can only hope that he has nothing left,” Lacan mumbled, crossing his arms defensively. “Unless, that is, Le Comte gives him the power that he needs, that the tyrant craves!”
“Truly all this intrigue—it’s quite exciting.” Susannah’s cheeks flushed pink and she edged in closer. “What could the source of that power be, do you suppose?”
Finding his anger dissipating in a miasma of musk, Lacan’s shoulders descended two inches as he breathed in her intoxicating scent like a drowning man. Susannah raised her heavy lashes and looked deeply into his watery eyes. “You always know everything, Bertrand.” She pretended to adjust the neckline of her dress, pushing it a fraction lower. Political intrigue forgotten, Lacan was mesmerized.
“I really shouldn’t, Madame.”
“Whyever not, Bertrand?” Susannah was at her coaxing best, a skill honed by years of whispered conversations in darkened boudoirs. “Our discussion will go no further. And besides, what harm could there possibly be? For some time now Le Comte and I have shared just about everything, as you well know.”
Her sultry murmur offered him all manner of possibilities. At that moment, with his nose a whisper away from her cleavage, he could withhold nothing. The dam burst forth. “It’s all about the cipher, in the Eroica,” he muttered, as Susannah placed a delicate hand on his chest, playing with his cravat as reward.
“The Eroica?”
“Beethoven’s symphony, the original manuscript.”
“But I don’t understand, Bertrand,” she mewed, her fingers making dizzying patterns that burned through the fabric of his shirt. “How does that involve the Marquess and the Frenchwoman?”
“Together, they’re the only ones who know how to decipher it.” Bertrand didn’t dare move for fear of losing his superb view of Susannah’s trembling breasts.
“And why is that of such importance to Le Comte?” she whispered with an intimacy that held Lacan in thrall.
He hesitated for just a moment. Reading the signs of capitulation like the seasoned warrior she was, Susannah closed the gap between them, her breasts brushing Bertrand’s shirt front, achingly close, but not close enough. His hiss of indrawn breath was her reward.
“There is great suspicion that it is a new type of explosive.” The words tumbled from his mouth as he closed his eyes at the sensation of pure Susannah.
“You mean like gunpowder?” Her tone was still entirely provocative.
“Only more powerful—a thousand times more powerful.”
“I see.” She slid a hand down between Bertrand’s shirt front, a teasing barrier. “But what makes Le Comte so sure that once the Marquess and the Frenchwoman have decoded the cipher, they won’t run to Wellington with what they’ve discovered—before he has a chance of getting it to Napoleon’s supporters?”
Susannah could see Bertrand’s prominent Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallowed hard. “He has a letter which contains the final piece of the puzzle. Whatever they discover is only useful if all the pieces link together.”
“You are so clever,” purred Susannah, allowing herself to sink into his chest. She could feel the shallow breathing inspired by pure lust. “But there’s just one last question bothering me…”
Aware that they had been entirely alone for the past five minutes, save for several footmen, Susannah took Lacan’s silence for complete surrender. “Why the urgency? Why does Le Comte need this resolved in such a short time?” As added incentive, she stroked his chest sinuously, promising better things to come.
Susannah felt the shudder travel from the cavernous torso to the soles of his boots. As though he had no control over his movements, Lacan lowered his head to hers. “Napoleon’s escape from St. Helena depends on it.”
At that moment, and with those words, Susannah Treadwell knew that she was the most seductive, beautiful woman in Britain and on the continent combined.
She had the power and she would guarantee that it was only a matter of time before the Marquess of Blackburn and Le Comte knew it, too.
“My, my—that is urgent,” she breathed into his chest before staring up into the rheumy eyes. “I’m sure we’ll be able to help each other in the near future, Bertrand.”
She smiled up at him brightly. “In the interim, will you keep your sights on the Frenchwoman for me, mon amour? I don’t want her getting too close to the Marquess and, as it turns out, neither do you.”
Chapter 5
Breath caught in her throat, Devon woke with a start, grasping for her small pistol secreted beneath the pillow. It was gone. Panicked, she shot up and, heart frozen, stared at the man sitting calmly at the side of her bed.
Blackburn, still marvelously turned out in evening attire, was leisurely examining her small silver-mounted revolver. A dark specter in the moonlight, he held the pistol in his large hands, removing the bullets from their chamber with seasoned expertise.
“A lovely piece.” He tossed the pistol onto the rumpled bed. “A gift from de Maupassant?”
She was scared and she had every right to be. His height, the breadth of his shoulders—he took over the entire room, a menacing threat that had formed out of the shadows. Refusing to cower, she let the bedclothes fall from her shoulders, quickly reappraising the situation.
“I insist you leave,” she challenged with an arrogance that, if he had been a man, would have given Blackburn pause. Vulnerability was not her strong suit despite threats of a hangman’s noose. Her expression was at odds with the luxurious spill of her hair and the revealing lace of her nightdress.
“That’s unfortunate.” He glanced at the rumpled covers and the dent in her pillow. “So where’s your lover? You have only a few hours left to secure the Eroica.”
She shot him a cold look without moving from under the heavily brocaded duvet. “I asked you to leave. This is neither the time nor place…”
“So you keep reminding me.” Blackburn made himself more comfortable on the edge of the bed. “As I recall, we have some unresolved business between us.”
“As I recall, I told you that I don’t have the Eroica. And in response you so generously gave me the evening to persuade my lover to relinquish the score to me, remember?” Her anger mounted, overriding her fear and the fact that only the fine silk of her night rail stood between them.
He shrugged off her comment easily, moonlight slanting across his face. “I had a feeling that you weren’t taking my exhortations seriously enough, Mademoiselle.”
“Your threats, you mean.”
His dark glance swept the room in response. “I don’t see Le Comte here.”
The words were intended to pierce her veneer. He had succeeded earlier that evening, and she wondered if he was as easily aroused as she was at the thought of that explosive intimacy. That clever mouth of his, his hands molding her breasts. She flushed at the memory. Her behavior was nothing to be proud of nor could she entirely account for it, as if her
