Julia London 4 Book Bundle (49 page)

P
ARIS
, F
RANCE
, 1836

A
HA!
H
E
W
AS
being smothered by a pair of breasts.

That at least explained the strong scent of a woman. Julian shifted between the two luscious mounds and gasped for air as a most delectable female creature murmured unintelligible phrases in his ear. Unfortunately, even the touch of the little French goddess couldn’t raise him higher than half-mast. A
crane
couldn’t raise him higher than half-mast—damned appendage was nothing but trouble of late.

Julian sighed, realized he was still holding a bottle of whiskey, and managed to take a good swig of it before burying his face between her breasts again. A bead of perspiration trickled down his temple and he couldn’t help smiling; perhaps he just wasn’t trying hard enough. As if on cue, sweet Lisette sighed longingly, inflaming all of his masculine senses—except
that
one, curse it to hell—and Julian attempted to position himself for another go at it. His fingertips brushed a taut nipple; his palm cupped the firm swell of her breast—

The cold hands on his shoulders startled him so badly he couldn’t even cry out. Suddenly, he felt himself being lifted and heard Lisette’s muffled shriek as the bottle of whiskey flew out of his hand and scudded across the bed.
He caught just a glimpse of the elaborate frieze moldings on the ceiling before he hit the hard wood floor with a resounding
thud
.

Now that hurt. Wincing painfully, Julian glanced up at his assailant. “What in blazes did you do that for?” The response was the toss of his shirt onto his head. He yanked it from his face and glared up at the infidel towering high above him—Louis Renault, otherwise known in this godforsaken country as Monsieur le Comte de Claire. A scoundrel if Julian had ever known one, an insufferable Frog with all the manners of a toad, and most unfortunately, the husband of his sister Eugenie.

Unsteadily, Julian gained his feet.

With disapproval seeping through every pore, Louis let his gaze sweep over Julian as he folded his arms across his chest. “Did you come to Paris to make trouble for me? Is that how you repay my kindness to your sister?” he demanded in that smooth, silky way he had of speaking English, and stooped to pick up Julian’s trousers. “Come. Your frolic
is fini
. You must go from
here.
”

Go? Julian glanced at Lisette, who smiled seductively and twisted a blonde lock around one finger. From
here
? His focus slipped to the rumpled bedding—
ho there! Where was his whiskey
?

“Kettering, listen to me!” With supreme effort, Julian forced himself to look at the Frog—no small feat given that there appeared to be at least two of him. “You are in danger.… Do you understand?”

He understood all right. “Ridiculous,” he mumbled, and waved dramatically at the little French goddess. “What danger is Lisette?”

With a snort, Louis tossed his trousers to him, which Julian caught clumsily against his chest. “If you do not leave Paris at once, Monsieur LeBeau will see you shot. Or worse. Dress, will you?”

Dress. One glance down his naked body and Julian silently agreed that he ought to at least cover up the offending parts. All right, he’d dress, but he wasn’t going anywhere with Louis. He was going to crawl right back
into that bed and pick up where he had left off. Needing both hands to attempt the trousers, he dropped his shirt and lifted one leg. He missed.

This would, apparently, require some keen navigational skills.

“
Mon Dieu!
I’ll be forced to carry you from here!” Louis exclaimed, and grabbing Julian’s arm—rather
tightly
—steadied him so that he could get his trousers on. “I distinctly warned you of the trouble you were causing, didn’t I? LeBeau is a hateful man. I told you this, more than once I told you this, but would you listen? No! I ask you now—Madame LeBeau, is she so appealing for all the trouble you’ve caused?”

Julian paused with one leg in and one leg out of his trousers to ponder that. He could vaguely recall seeing Gisele LeBeau. Had she actually kissed him again? Probably. The woman could fill an ocean with her gall.

“What, so you think he would ignore this?” Louis heatedly continued. “Some of the most important names in Paris attend the balls on the Boulevard St Michel. How could you humiliate him so? Dallying with his very own wife!”

Actually, Gisele had cornered him when he wasn’t looking, not the other way around. And what was he to do? When a comely woman pressed her breasts against him, he was only human. “Ha!” Julian interjected, thrusting the second leg into his trousers with such force that he swerved right into Louis’s chest. “LeBeau is a …”—he had to think about this—“a shrimp. With ears,” he added firmly, and clumsily attempted the buttons.

A hard jerk of his arm, and Louis was suddenly standing so close that Julian had trouble focusing on his flaring nostrils. “You would do well to heed my advice,
mon ami
. In France, a discreet affair is something a man expects and may tolerate, but to publicly
coqueter
with his wife in the most crowded ballroom in all of Paris is another thing entirely. These things turn deadly when a man’s honor has been compromised! Trust me, LeBeau will see you dead if you remain here!”

The image that conjured up suddenly made Julian laugh. For some unknown reason, so did Lisette.

A rapid-fire, heated string of French fairly burst from Louis’s lips. Although Julian thought he spoke French fairly well, when Louis was in a mood, he spoke that fast, never-let-an-Englishman-understand-you French. Hell, even Lisette seemed to be having trouble keeping up with him. With an impatient flick of his wrist, Julian said, “You fret like an old woman, Renault. Off with you now.”

What was amazing, Julian would later recall, was that he never saw Louis move. He never even felt the impact of Louis’s fist against his jaw. He just had the strange sensation of flying before everything went black.

Barefoot, Claudia was walking toward him across the wide green lawn at Château la Claire, her skirts free of stiff petticoats and dragging the grass behind her. Her hair was loose and flowing, skimming over creamy white shoulders and down her back. His longing for her was so great that it threatened to choke him—and in fact, he could scarcely breathe
.…

Because there was a blasted
noose
tied tightly about his neck, and obviously, he had been strangling for sometime. As Julian roused himself from the deepest remnants of sleep before he choked to death, he slowly comprehended that not only was his head pounding and threatening to split wide open, but everything was
moving
—up and down, up and down. Or maybe sideways. He couldn’t be entirely certain.

Miraculously, he managed to force an eye open and struggled to push himself to a sitting position, propping himself against … God, who knew?
Everything
hurt. A vague memory of Lisette and Louis came to him, but the only explanation his aching brain could conceive was that he had been beaten within an inch of his life—pummeled and kicked and stomped.

Expecting to find nothing but pulp, he very gingerly probed his nose, his face, and even his eyes. Oddly
enough, nothing seemed too terribly damaged. But he
was
suffocating, and therefore, the first order of business was to get the bloody noose from his neck. The thing was pulled so tightly it was a wonder he was able to breathe at all.

He felt for the rope, feeling everything from his ears to his shoulders, but there was no noose. Nothing at all unusual, just a collar and a neckcloth—which had been knotted very tightly. Good God, he was choking to death on his neckcloth! Not only that, he noticed as he clawed at the offending piece of linen, his waistcoat was fitted strangely, too—all hiked up in the wrong places and buttoned in a very odd way.

Able to breathe again, Julian squinted, peering into the dark around him until he recognized the interior of a coach. He suddenly jerked his gaze to a window, wincing painfully. It was pitch black outside, no lights from gas lamps or drawing room windows.
Damn!
The coach was hurtling through the night, well gone from Paris, no doubt en route to Château la Claire, where
she
would be, waiting to torment him.…

An abrupt and loud snore caught Julian’s attention; he slowly turned his head, peering bleary-eyed through the dark at a sleeping figure across from him.
Louis
. Ah, but he would kill the scoundrel this time! Clutching the squabs on either side of his legs, Julian lifted a booted foot and thrust it at the sleeping traitor, making contact with a soft part of his body. Louis shot up with a start, sputtering his surprise.
“Qu’est-ce qui s’est passé?”

“I’ll tell you what has happened, you degenerate Frog. You have abducted me!” Julian croaked.

A moment of silence passed. “
Oui
. So I have,” Louis replied wearily and fumbled in the dark, blinding Julian with the sudden flare of a tinderbox he used to light the crystal kerosene lamps, illuminating the plush interior of the expensive travelling chaise.

“You might have
asked
me to take my leave of Paris, you know,” Julian exclaimed irritably, blinking at the
stark light. “There was no reason to resort to abduction. Don’t you people have laws about this sort of thing?”

“There was every reason,” Louis amicably disagreed. “One day you will thank me, for I do you an enormous favor. Monsieur LeBeau is quite determined to kill you—not that I have any particular objection to it, but I believe Genie would be quite displeased.”

“LeBeau!” Julian snorted. It was hardly his fault that LeBeau’s comely wife could not abide the tiny peacock she had married. Or that the imbecile couldn’t play cards to save his fool life. Or that he took offense to being called a Little Bit.

“
Oui
, LeBeau. A leader in the Republic, a strong critic of the monarchy, and a sworn enemy of mine! He’s quite ruthless, Kettering. I shouldn’t be surprised if he is pursuing you even now.”

Part of Julian hoped that was so—he would very much like to take his irritation out on the peacock. But he surmised Louis didn’t particularly want to hear that, and closed his eyes, carefully resting his throbbing head against the velvet squabs.

“It is time, I think, for you to return home,” Louis announced impassively.

Julian forced one eye open. His brother-in-law was casually studying a cuticle, his legs comfortably crossed—all in all, looking rather inflexible on that point. “In the seventeen years I have known you, I’ve never seen you quite so … aimless. Rudderless, so to speak. Without purpose. A ship without a—”

“All right, all right!” Julian growled, and refrained from pointing out that in the seventeen years he had known Louis, he had never known him to be as
motherly
as he had been this last fortnight.

“I suppose you are suffering a bit from ennui, and who can blame you?” Louis blithely continued.

Julian blinked. “Pardon?”

“You raised your sisters from the time you were sixteen and now they are all grown and gone. Your estate and affairs seem to manage themselves, and Lord knows
the Rogues are not the same force they once were. It seems your only worthwhile activity is the occasional lecture at university, but that is hardly enough to fill one’s days,
n’est-ce pas
?”

With an impatient grunt, Julian waved a hand dismissively. Louis was bloody well right that he was bored, but he had no hope the Frog could fathom just how bored. Because this wasn’t merely boredom,
this
was everything and nothing, a struggle to survive in his own skin, an increasingly uncomfortable feeling as if he was forever trapped in an ill-fitted suit of clothes. Unfortunately, nothing could make the feeling go away. Not drink—although the Lord knew he had tried hard enough to drown the feeling—not travel, not study, not gaming or whoring.
Nothing
.

Louis’s eyes narrowed, and he muttered under his breath. Julian closed his eyes, hardly in a mood to try to explain that the insufferable itch had started the day his sister Valerie had slipped the bonds of earth and had mushroomed into an internal rash the morning he laid his head to Phillip’s bloodied chest. Or that the rash had turned into a cancer that had begun to ravage him in the months afterward, because even though he had offered to help Phillip and was rebuffed several times, Julian knew the truth. He hadn’t really done enough to save Phillip, and he rather doubted Louis would want to hear his darkest suspicion—that in actuality, he hadn’t tried so very hard at all because he knew if Phillip was in some gaming hell or on top of some whore, he was not with Claudia.

“Very well then,” Louis huffed. “If the Divine Dane is offended with the notion that perhaps he is human after all, I cannot help him.”

Ha! If only he were human! Julian slumped down against the squabs and slung an arm over his eyes, ignoring Louis’s loud sigh of frustration.

“
Ach
! You care so little for what
I
think? What of Genie? She frets terribly. At least think of your sisters!”

Oh, now that was almost laughable. From the
moment his father, in the throes of death, had begged him to keep his sisters safe and well, he had thought of little else. “I think of them, Louis. Every day,” he muttered.

“I apologize—naturally, you are right, Kettering. You have always indulged them shamelessly—”

“Please. I’ve done no such thing.”

“You have always given them whatever they want. If they wanted new gowns and slippers, you supplied them. If they preferred sweets to break their fast, you merely smiled. If they complained there were not enough ribbons to go around, you commissioned a seamstress that very day!”

Julian shifted his arm slightly to peer at Louis from beneath it. “All right, so I might have
pampered
them a bit—”

“
Pampered
them?” Louis rolled his eyes. “They were incorrigible—”

“They were hardly incorrigible—”