Art of Love

Excerpt

For an instant, Alain looked more marble than flesh. A shiver went down Abigail’s spine when he stood, casting off the quipster’s suggestion with a sly smile. Potency hung around this man the way his indecently long hair hung past his shoulders. She didn’t know much about men, but he wore the look of one who would rather fight than read.

“Je m’appelle Alain,” he said in flawless, unaccented French.

She could only stare at him as the reasonable part of her mind nagged at her to think. The man was in Paris for the same reason as she: to learn. It was logical to assume that he was educated, and learned men did not rape, murder, and ransack.

“Your name?”

“Abi… Abelard. Abelard, like the great scholar.”

He smiled, sort of.

“If you change your mind, I am at Place Voleuse.”

“Place of the Thief?”

“Aye.”

Giric muttered something. Alain half-turned and answered in the same gibberish, only it sounded like verse from his mouth. She had no idea of the language. It was not Latin or Italian, or even the hideous noise of English or German. Whatever the exchange, it made Alain laugh. The sound was unexpectedly warm, changing his whole persona and giving him a boyish, almost approachable air.

But it was a false impression. Instinct told her Alain was no bored boy. He was as dangerous to her charade as a misogynistic monk, but for very different reasons.