors leading into abandoned, empty rooms that had once belonged to the
haute ton
.

A dark figure loomed before her from one of the open rooms.

She froze, realizing it was Gérard.

His features were anguished. The faint light of the lantern in the corridor barely illuminated his blue eyes.

She swallowed, knowing he had heard her entire conversation with Jacques. “I wish you a safe journey. May you cross the border before those papers expire.”

Gérard’s riled intensity thrummed in the narrow corridor as he lowered himself onto one knee. He said nothing. He only kept kneeling, never once breaking their gaze.

Her pulse roared, knowing he was asking her to leave with him. She quickly angled around him to pass.

“
No!
” Gérard grabbed her arm hard, his bare fingers digging into her skin. Jumping to his feet, he yanked her into one of the abandoned, darkened rooms. Shoving her against the nearest wall, he then quietly shut the door with a soft click, drowning out all light.

That strategic, overly soft closing of that door whispered of the storm he was holding within.

It scared her.

Plastered against the wall in complete darkness, her heart pounded knowing he planned on having the last word. Her vision was smeared with black.

Although she could see nothing, she felt him draw near.

He set a large hand on each side of her and leaned in close enough for her to smell the sting of brandy. “I am begging you to forgive me,” he rasped. “Forgive me for forcing you to do what you did.”

“Forgiveness will not save you. You and I both know that. You need to let me go. Just as I am letting you go.”

He was quiet for a moment. “Thérèse.” His voice cracked. “I love you.”

“In time, you will come to love someone else.”

He set his head against hers. “Never. Tell me I can come back for you. Tell me we are not done and I will come back and—”

“No,” she choked out. She didn’t trust that he would leave. Or that he would wait long enough. “When I said we were done, I meant it.”

He lifted his head. “Then you do not love me. You never loved me.”

“If you think that, then you most certainly deserve what I am doing.”

His voice darkened. “You have one of two choices. You either turn around and face the wall and let me hurt you in the way you are hurting me right now or you can kiss me and we forgive each other before we take this too far. You decide.”

Her throat tightened. Why was it Robespierre did not terrify her half as much as Gérard did in this moment? Maybe because she knew of the flame that really burned within him. Kissing him and breaking both of their already broken hearts was not an option.

If this was his way of letting her go, she loved him enough to let him do it.

Wordlessly, she turned, her skirts rustling against his trouser-clad legs and faced the wall. She set her hands against his large ones, which still draped each side of her against the wall. “Do what you will,” she managed, her voice amplified given she was so near the wall. If she didn’t hurt him, he wouldn’t leave. And he had to leave. “I will never again be yours. You are a drunk and a liar.”

His breaths became ragged in the silence as he continued to linger behind her, unmoving. He finally leaned in. “So you would rather endure the pain of living without me than forgiving me?”

She closed her eyes, willing herself not to love him anymore if only to give him the chance at living a new life. One he did not want to take. “Pain is strength,” she whispered.

He stilled. “Then I am about to test yours. In thirty years, I will make you cry. In thirty years, you will remember this fucking day and wish to God you would have chosen otherwise.”

Removing his hands from beside her, the leather belt around his waist, the one holding his pistols, creaked as he unfastened it. “Are you ready to know real pain? The sort that will bring you to your knees?”

She squeezed her eyes tighter, her limbs trembling as she leaned into the wall, readying herself for that belt to whip her.

He set his belt and weapons at his feet with a loud clatter. Rounding her, he opened the door with a bang and left, his heavy steps disappearing down the corridor.

In between uneven, astounded breaths, she opened her eyes and waited. She waited and waited in the darkness of the room that was barely illuminated by the lantern still sitting in the corridor.

Realizing, he wasn’t coming back, she slid down the wall and let out an anguished sob. He knew. He knew that the greatest pain was not one delivered to the skin but one delivered to the soul. He was officially sentencing her to a life of living in pain without him.

In thirty years, I will make you cry. In thirty years, you will remember this fucking day and wish to God you would have chosen otherwise.

May those thirty years never come.

London, England – 1830

The quaint little townhouse of Madame de Maitenon

Life was so beautifully strange. It kept introducing her to so many misadventures she did not expect. Of course, it took a brilliant woman such as herself to keep up with all the drama knowing that her darling, bright-eyed granddaughter, Maybelle de Maitenon, was a far greater misfit than she had ever been at her age.

Some things were inherited. Sadly.

Thérèse waved away her overly stuffy, British butler and said in fluent, though heavily accented English, “We thank you for the cognac, Clive. You may leave us.”

The butler inclined his balding head and stiffly walked out of the crimson parlor.

Thérèse tapped the tray with a finger, intent on keeping her granddaughter from leaving the country. “Drink. And when you are done, I will hope your lips are loosened enough for us to discuss what it is you are doing with your life. Because your father, Henri, heaven rest his poor soul, was as stubborn as I and would have hardly wanted you to prance out into the world on your own or he would have never left you in my care. You know full well he and I only ever argued about my way of life but that in the end, we still loved each other.”

Maybelle eyed the full glass of cognac, which had been set onto the gleaming surface of the walnut table before her, and heaved out an exasperated sigh as she sank into a chair, the curls of her gathered blonde hair quivering from the movement. “I take it there is no tea in the cupboards?”

Thérèse rolled her eyes. Tea was not going to get them through this day. “Och. Tea. The English are overly obsessed with it.” They both needed something stronger given the state of their finances the poor girl did not know about.

Rising from the settee she was draped against, Thérèse offered with theatrical flair, “We have every right to toast to all of our upcoming adventures. After all, you will finally get to visit your beloved Egypt, while I, I will finally have my School of Gallantry.” There. She said it.

Maybelle paused. “Your School of Gallantry?”

“Ah.” Thérèse bustled over toward the small writing bureau set in the corner of the parlor and snatched up a piece of parchment from atop a pile of correspondences. Turning, she bustled back again, her verdant skirts rustling. With a smile, she held out the sizable cream-colored parchment.

Her granddaughter mutely stared at the parchment dangling before her.

Still smiling, Thérèse grandly envisioned the words she herself had written a few months earlier when the idea first came to her. She needed money, after all, and British men were more than willing to give it when offered the right service.

Madame Thérése’s School of Gallantry

All gentlemen welcome.

Learn from the most celebrated demimondaine of France

Everything there is to know about love and seduction.

Only a limited amount of

Applications are being accepted

at 11 Berwick Street.

Discretion is guaranteed and advised.

Maybelle gaped at the parchment with wide blue eyes but still said nothing.

“Well?” Thérèse prodded, still holding out the advertisement. “What do you think?”

Her granddaughter rose from her parlor chair and snatched hold of the parchment. “Our reputation is already limp. Why on earth do you feel the need to flog it to death? You promised Papa you’d never return to being a demimondaine. You promised.”

There were some things one could not change, including one’s reputation that went back too many years to count. Whilst yes, she had entertained a long list of men in her lifetime given she had always wanted to believe there was a man worth loving out in that world, her name as a courtesan had always been far more exaggerated. Though…not by much.

Whilst being scandalous was advantageous in keeping most of the world away, it became incredibly annoying when it drove away the very people one wanted to stay. Sadly, her own granddaughter had a tendency to think her love for sex equated to her love for money. And whilst she loved sex, yes, one did not need sex to survive. Money, on the hand, one
needed
to survive.

Thérèse arched a silver brow. “This is not a return. I am merely selling techniques.”

“
Techniques
?” Maybelle smacked the parchment with the back of her hand. “It’s ludicrous. What man would ever admit to needing lessons in seduction? You of all people should know that it comes natural to men.”

What little this girl knew. “Does it? How odd. I suppose the thirty men who have already enlisted are merely looking for entertainment.” Thérèse plucked the advertisement back and smoothed the edges of it.

“Are we having trouble with our finances?” Maybelle prodded. “Is that it?”

Oh, dear. She couldn’t let the girl know their finances had been a mess long before she arrived into England. Spoiling a grandchild for nine years was a terrible, terrible thing that resulted in far more than bankruptcy. “
Non
. Our finances are exceptionally good.”

The last thing she wanted or needed was having the girl selling off all the countless items sitting up in the garret. Items she had acquired when she was barely twenty and still in love with...a duke. A duke whose face she only ever saw in her dreams and in the attic. An attic that was filled with countless paintings, trinkets, clothing and furniture she had purchased from the Andelot estate when France set all of his items on sale. She had outbid everyone for every last item.

It had cost her everything she had been worth, sending her into bankruptcy.