Despite all, she felt the heavy cloud that lay over her heart lift, ease. Blow away.
They rode on through the morning, stride for stride, the sky wide and windswept above. The call of larks and waterbirds was the only sound to counterpoint the rhythm of the horses’ hooves.
Then another path—a dike—appeared. The horses took the slope easily, then Sebastian wheeled and reined in. He glanced at her.
She met his gaze, a smile on her lips, a laugh bubbling up. “Oh!” She dragged in a breath. “It’s just like home!”
“Home?”
“Cameralle is in the Camargue. It’s”—she looked around—“not the same but similar.” Gazing up, she lifted her arms to the sky. “Like here, the sky is wide and open.” Lowering her arms, she stretched them to either side. “And the marsh runs forever.”
She grinned and set the mare ambling beside the gray. “Many think it too wild a place.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw him smile.
“And the occupants too wild for decency?”
She laughed and didn’t answer.
It wasn’t hard to keep her worries in check for the rest of that magical morning. In the wilds of the Camargue she had always been free; she felt the same sense of freedom, of being unfettered, here. Of being allowed to be free.
Even after, when, tired but refreshed, they cantered back to the stable, she managed, by dint of will, to keep her mind free of Fabien’s contagion. She was still smiling when they reached the house. Sebastian led her to a side door, held it open, and ushered her in.
She entered, then stopped. The door gave directly into a small parlor, not a corridor as she’d supposed. The door clicked shut as she turned. Then Sebastian was there, and she was in his arms.
Lightly held, not seized. Cradled like something precious, something he wished to own.
She looked into his face, into those blue eyes, and saw that truth etched in the blue.
His hand was beneath her chin, tipping up her face.
Her lids fell as he lowered his head.
Practice made perfect. A self-evident fact, at least in this case. Their lips seemed to know each other’s—touched, brushed, then fused with the confidence of familiarity.
The pressure increased. She hesitated, for one instant held back—realized in the same moment that she couldn’t, couldn’t hide from him in this, for he would know and grow suspicious. Realized she couldn’t bear to let Fabien triumph in denying her even this.
Just this was all he’d left her—whatever experience she was brave enough to grasp, to seize. To take for herself—now.
Deliberately, she parted her lips, lured Sebastian in, tasted him and gloried—deliberately seized.
Just a kiss. Neither pushed for more, yet there was a flagrant promise in the melding of their mouths, in the hot tangle of their tongues. In the way their bodies came together, soft to hard, hips to thighs, breast to chest.
She took and he gave; he made demands and she met them gladly. Passion awakened, rose, stretched; desire watched from the wings. Heat, deep pleasure, and that sweet, aching yearning—they were there, hovering, yet held back by a knowing hand. A tantalizing promise.
How powerful could a kiss be?
Enough to leave them both panting, both urgently wanting more, yet conscious through the pounding that filled their ears of the luncheon gong echoing through the house.
Their eyes met, glances touching in sure recognition, then sliding away. Breaths merged, then they kissed again, came together again, a last caress before easing apart.
He held her until she nodded, once more sure on her feet. He released her but reluctantly, sliding his hands down her arms as she turned to the door. His fingers tangled with hers, twined, then slid away.
“Until later,mignonne .”
She heard the deep murmur as she reached the door. Heard the promise in the words. She hesitated but could think of nothing to say. Opening the door, she led the way through. Sebastian followed.
Chapter Nine
FFabien was to deny her all chance of a life—the life that should by rights have been hers—then she would take what she could, experience all she could along the way.
Along the way to perdition.
Despite her defiant stance, Helena felt plagued by doubts, racked by guilt. By the sense that, while plotting to thieve from Sebastian, in taking pleasure from him, no matter how much she gave back, she was committing some heinous sin.
She should find the dagger quickly. Then go.
The house lay silent about her even though it was only just eleven. She’d heard a clock somewhere strike the hour as she’d slipped from her room. She’d considered waiting until after twelve, but by then she was sure all the lamps would be extinguished. Most had already been put out, but enough were still burning for her to see her way.
The house was too huge and as yet too unfamiliar for her to risk blundering about in the full dark. And she felt certain that Sebastian, the only one she feared meeting, would keep late hours. He was probably in his study, looking over some papers. So she devoutly hoped.
An ornate dagger of not-inconsiderable worth—where would he keep it?
Not in any of the rooms she’d thus far seen. A whispered conference had elicited the information that Louis, likewise, hadn’t spotted it. Neither he nor that weasely man of his had any idea where it was. So much for Louis’s help.
Reaching the gallery, she turned in the direction she’d seen Sebastian take when heading to change for dinner. She doubted he would keep such an object in his bedchamber, but his suite would doubtless include a private room—a room in which he kept his most precious things, the things that meant something to him.
Whether the dagger featured in that category, she didn’t know, but . . . given the propensities of powerful men, she suspected it might. Fabien had not mentioned how Sebastian had come to possess a de Mordaunt family heirloom. Louis hadn’t known that either. Helena wished she did—aside from anything else, knowing how Sebastian viewed the dagger would aid her in searching for it and in knowing how hard she would need to run once she found it.
Locating Sebastian’s apartments wasn’t difficult. The opulence of the hangings, furniture, and vases told her she had the right corridor; the coat of arms carved into the solid oak of the double doors at the end confirmed it.
No light showed below the double doors or beneath the single door along the corridor to the right. Ladies to the left, gentlemen to the right—she prayed the English followed the same convention. Holding her breath, she eased open the single door. It opened noiselessly. She peeked in.
Moonlight poured through uncurtained windows, illuminating a large sitting room luxuriously furnished yet distinctly masculine.
The room was empty.
Helena whisked through the door, then carefully shut it. She scanned the room again and saw what she’d hoped to see. A trophy case. She crossed to it, stood before it, and examined all the items. A whip with a silver handle. An engraved cup. A gold plate with some inscription. Various other items, ribbons, decorations, but no dagger.
She looked around, then started circling the room, checking the tops of the small tables and sideboards, investigating all drawers. Reaching the desk, she glanced over the top, hesitated, then tried the drawers. None were locked; none contained any dagger.
“Peste!”Straightening, she glanced around one last time—and noticed that what she’d taken for a domed clock standing on a pedestal by one window now seen from this more revealing angle was not a clock at all.
She crossed quickly to the pedestal, slowing as she neared. The object that lay beneath the glass dome was not a dagger. It was . . .