Claire Thornton

by The Wolf's Promise

  His hand slipped down her back, following the graceful curve of her spine, electrifying her senses with his seductive touch. She clung to him as he explored the voluptuous swell of her hip, before pressing her body closely against him.

  She was standing thigh to thigh with him. She could feel his taut, powerful muscles against her softer flesh; and the hard, urgent desire in his body burned through her thin muslin dress. She was dimly aware that she was playing with very dangerous fire indeed, but she didn’t have the strength to resist him.

  He had burst into her confined, claustrophobic life like a whirlwind. Now she was riding on the back of the storm, exhilarated by the life-affirming passion they had unleashed between them.

  He slid his hands up behind her shoulders and bent to kiss her throat, teasing her soft skin to even greater heights of sensitivity. She let her head fall back, leaning against his supportive hands as his lips left a fiery trail across her collarbone.

  She was breathing in short, quick gasps, but her heart was drumming so loudly in her ears she couldn’t hear the sound of her own excitement. She was consumed by conflicting sensations. Her legs felt too weak to support her, yet pulsating life scintillated through her body. She was full of glowing, warm languor—yet she was on fire with impatient anticipation.

  Then Benoît straightened up, still holding her against him, but in an enforcedly neutral embrace.

  ‘My God!’ he said hoarsely, his eyes dark with barely controlled passion. ‘Ma douce séductrice! You’ve come very close to completely unmanning me!’

  Angelica felt the sudden rigid tension in his muscles and her eyes flew open in confused alarm. She fluttered in his arms, seeking reassurance more than escape. He was still fighting to contain his own fierce emotions, but he lifted his hand instantly to stroke her hair in a soothing gesture.

  ‘Hush.’ He held her against him. He was breathing very quickly. She was aware of his uncharacteristic lack of composure, but he still managed to sound wryly amused when he spoke. ‘I promised I wouldn’t hurt you, and I meant it. I just hadn’t allowed for the effect of that passionate nature of yours.’

  ‘Oh!’ Angelica pushed herself away from him, taking refuge in indignation because she was too bewildered to know how else to react.

  Her lips were bruised and swollen. Her skin still tingled from his kisses, and her body throbbed with the sensations his embrace had aroused within her.

  She took a couple of irresolute steps, stumbling slightly because her legs no longer seemed to obey her wishes. She thought she would feel more in control if she put some distance between them, but away from the support of his arms she felt bereft and cold. She looked up at him, painful confusion in her lucid blue eyes.

  He smiled crookedly, and reached out to stroke her cheek. She closed her eyes briefly at the sensations his gentle touch aroused within her.

  ‘I think, perhaps, we have played this dangerous game long enough,’ he said quietly. ‘You will return to London tomorrow, my lady, and I’ve no wish for you to go back to your father hurt or distressed by what has happened to you here. It would be a poor reward for all I owe him, wouldn’t it?’

  Angelica stared at him, her blue eyes troubled and uncertain.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she whispered.

  ‘No?’ He looked at her thoughtfully, an enigmatic gleam in his eyes. Apart from the unusual depth of colour in his tanned cheeks he seemed to be almost his normal, coolly controlled self—but Angelica could sense the ruthlessly suppressed energy in his lean body. ‘Why aren’t you married?’ he asked suddenly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re twenty-three years old. Beautiful, desirable, a lady from the top of your golden curls to the soles of your elegant feet and—I suspect—something of an heiress to boot. So…why aren’t you married, or at least betrothed?’

  Angelica pressed her hands against her burning cheeks, suspecting at first he was mocking her, and then seeing from the steady expression in his eyes that he wasn’t.

  ‘I…Papa needs me,’ she said with difficulty.

  ‘He needs you now—he didn’t need you two years ago,’ Benoît reminded her. ‘How long have you been out?’

  ‘Since I was seventeen,’ she replied, in a constricted voice.

  ‘Five whole years for someone to catch your heart—or at least your interest,’ he mused lightly, but there was an intent expression in his brown eyes. ‘Didn’t anyone light a spark within you?’

  Angelica stared at him for a moment. Finally, after a desperate struggle, she succeeded in regaining some of her composure.

  ‘I don’t think that’s any of your business,’ she said steadily, managing to inject a cool note into her voice.

  ‘Well, I’m not sure,’ said Benoît slowly. He smiled suddenly. ‘Even with my coaching, you’re not very efficient at extracting information, are you?’ he said provocatively. ‘You should have demanded your fee long ago. I think I may invoke a time forfeit.’

  Angelica blinked, momentarily confused.

  ‘You were going to tell me how you’re going to rescue Harry!’ she exclaimed, remembering.

  ‘Well, no,’ he corrected her, a glint in his eye. ‘I suggested you might find the experiment of kissing me worthwhile—but I didn’t guarantee that I’d tell you about Harry.’

  Angelica opened her mouth, drawing in a deep, indignant breath as she realised she’d been tricked.

  ‘You devious, unscrupulous, ungentlemanly…’ She glared at him with hot burning eyes, because she suddenly realised that what she felt was not indignant but hurt and betrayed. How could he have made such heartless use of her innocence?

  Tears filled her eyes before she could stop them, glittering on her long eyelashes, and she turned away, humiliated that he should see her cry.

  He was beside her in two long strides, gently turning her into the comforting circle of his arms.

  ‘Don’t!’ She tried to push him away.

  ‘Shush.’ He stroked her hair gently, making no demands upon her with his embrace. ‘I didn’t trick you that badly, ma chérie. And if you’d remembered to ask me, I wouldn’t have teased you about it.’

  Angelica knew she ought not to allow him to comfort her, but it was beyond her strength to push him away. His hands were soothing and his arms very protective. She had a brief, enticing vision of what it would be like if there was always someone there to turn to when she was hurt or afraid. It was a long time since she’d been able to turn to the Earl for support.

  ‘That wasn’t very gentlemanly of you,’ she said at last, a catch in her voice, as she lifted her head to look at him.

  ‘But I’m not a gentleman, mignonne,’ he reminded her softly. ‘We established that very early in our acquaintance.’

  He paused; he was looking at Angelica, but there was a distant expression in his frowning eyes, and she could sense that he wasn’t seeing her.

  ‘My grandfather was a brickmaker who could neither read nor write,’ he said abruptly, ‘but he was determined his sons would do better in life than he had done, and he made enormous sacrifices to ensure that they did.’

  He let Angelica go and went over to the globe, spinning it idly with his tanned, supple fingers.

  ‘I don’t think the old man ever travelled more than ten miles from his home in his life,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘He died soon after I went to sea.’

  ‘He must have been very proud of you,’ said Angelica almost hesitantly, recognising that she was being offered a rare insight into the making of Benoît Faulkener.

  ‘He was proud of my father,’ said Benoît. ‘Yes, he was proud of me,’ he added, as he saw her expression. ‘But he didn’t like it when we visited him, and he never consented to visit my parents in Arundel—less than twenty miles from his home. He said it wouldn’t do to remind my father’s patients that he was the son of a common brickmaker.’

  Angelica bit her lip. She’d lived all her life in a privileged and sheltered world, taking for gr
anted the advantages that had been bestowed on her. Now she was being confronted with an entirely different world, one which she’d only been dimly aware of until this moment. She realised that it must be hard for Benoît to speak so openly.

  Benoît glanced at her, a sudden tension in his long limbs at her prolonged silence. What he saw in her face seemed to reassure him, and he added more lightly, ‘Actually, I think the member of my family you’d find most interesting is Toby.’

  ‘Toby?’ The name sounded vaguely familiar but Angelica couldn’t place it.

  ‘My father’s older brother,’ Benoît explained. ‘If it was Grandfather who had a dream of what his sons and grandson could achieve, it was Toby who ultimately made it possible. He learnt to read and write, and then got himself apprenticed to a blacksmith in Chichester. But he knew what was really needed to make the old man’s dream come true was money. So he set about making some. It was Toby who paid for my father’s training, his books and his instruments—and his first suit of clothes to impress his future patients. And it was Toby’s inheritance which allowed me to buy my first ship. But he was still only a blacksmith in Chichester when he died.’

  Angelica stared at him, her lips silently forming the word ‘how’, but she already knew and, even if she hadn’t guessed, Benoît’s wolfish smile would have informed her.

  ‘He smuggled tea,’ said Benoît, ‘among other things. It was very profitable until they reduced the duty in the 1780s. We were running brandy the night I met your father. So you were right, my lady,’ he concluded, a challenging glint in his eyes, ‘this house is ultimately built on the profits of smuggling—or free trading, as Toby preferred to call it.’

  Angelica gazed at him. She knew he wasn’t ashamed of his antecedents; that, on the contrary, he was extremely proud of his determined and enterprising relatives. All the same, it couldn’t have been easy to tell the tale and risk her possible ridicule. She was deeply impressed by both his moral courage in doing so, and his faith in her ability to understand.

  ‘Why did you tell me this?’ she said slowly.

  He glanced at her, an intent, almost questioning look in his eyes, then shrugged dismissively.

  ‘I cannot tell you how I will get Harry out of France, much less how I shall extricate him from Bitche,’ he replied. ‘Even if I knew, which at this point I don’t, it wouldn’t be wise. But I’d rather you didn’t spend the next few weeks imagining me everything from a French spy to an extortionist. You may take this information as a—what did you call it this morning?—ah, yes, an earnest of my good faith.’

  Angelica lowered her eyes, considerably shaken that he had remembered and finally responded to her angry demands. Then something occurred to her and she looked up, a spark kindling in her blue eyes.

  ‘I don’t believe I accused you of being a spy?’ she protested indignantly.

  ‘Bearing in mind what Sir William said to me this morning, and the vivid powers of your imagination—I’d be very surprised if that hadn’t been among your suspicions,’ Benoît retorted.

  She saw the white gleam of his teeth as he grinned at her startled reaction, and surprisingly she felt reassured by his gentle mockery. It was hard to know exactly how she felt about Benoît Faulkener, but it was inexplicably comforting to know that, however quickly some aspects of their relationship changed, others remained the same.

  ‘It was a perfectly reasonable concern on my part,’ she said with dignity. ‘And if you hadn’t provoked Sir William into losing his temper, it would never have occurred to me!’

  ‘Poor Sir William,’ said Benoît appreciatively. ‘It doesn’t take much to enrage him. Do you know, he spent more than twenty years trying to get the better of Toby, but he never let his horses be shod by anyone else? He was very upset when Toby died.’

  ‘You mean he liked him?’ said Angelica wonderingly.

  ‘They were, in a strange way, friends,’ Benoît replied. ‘Toby was a hard man, but he imposed a ruthless discipline on those who worked for him. For the twenty-five years or more he controlled the smuggling on this part of the coast there were none of the atrocities which have occurred in other parts of the county. The situation is far more unstable and unpredictable now that he’s gone. There are several gangs vying with each other—’ Benoît broke off, shrugging. ‘Not that any of this is of interest to you,’ he said briskly.

  ‘It might be,’ Angelica replied tentatively.

  Benoît glanced at her sharply, then smiled faintly.

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ he said firmly. ‘Because none of this makes the slightest difference to Harry’s rescue.’

  ‘But if you no longer…’ Angelica began.

  Benoît laughed.

  ‘My lady, you are so used to looking at the problem from Harry’s point of view that you don’t have a clear view of the picture,’ he declared. ‘It’s true that Harry’s main stumbling block was the Channel, but that’s the least of my worries. I’m much more concerned about how I’m going to establish communications with him in the first place, and get him out of Bitche in the second.’

  Angelica bit her lip. ‘He’s already done it once,’ she said.

  ‘Which will make it that much harder next time,’ Benoît pointed out. ‘Don’t worry, my lady,’ he added reassuringly, seeing her anxious expression. ‘We will find a way.’

  Chapter Five

  Angelica was very quiet as she let Martha dress her for dinner. She’d had little time for reflection since her arrival at Holly House, yet so much had happened to her in the last twenty-four hours. Some of her most deeply held assumptions had been challenged. Even the familiar Martha had been revealed in a new and startling light. Did she feel frustrated by the limitations of her life as a lady’s maid? Benoît had given Angelica so much to think about.

  She touched her slender fingers briefly to her lips as she thought of how he’d kissed her. Her body stirred with the memory of his embrace, and the excitement he had aroused in her. He’d asked her if anyone had ever previously kindled a spark in her and she’d refused to answer—but she knew that, until today, they hadn’t.

  Five years ago she had gone out into society hoping to find someone to stir her heart, but every man she had ever met had been a pale, sickly shadow compared to the Earl. At first she had been disappointed, then resigned to the situation; and when the Earl had been hurt it had ceased to matter. He needed her, and depended on her, and she had done her best to be what he wanted her to be—if only she knew what that was.

  But Benoît had changed everything. She wondered how easy it would be to go back to reading dusty books to her father, sharing the bitter limitations of the Earl’s life since his accident, yet knowing there was so much more on the other side of the wall.

  After tonight she might never see Benoît again!

  This evening she would dine with him, tomorrow morning she would say a polite farewell to him, and that would be the end of her brief adventure.

  She stared blindly at herself in the mirror, startled and rather dismayed by the powerful sense of loss which swept over her. She barely saw the huge, distressed blue eyes which gazed back at her out of a pale, troubled face. It was Benoît’s eyes she saw, and Benoît’s voice she could hear—teasing her, exasperating her, soothing her—and talking to her about things that mattered to him, confident that she was capable of understanding and responding to what he said.

  Did he feel as sorry as she did that this brief interlude was nearly over? It hardly seemed likely. He had seen so much more of the world than she had—he must have known many women who interested or excited him. She felt an unexpected stab of an emotion which could almost have been jealousy and her hands clenched in her lap.

  ‘Stand up, my lady, it’s time you were dressed,’ Martha interrupted her thoughts.

  Angelica obeyed automatically, hardly aware of what she was doing, and allowed Martha to button her into a shimmering gown of pale ivory satin.

  The long, softly gleaming skirt fell in a smooth, eleg
ant line from just beneath her bosom to her feet, skimming discreetly past the curves of her waist and hips without entirely concealing them. The dress had a deep, square neckline which revealed the soft, creamy skin of her shoulders and throat, and a long train which whispered richly across the carpet whenever she moved.

  Angelica frowned as she slowly became aware of what Martha was doing. For the first time she noticed that her maid had caught up her shining curls in a glittering diamond and sapphire comb, and that there were matching jewels in her ears.

  ‘No!’ she protested quickly, throwing up a hand and stepping back as she saw the pendant Martha was holding out. ‘I can’t go downstairs like this! It’s a quiet dinner in the country—not a ball at Carlton House!’

  ‘That’s as may be,’ said Martha quietly. ‘But I think it’s time he was reminded exactly who he’s dealing with—and perhaps you need reminding too, my lady.’

  Angelica stared at her maid for several long seconds, her skirts still caught up in one hand from when she’d stepped backwards so quickly, her other hand held almost protectively at her throat. She seemed vibrant with suppressed energy. The only colour about her came from the golden glow of her hair, the soft pink of her lips and cheeks, and the vivid blue of her eyes which was matched, but not overshadowed, by the sapphires in her hair and ears.

  She didn’t bother to ask who Martha meant by ‘he’ because she already knew. She stared at her maid, wondering how much Martha had guessed, and trying to read her thoughts in her expressionless face—but it was impossible.

  ‘It that all you’re going to say?’ she asked at last.

  ‘Yes, my lady.’

  ‘I see.’

  Angelica had been startled out of her preoccupation with Benoît more effectively by Martha’s brief, elliptical comment than she would ever have been by the maid’s more familiar grumbling. She glanced at the sapphire in Martha’s hand and remembered her momentary jealousy at the thought of Benoît’s other women.