Moving her hips in restless circles against his fingers, Amy made wordlessly clear to him how much she liked it. She clutched at his shoulders as shivers ran through her that weren’t shivers at all but little lightning jolts of intense pleasure. And then the storm itself broke, dispelling all the tension in her body as torrents of indescribable feeling thundered through her. It swept through her like a shower of shooting stars, touching every nerve in her body with celestial fire.

It was the most wonderful night of her life.

It was about to become the most awful night of his.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Reason returned to Richard with the force of a blow.

It took Richard, his hand on the buttons of his breeches, a second to realize that it had indeed been a blow. From the boatman’s paddle. Accidentally, or otherwise, the boatman had dealt Richard a stinging whack right on the back of his head.

But the lump on his head was nothing to the bulge in his breeches. Urgh. Now there was pain. Rather prominent parts of his anatomy were screaming at him in intense irritation. Below him lay Amy, her lips red and swollen, slightly parted, her eyes misty with desire, damp, ready, willing. It would be so easy—so natural—to ease up those tousled skirts. . . .

Richard hauled himself up onto the bench, and plunged his hands over the side, letting the cold water wash the arousing scent of Amy off of him. He would have stuck his head over the edge, too, but he wasn’t at all sure what might be lurking in the water, and he wouldn’t put it past that boatman to help the rest of him into the river with that confounded paddle. Although, Richard supposed, he really ought to be thanking the boatman rather than cursing him. If not for that fortuitous blow . . . Richard’s face paled in a way that had nothing to do with the icy temperature of the water. Had he really been about to take Amy on the floor of a dirty boat in the middle of the Seine? Oh God. What had he been thinking?

He hadn’t been thinking. That was the problem.

As cold water and equally chilly thoughts began to clear the haze of lust from Richard’s brain, he realized that the murmuring noise he’d been half-hearing for some time wasn’t the swaying of the waves, but the monologue of the boatman, who was muttering, “Go on. Act like I’m not here. Treat my boat like a brothel. Don’t matter what I think, do it?”

The last time Richard had blushed had been in the summer of 1788, when, as a spotty twelve-year-old, he had been caught gaping down the bodice of the Duchess of Devonshire. Fifteen years’ worth of embarrassed flush burned in his cheeks, mercifully hidden by hood and mask. Leaning over, he helped Amy up from the floor, trying not to look too closely at her pink cheeks and shining eyes.

“That was wonderful,” sighed Amy happily.

For wonderful substitute awful, thought Richard grimly as Amy snuggled trustingly into his side. Idiot! Him, that was, not her. He could only thank whatever powers out there that were still keeping an eye on him for stopping matters before they reached the ultimate point.

“Do you want me to row back and forth—again?” the boatman asked sourly, flinging his rope expertly over a piling.

“No,” Richard said shortly. He dropped a few coins in the man’s calloused hand, so consumed with self-loathing that it took him a moment to realize that Amy was attempting to climb out of the boat on her own, teetering back and forth with one foot on the edge, and looking in imminent danger of toppling into the water at any moment.

Chalk up another point against him.

Richard handed Amy out of the boat and tried not to notice the way her fingers lingered on his arm or the glowing smile she cast up at him from under her too-large hood. Considering what had just transpired, she had every right to the possessive clasp, as well as to the smile that gave affection and assumed it in return. Hell, she had every right to an instant proposal, bended knee and all. Or at least the confession of his true identity.

But he couldn’t give her any of those things. Not yet.

Tony’s specter rose before Richard’s eyes, blocking out Amy’s smiling face. Not Tony as he had known him in life—that Tony, a dandy in an embroidered waistcoat, with a light foot for the dance and an appreciative eye for the female form, would have cheered on a bit of dalliance—but that other, awful Tony. The Tony lying bloody and abandoned on the dirt floor of a French hut because he, Richard, had been distracted from his duty by a woman.

Something else niggled at the back of Richard’s mind, something to do with the Swiss gold. Something he would have noticed before had his brain not been muddled with desire. How in the hell had Amy known about the Swiss gold? True, he had seen her come flying out of Bonaparte’s study as though possessed of a dozen furies, but he had searched that same room not half an hour later and discovered no such information. If he had, he wouldn’t have had to spend the evening trying to pry the same intelligence out of the First Consul’s brandy-sodden brother-in-law. If Amy hadn’t learned of the Swiss gold from searching Bonaparte’s study, then where?

A chill that had nothing to do with the night air engulfed Richard. Based on Geoff’s reports, and the evidence of his own eyes, Balcourt was up to something that involved the transport of mysterious packages. He spent that part of his day not occupied by his tailor lurking about the Tuilleries. It took no great leap of intelligence to jump from there to the conclusion that Balcourt was up to his neck in the affair of the Swiss gold. And Amy was his sister, mysteriously summoned back to France just as Napoleon commenced his plans for the invasion of England. What better way to entrap the Purple Gentian? Provide him some intelligence, discover his plans . . . and summon Delaroche. It would be a sure way to Bonaparte’s favor for Balcourt and his sister.

Richard’s eyes slid sideways towards Amy, down to the little hand resting so trustingly on his arm, and he swore silently.

Nobody could be that good an actress. Her reactions to her parents’ deaths could have been feigned—but if so, she ought to be at Drury Lane, partnering Kean. Every one of Richard’s instincts, well-honed over a decade of outwitting the French, screamed her innocence.

But he couldn’t take that chance. How many of his men would be involved in the assault upon the coach bearing the Swiss gold? A half dozen at least. Geoff would insist on going along, Geoff who was one of the two men Richard could unreservedly call friend.

He had to end it with her. And later, when it was all over, when the mission was safely accomplished, when the invasion of England was thwarted, he could make it up to her. There was no other choice.

Next to the Purple Gentian, his hand warm and strong under her arm, Amy drifted through a world wreathed in magic. How could she have thought the streets of Paris dingy? The cobblestones glimmered in the moonlight, and the dark windows twinkled with stars. Beautiful, beautiful stars. Tilting her head back, Amy traced familiar patterns through the sky.

A necklace of stars. Amy hugged the phrase to her like a pile of love letters. When he had first uttered the words, she had been shocked speechless, more shocked than she had ever been in her life. That this man she had known for a mere two days—even if she had been daydreaming about him for most of her life—should be able to slip into her mind and retrieve one of her most precious memories . . . it was inconceivable. But then, somewhere between the stars and the tender expression on the Gentian’s face as he looked down at her in that silly little boat, everything had made complete sense. This was her sign—practically a certificate of approval from her parents—that he was her true love. What other explanation could there be?

Far away, up in the darkness, Amy could have sworn one of the stars winked.

Amy’s speculations were cut short as they turned along the side of the Hotel de Balcourt. The Gentian’s head was turned away from her as he checked for an open window, his hood hiding all but the tip of his nose from Amy’s view. Her hands still tingled with the feel of the short, crisp hair hidden under that hood. And the rest of her tingled with other memories entirely.

As they drew to a halt outside an unlatched first-floor window, Amy turned to face the Gentian, gazing up at the masked face revealed beneath his hood. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for rescuing me, and thank you even more for everything else.”

Rising on tiptoes, Amy swayed towards the Purple Gentian, lifting her face for a tender farewell kiss. She nearly toppled over as he took a jerky step back.

“I’m sorry,” the Gentian said abruptly. “None of this should have happened.”

He was back to being dark and inscrutable. In the shadow of the house, the Gentian’s hooded face had all the expression of a faceless monk in a gothic novel. It was just the shadow of the house, cutting off light, which made the Gentian look so aloof, Amy reassured herself. This was, after all, the same man who had laughed with her, kissed her, and promised her a necklace of stars. Unlike the evening’s earlier identity confusion, there could be no doubt that this was the same Purple Gentian of an hour or half an hour past, even if he was anonymously swathed in a dark cloak and hood. Amy had kept a hand on his arm at all times.

Until now.

Since that was clearly a situation that needed to be remedied, Amy took a step forward and rested a hand on the Purple Gentian’s chest. “Don’t be sorry,” Amy said feelingly. “I’m sorry to have dragged you into a fight with Marston, but I can’t regret anything else that happened. It was the most absolutely wonderful night of my life. You’re the most absolutely wonderful—”