Invitation to Ruin (7 page)

I cannot imagine the horror of losing
Sebastian now. I promised him I would take no other—and it is a
promise my heart will not let me disavow even if he rejects me!

April 27, 1787

How has this come to pass? A blindfolded
child I have been, trying to play amongst the grown-ups! And
Veronique, her name is “truth,” but she is a creature of lies and I
shall make sure the truth of her nature comes back to haunt
her.

As I had the last four mornings, I woke early
and bathed. I had my maid Claire bring me breakfast before getting
dressed. I so wanted to be spotless when Sebastian saw me, no stain
on my clothing, person, or virtue. And then I sat in the drawing
room with a book that I have had all week and still have not
managed to read a single page!

Around two, when I was weak from an early
breakfast and skipped lunch, Papa came into the drawing room,
taking the chair opposite me.

“I have had a proposal.” His hands nervously
smoothed the fabric of his pant legs. “Someone has asked for your
hand in marriage.”

He stopped, waiting for my response.

I demurely closed the book I held and sat
straighter. “What house?”

“L’Aigle.”

He held his breath, I believe, and it
surprised me at the time. (Foolish child!)

I smiled, fighting to keep my hands primly
folded in my lap, and set about allaying his apparent fear that I
would refuse. “The du Quesne family would be well served by such a
match, would it not, Papa?”

He nodded, the heaviness of his gesture at
odds with an answer that he should have joyously received. He
seemed almost to hope I would say no!

Suddenly, I had an inkling of what might be
stressing him so. “Is the dowry too high?”

“No, child, it is remarkably low.”

Like an idiot, I smiled, although I managed
not to cry. I went down on my knees, grabbing Papa’s hands and
clasping them to me. “Then do not worry, Papa. This makes me
happy.”

“You should take your time to carefully
consider this, child.” He slipped his hands from my excited grasp
and held me by the shoulders as his gaze searched mine. “It would
not do to change your mind later.”

Ah, I could not tell him that, even if I had
not long desired Sebastian, there was no right of denial left me!
But my foolish heart was singing.

“I have no desire to prolong acceptance,
Papa,” I answered and moved to the writing table. “Will you dictate
your answer—that we might send it immediately?”

“You may tell him yourself, Gabrielle,” Papa
answered. “He is waiting for you in the garden’s conservatory.”

I spun around to see if he was joking. There
had been no sound of a carriage arriving, not even the jingle of a
single horse’s livery.

“Oh, I did not hear that we had guests.”

“He wanted his arrival to be discreet,” Papa
answered warily.

Yes, Sebastian certainly knew the art of
being discreet! I curtsied low. “With your leave then, I will go
and give him my answer.”

“Your mother and I will be waiting in the
library for the two of you…” He stopped again, another long pause
while I waited for him to finish. “I suggest you take the
opportunity to speak with him at length this afternoon before
giving him your final answer. I will instruct the staff not to
disturb you.”

The shame of it…how my mind raced ahead to
think what Sebastian and I, in the bright light of day but tucked
safely in the conservatory, might do with that time!

I curtsied again, saying no more, and left
the house at a near run. I had to count my steps on the path to the
conservatory, else I would have flown across the lawn and into
Sebastian’s arms. As it was, I threw the conservatory doors open
forcibly, my step faltering as I realized that the man before me
was not Sebastian.

“Marquis L’Aigle,” I said and curtsied. What
was he doing here?

He looked stricken as he saw the surprise on
my face. His hand reached out, stopping just before he touched me.
“Gabrielle…”

And then he did touch me.

The voice, the hands…my body responded even
as my mind and heart threatened to shut down. What a fool I had
been to trust Veronique, to make love to a masked man in the dark!
To open my legs to him a second time!

I could feel the tears pooling in my eyes,
feel the tremble of my lips as fear and anger flooded into me,
forcing down the brief fire his touch had kindled.

His face hardened and his hand moved up to
grip my arm so that I might not flee.

“You have a choice to make, Gabrielle,” he
said and reached behind me with one hand to push the doors shut.
“And I will not phrase it in pretty words.”

He stopped, gave a hard swallow, and released
my arm. “Your honor has been severely compromised and not, as you
must already know, by Sebastian.”

“Why would you have done such a thing?” I
softly voiced the accusation, tears beginning to spill down my
cheeks. His gaze, if possible, grew sterner still.

“For the same reason you were willing to have
it compromised…love.”

“You cannot think I would marry someone
capable of such duplicity!” Reckless, I turned for the door, but he
pulled me back and forced me against the wall.

He placed a palm against the wall on each
side, trapping me against him, our bodies so close they touched,
his scent curling around my senses. Ah, who was I to challenge him?
He was, it was widely said, a mercenary in business who had rebuilt
the family’s fortune when his father had left him little more than
a title. “A cut-throat brute,” the other lords called him. Here I
was a mere girl who had been stupid enough to hand him my only
marker—my chastity.

His head dipped forward, his lips brushing my
hair and temple. “Ah, Gabrielle, I have waited all week for just
the smell of you.”

He pulled back and looked at me, his gaze hot
and seemingly everywhere at once. Never had I seen his eyes so
animated, the sky blue irises burning with life. Always when I had
encountered him in the past, he had seemed to do no more than throw
a vacant, cold glance my way. What had wrought this change? Did it
start as some dark proposal by Veronique to have fun at my great
expense? Or had he always worn a mask, that I might not see his
true face, his desire for me?

“What do you see?” he asked and tilted his
head, studying my expression as he waited for my answer.

I shook my head. I wouldn’t be taken in by
the strong smell of him or the heat in his eyes. He had lied to me,
plotted my downfall. “A liar,” I bit out. “Nothing more.”

His smile was hard, harder still his erection
as he pressed against me, forcing me to breathe in short gasps.

“Your choice then, Gabrielle, is this,” he
started and covered my mouth with his, stabbing his tongue past my
protesting lips to draw me into his kiss. He broke the kiss
roughly, leaving me more breathless than before.

For a moment, he seemed to have forgotten the
ultimatum he was to deliver, but then he went on. “You can marry
me, let me put you on a pedestal and worship you as I have
worshipped you these last few weeks. You will never have to worry
about your security or the safety of your family in these troubled
times.”

He stopped, with a hesitant arrogance that
hardened when I did not then give him my immediate consent.

“Or,” he continued, “I will revoke my offer
and reveal the affair. Shall I tell you how much scorn that would
subject you and your family to?”

I refused to let him see how the prospect
frightened me, or how I struggled against my own body at his very
nearness. Squaring my shoulders, I challenged him again.

“You came to me knowing I loved your
son!”

One fine blond brow arched as I said “loved,”
some mixture of hope and scorn pinning it there as he answered.

“My…my son would not know what to do with a
woman if she was tied naked to his bed,” he answered. “I have
spared you heartache in your pursuit of him.”

“Only to replace it with an even greater
heartache!” I protested.

“Why? Do you think me too old?” he asked.
“Too ugly?”

I stiffened against him, refusing to yield my
opinion of his age or looks. If he had only touched my skin and
felt its heat, he would have known!

“No answer?” He backed away ever so slightly,
still keeping me trapped between his outstretched arms. “You would
have an old man like me, then, announce you a whore to the
world?”

The barb sank deep and I started to cry
again. “You think me such?” I whispered. How could I marry a man
who thought me a whore? Why would he wish to marry me if he thought
me such?

“I think I want you so badly I shall die from
it,” he said. “Now answer me!”

“Your manners are rough,” I cast my eyes down
so that he could not read the emotions warring within me.

“That was not the question.” His voice
gentled and he pressed against me again, more softly this time, his
body not as unyielding. “Do you think me old…ugly?”

“I think you only a brute and a liar,” I
relented.

“Have I physically hurt you, Gabrielle?” His
head tilted so that he spoke the words against my neck, his warm
breath fanning the skin until the tips of my breasts tightened into
hard pebbles.

“You have damaged me,” I answered. Oh, I
could not look at him, could not let him see the truth lest he own
me forever!

“It is only damaged if you deny me…if you do
not fulfill your promise.”

“I promised Sebastian,” I cried. “Not
you!”

He shook his head and grabbed my hand,
forcing it to the crotch of his pants where his manhood surged
against my palm, demanding that I surrender. I grew weak at the
knees and had to lean against Ambroise for support.

“You promised me, Gabrielle.” He forced my
hand to stroke the length of his covered shaft. “This cock.” He
grabbed me through the skirt of my gown, cupping my mound and
squeezing until I moaned against his shoulder. “These lips.”

God help me! I leaned against the wall, my
legs opening against my will as he massaged my mound. I closed my
eyes, not wanting to see his victory completed.

“No more of this game, Gabrielle,” he warned,
his voice clouded with passion. “Do you keep your promise…do you
consent to marry me?”

I answered in the barest of whispers, my body
beginning to tremble beneath the divine attack of his hand.
“Yes.”

“Open your eyes,” he commanded. “I would not
think you were picturing another lover touching you.”

I did as he said, gasping as he raised the
skirt of my gown and pushed my undergarments out of his way. Pinned
to the wall, I braced my hands against his shoulders and watched
him tug his pants down his hips until his cock sprang free. The
damp spot that had built between my legs was refreshed, the new
wetness coating my lips, making me ready for his heavy shaft.

How glorious his rod by day! I could see what
before I had only felt. The tip, heavy and plumped, its coloring a
swollen burgundy, was formed in the shape of a mushroom cap. From
there, the stalk, barely narrower than the head, ran hard and
straight to a base of dark blond curls. And the sacs that hung
below! My mouth grew wet as I remembered the taste of his seed, how
I had sucked so greedily at it, surprising both of us. Every aspect
of his physique seemed magnified and ready to rob me of any choice.
My breasts grew sore at the need to taste him again. Every inch of
flesh ached for him. Even my tongue felt thick with the desire to
dip into the opening at the tip of his cock and sample the bright
pearl already beading there.

“Ambroise…”

“Do not ask me to stop, Gabrielle, please do
not demand such a thing.”

He was begging me to let him continue! Could
he not sense how hot I had become with my need of him? Did he think
my trembling to be fear and not what it truly was—an appetite grown
enormous at the sight of his thick cock pulsing such a short
distance from my sheath?

“I was only tasting your name, my love.” I
sighed and leaned my head against the wall, offering my throat to
him as I thrust my hips forward so that my lower lips might brush
his cock.

I had closed my eyes again and he softly bid
me to look at him.

“Watch me fill you, Gabrielle.”

It was an impassioned request he made, not a
command, and I opened my eyes to see the engorged head of his cock
part the uppermost split of my lips and tease the spine of my
tingling bud. Burying his shaft deeper between my lips without
penetrating me, he withdrew for a second, showing me how my desire,
wet and aromatic, coated his cock.

“You are so moist, my love, so ready.”
Passion twisted his words into groans. “Do you now renew your
promise to me?”

Ah, how I wanted to make him worry, to keep
him thinking that I was anything other than enslaved by his touch.
How miserably I failed at doing so!

“Yes,” I cried out, feeling him enter me a
heartbeat later with a sharp thrust. “Only you, Ambroise.”

Again I was crying and he kissed my tears
away before crushing my mouth with his. Salt covered his lips and
tongue, and I licked at them as he continued driving his cock into
me. My fingers dug into his broad shoulders in my fight to control
my ecstatic moans—the prospect that my exclamations might draw Mama
and Papa from the house with worried haste both terrified me and
filled me with a wanton abandon.

“Mine?” He grabbed my bottom roughly and
pulled me deeper onto his shaft.

“Yes,” I moaned, squirming on his manhood as
the tension coiled like a snake in my belly.

He reached up and cupped my breast, squeezing
it hard. “Mine?”

“All of it,” I panted, my vision blurring
with the first wave of my climax. “All of me.”

Ever so gently, he put his hand between my
breasts, covering my heart while his hips continued driving his rod
into me in sweet torture. “Mine?”