Don't Tempt Me

Chapter 2

The coast of France, three days earlier…

Lysette Rousseau, an accomplished assassin, inhaled the sea air through the cabin window and wondered why her rapidly approaching demise did nor frighten her. Her livelihood had shown her many faces of death. Most had been terror-stricken and accompanied by desperate pleas for mercy. She attempted to dredge up similar attachment to her own life and felt nothing. Death would be a reprieve; she could think of it no other way.

The ship she was prisoner upon would dock on the coast of France by morning. What awaited her there was unknown. She had been sent on a mission to recover information in England and was instead captured. Two more French agents had been held behind as leverage. Another was dead by her hand. It was quite possible, given the disastrous results, that this night would be her last. Yet the knowledge had such little impact, she scarcely felt it.

She was not a woman to ruminate over her emotions, but she did ponder how her lack of memory had become a lack of joie de vivre. Her past prior to two years ago was a mystery to her. Without roots to ground her and give her an anchor, Lysette was adrift. Aimless. Perhaps some would find it strange that an existence fueled by the power of others would be so exhausting, but for her it was.

The lock turned in the door behind her and her keeper entered.

"I have brought you supper," Simon Quinn said in a voice designed to lead women to ruin. The sensuality of the low, deep tone was not an affectation; it was inherent to the man.

Lysette turned to face him, noting how his simple attire of shirtsleeves and breeches together with his dark, unbound hair gave him the appearance of a pirate. In truth he was a mercenary who had spent the last several years in service to the Crown of England. That made him her opponent in a fashion, yet she felt safer with him than with any other man. He felt no sexual attraction to her, a state proven by the last few months of near constant proximity to each other. She had even offered sex to him once, and he had declined. Due to his lack of interest, she almost liked him. Almost.

"I am not hungry," she said, watching as he set a plate of salted meat and hard biscuits on the round table in the corner.

A black brow lifted and brilliant blue eyes assessed her from head to toe. Simon was Irish, his breeding evident in both his coloring and the inflection that tinged his every word. He was stunningly attractive and dangerously charming. He could offer a woman the world with a single smile… with the caveat that it was only a temporary gift. Simon was not a man to become a permanent fixture in anyone's life. That sense of transience was a potent lure. She'd watched women fall into his lap without any effort on his part.

"You need to eat," he said.

"The rolling of the ship does not sit well with my stomach."

He ran a hand through his inky locks, the gesture rife with frustration. The movement of his arm was graceful, the large biceps flexing powerfully. Simon bore the form of a common laborer, which attracted more women than it repelled. Lysette admired it with the same offhand attention with which she contemplated death.

"Does our arrival tomorrow… disturb you?" he asked grudgingly.

"Would it plague your conscience if it did?"

The glare he shot her made her laugh.

She knew he regarded her with wary confusion. He sensed the division in her caused by her lack of memory, but he had yet to learn the reason for it. Lysette viewed her missing past as a vulnerability, and she had learned-in the most heinous fashion-that she could not afford any further liabilities beyond her gender.

"You do not even attempt to be likable," he complained.

"No," she agreed, moving to occupy the only chair in the room, a walnut spindle-back with a contoured seat. They shared a fairly comfortable cabin and yet the first days had been some of the tensest in her short recollection. She was not accustomed to keeping such close quarters with men, especially over a length of time. "You will be free of me tomorrow."

"Ha!" Simon sat on the edge of her bed to remove his boots. A hammock slung across the far corner served as his sleeping place. It swung gently as the ship rolled, a sight that often lulled her into daydreams of a brighter future. "I would have been free of you in England, if you had not been lying, deceiving, and making mischief the entire length of our association."

"That is my livelihood, mon amour."

"Soon to be inflicted on some other unfortunate soul."

"Your hypocrisy is impressive."

He glared. "I resigned my commission before leaving England. I am returning you to France only because of my men. If not for them, I would be elsewhere. Far from you."

"Ah."

While she wore a mocking smile on the outside, on the inside she admired his loyalty and sense of responsibility. His underlings-a dozen men who had worked covertly on his behalf-were now being held against their will as insurance for her return. His resignation freed him from any obligation for their safety, yet he pressed on, regardless.

"As to whether or not I will be free of you tomorrow, I doubt it. This will not be a swift exchange," he said, surprising her. "I will see all of my men first. Should one of them be injured, we will wait for his full recovery before proceeding. In addition, we must negotiate the terms for Jacques and Cartland. Much will depend on how cooperative Comte Desjardins is."

"And if you do not regain all of them?"

Simon glanced at her. "Then, your people will not regain you."

"Perhaps you will never be rid of me."

He growled. "That would not be pleasant for you."

"Oh, I might beg to disagree. You are pleasing to the eye and you maintain a surly sort of charm."

When other men would have made her life a misery, Simon had seen to her comfort and care, albeit grudgingly. His tarnished honor fascinated her. Lysette had spent their time together attempting to discern what fueled him. If she could discover that, the knowledge would be to her advantage.

"Witch," Simon muttered in response to her taunting.

She placed her slippered feet atop a roughly hewn wooden footstool with a silent sigh. Did she have a family or anyone to care for her and miss her? Did someone pine for her and wonder at her disappearance from their lives? She had no notion of what motivated a man like Simon, what roads in life had led him to hire himself out for money, but she knew what motivated her-the desire to regain the knowledge of her identity. She required funds and resources for such an undertaking, and the skill to kill anyone who impeded her quest.

When she had set out for England with Simon, she'd planned to return under far different circumstances. The Comte Desjardins had promised her freedom in return for the identity of the mastermind behind Simon's spying in France. Instead, she returned a prisoner.

"Eat," Simon ordered, gesturing to the table.

Lysette considered demurring again, then decided she did not want to spend her last night arguing with the only person in the world she liked at all.

So she obeyed, pushing thoughts of the morrow far from her mind.