A Sister's Quest (18 page)

A smile flirted with her lips. “No, Bartholomew. Mayhap because I am enjoying Vienna so much.” That was a lie … and it wasn't. She was enjoying the parts with Alexei, even though he was making every effort to persuade her to spend time with Bartholomew. Another question she could not answer was why. She hoped it was not because Alexei wanted her out of his hair.

Lifting her fingers to his lips, Bartholomew gazed down at her. “Could I be so brazen as to suggest that part of the reason you are happy here is my company?”

“How can I say anything but yes to that?” She was amazed how easily these nothing-sayings now fell from her lips.

“That was the idea, my dear.”

He released her hands and swept his arm around her in one smooth motion, pulling her to him. She tried to ease away, but he tipped her face up so her mouth met his. Gently, as gently as he had held her hands, he kissed her. Brandy flavored his lips.

Raising his mouth from hers, he smiled. “You are so luscious, my dear. So luscious, yet there is an innocence about you that is incredibly intriguing.”

She cursed silently as Bartholomew bent to kiss her again. Turning away, she reached for the carriage door.

He halted her by clasping her hand between his. “You need not go back in there.” His smile was a soft shadow in the dimly lit carriage. “You could come home with me, Michelle.”

“No.”

“Do you love Vatutin?”

“No!” She did not want to guess whether that was the truth or a lie.

He stroked her cheek. “But you continue to live with him.”

“Yes.” She took refuge in simple answers, because she could not speak of things that she did not know about herself. “Good night, Bartholomew. Thank you for a lovely evening.”

“Tomorrow evening?” he asked, refusing to release her hand.

“I don't know. Alexei—”

“Don't speak his name to me! I hold you in my arms and sample the sweet delights of your lips, but you return to his bed. I should refuse to allow that.”

“I am not one of your subjects,” she said, putting her hands out to keep him away. “I can do as I wish.”

“And you wish to sleep with Vatutin instead of me?”

She shook her head. “It is not that simple!”

“No?” Tilting her chin up, he demanded, “What hold does he have over you? I heard your raised voices tonight. He chides you constantly. Why do you stay with him when I would treat you so much better?”

Pulling away, Michelle flung open the door almost into the face of the footman who was waiting to assist her out. “What is between Alexei and me is none of your business. Good evening.”

“I shall call tomorrow afternoon.”

“I shall be busy tomorrow afternoon.”

“But you will attend the musicale in honor of Prince Metternich with me as you promised?”

Michelle hesitated. She
had
promised to let him escort her there. “Yes, I will attend with you. However, you must understand that it would be better if I accepted no further invitations.”

His lips tightened into a rigid smile, but he nodded. When she stood on the walkway, he motioned for the carriage to start. Only when she saw it disappear into a white mist did she realize it was snowing again.

The secrets and lies Michelle carried in her heart weighed on her as she climbed the stairs and turned the doorknob. A single candle burned, nearly gutted, in the parlor. Strange shadows danced on the opposite wall, but nothing was as outlandish as this evening's events. Two men had made it clear that they would be glad to take her to their beds, but neither spoke of love.

Maman, she thought,
how did you live this life? Why didn't you warn me
?

By the hearth, Alexei sat reading. She could not keep from admiring his rugged profile. The fire emphasized every angle along his face as he sat alone. How many friends had Alexei made during his life? Not acquaintances, for he seemed to have an unlimited amount of those. Real friends. Certainly Rusak. Her mother. Mayhap he would count Michelle D'Orage as one.

Or mayhap not, for she could not mistake the glitter of desire in his eyes as he looked up from his book and smiled. “Cinderella, it is long past midnight.”

“I do not wish to argue.” She bent and pulled off her slippers. “I am too tired.”

He patted the cushion beside him. “Sit, and I will get you a cup of tea.”

“I don't want tea.”

“Churlish tonight, aren't you?” He stood and, taking her cape, tossed it on a chair. He sat her on the settee before bringing the teapot and a cup to where she sat. “Can it be that you and Prince Charming had a lovers' quarrel?”

She drew her feet up under her. “Bartholomew and I had a lovely evening.”

“Did you go to Herr Herrschel's after the theater?”

She watched as he poured tea into the cup on the table beside where he had been sitting, then offered her the teapot. “Let mine steep a little longer,” Michelle said. When he sat next to her with his feet on a low table, she asked, “How do you know where Bartholomew and I go every evening? Are you spying on me, too?”

He laughed as he stirred the sugar into his tea. “I have too much to do to be a watchdog for you and Prince Charming. It is common knowledge that the delegates from the German states like to spend their evenings together. So whom did you see there?”

Michelle had become accustomed to his interrogations. As she answered his questions, she observed his reaction. She knew when she said something that interested him, because his eyes narrowed.

“The theater was lovely,” she said as she sipped her tea.

He stirred his cup again. “I trust you and Prince Charming enjoyed yourselves on the way home.”

“How …?” She flushed and lowered her eyes. That he could continue to read her mind with such ease disconcerted her.

Intensity invaded his voice as he murmured, “Just be careful,
Liebchen
.”

“Alexei, I am a grown woman and quite capable of taking care of myself.”

A smile hinted beneath his mustache. “And Prince Charming is a man.”

“Would you stop calling him that!”

“When you stop evading the truth.”

“Which is?”

He set his cup back onto the table. “That you are becoming involved in something you cannot handle.”

Coming to her feet, she set her cup beside his. “Good night.”

His hand on her arm spun her to face him. Her retort died, choking her, as she stared at Alexei. His face was strained with rage.

“Michelle, you were raised in that convent—”

“St. Bernard's is not a convent!”

“It might as well be,” he fired back. “Living with women, you have no idea how to deal with men.”

She clamped her arms across her chest. “I assure you, Alexei, that I am quite capable of dealing with men. I have managed with you and Rusak, haven't I?”

“But we are not Prince Charming—”

“Stop calling him that!”

“Who thinks you are my mistress. He is trying to woo you away from me.”

“Right now I would go with anyone who promised not to shout at me.”

“See? You are acting like a simpleton!” He snorted with derision. “Do you think Prince Charming is going to be happy with just stealing a few kisses from you? He does not know you are the prim and respectable Fraulein D'Orage. He believes you are the mistress of a man he despises. How better to hurt me, in his opinion, than to take you from me?”

“Bartholomew is a gentleman.”
And his kisses do not delight me as yours do
. For a moment, she feared she had added the last aloud.

His retort told her she had not. “But even gentlemen are not to be trusted when they are alone with a woman they want.”

That his words mirrored her own concerns she would not admit. “I remind you, Alexei, that I am capable of handling my own—”

He laughed. “Your own affairs,
Liebchen
? Undoubtedly you could in Zurich. This is a whole different world.”

“Why are you interfering now when you have said nothing before?”

He plucked at her left sleeve, and she saw the dark imprint there. Chocolate from Bartholomew's hand! “If you are curious,
Liebchen
, the mark goes all the way down your back to your waist.”

“Oh.”

“Just oh?” His fingers glided from her sleeve along her back, following the trail of chocolate. When her breath grew unsteady, he drew her to him. “I do not like that, when I do this, I am following the path left by another man. Nor do I like to imagine him doing this.”

As his mouth slanted across hers, she sifted her fingers up through his hair. Her senses ignited with the rapture of his eager touch. She tasted neither the sugar nor the milk from his tea, for the overwhelming flavor on his lips was passion. His hands curved up her back as his tongue delved into her mouth.

She shivered with indescribable delight when her fingers slipped beneath his loose shirt and along his muscular back. Each brush of her skin against his made her want more. Stretching her fingers across his taut skin, she sought to touch as much of him as possible. His kiss deepened until she strained to breathe against it.

As he peppered her bare shoulder with kisses, he abruptly drew back and cursed. Her hands caught within his shirt. He reached and pulled them away from him, but folded them between his.

“Alexei?” she whispered as she had so often. He did not want her to be in Bartholomew's arms; yet he was denying her this pleasure in his.

“This is not right.”

Michelle stared at him in disbelief. “It is wonderful.”

A smile drifted across his lips, but disappeared into his sad eyes. Gently brushing her hair back from her face, he said, “You are right. It is wonderful and wrong.”

“What is wrong about your holding me?” She grasped his arm when he started to turn away from her, as he had too many times before. “Alexei, be honest with me!”

“Honesty?” he said in a growl. “Do you want honesty? Let me start with that you are getting into trouble with Prince Charming.”

“Alexei, I have no intention of letting Bartholomew hurt me. That could happen only if I fell in love with him. That cannot happen.”

“No?”

“No,” she answered with more vehemence than she had intended. Why was he asking her that when she had just melted in his arms? “Bartholomew is my friend. Nothing more.”

“Does he feel the same?” When she hesitated, he continued, “Then you are heading for trouble,
Liebchen
. Prince Charming has powerful allies in Vienna. If you jilt him, you may find yourself in more trouble than you can imagine.”

She clasped her hands over her ears, wishing he would pull her back into his arms again. She did not want to quarrel. She wanted to kiss him.

He drew her hands away. “What do I need to do to convince you?”

“The truth?”

“All right. I am trying to help you because of the debt I owe Sophie.”

“Debt? What do you owe her?”

“My life.”

“Your life?” she said in a squeak.

His hands encircled her face as he held her with the fire of his gaze. “She saved my life, Michelle, and I intend to repay her by saving yours.”

Alexei watched Michelle's mouth open and close in amazement. It took every ounce of his willpower not to cover those soft lips with a savage kiss that would reveal how much he ached for her. Taking her hand, he sat her on the settee. He did not release her slender fingers as he sat beside her. While he could, he wanted to touch her.

“
Maman
saved your life? How?” she whispered.

He savored the soft huskiness of her voice, but now was not the time to enjoy it. Never would there be a time, he reminded himself. His obligation to Sophie could not be reciprocated by seducing her dazzling daughter.

“'Twas nothing as dramatic as fighting off a pack of demons to save my soul.” His attempt at a jest fell flat.

“I doubt if
Maman
would waste her time on that. If she had won your soul back from the devil, I have no doubts that you would bargain it away again.”

“Most likely.” He stared at the flames reflected in her eyes, then dragged his gaze away to look at the ones on the hearth. “Sophie watched over me like a mother.” He grinned wryly. “Something you would understand better than anyone. When we worked together, she warned me away from potentially dangerous situations. I heeded her every time, but one.”

“Who was she, Alexei?”

He shook his head. “Is it that obvious that the problem was a woman?”

“Only because you warned me about Bartholomew and getting too deeply involved.”

Standing, he locked his fingers together behind his back. He could not meet Michelle's eyes while he told this shameful story that he had hidden from everyone else.

“Her name was Shanna. I was young. She was beautiful. The second I saw her, I was smitten. I could think of nothing but her, of possessing her, of giving her my heart and my soul.” His voice hardened. “How was I to know that that was exactly what she wanted? Sophie told me to avoid her, but, dupe that I was, I could not believe that lovely, angelic Shanna wanted to lure secrets from me and betray me to my enemies. Nor did I imagine she had foes of her own. When Sophie tried to tell me to stay away that night, I refused to listen.”

“What happened?” she whispered.

“It was perfect when I arrived. She had sent her servants away, so it was just the two of us. So eager was I to seduce her that I could barely eat.” He sighed. “That saved me.”

When Michelle slipped her hand into his, he squeezed it gently. He looked at her as she whispered, “There was something wrong with the food?”

“It was tainted with a poison so deadly that I nearly died even from what little I ate. If Sophie had not been concerned about my welfare as well as my idiotic infatuation that could have betrayed everything, I would have died as well. She found us unconscious. It was too late for Shanna, but, after months, I recovered.” He released her hand. “It was the year Sophie missed coming to spend Christmas with you.”