Finally, pleasured and sated, they lay bathed in the soft moonlight that washed through her uncurtained window.
For him, no release had ever reached so deep, and no lover had ever fed his needs with such gloriously uninhibited generosity. For her, their connection, the depth and breadth of that ineluctable link, was all and more than she’d dreamed it might be.
Moments passed while they lay with her slumped on his chest, his arms loosely holding her as their hearts, still thudding, slowed, and their senses gradually returned to the physical world.
Drake glanced down at her dark head, then lifted a hand and idly picked up one thick, curling, black lock and let it slide through his fingers. He repeated the exercise, mesmerized anew by the silky texture.
Soothed in some way he didn’t understand by the warm weight of her lying boneless atop him.
His wits weren’t in charge, and for once, he felt no need to bring them to bear. The words that formed on his tongue didn’t spring from his intellect, but from somewhere much deeper. “You know I never wanted to allow you into this mission—that for years, I’ve done everything I could to keep us far apart.” He paused to consider if he wanted to go on, but apparently he did. “I didn’t want you near because I knew if you came close enough for long enough, we’d end like this. Together. Married.” Even though she’d moved not one muscle in response, he knew she wasn’t sleeping, that although her breathing had slowed, she was listening. “And I didn’t think—couldn’t bring myself to believe—that I would ever be able to trust you. Not as I have. As I do. As I’ve learned I can without losing…any part of me. Any of the strength that makes me me. If that makes sense?”
When he let silence stretch and waited, slowly, she lifted her head, folded her hands on his chest, and rested her chin upon them. From a distance of inches, from beneath heavy lids, she looked into his eyes. After several long moments, she softly replied, “You thought I’d be a chink in your armor. A liability.”
He forced himself to meet her steady gaze, pale and mysterious in the moonlight. “Not a liability—a vulnerability. No matter how desirable you were in other ways, I always equated having you by my side—having you as my wife—as a weakness I couldn’t afford.”
Her gaze unwavering, she tipped her head. “And now?”
“Now… When you walked into that cellar today, when I saw you standing there in Victoria’s cloak, pretending to be her…” Now the tensions had faded from his system, he could appreciate what his feelings—his true feelings—had been. “Instead of being paralyzed by fear for you, instead of being distracted from what I needed to do, frantic to protect you, I felt more confident, not less. It was…virtually the opposite of what I’d expected to feel. I knew you, and I trusted you to help me overcome Griswade. On some basis I don’t even now understand but which I accepted without question, I saw you being there as giving me an irrefutable advantage. You…have somehow become an additional source of strength to me, rather than any weakness.”
She smiled, satisfied by more than passion. “So no longer a vulnerability?”
He arched one brow. “Apparently, you were never that—never destined to be that for me.”
“It’s called working as a team. We’re alike in many ways, but the parts of us that are different complement each other. That’s why I make you feel stronger, and you make me feel more assured.”
He arched a brow at that.
She tipped her head, studying his eyes and his face for a full minute, then she purred, “So you’ve reversed your earlier view of me and accepted that we should wed. That I should be your marchioness.”
“Given where we are, you can take that as read.”
“Hmm. But tell me, before you changed your mind, what was it that drew you to me? What force was it you were resisting in ensuring you were never in my orbit?”
Louisa held his gaze and waited. Her heart seemed to slow, thudding more heavily in her veins. Would he answer? Would he admit—
Without warning, he rolled and set her beneath him in the billows of her bed.
She laughed and locked her arms between them, each hand gripping her opposite elbow, and held him away enough so he couldn’t kiss her—couldn’t distract her—and she could still see his face. She found his eyes, trapped them. “Tell me.”
His face was in shadow, but she could feel the heat in his eyes. He looked down at her for long enough for her to wonder if he would meet her challenge.
But then he softly sighed, fleetingly closed his eyes, and stated, “I swear I am only going to say this once.” He opened his eyes, and they blazed into hers. “I love you. I have always loved you, reaching back as far as I can recall—even when you were a brat still in pigtails. I adored you even then. You always captured my attention, always held it effortlessly. I always knew you were mine. I just didn’t know what of mine you would prove to be—my Achilles’ heel or my salvation.”
She smiled radiantly, letting her love for him light her eyes and face. “There.” She released her arms, reached up, and draped them about his powerful shoulders. “That wasn’t so hard.”
“Says you.” He looked down at her, his gaze drinking in all she allowed to show in her face. Yet his features remained hard, chiseled, unyielding. “Teamwork aside, I can’t see our life together being easy. With our characters, our tempers—as you noted, so alike —it’s certain our marriage will be no gentle ride in the park.”
It was her turn to arch her brows. “Neither you nor I go for gentle rides, in the park or anywhere else. That’s not our style”—she grinned—“as we’ve just proved yet again.” She hesitated, then went on, “Yet would something we could do easily entice us? Satisfy and intrigue us?”
He was silent for several heartbeats, then his lips softened fractionally. “Is that what our marriage is to be? One long intrigue?”
She shook her head. “I misspoke.” She looked into his golden eyes and smiled the smile she reserved just for him—warm, encouraging, and just a touch taunting. “Not an intrigue. Our marriage will be the one thing we both need it to be.”
A hint of wariness flitted over his features. “What?”
“A challenge.”
Drake tried to keep his lips straight, but failed. Even in this, they thought alike.
Then she widened her eyes, provocative and tempting, and as uninhibited as ever, undulated beneath him, using her sleek body to caress the hardness of his, and he bowed his head to hers, found her lips with his, and willingly embraced everything she and the power that now thrummed between them, a well-nigh tangible reality, offered.
Before him stretched a life with his one true love—his Lady Wild. She would undoubtedly challenge him, and he would return the favor.
Yet for a man like him, coping with love itself, its joys and its fears, its difficulties and delights, would forever remain the one, the only, greatest challenge of them all.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1850
CHAPTER 61
The six of them arrived at the rear of Midgham Manor on foot.
They’d driven through Reading, then west along the Bath Road into the sleepy countryside. Drake had called a halt in the village of Midgham, and while they’d waited for Inspector Crawford and his constables to catch up with them, the three couples, along with Finnegan, Tom, and Sebastian’s groom, Ned, had ambled and inquired of the locals as to the household of the nearby manor house. From three old farmers seated outside the inn, Finnegan had learned that Nagle employed at least one manservant to wait on him—a ferrety-faced man, according to the grocer. Tom had chatted with the grocer’s wife and heard that the manservant, Reed, was the only member of the household who came into the village, but that two of the village women went in to cook and clean every second day. Louisa, Cleo, and Antonia had spoken with the two women, who had happily described the layout of the rambling old house; Drake, Sebastian, and Michael had stood near enough to hear.
Thus informed, when the large, ponderous coach carrying the men from S
cotland Yard had finally rolled up, the three couples had returned to their curricles, and in procession, they’d set out for the manor.
The charwoman had told them that the master of the house, an irascible old man confined to a Bath chair, spent his days in the long parlor on the first floor, a room that overlooked the front garden and the drive. Accordingly, Drake took the lane that the inn’s ostler had told Ned led to the stable via the rear of the estate.
They’d rolled to a halt a little way short of the stable. The six had left the curricles with their teams hitched to fence posts and Inspector Crawford busy deploying his men and, accompanied by Finnegan, Tom, and Ned, had made their way through a field and into a stand of old trees.
It was close to noon when Drake halted in the shadows cast by several oaks bordering the manor’s rear garden; sufficient leaves still clung to the branches to give them some cover. Louisa, her hand in his, stood to his left, while Sebastian came up on Drake’s right, with Antonia beside him. Michael and Cleo quietly slipped into place beside Louisa. All of them studied the rear face of the manor, searching for signs of life.
From what little they could discern through the small, leaded windows, the manor might have been deserted.
The house was a single rectangular block, mostly Tudor in construction. It had been well kept not long ago, but was developing signs of neglect.
A short stretch of untended lawn, scythed but not weeded, lay between them and the house. The kitchen garden, such as it was—overgrown with brambles and out-of-control berry canes—lay to their right. A narrow graveled path ran along the back of the house, a yard or so from the wall.
Crawford, accompanied by two of the five burly constables he’d brought with him, came tramping up behind them.
Drake winced. Speaking over his shoulder, he murmured, “When we approach the house, try to avoid the gravel.”
With that, he started forward. They crossed the lawn in a loose line. The others waited at the edge of the path while Drake leapt over the gravel to the back stoop, tried the door, and found it unlocked. With the others at his back, he led the way along a narrow passageway and into a snug kitchen.
Across the room, an archway gave onto a corridor leading toward the front of the house. Drake rounded the deal table that stood in the middle of the room and signaled for Ned to remain on guard there, just in case.
Silently, Drake walked along the corridor’s faded runner until the main stairs leading to the first floor loomed on his right and the front hall stretched before him. He halted at the foot of the stairs; he looked back at the others, clustering in the gloom of the corridor, and signaled for silence, then with his gaze searching the shadows at the head of the stairs, treading close by the bannister, he started up.
Somewhat to his surprise, he realized Louisa had allowed Sebastian to take the position immediately behind him…or perhaps Sebastian hadn’t allowed her a chance to claim it. Regardless, Drake was grateful when, after he’d reached the top of the stairs and turned along the corridor leading to the room at the front of the house, a door ahead on his left opened, and a thin, lanky manservant stepped out directly into his path.
The man looked up and literally jumped, but had no chance to raise any alarm. Drake tapped him smartly on the jaw, caught him before he hit the floor, and manhandled his limp form to Sebastian.
“Reed?” Sebastian whispered.
Drake glanced at the man. “So I would think.” Reed by name, reed by nature, it seemed.
As Sebastian beckoned Finnegan and Tom to take charge of the unconscious man, Louisa squeezed past Sebastian and looked into the room from which the man had come. She closed the door and whispered, “Bedroom. In use, but empty.”
Drake nodded and led the way on. The door to the room that ran across the front of the house lay directly ahead.
With his hand on the latch, he paused to allow the others to regroup, then opened the door and walked in.
“H’rumph! Reed? Is that you?” Despite the querulous tone, Nagle’s voice remained strong.
He was seated in a Bath chair facing the wide windows, but sufficiently far back that his view was of the trees and not the desolate grounds. Nevertheless, the chair was sited too far into the room to allow its occupant to turn his head and see who had entered; the position declared that Nagle harbored no fear of anyone and had absolute confidence in his own invincibility.
Drake strolled toward the chair. “I regret to inform you that Reed is currently indisposed.”
Nagle’s head whipped around as Drake came into view. “Who the devil…?” Then the light from the window fell on Drake’s face. Nagle’s eyes narrowed. After a second, he muttered, “Winchelsea.”
“Indeed.” Drake walked to the window and half sat on the wide sill. The others filed quietly into the room. While Sebastian and Michael came forward to stand one on either side and two yards or so from Nagle’s chair, where he could easily see them, the three ladies, somewhat to Drake’s surprise, hung back; it occurred to him they might have some notion of using their appearance to discompose Nagle at some point in the upcoming proceedings.
As Drake had instructed, Crawford and the two constables clung to the rear wall, present as witnesses but remaining out of Nagle’s sight.
Nagle didn’t spare even Sebastian or Michael a glance; his head tipped down, his chin tucked into a paisley silk neckerchief, he scowled at Drake.
In return, Drake studied Nagle—his mastermind. The opponent who had very nearly triumphed and who had repeatedly delayed and deflected Drake by tying him up in a distracting web of political intrigue.
Nagle was, as Louisa had warned, ancient. His skin was like that of withered fruit, wrinkled and shrunk. Hanks of gray hair, thin and greasy, straggled out from under his round cap to hang limply on either side of his face. He must once have been a commanding figure, tall and heavily built, but now his legs were scrawny beneath the blanket arranged over them, and under his old-fashioned velvet smoking jacket, his now-bony shoulders were hunched, his chest caved in. His hands were withered almost to claws, his gnarled fingers restless and rarely still.
His head now seemed too large for his body, the skull solid beneath the thinning skin. His face was deeply lined in a way that suggested expressions of anger and contempt were his norm. Shaggy grey eyebrows lowered over deep-set but faded browny-gray eyes; his lips were thin, his mouth pinched as if it had been a long time since he’d tasted anything sweet, much less smiled.
He might have passed for just another very old, cantankerous gentleman, except for the menacing intelligence in his eyes.
When Drake said nothing, when he reacted not at all to Nagle’s glower, the old man grated, “Wolverstone’s whelp. To what do I owe this questionable pleasure?”
“To your attempt to assassinate your queen and her husband by blowing up the Jewel House while they were inside.” Drake kept his tone equable and engaging, as if he was discussing an intriguing play. “I have to admit there is one small point in that scenario that seems out of character. In blowing up the royals in that setting, you would also have destroyed all the regalia pertaining to the Crown.”
Nagle waved dismissively. “No help for it—unavoidable collateral damage. A sacrifice necessary for the greater good.”
Drake inclined his head. “That’s another point on which I can only hypothesize—what was your ultimate aim? To place Edward on the throne with a regent?”
Nagle’s face tightened. “An English regent.” One gnarled hand clenched and thumped the chair’s arm. “No more of these German upstarts! And no more weak, ineffectual females, either.” His shoulders hunched tighter, and he stared at the floor. “Damned country’s going down the drain all because we’ve a female on the throne, under the sway of a German prince.”
“Strange.” It was Louisa who spoke. She glided forward, passing behind Sebastian to halt between him and Drake. She leveled her gaze on Nagle. “Considering the continuing expansion of the empire under Victoria and the gre
at strides made on the industrial stage, enthusiastically championed by Albert, few in the world would agree with your assessment.”
It wasn’t her words but her voice that shook Nagle. The tones were her own, regal, assured, with undertones of the power of the old nobility ringing clearly beneath.
Nagle looked at her—stared at her as if her appearance and her voice had finally jolted him into realizing why they were there. Then he switched his gaze to Drake.
Drake read the question in Nagle’s faded eyes. After a moment, he deigned to answer. “Your plot failed. The explosion didn’t occur. Lawton Chilburn and Bevis Griswade are dead.”
Nagle frowned. “How?” His gaze on Drake, he slowly shook his head. “You couldn’t possibly have unraveled the threads in time.”
Drake dipped his head in acknowledgment. “Not alone.”
Cleo took that as her cue; she walked forward to stand between Michael and Drake. “Your plot failed because many people—high and low, Young Irelanders, Chartists, carters and workers, lords and ladies—joined together to thwart you. To deny your ambitions.”
“You failed”—Antonia came to stand beside Sebastian—“because it isn’t up to you to define the future of our country. To manipulate and dictate to the nobility, to the commons—to anyone at all.”
Nagle narrowed his eyes on Antonia, then his face set in dismissive, disdainful lines, and he raked his gaze over the six of them. “Bah! You’re the so-called flower of the nobility, and none of you understands the first thing about power. Power isn’t power unless you use it! And so we should! All of us! The country’s going to wrack and ruin while that vapid woman on the throne looks on and wrings her hands. It’s up to the likes of us to take charge and—”
“Nagle!” Although he’d barely raised it, Drake’s voice sliced through Nagle’s rant. Nagle glowered at him. Imperturbably, Drake went on, “What you’ve just said amounts to sedition. You can’t seriously imagine we’ll permit you to speak of our sovereign in such a manner, let alone agree with you. You may advance your arguments and your ideas for running the country to the judges at your trial, although I can’t see their lordships being any more impressed than we are.”
The Greatest Challenge of Them All Page 40