CHAPTER ONE
BASTIEN
1789 — Orléans, France
Time is a ruthless wench of a bedmate. And no one knows it better than I.
A week ago, the witch taunted me with minutes that felt like days as I took steps that felt like miles through the Forêt de Marly. My boots were filled with mud, the days were drenched in rain, and the nights were consumed by the screams of traitors on their way to invade Versailles.
On their way to kill everyone inside Louis’s grand palace—including the woman who possesses my whole heart.
If I had not joined my men in killing them then, she would not be here now, naked and wrapped in my arms. Those animals would not have cared that she was merely a chambermaid, barely paid decently to be in the building. They would have rounded her up along with the noblewomen she has loyally served and jailed or killed her in the same reckless manner.
A nightmare I cannot consider for another moment. Yet here it is anyway.
Bastien? Mon soleil? Where have you gone?
It is her voice, but I cannot find her anywhere in this strange mist. No. No!
I push it out harder, begging to be set free from this dark chimera. From her woeful, agonized voice…
Bastien!
Until it is her face that I behold on one of the rebels I have killed.
“Nooo!”
Bastien. Bastien.
“Bastien! Please wake up, my beloved. Can you hear me? You are dreaming. Please wake up!”
My own woozy grunt pulls me out of my slumber. I blink hard before scrubbing a hand over my face. With my other arm, I pull my lover tighter against my chest. “Must have dozed,” I mumble. “Désolé, little lily.”
“Dreams are naught to be sorry for. Even the bad ones.” With a fingertip, she traces a jagged line between the nicks that litter my chest. The feeling is heaven, especially when she marks the spot above my steady heartbeat. “Sometimes, talking about it helps.”
“Not this time.” I growl it strongly enough that she knows not to argue.
“Well, then…sometimes, you simply have to fuck it away.”
Quickly enough, I switch to a throaty laugh. “Or pick up a sword and run a bâtard or two through.”
She drops her hand. Jerks up an eyebrow. “Tu préfère te battre que baiser?”
“Hmmm. Tough choice.” I rub my lips with a finger. “Fighting or fucking. Must I select this very moment?”
“If your couilles want to make it out of this room in the same sac, I would advise it.”
My chortle bursts at full force now. “And now I know why all the ladies at court say you must be made of magic.”
She twists her lips. “They do not!”
“All right, then. A simple sorceress?” I would not put it past those Versailles viragos to dampen her brilliance in such a way.
But I cannot let such ugliness cloud my thoughts when her husky laugh fills the air between us. When she punctuates it with a playful smack at my jaw and then a determined splay across my chest.
As soon as she plants her beautiful long fingers, I grin. I cannot be faulted, considering I can already predict her intent—and am damn pleased about it. Clearly, so is she. I feel it in the unique pebbles along her lightly freckled arms. In the desire that spreads across her face as she lifts up over me. In the decadent darkening of her gaze, shifting from springtime glades to shadowy forests, as she slides her soaked core over my hardening shaft.
Mon dieu.
I shall never take this feeling for granted. Her sweet little livre is quivering so hard. Waiting for me to flip her every sweet, hot page. To get lost in her secret sentences, paragraphs, and punctuation…
“Sorceress?” she giggles out. “Now I know you need to have the nonsense fucked out of you.”
“Mmmphhh.” There is not much volume to it, and I am not sorry. She is already clenching around me, so warm and tight and perfect. “Why should it not be the truth? You are their little compendium of all the facts they refuse to keep straight, oui? And for that matter, their weather dial and their lice preventer and their—”
“Monsieur De Leon,” she cuts in. “If you are happier discussing the behavioral patterns of lice right now, perhaps we should—oh!”
Her yelp is delicious as I buck my hips, stabbing my stalk deeper into her channel. “That is Monsieur le Duke De Leon, girl. And the only thing we should be doing is exactly this.”
“Profuse apologies, your grace.” Her last word quivers, already overtaken by the magical pout across her plush lips. I am captivated. Mesmerized. Especially as some of her paprika-colored curls tumble between the strawberry tips of her full breasts. “Oh, mon dieu, Bast. Are you truly a duke?”
I reach for my dusty satchel, still on the table next to the bed. I cast it down there last night in my haste to get the woman beneath me. Now, I reach for the inner pocket that possesses one of the most precious physical objects of my existence.
The scroll is printed on the finest paper and secured by a silk ribbon. With a deft tug, I loosen the bow. With an equally confident sweep, I extend the document to my beautiful Magique. With a chest that swells with pride on many levels, I watch her pick apart the words.
“Louis the Sixteenth, by the Grace of God and the Con—Consti—”
“Constitutions,” I prompt, using the same gentle tone from when I first guided her into the world of letters, sounds, and all the magic they would open for her.
“Constitutions,” she dutifully repeats. “And the Constitutions of the Republic, Emperor of the French, do hereby bestow upon my loyal subject, Bastien Eneas Jacques De Leon, the title of Bastien, Duc de Savennieres, to include all lands, properties, and dom—domin—”
“Dominion.”
“Dominion thereof.” With a gasp, she stops to look at me again. “Oh, Bast. It is like a dream.”
I reach up a finger to lower the sheet of parchment behind which she has hidden her face. “Then why do you look ready to face a nightmare instead?”
Her face pinches. “Because now His Majesty will demand to know when you will be giving him new subjects with a proper duchess.”
Her point is unsurprising. But so is my heart’s answer to it. “If that is what he demands, then you should be fitted for a gown and a ring right away.”
“I said a proper duchess, monsieur.”
“As you shall be, Mademoiselle De Lys.” For the first time, I push my brows into a scowl. “Hmm. ‘Mademoiselle.’ That does not sound right at all anymore, does it?”
Her fingers go limp. The parchment slips free, and I catch it with little effort, returning it quickly to the table. Only after I return my grip to her waist does she gain her voice again.
“Bastien. What are you saying?”
“Exactly what I mean.” I curve a tender hand along the outside of her arm. “I love you, Magique De Lys. With all my heart.”
“And I love you. But Bast—”
“But what?” I skim my fingertips over her collarbone, already imagining how beautiful the area will look when complemented by the neckline of a noble gown. “I love you. And, dieu merci, you love me too. And I already know my entire family will love you too. I cannot wait until you meet them all—especially Maximillian.”