Wicked (42 page)

******************

Londes escorted Beau to a doorway a short distance away and, like a perfect host, showed him into his room and introduced him to the countess. It could have been the most respectable occasion for all the courtesies displayed; it might not have been one-thirty in the morning and sex the transaction.

"Forgive my appearance," Beau said when the door closed behind Londes. "I'll bathe first."

"I'll bathe with you. We met at Naples once, you don't remember."

His gaze came up; he'd been about to toss his saddlebags on the floor. "Where?" The thud of gold punctuated his query.

“At the Rea
l
e and later at your apartment in town."

"At my apartment?" He looked at her more closely. "I must not have been sober."

"No, but you were exceptional," she said, a husky intonation to her voice.

"I'm sorry," he replied with a rueful smile. "Demon rum and all that. My apologies." He tried to place her in the profusion of women who had passed through his life: small; cornsilk gold hair; exquisite breasts and she knew it. Her dress was revealing.

"I didn't quite believe
L
ondes when he said you were in Milan. But it was worth coming to see for myself."

He grinned. "Well, I'm pleased to renew our acquaintance, Countess."

And when she dozed off toward morning, Beau found he couldn't sleep regardless his orgasmic oblivion, regardless they'd made love for hours and his days without sleep. Some niggling voice deep in the recesses of his brain badgered him, then eventually turned bullying.

Go after her, the small voice said. Go after her and take her back.

He found himself hastily dressing short moments later as if he were late for a mission. He
l
eft a note for Madelin
a
—another apology and a generous sum of gold for her time. He wrote a swift note to Massena as well, thanking him for his hospitality, and within minutes was on the road to Florence.

She was five hours ahead of him.

But she was traveling in a carriage and he could outride her. Quickly calculating, he decided he could overtake So
l
ignac and the carriage by noon.

Dead tired and consumed by spleen, he spurred his mount.

******************

Solignac had given his troop permission to rest on the outskirts of Piacenza for no one had slept the past night and the heat of the day was enervating. While the men found soft beds in the stables, the colonel had taken rooms for himself and Serena at the inn, and weary with fatigue, he'd fallen asleep immediately.

Serena found sleep elusive, no matter that she'd eaten a hearty meal and was almost tranquilized by the creamy tagliatelle and zabaione jam tart she'd been served. Lying on a rustic pine bed in a second-floor chamber with the window open to the summer afternoon, she should have been lulled to sleep by the sound of bees in the garden below. But her thoughts were in turmoil, a litany of logic wrangling with intuitive needs and emotions in her brain. She was right, though, she repeated for the hundredth time since Milan, to have walked away from Beau St. Jules.

Of course she was right.

He was selfish beyond the bounds of normal indulgence and gallingly arrogant to think he could buy her release without so much as a nod in her direction. As if he hadn't been the one to leave
her.
Did he expect her to have been waiting precisely where he'd last left her like a china doll put away on a shelf until he was ready to play again?

Apparently he did.

Too . . . damn . . . bad.

Let some of the other thousand women he'd bedded offer him that compliance.

But as easily as her anger flared, so did a covetous need for him distract her. She knew better than to give in to such reckless feelings. He'd only hurt her again when she'd at last made some peace with her loss.

But he'd come
back
to Florence, she thought in the next beat of her heart, a capricious leap of hope warming her senses. Had he come for her?

What did it matter, though, why he'd arrived in Florence and then in Milan? she restlessly mused a second later, her emotions vacillating fitfully. His conduct in Milan had been outrageous and rude. And the love she wanted from him hadn't been evidenced in a single glance or word. Suddenly smiling at recall of their game of loo, she took pleasure in her swift and conclusive victory, in Beau's churlish response. It was gratifying to triumph, to win her freedom on her own terms. A lesson to Beau St. Jules that all women weren't obedient to his will.

She'd felt invincible last night at the moment she'd suggested the game, even before the hand had been dealt, as though she'd known how the cards would fall. Her father had taught her to recognize that sensation, that small shiver of excitement and she'd almost blurted out, "I'm going to win," so intense was the feeling.

But she'd concealed her emotions; she'd learned that too from her father. And she knew Beau was left wondering whether she'd simply allowed him to win in the past, whether a woman was truly his match.

******************

At midday late in June, the sun was sweltering hot and even if Beau hadn't been chafing and embittered, the broiling sun would have taken the edge off his good humor. Not to mentio
n
he was about to approach one of the most corrupt men in Italy and try to convince him to disobey orders and turn over a woman of possible interest to him. Beau had no illusions about Solignac's morality; like Londes, he no doubt tested the ladies gathered for Massena's pleasure.

The one positive note in his distasteful deliberations was the fact that Solignac could be bought; that was a given. But the question was, how blunt could one be in his approach? Or to what degree would diplomacy be required in convincing Solignac to relinquish his prize?

Colonel Solignac was called Massena's extortionist. Or simply his own, those loyal to Massena contended. It was a dubious distinction in a system that paid and fed its army with enforced levies from its conquered territories.

******************

When Beau stopped to change horses at a small posting station later that morning, he learned that a French troop escorting a lady in the carriage had passed through less than an hour before. Spurred by the news, he helped saddle his fresh mount, too impatient to wait for the stable lad to finish the task. He almost had her, he thought, as he swiftly buckled the bridle in place and adjusted the b
i
t

The carriage first caught his eye some twenty min
utes
later, the vehicle pulled off the road into the shade o
f
s
ome
trees beside an inn. How solicitous Solignac was to the mademoiselle's comfort, Beau resentfully thought, how careful that the carriage interior was kept cool for the lady. Knowing Solignac took what he wanted, Beau decided he was probably sleeping with her, and the jealous rage he'd rationalized into submission on the pounding ride south flared afresh.

Cautious with a troop of French soldiers serving as escort, he first determined their location, and discovering them asleep in the stables, proceeded to find Solignac. The colonel was upstairs, the proprietor said. He didn't wish his sleep disturbed.

Brushing the man aside, Beau took the stairs in a run and barged into the colonel's room, shoving the door open with such force it slammed into the wall with an explosive crash. Standing on the threshold, he searched the front room for Serena, his gaze sweeping the small chamber. A bed and Soligna
c
—
j
ust Solignac.

"Where is she?" he barked, any diplomatic inclination overwhelmed by jealousy. The door's concussive impact had set a crucifix on the wall swinging wildly, and as if his harsh voice had suddenly snapped the string holding it, the statuary slid to the floor and shattered.

Solignac groggily surveyed the angry man at his door, his drowsy gaze drawn away by the brittle sound of breaking gesso to the colored bits of p
l
aster lying in splinters on the floor. Then, as the identity of the intruder clarified, he heaved his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. "Can I help you, Rochefort?" he said, sighing heavily. "You didn't let me sleep long."

"She's
n
ot here." There wasn't room under the bed nor in it and no other door into the bedchamber.

Still not completely awake, the colonel took a moment to synthesize the pronoun. "Massena wouldn't have wanted her here," he finally said, his voice arid.

"And you always obey?"

"Always, my dear young hothead," the general blandly said. He didn't, of course, but the woman was to have safe passage, he'd been told. And without a ready profit motive, there was no point in crossing Massena.

"Where is she?" Curt, sharp, more grim than the first time he'd asked.

Solignac's head came up and his eyes from under heavy brows searched Beau's forbidding face. "Down the hall, sleeping. Alone. You wanted to know that most of all, didn't you?" he softly added. Standing, he lazily stretched and then gazed about the room as if seeing it for the first time. A brandy bottle on the table caught his eye. "Would you like a grappa?" he inquired, not easily intimidated after fighting France's wars the last decade.

"No." Beau shut the door.

"I think I'll have one since I'm not likely to go back to sleep now," the colonel ironically said, realizing Lord Rochefort wanted privacy, recognizing the probable reason why. Solignac specialized in deal-making, for which Napoleon should thank him profusely, he often thought. Walking stocking-footed over to a small table, he poured himself a brandy, and waving Beau to a chair, sat down himself.

"You probably know why I'm here," Beau said, crossing the small room and dropping into a sturdy wooden chair painted an intense yellow.

"I have a suspicion," Solignac murmured, stroking the uneven surface of his glass, taking note of the heavy saddlebags Beau had placed on the floor beside his chair.

"Well then . .
."
A sigh of distaste or vexation punctuated the silence and the colonel didn't think he'd care to be the young lady a few moments from now. "Would you like to set a price," Beau quietly asked, "or should I make an offer?"

"You first, Rochefort. I'm curious what you'll pay for the mademoiselle."

"You don't anticipate any problem w
i
th the exchange?”
Beau queried.

"None," Solignac complacently replied, smiling slightly.

"I have gold florins."

"Florins are fine."

"I have slightly less than a hundred thousand."

"That will do nicely."

"Wil
l
Massena be informed of this transaction?"

"Probably not." The colonel shrugged. "One never knows when a confession is required, but I doubt one will be. Would you like a grappa now that our business is concluded?"

"No, thank you." Quickly rising, Beau set the saddlebags on the table, his restiveness blatant.

"I recall a woman long ago who heated my blood like Miss Blythe does yours," Solignac gently said. "I envy you the feeling."

Slipping a small purse from a snapped compartment of the leather bag, Beau turned to look at the colonel, his gaze chill. "And I appreciate your understanding."

Perhaps not love after all, Solignac decided, reevaluating the young man's motives. "For one hundred thousand florins, my boy, I can be infinitely understanding," he said, smiling, the
l
ady no longer his concern. "Her room is three doors down to the right. Take the key on the bureau. I wasn't certain she could be trusted to stay, so I locked her in."

"One more thing," Beau murmured, sliding the purse into his coat pocket. "How soon will you be leaving?"

He didn't want witnesses, Solignac thought. "As soon as the horses are saddled." One hundred thousand florins also bought a speedy exit.

"Then I'll bid you good day, colonel." Beau's bow was courteous, his smile slightly forced.

"A p
l
e'as
ti
rable afternoon, Lord Rochefort. And you'll like the food here. The proprietor's wife is an excellent cook." He didn't suppose the jealous young man would be leaving the inn any time soon now that he had the mademoiselle to himself.

Beau inclined his head in acknowledgment. "Thank you for your time, Colonel," he soberly said. Picking up the key from the bureau, he strode from the room.