Read Online The Garden Intrigue by Lauren Willig - Free Book Online Page B

Marston corrected him. When had he received so dramatic a promotion? He had been a mere lieutenant when Emma had known him, three years before. Friendship with the First Consul’s brother-in-law was a lucrative proposition. “I command part of the garrison at Boulogne.”
    It was, his voice implied, a very important post.
    “It is,” he added, “a very important post.”
    So much for modesty.
    “How utterly lovely for you!” Emma babbled. “I’m sure you’ll wish to be getting back there soon. One wouldn’t want to leave it unattended. Well, it was all very lovely to see you again and all that, but I wouldn’t want to keep you. Not when you have Boulogne to get back to.”
    She sounded, she realized, like the veriest pea brain. No matter. Her brains had never been the bit of her in which Marston took an interest. As for Kort, she’d rather he think her dim than debauched.
    Marston took a step forward. “One has one’s duty,” he said, his voice low and seductive. “But that doesn’t mean one cannot also take one’s pleasure.”
    “Pleasure in a duty well done?” Emma prevaricated, backing into Kort, who gave a muffled grunt of pain as she stepped down heavily on his foot. “I’m sure that must be vastly gratifying. Oh, dear, I am sorry. Did I just mangle your toes?”
    “I believe they’re mostly intact,” he said, in a slightly strangled voice. “Good Lord, Emma, did you attach spikes to the bottom of your sandals?”
    “No, those went out last season.” Making a strategic decision, Emma took a deep breath and turned to her cousin. “I suddenly find I am parched. Kort, would you be so kind as to fetch me a glass of punch?”
    He gave her a strange look, but said, “Gladly. Is there anything else?”
    “Oh, no, just the punch. The heat of the rooms, you know.” Emma gestured vaguely with her fan. “I’m sure you’ll find it.”
    Kort gave Marston a hard look.
    To Emma, he said, “I’ll be right back.”
    It was both a promise and a warning.
    Marston’s lips parted in a wolfish grin. “Take your time.”
    “Thank you, Kort!” Emma called after him. She waved. Kort frowned back, but went.
    Marston stepped up beside her, lowering his head until his breath tickled her ear. “I had hoped to see you here.”
    “How fortunate for you,” said Emma brightly, twisting away. One of her plumes brushed across Marston’s nose, making him sneeze. “Now that you have achieved your object, you can go home.”
    Marston discreetly wiped the back of his hand across his nose. It was hard to look soulful when one’s eyes were tearing, but he made a valiant effort. “To empty lodgings?”
    Or a well-filled brothel. Georges had never been particularly particular in his tastes. That, at the time, had been one of his attractions. Emma had wanted nothing more than to lose herself in the potent distraction of flesh on flesh, with none of the messy complications attendant on emotions, channeling all her grief and confusion into the mindless pursuit of physical pleasure. And who better for that than Marston? It had been a brief and potent madness, over nearly as quickly as it had begun.
    Two years hadn’t changed him. He still wore his hair long, with long sideburns that curled down below his ears to his chin. There was a bit more braid on his uniform than there had been before, but it was still closely tailored to a form maintained by a rigorous regimen of regular exercise. His batman had rigged an ingenious contraption of weights and pulleys that went with him everywhere, counteracting the effects of overindulgence in food, wine, and women.
    Whatever else one thought of Georges Marston, Emma admitted, he was indisputably a fine figure of a man. He exuded animal spirits and casual carnality. That had been part of it.
    But, mostly, he had been as far as she could get from Paul, muscular where Paul had been wiry, fair where Paul had been dark, broad where Paul had been slender. Not even his best friends