Captivating the Scoundrel

by Darcy Burke

  And what of Daphne? Would she be angry too? Probably. If not about the wedding, which she didn’t seem to really want either, then because he’d gone to find the cloak without her. Yes, that would likely perturb her. But he didn’t care. She’d tried to force him into a marriage he didn’t want, even if it was in name only.

  As he drifted off to sleep, he tried to maintain his anger toward her. Too bad his body remembered the soft, lush curves of her petite form when she’d pressed herself against him earlier that day and the way her sweet mouth had welcomed his.

  All that was in the past. Now, she was just a dream.

  By the time Daphne rode up to Septon House, she was exhausted. And it was barely midmorning. She’d left the stables at Ashridge Court just before daybreak and had stopped to change horses five times.

  A groom met her and helped her dismount, then led her horse to the stables to cool him off and rub him down. Before they left, she thanked the animal for his speed.

  The door to the house opened, and she was ushered inside. Daphne glanced around at the entrance hall decorated with a suit of armor, weapons, and one of the most beautiful medieval tapestries she’d ever seen.

  She removed her hat and handed it to a footman before addressing the butler. “I’m here to see Lord Stratton.”

  “They are at breakfast… Ma’am?”

  “Mrs. Guilford,” she said, using her alias. She smiled for good measure.

  “I’ll show you to the drawing room.” He started to leave the hall, but she didn’t follow him. “Would you mind taking me to the breakfast room instead? My need to speak with Lord Stratton is urgent.”

  The butler had turned and now clearly struggled to keep a pained look from his expression. “Of course, ma’am.”

  He changed direction and led her from the hall. After passing through several rooms that were even more laden with antiquities than the entrance hall—because they had more space—they arrived at the breakfast room.

  “Mrs. Guilford is here to see Lord Stratton,” the butler announced.

  She stepped past him, pausing just inside the threshold and surveying the three people at the table. Stratton shot out of his chair.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  She put her hands on her hips and glowered at him. “I should ask you the same thing.”

  “I’m visiting my mother.” He glanced toward the woman seated to his right. The third person, whom she recognized as Lord Septon, was on her other side. He rose from the table. “You shouldn’t have come here,” Stratton said.

  “You shouldn’t have left me at Ashridge Court.” Her lip curled as she advanced toward him. “My father was livid when you didn’t return.”

  Stratton’s eye twitched. “Did he hurt you?”

  Taken aback, she scowled at him. “Of course not. He would never do that. Why did you leave?”

  Lady Stratton stared up at her, her gray eyes colder than a glacier. “I should think it would be obvious, Mrs. Guilford. He didn’t wish to be forced into marriage.”

  Daphne opened her mouth to refute that charge—or at least explain it—but Stratton came forward and took her by the arm, then steered her from the room with a murmured “Excuse us.”

  He guided her to a small sitting room, letting her go as soon as they entered, then turning around and closing the door. “How did you know I was here?”

  “You said you wanted to start searching for the cloak immediately, and when you didn’t return from obtaining the license yesterday afternoon, I made my own—accurate—deduction.”

  “You could have been wrong and come all this way for nothing. How in the hell did you get here?” He went to the window, which faced the drive. “How many of your father’s men are outside?”

  “None,” she said defensively. “I came alone.”

  He spun about, his gaze incredulous. “Are you completely without sense? Or mad? Or both?” He shook his hand. “Never mind. You’re clearly your father’s daughter. Which means you’re mad.”

  She ground her teeth. “My father is not mad. And neither am I. You’re the one who abandoned me.”

  “You mean I escaped your parson’s trap.” He pressed his lips together and moved away from the window. “Does your father know you’re here?”

  “No. To calm his anger, I told him that I sent you to my cottage in Keynsham to fetch my mother’s pendant so I could wear it at our wedding.”

  “Bloody hell,” he muttered.

  “Then I set out this morning to meet you,” she continued. “Or so I told the groom in the stable.”

  His eyes widened once more, and his brows dove low on his forehead. “He let you go alone? I’m tempted to go back there and ensure he’s terminated from his post.”

  “I told him my manservant was joining me. And yes, let’s go back.”

  He shook his head firmly. “Absolutely not.”

  “We must return. My father will—”

  He quickly moved toward her, not stopping until they were scarcely a foot apart. “I don’t care what your father will or won’t do. You are definitely going back. I, however, am not.”

  “I’m not going without you.” She lifted her chin and stared him in the eye. “Or without the cloak. We made a bargain to find it—together.”

  The muscles in his jaw tensed, indicating the rising level of his anger. “You violated that arrangement when you let your father announce our betrothal.”

  She clenched her fists as her spine stiffened like a steel rod. “That was not what we agreed to. I didn’t promise not to marry you! And finding the cloak together certainly wasn’t contingent on whether we wed.” She just barely kept herself from outright shouting.

  His voice had risen along with hers. “I also said I didn’t want to marry, and we agreed to spend the festival deciding if we’d suit. For the love of God, woman, why do I have to keep reminding you of that?”

  “And let me tell you again that I had no choice in the matter. My father saw that I was enamored of you—an act I had to put on; otherwise, my father would question why the heart didn’t work—and decided we should announce the betrothal immediately. I didn’t have a chance to warn you.”

  “It didn’t occur to you to say, ‘Not quite, yet, Papa’?”

  She glared at him. “Your sarcasm is unnecessary. Tell me, why would I ask him to wait when I was supposed to be irrevocably in love with you because of that stupid heart?”

  He groaned low in his throat, then turned from her to stalk back to the window. “We can’t work together to find the cloak. We can’t work together at all.”

  “Why not?” Some of her ire fled, to be replaced by a deep concern.

  He pivoted to face her but only spared her a brief glance. “Because we don’t want the same things.”

  “I didn’t really want to marry you,” she said softly—or at least softly compared to the volume at which she had been speaking. “I was just trying to find a way to help our cause.”

  “We have no cause. Not anymore.”

  “But we both want to find the cloak. We should work together. I brought the poem with me, if that helps.” She patted the front of her jacket, where she had the parchment stashed against her breast.

  He looked at her in horror. “You put it in your riding habit?”

  “It’s well protected.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t treat me like some imbecile who doesn’t understand or value antiquities. I daresay I know more about them than you do.”

  He answered her with a glare. “Your father recruited me to his cause over a decade ago.”

  She gave him a cool, superior stare. “And he ‘recruited’ me at birth.”

  He frowned at her, and she silently celebrated her small victory. “We can’t work together.”

  “You keep saying that, but we must,” she said. “Just as we must return to Ashridge Court.”

  “So we can get married?”

  She looked away from him, unable to bear the intensity of his st
are. “Yes.”

  He exhaled. “I still don’t want to marry you.”

  “I know.” She returned her attention to him and saw that he’d relaxed, if only slightly. “Which is why I offered to wed in name only. Then, later, we can get an annulment.”

  “On what basis?” His tone was dubious.

  “I haven’t quite reasoned that out yet, but I’m sure we can come up with something.”

  He seemed to consider the notion, then abruptly shook his head. “No. I don’t need to marry you. And I don’t need to return to Ashridge Court. But you do.”

  “I will not. Besides, I’ve been riding for hours, and I am not getting back on a horse.”

  “I’ll send you in a carriage. And I’ll allow you a respite. Two hours and not a moment more. I do not need your father descending upon Septon House.”

  Anger and frustration churned through her. She didn’t understand what had changed. They’d been keen to work together, and he’d at least seemed to accept the possibility of marriage. If he didn’t return to Ashridge Court, he would infuriate her father, who would exact retribution. “My father will see you thrown out of the Order.”

  “He can try, but I’m a descendant, and I am not the one leading a shadow organization within the society.”

  She stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

  He shook his head briskly. “Never mind. I misspoke. You’re free to rest here, or I can ask the butler to show you up to a chamber. Which do you prefer?”

  “A chamber.” She had no intention of going quietly, but she did want to rest. She needed to think clearly in order to develop a plan. That was rather difficult to do in the presence of this aggravating man.

  “Come.” He led her from the sitting room back into the entrance hall, where he asked the butler to take her a room where she could rest for a while.

  Stratton pierced her with a stony glare. “Be prepared to leave at noon. Any later and you won’t make it back to Ashridge Court before midnight.”

  She had no plans to return to Ashridge Court at all. Not without him. And she wasn’t going to spend her precious time at Septon Hall closeted in a room. She was going to find that bloody cloak—with or without his help.

  Chapter 8

  The food had long gone cold, but Gideon returned to the breakfast room after sending Daphne upstairs. His mother and Septon were eagerly awaiting him.

  “Miss Foliot followed you here,” Septon said.

  “Yes. By herself, the fool.” Gideon was angry about a vast array of things concerning her, but that was one of her worst offenses. To travel so far alone was madness. She was more like her father than Gideon had hoped.

  Wait, he’d hoped for her to be…anything? Why should he care about her at all?

  Because in their short acquaintance, he’d come to admire her intellect and her dedication to her work. He was also very attracted to her in a most inconvenient way. Furthermore, he just plain liked her.

  Or at least he had until she’d allowed her father to send them to the altar.

  Her proposition wasn’t the worst idea—marrying in name and then finding a reason to annul the union. It wasn’t an easy path, but it could be done. And since neither of them particularly cared to marry, they needn’t worry about ruining their social standing or reputations.

  He didn’t have to marry her, however. He’d been a bit mad himself to think Foliot would help him without exacting a terrible price. Giving him the sword and the heart should have been enough, but Gideon had been more wrong than he could have imagined.

  “So I gathered,” Septon said, drawing Gideon back to the moment. “She was observed arriving alone. I was notified just before breakfast that a single female rider was approaching the estate. I had no idea it was her, of course.”

  Gideon now had confirmation that Septon House was protected. Not that he’d doubted it. “She concocted some tale about asking me to go to her cottage in Keynsham to fetch something for our wedding.”

  “So Foliot doesn’t know that you left to avoid the wedding?” his mother asked.

  “Apparently not.”

  “There may be a way to use that to your advantage,” Septon said. “If you decide you need Foliot. I suppose we should repair to my private library to determine your next steps.” He rose and offered his hand to Gideon’s mother, guiding her to stand.

  “I’ll leave you to your business,” she said, presenting her cheek to Septon, who kissed it. “Perhaps I’ll find Miss Foliot and chastise her for trying to ensnare my son.” Her eyes twinkled with mirth, and Gideon felt a pang for all the missed years, as well as a spark of affection for her eager support.

  “Come,” Septon said, and they followed his mother from the breakfast room. They soon parted, with Septon and Gideon going upstairs to Septon’s secret library. Gideon had known of its existence, of course, but he’d never been invited to see it. Penn had, and Cate had also been inside. She’d sneaked in, however, which Gideon had only recently learned. Cate was a most intrepid woman. Like Daphne.

  They were soon in a small office upstairs, and Septon went directly to a painting of an eighteenth-century gentleman surrounded by his hunters. He pushed on it, and the wall moved inward. It wasn’t the entire wall, of course, but an undetectable door.

  Septon preceded him inside. “Will you bring a spill from the fireplace, please?”

  Gideon did as he requested, and once he stepped into the small, windowless chamber, he understood why it was necessary.

  Taking the spill, Septon lit a lantern that hung from a hook on the wall. Light splashed over the room that was little more than a closet with bookshelves and a locked trunk that was tall enough to act as a table.

  Septon went to one of the bookshelves and removed a dark leather tome. He set it on the trunk and opened the cover. “This is the Elidyr text. Minus the text that is on the original fragment that Miss Foliot has. I don’t suppose she brought it with her?”

  “She did, actually.” Gideon winced inwardly. He probably should have asked to borrow it. As if she would have allowed him to take it from her sight. She would have demanded to accompany him. “I don’t think she’ll part from it, even for a moment,” he said.

  Septon pulled a small pair of spectacles from the inside of his coat and placed them on his face. “Smart woman. I don’t blame her. If you can remember what it said, we may not need it.” He fell quiet as his gaze dashed over the page, reading the Latin. Gideon read along with him in silence, but he wasn’t as fast as Septon and had to ask him to wait to turn the page.

  It was a well-written poem, though not as dramatic as the one Rhys possessed, which detailed the Battle of Badon Hill. “There’s quite a bit about the healer.” When Septon turned the page, Gideon gasped. “It is Morgan.” Her name leapt from the page. Daphne was right. She should see this. Gideon knew how much it would mean to her.

  “Yes, Morgan le Fay. Morgana. Morgaine. And many other derivations.”

  “She was not a sorceress,” Gideon said.

  “It depends on what you mean by that. Plenty of people think healers are sorceresses. Or witches, depending on the time period.”

  They read the next page and the one after that, and when Septon turned that page, he said, “This is where the page is missing—the page Miss Foliot has. I would dearly love to make this complete again.”

  He wanted Gideon to get it from her. “Do you want me to bring her in here?”

  “Maybe not in here,” Septon said. “I wouldn’t want her to tell her father what she saw or that she knew where this library is even located.” His eyes widened briefly. “I should have closed the door.”

  “I’ll get it.” Gideon went to the door and glanced out into the office. A flash of dark green skirt at the doorway from the office to the corridor caught his eye. He hurried into the office. “Daphne!”

  Rushing to the door, he saw her fleeing down the corridor. “Come back here. Please.”

  She slowed and turned, her expression he
sitant. Reluctantly, she walked toward him, her movements stiff.

  He frowned at her. “What are you doing?”

  “Spying.”

  “At least you’re honest. Come on.” He gestured for her to precede him and followed her into the office. “In here.” He moved into the library. “She was in the office listening to us,” Gideon said, turning to her. The space was quite cramped now. “How much did you hear?”

  “I just arrived.” She glanced toward Septon in concern. “I heard you talking about my missing page.”

  So she didn’t know that Morgan was in the text.

  Peering over the top of his glasses, Septon pinned her with a serious stare. “What is it you hoped to gain by eavesdropping, Miss Foliot? Indeed, by coming here at all.”

  “I want to find Arthur’s cloak. And I want to prove that Morgan was his healer, and not the terrible, manipulative enchantress most believe her to be.”

  Septon’s features softened. “I didn’t realize you were a scholar.”

  She looked a bit surprised. “My father didn’t tell you?”

  “No. Should he have?”

  “I thought the Order was aware of my scholarly pursuits regarding Morgan. I have…papers I’ve asked to share.”

  “Do you? Well, I’m afraid women aren’t allowed to share information in the Order.”

  “That’s why my father said that he would. But he told me no one was interested.” She looked hurt, and Gideon’s hatred of her father intensified.

  “That may be true,” Septon said kindly. “But he didn’t tell me, and I would not have said that. I’m quite interested. Tell me your theories.”

  She hesitated, but only for a moment. “Morgan was a healer, perhaps with some mystical abilities, which I’d doubted until I met Stratton.” Her gaze flicked toward Gideon. “I was so opposed to the idea of her being called a sorceress that I’d hoped there would be no magic. But given what I know now, I have to believe she had some sort of supernatural ability. Which actually makes a bit of sense when you consider her name—Morgan, which is an old word for water nymph. She is perhaps gifted with some sort of water-related ability, though I have no idea how that connects with the cloak. She first appears by name in Vita Merlini by Geoffrey of Monmouth, but Arthur’s healer is mentioned in earlier works, such as the Elidyr text I read at Rhys Bowen’s, and I am convinced that is her. There is also a Middle Welsh tale that names Arthur’s physician as Morgan Tud. I believe that is further evidence of my theory.” She looked between them. “Finally, I’m not entirely certain where she resided, but I like to think it was in Glastonbury—on the Isle of Avalon. And that’s probably just because I used to pretend that was true when I was younger.” A pretty blush stained her cheeks, and Gideon had no trouble imagining that young girl.