He could see it, however. He could see the crumbling of her spirit, like the wall of a beautiful, besieged castle giving way at last. All the trials that had been thrown at her, all the losses, all the attacks, had not been enough to strip away her strength. The anguish in her eyes squeezed the air from Marcus’s lungs. He’d done this to her, fully aware of the price he would pay.
Yet he hurt so much more than he’d thought possible. Every endless second that she gazed at him, the surprise in her eyes shifting to horror, then to grief—now, as he watched, to self-loathing as well.
He’d not realized how angry she would be with herself. He ought to have expected it, for it would be his own reaction as well.
He could hear her now. Idiotidiotidiot …
To all present, her still beauty betrayed nothing but thoughtful assessment of the situation. Only Marcus could see the spiraling despair behind her lovely eyes.
He had done it with two words.
“Low-born,” she said finally. She straightened and turned away from him to gaze at the others, letting her eyes slip from him as if he was beneath her notice.
“Yes, my lady. Marriage to a peer is not enough to raise you that high, I’m afraid.” Lord Liverpool did not sound regretful at all.
Julia blinked at the Prime Minister for a long moment. “I see.”
The hell of it was—the blasted, outrageous irony of it—was that she was being wrongly cast out. And on the very premise that she didn’t dare tell them wasn’t true.
Then, in the depths of her loss, things got much, much worse.
“You know too much,” Lord Liverpool was saying. “You cannot be allowed to continue thus, especially now that you’ve been dismissed.” He glared at her. “How do we know you won’t take your vengeance by exposing us?”
“Perhaps because I’m not the vengeful sort.” But her voice was too faint to carry over the Prime Minister’s rant.
“You are to spend the rest of your days in a convent of our choosing. You will not have access to the outside world, or to your staff, who are even now about to be investigated by the Liar’s Club as to the level of their knowledge—”
“They are loyal British citizens! They could no more betray this country than they could betray me!”
“Nonetheless, they pose a serious security risk. The Liar’s Club is close behind us. They will round up your staff for questioning and determine how much they know.”
The fair folk knew far too much. Her stomach knotted, thinking of her free and easy trust. She’d drawn them all in too deep—
It was so much worse than she’d thought. Broken heart aside, shattered dreams aside, now the Four were going to shut her up behind stone walls and destroy her family! Aldus had warned her, he had taught her and he had told her everything—and still she had remained the stupid girl she had once been. She had set her heart free—and Marcus had put an arrow through it.
The Royal Four would quietly dispose of her family and they would be quite right to do so—for without her at the helm, the group would soon disperse, and someday, someone would relax his tongue for just a moment …
And it was all her fault.
She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t abandon them like this, even to save herself. All for one, one for all.
“I … see.” She drew herself up as tall as she could, seeing as she’d been gutted. “Very well. For the good of England, I will comply with your wishes. My only request is that I—” Why was there no air in her lungs? Oh, yes—she was contemplating treason, that was why. “I should like to be allowed to make my farewell to my people here. You’ll find them more cooperative if they believe me to be in good hands.”
Liverpool’s eyes narrowed. “No.”
She saw Marcus’s jaw tighten. “Yes.”
The Lion was looking at Marcus with sympathy. Why? “Yes,” the giant said.
The Falcon was gazing only at Julia. She gazed back as openly as she dared. He was too bloomin’ perceptive. “No,” was the Falcon’s verdict.
The Cobra stood with arms folded. He’d not said a word through all of it. Now his single word was, “No.”
She was surprised. He’d seemed to be the most likely one to vote in her favor. Well, then, there was nothing for it. She bowed her head in acquiescence. At least now she knew something she’d not known before: Marcus had feelings of guilt for what he’d done—or at least regret—and the Dane was letting Marcus make the call on this issue.
That was two things—two things that changed the odds so very slightly. Perhaps, in some outlandish dream world, it was enough.
“May I pack?”
Liverpool stepped forward. “The sisters will provide you everything you need. The Order of St. Clara operates under a vow of poverty, so you will need very little.”
From pauper to princess to pauper again.
Something woke in Julia—something bold and desperate and long lost. With giddy relief, Julia recognized and welcomed the intruder.
Jilly.
Jilly scoffed at the threat of rags and gruel. No crumbling convent walls could hold Jilly. And no loyalty to a group that had betrayed her would keep her from saving her family.
Her heart beat fast with a welcome, reckless rhythm and she beamed a wild-child smile on the gentlemen before her. “Damn you all to hell,” she said cheerfully. Then she threw back her head and gave voice to the wild girl within.
“Hey, Rube!”
There was nothing but shocked silence for a long moment. Only Marcus looked properly alarmed. “Ah, my lords—”
The door to the parlor burst open and the Barrowby staff piled into the room, brandishing pokers and rolling pins and whatever had been handy.
They didn’t bother waiting to find out the situation. Meg took a swing at the Falcon, who ducked the rolling pin and drove a fist into the cook’s impressive gut. Meg grinned.
Beppo had tackled the Prime Minister himself with a broom and was driving Liverpool back with a complicated swinging routine that Julia recognized from his tight-rope days.
“Run, my lady!” Pickles brandished a poker at Marcus, who gazed at the elderly maid in consternation.
Julia backed from the room. “Players, time to knock down! The magistrate is on his way!” she called as she left. They would know that she meant it was time to knock down the wagons and get out of town as fast as possible.
It was the best she could do for them. They were seasoned mischief makers all, and could take very good care of themselves, once they were dispersed on the wind.
The Liar’s Club would never find them now.
18
“My lady, would you care to walk in the wood with me?”
He reaches for my hand and I allow him to take it, though we wear no gloves. His skin is rougher than mine, the hands of a horseman, not a dandy. He does not let go as we turn toward the trees, but only wraps my fingers in his as though he owns them. We walk silently into the dimness, the shadows the only watchers.
I close my eyes and breathe in the smell of cool, damp loam and green growing things. When I open them, he is watching me. I know he watched my bodice swell and I breathe deeply again, simply to make him notice once more. His eyes flicker to where my nipples now press through the thin muslin of my gown and I let him gaze on me, shoulders back and chin high. I want him to look, to want.
His gaze grows hot as he steps closer. I see his organ swell his trousers and I revel in the knowledge of my power. He wants me—and not in some polite, “leave your gown on I’ll manage” sort of wanting. He wants to rip my bodice to free my breasts. He wants to devour my rigid, aching nipples with teeth and tongue, he wants to lay me on the ground and take me right where we stand.
The dark wood might have seemed threatening to a stranger, but this was Barrowby. Julia ducked and wove through the tangled branches stretching through the mist as if she didn’t need eyes at all.
Here, jump the tiny streamlet. There, scramble over the fallen oak, avoid the open pit where th
e roots once delved. Her own breaths sounded loud in her own ears, but she knew that her feet made almost no sound on the loam floor of the wood.
There was a thicket ahead, thorny and wonderful for hiding if one knew the way the deer had pushed through to get the best berries in summer—
A weight fell upon her from behind, carrying her hard to the ground. The breath left her lungs, but she didn’t hesitate to turn on her attacker, hands curved into claws. She took a strip from one cheek before she found herself flat on her back with her hands pinned above her head.
Marcus.
The sight of him—oh, God, the feel of him—covering her sent her into renewed struggles. She writhed beneath him, desperate to rid herself of his weight.
She didn’t realize she was weeping until he kissed away the tears streaming down one cheek. His lips were warm on her frozen skin, but fatal on the ice she’d surrounded her heart with.
“Julia, Julia—” His voice was a moaning rasp. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Let me go.”
She’d meant her voice to be hard. The raw need she heard from her own throat shocked her silent. But then, she had no pride left, did she? She had nothing left to lose by begging.
“Please … Please, my lord, let me go,” she gasped. His lips pressed to her eyes, then her temples, his own panting breath hot on her ears. She twisted her head away, forcing herself to deny him. “I would never betray England. You know that—you know me!”
He paused in his consumption of her and dropped his forehead to hers. “I know that you would never want to betray England … but you cannot simply walk away, Julia. You know the danger is far too great. You were the Fox long enough to know that we are only doing what we have to do.”
Duty. She writhed anew beneath him. “Is it your duty to rape me on the ground?”
He let his cheek slip down hers and kissed her ear. “No.”
She twisted away as best she could. “Then let me up!”
“If I let you up, will I ever lie with you again?”
“No!”
“Then I’m in no hurry to let you up.” He kissed her neck. “A man has to take what he can get.”
“Marcus, if you turn me in now, you know I’ll be hung—or have some curiously convenient accident!”
“If I let you go, they’ll set the Liars on you all. Have you ever seen what an assassin can accomplish with nothing but a throwing knife and a straight shot?”
He was right. If she went back willingly, she might still have the option of the nunnery, although she didn’t think so.
Marcus had his hand on her breast. When had he released her wrist? And why was she lying there, acquiescing to his bald encroachment?
Because it felt too bloody good, that was why. After everything he’d done, she was still melted wax at his touch, still easy takings.
His mouth still teased her neck, sending shivers of need through her. She forced herself to breathe against the weight of him, when all she wanted was to sink with him through the earth forever. “Get off,” she demanded weakly.
He released her other hand and slid his down her arm to caress her cheek. “I cannot let you go,” he whispered.
“Then stop.” Her demand lacked force and she found herself teasing his curly hair through her fingertips.
“I cannot do that, either,” he said, and kissed the hollow between her breasts. Her bodice had come awry, she noticed absently as she twined her fingers through his hair to press his mouth lower. His knee had shifted and was now pressing his hard thigh between hers. She writhed against that pressure, pleasuring herself against the muscled length.
“I want—” She stopped, for what did she want? Oh, yes, she wanted his hot mouth on her nipples. She slapped his hand away and tugged at her neckline until her breasts were freed to the chill in the air. Marcus, being an intelligent fellow, took advantage of the situation. She let her head fall back as the shudders of pleasure gripped her. Hot hard hands, clever fingers, hot wet mouth, big muscled body covering and dominating hers …
“I want you.”
He moaned against her breast. “I’m here.” She felt him reach down to hike her hem above her knees. She slid her own hands down between them to free him from his trousers. The buttons slipped from her shaking hands and she nearly cried. Her need for him went so deep she felt as if she’d never be whole again if he didn’t take her right this minute.
He brushed her fumbling hands away and freed himself. She took him greedily in both hands, his hot flesh jerking at her cool touch. He hissed when she wrapped her fingers about him and squeezed. He throbbed larger in response, filling her hands with hot, pulsating male flesh.
Her female flesh responded, turning to molten liquid as she pressed the large head of his erection into herself. He thrust deep, wrapping his hands over her shoulders to keep her still.
Her own hands were trapped between them. It was all she could do to clutch at his coat and gasp as he spread her wide from within. He thrust again, deeper and harder, his own need taking the fore. “I cannot let you go,” he gasped. “I cannot!”
She held on tight as he took her with all the broken love in his soul. She knew he had done what he had to do, and that he would continue to put his duty first. He would make love to her on the chill ground, and then he would take her back to the Four and turn her in.
The worst of it was that she didn’t care. Marcus was in her arms, and in her body, for the last time. She wasn’t going to waste a moment on pride or regret now. She wrapped her arms about him and held on for the tumultuous ride as he slipped and thrust into her wetness.
“I love you.” He didn’t hear her, for her whisper had been soundless. She pressed her face to his shoulder and whispered it again. “I will always love you.”
Her heart ached, but her body trembled with the pleasure of him. She released the pain, released the heartbreak, and only let the pleasure shine through as Marcus’s heated thrusts increased. She rode the cresting ecstasy higher, lost in pleasure, her keening cries shameless and animal in the forest air.
Marcus couldn’t bear it. He had to devour her, own her, make her his! If he lost this woman, he could not see anything but gray disillusionment and agony for the rest of his life. Unbearable. Unacceptable. She was his.
When she welcomed him into her heated softness, he took her with everything he had in him. Every ache, every lonely hollow ache, every desperate adherence to empty duty, every loss—he gave it all to her, holding nothing back.
When she whispered her love, after everything he’d done to her, after his betrayal and now his crude seduction in the dirt, after he’d ruined her entire world—his heart broke beyond repair. He didn’t deserve this amazing, astounding creature.
He took her anyway.
When they were spent and panting on their bed of leaves, Julia turned her face away and wiped at her tears. She did not want him to see her like this, weeping and weak.
Although he’d always seemed to see too much. He’d known within days what her nearest beloveds had not discerned in years. He’d known precisely what she’d wanted and needed—
The intruder on the grounds. The canny seduction. The lake, the horse race, the balcony—even the woods!
She pushed him from her and rolled away, her body racked by deep bitter laughter.
“The diaries! Oh, my God, you read the diaries!”
He hesitated. “Yes.”
Her laughter raked her throat. “And I fell for it. What a perfect mark I was. What a perfect, gullible, romantic fool.” She viciously rubbed the tears from her face and stood. “You said you had misperceptions about me. You thought it was all real, didn’t you?”
He cleared his throat. “They were remarkably detailed, but I eventually realized they were only fantasies.”
“Well, of course they were fantasies! No man is so understanding, nor so strong and tender as that.” She wrapped her arms about herself. “As you have so thoroughly proven today.”
“And that goes well for you, does it?”
He flinched from her sarcasm. Good.
He stood, adjusting his clothing. “This plan of theirs—ours—I knew nothing of this. It must have been decided before I was confirmed this morning.”
She looked up. “Then you can convince them to change it.”
He shook his head. “No. It is binding. There is no way through it … but there might be a way around it.”
She pushed back her hair. “I’m listening,” she said warily.
“Marry me! Wed me at once!” He stepped closer. “If you are my lady, they will have to reconsider your sentence. It will solve everything!”
She closed her eyes, that small hope slipping away. She put a hand to his face and gazed into his eyes. “Now who is being gullible?”
He pressed his hand over hers. “It might work.”
“And it might get you hung alongside me.” She went up on tiptoe and kissed him softly. Then she spun quickly and kicked high, knocking him flat with a blow to the jaw.
Marcus rolled with the blow, his brain spinning in his skull. He rose to his feet and staggered, then froze as he spotted her.
She stood upright on the rump of his stallion, long reins held neatly in one hand. “Good-bye, Marcus,” she called, and gave him an insouciant wave.
She rode away on his startled mount, still standing, a golden-haired goddess in black. He watched her until she was out of sight, but never took a step to stop her.
“Damn,” he said faintly. “That was my favorite horse.”
19
With Mum dead and gone, I decided to stay on with Himself and learn what he wants to teach me. How bad could it be? Besides, I can always go back to the fair …
“You’re a very fine horse,” Julia told her weary mount. “Most horses would have given out long ago.”
The stallion flicked an ear backward at her voice and continued his plodding gait down a muddy country lane Julia wasn’t sure she was recalling properly.
Celeste Bradley - [Royal Four 03] Page 17