Surrender The Heart

Slowly Chris turned away and went in search of brandy to wash away the memory of his mother’s tears and all the old childhood hurts that were suddenly clogging his throat.

With an outraged gasp Odile de Blanchard watched Charles’s bastard turn his back on her. Catching sight of her country cousin, Pierre, across the room, she hurried toward him to tell him just who his daughter had been dancing with.

Ariane had always prided herself on her ability to give her attention to more than one activity at a time. So while she whirled around in a succession of waltzes and polkas and quadrilles, while she carried on one conversation after another empty of everything but a little light flirtation, her mind clicked away efficiently.

Deciding that she did not have the patience to wait for the last waltz, she took advantage of the intermission between sets to look for Roger de Monnier. He was talking to his sister, she saw. Well, it could not be helped, she thought, and it really did not matter. Justine would know soon enough that she had no intention of taking her advice.

“May I interrupt?”

“You’re not interrupting, Ariane.” Justine hooked her arm around Ariane’s. “In fact, we were just talking about you.”

Ariane raised her eyes heavenward. “I can imagine.”

“I apologize for what I said, but you have no idea how people talk here in Paris.”

“Well,” Ariane said, “they’re going to have to talk some more.” Giving Justine’s arm a pat, she turned to Roger. “Would you give Monsieur Blanchard a message for me, Roger?”

“Of course.” Roger smiled brightly. Perhaps he would have a chance with the young countess after all.

“Please tell him that I would like to speak to him during the next intermission.”

“But—” He threw a helpless look at his sister.

“Please, Roger.”

With a bow Roger left the two young women.

“But Ariane, don’t you understand—”

“I understand perfectly.” Ariane smiled. “But let me explain so that you do.” Seeing yet another eligible young man bearing down on them, she deliberately turned away, pulling Justine along with her.

“I am here in Paris because my parents decided I could no longer do without a husband. But I have no intention of saddling myself with one. Thus it is of no import whether people gossip about me or not. Do you understand now?”

“You don’t want a husband?” Justine stared at Ariane with something resembling horror. “Ever?”

“Ever.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Justine,” she said with a touch of impatience. “I am twenty-five. I’ve lived as I please for a long time and I have no intention of changing that.”

“Oh, pooh.” Justine wiggled her fingers as if she were chasing a pesky fly. “The empress was twenty-six when she married, and from what one hears, she lived as she pleased and she still does.”

Ariane shook her head. “I want my life to stay just as it is. I love my home, my land.” Her eyes softened as she thought of the endless fields. “You have no idea how beautiful it is.” For a moment she considered explaining how she had made a moderately prosperous estate into very wealthy one, by running it behind her father’s back, but she rejected the notion. It was not something Justine would understand.

“And I have no desire to have a husband who will only want to mold me into an obedient wife.” Never, she thought, never did she want to be like her mother, who had no life but what her husband chose to give her.

“But what does Christopher Blanchard have to do with all this?”

“I need a smoke screen, Justine.”

The girl sighed dramatically. “I don’t understand a word.”

“Don’t worry.” Ariane patted Justine’s arm. “The main thing is that Christopher Blanchard understands.” It occurred to her that she was playing with fire, but, intent on her purpose, she pushed the thought away.

Chapter Four

Chris watched Ariane from the edge of the dance floor, as he had been doing all evening. When her dance partner bent down and whispered something into her ear, he clenched his fists at his sides. When she lifted her face toward the baby-faced young man, revealing her radiant smile, he barely managed to prevent himself from barging onto the dance floor.

Pulling in a deep breath, he cursed himself for a fool. Perhaps it had been simply too long since he had had a woman, he thought Perhaps he should take Roger’s advice and see what Suzette Lavalier or one of her colleagues had to offer.

“What’s the matter, Chris? Aren’t you enjoying yourself?”

“Of course, I am.” Forcing himself to relax, he turned toward Roger. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you’re scowling like the very devil.” He grinned despite his misgivings. He had seen the direction of Chris’s gaze.

Shrugging, Chris said nothing, but his eyes returned to the dance floor.

“I have a message for you. From Ariane de Valmont.”

“Indeed?” His heartbeat leaped at Roger’s words, but his indifferent tone gave no hint of his sudden turmoil. If her message was to cancel the dance she had promised him, he swore to himself, she was in for a surprise.

“She would like your company during the next intermission between sets.”

“What does she want?”

“I am not her confidant.” He gnawed at his lip, wondering if he should dare Chris’s anger again.

“Don’t worry, Roger,” Chris said, feeling his friend’s discomfort. “You’ve done your duty and you can believe me when I tell you that I have never forced my attentions on a woman.”

“The question of force never entered my mind.” Roger smiled ruefully. “Ariane de Valmont is an inexperienced young woman, unused to society. She is no match for a man like you—”

Chris shot him a black look.

“A man like you—” Roger continued unperturbed “—who draws female stares as a magnet draws pins. A man who has enough charm to talk his way into any bed.”

“Should I be flattered or insulted?” Chris’s brows took on a mocking curve. Then he glanced across the ballroom, where Ariane stood surrounded by several young men while her parents looked on proudly.

“Don’t worry, Roger. I think the young Comtesse de Valmont can take care of herself just fine.”

“I got your message,” Chris said when he collected Ariane after the set had ended. He touched her elbow and soft flesh made his cool restraint disintegrate. “If you are going to tell me that you’ve decided to get rid of me after all, don’t.”

Ariane stopped in the middle of a movement, her eyebrows rising at the vehemence of his tone. “And if I was?”

“I shall—”

“More threats, Monsieur Blanchard?”

Chris understood desire. He understood how to gratify it and how to keep it in check. But he was appalled at the unfamiliar, turbulent feelings that were racing through him. Even more, he was appalled at how effortlessly they eluded the control he had honed so carefully. He gave Ariane a searching look. Her mouth and her eyes were serious, but there had been a definite smile in her voice. The unreasoning sense of relief he felt at that unnerved him still further.

“No.” He softened the curt answer with a smile. “No threats.”

“Good.” Ariane’s nod was all coolness and composure, but as the unexpected heat curled through her, unfamiliar and a little frightening, she looked away from his charming, lopsided smile.

He was altogether too beautiful, too charming, too virile, she thought. And much too sure of himself. How many women had fallen victim to him? she wondered. Did he, like Don Juan, need a servant to keep a list of his myriad conquests? Well, she was forewarned, she told herself. She would use him for her purpose, but she would not succumb. to that charm he dispensed so fac-ilely.

“What do you want from me then?”

Ariane’s gaze skidded up at his directness. “For the moment, your company.”

“My name is on your dance card. So impatient?” His lifted eyebrows insinuated more.

“Are you trying very hard to be disagreeable?” she demanded.

“No. I just don’t believe in wasting time nor in beating around the bush.” He paused. “Well?”

“Presently.” Ariane lifted her hand in a gesture that requested patience. “I am not beating around the bush,” she explained not quite truthfully. “I merely do things in my own good time.”

She was hedging and she knew it. But now that he was standing next to her—so large, so handsome, so utterly male—she found that her stomach was quivering. And what had seemed so reasonable, so expedient just a little while ago was suddenly madness.

“Agreed.” Apparently the young countess did not intend to send him to the devil, so Chris reined in his impatience. Tucking her hand into the crook of his arm, he directed their steps toward one of the rooms off the main ballroom, where light refreshments were being served.

As they strolled by, a door opened and several footmen carrying huge trays full of empty bottles emerged. The door remained open, revealing a room hazy with smoke, quiet but for the sound of hushed voices, the occasional slap of cards and the gradually slowing clack of the ball on the roulette wheel.

Chris slowed his steps to match Ariane’s. When he heard her wistful sigh, he could not resist a grin. “Don’t tell me you’re a gambler.”

“I don’t mind a good game of cards.” She grimaced inwardly at her prim tone and the lukewarm understatement.

“So the countess has a weakness for games of chance.” He laughed, pleased.

“No, cards,” Ariane corrected as they began to walk again. “I cannot abide games of chance.”

“That’s a very fine line you are drawing.”

“Not at all.” She warmed to the subject, forgetting that young, unmarried countesses did not gamble. And if they did, they certainly did not talk about it. “Cards require skill. In games of chance you are completely dependent on what luck may deal you.”

“Don’t you believe in luck?” Chris had had too many close brushes with disaster not to. Besides, the blood that ran in his veins was half-Russian, so he came by his belief in the vagaries of fortune honestly.

“Of course I do. Only fools believe solely in their own abilities.” She grinned. “On the other hand, only fools depend on their luck to help them every time.”

“Lovely, charming, witty, a gambler and a philosopher to boot. Unbelievable.” He shook his head. “Now are you going to tell me why you wanted to speak to me?” he said, his impatience getting the better of him.

Ariane took a deep breath. She supposed it was as good a time as any.

“Are you looking for a wife, Monsieur Blanchard?” She met his eyes and held them.

Struck dumb for a moment, Chris only stared at her. There was no facetiousness or coquetry in her eyes. Instead they held only a mild inquiry, as if she were asking a shopkeeper about the relative merits of two bolts of cloth.

“No, actually I am not,” he replied, wondering what her game was. She continued to look at him with her eyes of that startling violet color so that he felt compelled to elaborate. “I have no need for an heiress, nor does a man of my station need to make a dynastic marriage.”

“There are other reasons to choose a wife.”

He slanted her a look, not certain if she was flirting or being outrageous, but her gaze still appeared to hold no more than polite interest.

“Pledging my heart forever holds no appeal for me. In fact, I find the thought of my happiness being dependent on another person quite appalling.”

The memory of his father, prostrate with grief at his mother’s death, nudged him. Chris had no intention of ever opening himself up to that kind of vulnerability. Ever.

“Excellent.” Pleased and relieved, she smiled. She could not have wished for a better reaction, she thought. “Nor am I looking for a husband. I, too, find the institution of marriage quite hideous. Unfortunately, my father is deaf to reason, so I would like to enlist your help.”

“My help?”

She nodded. “Could I interest you in the role of suitor to throw him off the scent, so to speak? You pretend to court me until others lose interest and my father decides to let me go home. I give you my word,” she continued quickly, “that there are no hidden traps here.”

Her smile was so dazzling, her eyes so sincere that for a moment he found himself speechless. Because his reaction troubled him, he drew back into himself and raised an eyebrow.

“And what is in it for me?”

Vaguely dissatisfied with his flippant question, Ariane shrugged. “The same, I suppose. The moment word gets around that you’re rich—if you are indeed rich—you’ll have to beat off all the daughters of impoverished counts and dukes with a stick.” She did not add that she suspected it would be no different if he were as poor as the proverbial church mouse.

“Ah, yes?” His mouth curved in a smile Ariane might have recognized as predatory if she had been more experienced—or known him better. “Is that all?”

“Isn’t it enough?”

“No.” He smiled. Now that the first shock was past, he was beginning-to enjoy himself. “What else do you have to offer me?”

She stopped and gave him a long, serious look. He was smiling that lethal smile of his, and she needed to remind herself that she had sworn to be immune to it. But there was something in his pale green eyes that had not been there before. She did not know what it was and that alarmed her as much as the fact that, whatever it was, it seemed to touch her where she had never been touched before.

“I’m not very good at games,” she said. “Why don’t you tell me what you want.”

“And here I thought I’d be a gentleman and let you offer first.”

“A gentleman?” Her tone was bland, but the curve of her eyebrows left no doubt as to her meaning.

“You wound me.” He touched his hand to his heart. “And here I thought my manners were impeccable.”

Because the curve of his tawny eyebrows was cynical and the tone of his voice just bordering on insolence, she discounted the flicker in his eyes that she might otherwise have interpreted as hurt.

“Your manners are impeccable, if you wish them to be,” she added, thinking of his bold touch earlier that evening. “But I have the distinct feeling that the real you lurks somewhere beneath those manners and is not quite civilized.” She thought of her first impression of him as a lion among tomcats, and before she knew it, the words had found their way to her tongue.

He threw back his head and roared with laughter, cementing that impression thoroughly.

His laugh was so luxurious, so full of life that Ariane could not suppress her smile. “Good. Now that I seem to have complimented you so lavishly, perhaps you will tell me what it is you want from me.”

“A sporting chance of seducing you.” He spoke lightly and the smile that still played around his mouth was easy.

“What?” Ariane stopped so suddenly that her crinoline swayed like a boat in distress.

Her exclamation had the chatter around them stilling as all eyes turned toward them.

“You heard me.” Chris covered her hand, which still lay on his arm, with his and gave it a small tug. “Come along now and keep your voice down unless you want to create a scene.”

Skillfully, he navigated them through the crowd. Deciding to forgo refreshments, he guided her onto the gallery that ran around the main staircase. The moment he closed the door to the ballroom behind them, Ariane snatched her hand away from his arm and spun around to face him.

“How dare you?”

He leaned against the marble balustrade, which was richly veined in reddish brown and black, and crossed his ankles, the very picture of relaxed, self-confident masculinity.

“I thought you appreciated direct speech.” The corners of Chris’s mouth twitched with suppressed amusement. “Was my impression mistaken?”

“I do appreciate direct speech. But I do not appreciate indecent proposals”. She pushed away the uncomfortable suspicion that she sounded priggish.

“I didn’t ask you to become my mistress, Ariane,” he said softly, “although that thought has its own appeal. I asked for a sporting chance to seduce you. There is a world of difference between the two.” He allowed his mouth to curve fully. “If you like, I’ll explain it to you.”

“I’m not a child.”

“My thought exactly.”

“Don’t be coarse.” She glared at him. He looked so at ease, so sure of himself, and her insides felt like a mass of not-quite-settled aspic.

“I have no wish to entrap you. I have no intention of using flattery or wine to get you into my bed.” He leaned forward a little. “Look, it’s like a card game with two players doing their best with their skill—” he paused for a heartbeat “—and their luck.”

His wicked grin infuriated her. “I am not interested in your games.”

“Oh, but Ariane, they are such pleasant games.” His smile warmed. “You have just finished telling me that you are not looking for a husband. What good reason do you have then to deny yourself a little pleasure? Pleasure should be taken when it is offered. Life is too short for anything else.”

Damn him, she thought, he knew far too well just how attractive he was. His velvet voice alone was enough to conjure up all manner of delights.

Bracing herself against the impossible images that assaulted her, her voice was cold. “Your conceit is gargantuan. Pleasure, indeed. How do I know that it will be a pleasure?” She tilted up her chin, defying him, but even more defying her own terrible premonition that he spoke the truth.

“I guarantee it, comtesse.”

In one swift, supple movement he straightened, captured her hand and brought it to his lips.

“I guarantee it personally.”

She tried to free her hand, but Chris did not relinquish it. Instead, keeping his eyes on hers, he began to remove her glove—slowly tugging it off finger by finger, making as sensual a ritual of it as if he were divesting her of some intimate article of clothing.

Ariane forgot to breathe as he slipped the glove off and tossed it aside. Then he raised her hand again and pressed his mouth to the center of her palm.

Chapter Five

Heat. That was all Ariane could think of as Chris’s mouth pressed against her palm, as his breath skimmed over her skin like a hot desert wind. When he touched the tip of his tongue to her hand, she jolted as if she had been burned. And, indeed, an unfamiliar ache swept through her like a firestorm.

“Don’t” Her voice was so low and smoky that she barely recognized it, and something resembling panic licked at her nerves.

“Don’t what?” Chris asked.

His lips shifted seductively over her skin as he spoke. She knew that she should pull her hand out of his grasp, but it was as if she had lost command over her body.

“Don’t do this,” she managed.

“This?” He traced the width of her palm with his tongue. “Or this?” Moving his mouth downward, he nipped at the fleshy pad beneath her thumb.

She managed to suppress the soft sound that rose in her throat, but she was helpless to prevent the sinuous curl of heat that spread through her to pool in her belly. The desire to close her eyes, to savor this new sensation was so strong that she almost gave in to it. But some last shred of wariness had her bracing against it.

Yet it was that very tension that had her fingers spreading and pressing against his cheek. The slight abrasiveness of his skin tempted her beyond measure, making her want to rub her fingertips against it to acquaint herself with this new texture.

“Go ahead,” Chris murmured, fascinated by her expressive eyes, which were able to conceal neither the curiosity nor the temptation. “It is not forbidden to touch.”

His words pulled her back from the sea of sensation where she had been foundering.

“Let me go.” The words that had been meant as a command came out sounding like a plea. Anger at her own weakness flared within her. Anger—and the traitorous desire to take the words back.

Slowly, his eyes on hers, he lowered her hand and released her.

Fighting an unreasonable sense of loss, Ariane grappled for the right words.

“Is this how your game of seduction is played?” Alarm, masked by indignation, colored her words.

“Would you care to be more specific?”

“Insidiously.” She filled her lungs with air in the vain attempt to soothe her raw nerves. “Unscrupulously.”

Even as she said the words, she understood that her accusation was excessive, but she was trembling. Trembling, damn it! And she had sworn long ago that she would tremble for no man.

“I played my hand with the cards a kind fate dealt me.” He shrugged, trying to rid himself of the sharp desire to feel her fingers on his skin again. “You are making me responsible for your own weakness.”

Ariane stared at him, appalled at his nonchalant words. How could he be so indifferent when he had turned her world and her vision of herself upside down with a few words and a touch?

Forcing herself to move, she paced a few steps away and linked her hands to steady them. A measure of self-control returned, reminding her that it was not her wont to blame others for her own mistakes.

Why was she having this absurd conversation? she asked herself harshly. What had possessed her to pick the most dangerous man she had ever seen for her scheme? Why had she not asked someone safe, someone like Roger de Monnier, or one of those baby-faced young men she had danced with?

But she hadn’t asked someone else, she reminded herself. She had asked the insolent, beautiful American. And she could not back away now, any more than she could have backed away from a wager or a card game simply because she had discovered too late that the odds were against her. Her pride would not allow it.

The turmoil in her eyes made Chris want to reach out and reassure her that he meant her no harm. Even though it occurred to him that his notion of harm was possibly very different from hers, he pushed away from the balustrade, his hand raised in a placating gesture. Before he could take more than a single step toward her, she whirled around to face him.

“Yes, my weakness. That is exactly the point, Monsieur Blanchard.” The fact that her voice was even, showing little sign of the agitation of a moment ago, settled her nerves still further. She was in control, she told herself. And she would stay in control. “You have challenged me to a game where you have an unfair advantage.”

The cool determination on her face made him wonder if he had imagined her confusion, her vulnerability a moment ago.

“If you think so,” he answered, “then perhaps we should lay down some rules.”

“It is not a question of rules,” Her voice was brisk. “The fact remains that you have challenged me to a game where you are apparently quite expert, while I have never played it before.”

“Never?” His body stirred at the thought. “I can hardly believe that you have never engaged in a little harmless flirtation.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Your demonstration just now had nothing whatsoever to do with harmless flirtation.”

“I’m flattered.”

“That was not my intention.” Because his velvet voice, coupled with his charming half smile, had her stomach fluttering, her tone was sharper than it might have been.

How could he have thought the little spitfire vulnerable? Chris asked himself. His conscience appeased, he prepared to enjoy himself.

“So tell me, ma chére comtesse—” he relaxed back against the cool marble “—have you been kissed before, or has no man braved your fury?” He grinned. “I do not ask because I am indiscreet. I merely want to know how high are the walls to be scaled.”

“Your effrontery appears to be truly boundless.”

“Assuming that as given, why don’t you answer my question.”

Because his cheeky grin made her want to smile back at him, she took refuge in a haughty look.