Only With Your Love (Vallerands #2)(56)

“Dammit, it’s my face too!” Justin pulled her closer, and she dropped her forehead on his shoulder, crying weakly. He spoke against her ear, sounding shaken. “It’s my face too.”

The feel of Celia weeping against him made his heart beat in an anxious staccato. He wanted to kiss her, wanted her to stop her broken sobbing. Fumbling for a handkerchief, he found the neatly folded one Noeline had tucked in his coat. Unused to drying anyone’s tears, he pressed it against her half-hidden face and dabbed clumsily at her cheeks. Gasping, she took it from him and blew her nose.

Justin did not notice Lysette and Noeline standing in the doorway. He rubbed Celia’s spine and kneaded the back of her neck while she fought to control her emotions. “Help me to the sofa,” he said. “I’m about to lose my balance.”

Lysette pulled Noeline away from the doorway, and they exchanged a worried glance before deciding tacitly to let the pair settle the matter on their own.

Sniffling, Celia helped Justin ease down into a sitting position on the sofa. He pulled her beside him, his hand wrapped firmly around her upper arm.

“Let me go,” she whispered.

“Not until you look at me,” he said roughly. “You should be able to see the differences between me and Philippe. Look and tell me you see them.” When she did not move, he caressed the inside of her arm with his thumb. “Celia. Don’t be afraid.”

Slowly her gaze wandered up to his face. He was right. To strangers they would have been identical, but to those who knew them it was certainly possible to tell them apart. Justin’s shocking blue eyes were different from Philippe’s gentle ones. His nose was a shade longer, and his mouth was a little wider, his lower lip more deeply curved.

His body, too, was different. The clothes he was wearing would have fit Philippe perfectly, but Justin was leaner, toughened by years of scavenging and fighting. He had lost even the minimal amount of fat that most healthy, active men possessed. Unwillingly Celia remembered how he had been before his injuries, when he had rescued her from Isle au Corneille, the power and limitless strength that had flowed from him.

He had the same long black eyelashes as Philippe, the same cowlick, and the same dark handsomeness. “I see the difference,” she croaked. “And the likeness.”

Not a muscle in his face moved, but there was an odd play of concern and anger in his eyes. “I’m not Philippe.”

“I know,” she whispered sadly.

“Are you going to think of him every time you look at me?”

“I…I don’t know.” She winced as his grip on her arm tightened until it began to hurt. “Oh—”

Suddenly he let go of her. “This situation is obscene,” he snarled. He couldn’t stand the thought of her being reminded of Philippe, comparing him to Philippe, looking at him and wanting Philippe. It was insane for him to be jealous of a dead man. Of his own brother.

Both of them found relief from the tension by setting their tempers free.

“Ce n’etait pas mon idée,” she said heatedly, too upset to speak in English.

“It wasn’t mine either! It was my father’s idea, an idiotic one. Go find him—tell him we’re not going to do it!”

“We have no choice!” she snapped. “It is too late now.”

They glared at each other, and Justin raised a hand to his jaw, remembering too late that there was no beard to stroke. He cursed violently. “Dammit, I want my beard back!”

“It was a nasty beard,” she said, continuing to glare at him as she blew her nose once more. “Philippe would never have allowed himself to look like a goat.”

“Aye, there were a hell of a lot of things Philippe never allowed himself to do. But I’m not Philippe.”

“It is not necessary to keep telling me that!”

“Then stop looking at me as if—”

“I see,” Max said from the doorway, “that we have a marital squabble brewing.”

Justin stared at him icily. “This isn’t going to work.”

“Yes it is,” Celia said in determination, scrubbing the handkerchief over her moist face. “I have not made you well only to see you arrested and hanged. I refuse to have endured the past two dreadful weeks all for nothing!”

“No one asked you to do a damn thing,” Justin sneered.

“Then who was it that shouted for me to run up the stairs, down the stairs, every time you wanted a drink of water or—”

“Assez,” Max said sharply. “Enough. Perhaps the two of you have forgotten that the lieutenant will be arriving at any moment.” His hard golden eyes moved from Celia’s flushed face to Justin’s inscrutable one. “The two of you do not exactly give the appearance of a loving husband and wife. Let me remind you that Justin’s life depends on how convincing you are.” He was interrupted before he could finish the lecture.

“Monsieur,” Noeline came to inform him serenely, “de lieutenant is coming up de drive.”

Celia started up from the sofa, but Justin pulled her back down. “Stay here,” he said quietly. Wide-eyed, she watched as Maximilien strode out of the room to the entrance hall. The parlor was abruptly quiet except for the ticking of the figured bronze clock on the mantel. “Where is Lysette?” Justin asked.