Chapter Nineteen

If only you could see inside my heart. The words haunted her, tugged at her like the torment she had seen on his face. Damien didn’t come to her room that night, and Alexa was glad. Too much had happened. Her mind was a dizzying swirl of emotions, fears, and uncertainties.

Damien must have sensed it, for he let her sleep far later than she should have, and when she finally dressed and went downstairs, she discovered he had gone.

“He is out in the carriage house,” Claude-Louis told her. “Your husband is helping my son feed his bird.”

Damien’s elegant, sandy-haired valet stood at a window overlooking the garden. Damien had told her that before the revolution, the Arnaux family had been in the aristocracy. Claude-Louis’s inborn grace and intelligence spoke of his noble blood.

“My husband and your son—they’re very close, aren’t they?”

“That surprises you?”

“A little.”

“Your husband is a hard man, but only on the surface. It is something even he does not seem to understand.”

“He didn’t have much of a childhood. Perhaps that is the cause. People always seem to expect him to be something more than he is.”

“Or perhaps he is more than he believes he is.”

She mulled that over as she left the room and made her way toward the rear of the house. There were endless facets to the man who was her husband. It was part of the reason she found him so intriguing, part of the reason she had always been so attracted to him.

It was also the reason she was afraid to give him her heart completely, to put all of her trust in him.

Alexa walked through the French doors leading out to the garden, then down the path to the carriage house in the rear. It was cool inside. It smelled of aging wood, paint, and axle grease. In the loft above her head, pigeons roosted in one corner, sailing out with a noisy flutter, then returning to their nests to fluff their feathers and coo.

Alexa walked toward the sound of voices drifting in from a small room at the rear. When she made her way in that direction, little Jean-Paul came running toward her.

“Bonjour, Madame Falon,” the little boy said, a bright smile lighting his face. “We hoped that you would come.”

“Did you?” She glanced from the short, dark-haired child to her tall, handsome husband.

“Yes,” Damien said, “we were hoping you might join us.” His eyes were a dark, enigmatic blue, searching eyes, probing her thoughts.

“I used to wonder if you liked children,” she said softly. “It is easy to see that you do.”

“I don’t like children—at least not all of them. Jean-Paul is … special.”

Alexa smiled. She didn’t like all children either. Not really. But she liked Jean-Paul, and she would love to have a child of her own. Especially Damien’s child. “Yes, he is very special.” Lowering herself to his small stature, she smiled. “Damien is lucky to have you for a friend.”

“Ah, non, madame. It is I who am lucky to have him. If it were not for M’sieur Damien, I would not be here.”

She glanced up at her husband, but he merely shrugged his wide shoulders. “We met the day of the accident. If I had been quicker, perhaps Jean-Paul would not have been injured at all.”

She swung her attention to the boy, her heart beginning to throb uncomfortably. She had wondered what had happened to the child, but it had never occurred to her that Damien might have somehow been involved. “Is that right, Jean-Paul? Damien was there when you got hurt?”

He nodded. “It was a day when the soldiers marched through—so many you could not count them. They looked grand in their bright-colored uniforms, with all of their medals and shiny brass buttons. There were horses and wagons—lines so long you could not see the end. My mother and I, we were watching when a cannon passed by. Something scared one of the horses. I remember my mother screaming. I remember M’sieur Damien’s face as he ran toward me.… The rest I do not know … only that my leg hurt and I was crying.”

“Jean-Paul was struck by a wagon?” she asked Damien, her chest going tight at the image.

Damien shook his head. “A cannonade pulled by horses. Someone fired off a pistol and the animals bolted. When they rounded the corner, the wagon tipped over, dumping the cannon off its bed, along with several iron balls. I was able to save Jean Paul from the cannon itself, but one of the cannonballs crushed his foot.”

“Oh, Jean-Paul, that must have been terrible for you.”

He shrugged in a gesture that reminded her of her husband. “For a while it hurt. Now, I mostly do not remember.”

“That’s how I met Claude-Louis,” Damien put in. “He was grateful that I had helped his son. In time we became close friends. Eventually, he and Marie Claire came to work for me.”

“M’sieur Damien saved my life,” the boy said solemnly.

“Then we have something in common.” Alexa smiled at him softly. “For once he saved my life too.”

Damien gazed at her, tenderness in his expression. “I am also the one who put you at risk. Now, why don’t we give Charlemagne a handful of seeds, then go down to the park for an ice? I’ll bet Madame Falon would like that nearly as much as Jean-Paul.”

There was warmth in his gaze and it sparked something deep down inside her. “Oui, m’sieur,” she said. “I would like that very much.”

*   *   *

There was only one loose end. Jules St. Owen. Whatever happened between her and Damien, Alexa was willing to chance. But she owed a certain amount of loyalty to Jules. She wasn’t about to do anything that might put him in danger.

So when little Jean-Paul came running to her room carrying a small piece of paper, crumpled and sweaty from its ride in his tiny fist, she read it with a certain amount of urgency.

“Where did you get this?” she asked.

“From a blond man out in front of the house. He said that I should not give it to anyone but you.”

She smiled, but her heart increased its rhythm. “You did exactly right. Thank you, Jean-Paul.” She smoothed back an unruly lock of the little boy’s thick dark hair. “Run along now and play—and thank your mother for sending up the tea.”

She had been feeling a little out of sorts. Too much on her mind, she knew. Too much at stake and still so many unanswered questions. “Tell her it was just what I needed.”

Jean-Paul nodded and hurried off down the corridor, dragging his misshapen leg. Her eyes trailed after him for a moment, the sight tugging gently at her heart. Still, he was a strong child, intelligent and quick-witted. She believed whatever occurred in his life, Jean-Paul would be all right.

She sat down and reread the message. Your husband has a meeting with General Moreau tomorrow at two o’clock to discuss his next assignment. So St. Owen had his own informants in the government. Dear God, what kind of a world did they live in? Meet me at the Café de Valois in the Palais Royale at two-thirty.

As usual, Damien had told her nothing about such a meeting. He expected her to trust him, but when would he learn to trust her?

The afternoon of the following day, he dressed to leave the house, just as Jules had said. Standing in the grand salon, she saw him heading for the door dressed in his brass-buttoned uniform.

“I see you’re going out,” she said lightly, but it bothered her that he still refused to confide in her.

“I’ve a meeting with General Moreau.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because it isn’t important.” His expression subtly shifted and he gave her a hard look of warning. “And even if it were, it is none of your concern.” It dawned on her that someone might be watching. She had unwittingly forced a return to his hard-edged role.

“Walk me out to the carriage,” he demanded, “there is a matter I would discuss.” He picked up his plumed bicorn hat, tucked it under an arm and jerked open the heavy wooden door.

“As you wish,” she said somewhat meekly.

Outside the house he stopped and turned. “I’m sorry I had to do that. They’ll be watching us more closely than ever.”

“I know. I shouldn’t have pressed you.”

“I’m not exactly sure what the general wants. I’ll tell you when I get back home.”

“Be careful.”

He gave her a brief, hard kiss. “I won’t be gone long.”

Long enough for her to reach the Café de Valois, she hoped, but Jules seemed entirely competent. He would have this plan well thought through. Standing on the wide front porch, she watched her husband leave, feeling an unwelcome tug at the handsome sight he made in his perfectly tailored grenadier’s uniform, then hurried inside to fetch her reticule and a parasol as protection from the sun.

Checking to be certain that no one saw her leave, and seeing nothing out of the ordinary, she hailed a cabriolet at the corner and made her way to the small café in one of the arcades of the Palais Royale.

Jules was waiting when she arrived.

“It’s good to see you.” Dressed in an expensive dark brown tailcoat, he guided her out to one of the pavilions in the garden and ordered each of them a cup of coffee. It arrived with a pitcher of hot steamed milk. “I’ve been worried about you.”

“Worried?” Alexa leaned forward in her chair. “Has something happened? Is something—”

He shook his head and lifted a fine hand toward the bruise on her cheek. “There were rumors, speculation as to why you and your husband left the château in such a hurry. There was gossip that he beat you.”

She sighed. “It’s a long story, Jules. And not at all what people think.”

“Then you are all right?”

How much should she tell him? “I’m fine. I came to tell you I won’t be leaving Paris with you after all.”

“Nom de Dieu, why not?”

“My husband is taking care of things. He is going to see that I get home.”

“Alexa—”

“It’s the truth. I would explain, if I believed that you would understand. I’m afraid I would be putting him in danger.”

Jules’s hand covered hers where it rested on the table. “Listen to me. You and I are friends. I would never do anything to hurt you—not you, or your husband.”

She studied his attractive face. Wisps of golden blond hair touched his smooth, refined forehead, and his light eyes were shadowed with concern.

“I wish it were that simple, but the fact remains—you are French, I am English. I cannot be certain our goals are one and the same.”

“My goal is to end this war. To bring peace to my country. To stop the killing and save good men’s lives.”

Alexa chewed her lip. Dare she risk it? She had trusted Jules before, and he had not failed her. He was working with General Wilcox, and Damien might need help. They both might need it. “My husband is a patriot. An English patriot.”

Jules leaned back in his chair. “So he has once again convinced you.”

“He explained things. Answered my questions. It all made perfect sense.”

“Your husband is an expert at making things make sense.”

“I believe him.”

“Why?”

“Because he has no good reason to lie—and because he loves me. He told me so the night we left the château, and of all the things he might say or do, I don’t think he would make up something like that.”

“Neither do I,” Jules said, surprising her.

“You don’t?”

He shook his head. “I saw him in the library, remember? The man was blindly jealous. He obviously has feelings for you—deep ones. Which is exactly the reason he would lie about who he is.”

She hadn’t thought of that. It was an insane notion. Surely Jules was wrong.

“There is a general named Fieldhurst who can verify his story. I’ve read about him in the newspapers. Surely your people can reach him, confirm once and for all that Damien is telling the truth.”

“In time perhaps, yes.”

“I’ve found something, Jules, something important. My husband is going to see the information gets back to England.”

He leaned forward, his face growing suddenly taut. “Will it help to end the war?”

“I can’t say for certain. But I can tell you, if we don’t get the information to the British, Napoleon is sure to invade England. Do you know how many thousands of lives that will cost? There will be carnage on both sides—untold useless deaths—and for what? So the Little Corporal can be emperor of the world?”

“Surely you are wrong, Alexa. His last chance for invasion died at Trafalgar.” The great sea battle that had ended in British victory and left the French Navy broken and almost entirely destroyed.

“Unfortunately, I am not wrong.”

“Then what if you are wrong about him?”

“I—I’m not wrong about him either. Fieldhurst will tell you. Get your sources to find out the truth.”

“How much time do we have? How long before this information becomes worthless?”

Alexa swallowed hard. Every day was crucial. And there was always the chance someone might discover the attempt they were about to make and stop them. “I—I’m not sure.”

“The boat will be leaving Le Havre in a little over a week. We’ve got to leave Paris no later than the twenty-third in order to make it. If your husband is telling the truth and the two of you are safely away, it will not matter. But if something goes wrong and you need my help … or if you have the information and you want to be sure it gets to England, I will be ready. Just get word to my friend at the Hotel Marboeuf. His name is Bernard, and you can trust him to help you. Bernard will know how to get in touch with me, and he will keep you safely hidden until I can come for you.”

Jules squeezed her hand. “Do you understand, Alexa?”

“Yes,” she said weakly, for all her old doubts had just crept back in, and though she was determined to ignore them, her limbs felt suddenly unsteady. “Thank you, Jules. No matter what happens, I’ll always be in your debt.”

He brought her hand to his lips and kissed the palm. “Falon will never know what a lucky man he is.”

*   *   *

“I cannot believe it!” Rayne Garrick, Fourth Viscount Stoneleigh, paced in front of the sofa in the drawing room of his comfortable plantation house in Jamaica. “I knew something like this would happen. I should have shot that bastard when I had the chance!”

“Calm down, Rayne. It might not be as bad as it sounds.” Jocelyn eased the letter from her husband’s clenched fingers and silently reread the contents. The letter had arrived in Kingston with the latest ship from England, then been delivered to Mahogany Vale along with the weekly supplies. It was written by one Colonel Douglas Bewicke and posted on the third day of July, two days after Alexa had been abducted. “From what it says here, your sister is in France, but so is her husband.”

“Her husband? Surely you aren’t referring to that whoreson French traitor I allowed her to marry?” Rayne’s dark brown eyes snapped with fury. Lines of tension and worry hardened his features.

“Perhaps there is some mistake. You said you knew this man Bewicke. You said he was nothing but a sniveling little coward—I believe those were your words. Perhaps he is wrong about the earl. Alexa believed in Lord Falon enough to marry him—”

“Alexa is the one who turned him in. The only sane thing she has done since she met him.”

“I don’t believe we should condemn the man just yet. He told her that he loved her that morning outside the inn. Even if he is a French spy, if he loves her, he will see that she is kept safe.”

“And if he cares for her not one wit? If he ruthlessly seduced her and married her for her money? Where will my sister be then?”

“W-We mustn’t think that. We must hold good thoughts until we get back home, and that is still quite some weeks away.”

“If that bastard has hurt her, if he has harmed a single hair on her head, I shall track him to the ends of the earth. I won’t rest a day until I see him dead.”

Jocelyn placed her hand on her husband’s muscular forearm. Tension rippled through every sinew and cord.

“It’s going to be all right, Rayne. Alexa will be safe in France until we can arrive back home. Once we are there, you can speak to your friend General Strickland, arrange for a trade of some sort. You will find some way to see her returned—I know you will.”

Rayne sifted his fingers through his wife’s long black hair. In the sunlight streaming in through their bedchamber window, it shined like onyx and felt like silk against his hand.

“Always the optimist, aren’t you, my dearest little love? What in the name of God would I ever do without you?”

“Your sister is going to be all right.”

Rayne smiled and then nodded, but he was far less certain. Alexa had always been impetuous. For a while after young Lord Peter’s death, she had been quiet and withdrawn, but it wasn’t really her nature. She hated the French for the death of their brother Chris, and for the tortures Rayne suffered during the year he’d spent in one of their prisons.

Now that she was forced to live among them, could Alexa keep her temper under control and her wits about her? Could she survive whatever cruelties she might be forced to endure?

Where was she now? he worried. And where was that bastard she married?

Rayne cursed himself for allowing them to wed, and that whoreson Falon to the depths of a fiery hell.

*   *   *

If only he hadn’t kept putting her off.

“What are we waiting for?” Alexa kept asking. “Why can’t we simply break into the shipbuilder’s office, get the plans, and leave?”

“Because it’s too dangerous. We’ve got to pick just the right time.” He paced the bricks of the terrace, his black boots echoing into the garden, his expression dark and unreadable, as it had been since that night by the Seine.

“And if we wait long enough, it isn’t going to matter. We have no idea how many of those ships have already been built. For all we know, they might be ready to launch any day now.”

“I told you—we have to wait. Every detail has to be perfect, our escape route securely in place. There won’t be room for mistakes.”

“But—”

“That’s the end of it, Alexa. And dammit, please don’t bring it up again—we don’t know who the hell might be listening.”

She knew that much was true. She knew as well that what she had said was also the truth. And as far as she could tell, Damien was no closer to arranging a safe passage home than he had been in the beginning. Even if he was, she had no way of knowing because her husband wouldn’t discuss it.

Which was part of the reason she had never mentioned St. Owen. Jules was her ace in the hole in this deadly game. When the doubts crept in, as they steadfastly continued to do, he was her link to sanity. If all else failed, she could always go to Jules.

Alexa bit her lip. What would Jules do if he knew about the plans she had seen in the general’s desk? Would he be able to help her get them? He was as opposed to bloodshed as she was. He was working with Bewicke and Wilcox, trying to get her back home—and Jules had a boat leaving France at the end of next week.

Standing now in front of her bedchamber window, Alexa wondered if she should have told her husband about St. Owen’s offer, about the boat that could get them back to England. Once he knew the truth, they could simply steal the plans and leave on the boat together.

Then again, what if, by some small chance of fate, Jules was right—Bewicke and Wilcox were right—and she was wrong?

Damien would never let the documents leave France.

The notion gnawed at her, keeping her up late at night, making her wonder.…

And there was Damien himself. He had left her alone since the night they had fled the château, had kept himself carefully apart from her. She didn’t know what he was thinking, didn’t know whether he regretted his hastily spoken words.

Didn’t know for certain whether he had truly meant them.

I love you might come easier for a man like Damien than she had guessed. After all, he was an actor, a chameleon, a man of a thousand faces.

The fact was, she could risk all—trust Damien with the fate of her country, her very life—or she could find the shipbuilder, break in and get the plans. She could give them to Jules, who could get them to General Wilcox. She could be certain beyond most doubt they would safely reach her homeland.

Jules could help her … if she continued to trust him.

Dear God, it always seemed to come down to that. She loved Damien, but the bitter truth was she still didn’t trust him. Jules was French, but he was working with the English, and he’d been honest and forthright from the start.

Whatever she decided, the first step was to secure the plans. Alexa resolved to see it done.

*   *   *

“Bonjour, Jean-Paul.” Damien strode into the entry. “Have you seen Madame Falon?”

“Oui, m’sieur. Madame went for a walk. She said that she would return very soon.”

A muscle tightened in his jaw. He didn’t like her going out alone. Dammit, he had told her that more than once. They had to be doubly careful now; the slightest mistake could be fatal. Still, he worried constantly that something might go wrong.

His glance strayed from Jean-Paul to the window looking out onto the street, where a group of children kicked a small leather ball across the paving stones. There was no sign of Alexa, but when he looked back at the boy, he saw her walking toward them.

“Good morning,” she called out, a soft smile lighting her face.

“I wondered where you were. You shouldn’t have gone out alone.” He had kept himself away from her since that night beside the Seine, now his chest went tight just at the sight of her.

“I know, but it was such a lovely day.” Her cheeks looked flushed from her time out of doors, her hair mussed by the wind. “What have the two of you been up to while I was gone?”

Jean-Paul glanced at the children playing outside the window. “I was watching my friends. I was wishing that I could play ball with them.”

“Then why don’t you?” Alexa asked. “Surely your mother would not mind.”

He only shook his head. “They will not let me. They say I cannot play with such a twisted leg.”

Damien sighed. “Children can be cruel, Jean-Paul. They don’t realize how awful their words can make someone feel.”

“I do not care what they say. I only wish I could kick the ball as they do.”

Alexa knelt beside him. “Perhaps you can.” She studied the angle of his twisted leg. “What do you think, Damien? Jean-Paul is strong and agile. I think perhaps there is a way he might learn to kick.”

She was wearing green today, a soft embroidered muslin that set off the color of her eyes. There was warmth in her expression, but also a guardedness. It made his insides clench and regret to well up inside him.

Why had he told her he loved her? It was a stupid thing to say, considering their uncertain future, and even if it was the truth, it had only made her more wary. He’d stayed away from her bed since then, and she had seemed grateful. He wished he knew what she was thinking.

He fixed his gaze on the little boy’s oddly angled leg. She was right, he saw. If the child could learn to swing it just so, he could kick with the side of his foot. It might actually give him better leverage than he could get with the toe of his shoe.

“Yes, I believe you could do it, Jean-Paul, if there was someone who could teach you.”

“You could teach me!” The little boy’s big brown eyes lit up. “I know you could. And I am a very fast learner.”

Alexa laughed and Damien’s chest squeezed at the feminine sound. How long had it been since he’d heard her laugh that way? Too long. Far too damned long. She was young and innocent. She deserved to laugh more often. She didn’t belong caught up in war.

“Damien?” Alexa’s voice brought him back from his thoughts.

He forced himself to smile. “What do you say, Jean-Paul? You’ll have to change clothes first, or your mother will have my head.”

“Oui, m’sieur—I will do whatever you say. I will hurry. You must wait for me right here.” The child dashed off toward the stairs, leaving the two of them alone.

When Alexa looked up at him, he saw the same uncertain feelings he had seen in her eyes before. The green depths looked troubled and wary, but there was tenderness there too, and something else he could not name.

“You’ve made him terribly happy,” she said softly.

What about you, Alexa? Will I ever make you happy? But he didn’t say it. He was afraid of hearing the truth.

“He’s a good boy,” he said instead, his voice a little gruff. He looked at her and his blood began to quicken with desire for her. Since the night they had fled the château, every time he saw her, he wanted to tear off her clothes and bury himself inside her. But he felt guilty for the last time, guilty and oddly afraid.

Forcing his eyes from the soft swell of her breast, he glanced back out the window. “I suppose I had better change too. I have a feeling this task could be harder than it appears—at least for someone who hasn’t played ball in years.”

His wife only smiled, so he turned and walked away.

Alexa watched him go, feeling her heart tug painfully. She wondered at the turbulent emotions that had shifted across his face, the softness in his eyes whenever he had looked her way.

An ache rose up at the wall that continued to stand between them. For a time at Castle Falon she had crumbled the wall a little and begun to pierce the armor he wore so solidly around him. Then the French had come and she had gone to Bewicke. She had lost him then, and she really couldn’t blame him.

Still, he had come for her at Le Monde, and she realized her feelings hadn’t changed.

The hunger remained strong for them both, but a sea of doubt also remained. That night by the Seine, he had told her that he loved her, convinced her firmly that he had spoken the truth. But since that time, once again his guard was up, and she had no way to know what he was thinking.

Perhaps she should try once more to breach the wall, take the risk and give him her heart completely. But she had done so once and the pain had been unbearable. She wasn’t sure she could survive that kind of grief again.

She thought of Jean-Paul, at the warm look on Damien’s face whenever he and the child were together, and wondered why it was the only person he ever seemed at ease with was the tiny dark-haired boy.

Perhaps because the boy expected nothing of him. Perhaps because he accepted Damien just the way he was.

It was a disturbing thought as she made her way upstairs. The child loved Damien for himself, no matter what he had done, no matter what he believed in. The little boy trusted him, and won Damien’s trust in return.

If only she were brave enough to do the same.

Alexa knew that she was not.

She had made her decision. She would put her trust in Jules St. Owen. She didn’t love Jules. When it came to St. Owen, she could remain objective. With Damien her thoughts were constantly in turmoil, incessantly confused, nothing but a vicious tangle of emotions.

When it came to her husband, she couldn’t trust her own judgment.

Good judgment was imperative now. There was too much at risk—too many British lives at stake.

Alexa crossed the floor of her bedchamber, feeling suddenly weary. She had just come back from the Hotel Marboeuf, where she had spoken to the man named Bernard and left a message for Jules. If he were willing, they could break into the shipbuilder’s office and search for the plans. If they found them, Jules could see them safely on to England.

As for herself, that was another matter entirely.

Deep inside, she had known all along that she would not be going with him.