“Ah, ‘monsieur’ rather than cochon! I must advance in your estimation.”
Marguerite tilted her head back against the hard wall, staring at him in the moonlight. He was certainly still handsome, the sharp, symmetrical angles of his face softened by that mocking half-smile, his pale blue eyes glowing. His hair, his lean acrobat’s body—all perfection. But beauty, as Marguerite well knew, was only a tool, a weapon like any other that a person could learn to wield with skill. She was usually unmoved by that weapon, both in herself and in others. Unmoved by a handsome man’s touch.
Why, then, did his clasp make her tremble so? Make her thoughts tilt drunkenly in her mind? She had to get away from him, to regroup.
She pressed back tight against the wall, but he followed, his hair trailing like silk over her throat, her bare décolletage above the velvet bodice. “I have esteem for any worthy enemy.”
“Am I a worthy enemy?”
“You have defeated me twice now, which no one else has ever done. You are obviously strong and clever, monsieur. Yet you will not defeat me three times.”
His smile widened. “I see I shall have to watch my back while I am in England.” “At every moment.”
“I shall consider myself fairly warned, mademoiselle.”
They stood in silence for a long moment, studying each other warily. Marguerite glanced away first, her gaze shifting over his shoulder to the stone faun, who seemed to laugh at her predicament.
“What are you doing here?” she asked tightly. “Do you work for the Spanish now? Was your task in Venice complete?”
He laughed, a low, rough sound that seemed to echo through her very core. “Mademoiselle, you must know I work for no one but myself. As do you. And as for what I am doing here at Greenwich—well, I must keep some secrets, yes?”
Secrets. That was all life was. Yet Marguerite had spent her own life keeping her own secrets, and discovering those of other people. Even ones they thought so well hidden. She would find his, too.
He seemed to have read her very thoughts, for he leaned closer, so close his breath stirred the fine, loose curls at her temple, and his lips softly brushed her cheek. “Some things, petite, are buried so deeply even you cannot dig them out again.”
“Secrets are my speciality,” she whispered back. “I have not met a man yet who could withhold them from me. One way or another, I always fulfil my task.”
“Ah, but I am not as other men, Mademoiselle Dumas.” He pressed one light, fleeting kiss to her jaw, so swift she was not even sure it happened. “I shall look forward with great anticipation to our next battle. Do svidaniya.”
Then he let her go, his hands and body sliding away from her as one long caress. He melted away, vanishing into the night as if he had never been there at all. Except for the spot of fire that marked his kiss.
Marguerite spun around, but she could find no glimpse of him, no trace of his bright hair or red silk doublet. She was completely alone in the cold garden.
“Abruti,” she muttered. Her whole body felt boneless, exhausted. She longed to fall to the walkway in a heap, to sob out her frustration, to beat her fists against the jagged gravel until they bled!
But there was no time to give into such childish, useless tantrums. Womanish tears would never gain her the revenge she sought, would never achieve her goals for her. So, she scooped up her dagger where it had fallen and hurried back toward the palace, running up the stairs to her quiet little room.
Soon, very soon, a new day would dawn. A new chance to at last best the Russian and get back her emerald dagger.
This time, she would not fail.
Nicolai closed the door to his small chamber, sliding a heavy clothes chest in front of it. He was wary enough to take the Emerald Lily at her word. She would be coming sooner or later for her dagger. At least this way she would have to make a great deal of noise forcing the door open. Unless she could somehow transform herself into a column of mist and come down the chimney, which would not surprise him in the least.
She was not like any woman he had ever met, this French fairy-sprite. She looked so very delicate, so angelic, and yet she was a veritable hellcat. A powerful, shrieking vodyanoi, a sea witch, just like the terrifying tales his nurse told him when he was child.
Perhaps her claws only came out in the moonlight, though, for at the banquet she was all smiles and light charm, even with the dour young priest who sat beside her. None of the men in the vast hall could turn his eyes from her, and that included him, though he carefully did not let her see that. He pretended not to notice her at all, to let her think herself safe, yet in truth he had seen her as soon as she walked in at the end of the French procession.
How could he help it? It was as if she was surrounded by a silvery pool of light. His Emerald Lily. The woman who incited his lusts and then tried to murder him.
He knew she would come for him. She was rumoured to be ruthless to the enemies of France. Such as what had happened to a certain Monsieur Etampes, who dared attempt to be a double agent for Spain! A grotesque end indeed. And Nicolai had slighted her by daring to live.
But over the long months since Venice, he had forgotten how very potent her presence was. Her exotic perfume, the cold light in her eyes—they were like a strong wine, lulling and lovely. He would have to be more cautious in the future, and find a way to fight her from a safe distance. Or he would end up like poor Etampes, or Signor Farcinelli in Milan. Another bad end.
Nicolai laughed, suddenly exhilarated. He was always buoyed by a good fight, and the Emerald Lily—or Marguerite Dumas, as he had learned she was called—certainly gave as good as she got. Despite her small size, it took a great deal of strength for him to hold her still, to keep her from kicking and clawing. It also took all his strength to ignore the feel of her in his arms, the press of her soft body against his.
He unfastened his doublet, and tossed it along with his shirt over the narrow bed, letting the cold breeze from the open window wash over his face, his naked chest. The sun was just peeking over the horizon, a thin line of pinkish-gold light that promised bright hours ahead.
He would have to write Marc and thank him for sending him on this fool’s errand. This English meeting seemed suddenly full of colour and interest. Surely anything at all could happen in the days ahead.
Chapter Six
Marguerite bent her head over her embroidery, pretending to be absorbed by the tiny flowers in blue-and-yellow silk as she listened to the soft murmur of voices around her. Queen Katherine had invited Claudine and her ladies to sit with her in her privy chamber for the afternoon, while her husband and the other men were occupied with their “dull” business in the council chamber.
In truth, Marguerite was sure that far more of interest was happening here than in the king’s group. The men, with their bluff deceptions, their great egos that convinced them of their imminent victory, could learn a great deal about prevarication from their ladies, whose gentle smiles and soft, flattering words were veritable poniards.
Queen Katherine sat by the fire in her carved, cushioned chair, stitching on one of the king’s fine batiste shirts. She had sewn his shirts and embroidered the blackwork trim on them since the early days of their marriage, and she would never surrender the task now. At her feet, her pet monkey, clad in a tiny blue doublet, frolicked, while lovebirds chattered away in a cage by the windows. The animals’ high-pitched exclamations blended with the giggles of the ladies, their whispers and the crackle of the flames, the sound of a lute being played by the queen’s chief lady, Maria de Salinas.
Thus far the talk had all been of fashion, of household matters, of Claudine’s forthcoming baby and Princess Mary’s education.