The Forbidden Rose

Twenty-four

GUILLAUME WORE THE WHITE ROBES OF THE house. He did not look like a man at leisure. He looked like a particularly deadly centurion at the Roman baths, one who had seen service against the barbarians until he was half a barbarian himself.

“You’re in the wrong room, dolt.” Jean-Paul moved in front of her. “Get out.”

“Well, well, well . . .” Guillaume looked from her to Jean-Paul and then back again. “I was right about you meeting somebody. I was wrong about who. Introduce me, Maggie.”

“I do not want you to know each other. Do not come in.”

But he was already in. His hair slicked forward over his forehead, wet, which increased his resemblance to an ancient Roman. The scar was white, stark and shiny on his cheek. She had forgotten how intimidating he was.

Jean-Paul reached smoothly to his jacket where it was hung over the back of the chair. He came out with a long knife, the sort used in kitchens.

Jean-Paul with a knife. “Stop that.” She turned the other way. “Guillaume, do not hurt him. I mean it.”

“Me?” Guillaume spread his hands. They were empty, which made them no less dangerous. “I’m not carrying weapons.”

“And do not look stupid. I am all out of patience with you looking stupid. Jean-Paul, will you put that away before Guillaume tears you apart.”

“He won’t tear me apart,” Jean-Paul said.

“When did you start carrying a knife around with you? We are not bandits and Mohawks upon the streets. What do you need a knife for?”

“I use it to pry open specimen boxes,” he said, being Jean-Paul and literal. “And to separate rhizomes.” He was watching Guillaume, not her. She had not realized Jean-Paul could look so cold.

“Then you should leave your knife to prying boxes and not wave it in people’s faces. What do you think you will do? Hold off a column of dragoons with it? You are being ridiculous.”

“I’ve used it twice, Marguerite.”

She knew, then, that he was saying he had killed. He held the knife the way that boy did. Hawker. He cradled it close to his body and pointed upward. Jean-Paul had changed one day, when she was not looking. He had become a man she did not entirely know.

Guillaume closed the door behind him. The bathing cabinet was a small room when he was in it.

“This descends to the level of farce.” She stood between them. “Guillaume, you are to do nothing, do you understand? Jean-Paul, I cannot imagine why this man is here, but he is harmless to me.”

Guillaume looked Jean-Paul over, being meditative and calm about it. Guillaume, being meditative, was like a mountain wondering if it should fall on someone. There was the same impassivity and inevitability. “This would be a friend of yours.”

“You’re the one she was with in Normandy. The book dealer.” Jean-Paul ran his gaze up the mass of muscle that was Guillaume LeBreton. “You were described to me.”

“Then you know I didn’t hurt her. You want to put that pig-sticker away before I break your wrist?” Guillaume glanced at the knife.

“Marguerite hasn’t said anything about you. Why is that, I wonder?” But Jean-Paul lowered the knife.

Guillaume said, “She didn’t talk about you either. I’d guess you’re an old friend.”

“We are very old, very good friends. The kind of friend she entertains in private.”

“I’m the kind of friend she walks across Normandy with.”

They were ignoring her. “I am prepared for the scandal of meeting a man at the baths. I am not prepared for the scandal of meeting two men at the baths. It would make goats blush. I would like both of you to just go away. Now.”

Guillaume settled his back against the doorjamb and folded his arms across his chest. “Fair enough. Do you need protecting from me, Maggie?”

“I am perfectly capable of dealing with you. I can deal with you with one hand tied behind my back. You are not—”

“Do you want me to go away?”

“It is finished between us.”

“You said that a couple of times. Do I go or stay?”

She had no idea what she would say to him when they were alone. Sometimes one throws oneself into the river, assuming one will learn to swim after hitting the water. “Stay.”

“Then I’ll stay.” He stepped aside, leaving an unencumbered path to the door. It did not lessen by one ounce the threat he presented. He was being symbolic. To Jean-Paul, he said, “You can leave me with her. She’ll pick up that stool and knock me over the head if I annoy her.”

Jean-Paul studied him. “She’ll do worse than that. She’ll yell and you’ll have thirty half-dressed women at the door, asking what you’re doing here.”

“Ah. Now that would call for undiluted terror on my part, so I’m hoping she don’t do it.”

Jean-Paul took a moment longer. Then he made some decision that did not involve picking up his ridiculous, dangerous knife, which was good. He sat in the chair to pull his boots on. “I’m not needed here.”

“Neither of you are needed,” she said. “In fact, I will get dressed and go down to the gardens of the baths and sit in the shade. I will let the maids bring me medicinal teas and little iced cakes. I feel the need for soothing.”

“You detest tea and cakes. Ask for lemonade.” Jean-Paul did not stay to dress properly but only gathered up his clothing to carry away with him. He slipped the knife he so unexpectedly carried into the hidden sheath inside of his jacket. One could not ask one’s tailor to make such an alteration. It must be Gabrièlle who sewed that for him.

“You are deserting me,” she said.

“I am escaping. Call me cowardly, but I have no wish to stand between the two of you.” He kissed her, unnecessarily, on the forehead and left. Smiling.

She was alone, suddenly, with Guillaume LeBreton.

He stood, being inscrutable, which was one of his talents. In the stark white robe he became dark and exotic. The long folds and draped sleeves made a mandarin of him.

How does he pass unnoticed through the streets of the city? It is as if a lion joined a pack of dogs and none of them remarked upon it. “Did you follow me from my house?”

“Something like that. You didn’t make any secret where you were going.”

“It was a perfectly useless thing to do, following me. It is over between us. We know it is impossible. We said farewell.” She ran out of words abruptly.

“I changed my mind.”

He did not move, except to breathe. He was like an idol that was made of smooth, brown stone, but also alive. His hands were in the knot of his belt. It was a little to the side and tied twice. He would take less than a moment, untying it.

She picked up her comb to have something to do with her hands. Set it down again. She would feel more comfortable if he talked more.

“I see your plan,” she said. “You do not want me to regret parting with you. You have come to give me another hour of your company so I shall become delighted not to see you again. There is a logic in this. If we were to live cheek by jowl for a week, I would wish you in Parthia or on that island in the Pacific where the birds are the size of dogs and have never learned to fly.”

He paid no attention to what she was saying. He loosened the knot that tied the belt of his robe.

“There is no reason to take your clothing off in that menacing and improper way. We will do nothing whatsoever that requires a lack of clothing. When I said you should stay, I . . .” I was not looking at your body. I was not thinking about it. I cannot think clearly when you are nearby. “I meant that we should talk.”

His robe was loose in long, strong lines down his body. Like columns. He took three slow steps and he was beside her. She did not try to move. He lifted her toward him until their skin touched.

Fragile restraints broke everywhere in her mind. She placed her hands flat upon his chest and shoved cloth aside so she could kiss him there.

She could not speak. Not at all. Her muscles made decisions without consulting her brain. Her body flared into fire. Heat raced through her blood, curled low in her belly, rushed to fill the empty spaces of her mind.

He was warm and naked. Her hands fumbled with the edges of his robe, opening it upward, across his shoulders, deciphering the message of dark hairs and brown skin and the ridges of bone and muscle that were the body of Guillaume LeBreton. If she thought too much about this, she would push him away and stop this. She did not want to let him go, so she did not think.

Where had her robe gone? How had it become untied?

It did not matter in the least.

She was distracted. So distracted. It was as if her fingers could see color. The deep tans of his face. As if the rough prickles of his neck became visible when she explored him there. He was too vivid for mere feeling. He consumed every sense.

I should not do this . . . She did not say that aloud. She did not even think it loudly.

He stroked her body, all the way up and down the length of her. He spread his hands on her hips. Rough palms molded her skin, held to her bone, as if she were sculpted and he were the artist. Awe spoke from his hands. He found her beautiful. More than beautiful. It was as if he worshipped.

He was sweet and forbidden fruit. Forbidden to her in ten thousand ways. A single desperate indulgence. She had set him aside and walked away in pain, knowing the exact limits of her freedom. Now she came home to find forbidden fruit growing, unexpectedly, in her garden. Guillaume.

Kisses deep inside her mouth. Kisses that traveled happily across her lips. Kisses that strayed over her face and down her throat so that she raised her head, eyes closed, and gasped for air. Anticipated, anticipated, waited with every stitch of her being for the next small nip, the next lap of his tongue. He was a man who understood many nuances of loving a woman with his mouth. She trembled, thinking that, and pressed herself against him and she was lost in him.

He was simply so strong. She felt no effort in his muscles when she was lifted, carried, set upon the cool wood of the sideboard. Objects shuffled aside, falling to the floor. None of it important. She slid her fingers deep into his hair. It was warm, coarse in texture, smooth, reassuring to hold on to.

Her legs opened around him. The linen of his robes rubbed her inner thighs. She did not remember when she had decided to be foolish. She must have decided this.

He set her legs apart farther and touched her, intimately, drawing her into every shade of madness. Inescapable persuasion lay in every soft touch.

She could only hold on to him. Panting. No one could think at such a moment. It was a stupid moment to try to think in.

The back of her thighs were on the smooth edge of the sideboard. She slipped, slipped downward, slipped inches along him, feeling his skin to her skin. Knowing this not with her hands or with her skin but with the too-sensitive, inarticulate fire between her legs that could not tell one texture from another, only that they all were pleasure. All joyous. All demanding. All her body, committed to this pleasure, became suburbs of urgency to a city on fire.

Standing, he held her. Cupped her to him. She felt him enter her. Settle himself inch by inch inside her to the hilt. She wrapped her legs around him and hung on as he began to move. She was poised upon him, held tightly as he stroked in and out.

He stopped, buried deep, so that she clenched around him. He was huge within her. A universe within her.

He said, “We’re a pair of damned idiots.”

It was so exactly her own thought that she did not know whether it was his voice or her own voice in her mind. “We are stupid as guinea fowl.”

His laughing was erotic inside her. Beyond erotic. Every atom of her vibrated with it. He said, “Let’s make the most of it.”

I cannot stand this.

She gasped. The climax grabbed her and shook her. She arched, brought her hand to cover her own mouth, and bit down to muffle her scream.

Guillaume was motionless and powerful under her. She closed around him. Again. Again. Her breath sobbed in and out. Her head fell back limply.

He gripped to hold her. Thrust into her, oh, incredibly deeply. Thrust again. Twice more, quickly.

He pulled out and spent onto her skin and held himself against her and gasped.

Coitus interruptus. Guillaume was prudent. There would be no child. No scandal and disaster. He was careful with her when she had lost her mind. He was reason, when she had become heedless as the daisy she was named after.

He held the weight of her as if it were nothing. Held the two of them together. Then, slowly, he let her slide against him down to find the floor.

I cannot have him. I shall want him every day of my life.

When her bare feet touched the cool tiles, she let her head fall to his chest so that he would not see her face. Tears squeezed out between her eyelashes. If she brushed her face, very carefully, against his chest, he would not discover that.

They stood, holding each other without words. Then he said, “Now it smells like somebody’s been making love in here. That’ll keep those chambermaids from asking questions.”

“You are romantic beyond words.” She pushed away from him.

He set his huge hands upon her shoulders, where they were heavy and conclusive. He kissed her firmly and sweetly, taking his time. When he finished that, he held her and looked at her. “I can’t take care of you, can I? I can’t put myself between you and whatever it is you’re facing.”

“You cannot be with me at all.”

He was . . . beyond all her experience. His face, craggy and brutal. His scar, dreadful and shiny and translucent. One had to know how to see him under the ugliness. When one did, there was only strength there.

That is why I love him. “I thought we had parted. I cannot say final good-byes to you again and again. I cannot even do it twice.”

“No, you can’t. You look different when you’re wet and your hair’s all plastered down, dark as ink. Your bones jut out . . .” he touched her cheeks, drew a line along her jaw, “here. And here. You’re stripped down to where the beauty is.”

“There is not supposed to be fondness between us.”

“There is, though,” he said. “Didn’t anybody ever warn you about men?” Enclosing her face in his palm, he was like a man with a flower he’s afraid he’s going to bruise. “I’ll be the first to tell you about men. You can’t trust us.”

She could not find a steady voice to say anything. The breath in her throat was painful. “We end this now, mon ami. I do not want to see you again.”

The instant he delayed before he removed his hand was his answer. So eloquent, that little delay. Then he stood up and pulled his robe tight. He went out without a word, closing the door behind him as silently as the merest puff of wind.