by Gaelen Foley
She wanted to deny that that was ever going to happen, but her tongue refused to fashion what might well be a lie. The rest of her body was already quite in favor of the match; her pulse raced at the warm tickle of his breath on her earlobe, and the feel of his hard body behind her, ready to support her as the delicious nearness of him made her dizzy.
“You say we barely know each other, so I say we must remedy that,” his silken baritone cajoled her, his lips skimming her ear with maddening softness. “I will come by tomorrow in my cabriolet and take you out for a drive.”
She bit her lip, pained to think she must decline. This scoundrel made her body ache in the most confusing fashion. “I am not sure that’s such a good idea.”
“Of course it is. Come, my dear,” he cajoled her, his deep and worldly voice beguiling her. “Be fair—to both of us. You said yourself that you don’t know me, so how can you refuse me out of hand? You haven’t even learned yet what you might be giving up. You might find you like me if you’ll give it half a chance. Come, I saved your neck, didn’t I?” She let out the tiniest of moans as his warm lips skimmed her neck to emphasize his words. “That must be worth a little of your time, at least.”
“Very well,” she forced out breathlessly, attempting to sound dignified as his hands glided up and down her arms with maddening pleasure. “For the sake of fairness, then. You may—take me driving in the park.”
“There, now.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Finally gathering her wits, she turned her head a little to meet his mischievous gaze askance over her shoulder. “Best not to push your luck,” she advised in a voice gone soft and scratchy with desire.
His smile widened. “I shall count the hours, cherie.” Removing himself from their lovely close proximity, he made his bow and headed for the door.
“Lord Rotherstone?”
“Call me Max, please.” With one hand on the doorknob, he paused, glancing back at her. “What is it?”
She ignored his invitation to the dangerous familiarity of first names, and nodded toward the fancy little present he had brought. “What’s in the box?”
He leaned against the doorframe, the sketch of manly elegance. “Why don’t you open it and find out?”
“Is it a ring?” she asked with wary bluntness.
“Er, no.” When he took in her skeptical look he laughed, a roguish sparkle in his eyes. “I didn’t know your ring size yet. What is it, by the way?”
“I’m not telling you!” she exclaimed, refusing to give in to the temptation of a smile.
But she was relieved to hear it. A ring would have seemed too distressingly final.
Perhaps he understood that she was nowhere near ready for that so soon.
“Suit yourself,” he replied as he opened the door again to leave. “Four-thirty, then, tomorrow. Don’t be late.”
Another order from him? she thought, but she could not help smiling guardedly after he had gone.
She was nowhere near agreeing to this, but all things considered, she had to admit, a woman could do worse.
chapter 7
His mind is gone, poor bastard. He is a hollow shell.” Septimus Glasse nodded toward the captured Order agent who sat slumped nearby in the invalid chair. “His body should heal quickly. He is young and strong. But his wits are scrambled, James. He just sits there, staring into space. He barely speaks.”
“And whose fault is that?” James bit back in seething anger as they stood out on the rooftop battlements of his friend’s ancient castle tucked among the Bavarian Alps. “Look what your torturers have done to him! They have all but driven him mad! The one man who can unlock the Order’s secrets for us, and now he barely remembers his own name!”
“So he claims,” Talon remarked with a doubtful look.
“You think he’s faking? You try surviving months of torture and see if your own mind does not shut down!” James rebuked his assistant, then he looked again at the blankly staring man, the once-mighty physique half wasted away after months in his dungeon cell.
James had demanded that Septimus remove this “Drake” from the bowels of the castle immediately. They’d had the surgeon examine him and cut off all his thick black hair to get rid of the lice. But even with his head shorn, the prisoner still had an aristocratic bearing.
James had no idea who the agent really was. But in spite of the fact that they should have been mortal enemies, he was moved to pity for their silent captive.
“Well,” Septimus said resignedly, “I doubt he will be of any use to us now. He is a broken man.”
“I could get rid of him,” Talon murmured.
“No!” James ordered, turning to them in exasperation. “Nobody touches him, do you understand me? Somewhere in his brain lurks the names of all his fellow agents. We must treat him gently, give him time to heal.”
“And when he’s strong again, what if he turns against us?” Talon asked, keeping his voice down. “Given all we know about the Order’s knights, I say best to kill him now, while he’s still weak.”
“Talon, you will obey me in this,” James warned. “Why do the two of you fail to see my vision? Imagine what a boon he will be to us when we have helped him see the light. Don’t you understand? I will change him. Teach him to understand that where he really belongs is on our side.”
“How do you intend to do that, James?” Septimus shook his head. “It sounds extremely risky.”
“He’s been torn down. I will build him up again. Obviously, I mean to gain his trust.” James glanced grimly from their captive back to them. “I do not know for certain if the damage to his mind can be undone, but we must try. When I have turned him, then we can destroy the Order of St. Michael for once and for all. As long as they survive, we will never succeed in advancing our vision. Every time we come close, they ruin it in the final hour.”
Motionless a few yards away, Drake caught only snatches of their low-toned conversation, but he did not sense any danger in this moment, so he made no effort to try to hear their words. He was too exhausted in mind and body to care, anyway. All he wanted was to be left alone, breathing in the chilly alpine air.
It helped to clear his muddled head—and to keep the panic at bay. Losing himself in the sweeping view before him, he watched the sunlight play over the orchards and the high meadows filled with goats and wildflowers; the bright glitter of the distant snowy peaks stung his eyes with unshed tears.
His captors found it strange that he always wanted to be out on the roof now, beneath the open sky. But they might have felt the same if they had spent the past few months in the castle’s lowest dungeons, in the dark. He blinked away the pain that haunted him like a wraith.
As his heart began to pound with remembered terrors, he strove to make himself empty again, empty, and pushed the fractured memories down again in a silent wave of desperation. He scrabbled for the words of his new creed, finding calm once more by saying them slowly, over and over again, in his mind. We…are beyond good and evil…the elite…
They had forced this litany down his throat, and made him learn it and recite it until his mind had screamed never to hear it again. But he must have broken through the pain, for speaking the words as his captors ordered in that cell had somehow, finally, reduced his agony.
Strangely, now the same words he had hated so bitterly began to bring him comfort.
He groped into the black void of his mind for the next phrase. The elite…made of pure will…
Was it not pure, savage will that had kept him alive all those months? Maybe they were right. Maybe he belonged here. Maybe as his savior, James, had said, some new destiny awaited him.
Forever reborn, new-kindled like the flame…
Drake, too, had been reborn.
He, too, had survived his daily torment like the god Prometheus, enduring the horrible talons and tearing beak of the eagle. The mere echo in his mind of the torturers’ footsteps approaching down the hallway t
oward his cell made him break out in a cold sweat.
But the worst part was the fact that his time in hell was the only part of his life he could remember now—caged, forced to play the intolerable role of victim.
They had interrogated him endlessly, and it seemed to him he must have known the answers to their questions once, but if at first he had refused to tell them of his own free will, the day had come after a particularly bad beating when the answers were simply no longer there.
Vanished into the recesses of his mind—as though someone had erased them in between those blows to the head. His knowledge had been swallowed up as if by a vortex in the sea that sucked down ships.
His name was Drake. He was fairly sure of that much, but most of the life he had lived before was gone.
They had beaten it out of him, out of his body, out of his mind until he was hanging by a thread over this emptiness.
He was no longer sure who he was, could not remember where he had come from or why. The simple facts of his existence had shattered and dissolved, and were as much a puzzle to him now as they were to his captors.
If he dwelled on it, the panic rose. He had almost wished that they would kill him. But then James had come.
The kind old man had rescued him and assured him this wild fear, this profound confusion all would pass. Such sweet promises. James had vowed gently to help him rediscover all he’d lost. For Drake’s part, he now loved the old man with a blind, instinctive faith as his only hope for survival in this place.
The others feared James, respected him. They did as he ordered. For the first time, Drake had hope that the agony might truly be behind him now, as long as he did exactly what James said.
When the distress rose again from the slow-moving whirlwind of his confusion, Drake took comfort anew in the reassuring presence of his aged savior not far away. He knew he owed the kind old man his life. He longed with all his heart to please him, for he understood perfectly that, whenever he wished, James could send him back down into the depths of Hell.
“Drake?”
The deep, patrician voice seemed to reach him from a million miles away.
“Drake?” James appeared beside him, resting a bony hand on the back of his wheelchair. “Good morning, Drake.” He bent down, peering into his face with solicitous concern. “How are you today? Feeling a bit better?”
Through a thick fog, Drake turned his head and gazed at him. “Better…yes.” Injury and despair had made him docile, but though he couldn’t quite remember, he did not think he had always been this way.
He saw a trace of pity in the deep-set gray eyes. James Falkirk was slight of build, with a shock of pewter hair, gaunt features, and a prominent nose. “Good,” he murmured, the timeworn lines etched around his mouth and eyes deepening as he gave Drake a reassuring smile.
Behind him, the dark-eyed, bearded German, lord of this castle, regarded Drake with a wary mix of pity and contempt. The third man stood farthest away, but even from his distance, Drake saw the animosity in his cold hazel eye. The other eye was covered with a patch.
The youngest of the three, called Talon, was tall and rather husky, with rugged features and dirty blond hair. That one-eyed stare frightened Drake. He sensed an unspoken threat from the eye-patch man, but knew he was too weak right now to defend himself adequately if he was attacked.
He could feel the distress building up in his chest, but did not even realize how he had sunk down in his chair, cringing from Talon, until James spoke up again.
“It’s all right, Drake. No one is going to hurt you. Drake, now, listen to me. There you are. Good lad,” James soothed as Drake obediently gave James his attention. “I have exciting news for you, Drake. Talon and I are going to take you to England.”
“England?” he echoed barely audibly, tasting the dimly familiar word.
“We believe that was your home. In another week or so, you should be strong enough to travel.” James paused. “You know I promised to help you regain your memories, didn’t I? When you see the places you once knew, I believe your memories will start to come back.”
Drake’s first thought was that he didn’t want his memories to come back. It was best if they were hidden. He was certain of this, though he didn’t know why. His mind must have swallowed them into the void for a reason.
Unfortunately, he realized that was not the answer James desired. “Yes. Thank you, sir,” he whispered, trembling a bit. He lowered his head.
“You will get well in time,” James encouraged him. “We must both be patient. And when you are well, Drake, when you’re strong again—” The old man’s voice deepened and turned slightly sinister. “I will help you get revenge on the so-called friends who left you here for dead.”
The next day, Max arrived at the Starling villa at the agreed-upon hour to collect his intended for their courtship drive—a quaint and proper tradition, he thought in amusement. He was eager to see what Daphne’s manner would be now that she’d had a full twenty-four hours to get used to the idea of marrying him.
He wasn’t sure what to expect, but when he arrived, she received him with an attitude of subdued grace, alluringly dressed for their outing in a delicate pink carriage dress with long transparent sleeves.
His gaze trailed over the V-neck of her gown, festooned with frothy lace, but he forbade himself to stare too much. He spent a few moments dutifully conversing with her family—he really liked her father—but at last, she put on her matching pink hat, and he whisked her away for their outing, with a promise to have her back soon.
With her little sisters spying out the window, they walked out to his ridiculously expensive cabriolet, a light two-wheeled vehicle drawn by a single black gelding. Max opened the little low door and handed her in.
In truth, the late summer day was too hot for this time-honored courtship ritual, but he raised the nautilus-shaped leather hood of the cabriolet to provide his lady with shade. He also suggested a stop at Gunter’s for their famed ice cream, but they had not yet decided on that.
He was merely glad she did not attempt to back out of their appointment using the strong sun for an excuse.
Then they were under way.
They set out at a sedate pace, but when her shyness persisted, and the conversation flagged as a result, Max quickly decided to break the stilted tension with a heady dose of speed.
Nothing like a brush with danger to bring two people together. He drove his horse on faster while Daphne shrieked with half-terrified delight.
“Slow down! You are a lunatic!” she cried as they went thundering down a long, flat stretch of finely graveled road in a less-peopled region of Hyde Park.
Max laughed. He would have listened to her pleas if he believed her protests, but her exuberant laughter and her beaming smile told another story.
He slapped the reins again over his galloping horse’s rump, half standing in the driver’s seat, his leg braced against the footboard.
His coattails flew out behind him as they barreled on; likewise, the white ostrich plume on her bonnet waved like a pennant in the breeze formed by their velocity. He liked the way she reached for him, clinging onto his arm to steady herself.
She was responding to the excitement exactly as he had calculated—of course, he was too skilled a driver to put her in any actual danger. The illusion of it was enough.
They raced on down the dusty road, through patches of shadow cast across their path by the late day sun, angling over the tall, dry trees.
“Max!” she cried.
He thrilled to her use of his first name. At least they had cut through that irritating tension.
“Yes, Daphne?” he replied with a breezy glance.
She pointed ahead. “Look out!”
“Whoa!”
As they thundered up over a rise, both carriage wheels left the earth. Daphne let out a small scream and gripped him for all she was worth as, indeed, they went a little more airborne than Max had quite intended.
He laughe
d heartily as the cabriolet bounced back to earth, bumping them back down onto the seat.
“Oh!” she exclaimed after a moment, pressing a hand to her heaving chest. “We were—flying!”
He flashed a grin. “Want to do it again?”
“You are mad!” she burst out, but her shaky smile admitted that she at least realized he was joking.
“Only mad for you, Miss Starling. Only mad for you.”
Her eyes sparkled at his soothing flattery, but he slowed the black gelding to a swift, cooling walk. The animal’s glossy coat had begun to lather in the heat, and in any case, they were coming upon a more crowded region of the park.
She let go of his arm and put a small distance back between them. Max forced his attention to the road again, but his fierce awareness of her beside him roused his most elemental instincts, and took his imagination where it ought not go.
At least, not yet.
The hour of the promenade had now descended on Hyde Park. Elegant riders trotted and cantered to and fro; fancy equipages rumbled by on full display; fashionable walkers sauntered along in pairs or in small groups along the Serpentine.
Daphne returned a polite wave from someone in a passing carriage as they turned onto the Ring.
Max was well aware of the startled looks they drew as Society took note of them together.
This was exactly what he had wanted, and she would have certainly anticipated it, too. If she had had reservations, she would not have agreed to go out with him today.
Nevertheless, a fresh current of tension rippled beneath the surface between them as they debuted as a couple before Society. He could only imagine how the rumor mill would soon begin to churn. He was an old hand at dabbling in scandal, but he hoped she could withstand the pressure. The beating summer heat did not help.
A trickle of sweat on the back of his neck soaked into his cravat. “The park seems more crowded than usual for this time of year,” he spoke up, hoping to chase away the awkward silence that had returned ever since she had noticed that they were being watched. He glanced at her.