Bride for a Night

CHAPTER SEVEN



“I COULD ASK the same of you,” Jacques countered, his jaw clenched. “How can you give your loyalty to a mad king and his imbecile son who devotes more attention to the gloss on his boots than to his people starving in the gutters?”

She lowered her eyes, unable to deny his condemnation. Not that she was prepared to admit the truth. Not to the man who was willing to betray those who had come to trust him, including herself.

“We shall never agree.”

“You think not?” He waited until she lifted her head to meet his somber gaze. “We are not so different, you know.”

She stilled. “What do you mean?”

He paused, as if not entirely certain he wished to explain himself. Then, with a tiny shrug, he turned his gaze toward the children still darting about the courtyard.

“My father was an artist who caught the attention of King Louis,” he revealed in a soft, rigidly controlled voice. “He was commissioned to complete several sculptures for the Tuileries gardens.”

She studied his profile, sensing his long-buried pain. “He must be very talented.”

“He was.”

“Oh.” She cleared her throat. “He has passed?”

“When I was just a boy.” A wistful smile curled his lips. “Thankfully, I managed to salvage a few of his pieces.”

Her annoyance with Jacques was forgotten as she stepped forward and laid a comforting hand on his arm. She had been devastated by the loss of her mother at a young age. No child should have to endure such pain.

“I would love to see them.”

“Then you shall.” He turned to meet her sympathetic expression. “He would have approved of you.”

She shifted uneasily beneath his intent gaze. “What happened?”

He paused, clearly unaccustomed to sharing his past. Then he heaved a deep sigh.

“My mother had been an actress before wedding my father and she was…” His expression softened. “Exquisite.”

“That I can well believe.” His own beauty was potent.

He gave a dip of his head. “Merci, ma petite. Unfortunately, beauty can often be a curse for women.”

“A curse?”

She blinked at his odd claim. Was beauty not an essential quality for a woman? God knew that she had suffered the consequences of daring to be less than lovely.

“My father was invited by the king to visit for several weeks at Versailles,” Jacques explained. “He was, of course, delighted. An artist must depend upon the patronage of those with wealth. He hoped to acquire additional commissions.”

“Did you travel with him?”

“No, I remained at our home in Paris with my tutor, but my mother joined him at the palace.” His jaw clenched. “Within a few days she had caught the eye of the Comte de Rubell.”

Talia bit her bottom lip, a sick sensation forming in the pit of her stomach.

“Oh.”

“Being a member of nobility the Comte naturally assumed that my mother should be honored to warm his bed. He could not accept her rebuffs.”


It was, unfortunately, a too familiar story.

Women without the protection of wealth or powerful connections would always be at the mercy of unscrupulous men.

Of course, even wealth did not necessarily protect a woman from being compelled to obey the demands of an overbearing male, she grimly acknowledged.

“Did he…force her?”

Pure hatred flared through Jacques’s eyes. “That was his intention when my father arrived and stuck the bastard with his sword.”

“Good for him,” Talia said with staunch approval.

His lips twisted. “It was not a fairy tale with my father as the hero, ma petite. Although his attack caused no more than a flesh wound, he was taken to the Bastille and condemned to death.”

She sucked in a harsh breath, horrified by the story.

“Jacques, I am so sorry.”

“As am I.” He took a moment, raw emotion tightening his features before he struggled to regain command of his composure. “My father was a hardworking, decent man of honor who was killed as if he were no more than a stray dog.”

“You loved him,” she said softly.

“Oui.” He managed a stiff smile. “And he adored me.”

“Then you are fortunate, even if you only had him a short time.” She felt a familiar tug at her heart. “The memory of my mother was often my only comfort after a particularly difficult evening among society.”

He shrugged off her words of comfort. “Remarkably I do not feel fortunate.”

She gave his arm a gentle squeeze. “What happened to your mother?”

“She returned to Paris only long enough to pack our belongings and to flee to England. Her cousin in London was willing to take us in.”

“So that is why you speak English with such fluency.”

“My mother married the youngest son of a baron who was willing to pay my tuition to Eton to keep me from being constantly underfoot.” His tone was matter-of-fact, but Talia sensed that the rejection from his stepfather had only served to deepen his disgust for the aristocracy. “I was a well-polished Englishman until I came of age and was able to return to France.”

“And yet you feel no loyalty at all to England?” she asked, unable to accept that he had made no friends during his years in school.

“I have no loyalty to a country that will allow the oppression of its people by a handful of bloated nobles who remain above the law.”

“But…”

“Enough of this dreary talk of politics,” he abruptly interrupted, pressing a slender finger to her lips. “I have come to request your companionship for dinner.”

Talia rolled her eyes in wry resignation as Jacques retreated behind the practiced charm he used as a shield against the world.

“I should refuse,” she muttered, ruefully aware she was unable to conjure the outrage she should be feeling at being held hostage by a French spy.

With a dramatic motion, Jacques pressed a hand to his heart. “You would not be so cruel.”

“You are my enemy.”

“Never.” Without warning he leaned down to brush his lips over her cheek, then taking her hand he placed it on his arm and firmly led her down the gallery. “Come, ma petite. Allow me to prove just how…friendly I can be.”

One week later

DUSK HAD FALLEN over the French countryside as Gabriel halted near the abandoned conservatory and studied the palace spread before him.

His gaze barely noted the imposing building that loomed over the countryside with rigid grandeur. He concentrated instead on the handful of soldiers lazily patrolling the grounds before shifting to the formal gardens where he could see the shadowy form of a lone woman walking through broken statues.

“Talia,” he breathed, sinking to his knees as a violent sense of relief slammed through him.

The man at his side shifted forward, moving with surprising grace considering his large bulk.

“Are you certain?” Hugo demanded.

Gabriel turned to send his friend a sour glance.

It hadn’t been his choice to have Hugo travel with him to France.

In fact, he had done everything but horsewhip the aggravating man to keep him from following him.

Unfortunately, Hugo was nothing if not tenacious and, ignoring Gabriel’s commands, insults and threats of violence, he had stubbornly arrived at Carrick Park mere hours after Gabriel and then had refused to leave his side.

In the end, Gabriel had been too anxious to begin his search for Talia to battle with his friend. While Hugo made himself useful by carefully interviewing the servants to discover if they could offer any useful information, Gabriel had scoured the countryside.

Thank God the local tenants were devoted to the young Countess of Ashcombe. The moment the alarm had been raised at her failure to return for supper, they had spread throughout the neighborhood to find their beloved Talia. Within hours they had found two strangers who were staying at a local posting inn, each of them carrying far too much money for innocent travelers.

They had held the pair captive at the local gaol, where the magistrate had struggled to prevent the more bloodthirsty citizens from taking matters into their own hands.

Gabriel had found himself struggling to suppress his own bloodlust as he had questioned the insolent creatures, and it was Hugo who had prevented him from choking the life from the bastards when they had grudgingly revealed the truth of Jack Gerard and the fact he had taken Talia to his lair in France.

As it was, he’d managed to crack the ribs of one of the traitorous cowards and knocked the teeth from the other before Hugo had managed to pull him off.

By the next morning Gabriel had been on his private yacht, headed toward the coast of France with Hugo grimly at his side.

“It has been some time, but I am capable of recognizing my wife, Hugo,” he assured his companion.

Hugo narrowed his golden eyes. “She does not appear to be a prisoner.”

Gabriel swallowed a curse. This was precisely the reason that he had attempted to keep his friend from joining him on this quest, despite the knowledge he could have no more skilled or loyal companion.

“Looks can often be deceiving,” he muttered.

“In that we are in perfect agreement.” Hugo tensed as a soldier strolled along the flagstone path, passing close enough to the conservatory that they could catch the scent of his cigar. Hugo grabbed Gabriel’s arm and tugged him toward the back of the building, his expression hard.

“Dammit, Ashcombe, we cannot linger here. The French soldiers might be as ignorant as they are incompetent, but they will eventually stumble across us. Besides, neither of us is as young as we used to be. Crouching in the bushes is damned uncomfortable.”

Hugo grimaced as he glanced down at his ruined breeches covered in mud and his once glossy boots that were now scratched from the past hour of tromping through the thick forest surrounding the palace. Gabriel was equally rumpled, his jade coat ripped in several places and his cravat wrinkled from the late-summer heat. Even his hair was mussed and the stubble on his jaw revealed he was twelve hours past the need for a shave. A considerable change from the elegant image he was always careful to portray to society.

“I have no intention of leaving here without Talia,” he growled.

Hugo shook his head. “Do not be a fool, Ashcombe.”

“There is nothing foolish in rescuing my wife from the bastard who kidnapped her.”

“You cannot simply charge into that nest of vipers,” his friend persisted. “You would be shot before you ever reached the gardens.”


Gabriel made a sound of impatience. He’d already accepted that he could not reach Talia.

Not yet.

“There will be no charging.”

“Then what do you intend to do?”

“Once it grows darker I will be able to slip past the guards and find her.”

Hugo’s fingers dug into Gabriel’s arm with a punishing grip. “No.”

“This is not open to debate, Hugo.”

“I will not allow you to commit suicide for a woman who is not worth—”

Gabriel barely realized he was moving before he had his friend pinned to the back of the conservatory. The savage fear that had haunted him since discovering Talia’s absence was finally boiling over.

Christ. He’d been through hell imagining the various horrors that his bride might have endured. And now, being able to catch a glimpse of her in the distance, and yet knowing she was still out of reach, was torture.

“I warned you when you insisted on joining me that I would not endure insults to my wife,” he seethed.

Predictably Hugo refused to give ground. The damnable man was one of the few whom Gabriel could not intimidate.

Which was no doubt the reason he was one of Gabriel’s rare friends.

“And I will not willingly allow my friend to walk into danger,” Hugo said between clenched teeth. “I have too few of them as it is.”

With an effort, Gabriel regained command of his frayed temper, releasing Hugo and taking a jerky step backward.

“There will be little danger.”

“Little danger?” Hugo scowled, waving a hand toward the distant gardens. “Perhaps you failed to notice the battalion of French soldiers milling about the palace?”

Gabriel shrugged, catching sight of two soldiers leaning against a broken fountain and flirting with a buxom maid.

“It is obvious that they are more interested in their entertainment than in keeping watch.”

Hugo remained unimpressed. “That does not mean they will not eagerly shoot an intruder.”

“Only if they realize there is an intruder,” Gabriel countered, shrugging aside his friend’s concern. He did not care if Napoleon and his entire army made a sudden appearance. Nothing was going to prevent him from retrieving his wife. “If you will recall, I managed to slip beneath the nose of our headmaster for years without being caught.”

Sensing Gabriel’s determination, Hugo muttered a vile curse. “I do not like this.”

“Neither do I, but there is no choice.”

“There is always a choice,” Hugo argued. “As you have pointed out with revolting frequency, Talia is now the Countess of Ashcombe. All we need do is to locate the closest British troops and they will…”

“I have no intention of leaving my wife in the hands of the enemy another night and certainly not the days, or even weeks, it would take to gather an army,” Gabriel ground out. “Besides, I will not risk Talia in the midst of a battle. We both know it is often the innocents who are injured in the heat of war.”

“If she is innocent…”

“Enough,” Gabriel snapped.

Hugo made a sound of impatience. “Would you listen to me, Ashcombe?” he rasped. “You have only the word of two traitors that she was taken against her will. What if you manage to approach her without being caught and she refuses to leave with you?” He paused. “Or worse, what if she reveals your presence to the French?”

Gabriel gritted his teeth, refusing to admit that Hugo’s accusations struck a nerve.

In the back of his mind, however, a treacherous voice reminded him that he had sent a young, beautiful woman into the isolated countryside without so much as a companion to keep her occupied. Would it be so astonishing that she would turn to a handsome and charming vicar to ease her loneliness? Or even to fulfill the needs of her body that he had stirred to life on their wedding night?

Of course, it was the same voice that had convinced him that Talia had been as guilty as her father in trapping him in an unwanted marriage and was responsible for this mess to begin with.

For a gentleman who prided himself on his ability to confront any situation with a logic untainted by emotions, he behaved as if he were as witless as those dandies littering the London ballrooms.

The knowledge was as annoying as it was inexplicable.

“Return to the ship and ensure it is prepared to leave the moment I arrive with Talia,” he commanded, his sharp tone warning he would endure no argument.

Hugo’s jaw tightened, but he gave a reluctant nod.

“Very well.”

“And, Hugo?”

His friend frowned. “Yes?”

“If I have not arrived by dawn tomorrow you are to return to England without me.”

“No.”

Gabriel narrowed his gaze. “You gave your word you would follow my orders when I allowed you to accompany me.”

Hugo tossed his hands in the air, clearly at the end of his patience.

“I begin to wonder if marriage has softened your brain.”

Gabriel’s lips twisted. “I must admit that I wonder, as well.”

Hugo headed toward the nearby trees. “Do not miss the ship.”

“I shall do my best.”



TALIA’S PRIVATE CHAMBERS were as magnificent as the rest of the palace.

The walls were covered by a pale green that matched the velvet curtains and the green-and-gold striped satin on the furnishings. A large fireplace made of white marble veined with black dominated one wall with a vast mirror framed in a profusion of gilt hanging over the mantel.

On the opposite wall a row of arched windows overlooked the sunken garden and the distant lake. While overhead a heavy crystal chandelier spilled a golden glow over the canopy bed set in the center of the room.

Still attired in her ruby satin dinner gown trimmed with French pearls at the plunging neckline and white roses along the cap sleeves, Talia sat in front of the satinwood dresser pulling a brush through her thick curls.

It had been over a week since her arrival at the palace, and while Jacques had been a charming companion when he was not meeting with the various guests who routinely traveled from Paris to speak with him, she was growing frustrated with her elegant prison.

As she should be, she acknowledged, tossing aside the brush and rising to her feet.

After accepting that she could not escape, she had instead turned her thoughts to the looming disaster awaiting General Wellesley’s troops.

But despite her efforts, she had yet to find the means to send a warning to those poor men who were about to march directly into an ambush. And she’d had even less luck in discovering the sort of secret information that might be used to England’s advantage once Jacques returned her to Devonshire.

She was proving to be as much a failure at being a daring adventuress as she was a society debutante.

Talia paced out the French doors that led to the balcony. She was leaning against the stone balustrade gazing at the moon-drenched garden when she caught the unmistakable sound of a soft footfall behind her.

“Jacques?” she called, a frown marring her brow. Until this moment she had never felt uneasy in these private chambers, despite being a prisoner. The various guards who roamed the palace and surrounding grounds had treated her with a wary respect that assured her that Jacques had left strict orders that she was not to be bothered. Now she realized just how vulnerable she truly was. “Who is there?”

A large, distinctly male form stepped onto the balcony.

“It most certainly is not Jacques,” a familiar voice growled.


“Gabriel?” Talia gasped in shock, half suspecting this must be a dream. It certainly would not be the first time she’d imagined her husband magically appearing to sweep her back to England. Of course, in her dreams he had spoken sweet words of regret. His sharp retort assured her that she was very much awake. “Dear God. What are you doing here?”

He prowled forward, his golden hair shimmering in the moonlight and his eyes a pure silver.

Talia shivered at the sudden danger that filled the air. How ironic that she felt perfectly comfortable with the man who had taken her captive, while her husband—the one man she should trust above all others—made her tremble with uncertainty.

“I should think that is obvious.” His hooded gaze skimmed over her stiff form, lingering on her tumble of loose curls that spilled over her shoulders and down her back. “I have come to collect my wayward wife.”

A breathless, aching sensation raced through Talia, making her acutely conscious of the vast amount of bare skin revealed by her gown and the manner in which it clung to her generous curves.

“How in heaven’s name did you find me?” she rasped.

He halted a mere breath from her, the scent of his warm male skin teasing at her nose.

“I am not without skills.”

“But…”

“Why did you assume another man would be entering your chambers?” he roughly interrupted.

Sudden fear that they would be overheard by the guards in the garden below jolted Talia out of her lingering sense of disbelief.

“Shh.” She lifted a hand to press her fingers to his lips. “Someone will hear you.”

He grabbed her wrist, his touch sending a sizzle of heat through her blood even as his eyes flashed with anger.

“Answer the question, Talia. Who is Jacques?”

She frowned in confusion. “He is…or was your vicar until he revealed himself as a traitor and kidnapped me.”

“Jacques…Jack,” he breathed in sudden comprehension. “Of course.”

“Yes, Jack Gerard.”

“And he is a frequent visitor?”

“I do not understand.”

She furrowed her brow, wondering why on earth he appeared to be so preoccupied with her captor. Surely they should be concentrating on escaping before his presence was noticed?

Then realization struck like a slap to the face.

“Oh, my God.” She jerked her hand from his grip. “Did you come here to rescue me or to discover if Jacques is my lover?”

His jaw clenched. “Is he?”

For a crazed moment Talia contemplated the pleasure of knocking the arrogant bastard over the edge of the balcony.

What sort of insufferable, selfish beast was more concerned with whether or not his wife might have strayed than her well-being after enduring the trauma of being kidnapped and held captive?

Then deciding his head was too thick to be harmed by a mere fall, Talia pushed her way past his large form to enter her bedchamber.

“You should leave before the guards discover you are here,” she ordered between clenched teeth.

He was swiftly in pursuit. “You wish to remain?” he demanded.

“I wish…” She came to a sharp halt near the bed, recalling her ridiculous dreams of Gabriel’s romantic charge to the rescue. “I am such an idiot.”

He grabbed her shoulder, turning her to meet his fierce scowl.

“Talia.”

“No.” Instinctively she reached up to knock his hand away. “Do not touch me.”

He froze, regarding her as if she had suddenly grown a second head.

“You are my wife.”

Her humorless laugh echoed through the room. “A wife you insisted leave town mere hours after our wedding and to whom you haven’t bothered to send so much as a note.”

A flare of color crawled beneath his skin. Talia might have suspected he was embarrassed by her accusation if it weren’t so absurd.

“And because I damaged your pride you turned your attentions to another man?” he snapped.

“I have never turned my attentions to another man.”

“No?” His gaze swept over her expensive satin gown before shifting to the opulent splendor of her room. “It does not appear that way to me.”

“Fine.” Planting her hands on her hips, she shot Gabriel a fierce glare. Something she would never have dreamed possible only a few short weeks ago. “You desire the truth?”

His chin tilted to a haughty angle. “I will accept no less.”

“Then I will admit that I found the Vicar Jack Gerard a kind and charming gentleman who treated me as if I were a true lady of quality and not a bit of rubbish that had to be buried out of sight.”

“That was not…”

“But I have never considered him as more than a friend, and not even that since he forced me to accompany him to France,” she continued without allowing him to defend the indefensible. “You may believe me or not. I do not particularly care.”