Spring Fires (37 page)

"If I let you go up there, I'd never hear the bloody end of it!" Seeing the determined glint in Beauvisage's eyes, he cast about for extra persuasion. "You're probably thinking that the mistress would forgive me in the end, but there's Hyla to deal with—"

Nicholai looked satanic in the shadowy keeping room. "But, Stringfellow, you and I both know that the dear Mrs. Flowers is otherwise occupied."

It was impossible for him to feign ignorance, since he had personally admitted Pierre DuBois barely a quarter hour earlier. Hyla had pouted only momentarily before leading the Frenchman off to her bedchamber.

"How did
you
know?" Stringfellow couldn't resist asking.

"I'd love to stand here and chat the night away with you, my good fellow," replied Nicholai in an ironic tone that barely disguised his impatience, "but there is a certain young lady whom I would prefer to see first."

Stringfellow winced in surrender. "All right, then... go on upstairs. But, if Lisette asks my part in this escapade, I'll deny everything." He paused, then laid a hand on the taller man's arm and added in a low serious voice, "If this visit causes her more pain, Beauvisage, I'll never let you near her again!"

"I hear you, Stringfellow." After a few steps toward the stairway, he turned back, his own expression softening. "Thank you... and wish me luck."

* * *

Although physically and emotionally exhausted, Lisette could not bring herself to blow out the candles and climb into bed. Complete dark and stillness were more than she could deal with just yet. Standing before the window, gazing down on the sleeping city, she brushed her hair. The repetitious movement was comforting somehow, hut nothing could erase torturous thoughts of Nicholai from her mind.

Has he already boarded a ship? Perhaps he was at sea at that very moment—bound for England and Gabrielle. Since her own bitter parting from Nicholai, Lisette had gone over each word they had spoken that day, again and again, wondering what she might have done differently. Now, all her instincts cried out that she should never have encouraged this sea voyage of his to England. He had said that he didn't want to go and she must have been demented to argue the point. But still... would not Gabrielle have appeared time and time again between them, an invisible source of anxiety and questions?

She leaned sadly against the window frame. If only... and then she silently berated herself for even half wishing that Gabrielle had never returned from the dead. Perhaps fate had a hand in all of this. Lately, so much of the course of her own life seemed beyond her control.

Nicholai stepped silently into the doorway and stared at the perfect picture Lisette made across the room. Clad in a snowy bed gown with a pleated bodice and buttons from the top of her neck to below her hips, she seemed to embody the essence of innocence and womanliness all at once. Gleaming pale hair spilled down her back, while her breasts were outlined temptingly against the batiste fabric. What struck Nicholai most of all, however, was the tear that sparkled in the moonlight as it slid down her cheek. What did it mean?

He crossed the floor so quietly that Lisette didn't realize that someone was in the room until he was just a few steps away. She whirled around, and her blue eyes were wider than ever as she breathed his name.

"Don't worry—I'm not a ghost," he smiled.

"I...oh, my—" A wave of elation threatened to overwhelm her. Nicholai stood just a few feet away, clad in the same soft leather coat, fawn breeches, white shirt, and knee boots that he had worn the night of their first meeting at Belle Maison. Recognition was followed by cold realization. They were traveling clothes. "I thought that you would be at sea by this time." She strove for a casual tone and even remembered to brush her cheeks dry, hoping that he hadn't noticed her tears.

He came near enough to smell the lily of the valley soap that scented her skin. "I am sailing from New York at dawn two days hence. When I realized that I could make the trip with time to spare, I decided to use those hours to... try to mend matters between us." Tenderly, he caressed the rich length of her hair and added in a near whisper, "I didn't want to leave it that way."

Unable to look at his face, afraid of what she might see, Lisette dropped her eyes to the floor. "I... I have felt badly as well."

Nicholai made no verbal reply, but reached down to take the brush from her limp hand. The sensation of his fingers brushing her own triggered her longing.

Slowly, he began to brush her hair with long, sensuous strokes. Lisette's scalp tingled each time the brush moved through her hair and touched her neck. It was as though Nicholai himself were caressing her, and her shivery pleasure soon dissolved into arousal.

He felt it, too. In the wavering candlelight, her hair shone like molten gold; it felt like a silken waterfall against his knuckles that bent around the brush's handle. Lisette's stirring nearness became torment as minutes passed. His instincts urged him to turn her, crush her in his arms, kiss her until they both were weak, then rip off all those prim tiny buttons on her bed gown, and
then
—if only it were that simple! Unfortunately, Nicholai was all too aware that Lisette was not so easily swept away by simple passion. She had a power to resist that could destroy a man's confidence. It was incredible, but he felt like a schoolboy now, scared to touch the chit for fear that she'd scream rape and toss him into the street. Just being near her was delicious... and all too soon they would be separated for many months—possibly forever.

A rebellious curl escaped the brush and fell across her cheek. Nicholai's free hand moved to capture it, but when his fingertips grazed her skin, he felt how warm she was and sensed her weakness. Gently, his hand brushed downward to the soft baby tendrils that curled along her neck. She sighed.

He needed no further assent. Dropping the brush, he slid his hands around her waist while his mouth burned the tender spot below her ear. When she leaned back against him so that the curve at the top of her derriere pressed his hardness, he let out a low groan. His fingers strayed upward to caress the outline of her breasts through the batiste, finally circling to touch the taut peaks. Then, unable to hold back, Nicholai cupped warm fullness in each hand.

Fire spread from Lisette's belly until her entire body seemed to be aflame. Only her natural reticence in matters of love, especially relating to this one man, kept her from pressing her body to the length of his and begging him to take her right there, on the floor if need be.

She realized that she would not have to face him tomorrow... or for months to come. No one would know what they shared this night, and this could be her last chance to be in his arms, to feel his body against hers.

When Lisette turned to face him, the candle guttered out and Nicholai drew a harsh breath. His arms stayed around her, resting on her lovely bottom. Starlight illumined the bronzed lines of his face and she lifted a hand to trace his irresistible mouth and jaw just as she had always longed to do. It seemed a night to fulfill suppressed longings. His unexpected reappearance had to be fate's way of giving them both a second chance to say good-bye....

She opened her mouth to his kiss, surrendering herself to the exquisite sensation of their tongues fencing, the unique and wonderful taste of Nicholai, the hard pressure of his arms embracing her, crushing her thinly clad breasts against the leather of his coat.

Finally, when they were both faint with desire, he lifted his head. "Lisette—I hope you know what you are doing."

Her eyes glistened in the moonlight. "I do, sir. I'm giving you a proper good-bye."

"Oh, God—" he managed to groan as she led him by the hand toward the narrow rope bed.

"There's not much room," she apologized with mock seriousness.

Nicholai flashed a grin in the darkness. "It will be plenty, Mistress Hahn. I don't intend to stray from your side."

She smiled in return, then experienced a stab of pain upon realizing that soon he would be farther from her than at any point since their meeting at Belle Maison weeks earlier.

They sat down together on the quilt-covered bed. Staring at Lisette through violet-shadowed darkness, he wished he could know her thoughts. His feelings for her were so keen and confusing that he sensed that she felt something—love?—with equal intensity for him. Yet, with Lisette one could never be certain. Ever since their first meeting, he had worked to tear down the barrier she had erected to hide her real self, but no sooner did he destroy one obstacle than did another seem to appear in its place....

Nicholai reached out to touch her high-necked bed gown. His eyes held her fast as he carefully unfastened one button, then the next, and the next, until Lisette shivered as he opened the last one below her hips. With deliberate slowness, he parted the gown and drank in the vision of her swelling breasts and flat belly. When his mouth burned her shoulder, she gasped aloud and lay back across the bed.

"Shh," he soothed, nibbling a trail over her collarbone, then downward to her right breast. It rose eagerly to meet his mouth, but he bided his time, kissing every inch, until finally his lips fastened on the rosy nipple, sucking tenderly as it puckered against his tongue.

Lisette felt the hot yearning deep in her belly, and was torturously conscious of Nicholai's hardness pressing against his breeches. She longed to ease the ache they both felt, yet the sensations his tongue evoked were so acutely pleasurable that she could only move closer when he sought her other breast and pressed kisses to her ribs, collarbone, hips. It seemed that he had lingered over her for an eternity when Lisette sank her fingers into his thick hair

"Stop!" she whispered hoarsely. "I can't bear any more."

"But you enjoyed it?" Nicholai inquired, his breath warm against her ear.

Lisette shivered. "Too much." She sat up and closed her bed gown over tender breasts.

Although throbbing with the need for release, he couldn't repress a smile. "I don't know if that's possible,
cherie
."

She stiffened, then shuddered. For a moment, fear clutched her as she realized what must come next, but it was swept aside by yearning... and love.

Nicholai stared in disbelief as Lisette reached up to pull off his jacket, and unfastened the folds of his stock.

She giggled helplessly. "You look incredulous!"

Watching his shirt open under her eager fingers, he could barely find his voice. "This sort of behavior is not exactly in character..."

"Are you shocked? I'll stop if—"

"No!" He managed a laugh. "God, no. Don't stop."

She blushed, but removed the shirt all the same, regarding him through lowered lashes. The moonlight emphasized the splendor of Nicholai's body and the reckless magnetism of his face. Laying a hand on his chest, Lisette gathered her courage, leaned upward, and kissed his lower lip, then all of his mouth. With a low groan, he surrendered and met her playful tongue. It took all his control to suppress the urge to roll her into the pillows, pull up that damned bed gown, and seek the release he craved. Instead, he clenched his fists and suffered the torment of her feather-soft caresses, teasing kisses, and finally the wrenching sensation of her fingers unbuttoning his breeches.

Nicholai slid his hand into her glossy hair and held the back of her head firmly, so that the flirtatious kiss she had been inflicting upon him deepened. She couldn't break away; his mouth demanded a response that seemed to explode from the deepest part of her spirit. The kiss went on and on, like a whirlpool that pulled her under until escape was unthinkable. Finally, through a blur, Lisette saw Nicholai's silhouette against the silvery night as he stood to strip off the rest of his clothing. In the next instant, he had turned back the covers on the bed and she found herself lying against the cool pillow. His lips hovered just near enough for her nipples to graze his chest through the batiste of her bed gown.

"Oh, Lisette..."

Her hands were moving over his hard buttocks, hips, and the muscled width of his back, memorizing every inch of him. "Hmm?" She heard her own voice as though in a dream.

"I'm having trouble believing that you are real," Nicholai sighed.

Lisette smiled through a mist of tears. For a moment, the heat of passion made room for quieter emotions as their eyes locked in the shadows. She stared at the face she had grown to love so acutely and wondered if his image would begin to fade in her mind after a few weeks.

"I'm going..." Her throat ached with tears. "...to miss you terribly."

He didn't trust his voice to answer. Instead, he kissed her wet eyelids with infinite gentleness, then traced the rest of her face until their lips came together tenderly. He lifted the white bed gown over Lisette's head, and when their naked bodies met at last, the pleasure was so intense that it approached pain.

Chapter 33

May 11, 1793

"Shh, sweet baby, it's all right..." Alexandre Beauvisage
soothed his tiny daughter. Kristin had awakened just before the clock struck three and, even after being changed and rocked by her father, refused to relax and go back to sleep.