Bride for a Night(105)
“Another lesson of courtesans?”
She blinked, giving a delicate sniff. “Oui.”
“I have no desire to claim Talia, ma belle,” he said, realizing as he said the words that they were true. He had enjoyed the thought of rescuing Talia from the cruel hands of her neglectful husband. And savoring the knowledge that he was striking a painful blow at the English nobles by stealing a countess from beneath their arrogant noses. But his heart had already been stolen by another. “I have no desire to claim any woman but you.”
She flinched, almost as if he had slapped her. “Do not say such a thing.”
He barely noticed as they trailed ever farther behind his guards, the steady hoofbeats the only sound to stir the early-morning air.
Was the female being deliberately difficult?
She had just professed her love for him, had she not?
Now that he had admitted to his own desire, she was behaving as if he had threatened to drown her in the nearest well.
“Even if it is the truth?” he growled.
“It cannot be.” Her lips flattened as she battled to conceal the emotions that smoldered in her dark eyes. “You wish for a proper female who you will be proud to have standing at your side. Not an aging actress who was born in the gutters.”
He lifted a brow. “You seem to forget that my mother was an actress.”
“And you were forced to suffer because of her,” she reminded him in raw tones.
He lifted his head sharply, his gaze shifting toward the distant silhouette of Calais.
As difficult as it was to admit, even to himself, there had always been a treacherous part of him that held his mother to blame for his father’s death. Insanity, of course. His mother was not responsible for her haunting beauty. Or his father’s volatile reaction that had ended with him locked within the Bastille.
But as a young man forced to mature without his beloved papa, he had been unable to keep from wondering how his life might have been different had his mother not captured the roaming eye of a lecher.
Was it possible that he had held Sophia at a distance precisely because she reminded him of his mother?#p#分页标题#e#
The thought was enough to send a jolt of shame through his heart.
“Non,” he roughly denied. “I suffered because of a depraved scoundrel devoid of morals or honor. A nobleman who is now as dead as my father.”
“But not forgotten,” she said softly.
“He will never be forgotten. And I will never halt my efforts to be rid of men like him,” Jacques swore, returning his gaze to meet her guarded expression. “Will you fight at my side, Sophia Reynard?”
She paused, clearly sensing that he was asking for more than just another ally in the war against the tyrannous ruling class.
“I will be at your side so long as you desire me, but—”
He bent his head to crush her lips in a passionate kiss.
“That is all I need.” He pulled back to peer deep into her wide eyes. “You are all that I need, ma belle.”
“Jacques,” she breathed in surrender.
Hunger speared through him, and tightening his grip around her slender body, he urged his horse into a faster pace.
“It is time we were home.”
IN SOME DISTANT part of his mind Gabriel was aware of Jacques escaping along with Sophia and his guards. Even more distantly he could hear the fading sound of Hugo rowing Talia toward the yacht, his mate obviously having the good sense to cast off the moment he heard the gunshot.
His concentration, however, was utterly absorbed in his foolish brother.
Christ.
What the devil was the matter with Harry? He should have scurried behind the protection of the carriage the moment the bullets had started to fly. Instead, the impulsive idiot had launched himself forward, taking a bullet that surely would have killed Gabriel.
“Dammit, Harry,” he muttered, arranging his brother flat on his back so he could run his hands down his limp body. “What were you thinking?”
With a grimace, Harry lifted his lashes to reveal pain-glazed eyes.
“Clearly I was not thinking at all,” he muttered.
Unable to find any obvious injuries, Gabriel attempted to tug aside Harry’s tightly fitted jacket.
“Where were you hit?”
“Leave it be, Gabriel.” Harry weakly knocked aside Gabriel’s hand, pulling the jacket over the blood that was already staining the white linen shirt beneath. “There is nothing you can do for me here.”
Gabriel settled back on his heels, conceding Harry’s point. He had no supplies that would assist in tending to a wound, even if he possessed the skills to do so. His only comfort was the hope that the bullet had caught Harry closer to his shoulder than his heart.