A Daring Passion (21 page)

If nothing else he should have received the largest share of the bounty.

It was little wonder he had gone a bit mad.

The silence remained intact until the carriage slowed to traverse the steep, narrow streets of Montmartre. Shifting on the leather seat, Philippe turned to regard her with a searching gaze.

“You are very quiet,
querida.
What is going through that mind of yours?”

Raine hesitated for a long moment. She had come to know Philippe well enough to realize that he was far too fond of considering his word as law. There were very few who were brave enough, or perhaps foolish enough, to dare imply he might be mistaken in any manner.

She was not, however, a woman who kept her opinions to herself. Not even when it obviously would be the wisest choice.

“Do you wish the truth?” she asked instead.

“I would not have asked if I did not wish the truth.”

“Very well.” She unconsciously squared her shoulders. “I was thinking that Seurat must be a lonely and sad man.”

He was seated close enough that she could feel his large body stiffen. “He is clearly demented and a danger to others.”

“You do not believe that he might have a legitimate reason for feeling betrayed by your family?” she demanded in low tones.

“He was being employed by my father when he stumbled across the tomb. As Mirabeau pointed out it, was within my father's right to claim it as his own.”

His tone held that arrogant edge that made Raine grit her teeth. “Within his rights?”

“Yes.”

“Which only means that your father possessed the wealth and power necessary to enforce his will,” she muttered.

His smile was derisive. “That is the way it has been, and always will be.”

Raine balled her hands in her lap. It was that or slapping the cold, aloof expression from Philippe's handsome face. There were times when he could be so blasted superior.

“But Seurat was the one to find the tomb.”

“It was my father who financed the excavation. Anything discovered belonged to him.”

“So because Seurat was a mere servant he was allowed nothing?”

A dangerous glitter darkened his green eyes. “He was no doubt paid for his services. He was a fool to expect more.”

She gave a slow shake of her head. “Good God, Philippe, do you have compassion for no one?”

Without warning he reached out to jerk the bonnet from her head before his fingers were grasping her chin in a firm grip. He leaned close enough for her to feel the heat of his breath sweep over her lips.

“Certainly not for a man who has plotted revenge upon my family for years. A man who has schemed to have my brother hanging from the gallows.”

Raine was forced to swallow the lump in her throat. She did not fear Philippe, but there was no mistaking the anger that smoldered just beneath his cold composure.

“I do not condone his…madness, but that does not mean he is undeserving of some pity,” she managed to point out.

“Pity is a weakness that has never troubled me.”

Well, that she easily believed. He had wrapped himself in an impervious cloak of icy indifference toward all but a handful of people he allowed himself to care about.

“Pity is not a weakness.”

His lips twisted. “Tell me, Raine, when the magistrate eventually comes to haul your father to prison, will you feel pity for the man just attempting to do his job? Or will you shoot him in the heart?”

Her breath caught at his brutal question. She had laid herself open for the attack, but that did not stop her from flinching.

“I…do not know,” she confessed in a husky voice. “I suppose I will always attempt to protect those I love.”

“As will I,” he said grimly.

She sucked in a deep breath. She could not explain why it was important to her that Philippe be swayed from his determination to destroy Seurat. The situation had nothing to do with her. But, something deep inside her wanted to reach past his brittle exterior to the vulnerable man beneath.

Her expression softened as she reached up to lightly touch his arm. “Philippe, has it occurred to you that if you could find Seurat and somehow offer him a portion of what he feels is due to him that he might willingly end his vengeance against your family? Would that not be preferable to be always fearing he is in the shadows stalking you?”

If anything his expression only hardened at her reasonable words. “When I am finished with Seurat, none of us will ever again have to worry about the bastard. That much I promise.”

“But…”

“Enough, Raine,” he rasped, a muscle twitching at the edge of his jaw. “I will deal with Seurat as I see fit. Do not presume to lecture me as if I am a child.”

She pulled away from his lingering touch, her own temper flaring. “I hardly consider offering reasonable advice the same as lecturing.”

“If I desired your advice I would ask for it,
querida.
That is certainly not the reason that I brought you to Paris.”

A sharp, ridiculous pain raced through her. Why did she think that she could reason with this man? He obviously considered her opinion beneath his consideration.

“Of course not,” she said bitterly. “I am merely the means for you to lure your prey. And of course, a convenient body in your bed.”

A sense of prickling danger filled the carriage as he gave a short, humorless laugh.

“Not even a fool would ever consider you convenient.”

Raine ignored the lethal softness of his tone and the relentless expression that tightened his features. She had been forcibly reminded of her shameful position in his life and she wanted to strike out at him. To punish him for not giving a bloody damn for her own feelings.

“Then release me,” she charged. “I have served my purpose. Send me back to England and be done with it.”

His green eyes flamed with an unfathomable emotion as his arms abruptly wrapped about her and he hauled her onto his lap.

Philippe felt his control snap as her words sent a flare of possessive fury raging through his body.

It was enough that she chided him as if he were a witless idiot. That she thought to badger him to feel sympathy for the man determined to destroy his family. But to actually demand that he release her…

“Never. You are mine, Raine. Nothing will change that.”

Her mouth parted in protest, but Philippe swooped down to cover her lips in a possessive kiss. He wanted to brand her. To prove to her once and for all that there was no escape for either of them.

Sweeping his tongue into her mouth, he tasted her sweet freshness.
Meu Deus,
he needed to be inside her. He needed to have her spread beneath him so that he could claim her in the most primitive means of all.

With exquisite timing the carriage rolled to a halt in the gardens of his brother's cottage and, keeping Raine cradled to his chest, Philippe vaulted from the carriage and headed directly toward the kitchen door.

He ignored the raised brows of the elderly cook and housemaids that swiftly scurried out of his path. Unlike Raine he felt no need to hide their intimate liaison. Especially not from a handful of servants.

Using the servants' staircase, Philippe climbed to the upper floor that contained the rooms he shared with Raine. Once in the bedchamber, he kicked the door shut and slowly allowed her to slide to her feet.

Her dark eyes smoldered as she glared at him with an anger that matched his own.

“I am not a bundle of rubbish to be hauled about, sir,” she stated, her cheeks flushed. “I am perfectly capable of walking where I wish to go.”

“But you might not have wished to walk where
I
wanted you to go,” he pointed out. “I have simply ensured there was no tedious argument.”

Her chin tilted. “Only a bully must use his superior strength to win an argument.”

His gaze blazed over her stiff body, lingering on the frantic pulse at the base of her throat. He had made love to her a dozen times over the past days. He had tasted every inch of her ivory skin, he had tutored her in pleasuring him with her hands and mouth, he had listened to her sweet cries of fulfillment as he plunged them both to climax.

He knew the curves of her body more intimately than his own.

This was the point that he began to find his lovers a bore. No matter how hot a passion might flame it was destined to burn out. Usually as fast as it had sparked.

He should be packing her bags and sending her on her way.

Instead his entire body was throbbing with a hunger that he was beginning to fear would never be assuaged by any other woman.

Hell and damnation.

Unable to stop himself, Philippe reached out with a slow, deliberate gesture. He held her gaze as he put his hands on her pretty Spenser and with a sharp motion ripped it open. The buttons popped loose and fell to the wooden floor.

Raine made a strangled noise as he pulled the ruined jacket from her body and then treated the pale ivory gown to the same savage treatment. The ripping of the fragile silk sounded unnaturally loud in the silent room. For a moment Raine remained frozen in shock and Philippe allowed his avid gaze to drink in the sight of her alabaster beauty.

So fragile. So perfect.

Then she was reaching out to smack his chest with a closed fist. “You demon. Have you gone mad?” she rasped.

He ignored her futile attack as his hands busily set about ridding her of the boned corset and thin chemise.

“If I have gone mad you've no one to blame but yourself,” he drawled wickedly, his blood running hot as he regarded her dressed in nothing more than her stockings and dainty slippers. “You have bewitched me to the point that no other woman will satisfy me. Now you must bear the repercussions of your feminine wiles.”

“You blame me for your outrageous behavior?” She glared at him, although Philippe did not miss the shiver that shook her body. Whatever this strange obsession, he was not alone in it. “Now I know you are out of your wits.”

Philippe chuckled as his fingers blazed a trail down the delicate curve of her back. He could feel her flesh quiver beneath his bold exploration.

“And who else would I blame,
meu amor?
” he whispered close to her ear. “'Twas you that threw yourself in my path. You who tempted me with your sinful beauty. You who have inflamed my desires until they are like a sickness that I cannot cure.”

“I have told you the cure.” Her eyes flashing, she demanded, “Release me. Let me go.”

“I possess the cure,” he said just before he covered her mouth in a savage, biting kiss.

Raine flinched in surprise at his punishing onslaught, but she made no effort to pull away. Instead her fingers curled into the lapels of his jacket as if to keep herself upright.

Philippe splayed his hand at the curve of her back to press her against the throbbing hardness of his erection while his other hand cupped the back of her head as he devoured her mouth with the hunger that raged through him.

“Philippe,” she whispered in surprise as he suddenly swung her into his arms, and carried her to the nearby bed.

“Shh.” He put her down on the bed, the pale sunlight angling across her body as he wrestled his way out of his clothes. “I need to be within you.”

She watched him with darkened eyes, her hair tumbled from its tidy knot to spread across the crisp white pillow. He gave a low groan as he moved to cover her body with his.

He knew that a part of her continued to resent her captivity at his hands. Her independent spirit would always rebel at the least touch of the leash. And yet, she belonged to him. Every last satin inch of her.

“So soft,” he muttered. “So sweet.”

He brushed his fingers across her small breasts and felt her nipples harden in response. She answered his touch with a readiness that clouded his mind with urgent need.

She moaned and lifted her hands to roughly shove them into his hair. He kissed her, feeling her lips tremble and then finally part in capitulation.

Philippe wanted more. Needed more. With a wild heat he framed her face as he kissed her with a gentle ravishment. He stroked his tongue deep into her mouth, he nipped at her lips, he muttered rough demands that made her quiver beneath him.

He felt her yielding as she roughly kissed him back and arched her body in silent demand. He gave a low growl as his lips explored her female temptation. Her breasts and the puckered tips of her nipples. She squirmed beneath his relentless quest, her fingers clutching at his hair as his mouth skimmed over her slender belly.

Philippe chuckled as he nuzzled the curve of her hip. He had made love to her in every position imaginable, and yet she remained oddly shy when he wished to pleasure her in such an intimate manner.

“Open for me,” he whispered.