England's Assassin (20 page)

“By my men,” Joseph was looking at her body again, dismissing her concern. “The guest list is immense and I shall be one of several ministers in attendance. Once the feast begins and the wine flows no one will take notice of who sleeps where.”

“Ladies always take notice of eligible men, Minister LeCoeur.” Mademoiselle Beauvoire was shaking her head. “Rest assured that your room will be observed by more than your guards. No, better we wait until—“

“I’ll come to you.” Joseph watched her entertain the idea and he kissed her before she had an opportunity to reject him. “I’ll come to your bedchamber and we can spend hours enjoying one another.” He kissed her lovely neck. “Without fear of being watched,” He kissed lower. “Without fear of being overheard.” He finished, aching to make her scream.

“But how?”

“Shhh,” Joseph kissed her one last time, making sure to have his fill. “Leave it to me,
mon cherie
. I am, after all, the Minister of Police.”

“Oh, look how clever you are Jonathan. You’ve gotten the top to spin all on your own.”

Falcon smiled at the delight in his daughter’s voice as she looked at her adoptive son. The boy grinned, his blue eye wide with the surprise of his own success.

“Look granpa!”

“Well done,” Falcon said, trying to muster an enthusiasm he did not feel as he reached down and tousled the boy’s black curls.

“Now thank your grandfather for the gifts then go with Mister White to your riding lesson.”

The boy hopped up from the marble floor and squeezed Falcon around the neck, filling his old heart. “Tank you—“

“Thank you.” His mother corrected the three year old.

The boy swallowed, his chubby cheeks bouncing on his face. “Thank you, granpa.”

“You’re very welcome, Jonathan.” Falcon patted the boy on the back and then the child ran to his mother, hugging her tightly. “I love you, mummy.”

His daughter’s eye filled with tears and she blinked them away. “I love you too, darling. Have a wonderful riding lesson and mummy will see you at dinner.”

The lad ran in stuttered steps toward Mister White who bowed to the baroness before taking Jonathan’s hand and leading the child from the room.

They both stared at the closed door and after a moment Falcon said, “He is doing remarkably well, Rose. I am very proud of you and cannot tell you how grateful—“

“Nonsense, father, it is I who should be thanking you.” She poured him a cup tea, handing it to him. “When I lost…” His daughter dabbed at her eyes, ripping at his heart in two. “When
we
lost Marcus, I thought I would shrivel up and die. And then you brought us Jonathan.” Rose smiled the same little smile that had warmed his soul since she was a girl of three. “It is I who am grateful.”

Falcon sipped his tea as they sat amongst the greenery and solitude of the isolated conservatory. He so enjoyed their weekly visit, but it often left them with nothing to say.

“Did she send the top?”

“Yes,” Falcon said, tensing. “She is naturally concerned for the boy’s wellbeing.”

“Naturally,” his daughter agreed, the brittle word softened by a sip of her tea.

“Rose,” Falcon met his daughter’s wary eye. “If she returns to England, she will not interfere with your rearing of Jonathan.”

“If?” Her brown brows drew together with compassionate distress. “You are concerned for her safety.”

Falcon nodded. “Very.”

“Why?”

“There have been developments, but you know I am not at liberty to discuss them,” Falcon sighed the years of responsibility pressing down him and for one moment he longed to be nothing more than to be a child’s grandpa.

“Oh, father,” Rose reached out and placed her hand on his. “How difficult your work must be for you.”

“Thank you, my dear,” he said truly grateful for her concern. “But I have come here to lighten my load not add weight to it.”

“Very well,” his daughter’s lips twitched with amusement. “What mundane aspects of country life shall we discuss?”

“Anything but horseflesh,” Falcon chuckled. “That husband of yours will give me an earful about the topic over dinner.”

“If only I had known of his fascination with horses when he asked me to marry him.”

“You would have married him none the less.”

“True,” Rose blushed, embarrassed. “I was a bit besotted with the man.”

“A bit?” Falcon snorted. “Your mother, rest her soul, dissuaded me from posting a guard at your door so that you would not run off to Gretna Green.”

“We never would have eloped, father! Alfred was too terrified of you to risk it.”

“A bright young man, you Alfred,” Falcon mused, grateful for this time together. He stared at the wooden top still lying motionless on the floor and purposefully looked away, turning instead to his only daughter and thinking back to her beautiful wedding some twenty years before. “A very bright man.”

“Don’t do it, Nicole,” he whispered over her right shoulder as she packed. “You don’t have to carry out this assassination.” The viscount grasped her upper arm and spun her to face him. “Come back to London with me.”

Nicole stared into his beautiful eyes and tears filled her own. “I can’t,” She looked down, the weight of her tears spilling them onto her satin slippers.

“Sure you can, lass,” Daniel Damont persuaded, lifting her chin to look at him. “Do ya remember when you asked me why I had come to Paris?”

Nicole nodded, tears now streaming down her face.

“I came to France because of a woman.” The words stabbed at her heart and Nicole squeezed her eyes shut in hopes of stopping the pain. “I wanted desperately to marry the lady.”

She covered her ears against his words, but the viscount continued to speak.

“I had envisioned Lady Duhearst as my wife from the time we were children, but when Sarah came of age she married one of my dearest friends, the Duke of Glenbroke.”

Nicole sat down on the edge of her bed but he followed, placing his hands on either side of her hips.

“Can you imagine the pain, the guilt of not only losing the woman you had chosen to be your bride, but to envy your friend his happiness? The pain of being invited to their happy home? The guilt of seeing Duchess Glenbroke with her children and thinking they should have been yours?”

“Stop it,” Nicole murmured.

“Can you imagine the pain, lass?”

“Stop it!” Nicole shouted meeting his eye, her devastation clear.

“And then I met you,” he whispered, caressing her cheek. “I came to Paris to forget the woman I fancied myself in love with but then I met you and all my childhood feelings paled in comparison. I’m in love with you, lass, totally and utterly besotted.”

Nicole was shaking her head wanting it to be true, but wanting more for him to find a woman worthy of his love.

“I don’t know how it happened only that it did and I want, I need you to come home with me.”

“I can’t.”

“I want to marry yo—“

“I can’t!” Nicole shouted, bolting up from the bed and looking down at his wounded eyes. “I can’t go back to England. I can’t marry you, Daniel. I can’t marry anyone.”

His mouth hung open in devastated shock and she knew that he could not form the words, the question he so desperately needed answering. 

“The scars on my back,” Nicole began, shaking. “Were not inflicted by French soldiers, but by my British husband.”

It took a moment for her confession to penetrate the viscount’s confused mind. His eyes hardened and Nicole took a step back, frightened by the change in his demeanor as Daniel rose to his feet, his jaw clenched more tightly than his enormous fists.

“Who is he?” Daniel Damont demanded. “I’m gonna to kill the bloody bastard.”

“You can’t!”

“Just you watch me, lass.” The viscount said with chilling resolve.

“No, you can’t, Daniel.” Nicole swallowed her shame. “Because I already killed him.”

His blue eyes focused on her face and not the distant task he had given himself. “What?

“Sit down,” Nicole begged, pushing against his hard chest and moving the stunned man as if he were a feather. The viscount collapsed on the wing backed chair and she sat facing him on the tiny footstool between his feet.

“When I was eleven years old my mother died,” she began, and he nodded still confused. “My father married shortly thereafter and he passed away when I was but seventeen, leaving my stepmother as my guardian.” Nicole glanced up to see that he was following.

“The lady counted the days until she could be rid of me and when her cousin of thirty-four years came to visit, she knew she had her chance.”

Nicole bit her lower lip, finding it difficult to unearth the memories she had so thoroughly buried.

“You see the gentleman was enamored of my charms.” Daniel glanced at her décolletage and Nicole knew that he took her meaning. “Not to mention my robust fortune. So, my stepmother arranged, for a very large fee, for her cousin to marry me the day I turned eighteen.”

“Why did you agree to such a marriage?”

“I had no choice in the matter.” Nicole snorted in disgust. “My stepmother literally dragged me kicking and screaming before the local vicar who was paid to turn a blind eye to my distress.”

“I’m so sorry, lass.” Daniel grabbed her hands, caressing the backs of them gently with his thumbs and this time she did cry.

“As to the scars, my husband enjoyed beating me before—“

“Shhh,” he breathed, his long arms wrapping around her as the viscount pulled her to his chest. “It alright, lass, you don’t need to speak of it.”

Nicole laid her head on his sturdy shoulder and let the strokes of his hand expel the relentless cold. And when she felt strong enough to endure his repulsion, Nicole sat back and looked him in the eye. She stared at the blue depth so that he would know, so that he would understand why she could not, and never would, be able to marry him.

“My name is not Nicole Beauvoire, Daniel.” She let out her fear in one long breath. “My name is Nicole Stratton.” Nicole watched the name bouncing around in his memory and she was powerless to stop the inevitable realization. “Lady Nicole Stratton.”

The viscount jerked his hands from hers and Nicole forced her chin to stop quivering.

“I can’t marry you, Daniel.”

“You were hanged two years ago!” he whispered to himself, his eyes looking at Nicole as if she were a perilous apparition.

“Falcon needed a gently bred woman to infiltrate Parisian Society.” Her eyes dimmed with guilt. “He arrange for a substitute to be hanged in my place so that I might become that woman. A prostitute convicted of murder, sentenced to hang one month after my own execution. The woman had black hair and blue eye and need only be convincing on the short walked to the gallows.”

“Why would she agree—“

Nicole stood, covering her face with her right hand to push the memories away. “She had a child, a one year old child. Falcon agreed to see to the boy, to his education.”

“The gifts? You send the lad gifts.”

“His mother saved us both that day.”

“Aye, she did,” Daniel said, grabbing her about the shoulders and turning her to look at him. “So, do not throw your life away in Paris. Marry me, Nicole! Come back to London and we’ll raise the lad together.”

Sobbing, Nicole placed her hand over her mouth.

“I can’t marry you, Daniel,” The light drained from his eyes and Nicole realized that she had never experienced such pain. Even at the hands of her sadistic husband. “If I return to England, I return to Newgate to be hanged.”

They stared at one another, helpless and then Nicole walked toward the bed and continued her packing.

“Do you love me, Nicole?”

She closed her eyes, torn apart by the ache in his stilted voice. Nicole turned so that he could see the sincerity in her eyes, her heart.

“Daniel, I have loved you from the moment I realized that you had stolen my pistol.”

He grinned, miserable. “’twas my kiss, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” she nodded tears spilling on her cheeks. “Your kiss and your kindness.” Nicole tried to smile. “You’ll make some lucky lass a wonderful husband, Daniel McCurren.”

Neither of them could stand the pain, but it was he who closed the distance between them to ease it. He bent his head and seized her in a desperate kiss while she pushed impatiently at his jacket.

The exquisite garment was flung to the floor, the sleeves turned inside out. His fingers fought the tiny buttons at the back of her gown until, frustrated, his yanked, sending the buttons cascading about the room like heavy drops of rain. They let go of one another, only to return the instant a new item of clothing went flying.

His shirt was tossed onto the carpet and Nicole pulled her mind away from his mouth so that she could have a good, long look at his exquisite body. Nicole tugged her gown down and he watched, his breathing heavy as she reached round to untie her corset.

Her chemise went with it and she danced on her skirts to disentangle her feet. Free, Nicole looked up and launched herself naked into his arms muscular arms, oversetting them both. They were kissing before they hit the mattress of her four poster bed. She closed her eyes, the heat of his chest on her breasts was unbearable.

“Make love to me, Nicole,” the viscount whispered in her ear.

“You’re the only man I have ever made love to, Daniel.” He looked down at her, the enormity of her words hitting them hard.

They became silent, words too inadequate a form of expression. Daniel’s hands spoke for him, marking her as forever his and they both gasped when he introduced one long, finger into her wet heat. His mouth clamped over her nipple and he suckled in rhythm with his gentle thrusts.

Every stroke seemed to linger longer than the last, seemed to torture her more. But it was his weight, the strength of his hand grasping her inner thigh, his sheer masculinity that had her hips rising with approval.

Nicole bit him on the shoulder, needing to taste him and he countered by kissing her neck. She was close to finding her pleasure and Daniel knew it. Nicole could sense his excitement; feel his exhilaration as he pressed against her.

And then with one tender stroke, she shattered, crying out in delight. The viscount groaned, suckling her breast and then lifting himself to yank off his buckskins. He threw the duvet off the bed and crawled over her, pinning her wrists to the mattress.

He was feral, driven solely by the primal need to mate. She spread her thighs, offering herself to him and waiting to be filled by his power. But she was left wanting. Confused, Nicole opened her eyes only to see him staring at her wrists.

“I’m sorry.” Daniel looked horrified and she’d no idea why. “I dinna think.”

Nicole looked deeply into his eye and then, with a sharp intake of breath, she knew the source of his distress.

“Oh, Daniel, you could never hurt me as my husband did.” She shook her head, reflecting her certainty.

“’Tis why you don’t like to be handled.” Daniel rolled over, propping himself against two pillows. “And I was tossin’ you about like a rag doll,” he said, torturing himself with guilt.

Nicole went to him, overwhelmed by the sheer decency of the man.

“I only like being handled when I wish to be handled.” The viscount looked up hopeful. “And a woman rather enjoys a man who is capable of tossing her about.”

“If she wishes to be tossed,” he grinned.

“If she wishes to be tossed.” Nicole swung her knee over his muscled thighs and settled in his lap. His eyes closed at the feel of her soft backside caressing his hard sex. “Look at me, Daniel.”

The viscount met her eye and she felt his hands on her hips, guiding her as she took him in.

“Oh, lass,” Daniel said, holding her eyes as he filled her. “I want ya so much.”

“Shh.” Nicole knew he was not speaking of their lovemaking, but the alternative was too painful to contemplate, to painful to hear. She had him here and now and Nicole intended to make the most of today.

For tomorrow she had a duty to perform and a debt to repay, but at present all Nicole could think of was how to protect this noble man and how to keep him safe, not only from the French, but from himself.