Tender the Storm (43 page)

"May I join you?" he asked, his speech so slurred that it took a moment before Zoë could make sense of his words. His eyes looked at Zoë with veiled hostility, but when he addressed Varlet there was a pleading note in his voice. "Paul . . . ?"

Varlet hesitated, his eyes lazily moving from Zoë to the newcomer. He put an arm around the young man's shoulders and said, "Yes, you may join us, Andre. But only if you promise not to act like a jealous young fool."

The promise was given. Zoë puzzled over it as Varlet urged her up the next flight of stairs. She balked. The next floor up was almost in total darkness. On this section of the staircase, they were the only people.

"I told you this was a private game,"
came
Varlet's amused tones. His breath tickled her ear. "Suit yourself. But I am going up. Are you coming, Andre?"

Both gentlemen brushed past Zoë. "Will . . . will you send Jean down to me?"

"My dear child," answered Varlet, "evidently, you don't know much about gentlemen. If Tresier is in the middle of a game, he can't simply throw down his cards and walk out."

It was all perfectly reasonable, perfectly innocent, and she did not know why goose bumps were forming on the backs of her arms and on her shoulders.

Varlet put out his hand. She hesitated for only a second,
then
put her own hand in his. She mounted the next step, trying to conceal her reluctance.

"Zoë!"

Varlet released Zoë, and she half-turned on the staircase to view the owner of the voice. Relief flooded her. Rolfe stood there, one hand on his cane, the other disentangling itself from a very pretty girl who, a short while before, had been blatant in her attentions to another gentleman.

Rolfe took a step forward, and Zoë noted the gray eyes snapping with rage, the stiffly held posture, the mouth tight-lipped with censure. At Madame Recamier's the night before, he had treated her with an almost insulting indifference. She had told herself, then, that if she never again set eyes on the perverse man, it would be too soon for her liking. She lied. She was never
more glad
to see anyone in her life.

"What are you doing up here?" he demanded.

It was Varlet who answered. "My dear Ronsard, what should Mademoiselle Devereux be doing here? Like everyone else, she has come to
be . . .
amused."

Rolfe put out his hand, just as Varlet had done a few moments earlier. Zoë was sick with fright. The tension in that dimly lit half-landing was almost palpable. Rolfe's hand lifted a fraction, and Zoë instinctively moved to obey the implicit command. When she reached his side, his arm came round her so hard she cried out.

"I
'll
see Mademoiselle Devereux to her door," said Rolfe.

Varlet and Rolfe stared at each other for a long, comprehending moment. Finally, Varlet's gaze shifted to the young woman whom Zoë had displaced.

"Yvonne, do you come with us?" he said.

The woman gave Rolfe an uncertain look. His gaze was fixed on the two gentlemen on the staircase, completely ignoring her.

"I . . . there's someone waiting for me," she said, and picking up her skirts, she moved rapidly along the corridor.

It was the older man who brought the confrontation to an end. With a slight acknowledgment of the head, gracefully, without haste, he made to ascend the stairs on the heels of the young
muscadin
.
Rolfe watched them until they were out of sight,
then
turned on his heel, jerking Zoë after him.

In the carriage, he demanded an accounting of how Zoë had come to be at Madame Montansier's establishment.

"Didn't you know what kind of house
madame
keeps?" he asked savagely. "Any women there can be bought if the price is right."

Eyes downcast, she wrung her hands. "I knew," she confessed.

Rolfe could not believe his ears. "You knew?"

"There was no harm in it."

"No harm in it?"

"Respectable ladies often go to such places. If they are properly escorted, they have nothing to fear. And everything seemed so normal."

The irony did not escape him. How many times in the past had he escorted avidly curious ladies of the
ton
to just such establishments? It was all very amusing —only he did not feel like laughing.

His anger boiled over. "Oh yes, you had nothing to fear! Then I wish you would tell me why, when I came upon you, you had the look of a cornered hare. You were terrified! And so you should be! God knows what will be the wages of this night's work. I don't trust Varlet. It was too easy. He's not the sort of man to forgive a slight. I half-expected him to call me out."

Though she was trembling in her shoes and reluctant to add another fagot to the flame of Rolfe's temper, Zoë felt compelled to say more. In a voice barely above a whisper, she told Rolfe of Varlet's offer of marriage and how he had turned ugly when she had put an end to his importuning by pretending that she was a married lady who was separated from her husband.

"You told him that?" asked Rolfe.

"I did not betray your identity," she quickly elaborated. "But that's beside the point. What I wish to say is this: I think you are right about Varlet. He has a ferocious temper when thwarted. Please be careful, Rolfe."

Rolfe was incredulous. "And still you permitted a man of that kidney to escort you to that den of vice?"

"No," said Zoë in a subdued tone. "I went with Jean Tresier." And with the faint hope of exculpating herself, she told Rolfe of how, having refused Tresier's offer of marriage as well as a loan she had promised him, she had accompanied him out of a sense of guilt.

Far from mollifying him, her words stoked his anger to a higher temperature. "What you need is a keeper," he said roughly, "a man to protect you."

What he was thinking was that Zoë had received two offers of marriage in as many days. Who next would offer for her? And what if she accepted?

Baring his teeth, he snarled, "I would not shake the hand of either Tresier or Varlet without washing my own hand afterward. But you, evidently, are pleased to be taken for one of their kind."

Zoë shrank into herself in miserable silence.

Wearily, Rolfe passed a hand over his eyes, his anger suddenly spent. He did not know whether or not he believed his own words. He did not know what to make of the girl who was his wife. Beneath the fine feathers and newly acquired air of worldliness, he sensed the same innocent girl who had captured his heart. But how could he be sure? And he had still to come to terms with the fact that she was seeing her brother —and he a known member of

La Compagnie.
God, where was it all going to end?

"What were you doing at Madame Montansier's?" asked Zoë from her dark corner of the coach.

"Gaming," he said, and sighed quietly to himself when his answer passed without comment.

When the carriage pulled into the courtyard of the house in St. Germain, Rolfe jumped down and helped Zoë alight. In the foyer, Salome and Samson were waiting.

Zoë wasted no time in offering her profuse thanks for his escort home. Having said her adieux, she went racing up the stairs.

Rolfe removed his cloak and gave it to Samson. Then, coldly deliberate, he dismissed the servants for the night. Salome's head came up and wrath kindled in the depths of her eyes. Wordlessly, Rolfe put his walking cane into her hands. They stared at each other significantly for several moments before Salome's eyes dropped. Rolfe turned on his heel and went after Zoë.

"What . . . what do you want?" She had removed her mask and wig, and was running her fingers through her hair.

Rolfe shut the door softly. Brutally, frankly, he explained what would have happened to her if he had allowed Varlet to take her upstairs. The
color came and went under her skin as he graphically described how two men would use a woman, then use
each other.

"They let you go because they thought I was your protector," said Rolfe. He shrugged off his dark coat and threw it over the back of a chair.

Shocked, not quite taking in what she was seeing,

Zoë sank down on the bed. At any moment she expected that Salome and Samson would come bursting through the door.

"You see," said Rolfe easily, "Varlet knew that if he had not released you at once, I would have challenged him to a duel."

"Dueling isn't permitted," said Zoë.

Rolfe merely smiled and began to unbutton his shirt. In another moment, he had thrown off his wig and was pulling the shirt over his head. "The way I see it is this. When the whole world knows that I am your protector, you'll be as safe as the bank of England."

Zoë wasn't looking at him. At the first glimpse of bare skin, her eyes, her whole attention, had become riveted on the door.

"It's a fair exchange, wouldn't you say, kitten?"

"
Wh
-what is?" She was gingerly testing the word
protector
and had decided that it was preposterous to think that Rolfe meant what she thought he meant. The house was unnaturally quiet. Where, oh where, were her servants?

"And there is something more to be considered. You owe me . . . how long were we married before you ran away from me, kitten?"

"Eight months, three weeks, and four days," answered Zoë automatically.

Rolfe grinned from ear to ear. "By my reckoning, you owe me about three
months
uninterrupted time in bed."

At last, he had her attention. Her delicate brows knit together. "What are you suggesting?" she asked, her eyes darting around the room as if seeking a
way of escape.

"What I am suggesting is this. You refused me my conjugal rights when you were my wife. I have decided to collect on that debt beginning as of this moment."