size. “I’ll need my own boots and leathers. Where do we start?”
“I have your boots here, but your leathers are still being repaired after your dunk into the Channel. But no questions? You’ve been with Trixie this past half hour or more. You have to have questions.”
She put down the blue jacket and picked up a forest-green one with discreet golden epaulettes and frog closings. “At least a dozen. You’ll answer them if and when you want to once we’re on our way. He’s already gotten quite a head start on us. Where are my knives? Or does your trust go only so far?”
Max reached behind him and produced the knives, a stiletto she kept in a specially made sheath in her right boot and the two smaller throwing knives she secreted around her body. “The horses are waiting.”
She looked at him and obviously made up her mind, her fingers going to the front buttons of the morning gown.
He held his breath as the gown slid to the floor, leaving her in a chemise made for a less generously endowed woman, her long straight legs now bare as she kicked off the too-large silken slippers.
“Hand me one of those,” she said, pointing to a stack of white shirts before grabbing her hair in both hands and quickly twisting the long locks into a knot at her nape.
She was thinner than he remembered, her collarbones more prominent. The scar on her left forearm, a protective wound courtesy of a French soldier who had been fatally introduced to her knife a moment later, didn’t look as red and angry as it had the last time he’d seen it, when he’d sewed up the wound after getting her drunk enough to be singing naughty ditties with him while he stitched.
His gut clenched. If there was one thing he never would have questioned about Zoé, it was her courage.
He held out the shirt and she pushed her arms into it, dealing swiftly with the buttons before tucking the ends into the divided skirt she’d pulled on while he’d been staring at her like a simpleton.
She sat on the edge of the cot and held up one slim bare foot. “The horses are waiting, Max.”
“Enjoying yourself?” he asked her as he helped her on with her boots. A simple, almost domesticated exercise, although he much preferred removing her boots as he straddled her legs and she provocatively traced her fingertips over his bare back...
She stood up, stamping her feet, and slid the knife into the right boot. “I think I might be,” she said as she reached for the jacket. “It’s not as if you’ve never helped me dress.”
Or undress, Max pointed out silently, picking up a saddlebag from the chair and tossing it onto the cot. “We may return today, or be gone for two. Take only whatever else you absolutely need, and we’ll be on our way.”
“Could you possibly be more vague?” Still, she did as he said before balancing the saddlebag over her shoulder. “Would it be too much if I were to ask for an apple or something else to break my fast?”
“Some grinning hulk who calls himself Jacko promised a basket of food waiting for us with the horses. We’re leaving via the kitchens. Otherwise, we’d have to pass through the gauntlet my family is probably organizing right now. Don’t forget your hat.”
She looked down at the dark green shako hat with its military gold braid. “Heaven save me, I should have chosen the blue,” she grumbled, pulling the thing down on her head in a jaunty angle.
Max tried not to register the way a few curving strands of hair framed Zoé’s perfect face, or the way the jacket of the riding habit nipped in at her slim waist, or how the intoxicating memory of the taste of her had come slamming into his head when she’d allowed the morning gown to slide down over her artfully flared hips.
They’d been lovers. Never really friends. Lovers, intimate in every way possible. Now they were neither. What joined them now was one man, Anton Boucher, and their pursuit of him, the destruction of the evil who had destroyed them
“I have your boots here, but your leathers are still being repaired after your dunk into the Channel. But no questions? You’ve been with Trixie this past half hour or more. You have to have questions.”
She put down the blue jacket and picked up a forest-green one with discreet golden epaulettes and frog closings. “At least a dozen. You’ll answer them if and when you want to once we’re on our way. He’s already gotten quite a head start on us. Where are my knives? Or does your trust go only so far?”
Max reached behind him and produced the knives, a stiletto she kept in a specially made sheath in her right boot and the two smaller throwing knives she secreted around her body. “The horses are waiting.”
She looked at him and obviously made up her mind, her fingers going to the front buttons of the morning gown.
He held his breath as the gown slid to the floor, leaving her in a chemise made for a less generously endowed woman, her long straight legs now bare as she kicked off the too-large silken slippers.
“Hand me one of those,” she said, pointing to a stack of white shirts before grabbing her hair in both hands and quickly twisting the long locks into a knot at her nape.
She was thinner than he remembered, her collarbones more prominent. The scar on her left forearm, a protective wound courtesy of a French soldier who had been fatally introduced to her knife a moment later, didn’t look as red and angry as it had the last time he’d seen it, when he’d sewed up the wound after getting her drunk enough to be singing naughty ditties with him while he stitched.
His gut clenched. If there was one thing he never would have questioned about Zoé, it was her courage.
He held out the shirt and she pushed her arms into it, dealing swiftly with the buttons before tucking the ends into the divided skirt she’d pulled on while he’d been staring at her like a simpleton.
She sat on the edge of the cot and held up one slim bare foot. “The horses are waiting, Max.”
“Enjoying yourself?” he asked her as he helped her on with her boots. A simple, almost domesticated exercise, although he much preferred removing her boots as he straddled her legs and she provocatively traced her fingertips over his bare back...
She stood up, stamping her feet, and slid the knife into the right boot. “I think I might be,” she said as she reached for the jacket. “It’s not as if you’ve never helped me dress.”
Or undress, Max pointed out silently, picking up a saddlebag from the chair and tossing it onto the cot. “We may return today, or be gone for two. Take only whatever else you absolutely need, and we’ll be on our way.”
“Could you possibly be more vague?” Still, she did as he said before balancing the saddlebag over her shoulder. “Would it be too much if I were to ask for an apple or something else to break my fast?”
“Some grinning hulk who calls himself Jacko promised a basket of food waiting for us with the horses. We’re leaving via the kitchens. Otherwise, we’d have to pass through the gauntlet my family is probably organizing right now. Don’t forget your hat.”
She looked down at the dark green shako hat with its military gold braid. “Heaven save me, I should have chosen the blue,” she grumbled, pulling the thing down on her head in a jaunty angle.
Max tried not to register the way a few curving strands of hair framed Zoé’s perfect face, or the way the jacket of the riding habit nipped in at her slim waist, or how the intoxicating memory of the taste of her had come slamming into his head when she’d allowed the morning gown to slide down over her artfully flared hips.
They’d been lovers. Never really friends. Lovers, intimate in every way possible. Now they were neither. What joined them now was one man, Anton Boucher, and their pursuit of him, the destruction of the evil who had destroyed them
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