The least of her worries. Her gaze was fixed on Sebastian—she could barely get her mind to function. His sigh, his words . . . what did they mean? He had found her out. She knew better than to hope he hadn’t heard all. They’d spoken in French, but he was fluent in the language. He knew everything now. He would think the worst of her, yet . . . he’d still called her“mignonne.”
His eyes had left Phillipe to return to her. Seconds ticked past. She could feel his gaze, sensed he was waiting, but for what she couldn’t guess. Sensed he was willing her to understand, to read his mind—as if she could.
When she simply remained, literally struck speechless, rooted to the spot, he sighed again, then threw back the covers and rolled from the bed.
Rounding it, he crossed the room toward her.
Helena felt her eyes grow wide, then wider. She opened her mouth to protest. Couldn’t find words. Her breath caught and stuck in her throat.
He was naked! And . . .
Did the man have no shame?
Transparently not. He walked toward her as if he were gowned in purple and gold—as if he were in truth the emperor he’d once pretended to be.
He ignored Phillipe completely.
When he was close enough for her to see his eyes, she opened her mouth to explain, to say something . . .
Nothing came.
She raised her hands to ward him off, weakly let them fall.
He halted directly before her. As always, his face remained inscrutable; his eyes were too shadowed for her to read.
Defeated, her heart in her throat, she flung up her hands and turned away. She could never explain.
He lifted one hand, turned her face back to him. He studied her face, briefly searched her eyes.
Then he bent his head and touched his lips to hers.
Made her lips cling with the gentlest caress. Lingered just long enough to reassure.
Then he lifted his head. Looked into her face. “Get back into bed,mignonne, before you take a chill.”
She stared at him.
After a moment he lifted his head, looked at her dressing table, at the two letters wedged between the mirror and her jewel case. He looked back at her. Arched a brow. “With your permission?”
She hesitated, searched his face, then inclined her head. How did he know? What was he thinking?
Sebastian left her and walked to the dressing table.
Her wits were whirling; her head was reeling. She’d stopped breathing too long ago. The bed wasn’t such a bad idea. Without looking at Phillipe, she recrossed the room. Hugging the robe to her, she climbed into the bed, still warm with Sebastian’s heat.
A sudden shiver racked her; dispensing with all pretense, she gathered the covers close about her. Felt a little of the paralyzing ice that had frozen her start to melt.
She watched Sebastian pick up the letters.
“You had better sit down, de Sèvres.” Without looking up, Sebastian gestured with the first of the letters he’d opened, the obviously less-read of the two, to a chair by the wall. “This matter is clearly going to require more than two minutes to sort through.”
He was aware of Phillipe’s hesitation, of the quick glance the boy shot at Helena, but then Phillipe moved to the chair and sank down. One glance at Phillipe’s face as he looked again at Helena confirmed that the boy was utterly at sea. He didn’t know what to think, much less what to do. In gross features he was like his older brother—dark-haired, handsome enough, a younger version by two or so years—yet there was something much more open, honest, and straightforward about Phillipe.
Having heard his story, Sebastian saw no reason not to trust him. In setting himself to overturn Fabien’s scheme, Phillipe had declared his hand with somewhat touching, if impulsive, naïveté.
The letter in Sebastian’s hand was inscribed with a fine girlish script. He laid it down, lit the lamp, turned the wick high, then picked up the second letter.
He recognized Fabien’s heavy hand even though it had been years since he’d last seen it—since the last offer for the ceremonial dagger. From memory, that had been the tenth such offer, each grudgingly increased over the years. Each had made him smile. He’d taken great delight in exceedingly politely refusing them all.
So Fabien had devised another scheme to make him pay for his temerity. He supposed he should have expected it.
He hadn’t expected the guise, yet perhaps he should have anticipated that, too.
Fabien had a nice feel for irony, as did he.
He set down Fabien’s letter and picked up the other. “You received these letters after you arrived here.” It wasn’t a question. “From whom?”
Helena hesitated, then replied, “Louis.”
The confusion in her tone made him smile, even though he knew she couldn’t see. She still didn’t believe, still did not understand.
No matter—eventually she would.
He read through the letter from her sister—read every word. It was important he glean every bit of information; anything could be important in what was to come.
Finishing the first letter, he opened the second. The threat from Fabien. Even knowing what it would contain, even having guessed from the note Ariele had added at Fabien’s request what the nature of the threat would be, he still saw red. His hands shook. He had to look away—stare into the lamp flame until he had his rage under control again. Fabien wasn’t here for him to take apart with his bare hands. That could come later.
When he’d regained control, regained the ability to deal with his reaction to what Helena had been put through—all for a ridiculous dagger!—he finished the letter, then laid it down.
Paused for an instant to get all the facts straight in his mind. To see the whys behind her reactions, to draw comfort, reassurance, from her internal strife—from the fact that she’d dragged her heels, put off the moment of betrayal, clung to him for as long as she could. Even though it had been her sister, the one person she held most dear in her life, whose well-being had been set so deliberately on the other half of the scale.
Helena had guarded Ariele for many years; her reaction to any threat to her sister was instinctive, deeply ingrained. Fabien, as always, had chosen well.
Unfortunately for him, a higher power had been dealt into the hand.
Quickly, with the facility that had been his from birth, honed to excellence by the world in which he’d played for so many years, he assembled the basics of a plan. Noted the important facts, the essential elements.
Absentmindedly refolding the letters, he put them back by Helena’s jewel case, then turned and walked to the bed. Picked up his robe from the floor beside it and shrugged into it.
Met Helena’s gaze.
After a moment she asked, “Will you give me the dagger?”
He hesitated, wondered how much to tell her. If he declared that Ariele was safe, that Fabien’s threat was all bluff, designed and executed with an exquisite touch purely to force Helena to do his bidding, would either Helena or Phillipe believe him? He hadn’t met Fabien for over half a decade, but he doubted men changed—not in that regard. He and Fabien had always shared the same tastes, which was in large part the cause of their rivalry.
It was also the reason Fabien had sent Helena—he’d known how to bait his trap. Unfortunately, in this case, the prey was going to bite the trapper; Sebastian did not feel the least bit sad.
However, quite aside from triumphing yet again over his old adversary, there was another, much more important, issue to consider. Unless Helena believed he could defeat Fabien, she would never, ever, feel totally sure, completely and absolutely free.
She might even remain, in the future, a prey for Fabien—and that he would not, could not, allow.
“No.” He belted his robe, cinched it tight. “I will not give you the dagger. That is not the way the game will be played.” He saw Helena’s face fall, sensed the dimming of her gaze. “We will go to Le Roc and rescue Ariele.”