Page 23 of Dagger’s Shield

“We need to go,” I said, moving toward the door.

“Wait. There’s one more thing.”

“I think four is enough for tonight.”

“There’s this.” He reached into his pocket and took the ring out. “They’ll expect to see this when we make the announcement.” He slid it on my finger, then brought my hand to his lips. He turned my hand over and used his mouth on my palm like I’d wanted him to on my lips.

“What are you doing?” I tried to get him to release my hand.

“We need more practice.”

“We do not.”

“I disagree completely. Which means I have no intention of missing a single opportunity to put my lips anywhere I can on your body.”

“Dagger, please.”

The same expression he’d worn at the camp yesterday came over his face. “I’m sorry. I promised I wouldn’t⁠—”

I raised myself on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “Don’t be, mon chevalier.”

The smile that spread across his face was unlike any I’d seen from him before.

While my father made a point of apologizing too many times for the hastily thrown-together dinner, given my lack of notice, the meal was wonderful anyway. The kitchen staff had prepared a lovely roast and a gratin that were served with fresh bread, cheeses, and fruit.

“How long are you staying?” Rémy asked during a break in courses.

“Through Christmas, surely,” my father said before I could answer. “She has not spent the holidays at Valais in years. I will not hear of her leaving before it.”

“I’ll stay as long as you’ll have me,” I said, and meant it more than he knew.

My mother said little, but she watched me across the table as though she still could not quite believe I was there. I remembered the Christmases of my childhood, when the house was full and bright and my mother was at the center of it all. She hardly looked like the same person.

The two bottles of wine my father had brought up from the cellar were presented with the practiced flair he always showed when there was an audience. He’d opened the second when Dagger set down his glass, took my hand, looked around the table, and said we had news.

He told it far better than I could have. We’d met through a client, he said, and he’d known within the week that he’d marry me. He turned the ring on my finger toward the candles while he said it, so it caught the light. My mother’s eyes filled, and she pressed her hands to her mouth. Rémy stood and came around the table to clap Dagger on the back and embrace me. My father stood too, raised his glass, and made a toast to the domaine, the future, and our family.

I barely heard a word of it. My gaze kept drifting to my mother. I’d lied to her my whole adult life. She thought I booked travel for wealthy people. She had no idea what I actually did or where I actually went, and I’d made my peace with that years ago. This was different. I was sitting at her table, watching her cry with happiness over an engagement that wasn’t real, in a house I’d come to so I could investigate her husband. No lie had ever been as big as that one.

We said good night soon after. We’d had a long day of travel, I explained. No one argued. We both looked exactly as tired as we were.

Upstairs, with the door shut, Dagger looked at the sofa, then at me.

“Don’t even think about it,” I said before he could speak. “We’ve already established you won’t fit. I’ll take it.”

“Maëlle, you’re not sleeping on a sofa. I cannot allow it.”

“Then, we share the bed. I’m not lying awake all night, listening to you try to fold yourself onto that thing. We’re two grown adults. We’ll share, and you’ll stay on your side.”

He smiled. “And if I don’t?”

“Then, I’ll treat you the way any Frenchwoman treats a man who forgets himself, and you won’t enjoy it.”

He grinned, wriggled his eyebrows like a child, and I threw a pillow at his head. He laughed out loud, then bent down to take off his boots.

As I watched him, I closed my fist around the ring on my left hand and wondered if I’d been misjudging Dagger or if he was exactly the kind of man I thought he was.

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