Chapter Eight

T he festival ball that night began as the mayor took to the makeshift stage and the village orchestra opened with a country dance. All in the Boyer family plus their servants, Ram, and Amber had walked to the center of town at dusk and taken a table among others around the dance floor. The square glowed with the fires from huge braziers set at the periphery of the green.

Ram took Amber out for the first dance, and she felt new warmth flow through her. But she knew it was not the flames from the braziers that ignited her. The serenity that flowed through her like honey was Ram.

His tenderness toward her. His words of compassion. His restraint.

Their minutes by the river this afternoon had been an idyll. She'd needed the time to confide in him. The memory of other girls and women being raped and beaten by Carmes's guards was one she had denied herself for years. She had never uttered the words to anyone. Maurice had probed for the cause of her collaboration with the team of agents, but she had told him nothing. He had known she engaged in the transfer of sensitive information to spies for the British, but he had not directly asked her for details. Nor had she spontaneously given them.

Revealing her justification to Ram was unusual for her. An agent himself, what did her own reasons matter? She simply acted. The same as he, she discovered new information and transferred it. Yet somehow that he knew her motivation was a comfort to her.

She would have gone on forever in her role reporting to her superior as long as necessary, too, if Rene Vaillancourt had not taken an unnerving interest in her. But he had, and in it was more inspiration to defy those who would grab power for themselves at all costs.

All of that had brought her to this sweet moment, this charming town—and this enchanting man.

*

After the first set, she and Ram had parted to do their social duty and dance with others. The man who was her protector and guide was a gentleman who would command any ballroom. So tall and dark and convivial, her Ram was a scrumptious devil whom many a girl would crave to have as a beau, or husband, or lover.

I do.

Stunned, she stared at him. It was true. She could want him as her own, if she dared to give up all.

But have you not already done that?

No. No, I have not.

The truth rubbed her raw, and she twirled away to find wine and distraction.

*

Mayor Charles Dejean was no dancer. His sense of rhythm and timing had deserted him long ago, and Amber's toes bore the brunt of those years. He surrendered her to Edouard Boyer, who had more grace as a youth than many a man could ever acquire. Amber loved dancing with the boy. The two Boyer girls applauded, and when they took to the dance boards, it was clear they too were able dancers.

Throughout it all, Amber would find her eyes on Ram. She kept comparing him to Maurice.

Never were two men more unlike each other. Maurice, soft-spoken, mild, deliberative. A stylish man who tenderly cared for his library, his old chateau, and the rolling hills of his Champagne vineyards. More than twice her age, Maurice had been tempered by the loss of his first wife and viewed his love for Amber through the prism of welcome accidents and complex ironies of life. He had urged her to temper her work—"whatever its necessities"—through the perspective "of the long years you will live."

She'd tried. Ever since she left Paris, she had tried. Now that she had the assistance of this very unique Englishman, she could allow herself a glimpse of what else her long years might offer her. In his world, dancing in a gilded ballroom. In his care, embracing with abandon the safety he provided. In his arms, taking and giving what pleasures they could give each other.

Of all her visions, that last was one that was most possible. Most appealing. In its power to mesmerize her, the promised ecstasy of making love to Ram played in her head like a rhapsody that repeated over and over again. Yet an affair with him implied she would never go back to Paris. In her heart, she hated to let that hope die.

She should not have him. Not now. Not even once. It would be unfair to him. Even though he wanted her, sleeping on the floor, suffering frustrations, avoiding touching her in their bed. He did not make a habit of taking women to his bed. There was no good reason why he should take her.

She sighed as she watched him take another lady to the floor for a country dance. With her every breath she yearned to be that woman at that moment.

He was suave, educated, and oh so manly. Why had he not found anyone to love? In Britain, he had estates and money. He had told her details of his holdings and his family treasures. They included a storied collection of English, Delft, and even Chinese Ming porcelain. She was a connoisseur of fine china, searching in her free time for valuable pieces from Sèvres and the old, small factory up in Montmartre. What was it like, she often wondered, to have time to sit and ponder the origins of such beautiful pieces? She had no idea. Her life had been taken up with the need to save others…and to avenge their torture and loss.

Intriguing that Ram had that time, that possibility of money and leisure, and found time to treasure such things. Yet he was here, doing the same job she was. Saving others.

Saving me.

"Madame." The young friend of Edouard sat down beside her on the bench. "May I get you a wine or cider?"

" Oui, merci, Allard. Cider, s'il vous pla?t ." She'd enjoyed three mugs of the local white tonight. She needed no more. Her turn of mind to the fancy of china, Ram's English possessions, and his allure was enough to warn her off another serving.

When the boy returned, she sipped her apple cider and asked him about his future plans. "Do you go with Edouard to Paris to the university?"

"I wish to go, but my mother is ill. She was the village teacher and cannot work any longer. I must go to work at the factory."

"Have you applied, Allard? I understand they need more laborers."

" Oui , madame. I was to start last week, but the new director said I must wait for five new men from Mauberge to come."

"Oh?" She was keen to hear that news. "Why are they so important?"

"They understand a way to shorten the time to perform some method during production of the stock." He winced and glanced away, a frown on his young face, unhappy with his lot. "Those five from Mauberge will teach all the new workers their methods. Speed, the director told me, is what they need most to fulfill the orders for new muskets."

"I see."

"I don't want to work there."

Amber stared down into her earthen cup. Sorrow for his lot swept through her.

"But it's better than the army," he added.

"I would say so, Allard, oui ."

"New conscripts are being called up."

"Here in town?"

He nodded, dismal at the prospect. "We're producing new guns for fresh soldiers so they can go off and kill and maim each other."

She wished she could conjure a comment to soothe him.

"All our guns are going to Sedan, where conscripts from here will train."

Is that right? Sedan, eh? She took a sip of her cider. She must tell Ram. He would love to know that news.

"The government is fortifying the border for war. Word is they sent the last shipment of muskets to Sedan, too. They must expect an invasion from the German states that don't yet ally with Bonaparte."

The boy was very smart, very attuned to the news that many German princes and margraves of small territories were signing treaties with the French, breaking with Austria.

"You may be right," she prevaricated. Better to agree with him and appear an addlepated woman than tell him all she knew of rulers like those of Baden and Württemberg, who conscripted their citizens for the French and even taxed them to give the proceeds to Bonaparte as a gift.

"Would you like to dance again, madame?" Allard had finished his wine.

"No, merci, Allard. Go ask a nice young girl to go to the floor with you. I await my husband."

Ram was dancing with yet another older lady of the town.

And Amber waited, her mind racing.

Bonaparte. What does he plan?

He already had hundreds of thousands under arms. Conscription numbers had been high since the directorate began. Each family had at least one male in uniform. To outfit each of them with one musket was one thing, but if weapons numbers were also increased at Mauberge and the other armory of St. Etienne in the south, that meant someone predicted a use for them.

Since the country was not at war, the new guns were ostensibly to replace those lost to mishap. That number had to be minimal.

If Bonaparte's government had ordered an increase in numbers of muskets, the consulate had ambitions to use those muskets.

The first consul was going to war.

She stood, bursting to tell Ram.

*

Ram watched her dance with Georges, and later with the man's son. Then he seemed to have lost her for a long while. He liked watching her, agile and elegant Amber. The country sets Ram usually pranced to at Almack's were more sedate than these French roundelays. He seethed with ridiculous jealousy. Their hands on her should be his hands. Their smile should be his. Their joy all his.

Christ, he was quite mad.

He left the edge of the makeshift floor that the local folk and he had assembled on the grass. Seeking out a strong, good red wine, he put coin on the rough bar of the local vintner. The mug he got was tall and full. He drank far too quickly to taste it.

"You must sip it, monsieur." A comely brunette glided up next to him. Her long lashes fluttering in dismay, she reprimanded him with a tsk. "The vin does not run away."

He had no reason to be rude, so he smiled at her, even if his effort was halfhearted.

"Your wife enjoys herself. You should, too."

He regarded the young with knitted brows. "She deserves to do it."

"Are you so hard to live with?"

" Oui, mademoiselle." He noted she wore no rings and then drained the remains of his wine. "I am terrible."

"Do you not make her happy?"

"Nor myself."

"Regrettable. What is life for, if you do not seize the day…or the night?"

He snorted in laughter. "For one so young, mademoiselle, you are ancient in wisdom."

She drank from her own mug. "I am. You should make her notice you."

"She does. Sadly."

"But not enough, eh?" She put her mug on the counter and took his from his hand. "Come, then. My name is Josette, and we are new friends."

She led him to the floor, and they joined a set. She was twenty at most, pretty and lively. At the end of their prancing, she curtsied and he bowed to her.

"I think we have done good work," she said beneath her breath.

Beside him appeared Amber.

"You have a new friend, mon amour ?" she asked, her face glowing from her own exertions.

"I do. Allow me to present Mademoiselle Josette, whose family name I did not learn. My Amber," he said, forgetting himself as he caught the jealousy in Amber's brown eyes. "My wife."

Josette did the polite thing and offered a small nod of respect. "Your husband is a good dancer, madame. You should take care of him. He pines for you."

Then she was gone.

Bah! That's all I need. Someone else to work on her. What am I? A boy?

He spun away, furious.

"Wait! Ram!" Amber scurried to catch up with him and caught his arm.

"I'm going home." He faced her but did not look down at her. "You must follow. But do not talk to me."

"Why…why not?" She sounded like a fishwife. That pleased him, but he plodded onward.

No one else was in the lane to overhear how she called his name and ran toward him. "What did I do, Ram? Dance? You did, too!"

He did look down at her then. This ravishingly gorgeous creature in the sylvan shadows of the moon. She was everything he desired in a woman and was nothing he would ever have. Silently he cursed himself, then turned on his heel, and off he went.

He was three steps away when she tugged at his sleeve. "You're being mean."

He did not stop. "I am."

"And pigheaded."

He kept walking. "Not me ."

"Very well. I am! I am!"

He shook his head. Let her stew. He stormed down the lane that led to the Boyers' house. Then he heard her running up behind him.

She pranced beside him. "I will not go to London."

"Good for you."

"I won't live off you."

That was a pitiful argument. "Fine."

She ran in front of him and put out a hand to hold him back. "I'll go to Sedan."

"Sedan! Really? Why not say that louder and tell the world?" he groused, bitter that her statement solved only one of their problems.

"That's what you wanted from me! There is a reason—"

"Wonderful." He walked around her.

"Don't you want to know? No? Well…stop! Listen to me. I do not want to tell the world this bit."

He halted and flapped his arms at his sides. "What?"

She walked right up to him, her breasts spilling from that blue silk, heaving and gilded by the moonlight. "Edouard's young friend says the new muskets are going to Sedan."

His face fell. "Good to know." After a moment's consideration, he marched on.

"Wait! Ram! Stop. We must go to Sedan!"

He scowled, then walked around her.

She ran in front of him again.

He stepped to one side.

"Sedan, Ram. I will go to Sedan. You too."

"Really? How wonderful. But in reality, my darling, it changes nothing."

"Because I won't go to London? Or…or all those other places?"

He whirled on her, an arm out, anger in every growl. " Oui, madame! Because I can't leave. Because you won't go. Because the night is long and my temper short. Because I am a man who needs to go swimming in the river, and you "—he poked a finger at her—"cannot follow."

She looked as if he'd struck her. "I… But… It's night. Not safe."

He spun away and back again, so quickly that she teetered on her feet.

He caught her arms and held her against him. Every sensuous muscle in her supple body rubbed against his. Damn his chivalry!

" This is not safe. This! " He crushed her against him. "And this!" He jammed one hand up into the thick curls of her hair and, with the other hand, found her arse, plump and hard. "And this," he whispered against her lush lips, brushing them with the most innocent kiss and prying them open to explore all of her with his tongue.

*

She melted into his embrace as his tongue seized every bit of her mouth.

He lifted away. She hung there in his arms while he squinted at her in the moonlight as if she were a stranger who had shocked him with her presence.

That was exactly what he had been to her. A stranger become friend. A friend who was now dearer. Necessary to her.

Fighting for logic as he took her lips again, she went, lost in the music of sweet security he alone brought her. The rhapsody he created played in her head like a score of violins leading to freedom. Cares gone, love embraced, she drew him closer. Why could he not be her lover? She could not remember, did not want to. She only knew that to clutch him close and sink her fingers in his long, silken hair was assurance of ecstasy. And she had not had that in so very long.

He gave it freely. Always had.

"There is no rule," she murmured to him when he raised his face. "No reason to this."

"True." He let her go so quickly, she struggled to find her balance again, waving her arms in the air.

He steadied her…and left her.

She would not let him go angry and without resolution.

Amber ran and caught him, seized him by his frock coat, and rose on her toes. Her arms around his shoulders, she looped a leg around one of his thighs and nearly climbed him like a cat. He was hers. She was his and she'd have him. His anguish, his need, matched her own.

And oh. Ohh. He felt like every lovely sentiment he'd ever spoken to her. Allow me to protect you, defend you, guard you from all harm.

She stared up at him. "Let me," she begged him. "Please let me kiss you. I yearn…"

His face went lax with want, his eyes shimmering with hunger in the translucent light of the moon.

"I want you, Ram. I do."

He did not budge, but waited as she smiled at him, two tears running down her cheeks, and stretched up to claim him once more.

His lips were sublimely warm and firm, his mouth as wide and as generous as she'd imagined. He tasted of red wine and smelled of citrus and sweat. He held her with urgent passion, and shook with a raw hunger that shocked her.

This was real, right—Ram was hers.