“Were you?” he countered, his voice still deceptively calm. “To begin a game like that and then quit halfway was far, far more dangerous.”
“The way you did, spouting off your gentleman’s French? You could have guessed how Hamilton would react!”
Angrily he swore beneath his breath, wishing she hadn’t thrown that back in his face. If Hamilton hadn’t insulted him he would have been fine. Bastard. He’d been called that all his life, and he thought he was long past feeling its sting. Yet because the memory of Jerusa’s kiss was still so fresh, he had wanted to spare her the ugly sound of the truth, just as he’d wanted to hold on to the warmth of her respect a little longer. It was only the way he’d gone about it that was so disastrously wrong, and now it was far too late to explain why.
“Morbleu, Jerusa, is that all you understand?” he demanded bitterly. “Then you’re no better than Hamilton yourself. Not that I should expect otherwise, should I? All you preaching, pious New Englanders are alike, all ready to play God at a moment’s notice!”
“You heard him! He’d lost two sons to the French! How could he possibly feel any other way?”
“And what of the sorrow of the French widows and orphans and grieving parents left by your father’s slaughter? You certainly seem proud enough of that.”
She ducked her chin, struck by the appalling truth of what he’d said. All her life she’d heard how her father was a hero for what he’d done as a privateer, and she’d always accepted it without question, and without considering the consequences.
“But that’s different,” she began lamely. “That was—different.”
“Different, ma chère? Because they’re French, somehow their sorrow is less painful?”
“That’s not what I meant!” She shook her head, wishing she could make it all clear to herself as well as to him. “Don’t you understand that Hamilton would have had his men kill you if he’d known you were French?”
He drew their horses up short, wheeling around to face her. So that was it. He saved her life in the fire, and now she thought that by this bit of foolishness she’d saved his in return. He didn’t want to owe her his life. He didn’t want to owe her anything.
“Then why didn’t you let them, Jerusa?” he demanded. “Why didn’t you take the chance to add one more dead Frenchman to your family’s honor?”
“Because it was you!” she cried. “Damn you, Michel, because it was you!”
For a moment that stretched like eternity between them, Michel only stared at her.
“Then perhaps, ma chère,” he said at last, “for both our sakes, you should have let them do it.”
Chapter Ten
“We lost almost everything in the fire, ma’am,” explained Michel sadly to the landlady of the public house. “Not that we had so much, traveling by horse, yet still my poor wife lost everything but the clothes on her back, and you’ve only to look at her skirts to see how near a thing it was.”
“You poor creatures!” exclaimed the landlady, clicking her tongue. “Praise the Lord that guided you to my doorstep. You’ll find no better lodgings between Providence and New Haven and that’s the honest truth. If anyone can make you forget your travail, ‘twill be myself, Catherine Cartwright, here at the Sign of the Lamb.”
She beamed at them with such heartfelt sympathy that Jerusa squirmed inwardly. The woman was round faced and maternal, with a smudge of flour from the kitchen across her ruddy cheek, and clearly trusting enough that she’d never suspect a gentleman like this fine Mr. Geary of telling such out-and-out lies.
Not that what he was saying was exactly lies. She had lost all her clothes. They had been in a fire. The little scorched marks on her gown were from flying cinders. And they—oh, sweet Almighty, was she herself really getting to be as adept at twisting the truth as the Frenchman?
Jerusa, Jerusa, where are your wits? Better you should be listening and waiting for the chance to leave him than worrying about how many of his wicked, dishonorable ways have rubbed off onto you!
“Here now, Mrs. Geary, I’ll show you to your room myself,” Mrs. Cartwright was saying, already leading the way up the staircase. “‘Tis your good fortune that I’ve the front room free, the one I generally save for gentry such as yourselves. We’ve not much company at present, but my, you should see the crowd we have when the court’s in session!”
Only half listening, Jerusa began to follow her, then stopped when she realized that Michel had remained behind. She looked back at him, one brow cocked in silent question while Mrs. Cartwright continued discussing the last county court sessions.
“You go ahead, my dear,” he said softly so as not to disturb the landlady’s monologue. “I’ve business with some gentlemen here in the town, but be certain I’ll return to you as soon as I can.”
He kissed his fingers toward her, a lighthearted salute that did little to lessen the subtle warning of his words, and without answering, Jerusa hurried up the stairs after Mrs. Cartwright. She might kiss Michel Géricault a hundred times and he still wouldn’t forget she was his prisoner. To him it was all some sort of strange game with rules she’d never learned, and despite the warmth of the day, she shivered. Of course he would return to her; he always did. But maybe this time, she wouldn’t be there waiting.
“I hope this suits, Mrs. Geary,” said the landlady as, with a flourish of her large arm, she threw open the door to the room. “Like I told you before, you’ll be hard-pressed to find finer.”
She marched to the bed and vigorously plumped the bolsters while Jerusa remained in the doorway. A chair, a stool, an unsteady table with a candlestick and a pitcher for washing, a black-speckled looking glass and one bed. One bed, thought Jerusa with dismay, which doubtless Michel would expect her to share with him to carry on this ruse of being husband and wife.
But she wouldn’t do it. She couldn’t. He had promised he’d never force her, and he’d kept that promise. She was the one who had proved faithless and untrustworthy, to Tom, her family, even her own notion of herself. With this Frenchman she didn’t even seem to know right from wrong, even who she was, and she didn’t want to consider what might happen between them in this room. It was almost as if he’d cast a spell over her to make her doubt every last thing about herself. One more reason—as if she needed another—for her to leave as soon as she could.
With approval Mrs. Cartwright nodded at the newly plumped bolsters and folded her arms across her wide bosom. “I’ll leave you, then, to settle in, Mrs. Geary. The girls will be up directly with your bath.”
“A bath?” Embarrassed, Jerusa looked down at her filthy, stained gown. She’d traveled enough with her parents to know that a bath in a private room of a public house was an unthinkable luxury. Was it obvious even to Mrs. Cartwright that her new guest had worn the same clothes for six days and nights of hard travel, so obvious that she’d suggest a bath before allowing Jerusa downstairs with her other guests?
But the landlady only smiled benevolently. “It was your husband that suggested it, Mrs. Geary. He thought you’d welcome the chance to wash away the grime of the road. A kind man, ma’am. Most husbands wouldn’t be so thoughtful.”
She winked broadly, her eye nearly disappearing into her round cheek. “But then, most husbands aren’t nearly so comely, eh? I’ll wager that’s one that’s a pleasure to please. No wonder he wanted you smelling sweet afore evening.”
Before Jerusa could stammer an answer, two serving girls squeezed past her, struggling with an empty bathing tub that was little more than