Wicked Loving Lies. Rosemary Rogers

consumed, and in despair by what he had just witnessed, had just bowed before a still-flushed Marisa, asking her to dance with him. At this point he didn’t care if Arabella, her formidable mother, or even Napoleon himself were watching. Damn it, she didn’t belong here! She was too innocent to realize what was happening—what people were whispering about her! It was all the fault of that accursed aunt of hers, a married woman notorious for her many and varied lovers. He had almost forgotten his original purpose in coming here and his intention to ask her questions.

      Everyone else was dancing, even the pregnant Hortense, and Marisa had begun to feel herself isolated when thankfully, Philip appeared out of nowhere. She had just glimpsed the duke of Otranto begin to make his way towards her, and her aunt Edmée was nowhere in sight, so it was with an unfeigned exclamation of gladness that she smiled up at Philip and took his hand without hesitation. He had sensed her distress and had come to her. Here at last was someone she could trust!

      Unfortunately, the musicians had just begun to play a quadrille, and the dancers formed sets and faced each other, giving them hardly any opportunity to talk privately.

      “I must speak to you!” Philip said again, doggedly, and Marisa gave him a worried inclination of her head. The dance led them apart and then together again, and in response to the pleading in his eyes she murmured breathlessly, “Soon—I shall contrive to be very tired and in need of a drink and some fresh air. On the terrace outside?”

      “I’ll look for you there. I’ll wait, if I have to.”

      The urgency in his voice and the almost desperate pleading in his eyes made Marisa’s pulses begin to race. Philip was in love with her! He was jealous, of course, but tonight he meant to ask her to elope with him, and she would—she would!

      What did it matter if he had little money of his own? They would be happy. Perhaps her papa would relent and give her a dowry, and Philip would go to New Spain with her, and there would be a touching reconciliation with papa, and everything would end happily. They would make it so!

      Lost in her suddenly happy visions of the future, Marisa did not notice that her manner had regained the sparkle and vivacity it had lacked earlier, and that she was actually smiling in a dreamy fashion. But there were others who noticed—and reacted according to their respective natures.

      Joseph Fouché grinned in an ugly, narrow-lipped way, and the prince of Benevento raised an eyebrow in mock dismay, even while his cunning mind raced. Napoleon’s face grew cold and forbidding, and Edmée, stepping in breathless and flushed from the coolness of the gardens, gave a smothered exclamation of annoyance.

      “Oh, no! How could she—the very minute my back was turned. The little fool, what does she think she’s about?”

      In her anger and irritation she had said more than she would have wished to, but the tall man who stood beside her merely gave a sardonic grunt.

      “So, chère amie, your so-called ‘little’ niece has more than one admirer?” His voice was a hard drawl, but his face, if Edmée could only have seen it then, had become a mask carved out of granite, betraying no emotion save contempt.

      “Don’t talk that way!” Edmée responded distractedly. “The young Englishman is merely a friend, of course, but she should not be so indiscreet as to dance with him, and especially not now!”

      “So Caesar’s mistress is very much in the same position as Caesar’s wife? You ought to have schooled her not to wear her feelings so openly.”

      Dominic Challenger’s voice was lazily indolent, but there was a certain tone underlying his sarcastically uttered words that made Edmée cast him a reproachful look over one white shoulder.