Free The Courtesan by Susan Carroll

brown. Remy’s eyes shining down at her. What madness was this? As he lowered his hands, Gabrielle felt far too stunned to try and prevent him.
    “If you were bent on capturing an intruder, why didn’t you go summon your servants? Do you have any idea how easily I could have disarmed you? Only you would be this rash, Gabrielle Cheney.” He was scolding her, but his teeth flashed in a smile of rare and unexpected sweetness. Remy’s smile.
    Dear God, she was losing her mind. She had to be. Gabrielle’s hand trembled. Her sword wavered and he attempted to come closer. She sprang back with a terrified cry, bracing her weapon again.
    He froze in his tracks. When his voice came again, it was soothing, gentle. “Please, Gabrielle. Don’t be afraid. Don’t you recognize me? It is me, Remy.”
    “N-no,” she choked. “Y-you lie. You can’t be Nicolas Remy. He—he’s . . .”
    “Dead? I swear to you I am not. Please don’t look at me as if I were a ghost.”
    Gabrielle backed away, trembling. A ghost was exactly what she was looking at. A phantom with Remy’s voice, Remy’s eyes, Remy’s smile. But he could not be Remy, this rough-looking man with his wild, unkempt hair and haggard face. Not unless he’d marched to her across the plains of hell or back from the depths of the underworld. The mad thought seized hold of her that Cass’s séance had worked after all, dragging Remy’s tormented spirit from the recesses of his grave.
    Gabrielle shook so badly she could no longer hold the sword. The weapon slipped from her fingers, tumbling to the ground with a dull thud. The stranger with Remy’s eyes took a hesitant step toward her.
    “I am sorry that I have alarmed you. I never meant to reveal myself to you this way, but you rather forced my hand. I had hoped to choose a better time.”
    “A better time?” Gabrielle stared up at Remy, still unable to credit the evidence of her own senses. “Is that why you did not come when I called for you earlier?”
    “You called for me? I never heard you.”
    Gabrielle bit down hard on her lip to still its quivering. “I cried out to you in the mist, but you wouldn’t come. I thought you had rejected me and turned back to the land of the dead.”
    Remy looked rather confused, but he cast her a gentle smile. “Gabrielle, I would never turn away from you, even if I was no more than a ghost, but I promise you I am not. If I were, your sword would have gone straight through me. Please let me get close enough for you to touch me and you’ll know I am real.”
    Gabrielle wanted to beg him to stay away, but she could not seem to find her voice. She didn’t want to touch him. She had an irrational terror that if she did, he’d evaporate like Nostradamus, vanish in a hiss of steam.
    Remy kept coming closer. When his fingers curled around her wrist, Gabrielle couldn’t summon the will to resist him. He raised her hand and pressed her palm against his chest, over the region of his heart. He was not a man made of mist, but solid rock. The plane of his chest was all hard muscle and beneath his worn jerkin, she could feel the steady thud of his heart.
    The hand that held hers was strong, callused, and warm. So was the other one that Remy used to caress her cheek. Gabrielle reached up and caught that hand, trapping it against her face.
    She closed her eyes, savoring the rough texture of Remy’s palm against her skin. She could almost feel the blood pulsing through his veins. The truth struck Gabrielle with all the force of the earth heaving beneath her feet.
    Nicolas Remy was alive.
    Her eyes fluttered open. Remy was gazing down at her.
    “There. You see?”
    Gabrielle nodded, her breath escaping her in a strangled half-sob. Still hardly daring to believe, she ran her hands wildly over him, his chest, his sinewy arms, his broad shoulders. Her fingers roved upward, feverishly caressing his hair and beard, his brow and his cheeks.
    She heard Remy’s breath quicken and she reveled