by Lauren Smith
“We failed them,” John said. He raised his brandy to his lips and drank deeply.
“Failed who?” Adam set the paper down.
“Those men. They weren’t dangerous; they wanted to talk. They did not pose a real threat. But because they weren’t of the peerage, their philosophical discourses were deemed anarchist and seditious. Now those men will die.” John leaned forward and buried his face in his hands. “It weighs upon me.”
His blond hair gleamed in the lamps in the lounge, and he again had that glow about him, but Adam didn’t know why he saw that now when he hadn’t seen it before. After a moment, John lifted his head and met Adam’s gaze.
“A government that destroys the voice of its people is no government at all. It is tyranny.”Again those words filled the air of his dream like a mantra.
“John, you know that the opposite is true as well. You may dream of democracy, living in a world of equal voices and equal thoughts, but so long as men are men, there will also be good and evil in equal measure. For every dreamer, every philosopher, there are madmen and murderers. For every voice of reason, there is a cry of chaos. Perhaps those men were harmless, but we’ve seen others who are not. When angry men gather to scream their rage at an established force, it doesn’t mean they are right. Not always.”
This was something Adam had struggled with much of his life. He was a man born to a privileged life, while so many others failed to get by. If he gave away his lands and money, all of it, it would not be enough to help everyone. What was the answer? There was no logic in stealing the wealth of some to give to others. It was a temporary solution that faded quickly. No, the answer was more complicated, rooted somewhere in charity and increased opportunity for the betterment of all men, but they lived in an age where such things were not yet possible.
Perhaps someday things would change. Until then, he would watch and wait and support whatever might push toward that change. And he would also do his best to protect his king and his country without betraying the people of England. He did not always succeed, but he also did not always fail.
“I envy you, Adam,” John said. “You bear the weight of your life easier than I.”
Adam had not known then that John was a spy, or that he was in charge of catching men like this. At the time, Adam had been puzzled by his friend’s concerns.
The memory of that evening began to fade. The last thing Adam could see was John’s face darkening with creeping shadows until John vanished.
Then a soft light appeared, like a distant sunrise on the edge of his horizon.
“Adam?” Letty’s voice seemed so close, but she couldn’t be—she wasn’t in the dark with him. The sound of her voice filled him with a bright, beautiful stirring in his chest. She belonged in the light, not here in the dark with him, not surrounded by death and chaos.
“Adam, please wake up,” Letty begged.
Wake up? Was he asleep? He focused on moving, doing anything he could to wake. It felt as though his body were made of lead, lead that was on fire.
A hiss of pain escaped his mouth.
“Easy.” Letty’s fingertips touched his face, gently coasting over his forehead, then his cheek.
“Letty . . .” His voice came out like gravel.
“I’m here. You’re safe at Tyburn’s castle.”
“How?” He pried his eyes open, and a pale light blinded him momentarily. Had they made it? Was he really at his uncle’s castle? Flashes of Gent’s sneering face made his body tense in pain. How had he gotten away?
“We rescued you. Your uncle and cousins killed the men who hurt you.”
He focused his blurry gaze on Letty’s shape close to where he lay.“All of them?”
“Yes. All of them.”
“Good.” His vision began to clear as relief swept through him.
“You should drink something.” Letty’s beautiful face appeared before him as she held a cup to his lips. He drank, but it wasn’t easy.
“How long have I . . . ?”
“A week. Your wounds are almost healed. We’ve been putting salve on them to keep the skin from cracking open. You’ve healed much faster than the doctor thought, and you only suffered a fever in the first few days.”
“My uncle . . .”
“I’m here, laddie. I heard yer wife speaking and thought ye must’ve woken.” Uncle Tyburn’s face appeared as he joined Letty and bent to see Adam better.
“Thank you, Uncle. My wife—”
“Is a damned good lass. Ye chose well. Even injured, she came back with us to fetch ye.”
“Injured?” Adam tried to sit up and gasped in pain for his efforts.
“I’m all right, Adam.” Letty gently eased him back down. “It was only a little scratch.”
“A scratch from a pistol,” Tyburn said. “She’s a tough lass. She didna let me or yer cousins have a say about her coming with us.”
Adam, too weak to move, sighed heavily. “Yes, she has quite a fire in her. One I am more thankful for each passing day.”
“As ye should be.” Tyburn chuckled. “Now, I’ll help ye up, but ye must eat some broth and drink a bit of water.”
Adam nodded, knowing the pain would be great, but he should try to eat. Tyburn lifted him up, and Adam held back a cry as his back burned with invisible flames.
“Here.” Letty scooted closer to him and held up a bowl of soup. She started to lift a spoon to his mouth to feed him as one would a child.
“I can do it.” He took the spoon from her, but in his haste and desperation he knocked it out of her hand. It clattered to the ground.
“Oh, I should fetch a clean one.” Letty’s face turned red as she rushed from the room.
“Well, that was nicely done, ye daft fool,” his uncle said.
“What?” asked Adam.
“The lass wants to help, and ye didna let her.”
“I should let her spoon-feed me like some child? Uncle, if I do that, she will never see me as a man again. The last thing I can do is be weak in front of her.” Letty depended on him to be her protector, and in that regard he was failing.
“Ye are damned lucky I know a bit about marriage. Now listen close. Being wounded is not a weakness in a woman’s eyes, ye ken? But being cold, being cruel—that is weakness. Let yer wife feed ye, and then, when ye are healed, ye will be the man she needs, the one who trusted her to take care of ye when ye needed her. Trust me, laddie. That matters to women. It should bloody well matter to ye too.”
Adam was silent a long moment. “Perhaps you are right.”
“Of course I am.”
Letty returned then, a clean spoon in her hand. She glanced between the two men before approaching the bed and handing Adam the spoon.
Adam looked at Tyburn, then turned back to his wife. “Actually, it might be better if you did feed me, if you don’t mind.”
Letty’s unease vanished. She smiled and took the spoon back, as well as the bowl, before she eased down on the bed beside him.
“I’ll be back to check on ye soon,” Tyburn said. “Letty, call if ye need anything.”
Letty blushed again as Tyburn left.“Thank you, Uncle.”
“Uncle?” Adam asked.
“He insisted. It seems I am worthy enough to be considered family.”
“Come closer.” She scooted nearer to him, the spoon still in her hand.
“Do you really wish me to help you?”
“I do. I’ll only end up dropping the thing again, in my state. I appreciate your aid in the matter.”
For the next several minutes, she helped him eat. He put aside his pride and focused on the relief he saw on Letty’s face as he finished the broth. Tyburn was right, damn him. Letty seemed happier that she’d been able to help—not because he was weak, but because she needed to feel useful. And she was. She was more than useful. He would have died if she hadn’t been able to reach his uncle and cousins.
“Thank you, Letty.” Adam covered one of her hands in his. “You saved my lif
e.”
She blinked and turned away. He reached up and turned her face back toward him.
“Please, look at me.”
She did, and he saw tears clinging to her lashes like tiny diamonds. “You must be furious with me. I put you in this position. You are in danger because of me.”
“You can be so silly.” He said this teasingly, but she bit her lip, her eyes watering even more. “I was in danger long before I met you.”
He brushed her lips with his thumb. “Letty, I’m the reason you were hurt. You are in danger because I put you there, not the other way around.”
“But I followed Lady Edwards,” she insisted.
“That was her decision to let you. She could have stayed in the ballroom and left her hair alone. She chose to risk your safety.”
Letty still didn’t meet his gaze. “But you had to marry me, and—”
“Would you like to hear a confession, darling wife?” he asked.
“A confession?”
“Yes. A dreadful confession. I’m not sure if you can ever forgive me.”
She waited as he drew in a breath.
“I could have said or done anything I wished to avoid marrying you. The men who saw us kissing were friends of mine. No one would have called me out on that, not even your brother. He knows what I am, what I do. And the others—well, they would have let things go as I wished, in whatever direction. Not one of them would have breathed a word about what they had seen. You see, I let the situation justify my secret desire to have you. I was the one who wanted it, wanted you. I am the villain, my darling. Do not hate yourself—hate me, if you must.”
“Hate you?” she echoed softly. Her face was so adorable in that instant. “I do not think I could ever hate you, and perhaps that is exactly my problem. I fear I like you far too much.”
“You love me far too much,” he reminded her. He hadn’t forgotten what she’d said just before they had parted that awful night at the inn.
“I do.” Her smile sent flutters of excitement through his chest.
“And I love you.”
She finally met his eyes, such hope burning in her gaze.“You do?”
“How could I not? You are everything to me.” He almost told her that she mattered more than his need to avenge John. He wouldn’t deny it, but she didn’t need to know that she had at one point been vying with vengeance in his heart. All she truly needed to know was that he loved her, and she came before all else.
He leaned toward her, his lips brushing over hers as he tried to show her what she meant to him. That delicate kiss stole his breath in a way no kiss ever had before. It was a kiss of love, of undying devotion, and a promise of always being there for her, in whatever way she needed.
When he moved back a few inches, he saw her eyes were closed and she was smiling dreamily. He leaned back against the headboard, and fresh pain sparked in him as the spell of that perfect kiss faded. Letty opened her eyes and swept a fretful look over him.
“You should rest.” She helped him back down on his stomach, and then she applied more salve to his wounds. He had to focus his energy on healing as quickly as possible. He had a terrible dread that this was far from over, and he had to be ready to face whatever came next.
15
Letty and Tyburn walked together through the gardens inside the courtyard of his castle.
“Has it really been two weeks?”
“Aye, lass. Some say time passes differently here in Scotland.” He patted her hand where it rested on his arm. “A kind of magic, ye might say.”
They paused as she caught sight of Adam and his cousins standing on an open patch of grass, holding dull practice swords in their hands. Adam was taking turns sparring with both Angus and Baird.
He’d lost much of his weight and still looked far too thin, but his wounds had healed and were now only angry red raised marks. The last few days he’d taken care to work his muscles, and he’d spent much of his time outdoors, walking, riding, and now sparring. Angus and Baird were being careful with him, and she could tell Adam wasn’t pleased.
“You’re hitting like a child, Angus,” Adam shouted.
Angus muttered a curse but didn’t fight back any harder.
“And you, Baird, since when do you fight like a babe?”
“Ye are still healing, ye daft fool!” Baird shot back. “Ye want to end up back in bed?”
Letty tensed as Tyburn gently removed her hold on his arm and then walked toward the trio. He held out a hand to take Angus’s sword, and the two brothers moved back to let their father face Adam.Letty stood next to Angus and Baird and did her best not to panic. She didn’t like Adam trying to fight so soon.
“I willna go easy on ye, laddie,” Tyburn promised. “Let’s see what ye are made of.”
Adam lunged for him, and the two met in a ringing clash of steel. Tyburn pressed on, blow after blow striking Adam’s sword until Adam stumbled and fell. Tyburn held the blunt blade to Adam’s throat.
“Ye need to give yerself time, laddie.” He offered a hand to Adam.Letty noted the look of pained resignation on her husband’s face.
“I don’t have time, Uncle. You know that.” Adam accepted his help, and Tyburn pulled him to his feet.
“A smart man knows ’tis better to heal than to train through pain.”
Adam sighed, his shoulders drooping. When he saw Letty, he flinched. She empathized with his reaction. Tyburn had been counseling her on what Adam was going through, how he had suffered and felt so weak, not just in body, but in spirit. Letty hated that he felt that way. All she could see was his strength.
“Baird, Angus, let Adam have some rest. The man should have some time with his wife.” Tyburn shot them a knowing look, and the three vanished into the gardens.
Letty stopped next to Adam, who idly swung his dull practice blade at his feet.“How did they do that?”
“Do what?” Adam asked.
“That vanishing thing. I swear it’s some sort of Highland magic. They seem to just vanish at will.”
Adam chuckled, and the sound warmed her heart. She hadn’t heard that sound in quite some time.
“They have trained themselves to move that way, to use their surroundings to hide.”
“Well, I would certainly enjoy that talent if I had it,” she said, then put her arm on his shoulder. “You are doing so well, truly. I know you are frustrated, but you mustn’t be.”
He shrugged, his smile vanishing. “Not well enough for my liking.”
“If I had been hurt the way you had, I would likely still be lying in bed and moaning dreadfully.”
“You wouldn’t,” he said quite meaningfully.
“No? How do you know that?” she asked.
Adam gently caught her by the waist with one hand and touched her arm, the one that had its own angry red scar.
“Because you took a bullet and kept riding. I doubt you would have been in bed long.”
Letty reached up, her fingers brushing his where the scar lay beneath her gown’s sleeve. “It was only a scratch. I thought a tree had hit me—”
He was smiling again. “Yet it was a bullet, lady wife. Just accept your heroic actions.”
She pretended to grumble at this, but secretly she was delighted at his playful response.
They walked through the gardens in silence until they found their way into a maze of hedgerows at one end of the courtyard. Over the last two weeks, they’d found themselves in a new dynamic as husband and wife. After all that had happened, there had grown a deep foundation of trust between them, a kinship born from shared danger and sacrifice. Each night she had lain beside him in bed, her body pressed close to his, comforted by his presence. But he hadn’t touched her, not in the way a man touches his wife when he wishes to make love to her. He was still healing, of course, but she feared that perhaps something was holding him back. She didn’t want anything between them, not ever again.
“Adam . . . ,” Letty began uncertainly.
“Yes
?”
“It’s been three weeks since, well . . . We . . .” Even after all she’d been through with him, she was still too embarrassed to discuss sex.
“Since what?” A soft, knowing light in his eyes coyly mocked her.
“Since we made love.” There, she’d said it. “I know you have been healing and that you still are. I . . . Heavens, I guess what I wish to say is that when you feel better, I am ready to resume such activities.” That didn’t sound nearly so romantic as she had hoped—it sounded practically contractual. She still wasn’t sure how to speak of such things.
He turned her face toward him, and she tilted her head back to look up at him.
“You are a darling, wife. Splendid, delightful, charming, desirable. I don’t think I deserve you. In fact, I know I do not.” He kissed her then, a petal-soft kiss that spoke of love and all its many heartfelt yearnings before their mouths broke apart.
“Tonight,” he promised.
“Tonight,” she agreed, shocked and relieved that so important a detail in their lives had been so easily agreed upon. Tonight, she would have her husband back.
Edward Shengoe entered a small inn on the outskirts of London. The taproom was nearly empty, save for a few drunken regulars. The past few months, Edward had been following Arthur Thistlewood and his rebel band from small inns to pubs as they met to discuss their plans to overthrow the government.
His assignment was to watch, wait, and when necessary, tell those above him what the rebels intended. If the plans were deemed dangerous, the men would be apprehended and tried for their crimes against Crown and country.
Edward removed his coat and hat as he met the bartender’s gaze. The man paused in pouring ale into a mug to nod his head toward a door that likely led to a back room. Edward nodded in return and went inside. Thistlewood was already there, as were the mysterious Mr. Garland and his female associate.
“Greetings.” Thistlewood gestured for Edward to take a seat. Edward sat near Thistlewood as the other rebels arrived. Edward had a moment to observe Mr. Garland and the woman. They had approached Thistlewood’s group, somehow knowing how to find them. Edward had first wondered if they may be employed by the Home Office like him, but it became clear after that first meeting that whoever Garland was, he was not one of Avery’s Court of Shadows.