Barons, Brides, and Spies: Regency Series Starter Collection Volume Two

by Mary Lancaster

  Harold came from a good family. For the sake of that name, he ought to keep him out of this, but being in two places at once was not a trick he knew. While he was in Plymouth, he couldn’t keep an eye on what was happening in Falmouth.

  He absently rubbed his chest through his shirt where Dunbar had shoved him. Sir Daniel Ridgeway looked like he knew what he was doing, but the man couldn’t have limitless resources. Could he?

  Adam entered the barn and spotted his friend at the back of the room near the drinks table nursing a half-finished pint. Adam helped himself to a glass and slaked his thirst.

  “Where have you been, old man?” asked Harold. “I think Olivia was only one more dance away from demanding a search party to look for you.”

  She was easy to spot amongst the dancers, tall and graceful, tendrils of her glossy brown hair forming curls at the base of her neck. Her partner turned her about, and Adam caught a glimpse of her face. It glowed and her smile was bright.

  She was enjoying herself. Without him.

  Perhaps, that was how it should be.

  “Well? Are you going to dance with the woman or not?”

  “Mind your own damned business.”

  Harold drained his drink and set the glass on the bench a little harder than necessary. “What’s gotten you into this ill-temper?”

  Adam shook his head once.

  Harold glanced at the dance floor and back to him, all teasing gone. “What happened outside? You don’t look as though you got into a fight.”

  That’s where Harold was wrong, thought Adam. There was a fight all right, but it was taking place between his ears – with one side demanding he tell his friend everything and the other that told him he should bear his burden alone.

  The quadrille was coming to an end, and Adam found he couldn’t take his eyes from Olivia. He wanted to monopolize her attention, to have her looking at him with the same amount of joy as she shared with her current dance partner.

  The next dance would be his and the one after that as well. Adam squared his shoulders, ready to approach.

  “I’ll call on you tomorrow,” he told Harold. The man nodded, accepting the answer and knowing him well enough to press no further.

  He stepped toward Olivia, her eyes registering surprise instead of reproof. That was an encouraging sign.

  “Please forgive my absence. I was unavoidably detained,” he offered.

  The animation faded from her face and reserve flooded in.

  “The lady is with me.”

  For the first time, Adam looked at Olivia’s dance partner.

  Peter Fitzgerald did not look best pleased.

  First Dunbar, then the interruption of his friend Harold, and now the Truro solicitor…

  Adam wondered what gypsy had cursed him tonight.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Olivia watched Adam’s expression turn to frost and his eyes to ice. He held Peter Fitzgerald’s glare for several seconds, enough for it to be pointed before he slowly faced her.

  She hid a shiver.

  “The choice is yours, Olivia,” Adam said. “You don’t have to stay with this man.”

  Fitzgerald’s grip firmed on her arm, possessively. It was a small gesture. She doubted anyone else had noticed it. And it gave her immediate unease.

  She drew in a deep breath and retrieved her arm. “Do excuse me, Mr. Fitzgerald. I wish to speak with Mr. Hardacre a moment.”

  Olivia waited for Adam’s escort, but it seemed both men were frozen in place, immobile as they glared at one another.

  She walked away, her patience exhausted. Let the two men bark and snap at each other like dogs if they wished. She had no intention of being part of a scene. She stepped out into the evening and a chill air caressed her shoulders and arms, stealing the heat created by dancing and her embarrassment.

  A moment or two later, she heard long firm strides catch up with her. A glance revealed it to be Adam.

  “I have to confess, Miss Collins, that since I met you I’ve discovered I have an illness.”

  What on earth was the man talking about? She couldn’t decide whether Adam was serious or jesting, so she answered him in the same tone as he spoke to her.

  “A serious one?”

  “I cannot be sure. It happens every time you announce you wish to speak to me in that grave governess voice of yours. I find myself quite dyspeptic.”

  She pulled her evening wrapper tighter across her shoulders. A moment later, the warm weight of his jacket descended on her shoulders, warm with the scent of pine, leather, and the faintest trace of tobacco. She breathed in the comforting scent of it.

  Why did things have to be so complicated?

  The sound of murmured words, giggles and rustling skirts from a path by some hedgerows caused her to stop. Adam touched her elbow to draw her away toward the inn.

  “And your silence is not good for my nerves either,” he said. “Come on, let’s find somewhere private so you can say what you need to say to me, and we can both decide if we want to salvage this evening.”

  He led her through into the Trellows’ private living quarters.

  Olivia was surprised and she had to remind herself he had known them for more years than she. They entered a pretty parlor that was so much grander than the rest of the inn. Looking about, she couldn’t imagine Jory or Will feeling at ease amongst Polly’s chintz and china.

  Adam closed the door behind them, blocking out even the faint sounds of the music from the barn.

  He didn’t look dyspeptic. He looked grim.

  She shrugged off the jacket and placed it over the back of a chair, then lowered herself onto the edge of a settee. Adam remained standing by the door.

  “I should tell you that Mr. Fitzgerald has proposed marriage.”

  There. That cut to the heart of the matter.

  For someone who did not know him, it might have appeared that Adam didn’t react at all, but Olivia saw – the working of a muscle in the jaw, the momentary firming of his lips, the deepening of his eye color.

  “And you haven’t accepted – or at least you’re considering a refusal.”

  Olivia knew she possessed no such mastery of her expression.

  “How–?”

  “If you had, you wouldn’t have invited a man to a private interview. I might not have spent time in drawing rooms, Miss Collins, but even I know that such a private tête-à-tête is potentially ruinous to the reputation of a young woman of quality.”

  The flush of warmth that had diminished during the walk outside returned tenfold. Olivia kept her attention on the jewel-like colors of the rug on the floor.

  “I am not so young, Mr. Hardacre, and the rules of etiquette which apply to governesses is somewhat imperfect. A pragmatic offer of marriage that might stave off the penury and loneliness of elderly spinsterhood is not something to be dismissed lightly.”

  “Is Fitzgerald in love with you?”

  The question raised a lump in Olivia’s throat. She shook her head to dislodge it as much as it was an answer to the question.

  “And you are not in love with him.” Adam’s words, a statement of simple truth, softly spoken, felt like a caress. A moment later, there was a caress. His large warm fingers brushed the back of her clenched hands. She forced herself to uncurl her fingers against the slight ache of their tension.

  Adam was seated beside her, holding her hand.

  “I still have Constance’s diary,” she whispered, “the one she kept during your summer together. The one she managed to keep hidden from her father though God only knows why he did not destroy it after her death. She wrote with such fervor of the love she had of you. Of how you made her feel in her heart…”

  Olivia swallowed. “…And her body.”

  She felt Adam shift beside her, but his hand remained covering hers.

  “I find myself thinking about her words and…I feel them myself. I know that such a grand passion would never be possible between Mr. Fitzgerald and me. He wants a co
mpanion, an aide for his practice, a practical woman to manage his home.

  “And while I imagine he would want…” She squeezed her eyes shut, unable to bring herself to say the words. And that was the heart of her problem. She tried to imagine Peter Fitzgerald bringing such ecstasy in the bedchamber as Constance had experienced; she could not.

  With Adam, however, it was all too easy to imagine.

  “…I know he could not.”

  The mantel clock ticked away moments in the silence of the room.

  “I…I don’t know what to say.”

  The genuine uncertainty in Adam’s voice tugged at her. When she looked up, his expression was open and matched his words.

  “Marriage…” he continued. “I’d never considered the matter. My life was the sea and now…”

  Adam’s face blurred as tears filled her eyes.

  “…A wife…”

  Through the curtain of unshed tears, she saw him shake his head.

  “I’m sorry, Olivia, but my life as it is now…I’m in no position to offer you marriage.”

  Oh, but that was the worst part! Olivia knew it. She accepted it. But still her body yearned for Adam’s touch, to experience for herself all that Constance had written in such ardent detail.

  The girl’s ghost had even followed her here.

  “Then there is just one favor I ask of you,” she said.

  Part of her demanded she resile from her desire and this course of action, and keep the words unsaid.

  Her conscience laid before her the potentially disastrous consequences of part of her train of thought, but another, stronger, laid out a different case – one in which she would at least once know passion, as Constance did for one precious summer.

  Then she could press it like a flower between the pages of the book of her own life. A treasured memory of a single summer.

  With eyes clear, Olivia looked into Adam’s. They told her of his caution.

  “Make love to me,” she said. Adam’s eyes widened.

  “Just once,” she continued, “then I will leave you to your life, and you can leave me to mine.”

  *

  No! It wouldn’t be right!

  Then his conscience was swamped and his arousal was instantaneous.

  He wouldn’t be a man – alive, with a pulse – if he reacted any other way, he told himself, shoving denial further and further away.

  Adam would be lying if he said he hadn’t imagined making love to Olivia before this. The night of the storm spent at Kenstec, for instance. He’d occasionally indulged himself since with a fantasy of what might have happened if he’d not been a gentleman that night – if he’d taken what was being freely offered.

  Now the offer was being made again.

  Unambiguously.

  Still, the part of him that was a gentleman fought back.

  “Constance is dead because we were young and didn’t know any better,” he said, hoping that might be answer enough for her.

  Instead, he saw her resolve harden now that the initial embarrassment of making her request had faded.

  “I know there are ways to pleasure each other without risk of a pregnancy,” she offered.

  “Do you now?”

  He watched a cascade of expressions on her face as she absorbed the tone of his three words – her pupils darkened, cheeks flushed a soft pink, moist lips slightly parted. And, if he was not mistaken glancing down, the shadow of erect nipples showed through the lightweight fabric in the bodice of her gown.

  “And after I’ve satisfied your curiosity, you still plan to accept Fitzgerald’s proposal?”

  “I have little choice,” she told him – and very nearly matter-of-factly, too. “I have to live but, despite my efforts, I have not yet received an offer of further employment. By accepting Mr. Fitzgerald’s proposal, I will at least have security.”

  “Then perhaps you should ask him instead,” said Adam crisply. “Despite what you might have been told, a man actually prefers his wife to be an enthusiastic bed partner.”

  “So you are refusing me…” The sound of dejection in Olivia’s voice nearly tore him in two.

  She slowly rose to her feet. The color of her cheeks darkened from arousal to mortification, and she looked away.

  “And as you should,” she said. “Forgive me. Such an uncomfortable interview should best be forgotten.”

  She began to walk away.

  No!

  Adam leapt to his feet and hauled her backwards to his chest. He slowly drew a hand across her waist and stomach, pulling her close enough for her to no doubt feel the evidence of his arousal at her bottom.

  His other hand drew away the hair around her neck and ear, and he whispered to her.

  “Is this what you truly want, Olivia?”

  The rise of gooseflesh on her arms and the drawn out sigh might have been considered answer enough, but he waited for the words.

  His hand freely roamed across her body then, finding itself at her breasts, his fingers skirted the ribboned trim at the neckline, feeling the creamy white flesh rise with each shuddering intake of air.

  “Do you want me to make love to you, to touch every part of you?” His fingers dipped lower into the warmth of the cleft between her breasts and still she had not answered him. He kissed her neck again and felt his arousal grow stronger – and just as quickly filled with self-loathing as he was torn between the right and the wrong.

  The devil in him won.

  How far could he go before Miss Governess scurried away?

  His lips brushed her ear.

  “What will happen, do you think, when you’re in your bed with your husband, his little prick stabbing between your legs?” He felt Olivia jerk abruptly at his crudity. And well she should. Let her associate this proposal with disgust and distaste. “Will you be thinking of me? Will you resent the man you’re wed to every time he touches you?”

  His hand found her right breast and he fondled it, his fingers roughly brushing over the nipple until it hardened further. Olivia rubbed herself against him, unconsciously he thought, but it had the effect of making him fully erect.

  “Tell me, Olivia,” he breathed and his right hand moved lower until it reached her hip. He splayed his fingers wide until they covered the junction of her thighs. He was the gentleman last time. This time it would be up to her to tell him “no.”

  “Tell me this is what you really want.”

  “Yes.” The word was long and drawn out.

  He sighed inwardly with resignation. No one could say he hadn’t tried.

  “Then if that’s what you want…”

  He relaxed his hold on Olivia. Even now, she could pull from him if she wanted to and run out into the night. And he would not stop her, because just as much of him wished she would leave as wished she’d stay.

  Olivia surprised him again by turning to him and winding her arms around his neck.

  It was not the artful action of a coquette designing to get her way, confident in the power of her sexuality. Her embrace was raw and honest.

  And he was vulnerable. Somehow, she had managed to take a piece of his heart and he didn’t know if he could get it back.

  Their lips met. It wasn’t enough but it had to be for now.

  “Harold and Fitzgerald will start searching for us if we’re not back soon,” he said.

  It was the splash of cold water they both needed. Olivia stepped back and put her hands to her heated cheeks. She nodded.

  “Where?”

  For a moment, Adam didn’t understand the question. Then he remembered his devil’s bargain.

  “You still have the keys to Kenstec?”

  Olivia nodded.

  “Then soon.”

  “I’ll leave first,” she said, picking up her cotton wrap from the floor. “It will look less suspicious that way.”

  Her brave smile unsettled him. She did not look like a woman anticipating the act of love. She looked as if she were facing the executioner.

&n
bsp; He reached for his coat and caught the barest scent of honeysuckle on it. Olivia’s hand had reached the doorknob.

  “Are you really going to marry Fitzgerald?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Adam closed his eyes.

  “Is he pressing you to set a date?”

  “Yes.”

  A moment later, he heard her open the door into the hallway, then it close behind her.

  Adam’s body protested its denial, which his mind tried to mask with a fresh flush of anger. He departed the inn via the kitchen, nodding curtly to Will and one of the kitchen maids who were washing dishes.

  He re-entered the barn by the smaller rear door just as the band of musicians returned from a break to their makeshift stage. A girl, about sixteen, turned and looked up at him hopefully. Wordlessly, he offered his hand and she accepted with a giggle.

  The dance was to be a lively Scottish reel that had recently been made popular. Good. He threw himself into the fast and energetic dance, stepping higher and harder as though he were performing shipboard drills.

  Tonight should have been a pleasant evening with a woman he liked, a piece of his life he could keep apart from the shadow world of spying. But even that had been taken from him. He passed Harold among the dancers who silently questioned him on his absence with a concerned look. Adam shook his head.

  The reel came to an end and he found himself surrounded by women, young and old, looking for a partner to dance. He caught a glimpse of Olivia seated beside Fitzgerald who was engrossed, not with her, but in conversation with some other gentlemen.

  Their eyes met. She looked miserable, hollow.

  Good.

  That’s how he felt, too.

  He picked the most striking young woman amongst the group, a lass in her early-twenties – small with dark hair and dusky skin who had the look of Welsh blood running through her veins. He made a fuss of her, giving an elaborate bow and kissing her hand.

  The girl’s friends giggled and sighed, but she did not. Instead, as the musicians struck up again, she gave him an appraising look that suggested she was experienced in more than just dancing. She flirted with him outrageously, a lingering touch when their hands met and when they slid around each other, she ensured their bodies touched.