Lisette felt slightly disconcerted by the Comte’s close proximity as he made no effort to step away from where she sat after handing her the glass of wine.
He was just so—overpoweringly immediate in these more intimate surroundings. Seemed so much bigger, more imposing even than he had been in the tavern earlier or in his carriage on the journey here.
His shoulders were so wide—and dependable?—his chest and arms muscled beneath the fine cut of his coat, as if he spent much of his time pursuing the gentlemanly sports, such as fencing and swordplay, rather than in the drinking salons, and taverns such as the Fleur de Lis.
His fashionably overlong hair shone a pure gold in the candlelight and was rakishly tousled. As for the effect of those long-lashed lavender-coloured eyes in that harshly handsome and lightly tanned face; Lisette truly had never seen such beautiful eyes before, on a man or a woman.
She was very aware that the two of them were very much alone here now that he had dismissed his manservant for the night.
Her gaze dropped from meeting that mesmerising lavender one. ‘We can drink only to the present, Comte.’
‘The present,’ he echoed as he gave a mocking inclination of his head before taking a sip of his brandy, ‘is very much to my liking,’ he added gruffly.
A blush warmed Lisette’s cheeks even as she took a sip of her red wine. It was a very good red wine, not at all like the rough vintage Helene served at the tavern. And further emphasising the fact that the Comte de Saint-Cloud inhabited a very different world from the one in which Lisette currently found herself. Even as the daughter of the Duprées she would have been completely out of her element with a man such as this one.
She carefully placed her glass down on the small table beside the chair. ‘I do not believe you took my warning seriously earlier, Comte.’ She looked up at him earnestly. ‘My...my aunt has many associates who are not particularly pleasant, and who I believe would slit your throat for the price of a few pennies if asked to do so.’
‘And has your aunt asked them to do so?’ Christian arched mocking brows, again noting Lisette’s slight hesitation when stating that Helene Rousseau was her aunt. But if not the girl’s aunt, then who or what was she to Lisette?
Her madam, perhaps, with Lisette as the innocent prize to be won?
That explanation would certainly be in accordance with Lisette’s behaviour tonight. The ‘helpless innocent’ come to warn him of danger was the sort of behaviour designed to tighten the net about an infatuated victim.
Or Lisette could simply have been sent here to him this evening in order to confirm or deny, by whatever means necessary, Helene Rousseau’s suspicions regarding him.
‘I believe she has, yes,’ Lisette answered him worriedly.
‘And why do you think that?’ Christian moved to sit in the chair opposite her, his posture one of outward relaxation and unconcern; inwardly it was a different matter.
The title of Comte de Saint-Cloud might be his own to use if he so wished, but nevertheless he was alone in a country that was not his own and amongst people he could not trust.
Not even the lovely Lisette.
Perhaps especially the lovely Lisette.
‘She assured me earlier that I would not be seeing you at the tavern again after this evening.’ Lisette frowned.
Christian raised his brows. ‘That was very...precipitate of her.’
‘I believe it was because she already has plans afoot to ensure you are unable to return, monsieur,’ Lisette pressed urgently.
‘Christian.’
She gave him an impatient glance. ‘What does it matter in what manner I address you, if you are not alive to hear it?’
Christian gave a lazy smile. ‘I am not that easy to kill, lovely Lisette. Besides,’ he continued lightly as she would have protested, ‘I am alive here and now, and we are together, which is all that is important, is it not?’
‘No, it most certainly is not all that is important!’ She eyed him exasperatedly.
‘I find your concern for me most charming, Lisette,’ he drawled flirtatiously. ‘But you really need not concern yourself on my account—’
‘How can I not concern myself?’ She rose agitatedly to her feet. ‘When I am the reason you are in danger?’
Christian sincerely doubted that; he was becoming more and more convinced by the moment that Helene Rousseau did suspect him and his reason for being in Paris. To a degree where it was no longer safe for him to continue to remain here posing as the Comte de Saint-Cloud?
That would be a pity, considering all the work and planning that had gone into establishing that identity before his arrival in France.