LITMIR.BIZ

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no right to turn sullen. “I swear it’s not poisoned. Not by me, or by Mrs. Faulk.”

      “A dubious recommendation,” murmured Jerusa. Though the Frenchman’s eyes were masked by the shadow from his hat, there was no mistaking his mood, surly and ill-humored. He hadn’t shaved since they’d left Newport, and the dark stubble around his jaw only made him look less like the gentleman he’d pretended to be. “No doubt she thought her celebrated cider might benefit a poor, pitiful mad creature like myself.”

      “She believed you would enjoy it.” Inwardly he winced at her words, shamed. He had never before used madness as a pretense, and he didn’t know what had made him do it now. To draw from his own mother’s distress to save a useless chit like this one, the daughter of Gabriel Sparhawk—morbleu, what had he been thinking?

      “Indeed.” Finally she took the flask, carefully avoiding touching his fingers, and swept back her hair from her forehead as she briefly lifted the flask to her lips to drink. “Then that was all Mrs. Faulk should have believed.”

      He shrugged. “She believed what she wished.”

      “What you wished, you mean,” said Jerusa tartly. “There’s a difference.”

      His mouth curved into a mocking smile. “All your life you’ve had everything your own way, haven’t you, Miss Jerusa? How instructive for you to have it otherwise!”

      She dismissed his question by ignoring it. “You don’t care for my questions, Monsieur Géricault,” she said with icy politeness, “but can you please tell me why you told them what you did about me?”

      “You left me no choice.”

      “No choice,” she repeated incredulously. “Wasn’t it bad enough to claim I was your wife without insisting I was witless, too?”

      His jaw tightened. He wasn’t accustomed to explaining his actions to anyone. It was much of the reason he’d been so successful. At least until now.

      She sighed impatiently. “They were going to let us go free anyway. There was absolutely no reason for us to go traipsing back to their home. Except, of course, your great love for cider.”

      She shoved the flask back against his chest and turned away. Swiftly he seized her arm and jerked her back around to face him.

      “I may not like your questions, ma petite folle, but you’ll like my answers even less,” he said, holding her fast as she tried to break free. “Do you flatter yourself to think I’d truly want you for my wife? But as my wife, you also have my protection. Didn’t you notice how those men left you alone once I said you were a respectable woman? What do you think they would have done to you otherwise?”

      “They were farmers, not brigands!”

      “They were men, chère.”

      “They would not have dared a thing when they learned who I was!” She struggled again, uneasily aware of the same odd sensations his touch had caused that first night in the barn. No matter how much he claimed to be her protector, she sensed that the darkness hiding within him could be infinitely more dangerous.

      “But they didn’t believe you, ma chérie. The Sparhawks are gentry. Even the Faulks know that, and only a madwoman would insist otherwise. I merely added to what you’d already begun.”

      Damn him, he was right. She’d put the doubts in their minds from her first outburst. And if Michel hadn’t graced her with the feigned respectability of being his wife, the suggestive leers of the two Faulk men could easily enough have led to worse. Any woman who’d let herself sleep beside a man in an open field was asking for it.

      But she wasn’t just any woman. She was Jerusa Sparhawk, and ever since she’d been born that had been enough. More than enough, really. There wasn’t a person in Newport who wouldn’t recognize the Sparhawk name, and treat her accordingly.

      But she wasn’t in Newport any longer, and with a handful of words and a few sighs, this Frenchman had managed to strip her of her name, of who she was and what she was. If she couldn’t be a Sparhawk, what, she wondered unhappily, would be left?

      Michel frowned, wary of her sudden silence. It wasn’t like her to stop when she was as angry as she’d been, and he didn’t like surprises. Where his fingers grasped the fine bones of her wrist, he could feel how her pulse was racing, only one sign of the coiled tension he sensed in her body. Sacristi, he should recognize it: his own body had been hard from the instant he’d first touched her.

      “And consider the knowledge you gained, ma chère,” he said, his voice low. “If we hadn’t met Mrs. Faulk, you wouldn’t have learned of your faithless lover.”

      She gasped, appalled that he’d taunt her about such a thing. She’d thought of little else while they’d ridden, and none of those thoughts had been comforting.

      Michel pulled her another fraction closer. “You don’t deny it, then?” he asked relentlessly. “You believe what they said?”

      “Why shouldn’t I?” she cried as the tears burned in her eyes. “Unlike you, the Faulks had no reason to lie.”

      Michel, of course, had believed the story at once, remembering Carberry as a vain, self-centered fool. But he hadn’t thought she’d accept it, too. A girl who’d had the world handed to her would expect the same perfection in her husband, and be blind to his faults if his fortune was substantial enough. From the way she’d defended Carberry to the Faulks, he’d thought she was.

      Michel wouldn’t have mentioned it otherwise. He was a hard man, a ruthless man when necessary, but he’d never considered himself a cruel one, and what he’d said to her had been heartless.

       Morbleu, Géricault, since when have you needed a heart?

      “You cannot understand,” Jerusa was saying, her voice quaking perilously with emotion. “I loved Tom, and I thought he loved me more than anything. I thought he would love me forever. I thought—I thought—”

      She broke off, closing her eyes as she bowed her head. He remembered how radiantly joyful she’d been before her wedding, how she’d brought him into her circle of happiness with a single, open smile, and he wondered if she’d ever smile like that again.

      “Ah, ma bien-aimée,” he said softly, “the man was unworthy.”

      “I’m not your wretched bien-aimée!” she cried, and a single convulsive sob racked her. “I’m not anyone’s beloved!”

      In her misery she twisted away from him, and, for the first time, the moonlight shone full on her anguish. He had seen this same look on her face before, when she’d finally realized the Faulks weren’t going to accept her farfetched claim. Without the protection of her Sparhawk arrogance, she’d been lost and achingly vulnerable, and her eyes reflected the frightening depths of her desperation, mutely beseeching.

       Only one other woman had ever looked to him for help like that….

      He had answered Jerusa Sparhawk in the only way he knew how, using the words of compassion and excuses, the careful, quiet words to calm an unquiet mind.

      The same way he did with his mother, his poor, lost Maman, who’d asked for nothing more than that he carry her vengeance to the family who’d destroyed her own life and love. Jerusa’s family.

      And because Maman wished it, Jerusa Sparhawk would be first.

      No, must be first.

      Michel released her arm, and she sank to her knees and buried her face and her tears in her hands. For his mother’s sake, he knew he must leave the girl where she was, leave her to her misery and tears and the dew that would soak her skirts. The only son of Christian Deveaux would turn his back on her without another thought, except, perhaps, to consider how exceptionally easily he’d managed to crush his enemy’s spirit.

      But

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