The Promise in a Kiss (14 page)

“Helena—”

“No!”

Their altercation, albeit conducted in hissed whispers and low growls, was starting to attract attention. Gritting his teeth, Sebastian forced himself to release her. “We are not finished with this discussion.”

Her eyes blazed. “
We
are finished entirely, Your Grace.”

She turned and stormed off—an imperial termagant leaving a conqueror, dismissed, in her wake.

Sebastian stood perfectly still for three minutes before he got his temper back under control. Even then he had to stop himself from snapping when some unfortunate lady thought to offer him solace. Then he glimpsed Martin, a corsair, through the crowd. He started to prowl, his mind fixed on one object—and on how to achieve his goal.

He hadn't prowled far when he was approached by a pirate.

“Monsieur le duc, I do hope my cousin is not”—a vague gesture punctuated the pirate's words—“being difficult?”

De Sèvres. Biting back the urge to articulate just how difficult his cousin was indeed being, Sebastian drawled, “Mademoiselle is an extremely stubborn woman.”

“Vraiment.”

De Sèvres was wearing a half-mask; Sebastian could see his worried frown.

“If I could help in any way . . . perhaps be of some assistance . . . ?”

Sebastian fought to keep his expression impassive. What was going on? He was tempted to pursue the matter—why a man supposedly sent to protect Helena was offering instead to assist in what, for all he knew, was to be her seduction—but at that precise moment, he had a more imperative goal.

“I wish to speak privately with mademoiselle la comtesse, but she is proving elusive.”

“I see, I see.” De Sèvres nodded, frowned harder.

“Perhaps if I were to set a location and wait there, you might endeavor to persuade her to join me?”

Looking into the crowd, de Sèvres considered, calculated; eyes narrowed, he chewed his lower lip. Sebastian would have taken an oath he wasn't worrying over the propriety of his actions but rather how to persuade Helena to comply. Then de Sèvres nodded. “What location?”

Not why did he wish to speak with her—for how long, how privately . . . Sebastian made a mental note to investigate de Sèvres a great deal more closely once he'd secured Helena's hand.

“The library.” A sufficiently formal setting, which would likely make Helena less suspicious; Sebastian had little faith in de Sèvres's powers of obfuscation. He nodded to a doorway across the ballroom. “Go through there, turn right, then follow the hall to a long gallery. The library is the main room giving off that. If you wish to assist me, bring mademoiselle there in twenty minutes.”

At this hour the library should be empty, although as the evening progressed, others, too, would seek out its amenities.

De Sèvres tugged on his waistcoat. “I will bring her.” With a nod, he moved off in the direction Helena had gone.

Sebastian watched him go and inwardly shook his head. Later . . .

He turned—and found himself facing Martin.

One look into his eyes and his brother grinned. “It
is
you! Now, where is she?” He glanced around. “You wouldn't believe it, but I've found three Helen of Troys so far, and none of them are she.”

“If you're referring to mademoiselle la comtesse, she's here, but not as Helen of Troy.”

“Oh?” Martin frowned. “Then who . . . ?”

He cocked a brow at Sebastian—who considered him, then shook his head. “I know for a fact that you received a classical education. I wouldn't want to inhibit the exercising of your intellect.” He clapped Martin on the shoulder. “Think hard, and the answer will come to you.”

With that, Sebastian strolled on, leaving Martin scowling good-naturedly after him.

The library was indeed deserted when he reached it. He surveyed the long room, then strolled to the large desk set out from one corner. Beyond it, in the corner of the room, sat a commodious armchair. Sebastian sat, stretched out his legs, folded his hands, and waited for his duchess-to-be to appear.

H
elena didn't notice Louis hovering until she turned from chatting to Therese Osbaldestone and saw him step toward her. She inclined her head, expecting to pass him by.

Instead, he put a hand on her arm. “You must come with me—quickly.”

Louis's manner was agitated. He was glancing around.

“Why? What is it?”

“There is someone Uncle Fabien requires you to meet.”

“
Fabien?
What is this?” Thrown off balance, Helena allowed Louis to draw her to the side of the room. “Who does Fabien know here?”

“That is not important. I will explain all later. But I can tell you this—Fabien wishes you to meet with this gentleman and hear him out.”

“Hear him out?”

“Oui.”
Louis continued tugging, surreptitiously dragging her to a doorway. “This man will have a request to make—an invitation. You are to listen, then accept!
Comprends?
”

“I don't understand anything,” Helena complained. “Stop pulling.” She wrenched her arm free, stopped Louis with a glare, then straightened her gown. “I do not know whom Fabien wishes me to meet, but I will not meet anyone
en déshabillé
!”

Louis gritted his teeth. “
Vite, vite!
He will not wait forever.”

Helena heaved a resigned sigh. “Very well, where am I to meet him?” She followed Louis through the doorway into a corridor.

“In the library.”

“Allons!”
Helena waved Louis on. She had little confidence in Louis, but set much more store in Fabien's good sense. Her guardian was not a man to put at risk anything that was of value to him. If Fabien wished her to meet some gentleman, there would be some sane explanation. Although she railed against Fabien's hold on her, she was too wise not to humor his wishes until she was free of him.

Louis led her to a long gallery, then somewhat hesitantly opened a door and peered in. He stood back. “
Bon
—this is it. The library.” He waved her in.

Helena glided forward.

Louis lowered his voice. “I will leave you together, but I will not be far, so I can conduct you back to the ballroom if you wish.”

Helena frowned, grateful for her mask as she stepped over the threshold. What
was
Louis about? If she wished? Why . . . ?

The library door shut softly behind her. She scanned the room, expecting to see some gentleman waiting for her, but there was no one there. No one rose from the large armchairs before the hearth, no one sat behind the desk.

Pirouetting, she scanned the long room. Bookcases lined the walls. The tall windows were uncurtained, but it was dark outside. There were lamps, lit but turned low, set on side tables and credenzas around the room, shedding a gentle glow, revealing the fact that the room was empty save for her. She could see the entire room from where she stood, all except . . .

The huge desk cut off a corner of the room. Beyond it, set in the wall beside the corner, was a door leading to the next room. It was shut. Some way before it stood an armchair; she could see its high back, but otherwise the desk hid it from view. On a side table to the left of the chair sat a lamp, like the others burning low.

She started toward the desk; she may as well check the chair before returning to Louis and telling him that Fabien's friend had not appeared. Thick Aubusson carpets muffled the click of her heels. She rounded the desk—and saw a hand, relaxed on the arm of the chair. A very white hand, with very long fingers . . .

Premonition washed over her; a tingling awareness told her who it was who waited so patiently. Slowly, disbelievingly, she came around to stand before the chair and looked down at the occupant.

He'd taken off his mask—it lay hanging from the other arm of the chair, glinting dully.

Sebastian sat, effortlessly elegant, watching her from beneath hooded lids. She saw blue flash, then he murmured, “
Bon, mignonne.
At last.”

O
utside in the corridor, Louis chewed his nails. In a fever of uncertainty, he glanced this way, then that, then eased open the library door. As before, it opened noiselessly; he peeked but could see nothing, put his ear to the crack but could hear nothing.

Biting back a curse, he was about to shut the door when he noticed the sliver of a crack that had opened on the hinged side. He put his eye to it—and saw Helena, standing in the far corner of the room, staring down at an armchair. St. Ives must be in it, speaking, but Louis could hear not a word, could not even distinguish the tone. He stared—then saw the door in the wall beyond the chair.

Carefully, he shut the library door.

“This
must
work.” He whispered the words through gritted teeth. “He
must
ask her tonight!”

He hurried to the next room. It proved to be an office—empty, unlit, clearly not intended for the use of guests. Thanking the saints, Louis entered, shut the door silently behind him, then tiptoed to the door giving access to the library.

There was no lock on the door—just a knob. Holding his breath, he turned the knob. The door eased open a fraction.

H
ELENA
stared at Sebastian.
“You?”

He raised his brows. “You were expecting someone else?”

“Louis told me I was to meet an acquaintance of my guardian's.”

“Ah. I did wonder how de Sèvres would persuade you to hear me out. However, I regret I have not had the pleasure of your guardian's acquaintance.”

“Bien!”
Temper erupting, she started to turn, to sweep to the door and leave—

Sebastian held up a languid hand—caught her attention. And she saw she'd walked into his trap.

To return to the door she had to pass him. If she tried . . .

She swung back to face him. Folding her arms beneath her breasts, she regarded him stonily. “I don't understand.” An understatement.

“For that I fear I must apologize,
mignonne,
yet before we leave here, I intend that all will be plain between us.”

He studied her for a moment, then leaned forward, slowly reached up and tugged one of her hands free. He sat back, drawing her to the chair. She frowned but consented to move closer.

“Sit with me.”

She assumed he meant on the arm of the chair, but when she realized he meant on his lap, she pulled back.

He sighed. “
Mignonne,
do not be missish. I wish to speak with you, yet if I stand close, I cannot always see your face. Likewise if you sit beside me. If you sit on my lap, it will be easier.”

There was sufficient irritation in his voice to dispel the idea that he was intent on ravishment—at least, not yet. Helena allowed herself a small “humph!” then, suppressing all reaction to the skittering thrill that raced up her spine, she smoothed her skirts and sat.

Beneath the folds of his toga, under the satin breeches he wore beneath it, his thighs were rock hard, but warm.

He closed his hands about her waist and lifted her, resettled her so they were indeed essentially face to face. Then he raised his hands and tugged on the ribbons that secured her mask; the two small bows unraveled. He drew the mask free, then set it on the floor beside the chair.

“Bon.”

Sebastian heard the reined temper in his tone and knew she heard it, too. He hoped it made her wary.

Step by step. That seemed the only way to accomplish the task with her. Every inch had been a battle thus far.

He looked into her peridot eyes.

She stared haughtily back.

I intend to offer for your hand
would have done the job with most women, but with her, instinct prodded him to be rather more definite.

I'm going to make you my duchess
had a more forceful ring to it—left less leeway for her to cavil.

Unfortunately, given her prejudice against powerful men, neither approach was likely to lead to quick success. She'd immediately dig in her heels, and he'd be reduced to pleading his case from a very weak position.

Mining her walls—undercutting her arguments before she had a chance to make them—was undoubtedly the road to victory. Once he'd weakened her defenses, then he could speak of marriage.

“You've told me you don't like being the pawn of a powerful man. All you've said has led me to believe that your guardian is such a man—am I right?”

“Indeed. I know of what I speak.”

“And am I also correct in stating that your reason for seeking a meek and mild-mannered husband was that such a man could never rule you?”

She narrowed her eyes. “So that he would never manipulate me, use me as a pawn.”

He inclined his head. “Has it not yet occurred to you,
mignonne,
that marrying a man who knows little of, as you have put it before, ‘the games men such as I play,' will leave you still in the power of the very man you seek to escape?”

She frowned. “Once I am married . . .”

When she didn't continue, he hesitated, then quietly said, “My sister is married. Yet if I decide, for her own good, that she should return to the country . . . she returns to the country.”

She searched his eyes. “Her husband . . . ?”

“Huntly is a good-natured man who never pretended to be able to manage Augusta. He does, however, have extremely good sense and so knows when she needs to be managed. He then summons me.”

“My husband—the one I choose—will not summon my guardian.”

“But if your guardian doesn't wait to be summoned . . . what then?”

He gave her time to think, to venture on her own down the lane of thought he'd pointed out. To see the possibilities, to come of her own volition to the realization he desired.

Even now he was too much the consummate manipulator to speak too soon, to push too hard.

Especially not with her.

Helena frowned—at him, at his hard face, the pale, austere features limned but not softened by the lamplight. Reluctantly, already sensing what she would see, she let her mind turn—almost as if she were mentally turning around and looking at something behind her, something she'd failed to see.

He was right. Fabien would not be deterred from using her by the protestations of a weak husband. Look what he'd done with Geoffre Daurent, her uncle, her initial and natural guardian. Although not a particularly weak man, Geoffre was weaker than Fabien. Because controlling her fortune and marriage conferred considerable political power, Fabien had “discussed” matters with Geoffre, a distant kinsmen, and an agreement had been reached that had seen Fabien legally installed as her guardian.

How Fabien might use her once she was married she did not know, but his intrigues were manifold—power flowed from many sources, from the control of myriad subjects, in their world. And power was Fabien's drug.

“You are right.” The words fell from her lips as she refocused; she frowned. “I will need to think again.”

“There are not that many options to consider,
mignonne
. Indeed, as one of the ilk against whom you struggle, I can tell you there is only one.”

She met his eyes, narrowed her own. “I will not—” She broke off, an image of Fabien rising in her mind. In truth, there was very little she wouldn't do to escape his web.

Sebastian searched her eyes; then his gaze steadied, holding hers. “How alike are we, your guardian and I?”

His words were soft, wondering, inviting her to make the comparison. She recognized the ploy, enough to acknowledge it as a bold and brave stroke. He didn't, after all, know Fabien.

“In nature you are much alike.” Honesty forced her to added, “In some respects.”

He was infinitely kinder. Indeed, many of his actions, albeit executed with typical arrogance and high-handedness, were prompted by a detached, quite selfless wish to help, something she found immensely endearing. Kindness was not a quality Fabien possessed; it was her considered opinion that in all his years Fabien had never once thought of anyone but himself.

Where St. Ives arranged for his sister to return to the country for her own good, Fabien would do the same for his own purposes, irrespective of whether that benefited or indeed even harmed his pawn.

She continued to study Sebastian's face. He raised one brown brow. “Which would you rather, if you could choose—your guardian, or me?”

And that, she knew, was the question he'd sought this interview to ask. A single, simple question that, as he'd correctly seen, was the central, crucial issue in deciding what she did next.

“Neither would be my first choice.”

His lips lifted lightly. He inclined his head. “That I accept. However, as you've now realized, that choice will not free you of powerful men. If not your guardian, if not me, then it will be some other like us.”

He hesitated, then lifted a hand and traced her face, his fingertips lightly touching. “You are extremely beautiful,
mignonne,
extremely wealthy and of the highest echelons of the nobility. You are a prize and a woman—that combination will always determine your fate.”

“That combination is not something I can change.” She stated it flatly, knowing it as a truth—one she disliked but had long ago accepted.

“No.” His gaze held hers. “All you can do is choose the best of the options it leaves you.”

Which would she rather?

She blinked, drew in a breath, allowed herself to imagine, to speculate. “You are saying that if I accept you, you will become my champion, that you will protect me from others, even my guardian.”

His eyes were very blue. “
Mignonne,
if you were mine, I would protect you with my life.”

That was no idle statement, not from him.

She studied him, aware that all he'd said was true. And wondering, now that she'd been brought to face the choice, whether there truly were no other options.

“The only freedom you will ever know,
mignonne,
will be under the protection of a powerful man.”

He had, once again, read her mind, her eyes, her soul. “How do I know that you won't seek to use me as he has—to play with my future, my life, as if they are your possessions to dispose of as it suits your whim?”

Her words had flowed without thought or hesitation; his answer was just as swift.

“I can promise that I won't—and I do. But you can never know absolutely; you can only trust, and trust that your trust will be honored. But on that matter there's little point denying that, at some level at least, you already trust me.” He held her gaze. “You wouldn't be here now if you didn't.”

That also was true. She trusted him, while she trusted Fabien not at all. Perched on his knees, face-to-face, gaze to gaze, Helena knew she was being managed by a master. Every minute of their interaction thus far had been staged and played to foster not just her trust but her belief in his sincerity.

And beneath all else was her awareness of him, of the blatantly sexual connection that had from the first moment they'd met each other all those years ago flared between them.

He hadn't sought to hide it, to pretend it didn't exist, to draw a veil over that part of their interaction.

“If I agreed to . . .” She paused, searched his eyes, then lifted her chin. “Accept your protection, what would you ask in return?”

His gaze didn't waver. “You know what I would ask—what I wish.”

“Tell me.”

He studied her eyes, her face, then murmured, “I think,
mignonne,
that we have had enough words. I think it's time I showed you.”

A shiver skittered up her spine, but when he arched a brow at her, she haughtily arched one back. She had to know if she could do this—if becoming his, placing herself under his protection, was an option for her. If she could withstand the fire of his touch, if she could become his and still be herself.

She said nothing, simply waited, coolly expectant. He read the determination in her eyes, then his gaze lowered. Washed over her bare shoulders, drifted lower, rose again—she felt it like a physical sensation, the brush of an ephemeral touch. Then his gaze fixed on the gold clasp at her shoulder.

With his habitual languor, he raised one hand; extending one finger, he nudged, then pushed the clasp sideways until it and the gathered silk it held slipped over the arc of her shoulder. His finger followed the upper curve of her arm, trailing down the smooth skin. Just a few inches.

She couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. Couldn't shift as he slowly leaned forward, bent his head and set his lips like a brand to her shoulder.

To the very spot he'd uncovered—the only spot on her shoulders that had been concealed, the only place where she felt vulnerable, now it had been exposed. Bared. To him. By him.

She closed her eyes, concentrated, caught by the shift of his lips on her skin, seduced by the hot sweep of his tongue. Opening her eyes, she watched, fascinated, as he pressed his lips again to the sensitized spot; she felt her spine shake, quake, felt his hand close about her waist, fingers pressing in response.

Driven by an inner force she didn't recognize, she lifted her hand to his nape, slid and spread her fingers into his silky hair. His lips firmed on her skin. She turned her head as he lifted his. Their lips met.

That balancing power she'd experienced before still operated between them. As they kissed—taking, giving, pausing to savor, to entice, to indulge—she felt it like a constraint, some limit on a tipping scale that prevented him, or her, from taking too much without giving, from conquering without first surrendering.

Again and again that power tipped the scales. He took her mouth in a hot, heated rush, a primitive ravishment that left her senses reeling. Then she gathered herself and boldly pressed her own demands, and he was the one giving way, laying himself open to her conquest. Shuddering when she pressed deep. Following when she retreated.

The wave washed back and forth; the hot tide steadily rose be-tween them.