A Daring Passion

word, unlike your lover. Now, my reward.”

Raine held out her hand. She could not afford to be duped. Jean-Pierre’s life might very well hang in the balance.

“I wish to see the papers first.”

Seurat took an awkward step forward, his features twisted in anger. “You doubt my honor?”

Raine did not flinch, her hand still held out. “I wish to make certain that it has been witnessed by a priest.”

The man muttered a string of curses, but at last he shoved the parchment into Raine’s hand. “There. Are you satisfied?”

Raine shifted so that the moonlight spilled on the paper in her hand. She was briefly startled by the elegant script, until she realized Seurat’s duties in Egypt would have also included keeping records for his employees. Turning her attention to the actual words, she read through the confession and then studied the wax seal at the bottom.

It did appear that all was in order and she lifted her head to meet his glittering gaze.

“And I have your promise not to trouble the Gautier family any further?” she insisted.

“Sacrebleu, I have given you my word,” he groused, and then his gaze shifted over her shoulder, his eyes widening in horror. “Damn you.”

“What?”

“You have tricked me.”

Uncertain what the blazes was troubling the man, Raine slowly turned her head, her heart lodging in her throat as she watched Carlos bounding past her to tackle Seurat to the ground.

“No,” she screamed.

Seurat futilely battled the far larger man, his head turning to give Raine a wounded glare.

“May your soul rot in hell,” he rasped.

“Halt,” she cried. “Carlos, what are you doing? You gave me your pledge that you would not interfere.”

Arms, as hard as granite, suddenly wrapped around her from behind, jerking her painfully against a male body.

“Ah, but I gave you no such pledge,” a voice whispered in her ear with a lethal softness, a hand reaching beneath her cloak and wrenching the bundle of money from her grasp.

Raine knew immediately whose arms imprisoned her. There was only one man who could make her heart leap and her blood run hot with a mere touch.

Turning her head, she glared at her captor. “Philippe. What are you doing here?”

His expression was grim, his eyes as hard as emeralds. “Do not say a word, meu amor.”

“But…”

His arms tightened until they threatened to cut off her breath. “Not a word if you value your soft hide.”

Philippe waited until he was certain that Raine would heed his warning, then, ignoring the urge to shake the exasperating woman until her teeth rattled, he loosened his grip and stepped past her.

In silence he watched as Carlos at last subdued the struggling Seurat and hauled him to his feet by the cuff of his coat.

The man who had been his family’s nemesis for years was smaller than he expected. His head would barely reach Philippe’s chin and he was thin enough that it appeared a stiff breeze would send him tumbling. Hardly the fearsome opponent of Philippe’s imagination.

At the moment, however, he was indifferent to the realization that such a tiny, pathetic creature could have caused him such grief. He was even astonishingly indifferent to the fact that Seurat was captured and his troubles had seemingly come to an end.

For the past half hour he had been consumed with the driving fear that Raine was about to slip from his grasp. It had burned through him with a searing fury that refused to be dismissed, even now that he was forced to accept that he might have been mistaken in her purpose.

Perhaps Raine had not intended to leave him. At least not on this night. But what of tomorrow? Or the next day? She had already proved that she was capable of deceit, of plotting behind his back and accomplishing the impossible feat of luring Seurat from his well-hidden lair. She had even managed to seduce Carlos into her web. Who was to say that she might not use those talents to escape him the next occasion he was forced to leave her side?