Page 16 of Misadventures with a Duke

What if she journeyed beyond the veils, only to pay a price of her own for the return? The currency of her memories. But not all of them. She knows who I am but not who I am.

“Wh-Why are you here?”

Something inside me deflates. The bursting cloud of the hope that she was adopting a coy pretense about her bewilderment. But I see the truth now, etched across her whole face. She is not playing.

Which means I cannot do the same about winning back her recall. I have to combat her odd fugue with something more powerful. The potency of my truth. The power of my love.

“I think you already know that, little lily.”

She looks ready to vomit and laugh within the same three seconds. “Just indulge me, Desperado.”

Not an inaccuracy. I still am on the edge of desperation, though I sense that is not her meaning. I push aside the confusion to assert, “Search yourself deeply, ma magie. You know I am here…because of you.”

A sizable swallow takes over the column of her neck. “Unreal,” she mutters. “This isn’t…it just can’t be…”

“No!” I push past so many things that validate her assertion—the opulence of our new surroundings, the odd sounds from outside, her sudden preference for English instead of French—and grip her tighter. “It can be. You must believe that! I did, even when Kavia ordered me to do the same. You know that I was thinking she had jumped off into the loon lagoon, yes? But I wanted to believe her, chérie. I wanted to believe that somehow, she would lead me back to you…”

“Kavia?” She draws out the query, swinging her gaze back up to lock with mine.

At once, I clench my teeth to fight the sting behind my eyes. When I think of the last time she did this, forcing me to watch the light seep from her dark greens… Never again. I vow it from every parapet in my heart and soul.

“Oui, my sweetness. You…have heard me speak of her before. The woman who is like my second mother. The saint who helped raise Maximillian and—”

“Maximillian?”

I push out a long breath from my nostrils. “Ma magie. Please…you must try hard to remember. You know who Maximillian is too. And—”

She sweeps a hand through the air as if yearning to wipe my words free from it. Still, she blurts next, “So…Kavia…she’s involved here somehow?”

I frown, now betraying my perplexity. “Oui.”

“Okay. And she ordered you…to do what?”

I lift one hand to the side of her face. To my delight, a small tremor moves through her. Whether her mind admits it or not, some parts of her still knows me. Still needs me.

“To do the easiest thing in the world,” I whisper. “To envision my heart’s utmost desire.” I splay my fingertips along her hairline. Her curls…I swear by everything holy, they feel so much softer than before. I am beyond entranced. “That meant fastening my every thought on you, my Magique. Listening to Kavia, no matter how deep she seemed to be diving in the gammon. Hoping there was something to her plan. Praying that somehow, in some way, she would help me…” Before I can help it, a dazed chuckle spills forth. “And now look. Here I am!”

Her reaction is not what I expect. At the very least, the pillows of her lips should be twitching in wonderment too. Curiosity should be brewing in her eyes, a faint smoke at the backs of those green fires.

But she is already darting that stare away. Averting it from me in full.

Why?

After a few seconds, she murmurs, “And where, exactly, do you think you are?”

I glance around. This room, appointed with flawless linens, decorated with intricate care, and smelling of such fine perfumes, presents luxury I have never seen before, even at Versailles.

“I do not know,” I finally surmise, deciding not to share my initial assumptions. If I tell her it all feels like heaven, she truly will revert to gawking as if I should be thrown in an asylum. But one of the many reasons I love this woman is because she shares my skepticism about heaven, hell, and all the controlling trappings upon each by “spiritual leaders” who are naught but men in fancy clothes.

There must be another better explanation. We simply do not know it yet. Have not sought it out hard enough.

“Does it matter, ultimately?” I persist. “I am here, my arms filled with your glory again. And you are here, enjoying it.” Unable to control myself any longer, I let my gaze dip—taking in the sight that compels me like dew to a morning flower. “Unless you are this…enflamée…for another reason?”

My description flares straight to her cheeks. Her gorgeous blush makes her freckles look like stars on satin.

“Okay, this is crazy,” she mutters, curling fists against the upper swells of her breasts.

But she is too late. I have already seen what lies beneath. Peeked at the rosy puckers that are nearly spilling from that corset. Imagined the erect berries at their centers…and imagined all the reasons for it. That list is, thank God, very narrow.