Page 18 of My Lady Melisende (Ladies Least Likely #6)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

LUXEMBOURG, JUNE 1782

“ M elisende, you sly creature. Where did you find this delightful husband of yours?”

Melisende stood with her hostess in what that lady called the petite salon, which was the same size as Melisende’s fencing salon in Fauconberg House. The H?tel Fontaine rivaled the elegance and size of the City Hall of Luxembourg, just down the street, itself suitable for a ducal palace. Trust Josepha to bring the elegance and grandeur of Vienna with her wherever she went.

Melisende had remembered to bring a fan, as accessory, communication tool, and weather control. She waved it before her face, stirring the heat thrown by several bodies, the great chandeliers dripping scented wax, and the warm, muggy evening lingering outside, where doors let out to a stone balcony leading to gardens that lined the River Alzette.

Both women observed Philip as he mingled with Josepha’s guests, the small dinner party she had pulled together to greet their arrival. A leisurely meal of no less than five courses had put Melisende in a lazy, contented mood, and Philip’s fine appearance, a blue silk suit with silver accents that brought out the deep color of his eyes, filled her with a languid heat.

“My husband?” She spoke in German, her cousin’s native tongue. “I found him wandering the streets of London and took him in.”

“Barely staying ahead of a flock of admiring women, I don’t doubt. Look how the general’s wife is fluttering at him. Someone tell that woman she looks as if she walked into a spiderweb.”

“He wasn’t staying all that far ahead,” Melisende murmured, recalling the sight of Florence Maplethorne wreathing Philip’s neck.

“A fine paramour, I imagine,” Josepha reflected, not taking her eyes from Philip as he stood at ease, chatting with the crème de la crème of Luxembourg society. “Such bearing, such address, and such a handsome way about him—look at the way he is smiling at her.” Her cousin arched a brow at Melisende, a darkly drawn line in her pale powdered face. “But to make such a one your husband, my dear? To give him your hand? He’s Irish. One of those who live on the uncivilized edges of the world, like the Finns. When you have had imperial princes offering for your hand, and one emperor, I hear.”

“Philip is not a barbarian.” Melisende watched him bow his departure to the general’s wife, who did her best to thrust her powdered bosom beneath his gaze. The curls of her wig swung as she giggled at him. Philip turned to the next matron twice his age who demanded his notice, attending to her with perfect courtesy.

Yet he lifted his head and his gaze winged at once to Melisende, as if he knew precisely where she stood and wanted to drink in the sight of her.

She smiled behind her fan.

“But he can’t raise you, dear. He hasn’t connections anywhere, has he? Why, he’s not known to a single person here. I admit Luxembourg is a hamlet compared to Paris or Geneva, but really, among all of us, we ought to know something . I am surprised your father approved.”

“I suppose he thought, after all these years of exile, I was due a love match. He wouldn’t have denied us.”

It would be unwise to confide to Josepha that the marriage had been forced due to compromising circumstances. Let that information make the rounds in its own time. Her cousin—the degrees were tangled enough that it had taken the full first course to unravel them to the satisfaction of Josepha’s guests—was an inveterate gossip, as Melisende knew from a previous visit, and there was no need to supply grist for the mill by suggesting her hand had been forced.

Not when Philip was being accepted so readily in these circles. Nay, more than accepted: admired.

The forty friends that Josepha, Fürstin von Holtzapfel, had assembled on the short notice of Melisende’s advance letter all seemed to regard Philip as if he were scarcely less than a royal duke of Britain, connected by blood to the electors of Hanover. It was possible they were simply showing courtesy to Melisende, who had the favor of their hostess, a formidable presence in Luxembourg high society. Along with the wife of the governor, the lady currently simpering and batting her eyes at Philip and thrusting her scented bosoms beneath his nose, Melisende gathered that Josepha was Luxembourg’s beau monde. But Philip moved as easily among them as if he had been born and raised in a ducal home.

He was a spy, after all.

“I wonder what Rudolf will say,” Josepha remarked.

Melisende’s shoulders jerked as if she’d been strapped to a metal rod. “What mean you?”

“He is so intent on marrying you, my dear.”

“I hear he’s been courting a Russian princess.”

“ Pfft. Rather, she’s been courting him. But I’m told he wanted nothing to do with her. The boy has been positively deluging me with letters, my dear. I imagine he’s doing the same to all your relations. Anyone whom he believes might have influence with you.”

“Odd,” Melisende murmured. “I do not think a single letter reached me in London.”

“That is odd. Even your sister seemed to approve of the match.”

The metal rod in her spine turned cold. “You have heard from Magret?”

“Yes, she writes from time to time. Short letters, never very entertaining.” Josepha wrinkled her brow. “I should think Carinthia would be your ally. Does she not write to you?”

“No,” Melisende whispered. “Never.”

The rod twisted, tearing her heart from its moorings in her chest. Magret wrote to others. She wrote to their distant relations. She had not once, not since they left Merania, written to Melisende.

Much that Melisende lost in her exile she had been able to make up for elsewhere. Friends, to some degree. Companionship. Ways to occupy her time. A purpose, in the form of her quest to discover the books. She had deepened her friendship with her father from duke and heir to a warmer bond, almost approaching friendship.

But she had lost, irreplaceably, her sister.

“Rudolf said he wished to marry me?”

“ Ja, he had some flowery sentiments about reknitting the wounds between the brothers and giving Merania a strong ruling family. Your cousin never had an original thought, so I imagine your uncle must be encountering opposition yet from the barons and looks to you to secure his hold.”

Melisende’s fan jerked, betraying her surprise. It would not do to reveal her disadvantage to Josepha; like most who were raised in the bosom of royal families, her cousin could play any side for favor. It was humiliating how much Melisende didn’t know about her own country, but she would have to hope that, for the moment, Josepha saw an advantage in cultivating the exiled grand duke’s acknowledged heir.

“We hadn’t heard that my uncle’s rule was being challenged.”

“You wouldn’t, until a strong enough force had assembled to make the rebels dare to call on your father. It would be baring their necks to your uncle’s blade, since he controls the military. Besides, the letters from your father kept assuring us all he was one step away from proving his legitimacy with irrefutable evidence. I suppose his supporters were hoping to see Albrecht succeed through peaceful means, and determined to bear their suffering until then.”

Melisende’s stomacher, the stiff panel of whalebone lined with silk pinned to the bodice of her open robe, constricted her breathing terribly. The top of her head felt tight and pinched. “How much suffering?” she managed.

Josepha’s brows rose in tandem, evidence of sincere surprise. “You don’t know?”

“Letters from our supporters have hinted at unpleasantries, but few letters from inside the country have reached us. It’s been distressing, to be honest. I am afraid they will all have forgotten us.”

She needed air. These revelations crowded her brain, squeezing.

Her father had never pressured Melisende to find the books and the patent they held. He had always pretended he didn’t much believe it, that he moved from city to city to humor her and to cultivate contacts of his own. Yet to hear Josepha tell it, the duke had staked everything on Melisende succeeding and finding the document that he could use to legitimize him to the council in Vienna. He had simply declined to let her see the pressure he felt. So she wouldn’t despair if she failed.

Everything had depended on her success, and she hadn’t known.

Yet she had succeeded. All she’d sacrificed in her search were a few years of her life, friendships she might have made. Suffering of her citizens that she might have prevented had father had other means to take back his throne.

All she’d sacrificed was her hand in marriage, shutting herself off to the most powerful diplomatic tool she had. Others like Josepha would see her attaching herself to Philip as a foolish move. Hobbling herself with a commoner when the right alliance could make Merania strong, impenetrable. Could put her uncle’s rebellion down at last.

She would have to dissolve things with Philip when she returned. She needed the bargaining power. There was no other option. If something terrible was happening in Merania, she needed every resource at her power to fix it.

She had to find that document. She must figure out the map.

And she would have to let go of the most delicious, the most interesting man she’d ever met. Someone who was quickly beginning to feel, not just a pleasant addition to her life, but essential to her happiness.

“Your royal highness.” The governor came to Melisende’s side, addressing her with German and a friendly smile. Christian Jakob was a Habsburg man, lord of his own land, but he’d been in Luxembourg for fifteen years without complaint, according to Josepha.

“Good evening, Freiherr , and you are too kind to me. I may not use a royal title yet, though I will invite you to my coronation, of course.”

He chuckled, acknowledging her with a bow of his head. “My lady and I will count on it. How long was the travel from Paris for you?”

“We came from Calais. It was only four days of travel, an easy journey, and I enjoy seeing forests and mountains again. England is very flat and bare.”

“Particularly to one raised among mountains, I would imagine. The Fürstin tells me you are traveling to Merania to take up the mantle and scepter your uncle denied you. I admit I thought it a shame that the lesser son should have made his claim over the true heir.”

He didn’t support her uncle’s usurpation, but he hadn’t promised men and arms and money to support her father’s cause. Melisende understood. Christian would lose his position as governor if they failed or he displeased the Habsburgs, and his governor’s salary was no doubt necessary to supplement his incomes as Freiherr von Vogelsang. His lady’s girandole earrings, dripping diamonds and topaz, would not have come cheaply.

Melisende would remember later, when the governor asked favors, that he had declined to help her father in his need, but for now, she would play his friend. More interesting was the story Josepha was spreading about her triumphal return.

“I will be terribly glad to see Merania, of course, but I doubt my uncle will simply hand over his coronet upon my request.I imagine he’s made himself very comfortable in the ducal seat, with the crown of state upon his head. And more, it seems Vienna is happy to have him there. I wonder what the court will say when I refuse to marry Rudolf and instead demand to see my father reinstated?”

“I am sure the emperor wishes to see Merania in the right hands,” the governor said easily. “And those would be yours, by birth and training, and by inclination as well, I should say. You would be a better duke than your uncle, of that I am sure.” He gave her a dignified nod, conceding to her authority.

The air in the room stifled, and Melisende cut her fan through it, feeling a headache gathering behind her temples. She had been too long in small courts and little societies, where she was an oddity. It felt strange to be again in a place where her birth meant something, where her title had weight. Where she was received and acknowledged as an equal.

But the governor knew how matters stood in Merania, and she did not. She betrayed a weakness if she let him see her ignorance.

“You will support my claim when I come before the council, I hope. I would be glad to have Luxembourg as an ally.”

The council at Vienna would have to entertain her petition when she came with the legendary patent in hand that made the grand dukes of Merania heirs and rulers in their own right, in fealty to no one. It would be a formidable challenge to be taken seriously, a woman alone, without her father in person to consolidate her claim. And what if the emperor did not wish to surrender the fealty of Merania, but preferred to have the grand duke as his vassal? No doubt there were imperial fees and taxes flowing from their capital city to the coffers of Vienna. The emperor would gain little from ceding part of his realm. Merania was not large, but it was rich.

And Melisende herself was unproven; she had never known the burdens of rule. Her schooling had been interrupted, tutors difficult and scattered in the years of her exile, when they lived on the fringes of courts and aristocratic favor. Melisende couldn’t know if she was equal to the position she wanted to claim.

“Of course I will lend my support, should you prove yourself the rightful ruler,” the governor said with a shrug. “Though for my part I would have advised you to marry your cousin before you—well.” He veered his eyes away from Philip, around whom the group of admiring ladies with preening bosoms and swishing fans was growing.

“But Melisende will have the—never mind.”

Josepha snapped her fan open and hid her face behind it as Melisende turned her head slowly toward her, as slowly as pushing a millstone on a crank.

“I will have the what?” she asked in a low voice. Her heart froze in her chest. What did Josepha know?

She thought of the books, all tightly wrapped and disguised in hatboxes, piled inside a traveling trunk in the chamber she’d been given for the night. No one would guess their contents. No one would ever find the map.

The patent was a family legend, but Josepha was family. Had Rudolf warned others of the claim he expected Melisende to make, now that the books had been found? In what ways was he seeking to undermine her already?

Besides hiring someone to kill her.

Her cousin cleared her throat. “You will have the right. That is what I meant. You are your father’s daughter.”

“And Rudolf is my uncle’s son, and my uncle currently holds the throne in fealty to the Habsburgs. So what gives me the superior claim, I wonder?”

Josepha swirled her fan as the two women locked eyes. “If you meant to marry Rudolf, you would have come home at his first plea and given him your hand. Instead, you return with a British husband, handsome, but of no great name or influence. So you must have a very good reason to think you can challenge your uncle now.”

Josepha’s face gave nothing away. She had been bred to survive the treacherous circles of the Habsburg imperial family, and she had been wed to a man who was sovereign in his own lands. Melisende could learn a great deal from her in the way of diplomacy. And duplicity.

“My lady is enchanted with your husband,” the governor remarked.

“And he is charmed by her, I am sure,” Melisende said politely.

The couple strolled toward them, arm in arm. Philip’s stature, not too tall, made him an elegant escort, and the suit flattered his figure, his muscled legs, his firm shoulders. He looked completely at his ease in these eddying crowds of Luxembourg’s most powerful and fashionable people. He might not have birth and breeding, but he possessed a manner that made him accepted anywhere.

A slow warmth moved down Melisende’s front, like someone pressing a hot iron across her stomacher. The sight of him—her husband—stirred flutters in her belly. But there was an inward sigh, her entire body relaxing with relief as he drew near. Finally. He was with her.

She decided not to examine that sensation further.

“The lady Melisende’s husband is the son of an Irish lord, mein Herr ,” the governor’s wife said to her husband with a merry simper. “And he works for the government of Britain. I believe he is a spy , ja ?”

“I prefer the term informant,” Philip said easily. He transferred the lady’s arm to her husband and took Melisende’s in a smooth gesture. The other woman pouted but could not object without looking silly.

Melisende held Philip’s forearm to her side with a touch more force than was called for. He was hers . Other women were not allowed to paw him. She had woken in her immensely soft bed with that arm curled around her this morning, that chest pressed beneath her cheek, her favorite pillow. Other women didn’t get to explore him, not while he was hers.

They would have the liberty once she freed him, of course.

Which would not be yet. Melisende hadn’t had the chance to explore him. Their travels had brought them to tiny rooms under the eaves of traveling inns and the vast chambers of a friend’s chateau in Hautine—their accommodations the previous night, and very pleasant accommodations they were—but there had been little opportunity for the intimacies of husband and wife. She fell asleep in his arms, half aroused, half soothed by the greatest feeling of safety she had ever known, and she woke in his arms desperate to explore him, his warm, heavy body beside hers. But while he allowed her to touch him, he hadn’t touched her again the way he had in her bed in Fauconberg House. It was as if he were waiting for some gesture from her. Some confession. Some signal to procced.

Or taunting her with what she could not have, though it lay within her grasp.

“Tell us, Mr. Devlin.” Did Melisende imagine it, or did Josepha put a slight, sly emphasis on that homely title of Mister? “What do you think of the Ottoman Empire joining the League of Armed Neutrality?”

“Fürstin, ach komm !” the governor’s wife complained. “Must you sour our lovely evening with political chat?”

“You would deny me this opportunity, Betta?” Josepha said. “We have all wondered why the British Navy has been so aggressive as to seize ships of those not involved in their conflicts. And we have a British subject right here we may interrogate.” Her gaze flicked between Philip and Melisende, then dropped to their linked arms. She was testing their bond. Testing him.

“I wasn’t surprised at all that the Ottomans expressed interest in joining the League, though the British haven’t molested their shipping,” Philip said. “Sultan Hamid will want to remain on good terms with Catherine of Russia. As do the British. It is only the French and their aid to the American Colonies to which we object.”

“Hmm,” Josepha said.

“I did find it amusing,” Philip went on, “that you seated me at dinner next to the Dutch stadtholder. He put a flea in my ear over the British not allowing the Netherlands to join the League, but then again, the Dutch are loaning money to the colonists for their revolution, so you see our dilemma.”

“Oh, dear,” Josepha said. “I’d forgotten your Britain is at war with the Dutch. I hope you did not come to blows?”

“Not at all.” Philip gave her his amused smile, one that said he knew exactly what she was up to. “We discussed Erasmus and the Dutch painting masters. He was intrigued at my description of the still life by Rachel Ruysch that we have hanging in the family castle.”

“Indeed,” said Josepha, visibly warming at the mention of a family castle. She searched across the room and paused with her eyes on what Melisende assumed was the Dutch official , a stiff-backed man wearing an elaborate lace collar. The lady on his arm, bedecked in even more lace, flirted her fan in Philip’s direction and puckered her lips as if blowing a kiss.

“You seem to be on good terms indeed.” Josepha turned to Philip with a new regard.

Melisende touched her own fan to her lips to hide her beam of delight. Her husband the chameleon could charm anyone, fit it anywhere. He refused to be intimidated by the lofty titles of those around him, by the family wealth glinting from their clothing and jewels and the richly decorated villa. He would be as charming and at his ease in a peasant’s hovel or a roadside inn—she had seen it.

An imperial princess would be proud to bear him on her arm.

And welcome him into her bed.

Philip smiled at his hostess. “I’m told your balconies have a beautiful view of the river. Would you permit me take my wife for some air?” He nodded respectfully toward the governor. “ Freiherr. ”

“Go, go.” Josepha waved her fan. “Show him the Bock rock where the fairy Mélusine raised a castle for her Siegfried and founded the House of Luxembourg.”

The broad balcony hosted other couples, but they were too far away to be a bother. Melisende slipped her hand around Philip’s elbow and couldn’t resist giving his arm a soft squeeze. He drew her close to his side in response and matched his stride to hers as they strolled though the warm night, their shoes a soft click on the stone.

“The fairy Mélusine?” he questioned. “Your namesake?”

Melisende waved toward the Bock, standing out among the cliffs that lined the Alzette River and looked down on the old city below. The humps of the ancient medieval fortress were black shadows against the emerging stars.

“She made her beloved a king and they founded a dynasty. But she asked only one promise of him, and in the end he could not keep it, so she went away.”

“Hmm.” The lights from the parlor threw Philip’s face into deep shadow. “And what promise was that?”

“She was part serpent, so she asked for one day a week to bathe and take her true form. He could not bear that she had a secret, so watched and discovered her.”

“And lost her thereby,” Philip said.

“Men cannot abide secrets,” Melisende observed.

“Not from their lovers, no. We are too concerned we may be discarded in her affections. Too easily replaced.”

He glanced into her face, then away, his gaze as soft as a caress on her cheek. Melisende entertained the odd conviction that she would not replace this man. She may have entertained lovers before, but would not again. Not after him.

“What did you learn?” she asked as they walked.

“The governor will gladly support you if it appears your suit will speed, and if it does not, he will be apologetic and unforthcoming. He will not risk his post; he is very comfortable here.”

She nodded. “I gathered the same.”

“And your cousin Josepha knows a great deal. She has been in contact with people in Merania, including your cousin Rudolf, but it is not clear whose side she will take.”

Melisende nodded, her chest pinching. “I had the same thought.” And what a relief to have him confirm her suspicions. She was not alone in this. Not any longer.

Lights bobbed from lanterns lighting small boats on the Alzette, night fishermen, perhaps, or lovers out in the moonlight. The great orb hung low in the sky, silvering the trees that climbed the mountainsides and spread out beyond the city. Torches moved down streets of the Ville Haute, what they called the High City, others about their pleasures or their business. From within the brightly lit salon drifted laughter, mirthful chatter, the low croon of a cello.

To those inside, Melisende guessed, she and Philip looked like any newlyweds stealing out to a balcony to whisper together, sharing words of love and dreams of a future that did not involve overthrowing a usurping duke.

“Did you enjoy dinner?” She leaned lightly on him, enjoying his strength and the way her thoughts lifted and broke like a flock of starlings when he was near like this. His mere presence was a magnet, drawing all the slivers of sense from her mind and leaving air warmed by his breath, by the heat of his body.

He chuckled, and the sound was a trill of notes over her exposed skin. “The princess of Nassau kept putting her hand on my thigh beneath the table. Said she was wiping her fingers on the cloth.”

“Strumpet,” Melisende murmured. The princess held at least a score of years on Melisende, but age did not dim a woman’s eye for male beauty. “The French comte kept staring at my décolletage . It is fortunate I didn’t wear anything with a lower neckline, or he might have fallen into it.”

“Fortunately he didn’t, or I would have been obliged to kill him.”

He paused, and she turned to face him, lifting her chin to stare into his eyes. “A jealous husband, are you?”

“I never would have guessed it in myself. Yet another thing you have taught me, my lady Melisende.”

Her lips parted. “What else have I taught you?”

He pushed away a curl that had fallen against her cheek and rubbed away the trace of powder. She hadn’t packed any of her wigs—she’d have more made in Merania, wigs befitting a grand duke’s daughter, a grand duchess—and the tiny prickle on her scalp traveled everywhere.

“I consider myself a rational man,” he said, his voice a low rumble.

She fixated on his lips. She loved the shape of them, the firm slash of his upper lip, commanding, impatient, belied by the sensual slope of its lower mate. The warm spring air curled around her nape, teasing.

“I would even,” he went on, “pride myself on occasionally being clever.” He traced a fingertip to the edge of her jaw, beneath her ear. The kid of his glove slid over her skin like silk.

“No doubt you are.”

“And yet when I am with you…”

He dragged his fingers along the curve of her jaw and ended at her chin. Her heart thudded in her ears.

“What?” She leaned into his hand. She couldn’t stop herself.

“I cannot think.” He sounded mystified. His eyes were wells of shadow skimmed with a bright flash of blue. “Or rather, I have one thought. One dominating, all-encompassing thought.”

She caught her breath as he cupped her face in his palms. The barrier of silk gloves between their skin was maddening, the chasm of space between their lips more maddening still.

“ Be near Melisende ,” he whispered. “That is the thought that consumes me. The demand that drives me to the exclusion of all reason. Touch Melisende. Kiss Melisende.”

She opened her mouth as his descended and met him fully, without hesitation, without shame. The same demand drove her, as if she caught the spark from his body. She must kiss Philip as she must have air. He was her air; she drank him in, slipping a hand to the back of his neck to mold herself tightly against him. He was heat and hard muscle cloaked in luscious silk. His mouth was sweetness and salt together and she savored him like a fine wine, sipping, rolling the taste of him over tongue and teeth.

“More,” she muttered as he shifted, lifted his head.

“My Melisende?—”

She screamed.

Out of reflex she pushed him away from her and into the man suddenly looming behind him. Philip’s eyes flew wide and he reacted instantly, shoving an elbow into the attacker’s midsection. A grunt, the twist of the man’s face said the blow hit true, but that didn’t stop the arm already dropping in a ruthless arc. The stiletto blade flashed with reflected light as the long, thin blade arrowed toward Melisende’s chest. The point sank into the thick fabric of her stomacher with an audible thunk .

Philip turned on his heel and swung his fist into the attacker’s face.

The man let go of the knife and stumbled backward. Philip followed, drawing his sword. The man turned and fled, his boots marking the light stone of the balcony, his workman’s jacket flapping open as he ran, not for the shallow steps leading to the garden, but the balustrade facing the river. Philip pursued.

“Philip!” Melisende called. She had no idea what she meant to say, and the words that emerged surprised her. “Be careful.”

“Get to the room.” He flung the words over his shoulder as the attacker, like an acrobat mounting a horse, swung himself over the balustrade and disappeared. “Bar the door. Don’t open it for anyone but me.” With the same fluid, lethal grace, as if they were part of the same act, Philip levered his body over the balustrade and dropped to the dark ground below.

“Melisende, what is— ach du lieber Gott! What has happened?”

Melisende glanced down. The stiletto quivered from her bodice like an arrow in its target, the blade dark against the gold embroidery. The tip had sunk in a good quarter of an inch. It might have gone further had not Philip reacted so quickly.

Philip. Her heart seized, lungs contracting. He would be lost. He would be hurt. He would be killed, all because of her.

She pulled out the blade and examined the hilt with its fine silver carvings. “Spanish steel. Italian hilt, I should think.”

“You were—did someone stab you?”

“He came from the shadows. Philip is chasing him.” She pointed toward the wall of shadows, the forbidding cliffs rising into blackness.

The women piling behind her were all shrieks, gasps, and flutters, save for Josepha. She had been born into a bloodline that had been embattled for centuries in keeping and expanding its empire; she went into action at once. “Franz, take Jost and Gustav. Get torches. Get the dogs. Find Mr. Devlin, and find the owner of that knife. Sofort. ”

“Fürstin.” The liveried servant, who a moment ago had been circulating champagne and Kuchen , bowed quickly and darted through the open doors to the salon.

“Come inside and sit. Let us see to you.”

Melisende’s hand shook as she clasped it around the hilt of the stiletto. Her heart ricocheted against the flat, reinforced panel that had saved her life. That blade was meant for her heart.

“I think I will go to my room, if you don’t mind.” There might have been others. They might be in her chamber at this moment, ransacking it for the books, for the precious pages, for her map and key. “Bruyit?—”

Bruyit had agreed to keep a guard, strolling the hallway leading to the chamber they’d been given. If there were others, they might harm Bruyit, too.

In the wing of the villa that held Melisende’s chamber, where candles sputtered in their wall sconces, Bruyit’s boots lay on the flowered carpet in the hall, his legs extended through the open door. He sprawled on the floor of her room, a gash of blood at his temple, unconscious but alive. Gin yelped behind a bandana and the rope tying him to a post of the bed. The trunk lid hung open, the hat boxes tumbled, the books scattered everywhere.

Melisende counted with her eyes while she untied Gin and woke Bruyit. Servants swarmed through the hall, along with guests whose curiosity would not be denied, but she focused on her own people and books. Gin had rope burns and kept spitting cloth fibers. Bruyit’s pride was bruised, as was his head. All twelve of the books were accounted for, sprawled open to the section where, in each, Melisende had neatly cut away pages from the binding.

The thief wanted the map.

“Dressing room,” Gin gasped as Melisende tore off the gag. “Thas where the bloke went. Heard ’im in the wardrobe.”

“Is he still here?” The attacker on the balcony might have had an accomplice: one to take out Melisende, the other to search her rooms at leisure.

Gin’s eyes grew huge. The child was surprisingly delicate, even for a malnourished boy. “Hadna heard that ’ee left. Bruyit surprised ’im.”

“The pisky fought ’im good,” Bruyit rumbled, rubbing his head as he lurched toward the door. “Better’n I did.”

“Wait.” Melisende’s swords lay wrapped at the bottom of the trunk. She ought to have packed them on top. “Here.” She tossed the small sword to Bruyit and unwrapped her favorite, the double-edge rapier with the carved cup hilt.

“M’lady,” Bruyit grouched, scowling.

“I’m ready.” She palmed a dagger and followed behind him into the shadowed room. Gin dogged her steps, holding aloft a candlestick. Titters and shrieks from the hall suggested the avid watchers were falling back, not so far they couldn’t see the action, but hopefully out of range.

The dressing room was as large as the bedchamber, designed for an era where the fashions included skirts with enormous panniers and the powdering of elaborate wigs. The walnut marriage armoire stood against the far wall, carved with acanthus leaves. With the tip of his sword Bruyit hinged open one of the deux-corps doors. Melisende braced herself.

The door swung slowly on a creaking hinge. The armoire stood empty.

Bruyit uttered a word not fit for the ears of ladies.

Melisende lowered her blades and confronted her hostess. “Take your guests back to the salon. Put footmen on guard around the house in case there are more of them. They are after me, but I fear they might harm anyone in their way.”

Josepha squeezed Melisende’s wrist. “ Liebchen . In my home. I don’t know what to say. I would never betray you.”

“I don’t blame you,” Melisende said grimly. “I blame Rudolf.”

She stood for what felt like hours, sword up, blades at the ready, in the center of the flowered carpet, guarding her chests. Her arm ached. The candles sank low in their holders, but no maid brought more. Gin crouched beside the bed, holding a dagger, ready to spring if another attacker made it through Bruyit, who stood with drawn sword near the door. The window casements were locked, the door to the dressing room barred with the armoire—Melisende pushed while Bruyit pulled.

If Rudolf wanted the map, his men would have to take it from her corpse, and hopefully Philip—or someone—would call her cousin to account for the murder.

A footfall sounded in the hall, muffled. Melisende drew in a breath. Bruyit raised his sword.

“Melisende. It’s Devlin. Are you well?”

“Philip.” She let her arms fall to her sides, hands as heavy as bricks. Philip rushed into the room. One cheek bloomed with a red mark where it appeared he’d been struck. Dried blood scraped cuts on his knuckles as he lifted his hands to inspect her, shoulders, arms, waist. His blue silk coat gaped with a cruel tear, and his waistcoat was spattered with river mud. She sagged into his arms as he pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“My God. I was afraid he’d slain you. How are you not bleeding?”

Her hands shook, relief overwhelming, so he aided in pulling the pins from her stomacher. The embroidered panel showed the indentation from the stiletto, currently gripped in Gin’s hand as the child watched, mouth agape, fascinated. Bruyit stepped into the hall as Phillip pulled off Melisende’s open robe, leaving her in her shift and the brilliant embroidered petticoat. He pressed his hands over her bosom, his touch reassuring and arousing at the same time. Her skin tingled.

“How?” he demanded. “I saw him strike you. I saw the knife.”

All of a sudden the relief was too much. It rose like a gust of wind and shook her. She struck him with the stomacher. “You thought me bleeding? And you left anyway?” She hit him again, and he caught her wrist.

“Gin,” Bruyit whistled in warning. Obediently the child sped from the room. The door to the hallway clicked shut.

Melisende swung at Philip again. “You thought I was hurt, and you left me!”

“You were still standing. But to have not a scratch? How?” He pulled down her shift, his hands rough, not believing she was unhurt until he could see with his own eyes.

She pulled away and, hands shaking, plucked at one edge of her stomacher. The hasty stitches gave way and she peeled back the fabric.

The thick vellum pages of the map nestled inside. A puncture marred one of the symbols. She hoped it would be legible, later.

Philip threw back his head and laughed. “You clever, treacherous, devious —” He caught her arms and heaved her close. “He wanted to kill you. Those pages saved your life.”

“No thanks to you.” Her entire body vibrated. She’d feared so desperately, and he was here , he was whole and he was safe and bore no more than scratches, and he smelled like river mud and the villain’s grime and her skin demanded his touch. She dug her fingers into his neckcloth and pulled his face to hers.

“Ah, yes. Where were we?” he murmured, his kiss hungry and urgent and hot.

“Where did you go?” she demanded against his lips. She pulled him toward the bed, her body between it and him, and grappled with the buttons of his suit.

He released her to help her shrug him out of his coat.

“I chased the ruffian to the river, but he had a boat waiting. The cur. I could have run him down if he’d taken to the streets.”

“He could have killed you.”

“I’m the better swordsman. I’ve had practice of late.”

She threw the waistcoat from him, leaving him in his white shirt, loose and smelling of his sweat. How she adored that scent, citrus and clove and the dark, rich scent of man. She yanked at his neckcloth and he coughed.

“Easy, love. I’m of no use if you strangle me.”

“I might anyway. You could have been hurt. You could have been killed. Because of?—”

He stopped her words with his mouth, then muttered against her lips. “ You could yet be killed. We have to stop this.” He untied the tabs of her petticoats and let them drop to the floor as he spoke. “I will find whoever is behind this and I will?—”

“You will attend to me , sir. You have an apology to render.”

His eyes lit, blue as the heart of a fire, as she fell back onto the bed and tugged her atop him. His body was hard and eager, the satin of his breeches brushing the fine linen of her shift, the muscles of his thighs strong against hers.

“Apologies for…”

“Leaving me.” She pushed at his breeches and he obligingly shucked them. With one hand he dealt with stockings and his soiled shoes, while he fisted his other hand in her hair and continued to kiss her.

“ Mea culpa .”

“Making me fear for you.” She yanked his shirt over his head.

What a fine chest he had, lined with muscle. She ran her hands over the dark golden hair, loving the contrast of textures, the firm, warm slope of his ribs and pectorals, the ridged muscle of his shoulder, the thrust of his collarbone. She pressed her mouth to the hollow at the bottom of his throat, then bit softly.

He sucked in a breath. “ Mea maxima culpa , my lady. It won’t happen again.”

“It will not. Because you are not to leave my side. In fact, I think, to keep you safe—” She pushed him and he obligingly rolled to his back. His eyes flared as she straddled him, the loose skirt of her shift pooled around her knees. “I will keep you in my bed, and under my watchful eye.”

“I quite like the idea of being at your mercy, milady, and under your—anything.” He sucked in a breath as she ran her hands over her chest, fingertips flicking his nipples. He must be as sensitive as she.

“What shall I do with you while you are here, I wonder?” She caged him with her body, bending her elbows over his shoulders to sink her hands into his hair as she kissed him. Her bottom brushed his erection, and he hissed in a breath, thrusting up toward her as she drew on his tongue with soft nips.

He dug his fingers into the skirt of her shift, lifting the hem to remove the last barrier of cloth. “I am agog to discover your intent, madam.” She could drown in the sultry well of his eyes.

She kissed her way down his body, charting every curve of muscle, every slope of skin with her lips. He tasted like lemon candies, tangy with a bolt of sweet. She brushed her mouth across the flat plane of his stomach and he closed his eyes. His hands circled her hips, palms heavy and coaxing. His cock swelled against her stomach, and she turned to it with interest.

“I want to kiss you,” she whispered. “The way you did me.”

His eyes popped open. Melisende was not highly conversant in the sexual arts, but she’d whiled away time with upper-class courtesans at enough dinners and masquerades to know a ploy like this was their provenance, a service never demanded of wives.

“You don’t,” Philip began.

“Want to?” She raised a brow at him. “But I do.”

She wanted to please him. She wanted to make him as wild and giddy and mindless and sated as he had her. She wanted him bound to her, and she wanted to be sure he would never forget her, and she wanted to give him a piece of her. She’d already granted him an intimacy she’d allowed no one else, and she wanted the same boon—the same surrender—from him.

She lowered her head and placed her mouth around his member, and his entire body shuddered with delight. “Melisende,” he groaned.

“I’ve never done this before,” she murmured, “so I’ll require a bit of instruction.”

She played and tested, enclosing him with her lips, and enjoyed the way he shivered, the way his cock swelled against her tongue, the tension with which he held himself still. He tangled his hands in her hair and tugged slightly, a delicate request. She followed, and his deep groan told her when she’d struck the right rhythm. His breath came hoarse and stuttered.

“Show me what will please you,” she commanded, sipping on the tip of him.

What she meant was, show me what will make you helpless to me. Show me what will make you mine.

“Stroke,” he whispered, his hand reaching between them, and showed her the rhythm. His surrender made her core heat, fierce with arousal. As she followed his lead and plied him with hands and mouth he fisted his hands in her hair, clinging to her, and she was so hot and tight and aching she thought she might peak with him.

“Darling, I’m going to—stop if you—” He was panting, barely able to form words. Because of the pleasure she gave him. Because of her.

“Give me,” she growled, and he half laughed, half choked, lifting his hips off her bed and pressing deeper into her mouth. She drank him greedily as he spilled, his member rippling beneath her hand, and she pursed her lips in satisfaction, holding his surrender in her mouth.

“Melisende.” The way he said her name was like a touch to her aching places, her satisfaction as complete as his. He lay boneless beneath her, her husband, her man, her protector. Her Philip. The sedated smile on his face, the sleepy haze in his eyes, made her laugh as he reached for her.

She sprawled along his body, fitting herself to him.

“I did well,” she said smugly.

“You are magnificent.” He pressed a kiss to her nose. “I’ll repay you in a moment. But I need a moment. To gather my strength.”

“Take your rest if you require it, husband. We are not in a negotiation. I like pleasing you.”

He drew his fingers through her hair, soothing, possessive. “I enjoy pleasing you as well. In a minute, I’ll show you.”

She laughed. Whoever knew there could be laughter in bed sport.

He opened one eye. “You said…you’d never…before.”

“No.”

“You are remarkably accomplished.”

“I learn quickly.”

“But only with me.” She wasn’t expecting when he dug his hands into the hem of her shift and tugged the garment from her. Just as swiftly he turned and tipped her onto the mattress beside him, his body leaning over hers, hot skin to hot skin.

“What else of you can be all mine, wife?”

She bit her lip as he slid a finger up her thigh, without preamble, and found the place that was warm and wet and aching for him. His cocky grin appeared.

“I’ll consider,” she said, but when he bent his attention to the task of exploring her with his mouth, every curve and shadow of her body, and eventually made his way between her legs and with lips and tongue brought her to a shuddering peak of ecstasy, then with fingers inside of her pushed her further, past the first bliss to the deeper, drowning waves of pleasure beyond, she sobbed and clutched at him as her body fractured into stars and she knew, she knew , she could never lose him. She could never leave him.

But she must.