Adele Ashworth (40 page)

He raised one eyelid, squinting, reaching for her with his palm, but she wasn’t beside him. Then he heard her downstairs, in the kitchen below, and the soft hum of her voice was enough to drag him from between the covers.

Jonathan dressed to his waist, splashed cold water on his face from the full pitcher on the washstand, ran his still-damp fingers through his hair, and left the bedroom.

He descended the stairs quickly, strode through the hallway, and stopped in the doorway to his kitchen, because the sudden sight of her dazzled him.

She stood by the stove, facing him, hands behind her back, wearing only a silk wrap in deep red, tied by a sash at the waist, which left it open from the thighs down and in a low plunge between her breasts. She’d pinned her hair loosely atop her head, although strands of it curled wildly down her temples, neck, and back.

She smiled hesitantly, cheeks flushing a gentle pink when she became aware of his presence, eyeing him through half-raised lashes, and Jonathan was certain he’d never seen anything more alluring in his life.

God, she was so beautiful, so sweet and soft and feminine, affecting him in ways he’d never imagined. His body tightened, his breath caught, and he wondered what she’d think if he pulled slowly on the sash, ran his tongue across her collarbone until she moaned, and just took her—

“I’ve made you coffee,” she said timidly.

“You’ve made me happy and satisfied as I’ve never been before, Natalie,” he corrected in a thick drawl.

A smile tugged at her lips again, and she glanced to her bare feet to escape his heated gaze. “You’re delusional.”

He chuckled and sauntered toward her. “I think it’s more accurate to say I’m blessed and I know it.”

She shook her head and whispered, “Jonathan, last night—”

“Was perfect,” he finished for her.

She almost laughed, restraining herself with difficulty. “That wasn’t what I was going to say.”

He took her chin with his fingers and lifted her face so she couldn’t help but look at him. “You were going to say it was less than perfect?” His eyes grew round with innocent hurt. “I’m devastated.”

The collar of her robe threatened to fall down her arm, and she yanked it up, trying to remain stern even as her eyes crinkled with amusement. “We need to discuss serious issues before we get into anything . . . intimate.”

“Ahh . . . Of course.” He released her chin and looked over her shoulder. “It’s boiling.”

She turned awkwardly in the tight space between his bare chest and the stove. “Finally. Go sit at the table.”

He considered moving away from the distracting warmth of her body and the smell of lilacs in her hair, but doing so was difficult. And was it lilacs? He couldn’t remember what lilacs smelled like exactly, but lilacs were supposed to smell heavenly, and of course her hair smelled clean and flowery and felt heavenly against his—

“Jonathan, sit,” she ordered, cringing and lifting her shoulder against his intrusive face. “You’re breathing down my neck.”

He sighed loudly and mumbled, “If you insist.”

“I do.”

He glided his tongue along the smooth rim of her ear. She shuddered but ignored him, and at last he withdrew from the sensuous feel of her silk robe rubbing his chest and stepped toward the oak table where they’d had their first coffee together more than two months ago.

This morning, however, she’d already set two places with saucers, spoons, and a bowl of sugar and a pitcher of cream between them. In the center of the table were chocolates, laid out on a plate in the shape of a heart.

He stared at them nonplussed, head cocked to one side, a crooked grin on his mouth. “Chocolates for breakfast?”

She said nothing, and after a second or two he turned to her. She carried their cups in her hands as she walked in his direction, careful not to look at him.

“What is it?” he asked suspiciously, pulling a chair out for her.

She glanced at him mischievously, then placed the full cups of coffee on the saucers. “It’s symbolic, but I’ll get to that in a moment.”

Withholding comment on the symbolism of chocolate at half past seven in the morning, he sat after she did, beside her, studying her and the pearly cleavage exposed between crimson silk, her long, lowered lashes, the way her forehead creased into two fine lines of concentration as she added half a cup of cream and at least three teaspoons of sugar.

Entranced, he lifted his cup to his lips and suddenly wished he’d added the same. The coffee was bitterly strong, nearly undrinkable, but she had made it, and he pretended not to notice.

“You’re staring at me again, Jonathan,” she scolded in a low voice.

He smirked. “A naughty habit that I imagine will haunt me for the next fifty years.”

She smiled, gaze lowered as she sat back in her chair. “I hope so.”

It was her first verbal concession to her own acceptance of a lifetime spent with him, and the thought, the idea, made his heart start to beat hard and fast. He took another drink of the incredibly awful coffee to hide his elated expression should she decide to look up.

“How did you get in here, Natalie?”

She stared at the chocolates. “I found a key under a flowerpot sitting on the stone steps that lead to the servants’ entrance.”

“My housekeeper, Gerty, is rather forgetful,” he explained without surprise.

“I assumed so.”

“Did you?”

She disregarded the implication in his simple question, apparently deciding he didn’t need to say aloud that he wouldn’t leave a key for a mistress to enter through the servants’ door. That was far-fetched, and she knew it.

Finally she took a sip of coffee, then made a face of disgust. “It’s not very good—”

“It’s fine,” he countered, bringing his cup to his lips without expression. “How long have you been here?”

That made her uncomfortable, and she twisted her body just enough in the chair that the silk opened a little more, exposing her right breast nearly all the way to her nipple. She didn’t notice, though, and he wasn’t about to tell her.

She glanced out the window. “I’ve been here since Tuesday.”

That jolted him. “You haven’t been home?”

“No. I’ve been waiting for you.”

He knew he beamed from that remark. Probably too much.

She touched a loose strand of her hair and coiled it around her finger absentmindedly. “Your servants will be back soon, won’t they?”

“I’ll probably request that they return Monday,” he replied. “There are only the two of them, and they’re paid regardless.”

“So I can stay the weekend.”

It wasn’t a casual question but a pointed statement full of hope, and suddenly he wanted her sitting in his lap, her mouth lingering on his, her bare bottom rubbing against him.

“I need to know some things, Jonathan.”

He raised his cup to his lips. “Hmm?”

Seconds later she moved inquisitive eyes back to his. “First,” she began thoughtfully, “beyond the fact that I know Louis Philippe is alive and well and still in power, I have no idea what happened in Paris after I left.”

He lifted his brows and relaxed in his chair. “Well, not much did happen, really. The comte d’Arles and six or seven other Legitimists were arrested early Sunday morning. The assassination attempt was carried off as planned, and there was a scuffle among the crowd. But the king was never very close to danger.”

“Thanks to you, I suppose,” she put in with a prideful tilt of her head.

He grinned again. “No, actually, he was fairly well guarded anyway.”

“How humble you are today, Jonathan.”

Shrugging fractionally, he conceded, “I do take credit when it’s mine.”

She almost laughed. “Yes, indeed you do. You’re very good at that.”

Jonathan turned his attention to his cup, tracing the rim with the pad of a finger. “Several were injured along the parade route, though. Two or three critically. The little information I revealed couldn’t prevent unrest.” His expression became guarded, his voice taking on a more serious air. “Louis Philippe won’t last a year, Natalie. His reign, if one could call it that, is nearly over already. The people are restless and ready for change.”

“And our good friend the comte d’Arles?”

Jonathan shook his head, frowning. “He’s probably home in Marseilles, the entire episode behind him. He and other nobles of his generation are far too prominent to be kept in custody during such a time of civil unrest. There’s more at stake for the French government than attempting to prosecute influential, wealthy men for an assassination plot that cannot be traced to them directly.” He looked back into her eyes. “The Legitimists want Henri on the throne, and maybe they’ll get their wish eventually.”

She considered that for a moment, sipping her coffee, staring at the table.

“Are you going to tell me about the chocolates?” he pushed at last.

“Are you going to tell me about the emeralds?” she returned matter-of-factly.

He sighed and rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. “I forgot about the emeralds.”

“Again?” she charged sarcastically. Stirring yet another teaspoon of sugar into her coffee, she scrutinized him as she would a naughty child. “That’s a nasty habit of yours as well, Jonathan. A decent thief shouldn’t forget the objects of his endeavors so frequently.”

“That’s why I need you, Natalie,” he admitted. “I’m getting too old to do this work on my own. I’m becoming forgetful.”

She stared hard at him. “You’re not even thirty. And don’t change the subject.”

Resisting a smile, Jonathan leaned forward, resting his forearms on the hard oak surface of his table as he turned his cup around in his hands. “I gave the real emeralds to Madeleine in Marseilles the day after I stole them. She got them out of France—before the ball. We couldn’t chance having them found once the count realized he had glass jewels in his possession.”

Natalie placed her elbows on the table and covered her face with her palms. “So you carried two identical forgeries to France.”

“Two forgeries and the onyx necklace,” he replied. “I didn’t know what I’d need, or what I’d leave behind in the safe the night of the ball. In the end I chose the onyx.”

“So I stole a glass necklace from your trunk. How ridiculous I must have looked to you.”

“Don’t be embarrassed,” he said softly, watching traces of pink flowing into her cheeks that she attempted to hide. “Your shrewdness took me quite by surprise.”

“This also explains why you weren’t angry with me.”

“I wouldn’t have been angry at you for stealing real emeralds, Natalie,” he maintained in a tone filled with deep meaning. “I was fascinated by everything about you on our little adventure.”

She thought about that for a minute, then shook her head in her hands. “I’m disgusted. Madeleine knew this all along, and still she let me believe I had the real jewels, encouraged me to attend that dreadful party in Paris.”

He waited, then reached for her wrist, which she tried to keep from his grasp to no avail. He pulled it from her, wrapping his large hand around her soft, smaller one. “Madeleine’s smart, Natalie.”

She groaned and briefly closed her eyes, one palm clasped with his across the edge of the table, the other resting on her forehead. “No, she’s astounding. The two of you make a magnificent team.”

He wasn’t sure if she was being serious or sarcastic, but he rubbed her fingers with his thumb and lowered his voice to a soothing caress. “Madeleine works on her own. She always has and probably always will. But she sensed very early that I was devoted to you—that I wanted to work with you, to be with you. That I was falling in love with you.”

Her warm fingers stiffened in his hand, but he held fast to them. “You and I are the team, Natalie. You’re aware of this or you wouldn’t be here now, wearing red silk over bare skin, smelling like flowers and warm sheets and a night of lovemaking, tempting me with your smile and eyes.” Gravely he whispered, “I think it’s time for you to tell me.”

Static charged the air, and Natalie knew, with a sudden tightening in her belly, that confession time had come. It had, in fact, been coming for weeks. He realized it as well, sitting smugly next to her at the table, rubbing her fingers with his, waiting arrogantly for her buried secrets to be revealed.

She straightened a little and covered her coffee cup with her right hand, clutching it as her pulse sped up with anticipation and a creeping fear of the unknown. He felt her reluctance to begin but said nothing in response, just watched her intently with his beautiful eyes as they gazed through hers to touch her deepest feelings.

“Madeleine
is
smart, Jonathan,” she started huskily.

That wasn’t what he wanted to hear. He hadn’t expected to talk more of the Frenchwoman, and he couldn’t hide the dismay in his expression, which she had to admit pleased her.

She attempted a smile. “The chocolates were her idea.”

Now his brows furrowed in confused interest.

“Well, not exactly,” she clarified with a small shake of her head. She paused to collect her thoughts, and he held even tighter to her fingers. “I told Madeleine that I thought you had cut my heart to pieces the night I gave myself to you. She defended you by saying that couldn’t have happened unless I had given you my heart as well.” She glanced quickly at the chocolates then back at his face, her stomach now in knots, pulse racing, mouth dry. “I never really did that, did I, Jonathan?”

His body stilled, and he barely breathed. “No.”

Natalie locked her gaze with his. “That’s what the chocolates are for,” she disclosed in a raspy, nervous breath. “They symbolize my heart. I’m giving it to you now.”

For an endless moment he stared into her eyes, clinging to her fingers. Then he whispered, “Why?”

She succumbed to tears she could no longer fight. “Because I love you.”

It was as if the mysteries of the universe were unveiled for him in that instant. Air hissed through his teeth as he inhaled, and his eyes, his features, every part of him beamed in a vivid pleasure she felt as an ache in her own chest.

“I’m afraid of it, Jonathan.”

He caressed her with his gaze, her fingers with his thumb. “I know you are.”