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not have looked at St. Bernard’s.”
    â€œI’m not interested in a whore.” When she winced at his crude language, he laughed again. “My dear Fraulein D’Orage, you misunderstand me. I do not intend to ask you actually to be my mistress. I want you to play the role of my mistress in Vienna. I need an intelligent woman who can play the part at the same time she listens to the conversations around her. A man might let slip to a lovely woman what he would not say otherwise.”
    â€œListen?” she asked icily. “This is all I must do?”
    â€œYou must convince anyone we meet you are my beloved mistress.”
    â€œI shall not fawn over you and let you touch me like a lover.”
    â€œFawn over me? You?” The edge returned to his laugh. “No, I would not ask such a horrible thing of you. The duties we discussed earlier have not changed. You need to be by my side during meetings and translate for me. To keep from being too conspicuous, I thought I would lament about a war injury that left me hard of hearing. Then you can whisper the translation into my ear.”
    Michelle was not sure if he was being honest or jesting. “If you wish to be inconspicuous, I don’t think that is a very good plan.”
    â€œDo you have another?”
    â€œHave you considered the truth? That you do not speak French well and that I am traveling with you to assist you. Very simple and the truth.”
    His finger moved along her cheek in an aimless caress. When she inched back, his hand on her waist halted her. Resting his cheek against hers, he murmured, “But no one would believe that.”
    â€œWhy not? It is the truth.” She quivered as he chuckled, the warmth of his breath swirling into her ear and through her like a summer storm. His fingers slipped along her back and drew her closer. The brush of his rugged face urged her to soften against him, to touch his muscular arms, to delight in the texture of his skin.
    His voice was rough as he whispered, “The truth will not work because nobody would believe that Alexei Vatutin would have a lovely woman like you by his side and let her sleep alone.”
    â€œI—” Her voice caught as his fingers cupped her chin and brought her mouth beneath his. Slowly, so slowly she wondered if this was some exquisite torture he had devised, he lowered his face toward hers. His hand roved along her back to press her to the unyielding wall of his chest.
    Suddenly he cursed and released her. She gripped the footboard of the bed as she watched him stride to pick up the damp cloth and toss it into the bucket. Struggling to regain her breath, she wondered how long she had been holding it.
    His hand fisted. When he pounded it against the ceiling that brushed the top of his head, she flinched. A dozen questions filled her mind, but she did not dare let a single one pass her lips.
    â€œAlexei?” she whispered.
    He faced her, and she wished he had not, for his eyes gleamed with green fire. Walking back to her, he lifted a strand of her hair from her shoulder. “There shall be times when I must hold you,” he said, each word squeezed past his straight lips. “You cannot act as if you have never been in a man’s arms before.”
    â€œI haven’t—I—”
    His laughter halted her. “I guessed that, but now you have been.”
    When he walked away again, Michelle resisted snarling a curse after him. He considered this amusing, but it was not. Quietly she said, “I think it would be best if I returned to St. Bernard’s in the morning.”
    â€œI think you are wrong.”
    â€œThis was not what I agreed to do.”
    Alexei turned to her. As he regarded her without comment, a blush banished the cool ashen color from her face. If she was embarrassed by such a slight hint of intimacy, she had much to learn before they reached Vienna. The lessons needed to begin now. She must learn to