Page 62 of Lord Ashley's Beautiful Alibi
She nodded and focused above on the heavy delicately painted crossbeams of the ceiling. “That is the place I expect Amber to be.”
“Many a soldier has found a hiding place in the wine cellars of Northern France.”
“And now Amber.”
He pushed hair from her temple. The feathery touch of his fingertips sent little fires to every bit of her. She sank in his arms and nestled beneath his strong jaw.
“Have you ever heard that she has friends elsewhere in France?”
She frowned. “Friends? No. I know everyone she does. Except for a few of her husband’s friends. Why would you ask that?”
“A rumor she might have gone to visit someone.”
“Or to hide?” She frowned but sat taller. “But who would say that, put it out in Society? You mean this was a Paris rumor?”
“Yes.”
She faced him, her green eyes wide with the light of instinct. “The former wine taster.”
He gazed away. “I can’t recall his name.”
“He blended the grapes from different vineyards. After Monsieur Maurice died, he took his pension and retired to live with his daughter and her family.”
“Where?”
“Varennes.”
Chapter Sixteen
In the northernvineyard, Gus had talked with the servants, and no one had seen Madame St. Antoine for more than a year. Nor had Gus found any notes or indication that Amber had recently been to the vineyard or taken secret refuge in the cellars.
After they slept in the small vineyard cottage, the next morning Gus and he returned south to their hunting lodge outside Reims and prepared to leave for Varennes.
The following morning, they set out in their carriage from their lodge and took the northern post road east to Varennes. This time their hours held a different quality. They were optimistic about this venture. They had examined all the possibilities. Kane, in an attempt to say he had covered the remotest detail, even asked discreetly about Reims for any word about the priest who said mass. No one offered any clues. Kane had not held great hopes, but he could say he tried.
In the bumpy carriage, he gave up trying to read. The coach was suffering the hardships of too many miles and country roads too ugly for beast or man. He put his book away and told himself he was not going to sit here and obsess about what lay beneath his traveling companion’s lovely, thin yellow cotton gown. The fabric was delicate. So was her skin. The bodice gapped. Her breasts rounded nicely above the line. His cock appreciated it all.
Meanwhile, she clacked away on her knitting.
Gus had two means of dealing with the challenges of life. Sketching and knitting.
Kane had seen her sketches of him, drawn as they rode in the carriage or by firelight in the evening as they sat in communion, waiting for the dictums of the next day. Her sketches were superb. He’d told her so, often. In fact, he was complimented by her renderings. His hard features softened beneath the stroke of her pencils. As days went on, he thought he saw in her rendering of him her fondness and desire for him.
He also recognized her art, her inimitable style—and he realized that the portrait Scarlett Hawthorne had shown him in her offices the day she assigned him to Paris was one Gus had drawn of her beloved friend Amber St. Antoine. How the paper had gotten into Scarlett’s possession, he had no idea. But he liked to think the sketch had been an omen of how well he and Gus now worked together. How well—he crossed one leg over the other and suppressed his groan—they might combine as lovers.
Ahh.He winced and prayed for deliverance. And cursed her fumbling with the damn knitting needles.
The pair were of polished wood and of large circumference. The weave they made was by its nature large and would have, if in the hands of one more coordinated, made a handsome, bold garment.
What his darling Gus created with the clacking of those two long pins was, by the best definition he could muster, a mistake. If the item hanging from the conjunction of the two needles could be of use or beauty, he had no idea who in this world might welcome it.
He settled back and considered how the rise of her lower lip would taste sweet beneath his tongue. For her benefit, he’d tease the upturned corners of her mouth with little nips and entice herto open her mouth and let him all the way inside. Here in this carriage, that would be a fabulous way to pass the endless hours.
“You’ve been working that yarn on two needles for many days now,” he said when he could not talk down his cock any longer.
She paused and cocked her head, her gaze on him, her mind not yet present.
“What, pray tell,” he said, and pointed to her creation, “is that supposed to be?”
