For Your Arms Only

by Caroline Linden

  With a sigh, she picked up the journal and tried to look at it as a whole. It had its own language; perhaps she just needed to listen to its flow a bit more, and stop concentrating on the individual words. She let her eyes drift across the lines as if she were reading. One word kept snagging her eye, “sg.” There were quite a few instances of it, and she thought it meant “an.” She couldn’t think of another two-letter word in English that occurred so often. But that implied some things about the words that followed it, and she hadn’t been able to make that work. Cressida huffed in impatience, and rolled her head from side to side to stretch her neck. If only it were three letters. Then she would think it represented “the,” which would eliminate so many of the problems she was having with vowels…

  She raised her head as the thought sank in. What if…? Her hand shaking with excitement, she tore another page from her sketchbook and tried it. Once she quit trying to force “an” from “sg,” things fell into place. She counted letters again and realigned her mapping of them. And when she applied her new key to a paragraph chosen at random, the whole thing made sense. She made some corrections to her code—it seemed “sg” didn’t always translate directly to “the,” but only when it stood alone—and tried another paragraph. With a thrill, she realized that one also made sense, and she slapped her hands down on the desk and exclaimed in triumph.

  Now all thought of sleep vanished. She opened to the beginning of the journal and began translating. In front of her eyes, the curtain lifted on her father’s life in the army. He described the dirt and the heat, the drenching rainstorms and the paucity of good food. He wrote of the horrific slaughter of thousands of horses at Corunna as the British navy whisked the army away from being crushed by the pursuing French. He wrote of his fellow soldiers and the officers who sometimes led them, and sometimes sent them to certain deaths through sheer stupidity. He wrote of pomegranates and port wine and long brown Portuguese cigarettes, and the startling carnage created by Shrapnel shells. Every so often she had to make another small addition to her key, but overall the code was broken. When Cressida’s hand cramped and she had to put down her pen, she was shocked to realize hours had gone by since she sat down to work.

  Callie had blown out her lamp and was fast asleep. The house was quiet. Cressida simply had to tell someone, though. She pulled on her dressing gown, snatched up her papers and the journal, and slipped from the room, heading straight for Alec’s study.

  To her immense relief a line of light glowed under the door. She tapped gently, then pushed the door open at his muffled summons.

  He rose from the wide mahogany desk, his hair rumpled and his cravat pulled askew. The desk was covered with papers and open books. “Come in,” he said at once. “Is something wrong?”

  She came into the room and closed the door behind her. “No, nothing is wrong. I’ve just made some progress in solving this code, and…well, I wanted to tell someone,” she said with an embarrassed little laugh, catching sight of the clock. It was very late. He would think her demented over this journal. “I didn’t realize it was so late. I don’t want to be a bother.”

  “No, no, of course not. Since John is leaving, there’s just more to be done.” He pushed aside some of the clutter on his desk and motioned for her to come over. Cressida hurried forward to lay the book in front of him, eagerness banishing her hesitation.

  “I realized it’s a fairly simple rearrangement cipher,” she said, leaning down to show him her notes. “At first I tried to match the letters to those that appear most often in English, but that always got snarled in the end. Just tonight I discovered a twist: not all these words map exactly. For instance, ‘sg’ represents ‘the.’ I’ve checked it through several pages and it seems to hold true unless the letters ‘t-h-e’ are part of a larger word, like ‘other,’ and then it reverts to the rearrangement scheme. But I was able to translate two separate passages into sensible English, and then began in earnest. I think this is the correct key.” She laid her much-annotated key on top.

  Alec was frowning at the scribbled notes. “You mean the letters are simply out of order?”

  She shook her head. “No, not quite. Think of it instead as a reassignment; an ‘e’ now means a ‘k,’ for example. Well, not always, but usually. I can see that he got better at it as time went on. In the beginning of the book”—she flipped open to a page near the front—“every letter is formed individually, as if he had to keep checking the key. But later, the words are written almost as if he knew this different alphabet by heart and didn’t need to think before writing.” She turned to the middle to show him.

  He leaned forward, cocking his head as he studied the page. “What does he write of?”

  Cressida pulled out the sheets where she had begun translating. “Army matters, and any other thing that interested him. Who has been promoted, rumors, battles, who has been killed. An argument between officers, and a soldier whipped for desertion. But I have only just begun, on entries from years ago. He talks of Corunna and Oporto.”

  “A decade ago.” He sighed and propped an elbow on the desk. “How relevant is that?”

  Cressida fell silent. In her excitement at solving the code, she had lost sight of the real purpose of the task. How could an army diary a decade old help find her father now? And, to be truthful, did she really want to anymore? What she did not tell Alec was the deeper implications in Papa’s writings. He hadn’t just kept a journal, he had kept notes on others. She couldn’t help noticing that his remarks seemed to center on dishonorable activities, scandals and failures and incompetence. And one little note, so brief she hardly knew what to make of it, even appeared to hint that Papa might have been paid to keep quiet about those things.

  It was possible that happened only once, when Papa interrupted some soldiers abusing a pair of local women and stealing from their farm. He had noted the penalty for their actions would be a fierce lashing, but then added, “they secured my discretion quite reasonably.” She had first thought nothing of that, assuming the men were friends of Papa’s whom he didn’t want to see punished. But as she worked her way into the book, Cressida got the uncomfortable feeling that Papa’s discretion had been secured more than once with money, and for larger and larger sums. And when it became a habit rather than a single instance, there was only one word for the person selling his discretion: blackmailer.

  She hated even to think that word. He was her father, for heaven’s sake, who loved her and her sister and sent them money every quarter and brought them sweets when he came home on furlough. If the money he sent them had come from…this activity, did that make her culpable as well?

  But none of that was proven, and she didn’t want to shame her father for things he might have done only a few times, years ago. When she had translated more of the journal…well, then she would decide what she had to do, depending on what she read.

  “I don’t know,” she murmured in reply to Alec’s question. “But I have only just begun translating.”

  “Perhaps as you move ahead in the book something more useful will come to light.”

  “Perhaps.” She gathered up her notes. She knew his suggestion had merit but it was sobering nonetheless. No matter how hard she tried to ignore it, Tom’s voice echoed in her head: That book won’t bring you peace. Cressida had been telling herself she wanted the truth, peaceful or not. Could she keep this terrible a secret about her father, though? And did she want to? Would the knowledge that Papa might have been a blackmailer eat at her inside if she tried to conceal it? She headed toward the door, all her elation gone.

  “Cressida.”

  She turned. Alec had risen to his feet. The lamplight cast severe shadows on his face, drawing him in sharp angles and hollows. He looked tired. “Good work,” he said with a slight smile. “It looked pure gibberish to me.”

  Her cheeks warmed in spite of herself at the compliment. “Oh no. It wasn’t that difficult, but just took time.”

  His smile widened ruefully.
“For you. I never had the patience to solve puzzles like that. Frederick would sit and work out problems and I…I would be off climbing trees and racing horses.”

  She smiled back. How odd it was to hear a man say, with admiration, that she had done something he couldn’t have done—how odd, and how pleasant. “I have always liked a good puzzle.”

  “There seems to be no shortage of those.” He sighed and turned back to his desk. Cressida looked at him, standing there so honorably, so decently, and felt something inside her shift. “Here,” he said. “Don’t forget this.”

  She blinked and tore her eyes from his. The journal. He was holding out the journal to her, the book she had hoped would answer her questions, and feared would confirm her father a scoundrel. She went back around the desk and reached for it. “Thank you,” she said impulsively. “For everything.”

  “I’ve not accomplished what I promised you.”

  You have done far more, and I love you for it. The force of that thought shook her a little. “You have been my…friend,” she said softly, hesitating a little over the word. “I appreciate that.”

  His eyes flashed her way, hot and focused. Cressida’s heart almost tripped over itself at the naked desire burning in that gaze. “Friend” had been the wrong word, after all.

  It rattled her. It exhilarated her. It burned away all her good sense about guarding her heart around him, and completely drove away any thought of going quietly back up to bed. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. All the yearning Cressida felt for someone who understood her, who valued her and admired her, for someone who made her heart leap and made her laugh even in her foulest mood, couldn’t be contained anymore. Slowly she dropped the book back on the desk. With hands that were unnaturally steady, she reached up, turned his face back to her, then went up on her toes and kissed him.

  His mouth was firm under hers, but soft at the same time. He returned her kiss, as gently as the day they had walked to the ridge, but never deepened it. His restraint made her feel bold; she wanted more, so she ran her hands up his chest to wrap her arms around his neck. The muscles of his shoulders tensed, and Cressida shivered as she realized how tightly leashed his strength was. How restrained he was.

  Too restrained.

  She ended the kiss and stared into his azure eyes. The desire she had seen there earlier was undimmed—he wanted her, she was sure of it. But then…

  “What are you trying to do?” he whispered. The vein in his temple pulsed, but otherwise he seemed as calm as ever.

  She tried to flash a coy smile, but it faltered on her lips. “I’m trying to seduce you.”

  He inhaled deeply. “Why?”

  The blush burned her face. “Because I want to.”

  He raised one hand and touched her cheek, just barely, before his fingers slid around and up the back of her neck, cupping her nape. His grip tightened, drawing her close. Cressida swayed toward him, her eyes drifting closed as he leaned down and pressed his lips to her cheek, right at the corner of her mouth. “You should go to bed,” he murmured against her skin.

  She arched her neck, stretching against his hand. “Alone?”

  He kissed the other corner of her mouth, his lips lingering over hers. “That would be best.”

  “It will be harder to seduce you that way.”

  His chest shook with silent laughter. “Don’t you know you already have?”

  She opened her eyes. He was smiling at her, a funny little rueful smile, and his thumb stroked her cheek. Cressida’s stomach lurched as she realized how much she craved that smile and that touch. He didn’t smile enough—and she thought she would never get tired of his touch.

  “Prove it,” she whispered.

  His smile dimmed. “I shouldn’t—”

  She pulled on his shirt and kissed him, before he could say that she should go to bed, alone, again. He sucked in his breath and put his hands on her waist, as if to move her aside, but Cressida pressed against the firm wall of his chest and instead his arms went around her. She shuddered as their bodies fit together like two halves of a whole, and finally his control broke.

  Up her back his hands went, a firm, sweeping stroke drawing her even closer. He caught the end of her braid and tugged. Cressida gasped, lifting her chin, and he brushed his lips against her neck, right at the base of her throat where her pulse beat wildly against her skin. Her head swam. This was intoxicating—and he was only kissing her neck and playing with her hair. His fingers were combing out her braid, and in a few moments her hair hung in a wild mess down her back, growing more tangled by the second as he plunged his hands into it, cradling her head and holding her face up to his.

  Abruptly he scooped her up, boosting her to sit on the desk behind her. Her fingers tangled with his as they both pulled at the fastenings of her dressing gown, and then he stripped it from her arms. He kissed the curve where her neck met her shoulder, sucking at her skin until she shivered. He popped loose the buttons that held her nightdress closed, undoing them until he could push the worn fabric over her shoulders to her elbows. Then Alec pulled back until she opened her eyes and blinked at him, gloriously disheveled and aroused.

  He was just looking at her, his gaze roving over her. Her skin pebbled into gooseflesh, from the chill of the air and the heat in his gaze. “Beautiful,” he murmured, skating just the tips of his fingers over her collarbone. Cressida moaned, her body quivering at the whisper-light contact, and yanked at the constraining fabric, trying to free her arms to reach for him. Alec put his hands over hers, holding her palms flat on the desk. “Wait,” he breathed, leaning in to kiss her lightly on the mouth. “Just wait…”

  She felt acutely exposed as she was, sitting on his desk naked from the waist up. Every breath seemed to draw her skin tighter and tighter until she thought she might snap and break at the next touch. But he didn’t touch her. His hands stayed on hers, trapping them in place while he lowered his head and began to taste her skin.

  Cressida had never felt beautiful in her life. She was too tall, too plain, her hair neither blond nor brown, her eyes an odd shade of brown so light they sometimes looked almost yellow. Her figure was neither curvaceous nor willowy slim, and her feet were dreadfully large. But as Alec bent his head reverently to her shoulder, she felt, if not exactly beautiful, then desirable. Very desirable. And she liked it. That look on his face, taut and dark with desire for her, sent a tremendous rush of excitement through her. Granny had always told her and Callie never to trust a man when he was wild with lust, but this was not any man; this was Alec. She felt treasured and safe and even…yes…beautiful with him.

  Suddenly he shoved himself up, away from her. “Oh God,” he said, half in disgust, half in mortification. “Not on a desk.” He turned to her almost desperately. “Will you come upstairs with me?”

  Cressida’s heart was beating so hard her whole body shook, and she wasn’t sure her legs would support her. But she looked up at Alec, his expression almost fierce with desire as he waited for her answer. His short hair stood up where she’d run her hands through it, his chest heaved with every breath, and Cressida felt a heady mix of love and lust scald her veins. “I’d go with you anywhere,” she whispered.

  His eyes blazed. He seized her hand and pressed his lips to the inside of her wrist in a kiss so hot her eyes started to close. Then he pulled her off the desk and out of the room.

  Chapter 24

  Later, Cressida would be very thankful it had been so late at night. She and Alec hurrying through the house, hand in hand with clothing in disarray, must have made quite a sight. Twice Alec stopped abruptly to pull her into his arms for another deep, hungry kiss. By the time he shoved open the door of his chamber and led her inside, both were out of breath.

  He let go of her hand and closed the door. “Are you certain?” he said quietly. His voice vibrated with barely leashed tension.

  Cressida managed a small nod. “Yes.”

  With a soft click, he turned the key in the lock behind him. The
key flashed in the dim light from the fire as he tossed it aside, but Cressida barely noticed that. Her hands curled and uncurled as he came toward her, unhurried but deliberate. She didn’t move except to raise her chin and look him boldly in the face.

  He touched her cheek, caressing her jaw. Cressida made no effort to hide the tremor that went through her; she loved the feel of his hands on her skin. She shrugged off her dressing gown, letting it fall to the floor. His breath hissed between his teeth. She tugged one sleeve of her nightdress, baring her shoulder right below his hand. He traced her collarbone and glanced at her with a rakish smile hovering about his mouth.

  “I quite like being seduced,” he murmured. Cressida had just a moment to blush at her own forwardness before he hooked one finger in the neckline of her nightdress and tugged the whole thing down over her shoulders.

  Her breasts seemed to tighten and swell as his eyes traveled over her. Her skin tingled until she was wild for him to touch her. But Alec stepped back instead of falling on her, and stripped off his cravat and waistcoat though he never looked away from her. Cressida devoured him with her eyes even as she wanted to scream in frustration. When he reached for her again, she retreated a step, letting her hips sway and flashing him a coy smile. She quite liked seducing him, actually. The nightdress slid down to her hips, but she caught fistfuls of the fabric to keep it from falling further. He took another step, and so did she, away from him again. Then she bumped against the post of the bed, and he lunged.

  Together they tumbled onto the bed. Cressida let go of her nightdress and began pulling at his shirt. He bent his head and kissed her right beneath her ear. The shirt came free of his trousers and she slid her hands underneath over his skin, so warm and alive as his muscles flexed and quivered. Dimly she registered the faint tracks of the scars she had seen that day in the library, but she barely thought of them. It was Alec she loved, scarred or not, and he was proceeding far too slowly to satisfy her.