The Raider’s Daughter

by Kimberly Cates

  The mother swan struck again, and for an instant Lucy lost her balance. She fell in, shoulder deep, the ropes entangling her as well, but she couldn't worry about that as the little gray head dipped beneath the water again.

  A splash of crystal-blue water in her face obscured the figure splashing toward her until all she could see were polished boots, form-fitting blue riding breeches, and flashing black eyes.

  Lucy choked and sputtered, suddenly aware that she was now trapped as well. Just as she sucked in a mouthful of water, she felt a steely arm catch her across the breasts, hauling her upward as the rope that held her snapped free. Then another rope snapped and another. Lucy heard a black curse in a stunningly familiar voice as the cygnet sailed free, swimming off in a cloud of distressed little cries. A moment later its mama joined it, swooping to where the papa swan had just reached the cygnet. As if exhausted from its adventure, the cygnet climbed onto its mama's back and lay pillowed on the white down, shivering.

  The stinging in Lucy's arms and the discomfort of her sodden skirts vanished as she watched them sail away. But at that instant, a strong arm curved beneath her knees and shoulders, and she was lifted against the earl of Valcour's iron-hard chest.

  He splashed his way to the shore, then both of them collapsed onto the grass. Lucy stared down at the penknife Valcour had dropped on the blanket of green.

  "You little fool!" he grated, looking decidedly shaken. "What the devil did you do that for?"

  "The baby was... caught. It would have died."

  "I don't suppose you considered that if you'd been pulled under you might have drowned yourself!"

  Lucy stared up at him, amazed that he still held her. Amazed that she wanted him to. "I didn't think about it. I just... the baby was so tiny and helpless. I—thank you for helping. I can hardly believe that you—"

  "That I didn't let you drown? Helping damsels in distress happens to be a weakness of mine. I try to cure it, but I suppose we all have our frailties of character. Now let me see that hand!" He took her fingers in his, examining the small bite. It was bleeding. He dabbed it with his handkerchief, then gently bound it up.

  "What are you doing here at all?" Lucy asked in an effort to keep her mind off the stirring brush of his fingers against her skin, the bewitching contrast between his strong, darkly tanned hands against her smaller, paler one.

  "I had come expecting the park to be quiet so that I could exercise a particularly skittish gelding." Valcour grimaced. "Of course, if I'd had any idea that you would be here, I would never have nursed such a delusion. The infernal horse is probably halfway back to the stables by now."

  "Will he be hurt? Stolen?" Lucy asked, starting to scramble up, hampered by heavy layers of sodden skirts. "We have to go after it."

  Valcour's fingers gripped hers, hauling her back down. "Chasing across London looking like drowned rats is hardly necessary, hoyden. Any man who attempted to touch that horse would find himself lighter by the weight of a few fingers. He's got the devil of a temper. Of course, his last owner gelded him, so I can understand his irritation with the world."

  Lucy found herself smiling into that darkly handsome face. His shirt clung to his skin. Straggled dark strands of hair clung to the cords of his neck. Lucy watched, her mouth suddenly dry, as crystal droplets pooled in the shallow hollow at the base of his throat. She knew instinctively that the water would have cooled Valcour's sun-bronzed skin, but she was certain it would have done nothing to douse the melting heat of his mouth. Awareness sizzled through her, and she felt her cheeks heat.

  "Your clothes are ruined," she said, excruciatingly aware of how the wet garments molded themselves to Valcour's powerful frame.

  "A spoiled suit of clothes is a small price to pay, don't you think?" He was watching the swans. For a moment, Lucy saw something soft in those relentless features. A kind of wistfulness, almost yearning, as his thumb skimmed gently over her knuckles. Lucy astonished herself by saying in a soft, confiding voice, "Valcour, have you ever felt as if you'd been somewhere before? Somewhere you can barely remember?"

  "No. But I've been plenty of places I've tried to forget. Why?"

  "Because I feel as if I'd watched swans a long time ago, when I was tiny."

  "Little girls have been flinging bread crumbs to swans since time immemorial. And there are a million ponds the birds can sail on in a million different places. However, knowing you, I'd wager you were casting rocks at them instead of crusts of bread."

  "I never torment animals. Only people." She laughed then glanced up at Valcour's face through the veiling of her lashes, feeling uncharacteristically shy. "I just... seeing the water the swans, the sky so blue... I felt as if the place I was remembering was—was here."

  The change in him was so subtle she thought she had imagined it. The thumb that had been caressing her hand ever so slightly stilled. The dark eyes were shuttered. He angled his face away. "What? You've been to England before?"

  "I was born here. I left when I was very small. It always bothered me that I never had any memories of it, or only the vaguest of shadows. But I remember this place. I remember." Her voice was so soft.

  Suddenly she was looking into Valcour's eyes, remembering another time: a moonlit garden, the rasp of his breath as he captured her mouth with his. She was suddenly certain that when she was an old woman she would still remember that kiss. Remember it as she did the swans and the haunting melody of the "Night Song."

  For a heartbeat, she wondered if Valcour felt that inexorable tug as well. His lips parted, his hand coming to curve beneath her chin.

  She wondered what it would be like if he were to lower his mouth to hers—this Valcour with the slightest shading of vulnerability in his eyes, the astonishing tenderness in his touch.

  Lucy started to lean toward him, her own lips trembling. But suddenly a shout made her spring away from him. Aubrey St. Cyr's carriage came rattling to a halt a short distance away. "What's happened? By God's blood, Dom? Lucy?"

  She turned to see him leaping from a ridiculous-looking curricle, his eyes regarding them as if they had both sprouted fish from their ears.

  Valcour climbed to his feet as if he had been caught doing something despicable, his cheeks flushing a dull red.

  Mrs. Wilkes reached them at almost the same time. "Your brother is a hero, Mr. St. Cyr," Claree supplied, bustling over with a robe from the Wilkeses' coach to wrap about Lucy's shoulders. "He plunged right into the pond to save a baby swan, not to mention our Lucinda."

  Aubrey's eyes narrowed, his mouth curling in a way that irritated Lucy no end. "Getting soft-hearted in your old age, Brother?"

  "I merely objected to all that splashing upsetting my horse."

  Lucy saw Valcour's gaze flick to where Aubrey's hand was curved possessively about her shoulders. A muscle in Valcour's jaw tightened.

  "I suppose I should thank you," Aubrey said grudgingly.

  "Why? I didn't do it for you. Besides, you needn't strain yourself on my account. I am certain that in time Miss Blackheath will give me ample cause to regret the fact that I didn't drown her myself."

  Lucy was stung by the harsh words, the sudden spark in Valcour's eyes.

  "I would advise you to keep a close watch on your charge, Mrs. Wilkes. There may come a time when no one is present to pull the little fool out of danger."

  Lucy sputtered with indignation and an odd sense of hurt at those cold words, but Valcour was already striding away.

  * * *

  A hundred men in London would have committed treason to be in Camilla Spencer-White's bedchamber that night. The renowned beauty lay draped across tumbled coverlets, her chestnut hair cascading across the most beautiful breasts in England. Her mouth was a scarlet kiss of temptation on a face only recently showing traces of her thirty years. Years Camilla had put to use perfecting talents that could bring a man to climax with the merest brush of her fingers.

  But the man attending Camilla this night had little interest in her pleasure, an
d even less in his own.

  Dominic St. Cyr paced the confines of the elegant bedchamber, oblivious to the pucker of confusion on Camilla's pale brow.

  The black breeches he had put on when he'd left the luxurious bed clung like a second skin to his narrow hips, his naked chest still marked with a faint trace of lines from Camilla's eager fingers.

  He had come here to forget. But even with Camilla draped like seduction incarnate on passion-tumbled sheets, Dominic had not found oblivion. He'd broken off the lovemaking before its completion with an abruptness that astonished them both, storming away from the bed still hard and aching. He had been agonizingly frustrated, his mind filled with the image of a golden-tressed hoyden setting a baby swan free, a defiant beauty seething with rebellion in a moonlit garden.

  The coiling tension crushing his chest only tightened more ferociously than before as he recalled the weight of her against him, her soaked garments letting him feel every curve and feminine valley of her body, the precious heaviness of her breasts against his chest, the supple columns of her legs draped over his arm.

  Two weeks had passed since the meeting at St. James Park. Yet every time Dominic closed his eyes, he still pictured Lucinda, her eyes glowing as the cygnet sailed away, her smile so beautiful his chest had ached at the sight of it.

  Until Aubrey had ridden up. Aubrey—Valcour's mouth hardened at the memory of the boy silhouetted against Lucinda Blackheath's silver skirts, embracing her at the ambassador's ball, while at her pale breasts was pinned a portrait of the man who had shattered Valcour's life.

  Every time Valcour had felt Camilla's talented mouth on his, he had remembered the wild, pulsing sensation that had shot through him when he had crushed Lucinda Blackheath's defiance with his kiss.

  Night after night the infernal girl had invaded his dreams, his hands branded with the feel of slick satin as he molded her body against his own, his passions inflamed by the hot rebellion in those blue eyes—rebellion that had changed to astonished wonder, then outrage and fear.

  Outrage because he'd punished her with his kiss. Fear because she had been unnerved by her reaction to that kiss. The same way the earl had been stunned by the hot rush of need that had jolted through him—a sensation unlike any he had ever known.

  "Valcour?" The sound of Camilla's voice made his shoulders stiffen. Dominic stopped in front of the window, staring out into the starless night.

  "I'm sorry, Camilla. I don't have the stomach for bed games tonight." The words were harsh, but Valcour had never been one to coat bitterness with sugar.

  There was a beat of silence, then the soft rustle of Camilla slipping out of the bed. "I see," she said, and he glimpsed a flash of emerald satin as she drew her dressing gown over a body still lithe as a willow. "It seems to me that you haven't had much... stomach for bed games for some time now. In fact, you've barely touched me since the ambassador's ball."

  "Occasionally more important matters take precedence."

  She crossed to her dressing table and took up a silver-backed brush, stroking it twice through her luxurious hair. "Matters like... Lucinda Blackheath, I suppose," she said softly.

  Valcour's jaw knotted, and he felt as if Camilla had somehow seen the intimate scenario that had just played itself so vividly in his mind. He made a curt gesture of dismissal. "What the devil does that girl have to do with anything?"

  "She is the primary topic of conversation throughout the city of late. All London is glorifying the grand romance between the ambassador's beautiful ward and your brother."

  "Of all the ridiculous prattle!"

  "I don't consider it ridiculous. She and Aubrey have been inseparable since the ball. He hovers about her at every entertainment. In fact, I heard that he strode into Lady Norton's musicale without an invitation because Miss Blackheath was there. I've seen them three times in Hyde Park and taking in the entertainments at Vauxhall. The last time Miss Blackheath was rambling on in ecstasies over the trip he'd taken her on to the Tower of London."

  "She would have enjoyed that, I'd imagine. The bloodthirsty little—" Valcour stopped abruptly.

  "Valcour, there are those who say she might be Aubrey's salvation."

  "Salvation? She'd drag him down to hell first." Valcour stalked to a table and poured himself a brandy. "I'll drown the boy myself before I let her get her hooks in him."

  Camilla watched him intently. "Aubrey wouldn't be the first man to be redeemed by love."

  "The boy would have a better chance of being eaten by a sea monster. Love is a pretty lie concocted by those too cowardly to face the hard reality that we are alone. Every one of us. From the time we are born until we die."

  "If that is what you believe, I'm sorry for you," Camilla said softly. She drew the fall of her hair over one shoulder to brush it. The nape of her neck looked like a child's, pale and more than a little vulnerable.

  Dominic grimaced, remembering Camilla as she had been the first night he met her, a dewy-eyed girl swirling out onto the floor in her debut cotillion, the first person who had dared to defy society and show the young earl of Valcour kindness.

  Dominic had been a desperate youth then, grappling to save estates on the brink of ruin. A seventeen-year-old still reeling with pain and betrayal and so much guilt he thought he'd go mad from it.

  Camilla had been lovely and charming and amusing, teasing the too serious Dominic and offering him friendship. He'd never forgotten. But that innocent girl had vanished, just as the agonized boy had been encased beneath layers of ice.

  She had been changed forever—first by her arranged marriage to an aged duke, then by her grand passion for a fortune hunter who stole her legacy and left her a penniless widow, her reputation in tatters. Several disastrous affairs had followed.

  Perhaps it had been only natural for Dominic to step in and become her protector. A man had needs. And with Camilla, there had never been a question of any inconvenient emotions like love.

  "I found love once."

  Valcour was startled by the pensive tones of Camilla's voice.

  "Valcour, it was... beyond imagining."

  "I don't need my imagination where the power of love is concerned. I've seen firsthand the devastation it can leave in its wake. With you and with... others."

  He turned back to the window, other images creeping from the darkest corners of his mind.

  His father, Lionel St, Cyr, the riding crop in his hand flashing out at Lady Valcour in a blind frenzy of betrayal and rage. Dominic's voice was roughened on the edges of that pain.

  "Before God, I hope I have more sense than to tangle myself in an emotional noose from which there is no escape."

  "When you are in love, Valcour, you never want to escape," Camilla said, a little wistfully. "You fit the noose about your neck with joy."

  "And then you hang yourself with it," Valcour bit out. "My life is complicated enough without such madness as love. That is, if such a thing truly exists, which I doubt."

  "But if you don't believe in the redeeming power of love and are totally set against a match between Miss Blackheath and your brother, why don't you forbid him to see her? From what I understand, he depends upon you for every penny he lives on. With one tug of the purse strings, you could put an end to it."

  "And set up some Cheltenham tragedy to rival Romeo and Juliet? I think not. There is nothing Aubrey would enjoy more than a chance to play the beleaguered romantic hero. Especially since he knows that I have always had an aversion to the star-crossed lovers' theme. Every time I've been forced to endure watching that particular Shakespearean tragedy, I wished the two fools would both leap off the balcony in the first act and be done with it."

  Camilla gave him an unsteady smile. "Valcour, you are heartless."

  "Thank God for that. As for this nonsense with Aubrey, his fascination will pass. Miss Blackheath is far too headstrong. Aubrey will eventually tire of being led around by the nose. And besides, the girl will be returning to her precious Virginia in a few months at
most. Then this grand passion will die a natural death."

  "And if it does not?"

  "I will take whatever measures I deem necessary."

  Camilla raised her eyes to his, and he saw her tremble just a little. "What will you do, Valcour, if Aubrey continues down the path to ruin?"

  Dominic stiffened, the restlessness that had tormented him all night tightening even more ruthlessly in his gut. "I come here to forget my problems, not dredge them out to discuss with my mistress." There was cruelty in the icy tones, enough to quell the most brash of men. Camilla flinched. But she did not look away from him.

  "Dominic, I know you don't want my opinion—or anyone's, for that matter. But I care about you."

  "That's not required."

  "Perhaps not of a mistress. But it is of a friend. You've worked so hard to restore your family's estates. And what you've accomplished has been a miracle. But your brother—"

  "I have said he is none of your business, madam."

  "Perhaps not, but he is yours. Valcour, there is no need for you to surrender all you've worked for to a careless boy! If you would just open your heart a little, you could find a wife. Get yourself an heir—a little boy of your own with black hair and... and a brave smile."

  "I'd make the devil of a husband and a worse father. From the beginning of time, the St. Cyrs would have been better off to be whelped like snarling dogs, their sires never to even look upon their faces."

  "Dominic, this is not a jest. People are taking wagers on how many days you will be in your grave before Aubrey spends the last Valcour shilling on drink or gaming. After all you have suffered to salvage your inheritance from your father's reckless waste—"

  "Enough!" Dominic's eyes blazed. With barely leashed fury, he yanked on shirt and waistcoat, knotting his neckcloth about his throat. "I will not tolerate anyone, even you, becoming embroiled in my family's business. Perhaps it is time for us to end our arrangement. The house is yours already, and I'll put a comfortable sum at your disposal."

  Camilla paled. "It's not necessary to take such drastic steps. It wasn't my intention to make things worse. I just... you are a good man, Valcour. Better than you know. I can't bear to see that boy take advantage of you the way he does. I know you'd die before admitting that it hurts you, but I know it does."