Amy stumbled to her feet, catching her skirt on her bare toes and clutching the railing to steady herself. She towered over Richard. “My brother is half French; I am half French; good heavens, you really are the most provoking man! Is there anything else you wanted to know, or may I go back to the cabin?”

Richard took Amy’s hand and tugged her back down. “If your brother’s in France and you were in England, where are your parents?”

Amy allowed herself to be tugged, but settled on her heels, as if ready to spring up again at any moment. “They suffered the embrace of Madame Guillotine,” she said tersely.

Still holding her hand, Richard squeezed it lightly, for comfort.

“Actually, only Papa was really murdered, but Mama might as well have been. She loved Papa so much—they must have said good-bye three dozen times before we left. When they killed Papa, they killed her, too. Theirs was a love match, you see.”

Oddly enough—for one who had thus far assiduously avoided matrimony—Richard did see. His own parents had married for love, and had stayed in love, rather distressingly so. At least it had been distressing for the poor adolescent boy forced to witness his parents holding hands under the table. Not to mention all the times Richard had accidentally stumbled upon his parents kissing in corridors. But for all he made faces and the occasional inarticulate noise indicating extreme disgust (because everyone knew that parents weren’t supposed to engage in intimate behavior), Richard secretly thought it was rather sweet. He thought it was rather sweet the way his indomitable mother would blush and flutter at a whispered comment from his father, and he thought it was rather sweet the way his dignified father would bolt abruptly out of debates in the House of Lords just to take tea with his mother. Of course, you wouldn’t catch him confiding that to just anybody.

It wasn’t until he had hit the London social scene as a rakehell, fresh from the innocence of Eton, that Richard had realized how unusual it was, that sort of connection his parents enjoyed. Until then, he had naïvely assumed that all married couples were like that, holding hands under the breakfast table and kissing in corridors. But then he saw married men in brothels, received scented solicitations from married women, and watched marriages contracted with no more feeling on either side than . . . well, no feeling at all. In all of his meanderings from ballroom to ballroom, Richard had seen perhaps one couple in ten who shared some sort of affection, one couple in a hundred truly in love. And he had realized, for the first time, that what his parents had was something wonderful and rare, and that he himself could never stoop to settle for anything less.

And Amy had seen that, too, and had been forced to see it wrenched away.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly.

“Why should you be? You didn’t wield the ax.”

“If I had known, I wouldn’t have baited you so. I didn’t realize you had a personal interest.”

Amy looked up at him in confusion, wondering at the sudden change in his demeanor. The moon had gone behind a cloud, leaving his face in shadow, no glimmer of light to reveal whether he spoke sincerely. If only the clouds would part and she could see—she wasn’t sure what she hoped to see. Something that would tell her whether he was honest or a thorough blackguard.

“I am truly sorry,” he said again, and with his deep voice vibrating through her ears, Amy knew, just knew, he was sincere, the same way she knew that Jane was good, and that sheep were vile, and that she was going to find the Purple Gentian.

And somehow it seemed the most natural thing in the world that he would take her free hand in his own, and even more natural that he was leaning towards her and she towards him. Their joined hands formed a bridge across the sliver of deck she had laughingly called their Channel. Amy couldn’t tell if he were pulling or she was; there no longer seemed to be a place where her arms ended and his began. And what did it matter if there were? Amy closed her eyes, and felt his warm breath on her lips.

Chapter Seven

Crack!

The piece of railing Amy had been leaning upon earlier detached itself from the deck and tumbled into the water. Suddenly, Amy’s hands were her own again. Blinking dazedly as she opened her eyes, she saw that their own personal Channel was back in place between them and that Richard had his own hands planted firmly on the deck on either side of him. It was enough to make her think she had imagined those past few moments, if she still hadn’t been able to feel the tingliness left by Richard’s breath on her lips.

“The captain should see to getting that repaired,” Richard commented, his voice the slightest touch unsteady. “I’ll say something to him in the morning.”

Amy nodded. For once in her life—and such occasions were rare indeed—she couldn’t think of anything to say. “Excuse me, were you about to kiss me?” didn’t seem at all a proper thing for a young lady to ask, even a young lady who had been so unladylike as to sit unchaperoned with a man on the deck of a boat at midnight. Besides, what if he said no? Drat that railing!

Amy bit down on her lower lip, utterly at sea. Plans, plans . . . when was she ever without a plan? True, it was terribly hard to plan when one wasn’t at all sure what one wanted. Did she want him to kiss her? Or just to admit that he had intended to kiss her? And why did it matter if he had? Oh, heavens! Amy squirmed on the hard deck. Planning the restoration of the monarchy was so much easier than dealing with the aftermath of an almost kiss!

And really, Amy reminded herself, she should be concentrating entirely on her plans to find the Purple Gentian and restore the monarchy, not agonizing over a man of dubious morals. Even if that man did have cheekbones to make a sculptor weep, and the most intriguing play of muscles along his back . . . Amy went back to gnawing her lower lip.

Richard leaned back on his hands, letting the rough wood against his palms drag him back to his senses. Kissing Amy. Bad idea. What the devil had he been thinking? He hadn’t been thinking at all; that was the problem. At least, he hadn’t been thinking with any part of him that worked in a logical manner. Logic. Richard scraped his hands against the splintery deck and tried to approach the situation logically. Logically, kissing Amy was a terrible idea. He repeated that to himself a couple of times. After all, if he’d kissed Amy, he would have some sort of obligation to her, and that would mean spending time with her once they both got to France.

Of course, he really wouldn’t mind spending time with her. . . . Richard squashed that thought posthaste. No matter how much he might enjoy spending time with Amy, he couldn’t. He just didn’t have the time to spend. Not if he wanted to discover Bonaparte’s invasion plans before French troops set foot on English soil. Nobody knew better than Richard how quickly Bonaparte could move (except, perhaps, the Italians, and the Austrians, and the Dutch), and as for Amy . . . Richard sensed that she could be a rather massive distraction.

But if he didn’t kiss her, he wouldn’t be obligated to her, and therefore she wouldn’t distract him. It all made perfect sense. Logically.

Richard glanced at Amy, sitting uncharacteristically silent beside him. She had drawn her knees back up to her chest, and she was staring straight out over the dark waters, biting her lip. It was too dark to discern the color of her lips, but Richard remembered them well, a surprisingly deep pink against her pale skin, soft, inviting. He remembered watching the way her lips moved as she talked, as she smiled. Biting them was probably making them red and swollen, just as his kisses would. Logic, logic, logic, Richard reminded himself, tilting his head back and staring at the sky. When he looked back, Amy was still biting her lip.

Richard hastily looked away again.

“What is your brother’s name?” Richard asked, just to ask something. She couldn’t bite her lip and talk at the same time, could she?

“Edouard,” Amy replied absently. “He’s several years older than me.”

“Edouard.” Richard sat upright so hastily that his head swam. “Not Edouard de Balcourt?”

“Yes! Do you know—”

“Edouard de Balcourt is your brother?”

“You do know him, then?” Amy asked eagerly.

“We know each other slightly,” Richard replied cautiously. That was true as far as it went; Richard had done his very best to keep the acquaintance slight.

“Would you tell me about him? Please? Whatever you know. I haven’t seen him since I was five. He doesn’t write much,” she confessed. Knowing Balcourt, Richard could well believe it. “I suppose he’s afraid any letters to England would be searched. What can you tell me about him?”

“Um . . .” Richard drummed his fingers against the deck. From the glowing expression on Amy’s face, it was clear that she cherished high hopes of her brother. Blast it all, why should he have to be the one to tell her that her brother was one of the laughingstocks of Bonaparte’s court? Edouard de Balcourt was a fop, a toady, a man without taste, morals, or scruple. And that was putting it in the most generous way possible.

How could Balcourt be Amy’s brother? Perhaps he was a changeling? One of them had to be.

Amy tapped her foot impatiently. “So?” she prompted.

“He doesn’t look like you.” It was the only harmless thing Richard could think of to say.

“We did a bit when we were younger,” reflected Amy. She smiled wistfully. “Mama always used to say it wasn’t fair that we both took after Papa’s side of the family. Mama’s family was all tall and fair and stately, like Jane, but Edouard and I were both small and dark. Papa was tall, though. When he lifted me onto his shoulders, I thought I could touch the stars.”