“You won’t die.”
He opened his eyes to see Juliette de Clement frowning down at him with a determination that was strangely more comforting than tenderness would have been. “I hope you’re right. I have no—”
“No.” Her fingers quickly covered his lips and he found the touch infinitely gentle in spite of its firmness. “I told the innkeeper you were bleeding to death only to make him move with some haste. He wouldn’t listen to me. He thought me only a stupid child.”
“A grave error in judgment.”
“You’re joking.” She gazed curiously at him. “I think you must be a very odd man to joke with a dagger sticking in your shoulder.”
Her image wavered before him like the horizon on a hot day. “Only because I find myself in an odd predicament. I’m not at all a heroic man, and yet I’m thrown into a position where I must”—he stopped as the room tilted and then began to darken—“act the hero.”
“You do not consider yourself heroic?” Juliette’s tone was thoughtful. “I see.”
“I wish I could. It’s growing fiendishly dark. I believe I’m going to—”
“Go to sleep.” Her hand swiftly moved to cover his eyes. “I’ll stay and make sure no harm comes to you. You can trust me.”
She lied. He could trust no woman, he thought hazily.
But Juliette was not yet a woman, she was still a child. A strong, brave child whose hands were as gentle as her tone was sharp.
Yes, for the moment he could trust Juliette de Clement.
He let go and sank into the waiting darkness.
When he next opened his eyes Juliette was kneeling by the bed. “I was hoping you wouldn’t wake up yet,” she whispered. “The village physician’s here.”
“So you … won.”
“Of course. The man appears even more foppish than the court physician, but I hope he’s not a fool.” She hesitated. “He’s going to pull out the dagger now.”
Jean Marc stiffened, his gaze flying across the room. A small, rotund man dressed in a violet brocade coat and wearing an elaborately curled white wig stood by the hearth warming his bejeweled hands before the blaze. “I’ve no doubt I, too, will be wishing I hadn’t regained my senses in a few minutes. I have no fondness for pain.”
“Of course not. You’d be a twisted soul if you did.” Still kneeling, she frowned thoughtfully. “Listen to me. It will hurt, but there are ways of making the pain less. You must try to think of something else, something beautiful.”
The physician straightened his cravat and turned away from the fire. Jean Marc braced himself.
“No, you mustn’t tense, that will only make it hurt more.” Juliette reached out and took both Jean Marc’s hands in her own. “Think of something beautiful. Think of—No, I can’t tell you what to think. It has to be your own beautiful picture.”
Jean Marc watched the physician stroll toward the bed.
“I’m afraid I can’t oblige you,” Jean Marc said dryly. “Would you settle for panic? Beauty evades me at the moment.”
“It shouldn’t. There are a great many beautiful things in the world.” Her hands tightened on his. “I always think of how I feel when I’m painting or when I look at the Wind Dancer.”
“The Wind Dancer?” Jean Marc’s muscles contracted, his gaze shifting from the approaching physician to Juliette’s face.
“You’re heard of it?” Eagerness illuminated her face. “It’s the most beautiful statue in the world. Sometimes I look at it and wonder—” She broke off and fell silent.
“Wonder what?”
“Nothing.”
“No, tell me.”
“It’s just that I don’t see how any man or woman could create such beauty,” she said simply. “It’s more than beauty, it’s—”
“Don’t tell me.” Jean Marc’s lips twisted. “The dream.”
She nodded. “You have seen it. Then perhaps you could think of the Wind Dancer.”
He shook his head. “I regret I’ve never seen your Wind Dancer.”
Her face clouded with disappointment.
“Well, Monsieur, I see you’re awake.” The physician stood beside the bed, smiling cheerfully. “I’m Gaston St. Leure and I’ll soon have that dagger out of your shoulder.” He stepped closer. “Now, brace yourself while I—”
“No, don’t listen to him,” Juliette said fiercely. “Look at me.”
Jean Marc’s gaze was drawn by the sheer intensity of her manner. Her brown eyes were brilliant, sparkling with vitality in her thin face. The high color in her cheeks glowed rose against cream skin, and he could see the tracery of blue veins at her temple pounding with agitation.
“Something beautiful,” she said urgently. “What’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?”
“The sea.”
“Then think of the sea.” She shifted her grasp so that his hands encircled her wrists. “Hold on to me and tell me about the sea. Tell me how you remember it.”
“Storm … power … The waves dashing against the ship. Gray-blue water shimmering in th—”
Searing, white-hot pain!
“The sea,” Juliette whispered, her gaze holding his own. “Remember the sea.”
“One more pull,” the physician said cheerfully as his grasp tightened on the hilt of the dagger.
“Hush.” Juliette’s gaze never left Jean Marc’s. “Tell me more about the sea.”
“In the sunlight on a calm day it’s … as if we were floating on a giant sapphire.”
Sparkling brown eyes holding the pain at bay.
He moistened his dry lips with his tongue. “And when the ship draws near the shore …”
Her skin, a rose resting in a bowl of cream, glowing like candlelight.
“The water turns to … emerald. You’re never certain—”
Pain!
Jean Marc’s back arched off the bed as the dagger came free of his flesh.
“That does it.” The physician turned away from the bed, the bloody dagger in his hand. “Now I’ll get rid of this thing and clean and bandage you.”
Jean Marc lay panting, the room whirling about him. He could feel the blood well from the wound and run down his shoulder.
“You’ll have to let me go,” Juliette said.
Jean Marc stared at her uncomprehendingly.
She tugged, wriggling her wrists to escape his grasp. “I can’t help the physician if you don’t release me.”
He hadn’t realized he was still holding her arms. He slowly opened his hands and let her go.
She sat back on her heels. Sighing with relief, she briskly massaged her left wrist. “That’s better. The worst is over now.”
“Is it?” He felt terribly alone without the girl’s touch and wanted to take her hands again and hold on to her. Strange. He couldn’t remember when he had ever accepted solace from a woman. “That’s comforting to know. I should certainly hate to think the worst was yet to come. I told you I wasn’t fashioned of the stuff of heroes.”
“Not many men would have borne such pain without crying out.”
A faint smile touched his lips as his eyes closed. “Why should I bellow? I was thinking of … something beautiful.”
Juliette straightened in the chair, arching her spine to rid it of stiffness. The movement did little to ease her discomfort after the hours of sitting immobile. She really should get up and walk about the chamber, but to do so might wake the man lying on the bed. Andreas’s sleep had been restless and fitful since the physician had left some hours before. Her glance wandered about the large chamber, seeking something to distract her. The furnishings of the room were quite luxurious for a country inn, and the chamber probably the best Monsieur Guilleme had to offer, but it held little of interest to her.
Her gaze drifted back to Andreas’s face, studying it with the same fascination that had caught and held her even in that first moment of panic and danger in the carriage. Mon Dieu, how she would love to paint him.
Excitement b
anished her weariness as she studied his face. How she wished she had a sketching pad. She had given up painting recognizable likenesses of people because she almost always offended her subjects. So she had decided it was not worth the bother to paint faces from life. Yet she knew that here was a man who would not care how cruelly she portrayed him, how brutally honest her brush strokes. He had no need for flattery because he knew exactly what and who he was and cared not a whit what others thought of him.
His bronze face was too long, his cheekbones too high, his lips too well defined, his dark eyes too sharp and determined beneath straight black brows and heavy lids. His features, taken individually, were all wrong, but fit together in perfect harmony to form a whole far more compelling than one that was merely beauty.
What a challenge he would be to paint, to peel off the cynical armor and see what lay beneath, to solve the mysteries beyond those black eyes. He wouldn’t readily reveal those secrets, yet, given a little time, she was sure she’d be able to paint the man, not the mask.
But what if she were not given the time? Any deep wound was a hazard, and he might well be taken from her before—
His lids flicked open to reveal those black eyes, totally alert and wide awake. “What are you thinking?”
She was startled and blurted out, “I was hoping you wouldn’t die before I could paint you.”
“What a truly touching sentiment. Go to bed.”
She stiffened and then forced herself to relax. “Don’t be foolish. The physician said you might run a fever. Do you think I’d go to such great trouble to save you and then let you die for lack of care?”
He smiled weakly. “My apologies. I’ll try to refrain from departing this temporal plane and causing you to waste your time.”
“I didn’t mean—” She bit her lower lip. “I don’t always put things in the correct way. Marguerite says I have the tongue of an asp.”
“Who’s Marguerite?”
“Marguerite Duclos, my nurse. Well, not really my nurse any longer. She serves my mother more than me.”
“And this Marguerite disapproves of your bluntness?”
“Yes.” She frowned. “You should go back to sleep and cease this chatter.”
“I don’t feel like sleeping.” His gaze searched her face. “Why don’t you amuse me?”
She looked at him in astonishment. “Amuse?”
He started to chuckle and then flinched with pain. “Perhaps you’d better not amuse me. Humor appears exceptionally painful at the moment.”
“Since you refuse to sleep, you might as well answer my questions. You said before you fainted that you had learned of the attack. Who told you?”
Jean Marc shifted in the bed to ease his shoulder. “A servant in the palace at Versailles.”
“How could a servant in the palace know there would be a peasant attack so far from Versailles?”
“An interesting question. One might also ask how some of the lads in the mob came to have pistols rather than their pitchforks.” His lips twisted. “And why the poor starving peasant who slipped a dagger into my shoulder appeared exceedingly well fed and wore boots made of finer leather than my own.”
So that had been the reason for those last cryptic words he had uttered before he had collapsed, Juliette thought. “Or why the servant came to you instead of His Majesty with the information.”
“That’s no mystery. Money.” Jean Marc smiled mockingly. “King Louis gives medals and expressions of eternal gratitude for such loyalty. I let it be known I’d give fat bribes for any information of interest regarding the royal family. Money buys comfort and a fast horse to take the informant far away from the swords of the people he’s betrayed.”
“And this servant didn’t tell you who was responsible for the attack?”
“A man in high place. He would say nothing other than that the carriage bearing the prince and Mademoiselle de Clement would be set upon enroute to Versailles. I gathered a company of hirelings and set out like a grand chevalier to the rescue.”
She studied his face. “Are you never serious? You saved the life of the prince.” She paused. “And my life also.”
“Not because of my nobility of soul.” He gazed at her calmly. “I’m a man of business who never takes action without the promise of return. I’ll even admit I was most annoyed with you when you made my task so difficult.”
“And what return do you expect to receive from rescuing the prince?”
“Her Majesty’s profound gratitude and good will. I have a favor to ask of her.”
She gazed at him without speaking for a moment. “I think you’re not so hard as you’d like me to believe. You were truly concerned about Louis Charles though you were nigh out of your head with pain.”
“I have no liking for child killers.”
“And you took the knife thrust meant for me. Is that the behavior of a man who never takes action without the promise of return?”
He grimaced. “No, that’s the behavior of a man who acted on impulse and was soundly punished for it.” He shook his head. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking me something I’m not. I’m neither a warrior nor a hero.”
“I’ll think what I please.” She frowned uncertainly as she studied his face. “But I can’t read you. I don’t know what you’re thinking.”
“And that disturbs you?”
She nodded. “I usually have no problem. Most people are easy to read. It’s important that I be able to see beneath the surface.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to be a great artist,” she said simply.
He started to laugh, then stopped as he met her clear, steady gaze. “I recall you said something about painting me when I first awoke. You wish to be an artist?”
“I am an artist. I am going to be a great artist. I intend to study and work until I’m as great as Da Vinci or Del Sarto.”
“I admire your confidence.”
A sudden smile lit her face. “You mean you think I have no modesty. Artists can’t have modesty or their talent withers. Men persist in believing women can paint only shallow daubs. I do not—Why are you looking at me in such a peculiar way?”
“I was wondering how old you are.”
She frowned. “Four and ten. What does that matter?”
“It may matter a great deal.” He closed his eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“I think I can sleep now. Run along to your own chamber.”
She did not move.
He opened his eyes again. “I said for you to go. I think it will be for the best if you leave for the palace tomorrow morning.”
She felt an odd pang. “You want me to go?”
“Yes.” His voice was rough. “I have no need of you here.”
Her jaw set stubbornly. “You do need me. Look at you, weak as a babe and still mouthing nonsense. I won’t leave you. Do you think I want to remember I owed you my life and let you die before I could repay you? I’m not my mother. I take nothing without giving something in return.”
His gaze narrowed on her face. “Your mother?”
She shook her head impatiently. “I did not mean to mention her. My mother has nothing to do with this.” She raised her chin. “You did me a service. Therefore, I must do one for you in return. I’ve already sent word to the queen that I’ll stay here until you’re well enough to go to Versailles and receive her thanks.”
“You’ll soon regret staying. I’m not a good patient. I detest being ill.”
“And I detest bad-tempered patients. I shall be as foul-natured as you, and you’ll get well quickly so that you can rid yourself of my services.”
A reluctant smile touched his lips. “There’s something in what you say.” He suddenly gave in. “Stay if you like. Who am I to refuse the gentle ministrations of a damsel for whom I’ve given my life’s blood?”
“I have little gentleness, but on no account will I allow you to die.” She straightened briskly in the chair. “Naturally,
I can’t have my painting interrupted while I care for you. I think I shall set up my easel in that corner by the window. The light should be very good there.” She smiled. “I’m sure we’ll deal very well together, and I’m glad you’ve come to your senses.”
“As I told you, I’m a man who seldom denies himself for chivalry’s sake.” He settled more comfortably, wearily closing his eyes. “Someday I may remind you that I tried to send you away.”
“Someday?” She shook her head. “You’ll be well and hearty in a fortnight or so and we shall part. There will be no someday.”
“That’s right. I must not be thinking clearly. Perhaps I do have a fever.”
“Truly?” An anxious frown wrinkled Juliette’s brow as she reached out to touch him. She sighed with relief. “Not yet.”
“No?” His eyes remained closed, but he smiled, curiously, Juliette thought.
“Not yet,” he murmured. “Someday …”
Jean Marc’s temperature began to rise in the late evening.
Juliette bathed him with cool water and tried desperately to keep him from tossing and spilling out of the bed onto the floor.
During the middle of the night the fever receded and severe chills took its place. The chills racked him, and his great convulsive shudders worried Juliette more than the fever had.
“I—have—no liking—for this.” Jean Marc’s teeth were clenched to keep them from chattering. “It should teach me well the foolishness of—” He broke off as another shudder ran through him. “Give—me another blanket.”
“You have three already.” Juliette abruptly made a decision. She stood up. “Move over.”
“What?” He gazed at her blankly.
She drew back the covers, lay down beside Jean Marc, and drew him into her arms. “Be at ease,” she said impatiently as she felt him stiffen against her. “I’m not going to hurt you. I only seek to warm you. I often held Louis Charles like this when he had the night chills.”
“I’m not a child of two.”
“You’re as weak as a puling infant. What difference does it make?”
“I believe a great many people would be happy to enumerate the—differences.”