Amber (Jewel Trilogy, Book 3)

by Royal, Lauren

  Their marriage was suspended on a fragile web, but without this secret between them, he could begin to spin it stronger.

  "Trick?"

  "Hmm?"

  "Why did you want a description of that man?"

  He shrugged uncomfortably, suddenly questioning the wisdom of allowing her to have seen him do that. But he'd always made his notes immediately, while the vision was still fresh in his mind.

  "To send to the authorities," he said in an offhand manner. "Anonymously, of course, so they can identify the blackguard without my being involved."

  "Why do you suppose he's counterfeiting?"

  "To get rich, I imagine."

  "I imagine there's another reason. Something tied in with his being a Puritan." Her eyes unfocused, she stared right through him, clearly lost in contemplation. "I don't think he's acting alone," she said.

  "What makes you say that?"

  "He didn't seem bright enough."

  Not as bright as she was, Trick thought, that was for sure.

  "I'm thinking he's part of a bigger operation," she continued, "and if the members are Puritans, perhaps in league with some other Parliamentarians, they might be acting against the king's interests. Passing worthless currency in an attempt to undermine the economy and the people's confidence in the monarchy. A plot to regain the power they once had, the power that died along with Cromwell."

  She stole his breath. Both the strength of her reasoning and the fact that she'd hit it on the mark—the very suspicions that Charles had put forth and Trick was attempting to prove. He'd never considered that his beautiful young wife might understand the intricate linkage of economics and political power.

  But it was dangerous, this line of reasoning. Kendra might have a sharp head and atypical interests, but he couldn't allow her to go spreading this idea around, risking the chance the perpetrators might hear and discover someone was on to them.

  "Maybe," he said lightly, keeping his face and tone nonchalant. "But I expect he's just trying to get rich."

  She studied him, her hands tightening on Pandora's reins. "How easily you dismiss my ideas. Are you still angry that I followed you earlier?"

  "Nay," he said, relieved to be on a different subject. "No harm was done." They turned up Amberley's drive, the trees on either side throwing cool shadows across the pathway. "I think you'll find me more forgiving than most. The only thing I won't stand for is infidelity, and I've nothing to worry about on that account, have I?"

  Yet. Someday soon he would initiate her into the joys of physical love...and then maybe he'd have something to worry about.

  "Infidelity?" A challenge in her voice, Kendra jostled Pandora closer to Chaucer's side. "Most men expect fidelity only from their mistresses."

  Most men hadn't found their betrothed wife in bed with another man. "You will learn, leannan, that I am not like most men."

  She shot him an arch look. "And what if I'm not like most women? What if I expect the same fidelity from you?"

  "Turning the tables, are you?" He risked leaning from the saddle to chuck her under the chin. "You surely know how to try a man's patience."

  Her green eyes flashed. "That was no sort of answer."

  "I wouldn't ask something of you if I weren't willing to offer it myself."

  Her expression said louder than words that she didn't believe him. But she dropped the topic, her gaze drifting to Amberley's impressive facade. "My brother Ford will want to go up the tower and see how the clock works."

  "He already has."

  Her pretty brow creased in a puzzled frown.

  "The house parties, remember? He seems much taken with clocks. Stayed up there half an afternoon, while we twiddled our thumbs waiting to play cards. Here we are." Trick slid to the gravel and handed his reins to a groom. With a gentle hand at her back, he urged Kendra up the steps of Amberley House.

  "Dinner," he said as Compton opened the door. "I'm fair starving. And then—"

  "A letter, your grace." The butler proffered a silver tray. "It arrived while you were out."

  Frowning, Trick snatched it up. Wrinkled and grubby, it looked as though it had traveled quite a distance. "Thank you, Compton. We'll just take it to the study. Let us know when dinner is ready."

  "Certainly." Compton's jowls wobbled with the nod of his head. He took himself off to the kitchens, and Trick ushered Kendra into the study, tossing the letter on the marquetry table that sat between two leather chairs.

  Kendra sat while Trick poured himself a shot of whisky. He dropped onto the other chair and threw back a gulp. Setting the glass on the table between them, he lifted the letter.

  Kendra watched him worry the seal with his long fingers. "Open it," she suggested.

  "Not just yet." He turned it over and stared at his name written on the back.

  "What is it?" Wondering why he seemed so pensive, she hitched herself forward and frowned at the parchment. "Do you know who it's from?"

  He looked up at her, his face set in unfamiliar lines. Not teasing, not angry, not thoughtful, not seductive—not any emotion she'd seen there before. Not even evasive—another all-too-common mood she was learning to distinguish.

  "It's from my mother," he said softly. "After all these years, I still recognize her hand." He blinked, then suddenly thrust the letter at Kendra. "Here. You read it."

  She almost dropped it, but caught it in time. "No," she protested. "It's addressed to you."

  "I'll listen. Then I willnae hear her voice, but yours."

  Her heart ached at the pain in his tone, at the telltale Scottish word that had slipped into his careful English speech.

  "Read it, please." He slumped down in the chair and took a long sip of spirits, then leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

  She smoothed the parchment against her skirt and slipped a fingernail under the seal. When it lifted off with a little snapping sound, Trick winced.

  "Go ahead," he said huskily.

  The paper crackled as she opened it and held it to catch the light from the window. "Her writing is beautiful," she said.

  He said nothing.

  She took a deep breath. "'My dear Patrick Iain,'" she read. "'My heart is heavy with sorrow for all the years we've been apart. Now I am dying, and it is my fondest wish to gaze upon your beloved face once more. Though I know you're a man grown, my bonnie lad you'll always be. Come to me, Patrick, come make an old woman smile as she greets the next world. With all the love in my heart, Mam.'"

  Silence. Kendra took one long breath, two...three.

  Trick opened his eyes and sipped slowly from his glass.

  "Can I go with you?" she asked.

  "Where?" He shifted to face her. "You don't think I'll go to her, do you?"

  "You must!"

  "She cannot ignore me for eighteen years and then expect me to jump to her command."

  "She's dying, Trick."

  He shrugged.

  "You must make your peace. It's your only chance."

  "I don't care to give her the satisfaction."

  "It's your own satisfaction at stake here. If you fail to go now, you'll always wonder. Always. Go to her and find your answers, before it's too late. Close your heart if you must, but go. Say good-bye."

  He drained the glass and rolled it between his palms. "You think yourself wise for your years."

  "I didn't get to say good-bye." The letter crackled as she folded it and set it on the table. "In my dreams, awake and sleeping, I've accused my parents of leaving me and I've told them I loved them. I've been angry at them, and sad. But face-to-face, I never got to say anything."

  He took a deep breath, and the crystal stilled between his hands.

  "Go, Trick. Now. Tonight." She'd have to postpone the children's party, but so be it. "I'll come with you."

  "No," he said slowly. "I'll go alone. Tomorrow."

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  After supper, Kendra found herself mounted on Pandora, heading toward the cottage for the second time th
at day.

  She slanted a glance at Trick riding beside her. She'd tried halfheartedly to talk him into taking her along to Scotland, but he was absolutely against it.

  Well, perhaps it would be a relief to be free from him for a while. Free from those disarming kisses that made her lose her head. Free to catch up on her sleep. Free to think about whether she wanted to try again, because the agony of that first night was becoming harder and harder to remember clearly.

  Still, part of her was reluctant to see him go, so she'd clung to him like a sticky bun all the afternoon, while he completed the tasks that stood in the way of his leaving.

  The full moon reflected off the cottage windows as they approached. "I had no idea of the extent of your responsibilities," she said through a yawn.

  "I just want to drop off some papers."

  Her eyes felt gritty. "And after that?"

  Trick slid from Chaucer and reached to help her down. "I still have much to do before I can sleep."

  She tethered Pandora and followed him inside. "You're pushing yourself." She closed the door and leaned against it, watching while he lit a single candle. "I know you must be worried for your mother—"

  "I'm not particularly worried." Finished, he felt for the key above the fireplace.

  "She's dying!"

  He shot her a look as he unlocked the desk. "You said yourself her writing is beautiful. A woman on her deathbed would have a shaky hand, or dictate to someone else." He pulled a sheaf of papers from his surcoat and slid them into the bottom drawer.

  "Perhaps she did dictate it."

  "It was her own hand—I'd bet my life on that. Aye, she's up to something." He shut the drawer and relocked it. "I'll play along with her game, just in case I'm wrong, but she's a conniving—"

  "You cannot know that, Trick. Not after all these years."

  "Time will tell which of us is right. But I won't live in hope that she's changed." He shoved the key back between the stones and began to blow out the flame, then suddenly stopped. "Damn, the hats and pipes. I wonder what else I'm forgetting? Wait here—I'll be back." He set the candle on the mantel, and before she knew it, the door had slammed behind him.

  She stood still for a moment in guilty indecision before walking slowly to the fireplace. Teetering on her toes, she reached for the key, finding Trick had placed it too high for her reach. She dragged the desk chair close, climbed atop it, and nudged the key from its hiding place.

  Jumping down, she rushed to the window. Moonlight illuminated the grounds. Trick was nowhere in sight. Seconds later she had the bottom drawer open and was pawing through its contents.

  On top were the notes he'd just dropped off and those he'd concealed there earlier today. Not to keep them from her, obviously—he'd made no secret of the drawer. Surely he wouldn't care if she looked.

  Or so she told herself.

  She swept the candle off the mantel to examine more pages of descriptions like the one she'd helped Trick make of the Puritan today. She smiled at his writing: very bold, the letters scrawled, clearly written in haste.

  Carefully she set the candlestick on the desktop, then put the papers back in the drawer and peeked beneath them. An accounting of some sort. A record of his takings? Quite detailed, including descriptions of individual coins. Today hadn't been the first time he'd run across counterfeits. Underneath that...

  She pulled out another stack of papers, some of them older and yellowed. Written by the same hand, but more carefully, the words painstakingly formed, neat and even. They reminded Kendra of the letters she used to send to her parents as a child, letters written and rewritten before a final, perfect draft was carefully copied.

  Choosing one at random, she read.

  Pain and sorrow forevermore dwell

  Inside the deepest bowels of hell.

  Betrayal has yet took from me

  What love and trust had once set free.

  Poetry. Kendra sat abruptly on the edge of the desk. Trick, a poet? She never would have thought it; in fact, had someone suggested such, she would have laughed herself silly.

  She didn't know her husband at all.

  He'd been hurt by someone, terribly. Her heart clenched as she suddenly understood his words: I don't believe in love at all. Maybe I did once...but not anymore. Love's only an illusion.

  Who had done what to him to make him feel this way? Was he never happy? The paper seemed brittle when she set it down—as brittle as the words upon it. But the words on the sheet underneath did nothing to soothe her sympathetic ache.

  Twixt fathers and tyrants

  a difference is known:

  Fathers seek their sons' good,

  tyrants their own.

  With a sinking heart, she riffled through the pages, pausing to read here and there. The touching verses hinted at events in Trick's life that had shaped him into the man she saw today. Pain, anger, disillusionment...ah, there it was. Love, happiness. His hand was lighter here; the words fairly leapt off the page in their exuberance.

  Sweet day, happy, calm and bright

  Love has brought me to this light

  The sun that sits in yonder sky

  Today can shine not more than I

  And if tomorrow it should rain

  Her smile will make sun shine again

  She bit her lip. Was this written of the same love that had later turned to betrayal? Could this carefree Trick live somewhere beneath the cynical man who shared her home? If trust had been shattered by one woman, could another restore it?

  Hoofbeats. Oh, God, he was on his way back. She stuffed the poems beneath the other papers and locked the drawer, then jumped to the chair to replace the key. She was just pushing the chair back to the desk when the door flew open and Trick sauntered inside with the bundle of hats under one arm, the pipes under the other.

  He dropped it all in a corner. "Ready to go?"

  His crooked grin made her heart leap; he was so unsuspecting. She flushed, unbearably guilty just looking at him after reading his private compositions.

  "I suppose," she said. "Though I was hoping we could talk."

  "Now? About what?"

  "Life. Yours." She met his gaze, willing him to share some of his past. "And mine, of course. All the years that led to now. The people who loved us—"

  "None."

  "—and hurt us."

  He only shrugged. "None worth talking about."

  "And what we like...for instance, do you like to write? I keep a journal, and sometimes I've written poems."

  "Poems?" His gaze flickered down to the drawer. "No, I don't like to write." He leaned past her to blow out the candle. "Come along, will you?" he said, going to the door. "I've much to do."

  Crushed that he refused to even consider confiding in her, Kendra pushed by him and outside. Before she could mount Pandora, he caught her by the arm.

  "I know you mean well," he said softly.

  Silent, she searched his eyes, gray in the darkness.

  They went darker still. "I'm sorry you're so unhappy," he said.

  "I'm not unhappy. Just confused. I'm worried for your life, and I don't like keeping the truth from my brothers about what it is you're doing. There are parts of you I admire—your compassion for the children. And more parts I don't understand—parts I think you've locked away. And now you're leaving."

  "I'll be back." The words were a low, husky promise. "Maybe you'll miss me while I'm gone." His hand slid down her arm until his fingers were laced with hers, and he leaned to press a soft kiss to her mouth.

  When he pulled back, she stared at him helplessly. Her lips tingled. She heard his low chuckle before he turned away to lock the cottage, and it drove her to a decision.

  Once, in jest, she had promised he'd find love, and a Chase promise was never given lightly. She would bring back to life what another woman had killed; she would make him believe in love once again.

  Accomplishing that while avoiding his bed was not going to be easy.

  B
ut then, worthwhile things rarely were.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Trick eased through the bedchamber door and closed it quietly behind him. He carried the candle to the bedside and set it on the table by Kendra's head, where it would illuminate her face.

  She looked angelic in sleep, her long, dark lashes feathery against her sun-pinked cheeks, her bright hair tumbled on the pillow, glistening in the candlelight. When he bent and kissed her on the forehead, a faint smile curved her lips, then faded away.

  Something softened in his gut. She was more compassionate and forthright than he'd expected, this new wife of his. And distressed. Responsibility for that fell squarely on his shoulders, sparking his guilt along with tender feelings he'd long since learned to suppress. But he had much to hide, and good reasons for doing so. At least for now.

  As soon as the job for King Charles was completed...

  He felt so close to uncovering the truth. Were it not for this summons from his mother, he would soon have this behind him. Maybe, without secrets between them, he and Kendra could begin to establish some sort of trust.

  But first things first. He undressed swiftly, checking off the list in his head to make sure he'd taken care of everything before he left for Scotland, a journey that might take a month or more, up and back with time spent there.

  Letters of instruction to the various people who ran the estate—done.

  A purse of gold for Compton to see delivered to Mrs. Jackson at Caldwell Manor—done.

  A note to King Charles explaining the delay of his mission—done.

  While his staff had been scurrying about, readying to leave—because a duke, no matter his personal preferences, didn't travel unattended—he'd checked a dozen tasks or more off his private list. Everything, in fact, but the one he'd have found most pleasant...teasing his bride into willing submission.

  From all evidence, Kendra had been busy as well. Goods for tomorrow's party were stacked neatly against one wall. A pile of colorful folded fabrics would make unique togas and doubtless thrill the wee wearers. Small baskets overflowed with sweets and treats that would make the recipients think they had died and gone to heaven. Or Olympia, in this case.