When trying to pull away failed, she instead threw herself against his chest again so that at least he could shake her no more. Though when she looked up into his face, she knew well her eyes were not the empty windows she usually gave him. “Perhaps I fear you, Remi. Perhaps I fear what a life with you will mean.”
His smile was more a sneer, the hand he slid into her hair more threat than comfort. “Do as you should, ma chérie, and you will have nothing to fear.” His fingers fisted around her curls, and again he used it to tilt her face up. “You are willful. You have hidden it well all this time, but there it shines from your eyes. Rest assured I shall break you of it, ma belle.”
From where did the courage to smirk come? She didn’t know, but it felt like a sort of victory upon her lips. “Would it not be easier to simply lay claim to a more docile female? That is your practice when your current one fails you, is it not? Simply choose another. And you are in luck this time, Remi, for we are not yet wed. You need not wait for me to die to find a better mademoiselle.”
Her victory turned to ashes at the smile he gave her. “You think that is all you are, Julienne? A replacement upon whom I decided, like a pair of boots when I saw the need for them? Non. From the first moment I saw you, I knew you were mine. Mine, mon amour, no matter your ridiculous fiancé or my weak-minded wife.”
Ice blew over her blood. “You did not even know me when I was still betrothed to Fran?ois.”
His chuckle lit fear anew within her, which crackled and flicked to life when he locked his other arm around her waist. “Know you? Non. But I saw you. I had just sent my wife to the chateau after her diagnosis, was just coming to grips with how she had failed me, when there you were in the gardens. A vision of beauty unlike any I had ever seen, with those eyes that could pierce a man through. I knew then I must have you, that you were made to be mine.”
Her throat constricted at the terrible confidence in his eyes. “But…”
“But there was your precious Fran?ois? Oui, a truth which caused me no little irritation at first. How fortunate he was so clumsy in the woods, non?”
He could not be implying…non, that was too terrible, too low even for him. To dispose of an enemy who had wronged him, oui, that she expected of him. But a man who had done nothing but choose a woman he later decided he wanted? She shook her head—or tried to, though his grip allowed for little movement. “Non, Remi, it was not fortunate. It was a terrible tragedy.”
“Come now.” He leaned forward and nipped at her ear before pressing his lips to her throat. The shiver that overtook her was far, far different from the one that had danced down her spine when Isaac had kissed the same spot not fifteen minutes earlier. “I could hardly allow an insolent pup like him to remain between us.”
Non, non…her eyes slid shut, but the horror would not be blotted out so easily. “But Remi, he…he was not between us. He had ended our betrothal just that morning. He planned to marry my friend Lynette.”
“Quoi?” He pulled back and forced her face up again. When she opened her eyes, she saw a storm raging through his eyes. “He would have tossed you over for her? Then he was too stupid to live anyway.”
“Remi!”
“He was a maggot, nothing more. Forget him.”
She already had in every way that mattered. But Remi, his behavior, his tyranny—that she could never forget. And must, at any cost, escape. “Does life mean so little to you?”
He arched a single brow. “Life? I think it a fragile thing. So easily snuffed out when a person does not value it enough to guard it. One stray shot from a rifle. One twist of a neck.”
She swallowed hard when his fingers closed around hers.
But he chuckled. “Your neck is far too lovely to ruin, mon ange, unless you force my hand. Your skin far too perfect to mar.” He turned her face and examined her cheek, probing at where he had struck her. She winced and whimpered and tried to pull away, but he held her tight. Made a tsking noise. “Look what you have done, Julienne. It will bruise.”
What she had done?
Before she could wrap her tongue around a retort, the door opened, and Mère swept in. Her mother’s gaze widened, and she rushed forward, knocking Remi’s hands away so she could examine Julienne’s cheek with her gentle touch.
Strange how her maman’s presence could make her want nothing more than to let her knees go weak and the tears come.
“Ma fille, what has happened?”
Remi stepped away, his face once again the work of carefully chiseled stone that he wore for the public. “I caught your daughter in the arms of the comte d’Ushant, madame.”
“Julienne, non.” Their gazes locked, and though Julienne saw the very real outrage in her mother’s eyes, she saw too the light of understanding. “How could you be so—Did he do this to you?”
Julienne covered Mère’s hand with her own, hoping to soothe away the tremor she’d heard. “No, Maman.” She looked past her mother to Remi.