10:00 a.m.
Deuss du Devaire, France
15 May, 1784

Twenty-year-old Luc du Croix stared blankly ahead of him, his unfocused gaze aimed in the general direction of the portrait of the Count's silly little daughter, proudly displayed above the hearth of his country chateau.

"She's beautiful, isn't she Jâguer?"

He nodded reflexively, though his eyes were far too glazed over with sleep and hangover to allow for a proper assessment. It didn't matter anyway. Whatever the Count said would have to pass for the truth. No one crossed an aristocrat in his own home.

"She's coming back from Switzerland today. I send her to school there."

"Educated," he murmured, more for his own benefit than the Count's. Country brats were useless once educated. The Count of all people ought to have figured that out, given his own history with wives.

"Yes, educated," he said with a fond laugh. "This is the age of the Enlightenment after all, young man."

Luc muttered an unmemorable, garbled reply before making a lame effort to sit up straighter in his seat.

"I've been talking to people about you," said the Count with a brusque smile and a noncommittal wave of his hand. "Well, I'm sure you've realized…I mean, sir, that is the reason that I've asked you here…to the country, and for the hunting as well of course, but—but nevertheless"—

He looked in vain for some sort of a reassuring reaction from the Viscount. Luc, however, was too preoccupied with his own throbbing headache to note the lapse in conversation.

"But nevertheless—"

"Yes?" he finally said, following a lengthy pause.

"Nevertheless, I had hoped that you would stay here for somewhat longer than the week."

"Longer?" Luc considered his options. For the security of the enviable fortune he was rapidly accumulating during his months at sea, it would behoove him to remain on the continent several months longer. If those months could be distributed evenly between friends, lovers, and the eccentric but wealthy parents of teenage country countesses, then perhaps staying at the chateau hunting, drinking, and swapping stories would work out squarely with his schedule.

"Yes, longer," said the Count. "Long enough, at least, until I can…until I can—acquaint you, with my daughter. My daughter Alix. The one in the…in the portrait, Jâguer!" he hissed, betraying his impatience as Luc's head bobbed forward limply.

"Right. Pretty portrait," he murmured distractedly. "Pretty, educated country—country—sweetheart."

"Yes sir, my daughter Alix the Comtessa Deuss du Dèvaire."

"That's right!" shouted a piercing, juvenile voice streaking down the hallway outside the drawing room. Luc cringed in agony as the shrill stammering continued. "Papa I missed you! You'll never believe what we saw coming in through the county—"

"Alix, there's—someone here—I want you to—Alix—"

"Wolves! It must have been wolves. I've never seen so much blood. I swear it slaughtered a whole flock of sheep. They say the shepherdess died as well, although surely there would be no identifying a body following an attack like that. Can you imagine—"

"Alix, please," he growled insistently. The little spitfire's meandering monologue finally teetered to a halt as she turned to face her unexpected guest.

"Oh," she whispered under her breath. She made a weak attempt to compensate for her general carelessness with an uncoordinated curtsy. "Good afternoon."

"Alix, this is Luc du Croix, the Viscount du Jâguer. And likewise, this is my daughter Alix—my thirteen-year-old daughter Alix," he said emphatically, adding an apologetic smile.

"I, well, I'm fourteen now," she murmured. The Count shot her a disapproving glare, at which Luc immediately sat up at attention. The poor girl was just clumsy. She hardly deserved her father's wrath all on his account.

Despite his hangover, he did his best to assume a polite, perhaps even over-friendly mask of diplomacy to appease the Comtessa's exacting father.

"Well, Alix, it's a pleasure to meet you," he said, smiling. "Why don't you sit here beside me? You look like you could use a drink."

"Sir"—

"No, no I insist. Come here."

With a shy but endearing smile, Alix paced across the room to the couch over which Luc had sprawled himself half an hour earlier. She glanced appreciatively at his long limbs, swarthy complexion, and handsome, grownup features.

"I'm Alix," she said stupidly.

"Yes, I realize."

She blushed furiously.

"You're a pretty girl, Alix," he added with a charitable smile. It was true, despite her awkward little figure and underdeveloped charm, even he could see a wealth of potential behind the years of her negligent upbringing.

"Alix?" growled the Count.

"Oh—right—thank you," she said. "You're—er—you're quite handsome as well, sir." She blushed again.

Flustered by her gracelessness, the Viscount Jâguer found that he was beginning to lose his patience. Playing the dashing suitor to a wealthy country countess would have been one matter. But pandering to a foolish little child with skinny arms and the body of an eleven-year-old boy was a far more taxing enterprise.

"Now Alix," said the Count cautiously, sensing Luc's aversion to her childish awe, "why don't you run to your room and see to it that your things are unpacked properly?"

"Yes, and then we'll see about that drink, won't we?" the Viscount muttered under his breath while pinching the bridge of his nose. He tried to cover the agitated expression that had seized hold of his face throughout his conversation with the poor, transparent girl.

Alix's lip quivered in unspoken protest as she looked once more toward the Viscount Jâguer, his dexterous adolescent body bent at the middle and sunken deep in the plush couch. He looked uninterested in her father's plans, especially those that concerned her. And yet, to spite it all, he seemed nonetheless interested in her individually. She felt what she thought was an instant connection with him—one that channeled between them whenever his dark eyes locked on hers.

But then the connection faded. She stood up and quietly backed out of the room, though her thoughts remained fixed to the floor at his feet. He was the most courteous, most amazing, most interesting thing she had ever seen—and he had called her pretty! Pretty was practically beautiful, wasn't it? Deeply impressed, and even more deeply smitten, the lanky little Comtessa du Dévaire skipped up the stairs two at a time, more impatient than ever to see her father's guest again.