Awakened by a Kiss (30 page)

The Comtesse took Anne’s other hand. “Anne, I’m too old for this. This wait is taking years off my life. We’ll assure the King that Leduc is through. He’ll not write again.”

Anne glanced at the older woman and then at Nicolas.

“She’s right,
chérie
. Leduc is done,” he said. “He has to be. Even if the King is in a generous mood, he’ll not permit you to keep breaking the law.”

Anne gazed straight ahead and then softly ceded. “I know. But who will speak for those women in distress? Leduc was their only voice.”

“We’ll think of another way to aid women,” his grandmother offered. “But it will be legal. Something that won’t perturb the King.”

The door burst open, causing Anne to jump and Nicolas’s heart to lurch. The King and his Captain, Tiersonnier, marched in.

Immediately, Nicolas and Thomas bowed as the women curtsied low.

Louis sighed. “Which one is the author?” he asked Tiersonnier.

Nicolas didn’t like the annoyance in the King’s tone. His mood wasn’t particularly genial today. His fear spiked.

Anne stepped forward. “I am, Sire.”

His insides knotted. Nicolas wanted to yank her back and shout, “No! There’s been a mistake.”

Louis cocked a brow, then tilted his head to one side. His gaze moved over Anne, a slow assessment that made Nicolas’s nostrils flare and his fists clench. At close to fifty years of age, his King was a notorious womanizer, and the leer he’d directed at Anne gave him great unease.

“Come with me,” Louis said, spinning on his heel and stalking from the room. Anne fell into step behind the King.

Nicolas stepped forward, but Tiersonnier pushed his hand against Nicolas’s chest. “Not you. Just her. Everyone else waits here.” Tiersonnier fell in behind Anne.

The doors closed.

Nicolas’s heart sank. His ire rose. There were State Rooms on either side of the Mars drawing room. It didn’t escape his notice that the King was headed in the direction of his private apartments—
where his bedchamber was located
.

Camille wept openly now, accepting Thomas’s shoulder as her sobbing worsened.

Nicolas’s mind was besieged with unwanted thoughts far worse than before. Was he supposed to just wait here while the King took Anne and . . . He couldn’t finish the thought.

Teeth clenched, he marched to the window and looked down at the north gardens, but all he saw were the images flashing in his brain of Anne in the King’s bed. He slammed his fist against the wall.

“Nicolas.” His grandmother placed her hand on his shoulder. “I know what you’re thinking but you mustn’t torture yourself so. Anne is an intelligent woman. She’s been propositioned by powerful men before. She knows how to be tactful, yet to the point.”

“She’s never had to refuse a King.”

“I believe in her, Nicolas, and so should you,” she countered.

“I do believe in her. But I know Louis’s vice-ridden ways,” he said tightly. It took every ounce of will he possessed not to race down to the State apartments after Anne.

The doors swung open, ensnaring Nicolas’s attention.

Tiersonnier stood at the threshold. “Follow me.” He turned and left.

The Captain of the Guard led them through more State Rooms, down the stairwell, and eventually to the doors leading out to the gardens.

“Are the King and Mademoiselle de Vignon outside?” Nicolas asked.

“No,” was all Tiersonnier offered.

Nicolas wasn’t about to relent. “Will the mademoiselle be escorted to the gardens to where her family is waiting?” He needed answers. He was about ready to jump out of his skin.

“If that is what His Majesty chooses.” Tiersonnier was a large, imposing man, only a few years older than Nicolas and beyond irritating.

“Do you have any idea how long her family will have to wait out in the gardens before His Majesty ‘chooses’?”

Eyes narrowed, Tiersonnier stepped in close, a gesture meant to intimidate, knowing he had a deterring effect on the men in the Guard. But Nicolas was neither deterred nor intimidated. He glared back, wanting nothing more than to deliver his fist against the man’s arrogant jaw.

“Savignac, you’d do well to remember not to question your superiors. You’ll wait in the gardens as ordered by the King until you are told otherwise.”

“Of course, Captain,” Thomas said, yanking Nicolas away and shoving him out the door.

Outside in the gardens, the noise from the throng abraded Nicolas’s jangled nerves. He tried to maintain his composure, but he couldn’t stop thinking, as his eyes scanned the windows on the upper floor—where the King’s private apartments were located. Anne was alone up there, with their lascivious monarch.

Was the King striking a bargain with her? Her freedom for a fuck? Worse still, what if Louis asked her to be his next mistress? Versailles would become her gilded prison. And until the King lost interest, she’d be lost to Nicolas.

“Forget about it, Nicolas,” Thomas murmured in his ear. “You can’t go back in there.”

“Anne,” Camille gasped.

Nicolas snapped his head around, searching the crowd, his heart suddenly pounding in his throat. He caught sight of her brilliant red hair as she maneuvered through the throng.

She was alone. Her expression was unreadable.

Forcing his legs to eat up the distance between them, he grabbed her by the shoulders the moment he reached her. “What happened?”

Her sisters, Thomas, and the Comtesse grouped around her, insulating her from the scores of people around them.

“It seems that the King is about as fond of the male aristocracy as Leduc is,” Anne said, sotto voce.

“What do you mean?” Henriette asked.

“He told me that he
enjoyed
the stories.”

Camille placed her hand on Anne’s arm. “Enjoyed? He really said that?”

Anne nodded. “He has a great dislike for many of the men I depicted in the pen portraits and found the volumes amusing. He confided that since the Fronde, he hasn’t had much regard for the men in the upper class.”

The Comtesse let out a laugh. “
Ah
, the Fronde, of course! Louis was still a boy, not yet old enough to rule, when his cousin and many noblemen rose up against him, almost dethroning him. It happened before any of you were born. It was a horrible uprising against the Crown. In fact, he and his mother had to flee Paris in the middle of the night and live in exile until the country could be brought back to order.”

“Well, he’s not forgotten the ordeal, I can assure you,” Anne said. “It has colored the way he looks at men of power.”

“What does this mean?” Nicolas asked. “Are you free to go?”

A beautiful, radiant smile formed on her lips. “Yes. But I am forbidden to write any more stories by Leduc. He gave me praise and a warning.”

Nicolas let out a whoop of joy and pulled her into his arms. He didn’t care who was watching. He just wanted to hold her, the tension and fear draining from his body.

Then a thought struck him.

He pulled her away. “Excuse us,” he told the others, clasped her hand, and strode off, stopping several feet away from their group and the crowd. Holding her by the shoulders, he asked, “Did the King try to . . . Did he . . . proposition you?”

She lifted a brow. “Oh. Yes. He did.” Her tone was flippant.

A smile twitched on her lips. “I’m not going to be the next royal mistress, Nicolas—if I get a better offer, that is.” Mischief twinkled in her eyes. She was clearly enjoying herself at his expense.

He pulled her to him and dipped his head, her smile contagious. “You’re being very naughty, Anne,” he murmured in her ear, his cock swelling between them. “Perhaps I’ll take you home and tie you to my bed and keep you bound for my pleasure. That way there can be no other man.”

“Perhaps the only offer I’ll accept is having you tied to my bed, bound for my pleasure.”

He laughed. “I like it when you’re saucy.” He kissed her, enjoying the wet, silky warmth of her mouth. “Anne de Vignon, you are mine. I love you.”

Her cheeks were a pretty pink, a small sign that she was already heated from their short exchange. “I love you, too. With all my heart. And I’m going to help those women somehow, Nicolas.”

He brushed an errant red curl off her cheek. “I know you are, and I fully support it, as long as you stay away from the King.”

She placed her hands on his chest. “I’m also going to write a lot more poetry.”

He grinned. “The world will be enriched by them.”

Anne’s smile grew and she slipped her arms around his waist. “And what are your plans for the future, sir?”

He lowered his head and brushed his lips lightly over the sensitive spot under her ear, enjoying her gasp. “I intend to marry one very beautiful redheaded poetess and spend the rest of my days cherishing her.”

Moral of the Story of
Puss in Boots

 

 

CHARLES PERRAULT
(1628-1703)

“Do you
really
think your plan will work?” Claire swiped a curl from her damp forehead. The summer breeze stealing its way into their moving carriage was a mixed blessing. It offered some relief from the heat, but brought with it wafts of dust.

This wasn’t the most comfortable trip Elisabeth de Roussel had ever taken, but it was the most important—to her. “For the third time, yes.” Her voice was calm, belying the disquiet she felt. Her nerves jangled; she didn’t need her sister to keep repeating the same question.

“You’re going to seduce Tristan de Tiersonnier, a man who makes other men quake with fear and women tremble with desire. And you’re going to do it, dressed like
that
?”

“That is the plan.” Elisabeth glanced over at her maid, Agathe, and caught her rolling her eyes. Elisabeth fully expected the older woman to voice her dissent over the plan, but instead Agathe was uncharacteristically quiet, and stared out the window, lips pursed.

Claire leaned in. “Elisabeth, you are dressed like a
man
. A shirt, breeches, black boots—those are men’s clothes. Well, perhaps not
those
black boots. No man would wear something so snug around his calves.”

“I’m quite aware of how I’m dressed, dear sister.” Her younger sibling didn’t need to know what an utter mess Elisabeth was inside, nor was she going to admit that having her prized sword at her hip gave her confidence and helped bolster courage. And courage was what she’d need to execute her plan.

Especially when the plan centered on the only man who intimidated her. The imposing, sinfully beautiful former commander of the King’s private Guard—the Musketeers—Tristan de Tiersonnier, Comte de Saint-Marcel.

One look from his intense blue eyes and she was undone—when no man shook her, not even her father, the King. By doing nothing more than walking into a room, Tristan commanded her attention and ignited her senses—reducing her into some gawking, unsophisticated ingénue. With his confident manner, his tall and powerful body, he exuded authority. And—God help her—such potent sensuality. He made her ache. Heart and body.

He burned in her blood.

Sadly, nothing had lessened her fever for Tristan. Not marriage to another man. Not the lovers she’d taken since the Duc’s death. Not time nor distance.

“I’m all for being a part of one of your schemes, Elisabeth,” Claire said. “In fact, I’d never refuse. They’re far too much fun. But this one is rather involved.”

That was an understatement. Claire had no idea just how involved her plan was or what Elisabeth truly hoped to accomplish during this sojourn, but she couldn’t explain any of it to her sister. Claire always looked up to her. As much as she adored Claire, Elisabeth couldn’t reveal to her, or anyone, just how vulnerable she was to Tristan.