“And you? Do you have an equally active imagination in that respect?”
She laughed lightly. “I do not need one. I have already seen what you are capable of, have I not?”
He laid his free hand in the small of her back and lowered his voice. “Oh, sweeting, you have only seen a fraction of what I’m capable of.”
A delicious heat swept up and down her from where his hand lay familiarly there. Deftly, she removed his hand. “And I need not see any more.” She had no doubt that if she did, he would reduce her to a puddle at his feet. And she could not afford to be quite so … liquid. He would drink her down in a heartbeat, the devil.
She could feel his gaze on her, hot and intense, but she dared not meet it. Instead, she fumbled for a less dangerous topic of conversation. “By the way, I have been meaning to ask you—whateverhappened to the gentleman in your circle who was supposed to escape with the four of you?”
He sighed, obviously unhappy at the change in subject. Heath always seemed to want to flirt, even when they both knew it meant nothing to him.
“His name was Sir Percy?” she prodded. “He had very blond hair, and eyes of the most beautiful blue.”
“Sir Percy Tindale, yes,” he said with a scowl. “Surely you know he was packed off to Arras for … er … an infraction.”
“I heard that, but what sort of infraction? There were many rumors about it.”
Heath looked torn. “Um … well … one night at the theater someone angered him, and he … er … lifted his coat tails, bent over, and showed his … bottom to the entire theater.”
“No!”
“Yes. I was there. Although hewasfairly drunk at the time.”
“I knew it was a popular way of showing one’s displeasure among peasants, but for an Englishman of rank to do it—”
“Oh, trust me, I’ve seen English schoolboys of rank do it a time or two,” he drawled. “And it turns up in caricatures often. Anyway, Percy was hauled off by the gendarmes and thrown into the Citadel, then sent to Arras. That was the last we saw of him.”
“How unfair! That is hardly worth sending him to Arras for. I had heard he had cheated at cards, a much more serious infraction.”
“That would have been unlikely,” Heath said. “I mean, Percy enjoyed gambling as much as the next Englishman, but he was a gentleman. He would never have cheated.”
“Still, did not another détenu show his bottom in the theater a few years before Sir Percy did? That man got thrown in the Citadel, too, and they even closed the gates to other détenus for several days. But after a few weeks passed, he was allowed to come out. He was not sent to Arras or Bitche.”
“That was when Wirion was running the camp, and we could get forgiveness for many infractions by bribing him. But not Courcelles. As you may recall, Courcelles’s wrath burned long and hot.”
“How true.” She shook her head. “Thatcanaillewas as eager to punish the English as Napoleon himself was. How unfair thatSir Percy got into trouble before he could escape with you and your friends.”
“Unfair? He was lucky, to be honest. Or not so lucky if we are to believe the gossip. Surely you must have heardthat.”
“No, I left Verdun to go home to Maman once my father and you three were captured. There was no more point in staying.”
He arched an eyebrow. “I thought you were avoiding a suitor in Paris.”
“I was when I left Paris.” She shrugged. “But that was almost seven years before, and by then he had married another. Not to mention that Maman had started asking my cousin to convince me to come home.”
“So, why did you want to know about Sir Percy, anyway?” Heath asked.
“I was merely curious. The five of you were close, as I recall.”
Sir Percy, too, had been a flirt like Heath but had been too much a gentleman to progress beyond flirting.
It was shameful to admit, but she preferred Heath’s boldness. Or at least she had before she realized he merely saw her as he probably saw all women—as a potential conquest. She did not want a man to conquer her. She wanted him to woo her. It was not the same thing.
“Anyway, what was the gossip? What happened to him in Arras?” Giselle asked. “Or do you know?”
“Supposedly, he died there.”
She gaped at him. “How awful!”