The Corrupt Comte (35 page)

Those muscled divots along his hips called to her fingertips, to her lips.

Before she could trace the curve of his hip with her tongue, he unbuttoned, and the trousers fell to his ankles, where his bare feet kicked them aside. He reached for her again, and she fell against him, boneless and needy as she threw her arms around his neck, snaring him in a deep, desperate kiss.

“Kitten,” he murmured, and for a bleak moment, his desperation matched her own. Their agreement last night—to breathe when they came together, to not lose their heads, to shed this anxiety that made their coupling feel imperative, as though their very survival depended upon it—faded into nothingness, to be remembered at another time, in another place. “Claudia.”

“I love you,” she gasped into his mouth. “I love you.”

He slowed them, holding her face between his palms and forcing her meet his intent, stormy gaze. “Last night, you said you belonged to me. But you did not ask who I belonged to.”

“G-Gaspard—”

“You,
chaton
. I belong to you.”

“Oh,” she breathed, lightheaded once more. “Oh.”

He smiled—small, lopsided and tentative, but a genuine smile nonetheless, and she was so very glad the numbness within her had shattered.

“I am yours, Claudia. I will always be yours.” His kiss was sweeter this time, his tone almost amused when he spoke. “Though I should put you over my knee again for allowing Sabien to touch you.”

Flirtation, she recognized—flirtation unhindered by dark, desperate secrets. “Later.”

“Indeed,” he said, sounding more lasciviously rakish than she had ever before heard.

She nodded, a fresh blush creeping over her exposed skin. “He was d-doing it f-for you, you know. He wanted you to b-be happy.”

“I am happy.” He scowled, running his hands down her naked body, primitive possession vibrating in each sweep of his calloused fingers. “Claudia…we cannot tell everyone as we told him. About me.”

Enfolding him in a hug, one she needed to give as much as he needed to receive, she dropped a kiss to the center of his chest. “I know.” She breathed in the clean scent of him. He still smelled of sparks and iron, she noted, but there was a little of her on him now too—he’d used her honey soap in this morning’s bath.

He returned the hug, his hold unyielding yet gentle. “This hurts you.
I
hurt you.” His rumbling voice hinted at his displeasure, directed only toward himself.

“I’m not hurt. Not anymore.” It was true. “We’ll have s-s-some challenges to face, b-but nothing we c-can’t handle, together.”

“Together,” he repeated, and lifted her about the waist to carry her to the divan, catching her lips for a swift, hard kiss. “It will not be easy, to be my wife.”

She shrugged as he settled on the divan, reclining back so she lay naked beneath him. “You love me.”

Planting a hand next to her head, he leaned down, cupping her cheek in one broad palm. “I do love you.” His eyes gleamed with the truth of that knowledge.

“Then trust m-me,” she murmured, capturing his face between her own hands, “it will b-be very easy, indeed.”

Epilogue

16 June 1820

The missives from Amaury had stopped arriving two weeks ago, and Gaspard didn’t know how to tell his wife what that meant.

Sabien’s correspondence had also ceased, but Gaspard was less concerned about his friend than he was for Claudia’s grandfather. Amaury Pascale had held to the promise he’d made his granddaughter, little notes arriving at their townhouse by mysterious means like clockwork every Tuesday morning. They’d been folded in strange shapes—once like an anvil, another a dove—and contained nothing more than tips and tricks for the various plants with which Claudia had overwhelmed their rear garden.

Or so Claudia believed.

Added vowels, dropped consonants, duplicated or incorrect punctuation and the occasional harmless ink splatter. It had taken Gaspard three letters to crack Amaury’s code, but eventually, he could read the message hidden within. The last one…

Gaspard sighed, shoving away the ledger at which he’d been staring blindly for the past quarter hour and leaning back in his desk chair. Amaury’s last note had been brief, the code within even shorter.

Don’t look for me.

That, as well as the inclusion of the numeral “XXXIII” and the letters “BAS”—the first time there’d ever been any translated code left over for Gaspard—worried him greatly.

The door to the study opened to reveal Claudia, one hand gripping the doorknob, knuckles white, the other clutching several papers. She stared down at the top sheet, a small frown furrowed between her brows.

He started to rise. “What is it?”

Lifting a hand to stay him, she moved into the room, pale blue skirts swishing gently around her legs as she walked to his desk. His gaze skated over the dark, loosely braided curls draped over one shoulder, the unadorned neckline of her simple day dress and the stockinged toes clad in pink silk peeking out from beneath its hem.

Her state of undress would be considered scandalous elsewhere, but within their home, they maintained a casual, comfortable day-to-day existence. They didn’t receive many visitors, nor did they often socialize with members of the
ton
. There was the occasional soirée to keep up appearances, and a public excursion every once in a while to the shops on Bond Street, where they affected an easy friendship as they haunted the various merchant storefronts.

As far as society was concerned, he and Claudia were a genial pair generally found cooing over inches of pearl-beaded lace or satin-heeled dancing slippers, and the façade worked to their benefit. While neither of them doubted that people still gossiped about their unconventionality, most had accepted them as a friendly couple who held one another in respectful regard. The London
ton
simply saw another loveless, sexless marriage, no different than many of the unions brought together by a plentiful purse and an aristocratic title.

No one suspected the passion that took place behind the closed front doors of their elegant townhouse, and they paid their servants very well to keep such knowledge from leaving the premises.

She halted next to his chair, looking up with troubled brown eyes. “This is from
Grandpére
’s s-s-solicitor.” She lifted the papers in her hand, which he could see stamped with the letterhead of a prominent city firm. “I have— That is,
G-Grandpére
has left m-me…”

Her bleak expression compounded the kernel of earlier unease in his stomach, and Gaspard reached out to pull her into his lap with a sigh. She snuggled right in, drawing up her knees against his hip and tucking her toes between his legs. Her head nestled into his shoulder, and he rested his cheek against the soft strands.

It wasn’t a new position for them, as he often drew her onto his lap with nary a naughty thought in mind. He was determined that his wife never be starved for affection as she had been in her childhood, and he knew better than anyone that mere sexual touch couldn’t suffice.

The papers crinkled in her hands. “I’ve inherited, Gaspard,” she said quietly. “What d-does that m-mean?”

“Claudia…”

“I know the letters s-s-stopped.”

He wrapped both arms around her, hugging her close. “
Je suis désolé,
” he whispered, pressing comforting kisses to the top of her head. And he was sorry, so sorry, and angry that there was nothing he could do to lessen the loss and pain in this moment.

She heaved a shuddering sigh, sniffling quietly, and turned her face into the collar of his shirt. He felt the fabric dampen against his skin, evidence of her distress, and he just couldn’t have that. Raising her head with a hand beneath her chin, he used his thumbs to swipe away her silent tears. “None of that.” He made his tone stern. “He would not want your tears.”

She nodded, dropping her gaze momentarily before lifting her lips to his for a gentle kiss. He licked at the salt collected at the corners of her mouth before pulling away. “Better?”

Her smile was small, and sad. “I will b-be.” She glanced at the solicitor’s letter again. “And you m-most certainly will.”

He detected an almost teasing note in her voice, but was confused. “How so?”

“You thought I was only worth t-ten thousand p-pounds when we m-married.”

“You are without price,
chaton
,” he murmured vehemently, cupping her cheek in one hand. “No fortune is worth more than you.”

The humor he thought he’d detected curled her lips, inviting him to kiss her again, kiss her until she smiled and laughed and sighed into his mouth. His to keep, his to own. His to cherish.

But her words interrupted his wandering thoughts. “Well, it t-turns out, you m-married me not for ten thousand, b-but for…” she lifted the letter, peered at it, then tossed it to the desktop, “…th-thirty thousand. G-give or take.”

“
Quoi?
” He reached across her body to grab the letter, hearing her laugh at his wide-eyed incredulity. Skimming the contents, he saw that, indeed, a sum of twenty-two thousand and forty-seven pounds had been transferred into the account of Claudia Annalise Pascale Toussaint, the Countess of Lorraine-Mâche, this morning, deposited courtesy of G.B. Blakely on behalf of the countess’s grandfather, Claude Amaury Pascale.

“All totaled, I think you m-made a wise investment when you m-married m-me.” She pressed a kiss to his jaw as he dropped the letter to the desk and leaned back heavily in the chair, wrapping his arms around her once more.

They sat in silence for several minutes. His mind eventually stopped reeling over the news of their additional wealth as contentment stole over him as it did whenever he held her, no longer wary. Each day together, his caution retreated, until he worried less and less about the things that had come before and started pondering more and more the future he was building with Claudia.

Then she spoke. “I’ve b-been thinking p-perhaps we sh-should…return to France. For a t-time.”

He glanced over her head at the ledger on his desk. Every other week, he received an accounting from the steward he’d hired to look after the Lorraine-Mâche estate in his absence. Paying off the debt and taxes on his title and his lands had spurred him to make other investments in his property. He had tenants now, and livestock, and he’d set up accounts with shopkeepers and laborers in the nearby village of Point-de-Crix to restore the castle he’d never set eyes on.

He needed a legacy, he’d realized a couple of months ago. He needed something to leave behind, for those who came after.

But that didn’t mean he was ready to return to his home country. Dropping a hand to her lap, he pressed lightly on her abdomen, unable to yet feel the change he knew was occurring within her body. “Because of the little one?”

She nodded, covering the scarred back of his hand with her warm palm, and his heart turned over. “I’m j-just worried. About how p-people will react to the p-pregnancy.”

He’d never admit it, but he worried too. Society was cruel, and with their marriage, most of the
ton
would likely assume he’d been cuckolded, and willingly so…thus making their child a bastard. The scorn he and Claudia would face, as well as the challenges after the baby was born and began to grow into a person himself—or herself—it wouldn’t be easy.

His mouth went dry, throat suddenly parched. “We can go to the castle, if that is what you wish.” Évoque hadn’t barred Gaspard’s return to France, but he knew he’d be promptly pressed into service again, once his arrival was made known. Though perhaps they could pass a few quiet months undetected, long enough for their child to be born.

Long enough for Gaspard to be a father, if only for a brief time.

His body had gone stiff with tension, and Claudia sensed it. Lifting her hands to either side of his face, she looked him in the eye, lovely face determined, her chin defiant in that way he’d always loved. “I like our life here, Gaspard. I d-didn’t think I would, b-but I d-do.” She smiled at him. “The only d-difficult p-part is p-pretending I’m not in love with you, when we’re out t-together.”

He caressed her midsection. “It is difficult for me, as well.”

She nodded, as if decided. “Then we will s-s-stay for now. In London, in our house.” Her bottom wriggled in his lap. “Right here.”

He wasn’t ashamed of the relief that rippled through him, and finally returned her smile. “For now,” he agreed, knowing that the birth of their child would likely change how they both felt. Holding her close, he bent his head to hers. “There is no place I would rather be than right here, kitten. With you.” And, having confessed the most important secret in his life, he kissed her until she was smiling and laughing and sighing atop him, just as he’d wanted.

Author’s Note

On the fourteenth of February, 1820, Charles Ferdinand d’Artois, the Duke of Berry, died after being stabbed the night before at the opera. His assailant was a saddler named Louis Pierre Louvel—whose name you will recognize as that of the man whom Gaspard and his fellow spies framed for murder. While history tells us that Louvel
did
kill Berry, for the purposes of the narrative, Gaspard Toussaint is to blame, and the details surrounding Berry’s death exacerbated.

Several real names and identities were borrowed in the writing of this novel—Princess Caroline, Prime Minister Decazes, King Louis XVIII—but François, the Duke of Évoque, is entirely fictional, as was Gaspard’s abuser, Captain Marcel de Courreaux.