Free The Courtesan by Susan Carroll Page A

in every rise and fall of his chest. When she traced her trembling fingers over the outline of his mouth, felt the warm rush of his breath, Gabrielle gave a broken laugh that bordered on hysteria.
    “You are really not dead,” she whispered.
    “No,” he replied huskily. Catching her hand, he pressed his lips fervently against her palm. “And for the first time in three years, I am actually glad about that.”
    She lifted her face, gazing straight into Remy’s intense dark eyes. Her own misted with tears. By some miracle, she knew not how, the fates had brought Remy back to her. Not as a ghost, but wondrously, gloriously alive.
    With a glad cry, Gabrielle flung her arms about his neck and she did something she realized she should have done years ago. She buried her fingers in Remy’s hair and crushed her mouth eagerly to his.
    She felt Remy stiffen in astonishment, but only for a moment. Then he was kissing her back, ravaging her lips with a hunger and passion that left her dizzy. Gabrielle clung to his shoulders, returning his kiss just as greedily, seeking his mouth again and again, unable to get enough of him.
    “Remy . . . my dearest Remy,” she breathed. Her lips parted before his, giving him deeper access. Gabrielle moaned low in her throat as she felt the heat of his tongue against hers, tasted the vitality flowing through him. Her pulse seemed to thunder the wondrous tidings in her ears. Remy is alive . . . alive.
    Gabrielle’s heart swelled with such joy, it was painful. When their lips parted, she was panting hard and so was Remy. He gave her the uncertain smile of a man who could scarce believe his good fortune.
    Gabrielle attempted to return his smile, but the full shock of Remy’s return from the dead overcame her at last. Remy’s features blurred before her eyes and she felt her knees tremble and begin to give.
    Then Gabrielle Cheney did something she had never done before in the entire course of her life. Her head falling back limply, she swooned in a man’s arms, sinking into a dead faint.

    Nicolas Remy had walked the paths of nightmare ever since the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Eve, but tonight he felt as though he had strayed into a dream. His thick boots sank into the luxurious Turkish carpet of a bedchamber fit for a princess, with a high vaulted ceiling, tall latticed windows, and magnificent paintings adorning the walls.
    A stately bed carved of mahogany and hung with pale cream-colored silk curtains embroidered with roses dominated the room. Gabrielle seemed all but lost in the middle of that vast bed, her blond hair fanned across a large feather tick pillow. Gold-tipped eyelashes rested against her cheeks, her face so white and still that Remy’s heart wrenched with a fear he’d never known on a battlefield.
    “God in heaven, I—I’ve killed her,” he muttered hoarsely.
    “No such thing,” the brisk voice of Gabrielle’s maid replied. Bette was a buxom young woman with a competent air about her, her face completely calm beneath her lace-trimmed cap. She elbowed Remy aside, bending down to chafe Gabrielle’s wrists.
    He should have thought of that himself, Remy reflected, but both his mind and his limbs seemed to have gone numb. The quick reflexes that had enabled him to leap to the aid of many a fallen comrade seemed to have utterly deserted him. He felt completely helpless before the pale slip of a woman stretched out on the bed.
    Remy was only galvanized into motion when Bette ordered him to fetch some water. He carried an ewer over from the washstand, sloshing half the contents onto the carpet in his haste.
    Bette dampened a cloth, which she applied to Gabrielle’s brow. As she started to loosen Gabrielle’s bodice, she said, “You’ll have to leave now, Captain Remy. Wait out in the hall.”
    “No!” Remy protested. “I can’t just—”
    “You can and will,” Bette said. “When mistress comes round, she’d hardly thank me for displaying her teats to