Page 71 of Lord Ramsey's Red-Headed Ruin
But he let it burn. He loved her, and there was nothing—nothing—he would not do for her as long as he had breath. Indeed, she was more than he’d ever asked for in a woman. Moreindependent, more stubborn, more dedicated. More honorable. He would adore her and no other until the moment of his death.
She took a step toward him. “Ashley, Gus, and you are on a list of Vaillancourt’s. Also two friends of mine.” She listed them. “Tell Ashley. Be careful.”
This was what she’d worked for. This was what she could die for.
He could not touch her again or he’d carry her out of here, no matter what she said or did.
She moved to embrace him.
He raised a palm to ward her off.
“I am yours,” she said as if she read his mind and knew he’d run away with her if he could. “Not as other women were or will ever be. But I belong to you, Ram. You saved me. Helped me. Never deserted me. I am here doing my work because of you. For that, but more because you loved me, I am yours.”
Her admission stunned him. Her understanding that he loved her had him reeling. Whatever it was that inspired her to say the words was the prize he would take with him.
He whirled away for the door. He could bear no more.
“Ram?” she called to him, and in her voice, he heard tones he had never before perceived whenever she called his name. Curiosity burned away his plan to leave her without a second glance.
She held a sheet to her naked body, the linen falling from her clutch of the fabric to her breastbone. Moonlight gilded her gracious curves. Her gaze grew torrid, sweet, then sad. “I love you, Godfrey DuClare. Remember always that I love you.”
As comfort, her declaration filled him for a wild minute in obscene ecstasy.
As a benediction, it tasted bitter in his mouth. It should have made him wish for death.
But on second thought, he saw her plan for what it was. A way to end Vaillancourt’s vainglorious career…if, for Amber’s efforts, the heathen did not kill her first.
Chapter Twenty
The cemetery ofSt. Pierre in Montmartre sat atop the majestic butte that overlooked the thousands living in Paris. Nestled in the corner of a churchyard, it was small and intimate. With few souls buried in the earth, the tiny resting place offered a bench for those who came to mourn and reflect.
In the unsettled spring snow, rain, and sleet, Ram and Amber met each week to walk among the stones that marked the lives of those who had hungered, loved, hated, and fought for the life they wished. In mid-March Ram heard from Kane that at the Tuileries, Bonaparte and Ambassador Whitworth openly argued. It was the worst of the two men’s recent encounters.
Ram told Amber how relations grew worse. She knew. She heard the same in her own circles.
Under the spreading limbs of ancient trees, the bare branches would sway in the wind when first they met. As weeks went by, the buds sprouted and burst into the darker, larger greens of April. The flowering of Paris provided fragrant camouflage for their joyous reunions.
Each one had a rhythm.
She would throw her arms around him and kiss him on the cheek.
He would hold her to him for the space of one eternal minute.
Her heart would pulse with regret at what she had to do and pride at what they accomplished together.
“News?” he would ask her.
Occasionally, she would tell tales vital to Ram. An Englishman had fallen afoul of Vaillancourt and been imprisoned in the Temple. A Dutch merchant was arrested for failure to pay his export taxes. Two new cannon were being cast in Mauberge—and they were to go to Vauban’s pretty fortress in Strasbourg. Sometimes she had no information.
Ram never asked what Amber did or who she saw, nor even what she sought. If he began to think that she had asked him to meet regularly so that she could enjoy his company, he was not entirely wrong. She needed his love for her, his belief, to bolster her. For the truth was, she grew tired of her task. Her ambition flagged with her energy. She knew not many days or nights she would have to go on to look for the list of her friends whom Rene would assemble and kill. She knew not how many nights she could continue to listen for the right conversations to get what information she needed.
She did not describe her life for Ram. Her days were so ordinary, they merited no description. Her nights amid the whirl of Bonaparte’s Society required a library to hold all she learned from the gossip. Ram did not need to know it. He certainly did not wish to hear her trials and tribulations. He wanted her out of that life, and she knew it.
But then came one night at dinner at her Aunt Cecily’s house. There, she overheard that a group of spies were soon to be rounded up and arrested. Vaillancourt had the orders and the plans.
Amber held her breath. Were Kane, Gus, and Ram to be arrested?
But no one she knew was jailed that night.
