Susan Johnson (29 page)

The thunderous barrage swept into the square facing the hotel and eddied to a halt, the bass resonance of men’s voices replacing the frenzied drum of hoofs. The clamor poured into the hotel, shouts and cries, a din that rose up the stairs and filled the corridors.

Booted feet and the jingle of spurs rolled up the stairs in a riot of sound as the men moved into the dining rooms
that had been hastily thrown open. Then the ringing echo of a single pair of spurred heels running down her corridor struck Teo’s senses. Her heart stopped.

When the sprinting footsteps came to a halt at her door, she bolted upright in bed.

A key was jammed into the lock, turned quickly in a metallic scraping of metal on metal, and she ripped the covers away and leaped to her feet.

She was halfway to the door when it flew open and he stood there, a huge dim shadow in the dark, his loosely slung sword swinging, catching the light.

“I was afraid I’d miss you,” he gasped, his breathing labored.

“Andre,” she whispered, afraid to move, afraid this was a quixotic vision.

Stepping over the threshold, he shoved the door shut, stripped off his sodden gloves in a blur of movement. “I’m all wet,” he apologized on a suffocated breath, covering the distance between them in three great strides.

Then his arms closed around her and hope filled her heart.

“I’ve been riding since morning,” he murmured, holding her close, crushing her. “I sent a message,” he whispered into her hair, grateful, thankful, believing in some benevolent spirit. “But the telegraph lines don’t work when it rains. I thought you’d be gone.”

She clung to him as though she were drowning and he was her lifeline. “How long can you stay?” she asked.

There was never enough time.

Never a future.

Only snatched bits of happiness.

“Just a short time.” He shouldn’t have left Glaris; they’d ridden through two Austrian pickets to get away. “The men are downstairs eating before we ride back, but I wanted to see you before you left Switzerland.”

“Do I have to go?” She was without pride.

He didn’t answer and she thought for a moment he might tell her no. “You’ll be safer at home,” he finally said. “I wish you could stay but we’re launching attacks on Zurich soon.”

“What of Talleyrand and his cohorts?” She had to know.

“I have to win this war first; screw the rest. Could we have some light?” he murmured, releasing her. “I want to see you; I don’t care about the politics.” Taking her hand, he led her to the bed. “Don’t let me fall asleep,” he said, reaching for the flint, his voice heavy with weariness. “Cholet’s coming for me in two hours.”

“Sit … lie down,” she offered, pushing him down on the bed. “I’ll light the candles.” It was enough to have him with her, she thought, chastising herself for being ungrateful. She’d prayed for days for such an eventuality, for another chance, and now that he’d ridden all day and half the night to be with her, she was badgering him, making demands.

The flint sparked and then the candlewick caught and flared in the darkness.

“You look beautiful,” he whispered, gazing up at her as the candle glowed. “I’ve thought of you every minute since you left.”

“I know there’s a God because he answered my prayers,” she murmured, sitting down beside him, touching his damp hair.

“I’m soaking the blankets,” he apologized, beginning to unbutton his jacket. “It rained almost all the way to Basel. How are you and the baby?” he asked.

“Better now that you’re here.”

“Me too. To hell with the war,” he said with a grin, looking very young with his disheveled hair and flashing smile. “Perhaps at thirty-seven it’s time to retire,” he added, tossing his jacket on the floor.

“Come live in the woods with me,” Teo said, picking up his jacket and laying it over the footboard to dry.

“Just the three of us.” He slid off a boot and tossed it.

“No one else.”

“Until the next baby.” His smile was glorious.

“You’ll have to hunt and fish to feed us.”

“Gladly. Did you bring my fishing rods?” The second boot dropped to the floor.

“Fouché might have noticed; we packed lightly.”

“Bastards,” he muttered, pulling his shirt over his head. “They had no right to harass you.”

She put out her hand to take his shirt. “I’d rather be here with you anyway,” she said, draping it over the end of the bed, feeling a quiet happiness in helping him, wishing it were possible to have a life together.

And when she turned back to him he was unbuttoning his breeches. “Let me help you,” she softly said.

“I can’t believe it’s you, that I’m here.” He’d been constantly on the move the past weeks, fighting the Austrians on a dozen fronts, and when he’d arrived at headquarters again and found Mingen’s telegram, Basel had seemed impossible to reach in time. “Pinch me or something. Umm, that’s nice,” he murmured, cupping Teo’s hand, following its slow descent. “You must be a fey sprite and I must be dreaming to feel this good.” And then he touched the buttoned collar of her sleeping gown. “Take this off so I can see you and the baby. I could feel him … or her when I held you. Are you feeling like a mommy?” he murmured, brushing his hand over the rounding curve of her belly.

“I’m feeling fat but healthy.” She slid the top button open.

“You
look
healthy,” he whispered, helping her unbutton the gown. “You look adorable too in this high-collared white linen,” he added, brushing a fingertip down the lace-edged neckline. “All modest and innocent—as though you’ve never let a man into your bed.”

“Only you,” she quietly murmured.

“And I did this to you.” His voice was velvet soft as he slipped his hand inside her gown, ran his palm over the ripe fullness of her breast. “Baby’s making these … very big,” he murmured, sliding the pale linen off her shoulders, baring her lavish breasts. He lifted their heaviness, bouncing them lightly on his palms so they quivered, so a shimmering heat glowed deep and hot inside her. “They look full to the top.” His hands slid up the voluptuous plumpness, his fingers closed on her nipples. Lightly at first, the merest pressure of forefinger and thumb, and then he tugged, gently stretching the swollen nipples.

She sucked in her breath at the shocking pleasure.

“You need me, don’t you?” he whispered.

“Desperately.” A single word of breathless longing.

“I’m so glad I found you tonight,” he murmured, reaching out to push her gown over her hips, astonished at the incredible thrill he felt at seeing evidence of his child. He gently stroked the small rise of her stomach, his sense of pride profound, as if it were a personal triumph. “Will it be all right to make love?” His voice held a delicate courtesy. “Do you feel—”

“An overwhelming lust.”

His smile flashed up at her. “Just checking.”

“If we only have two hours …” she suggestively murmured, a licentious glow in her eyes.

His brows languidly rose. “You want me only for sex?”

“At the moment, yes.” Desire throbbed in a steady, feverish rhythm through her body.

“Ah …” he breathed with a gratified smile, “the darling I remember.”

“While
he
looks very much as I remember,” Teo purred, taking his erection between her hands and drawing its rigid length upright, stroking it like a cherished treasure. “Has he missed me?”

“More than you can imagine.”

“Should I kiss him hello?” As she leaned forward, his arched penis stirred in her hands.

“He remembers you fondly.”

“The feeling’s mutual,” she murmured, touching the satiny tip with her tongue.

His entire body tensed.

“I should put a lock on him,” she whispered, her breath warm on his skin.

“He has one on—or did until now.”

Her gaze swung up from the little ridge she was caressing with her tongue. “I’m honored.”

“I’m in love. It changes the rules of the game.” He touched her chin with his fingertips, lifted it away. “Come here,” he said, his voice husky and low.

He drew her down beside him and then just held her for a long, quiet time, hungry for the feel of her. The warmth of her body seeped into his, the wonder of the child between them touched his soul. “I’ve thought of this … of holding you like this—”

“Stay with me,” she said against his shoulder.

“Someday I will.” If the Austrians didn’t kill him, he thought. Rising on one elbow, he gazed at her, wanting to preserve her image in his memory—every exquisite detail, every blooming curve and graceful charm. “You look sumptuous,” he tenderly said, tracing the veins faintly visible on her extravagant breasts. “Like a fertility goddess, all ripe and fruitful.” His hand glided over her disappearing waistline, the roundness of her belly. “You’re mine forever,” he said with a remote intensity, his hand coming to rest on the silken curls between her legs. He lifted his dark gaze, wanting affirmation, as if he couldn’t tell from the frantic rhythm of her breathing, from the blatant desire in her eyes. “Tell me,” he said, the heel of his hand gently massaging.

“I’m yours,” she said, moving against his hand, vulnerable, glowing with desire.

Bending his dark head, he brushed her ear with his mouth. “You’re my world.…” He slipped a finger inside her and then another, stroking her moist, pulsing flesh.

She raised her hips with a great urgency, stirring against his bewitching rhythm. “I want more.” A soft, heated demand.

“I’ll give you everything I have,” he whispered, shifting his weight, moving over her, easing between her legs.

“Now, please …” Her voice was quivering.
“Now.”
The word caught in her throat as he pressed forward, forced himself through the tensile, sleek tissue of her vulva. Advancing with exquisite slowness, he glided deeper, feeling her luxurious warmth closing around him, wanting to slow down every sensation, to prolong the agonizing rapture.

She touched his chest, his shoulders, his face, her hands moving in distracted, helpless flutters, her senses on fire. “Andre,” she whimpered, the turbulent delirium overwhelming.

“I’m here,” he whispered, raw feeling in his words.

Her hair was loose, wild on the pillow, her face and throat flushed. Reaching up, she clutched his face between her hands. “Stay always,” she pleaded, a mild terror gripping her when the noise downstairs rose faintly into the corridor outside.

“I’ll never leave you,” he murmured, knowing she wanted the words however dissembling, knowing even as he spoke that tonight might be all they would ever have.

Her eyes filled with tears.

He loved her then gently, gently, kissing away her tears, telling her of his love, his words sweet as springtime, lyrical, rosy-cheeked words that made her forget the men downstairs and the preciousness of their time together. He moved slowly as he spoke, gliding in and out, holding himself deep inside her for brief, exquisite moments while she gasped, stimulated to a delirious degree, and then he’d
withdraw again as she clung to him. And before long impassioned need inundated thought completely and her fear dissolved in an opulent haze, her sadness burned away in the fiery flames of lust.

“Touch me, touch me,” she cried. And he touched her everywhere while she melted, dissolved. He touched her to the deepest depth, touched her senses, her mind, her body, her sweet, wanton sex until she was spent at last, until he collapsed … until they lay replete.

They were half asleep in each other’s arms when Cholet knocked on the door. Duras softly groaned, made some rapid calculations in his mind, and shouted, “Twenty minutes more.”

His eyelids fell shut again, but only for a moment, and then glancing down at Teo, he whispered, “Are you sleeping?”

“Yes, I can’t move. You’ll have to stay.”

“I’ll tell Cholet to fight the war without me.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

“Now returning to the real world once again,” he murmured, sliding up against the pillows, lifting Teo into his lap. “I was thinking—”

“That I could go with you,” she said with a smile.

Placing a restraining finger on her mouth, he said, smiling back, “I was thinking the war could be over by the first snows. Barring some manifestation of bravery we’ve not yet seen while recapturing most of our lost territory, we might finish the Austrians off soon. I could come for you by December or January.”

“You may be offered a Directorship. Mingen must have wired you.”

“I have no interest. That clutch of scoundrels need my command of the army, not me. They’ll find someone else.”

She debated for the briefest moment the degree of her unselfishness and then said, “France needs you
because
of those scoundrels.”

“I can serve France by winning their battles. Mingen will tell me where to find you. Expect me.”

“You’ll be stopped at the border. My husband will see to that.”

He smiled. “You have no faith,
ma chère
. This winter I’ll be there.”

“I’ll have a light in the window,” she softly replied.

He kissed her then, a lingering, bittersweet kiss of love and farewell, the sweetest, saddest kiss in the world. For he had to drive the Austrians from Zurich now, and then from Switzerland, and there were no guarantees anyone would survive the bloodbath. And if after that he and her husband were still alive, he had to find Korsakov and kill him.

“Write me when the baby is born,” he said. “I want to know on the instant—or in your case,” he added, smiling faintly, “a much longer instant.”

“The post goes by a hundred miles south.”

“Tell me if you can,” he amended, “and wait for me. I’ll come for you and our child.”

“I’ll wait forever,” she whispered, and throwing her arms around his neck, she clung to him, her tears cool on his chest, the scent of her filling his senses. And then he slowly untwined her arms from his neck and kissed her eyes and cheeks and nose and lastly her mouth with an aching tenderness.

“Cholet will be back soon. And Zurich is still standing,” he said with a sigh. “Wish me luck.”

“I wish you,” she said, tracing the beauty of his mouth, “only victory and good fortune.”

He briefly held her fingers to his mouth and then lifted her from his lap. Rising from the bed, he stood utterly still for a moment trying to shake off his fatigue, and then drawing in a breath, he reached for his breeches.