The Indigo Blade

by Linda Jones

  "No,” he whispered again.

  Her heart was beating so hard she imagined he could hear it, that the pounding would wake the entire household and they would rush to this room to find her with a man not her husband.

  "Then why did you send for me?"

  His hand left her shoulder and traveled slowly but certainly down her arm. “I wanted to see you again. We were interrupted last night, and I have much, much more to say to you."

  "Oh."

  He settled both hands familiarly at her waist, strong hands that held her gently but firmly before him. She should run, she should protest ... but she did nothing.

  "I thought about you all night, so much so that I barely slept.” His face was close to her neck. She could feel his breath as he spoke, feel the words against her hair and her neck. “And when I finally slept, I dreamed about you. Should I tell you about my dreams, Penelope?"

  "No.” The word came out so softly she wasn't certain he would hear her, but she was incapable of anything more.

  "Did you dream of me?” he persisted. “You in one bed, I in another, the same wonderful dream..."

  "No,” she said, more strongly this time. “Sir, you have misunderstood my feelings, surely. I do have the greatest admiration for you and what you stand for, but I'm ... I'm a married woman."

  Max smiled as he buried his face against Penelope's neck and hair. She smelled so good, felt so right—and she'd answered that question most properly.

  But she was still here.

  "Married women make the best mistresses,” he said, nuzzling her hair aside so he could kiss her soft, luscious neck. Still, she didn't run. “And as your husband spends so much time away from home, you've surely given thought to taking a lover."

  "I have not!” She tried to move away but he held her firmly in place. He held her so close to his body, in fact, that she was sure to feel his arousal pressing against her backside. He made damned sure she could feel it.

  "Perhaps you should."

  "Sir, you have sorely misunderstood..."

  "What if I tell you I've found Tyler, and I'll rescue him ... but there's a price to be paid."

  Penelope stiffened in his arms, and he could hear her sharp intake of breath. “A single night in your bed, Penelope. Is that too much to ask?"

  "Yes."

  "For your brother's life?"

  She stood very still, and did not answer for a long moment. “Don't ask me to make that decision,” she finally answered.

  "I won't,” he assured her. “But I know how you feel about us, I know what you want from me, and I guess I thought it might be easier for you to take what you want if you could tell yourself you have no choice."

  "I don't ... I don't want anything from you.” Her voice shook unsteadily.

  Another lie. Would she never learn?

  "Your heart beats fast, your breath comes hard, you can feel the rhythm of your very blood when I touch you.” With one arm he pulled her against his body, while one gloved hand flitted to her throat to touch the quivering flesh there. “You might be unacquainted with such feelings, but they're signs of your desire. For me."

  He took care that his touch was gentle as well as strong, that the leather of his glove barely fluttered over her throat.

  "Don't be afraid,” he whispered.

  "Let me go."

  "Soon."

  He held her tight and tenderly kissed her neck once again. She did want him, that he could tell. Her skin was warm and flushed, and while she was afraid, she was not terrified, as she should be.

  "I have a proposition for you,” he said. “Come away with me. Leave that fool you call a husband and join the League of the Indigo Blade. Join me."

  "No.” She was just slightly indignant at the suggestion, when she should have been railing against him.

  "I could carry you from the house right now, and no one would dare to stop me. I could make you my woman, in body and in heart, and when I was through, you wouldn't want to come back here, ever again."

  "But you won't,” she said, much too assured.

  "What makes you say that?"

  "I know you,” she replied. “Against all reason, I know you. You can bluster all you like, you can try to shock and scare me, but you won't force me to do anything against my wishes."

  "No,” he acknowledged, “but perhaps I can change your wishes."

  Penelope laughed nervously. A man who was not her husband held her a virtual prisoner and made improper suggestions, and she laughed.

  "I assure you, sir, you cannot change my wishes in this matter. Truth be told, I'm flattered that you would go to so much trouble to attempt to seduce me, but it's a lost cause."

  "Why?” What would he do if Penelope declared to him, right now, her undying love for her husband? Rejoice, first, and then try to find a way out of this mess he'd made for himself, he supposed.

  "I am a married woman, sir. That's reason enough."

  Not reason enough for him, damn it.

  "Release me,” she ordered. “Please."

  Max spread his arms wide and Penelope fled. Quickly, without a word, silent on her stocking feet.

  * * * *

  Penelope lay in her bed wide awake, staring at the ceiling above as she had most of the night.

  Last night's visit had been disturbing, but through it all she'd been assured that the man who held her and made such outrageous suggestions was no threat. She couldn't explain her assurance to herself any better than she'd attempted to explain it to him. She simply knew.

  What was more disturbing was the realization that he was, in part, correct in his assumptions of her. The shadowy man who called himself the Indigo Blade did appeal to her in an unacceptable way. When he whispered her name, when he touched her, she felt something altogether inappropriate. She was lonely, she reasoned. She needed love, she needed companionship.

  She needed Maximillian.

  So as dawn lit the sky, Penelope made her way to her husband's bedchamber. She couldn't sleep anyway, and she couldn't stop thinking about Tyler and the Indigo Blade and her marriage, the worries and heartaches mingling together and stealing her peace.

  She wanted Maximillian back. The way he was before the wedding, the way he'd been on their wedding night. Reclaiming her husband was a part—a very large part—of taking her life back.

  Without pausing, she opened the door to his chamber. He slept, the sunlight not yet touching his bed, his long body buried beneath a green satin coverlet. She hadn't heard him come in last night, so it must have been late when he returned, perhaps during one of her brief interludes of fitful sleep.

  She closed the door behind her and stepped quietly to his side. He was deep asleep but restless, and completely unaware of her presence even as she reached down to brush a strand of golden hair away from his face.

  In sleep, the fussy aristocrat was missing, and she was presented with the man she'd fallen in love with. She could see it all in him: A friend first, a man who adored her and laughed with her and then became her lover. A man of power and heart and great depth of emotion. This was the man she remembered, the man she wanted as her husband.

  Uneasy in sleep, he turned away from her, throwing off the covers, moaning something she could not understand. Goodness, what a sight he was. Married all this time, and she had no idea her husband slept in the nude.

  She straightened the coverlet with every intention of covering Maximillian to his shoulder, but the bandage caught her eye, a thin strip of linen that encircled his waist. She folded the green satin back. When had Maximillian hurt himself? She imagined a fall from one of his precious horses, or perhaps an accident he hadn't told her about. But why hadn't he told her? Why hadn't he complained of blood on his silk, or damage to his fine lace and linen?

  There was a spot of blood on the bandage, a thin line of evidence that this was indeed an injury.

  She folded the coverlet back even further, looking for any other signs of damage. The rest of his body was smooth and clean, mu
scled and taut ... pristine until her eyes found the mark on his upper thigh.

  At first, in the dim light, she thought it to be a birthmark or an irregular bruise, but closer inspection proved it to be something else entirely.

  She'd never actually seen a tattoo before, though she had read about them. Usually they were associated with cultures other than the English, though there had been a fad in London not so many years ago. Knowing him as she did, she could imagine the proper Maximillian Broderick defying his father and getting a tattoo on his thigh where no one was likely to see it.

  She smiled as she moved closer to study the mark. It looked to be a dagger, a blue dagger with a curved blade, a blue blade. Her smile faded.

  An indigo blade.

  She covered Maximillian easily, not so anxious now to awaken him.

  It made perfect sense, so much so that she thought herself a simpleton for not at least suspecting the truth before now. The eyes that were never the same: They were her first clue. The depth she saw on occasion, the spirit behind the mask he wore. And of course, the way he'd turned on her after Heath Lowry had accused her of betraying him to Victor.

  He'd punished her without asking, without giving her a chance to defend herself. He had condemned her with a self-righteous assurance and sentenced her to his own kind of hell. No wonder he'd softened toward her recently. She'd told him, as the Indigo Blade, that she was innocent, and at last he believed her.

  Not enough, apparently, to confide in her.

  She knew now why she'd been so comfortable with the stranger in the garden, the man with the soothing voice and gentle hands. She understood, as well, why she'd felt no true danger from the man who tried to seduce her. It was no wonder she'd felt as if she knew this man who whispered darkly into her ear. She knew him very well.

  Penelope pulled back her hand to punch Maximillian on the shoulder, to wake him from his restive sleep and confront him with the lies and the unnecessary condemnation. How could he claim to love her and then treat her this way? How could he so easily throw everything they had away? But after a moment she let her hand fall softly to the bed beside his head.

  He was pale and restless because he'd been hurt. Hurt while convincing Victor that she'd gone through with her end of the bargain to save Tyler. Everything she'd said to him as he whispered to her in the guise of the Indigo Blade was true. He was noble and brave and honorable.

  And she loved him, still.

  But he had to pay for the way he'd treated her, for the deception and the lack of trust.

  Maximillian had never trusted her, had he? He'd proven that, not only with his secrets but with his accusations. Did she know that Dalton slept with a knife beneath his pillow, indeed.

  She very carefully arranged the satin coverlet around Maximillian, mindful of his wound as she tucked him in and silently wished him a good and restful sleep.

  He was going to need it.

  Mary rested on her elbow and watched the sleeping man at her side. My, he was magnificent. Hard and beautiful, manly and tender, the perfect lover.

  Dalton had come to her room again last night, to take her in his arms and love her. This was true love, and unlike anything she'd ever shared with Victor. The act of coming together with Dalton was so very unlike the uncomfortable couplings with Victor that it seemed an altogether different act. Fast and furious one time, slow and languorous the next, and always the shared pleasure Victor had promised but never delivered.

  She peeled the quilt away from his body. Gracious, he was splendid. Who would have known that a butler would have a body like this beneath his livery? Hard, sculpted muscle, sinew and pale coarse hair, and altogether so very much a man that she trembled to look at him.

  She spotted the imperfection on his thigh, there just below the curve where hip became leg, and bent over his sleeping body to study it more closely. A tattoo! Who would have thought that Dalton would have a tattoo?

  It was a small blue knife with an arced blade, and she reached out and almost touched it before she realized what she had found and her smile faded away.

  He couldn't be. She returned her gaze to his sleeping face. Dalton Archer, Maximillian's butler, the infamous Indigo Blade?

  It made perfect sense. He was no ordinary butler, that was certain. He was too strong, too sure of himself. There was fire in his heart, passion in his every breath.

  A small tattoo was hardly proof that her suspicions were correct, but there were surely ways to find the truth.

  And Victor would give anything to have the Indigo Blade handed to him on a silver platter. Anything at all.

  Max stared with a frown at the note in his hand. His wife's writing was refined, and flourishing, and cryptic.

  Meet me at my uncle's house. Thursday evening, our usual time. I'll be above stairs.

  There was no signature, but it had come from Penelope via Helen to John to Max's own hands in a matter of hours.

  If Penelope wanted to meet with him, why not hang her yellow sash from the balcony and meet him on the garden path? Why request a meeting at her uncle's empty house? Ah, he didn't like this development.

  If all went well, Tyler would be freed tonight. Lewis had located the boy on a ship in the harbor. Rescuing him would be difficult, but certainly not impossible. Once the boy was safely in Cypress Crossroads, Max would take his wife aside and tell her all his secrets, apologize, and ask her what the hell she was doing requesting a private meeting with a man she knew absolutely nothing about. A man who had made his libidinous intentions more than clear.

  He was so intent on the letter he didn't hear her approaching the study. She rarely made an appearance in his domain, but on this afternoon she walked in with a brisk swish of her skirt and a wide smile on her face.

  "I hope I'm not disturbing you,” she said brightly.

  "Of course not, m'dear,” he said, slipping the note into his pocket.

  She came directly to him and bent to give him a prim and quick kiss on the cheek.

  "You're awfully chipper this afternoon,” he observed dryly.

  "Am I?” she replied as she stepped away from the desk. “I hadn't noticed."

  She was positively glowing, damn her.

  "I do hate to disturb you,” she said demurely, “but I was considering taking a holiday, and I thought I'd simply mention it to you and make absolutely certain you have no objections.” Her eyelashes fluttered.

  "Holiday?"

  "I'd like to visit Uncle William, if you don't mind."

  "Whyever would I mind?” he said softly.

  "Just a few weeks, I imagine,” she said, turning her back on him with a dancelike twirl. “Perhaps a month or two."

  "I see."

  "I do miss Uncle William,” she said with a honeyed tone.

  "Do you?"

  "Yes. I thought I might leave Friday.” She was looking out his window, taking in a different view of the garden than the one her parlor offered, staring directly, if he wasn't mistaken, to the curve on the path where she'd met twice with the Indigo Blade.

  "I'll arrange an escort. I'm sure Lewis and Garrick would be happy to accompany you."

  She twirled around to face him. “Oh, that won't be necessary. I thought I might hire an escort rather than disturb your staff's routine."

  "How thoughtful of you,” he murmured.

  "You're such a dear,” she said brightly. “I knew you wouldn't mind."

  She graced him with another sisterly kiss and sauntered from the room, and Max could only stare at her departing figure with a sinking heart.

  Faith, his wife was apparently intending to decamp with the Indigo Blade.

  For the first night in ages, Penelope had slept well from the moment her head hit the pillow until the sun rose. After all those years at the plantation, rising and going to bed with the sun, it was a schedule that still suited her.

  She'd half-expected Maximillian to come to her last night, but of course he couldn't come to her bed until the wound at his side had healed
sufficiently. He couldn't allow her to suspect who he really was.

  Penelope found it amusing that her husband was so wonderfully, marvelously jealous of himself. When she'd asked so sweetly to visit her uncle, a muscle in his cheek had actually twitched. Over supper, as she'd sipped her wine with the most insipid and distant smile she could muster, he'd fumed.

  What could he say? Nothing. He didn't dare confront her, not until tomorrow evening.

  She was sitting before the mirror, brushing her hair, when she saw the note on her table. A familiar heavy paper with a red wax seal. Had he slipped into her room himself as she'd slept?

  With shaking fingers, she broke the seal and unfolded the paper. She recognized the writing, as well as the signature sketch at the bottom of the page.

  He's safe.

  Penelope breathed a sigh of relief. No other words were needed to tell her that Tyler was out of Victor's hands, and was in some safe place Maximillian had chosen.

  I am counting the hours until our rendezvous.

  Ha! He was in for the shock of his life—which was no more than he deserved.

  There was nothing more in the note, nothing to incriminate Maximillian or herself, no information that was not necessary revealed.

  She took her own paper and pen and began a note to her husband—an answering note to the Indigo Blade.

  You have my undying gratitude, she began. That much was true. Your place in my heart can be filled by no other. Also true. Tomorrow night, my love.

  Penelope read the short note, deciding immediately that it was much too brazen. Goodness, she didn't want to scare poor Maximillian away! That would spoil all her fun. With a sigh she folded the letter she would not send and added it to the two notes she'd received from the Indigo Blade, tied the bundle in a blue ribbon, and placed it in her top drawer.

  Tyler was safe.

  And tomorrow night she would claim her husband once and for all.

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  Chapter Twenty-two

  It was an opportunity Mary couldn't resist. Dalton was engaged, as were the rest of the servants. The preparation for the evening meal or care of the horses claimed their attention. Maximillian and Penelope were both so preoccupied, he in his study and she in her parlor, that she was certain she could have danced a country jig and they wouldn't have noticed.