His words cast a spell in the midafternoon quiet of the room, evoking images of shimmering sands and scurrying men in white robes and black-haired women keening their grief in elaborate burial chambers.

“Tomorrow afternoon, then. Your cousin and chaperone are, of course, included in the invitation.” He grinned. “Miss Gwen might like a mummy case for use in her horrid novel.”

“I haven’t accepted!”

“But you want to.”

Drat. The insufferable man was absolutely right; no matter her feelings for him, she longed to see hieroglyphs carved into stone and ornaments that might once have dazzled the eyes of Mark Antony. Miss Gwen wasn’t the only one with an interest in mummy cases.

“Why hesitate?” Lord Richard pressed his advantage. “You’re not afraid, are you?”

“Of what?”

“Of ancient curses? Of enjoying my company?”

Since that was precisely what terrified Amy, she bristled indignantly. “Of course not! Tomorrow afternoon, you said?”

“Two o’clock, perhaps? The artifacts are lodged in a wing of the Tuilleries, until we move them into the Louvre. Ask any sentry to show you the way,” Lord Richard directed, with a smile that struck Amy as uncomfortably close to a smirk.

Too late, Amy realized how neatly she had been seduced and goaded into accepting.

“You don’t have any apples to offer while you’re at it, do you?” she asked sourly.

“Satan tempting Eve in the garden? Not a terribly flattering role for me, is it? And you’re overdressed for the part.”

Amy’s blush rivaled the hue of the dangerous fruit they had been discussing. Somehow, Lord Richard’s frankly admiring gaze made the yellow muslin of her gown feel as insubstantial as a string of fig leaves. Amy covered her confusion by saying quickly, “Might I ask a favor, my lord?”

“A phoenix feather from the farthest deserts of Arabia? The head of a dragon on a bejeweled platter?”

“Nothing quite that complicated,” replied Amy, marveling once again at the chameleon quality of the man beside her. How could anyone be so utterly infuriating at one moment and equally charming the next? Untrustworthy, she reminded herself. Mercurial. Changeable. “A dragon’s head wouldn’t be much use to me just now, unless it could offer me directions.”

Richard crooked an arm. “Tell me where you need to be, and I’ll escort you.”

Amy tentatively rested her hand on the soft blue fabric of his coat. “That’s quite a generous offer when you don’t know where I’m going.”

“Ten leagues beyond the wide world’s end?” suggested Richard with a lazy grin.

“Methinks it is no journey?” Amy matched the quotation triumphantly, and was rewarded by the admiring light that flamed in Lord Richard’s eyes. “No, not nearly that far—at least, I hope not. This palace does seem large enough to house a couple of continents. I was looking for Hortense Bonaparte’s chambers.”

The statement was close enough to the truth, and Lord Richard accepted it without a murmur of disbelief. “You’re in the right place,” he informed her, steering her back into Bonaparte’s study, “just a flight below where you ought to be. That little staircase will take you right up to Josephine’s chambers, and Hortense’s are next door.”

“Thank you.” Amy lifted one foot to the first step.

“Think nothing of it.” Lord Richard leaned an arm on the newel of the stair. Even with Amy a step up, he still smiled down at her. “It wasn’t much of a journey. I owe you nine leagues at least.”

“Bring me a phoenix feather, and we’ll cancel the debt. Good day, my lord, and thank you for the directions.” Amy lifted her skirt and ascended another step.

“You’ll have to accept a mummy case or two instead.” Lord Richard’s voice arrested Amy midstep. Letting fall her skirt, she turned, only to discover that his smile was even more devastating when faced eye to eye. Or lip to lip, as the case might be. Amy swallowed hard.

“Why were you so eager for me to visit?” she asked suspiciously.

“Because,” Richard said quite simply, “I like you.”

And then he smiled and bowed as if his last statement hadn’t made Amy’s jaw drop till it practically hit the bottom stair, and, with a bland, “Good day, Miss Balcourt,” took his leave before Amy could retrieve her jaw and her faculties of speech.

“And good day to you too,” she muttered as she flounced up the stairs. “ ‘Because I like you.’ What on earth is that supposed to mean? And why do I care? I don’t care. Of course I don’t care. What difference does it make if Richard Selwick likes me or not? None. None at all. Of course it makes no difference.”

Amy stopped short on the upper landing and lifted her chin. “I have more important things to worry about.”

Amy collared one of the young pages who seemed to do nothing but loiter about the corridors waiting to carry messages, clandestine or otherwise.

Which was why, when Amy hissed, “Can you take a message for me?” the page gave her a look that questioned her mental capacities.

“Yes, miss.”

“Can you keep it secret?”

Another look, this time compounded with wounded dignity. Amy was sinking in the page’s estimation by the moment. “Of course, miss.”

“Oh, good!” Leaning forward, Amy whispered, “Tell him I must see him urgently. Don’t forget! Urgently. Because I have something terribly important I have to tell him, and he’ll know what it is, after our conversation last night. I’ll meet him at the Luxembourg Gardens at midnight. And don’t forget—urgently!”

The page looked understandably confused. “Tell who, miss?”

Amy refrained from banging her hand against her head in extreme self-disgust. Just because she had let Lord Richard rattle her. . .

“Georges Marston,” she said, pressing a coin from her reticule into the boy’s hand. “Make sure to deliver my message solely to the ears of Georges Marston. And don’t forget—”

“I know,” said the boy, with the world-weary air of one who had heard it all before. “Urgently.”


Richard allowed himself a moment to watch the delightful sway of Amy’s hips as she ascended the stairs towards Hortense’s apartments. It was, he assured himself, a permissible luxury. Bounding up the stairs after her, flinging her over his shoulder, and bearing her off to the nearest empty chamber was not. Pity, that.

Shaking his head, Richard wandered back out of Bonaparte’s study and through the anteroom, which suddenly seemed much darker without the cheerful yellow of Amy’s dress. He wondered if she was as beset by memories of their kiss last night as he was.

It was ludicrous! He had kissed hundreds of women in his time. Actually . . . Richard did a quick calculation, casting his mind back over his teenage career as a rakehell. Well, maybe only dozens. At any rate, not one of them had plagued him nearly as much as Amy. None of them had kept him awake for the rest of the night in a state of uncomfortable desire, wondering whether such an opportunity would arise again.

Usually Richard made his own opportunities.

Back in his rakehell days, all it had taken had been a smile across a ballroom, a nod of the head towards a garden, a note passed surreptitiously from gloved hand to gloved hand. So easy. But then had come Deirdre and her betrayal, and Richard had become adept at sending opportunity scurrying away. And now . . . Richard frowned at a bird chirping with excessive force in the open window of an empty salon.

He could easily arrange another assignation with Amy. Ah, but only if he were willing to do so as the Purple Gentian. Therein lay the rub. The Purple Gentian and Lord Richard Selwick unanimously concurred that Amy was to have nothing more to do with the former. Just look at last night. She had curtailed his inspection of Balcourt’s study, just as he had gotten to the good part, the mysterious cache of papers in the globe. True, for all he knew the globe might contain nothing more exciting than Balcourt’s billetsdoux. Or it might contain papers vital to the defense of England. As if that weren’t enough, he had entirely missed whatever had been going on in the courtyard. He had arrived just in time to see villainous-looking rascals trailing out into the night, and to hear Balcourt bidding Marston an uninformative farewell.

He probably should have tailed Marston home. Richard excised the probably. No doubt about it, the responsible thing to do, the Purple Gentian thing to do, was to follow Marston. Instead, the Purple Gentian had lurked in the bushes outside the Hotel de Balcourt, making sure that one Miss Amy Balcourt made it safely inside.

Richard grinned in recollection. Hell, it had been worth the missed intelligence just to watch Amy desperately trying to haul herself over that windowsill. She’d plant her elbows on the edge, screw up her face, wiggle in an exceedingly appealing way, and plop back down. Richard had admired her tenacity and her derriere.

One night’s work—Richard sternly pulled his mind back to the matter at hand. One night’s work could be accounted lost with good grace. To lose another night’s work verged on irresponsibility. Besides, Amy wouldn’t be Amy if she didn’t keep pestering him for his identity and a place in the League. Sooner or later, under the influence of her lips and arms and . . . anyway, sooner or later, he was bound to weaken on one or the other, and either would be disaster. Thus his resolution, as he trudged back home last night through the dark and smelly streets of Paris, that the Purple Gentian was to avoid Miss Amy Balcourt as though she were Delaroche himself.

Lord Richard Selwick, on the other hand, was quite free to call on Miss Balcourt.