by Gaelen Foley
She pointed to her side of the summer bed.
“Come back, sweeting. Lie with me awhile.”
After a moment’s consideration, she accepted the invitation and lay down in his welcoming arms; she rested her head in the crook of his neck. He held her, stroking her hair.
They were silent for a time.
“If we did marry, Alec . . .” she whispered hesitantly at length.
“Yes?”
“Could you be faithful to someone like me?”
His hand stopped its gentle petting. “Someone like you? What do you mean? Someone beautiful and kind and good and extremely, ah, talented?”
“You’re avoiding the question.” She moved up to face him, bracing her elbow on his pillow. She propped her cheek on one hand while she drew little figures on his chest with the other. “Could you be faithful or not?”
“Well . . .” Alec eyed her uneasily. “If that sort of thing is important to you, yes. I suppose.”
Her light touch stopped; he surely felt her stiffen. “How could it not be important?”
He shrugged, his tone turning even more careful. “To plenty of people, it’s not. Trust me,” he added under his breath. “I should know.”
Well, damn. Though a bit let down, Becky felt too close to him right now to get angry at him. She knew perfectly well he was a bona fide London rakehell. At least he was listening. At least he was telling the truth, being painfully honest, not making empty promises. She took that for a sign of respect and a degree of genuine affection. It was only when he turned on the charm that she knew she had to worry.
She chose her next words carefully. “It always makes me very happy to see married couples where the people actually love each other.”
“Yes, well, that’s probably ideal,” he conceded. “Unfortunately, some of us aren’t very good at that sort of thing.”
She turned and gazed at him intently. “I don’t believe that of you.”
He looked at her in sudden inspiration. “Is that the real reason you refused me?” he blurted out in an abrupt exclamation, as though thunderstruck. “Because you wish to marry for love?”
Becky’s eyebrows lifted in startled amusement. Then she snorted. “Genius!” she exclaimed, picked up the extra pillow, and clomped him in the head with it.
He let out a loud, bold laugh and tackled her, rolling her onto her back. “You think you’re smart, little miss?”
“Smarter than you.”
“Is that right?”
For a second, as his lips lingered inches above hers, she thought he was going to kiss her senseless for her jolly assault, but instead he stared at her. Becky touched his face, pained to realize that until this moment, he had believed deep down that she had refused his offer of marriage because he thought she found him wanting. Her ardent ministrations this night, along with her admission of a desire to marry for love had helped to correct his mistake. She caressed his cheek gently for a moment—and then his eyes suddenly flared with mischief. Planting a kiss on her cheek, he proceeded to tickle her until she shrieked with laughter.
She fought back as well as she could, but in the end she had to flee him, scampering back to her side of the summer bed. “You are a very bad man! Stay over there!” she ordered between gasps of laughter. “I mean it. Don’t follow me!”
“All right,” he mumbled, his eyes sparkling as he watched her slide under the light coverlet and snuggle down into her bed. “Good night, princess.”
In answer, she blew him a kiss from across the gap between them.
CHAPTER
TEN
Her eyes weren’t actually violet.
They were changeable blue, with navy rims around the irises and tiny flecks of white, but the soft lavender bars like wheel-spokes fanning out from her big black pupils were what made them so unique.
Such details obsessed Alec as the days progressed. These fine distinctions seemed to hold momentous weight. He studied her with a naturalist’s eye and a lover’s fascination, like some rapt scientist who had discovered a never-before-beheld species.
As to the true color of her mesmerizing eyes, he had discovered this particular Becky fact one afternoon when he had plucked a sprig of sea lavender and tucked it behind her ear while she lay with her head resting on his lap, reading a highly sensational Gothic novel to him and doing all the voices.
He had tickled her chin with the flower until she smacked his hand away; then, laughing softly, he used the delicate bloom to adorn her sable hair—another rich topic for his contemplation. Thick and silky, curly in humidity, fast-growing; perfectly matched to her lovely eyebrows. Her long lashes, on the other hand, were a shade blacker. He could picture her precisely with his eyes closed. He could hear her laughter in his dreams.
Something strange was happening to the captain of all London rakehells.
The next fortnight represented, in point of fact, the most time Alec had ever spent with one female. He had often liked to say in his flip manner that he fell in and out of love as frequently as Beau Brummel changed his linen. But his passing fancies had never felt like this.
There was something very solid about the girl, though she stood only five-foot-something and weighed less than nine stone. He had never found so much to admire, so many treasures of character all dwelling within one woman: kindness, courage, and common sense; humor, cleverness, warmth, lush sensuality. He had even grown to enjoy her occasional flashes of stubbornness.
Her independent streak perplexed him; her lack of trust toward the world redoubled his desire to protect her and, above all, to be worthy of the trust she had placed in him.
Invitations for various summer social events around Brighton began arriving in a steady stream, but Alec declined most of them, too busy, he told himself, with his efforts to amass the five thousand pounds they needed for her house. But the truth was, the balls and routs and levees simply did not tempt him when he could be alone at home with his darling demoiselle.
Well, it would have been inconsiderate to leave her by herself too much, he reasoned, considering all the uncertainty she was feeling about her situation. Like him, she was not a natural loner. He took pleasure in keeping her entertained and in deepening his quest for knowledge in the field of Becky-ology.
They spent lazy, sun-drenched days together and warm, starry nights. Since Kurkov was not yet in Brighton, he deemed it safe to take her out for a change of scenery, as long as they avoided being spotted by members of the ton. There was no doubt that if Alec Knight were seen escorting a young lady, the gossip would be flying in the blink of an eye. The less the outer world knew of them, the safer she would be.
Besides, he rather liked keeping her to himself. Not in a way that would cage her, of course, but, as damned foolish as it sounded even to him, he felt as though, inside the villa and behind the high walls of the garden, Becky and he had founded their own private world.
Not even Lizzie had put him under this spell. No, Rebecca Aboukir Ward was not like anyone else he knew. One never could anticipate what bizarre little countrified opinion might come out of her mouth. She astonished him; delighted him; tickled the soft spots where, to his surprise, it turned out there were still a few chinks left in his jaded armor. He simply liked the girl and couldn’t get enough of her company.
His friends had come to Brighton, but Alec hid her presence at the villa even from them. He knew they wouldn’t understand. They claimed he was acting damn eccentric of late, but at least he was no longer in a “mood.” No, for possibly the first time in his thirty-one years, Alec Knight was genuinely happy—unthreatened—and himself.
They went for long walks on the beach behind the villa and picnicked there as well, tossing bread crumbs to the gulls and spotting other waterbirds; a big blue kingfisher and a ghost-gray heron sleeping on one leg. One cloudless afternoon, he hired a pair of hack horses and took her riding out to look at prospects of Arundel Castle and some cliffs that overlooked the sea.
They had shared a li
ght repast on a windy promontory that towered above the ocean and then became caught up in impassioned kisses, lying in each other’s arms on the soft green turf that edged the lonely lookout point.
Each night, he went to the club or one of the few honest gaming hells and brought home his winnings to her—for which he was rewarded richly. Indeed, their amorous encounters continued almost daily, similar in adventurousness to the ones that had already occurred. The lady relished lovers’ play almost as much as he did, and Alec found her nearly impossible to resist.
Sometimes, when that smoldering light came into her eyes, when her lips curved with that particular sensuous smile, when she brushed past him in sinuous invitation, seemingly so innocent, her luscious body whispered to his male senses, “Touch me. Take me. Come.” She wanted him inside of her, but what she hungered for most of all was his love. He could see it in her beautiful eyes. She was waiting, knowing, biding her time. He fought it, he barely knew why. Somehow he held back, though he burned for her.
The night they had exchanged back-rubs had nearly been their undoing. He knew it was a bad idea, but saying no had never been his forte. One thing led to another, and soon he was in her arms, Becky writhing under him. Her body had begged for him, her pleading whispers in his ear driving him insane; Alec had been literally inches away from breaking his promise to them both, when he finally tore himself away from her by sheer dint of will and instead flung himself bodily into the cold, dark sea.
There had been a time when, cynic that he was, he would have suspected that her kisses were doled out based on how many shiny gold guineas he brought home, but no more. Not with Becky. Other women, yes, but Becky wasn’t like that.
Sometimes he came back with more, sometimes less. Only twice did he return home empty-handed, but at least he wasn’t in the red. Now and then at the tables he touched his fob-pocket where he kept her talisman, the little seashell; and then he remembered to quit while he was ahead, no matter how his fellow players complained.
Together Becky and he watched the sum of his winnings rise from one thousand, two thousand, three. Alec did not say so aloud, but no one was more relieved than he to see that his plan was actually working.
And so time passed, as it was wont to do, and the outer world kept turning.
One invitation that Alec quickly agreed to attend was Countess Lieven’s ball. The wife of the Russian ambassador had put all of her formidable social support behind her countryman, so Kurkov was certain to be in attendance. Alec was determined to have the five thousand amassed by the night of the ball. He would approach the prince that night, he decided. Provided he could temporarily set aside his desire to run the man through, Alec intended to charm the hell out of the Russian nobleman until he had convinced Kurkov that they were all but brothers. Then he would persuade the prince to sell him Talbot Old Hall.
In the meantime, he watched the newspapers from London for any mention of the two dead Cossacks in the mews. If the law was coming after him, he wanted as much advance warning as possible, but he finally concluded that Kurkov must have kept the matter quiet somehow, considering the prince’s own culpability in what had happened. No mention of the incident ever appeared in the Times or the Post or even the scandal sheets, whose authors knew everything. They were veritable Delphic oracles, those anonymous fiends; what they couldn’t confirm, they concocted.
Early in the third week of their stay at Brighton (the pot stood at four thousand pounds), Mr. Walsh forwarded a letter to Alec that had arrived at Knight House.
It was from Robert, telling Alec that Bel was delivered of a healthy baby girl.
Becky came running at the sound of his gleeful whoop. “Alec, what is it?” she cried.
He told her, missing his family bitterly all of a sudden. “Mr. Walsh writes that both my sister-in-law and the babe are doing well. God, Robert must be beside himself—a daughter!”
She joined in his enthusiasm. “That’s wonderful! What will they name her?”
“Lady Katherine Penelope Knight. I can’t believe it,” he murmured, staring into space. “A new baby. Another niece! At last, little Pippa will finally have a girl-cousin instead of all boys.”
“You must be so happy for them.” Becky hugged him. Reading his face, she guessed his thoughts. “Oh, my darling, don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll see them soon.”
He returned her embrace. “I can’t wait for them to meet you. My brothers and their wives—and the children. I must warn you, those little beasties will steal your heart.”
“I’m sure they’re not beasties, Alec.”
“No, they’re good,” he admitted softly, smiling as he held her. And then Alec had what was possibly the most astonishing realization of his entire life. He dared not even utter it aloud—perhaps he had gone mad—but he suddenly felt it would be a fine thing to be a papa someday himself instead of merely Uncle Alec, favorite jester, patsy, and all-around climbing tree of the Knight children.
Good God, he thought with a shiver, half dread, half wild anticipation. What has this girl done to me?
“Is something wrong?” Becky asked, pulling back with a frown when she felt him tremble.
He had to think about the question. Slowly, it all became clear.
“No, nothing,” he whispered, gazing into those magnificent eyes. Capturing her beloved face between his hands, he kissed her with sudden aching ardor. For, ready or not, scared out of his wits, Alec Knight knew he was in love.
His arm had healed, but a scar remained.
Becky had tended the wound daily, cleaning it, putting salve on it, changing bandages. She wished she could regret the fact that he would carry a scar for the rest of his life from his battle with the Cossacks in the mews, but despite herself, she took a certain satisfaction in knowing that he would bear the mark of saving her forever.
He had gone back to his usual regimen of sporting practice with the top Brighton fencing master and the young bucks’ favorite local boxing coach, an ex-prizefighter. He insisted on keeping himself in top form—especially now, when her safety depended on his skill. Not that Becky was complaining about her sporting gentleman. His muscular physique was a thing of beauty to behold. The man made her womb ache.
She had had strange thoughts about him ever since the news had come the day before yesterday about his brother’s infant daughter. She couldn’t stop wondering what a child from the two of them would have looked like. Blue eyes. Brown hair or blond?
Ah, well. She’d probably never know.
She felt so tenuous, falling for him more deeply every day, yet still fretfully uncertain about whether their affair was really leading to anything more permanent. The more she cared about him, the greater the hurt he could inflict if he did not return her feelings. She dared not speak of them to him. She feared he was not ready; he would only run.
Instead, she found other ways to tell him how she felt. Actions spoke louder than words, anyway. Small things. Thoughtful gestures. She did not think her little kindnesses went unnoticed. Most of all, she told him with her kisses and the exuberance with which she gave herself in his arms. She knew by now that she was indeed more than just a whim to Alec; of that, there was no doubt. But actor and chameleon that he was, it was difficult to tell how much he really cared.
She didn’t want to get her hopes up falsely. She already had enough troubles without adding a broken heart to it as well.
That night, she worked patiently by candlelight on a gift for the newborn child, little Lady Katherine. While Alec was out playing cards for the cause, Becky commenced knitting a pair of tiny pink booties with white ribbon trim and the baby’s initials on the side. She had given great consideration to her gift. A duke’s daughter with lords and ladies as uncles and aunts was sure to need nothing under the sun, but Mama had always said that a handmade gift meant more. For her part, she was happy merely to have a new project with which to occupy her hands while Alec was out gambling, for she worried so.
Till now, she had spent the ne
rve-racking nights, while he was out, writing up her official account of Mikhail’s dark deeds that fateful night in Yorkshire. The authorities were sure to ask for it. Best to have it ready right away so they could arrest the brute all the more quickly when the time came. Thoughts of her tormentor passed away, giving place instead to those that brought a secret smile to her lips.
Alexander.
Her thoughts strayed to the wonderful times they had shared in the midst of all this uncertainty. Her knitting needles clicking, she smiled to recall the afternoon he had taught her a few simple card games. The playing cards kept blowing away, the wind making havoc of their fun. On another occasion a few nights ago, she awoke in a panic from another bad dream about the Russian prisoner in the gatehouse and his murder on the moors. Alec had comforted her and let her sleep the rest of the night in his arms.
But her favorite memory of all was the night they had found the astronomy book on the parlor bookshelf. They traipsed out to the beach with blankets and wine, hunting constellations. What they found instead was something just as silent as the stars, but even more mysterious. It had not been an occasion of wild desire nor even one illumined by his roguish mischief. As they had shared the warmth of their bodies, sitting huddled beneath the blanket, deciphering the orderly patterns of the stars, she sensed the power of the bond that had been born between them, alive, aglow. Perhaps he felt it, too, for Alec had fallen silent by her side, his arm around her. The rocky beach had been uncomfortable, but neither of them complained. She remembered his touch, brushing her blowing hair out of her eyes. She remembered his hand outstretched to the heavens as he pointed swiftly to a shooting star. It disappeared too quickly for her to make a wish, but with Alec beside her, she could think of nothing else to want. . . .
By the time he sauntered in that night at half past three, Becky had fallen asleep with her knitting. Alec leaned down, smiling, and woke her with a light kiss on the cheek.
“Hullo, lovely.”