Alex could be difficult. Against that, Alex was rarely wrong.
“Perhaps,” Daniel ventured, “either Delborough or Hamilton might lead us to this puppetmaster—after we relieve them of their scroll-holders, of course.”
“Of course.” Alex sighed and fell back across the bed. “I just wish I could feel more confident that Delborough is the one carrying Roderick’s letter. That way, once we seize it, we can depart this drab, dreary, and oh-so-damp place, and never need to tangle with the puppetmaster.”
“I thought”—Daniel leaned over Alex—“that you reveled in taking on challenges.”
Alex smiled up at him, pale eyes like winter ice. “Only when I’m sure of winning, my dear. Only then.”
Twelve
December 17, 1822
Paignton Hall, Devon
L innet was late down to breakfast. When she reached the breakfast parlor, she discovered that the cause of her lateness had already broken his fast and gone out riding with Charles and Deverell.
“Of course,” Penny said, “while they carefully did not say so, they’re eager to see if they can find any cult people who might be watching this place.”
From her position at the head of the table, Phoebe smiled at Linnet. “Did you sleep well?”
The question might have been innocent, except for the twinkle in her hostess’s eye.
Luckily, the question was one Linnet could answer with perfect truthfulness. “Yes.” Sitting opposite Penny, she shook out her napkin, turned to thank the butler as he set a rack of fresh toast before her. Turning back to her newfound friends, she said, also perfectly truthfully, “I was so worn out, I slept like the dead.”
Penny chuckled. Phoebe grinned.
After completing the ritual of nibbling on toast and sipping tea—a ritual not that much different from Linnet’s habitual breakfast at Mon Coeur—Phoebe and Penny declared they would help her pack, and then she could help them pack for themselves and their children.
They and their children kept her engaged and amused for most of the day, yet despite her involvement, again and again Linnet found her mind drifting to other matters. Personal matters.
Hardly surprising. Her impossible man was determined to marry her.
She hadn’t consciously thought of what his intentions had been, not until yesterday when the specter of him wanting her as his mistress had risen out of the revelation of his being an earl’s son, yet, contrary to what she’d allowed him to think, unconsciously she’d assumed marriage had been his goal.
Regardless, she hadn’t spent time considering the prospect because she’d been so sure they would part when he left Guernsey to pursue his mission, and the consequent separation would see the connection, and his impulse to marry her, wither and die. But now he’d taken her with him, and she’d decided—felt compelled—to remain by his side, no immediate separation was likely, and far from withering and dying, what had grown between them was deepening and burgeoning and growing ever stronger.
Sitting polishing her knives and cutlass on the window seat in her room while Phoebe and Penny sorted through the clothes—mostly theirs—they felt she should take, Linnet grappled with that fact. With the direction Logan had reiterated that morning in forceful, undeniable, senses-scrambling fashion. He was fixed on marrying her, and wasn’t merely in earnest, but determined, dogged, and as stubborn as she.
Most ladies would be in alt, delirious with delight, yet . . . she was who she was, and she’d given up all thoughts of marriage, laid all hope of it aside years ago. She was, after all, the virgin queen in her domain; she’d seen no way of marrying while retaining both the responsibility and the ability to act that was her birthright.
And it was that—the difficulties that arose from being a virgin queen—that Logan was challenging. She suspected he knew it, too. It was a question of power and command, and the wielding of both was something he understood, something of which he had long and real experience.
He was, in effect, challenging her. To reassess, to rethink. To explore.
To take the risk.
What if she married him? Could a marriage between them work?
How could she know? How could she tell?
Yet the answer was vital, and not just to her. Her whole household, her wards, all who sailed for Trevission Ships, would be affected if things went wrong.
That was one great unknown. Another hurdle was, to her at least, utterly obvious. She might have been born a lady—indeed, she could correctly claim to be the Honorable Linnet Trevission—yet her life had never been that of a lady, certainly not the sort to marry the son of an earl. . . .
Even as her mind stalled, Penny came over, Linnet’s leather breeches in her hands.
“I am still insanely jealous, but at least I’ll shortly have a pair of my own. I wasn’t sure if you roll them or fold them to pack.”
“Roll.” Linnet took them and showed her. “The fewer creases you put in them, the longer they’ll last.”
They chatted for some minutes about the care of fine leather, what to do, what to avoid, then Phoebe called.
“Linnet, come and decide what gown you’ll wear tomorrow.” Staring at the options laid upon the bed, Phoebe frowned. “I was wondering if there’s any way you might wear your cutlass, but disguise it.”
Even as they assessed the possibilities, Linnet’s reservation over not being the right sort of lady for Logan resonated in her head.
Finally, she sat on the bed and looked up at Phoebe and Penny. “Tell me—before you were wed, was there ever any time when you wondered if you were . . . I can’t think how to put this, but enough of a lady for him?”
Both Phoebe and Penny looked at her, then, sobering, sank down onto the counterpane.
“For me,” Penny said, “it wasn’t so much that. I’m the daughter of an earl, and I’ve known Charles all my life. We moved in the same social circles and our families were close. It wasn’t anything social that was my problem—it was more if I was woman enough to accept all of him, all the parts he’d kept hidden from us all, not just me, but his whole family. It was like trying to embrace a man where half of him remained permanently in shadow. I wondered, at the time, whether I could be strong enough to see him all, know him all, and yet continue to love him all—not just the laughing buccaneering adventurer that anyone with eyes can see, but the devoted and deadly spy beneath.” She paused, and an expression Linnet could only define as serene joy passed over her features as she smiled. “But I discovered I was strong enough, and I’m still reaping the rewards.”
“Hmm.” Phoebe tapped her chin. “I did wonder at the time if I was suitable—suitably suitable, I suppose you might say. I was already immersed in the agency, it took up most of my time, and I’d convinced myself that marriage was not for me.” She smiled, the expression as joyous as Penny’s. “Deverell convinced me otherwise, but I can see parallels with your situation.” Phoebe met Linnet’s eyes, understanding in hers. “The thing one needs to remember is, while we may not be the most conventional of ladies, they are, indubitably and indisputably, not conventional gentlemen.”
“That’s entirely correct.” Penny nodded sagely. “Our gentlemen are more. And as such, it’s been my observation that conventional ladies are not to their taste, and further, are highly unlikely to be able to handle them.” She gave a more decisive nod. “That’s my tale, and I intend to adhere to it. However”—she rose—“you might want to consider that not one of Royce’s ex-operatives, no more than Royce himself, has married a conventional lady.”
She paused, head tilted, then said, “Minerva is probably the most outwardly conventional, and Letitia and Clarice—you’ll meet them all at Elveden. Yet even those three . . . once you learn of their backgrounds, and if you give them a challenge, a problem, or heaven forbid threaten anyone they hold dear, then you’ll uncover something quite outside the realm of the conventional.”
Phoebe snorted. “Oh, yes. Those three of us all—they would without a blink take on the Lord Cha
ncellor himself and reduce him to quaking. As for Prinny, they’d likely send him gibbering.”
Both Phoebe and Penny smiled as if relishing the thought.
A gong sounded in the distance. Phoebe glanced at the clothes neatly folded on the bed. “Come on—let’s set aside your things for tomorrow and pack everything else. Then after lunch, we can start on the children’s things.”
With much to think about, and a still, as she thought of it, questing heart, Linnet readily fell in with her hostess’s directions.
A fter lunch, she followed Phoebe and Penny up the stairs to the big nursery, which took up most of the upper floor of one of the house’s irregular wings. At one end was a large circular chamber filling one of the old castle’s towers. With wide windows giving wonderful views out to sea and along the coast, it was the perfect place for the children to play.
It was instantly apparent that the best way in which Linnet could assist with the children’s packing was to distract the four older children. Pulling rank as captain of the Esperance , she had no difficulty luring them to the wide window seats beneath the tower room’s windows. Ensconced there, they played spot the ship, then spot the bird. As there were plenty of specimens of the latter readily visible, and as the children’s fascination with ships had yet to wane, they happily pointed and displayed their knowledge, arguing, then listening as Linnet explained and corrected. Eventually, at her suggestion, they started making up stories about the ships they saw—about their voyages, their captains, and crews.
Relaxing against the window frame, Linnet smiled, laughing and encouraging their flights of fancy. The three boys were especially inventive, describing pirates and treasure and sea battles.
Phoebe’s daughter, Jessica, tiring of such nonsense, climbed up to sit alongside Linnet. Reaching up a hand, she touched Linnet’s loose chignon, face lighting at the silken feel. “Can I braid it? I sometimes do Mama’s hair.”
Linnet smiled into green eyes much like her own, and even more like Phoebe’s. “If you like.” Shifting so Jessica could kneel at her back, Linnet reached up and pulled out the pins anchoring the mass. When it cascaded over her shoulders, Jessica oohed, then ran her small fingers through it.
“One big braid,” Jessica decided.
Smiling, Linnet left her to it and gave her attention to settling a discussion over the relative merits of swords or knives in dispatching scurvy pirates.
Jessica was gentle, carefully using her fingers to comb out Linnet’s long hair, then doggedly plaiting; she had to go back and forth a number of times, unraveling the braid to redo it tighter or straighter, but eventually she slipped from behind Linnet, scurried out to the main room, then returned a moment later with a ribbon.
Climbing back beside Linnet, Jessica frowned with concentration as she tied the end of the braid, then she sat back on her ankles, surveyed the result, and smiled. A big, beautiful smile. “There you are.” Laying the fat braid over Linnet’s shoulder, Jessica patted it. “That will keep it neat.”
“Thank you.” Linnet leaned forward and dropped a kiss on Jessica’s head. Drawing back, she squinted down at the slightly lopsided braid. “It’s lovely, but you mustn’t be upset if later I have to brush it out and put up my hair for dinner.” She met Jessica’s eyes confidingly. “It’s what ladies have to do.”
Jessica nodded back solemnly. “I know. Mama has to do that, too.”
“So does our mama,” Penny’s boys chorused.
Linnet laughed. Opening her arms wide, she managed to hug them all. She rocked them for a moment, an armful of warm, trusting, energetic bodies, bodies who laughed and giggled, then she released them—slowly.
Slowly straightened, staring blankly across the room, then she blinked, turned her head to look outside. “Look—is that a rowboat all the way out there? Or a fishing boat?”
The children swung back to the windows, kneeling and peering out to see, arguing once they’d located the boat she meant, bobbing on the waves in the bay.
Dragging in a breath, Linnet let them good-naturedly bicker, seized the moment to find her mental feet again.
She wanted children.
She’d forgotten how much. She’d buried that want so long ago she’d forgotten how much it had ached, and for how long, when she’d made her decision not to marry.
At the time, she’d already started gathering her wards. She’d told herself that they would do, would be enough to absorb and satisfy any maternal instinct she possessed.
But it wasn’t maternal instinct that ached inside her, that made her press her fist to her breastbone, fight to draw a full, even breath.
In the instant the boys had chorused, she’d been struck by a thought—out of nowhere, yet not—a stray thought of what it would be like to look into midnight blue eyes that held that degree of mischief. To see such eyes laughing up at her out of an innocent face.
She’d wanted, for that waking instant had dreamed of, Logan’s child. Son or daughter, her vision hadn’t been specific, but the thought of a little Logan running wild . . .
Had made her heart ache.
Had reopened the empty, hollow cavern below her heart.
Dragging in a longer breath, forcing her lungs to function, she blinked again, straightened on the seat, then leaned to look out of the window. After a moment, she said, “It’s a fishing skiff. Can you see the nets dragging behind it? Look at the way the wake is churning.”
L innet was very ready to accompany Phoebe and Penny downstairs when they declared it was time to attend their own packing. Penny stated that her packing was merely a matter of repacking everything she’d brought to Paignton Hall—no decisions to be made—so she and Linnet accompanied Phoebe into her dressing room.
The next hour and more passed swiftly. Linnet put aside her private cogitations and gave herself up to the novel experience of laughing and enjoying the company of like-minded ladies. Then the first gong sounded and it was time to dress for dinner.
Back in her room, she washed and changed into one of the gowns Penny had lent her. Standing before the dressing table, she unwound Jessica’s braid. Instead of summoning a maid, she elected to brush out her hair, then plait it again, this time into two tight plaits, which she could wind about her head and pin to fashion a gleaming, gilded coronet.
Being alone gave her time to think, to look back over the day, and consider all she’d felt, all that had surfaced while she’d been with the other two, already married ladies, and their children.
Most especially the children.
For all she knew she might already be carrying Logan’s child. As her earlier forays into intimacy had been so very brief, she’d ignored the risk of pregnancy, and with Logan . . . had forgotten to remember it. Yet their liaison had extended far beyond a single occasion, and indeed would continue. . . .
No matter how she tried, she couldn’t make herself view falling pregnant with Logan’s child as anything other than a blessing, a joy.
That left her feeling even more unsettled.
She went down to the drawing room early. Penny and Charles were already there, as was Deverell. Logan arrived not long after, then Phoebe came bustling in. As they chatted and exchanged stories of their day, she watched and observed—took closer note of how Charles and Deverell interacted with Penny and Phoebe, and vice versa.
Now she knew them better, she could see, detect, the very real connection that flowed between each couple. Easy affection, a touch of pride, protectiveness, and yes, even in this setting, a hint of possessiveness from the men, and a reciprocal but more open affection from the women, an acceptance and a bone-deep confidence in all their men were and would provide. If she’d needed any demonstration of what constituted a sound basis for marriage between people like them, it was there, before her nose.
As Logan fell in beside Linnet as they followed Phoebe into the dining room, he studied Linnet’s face, wondered what she was thinking. He’d noticed her watchfulness; she’d been quiet, quieter than he was used to
her being, but she’d been fully absorbed and listening avidly. As if she was studying what was going on.
Holding her chair while she sat, he settled her, then sat beside her. Gave his attention to the soup that was placed before him.
Conversation waned while they all supped.
He didn’t know what was in Linnet’s mind. Didn’t know what he should or shouldn’t say at this point. They were in a hiatus—a frustrating interlude during which they couldn’t go forward, couldn’t make decisions, but had to wait for external issues to resolve before they could do anything at all.
Indeed, his whole day had been one of frustration. On horseback with Charles and Deverell, he’d ridden a wide swath around Paignton, but had found no traces of the cult. No watchers, either cultists or hired locals, no hint from the villagers around about of any sightings of unknown men.
They might have temporarily lost the cult, but, as he’d assured Charles and Deverell, they’d be watching the main roads to the north and east, knowing he’d make a dash in that direction sometime.
While they’d ridden down the lanes and over the fields, he’d had time to reassess his personal strategy, to reaffirm that showing Linnet the man he was, the man the years had made him—giving her the chance to see for herself what manner of man he was, what he’d made of his life thus far, giving her the facts on which to judge what he would bring to her and Mon Coeur—before he told her of his bastard state was the right and proper course of action.
The course most likely to succeed.
Her inclusion in the party for this last dash to Elveden meant she’d have a chance to see with her own eyes and gauge his standing, his circle of friends, his past achievements, his capabilities, even get some idea of his wealth.
He could tell her all that, recite a catalogue, but he’d much rather she saw and made her own assessment. Faster, more direct, more certain that way.
Especially as he didn’t know exactly how she would react to the revelation that he was a bastard, albeit a noble one. In wider tonnish society, he would be accepted as the man he was; he wasn’t in the same boat as the average bastard whose mother hailed from the lower orders. In his case, his mother, too, had been from one of the highest families. His position was more like that of old Lady Melbourne’s children, all of whom where widely regarded as having different fathers, none of whom was Lord Melbourne.
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