A whimper of terror rose from deep inside her as his hand slid from her mouth to enwrap her throat. Her breath cut short, she didn’t dare move, not even to blink. His hot breath chafed her skin. “Lissette . . . Lissette de Valentin?”
“Please.” Her voice was a feeble rasp. “I don’t . . . understand.”
His fingers tightened around her throat. The hiss of his words made no sense until her mind seized upon one she understood—flamme—French for “flame.”
Did he mean the fire that killed her parents and destroyed her home? When she didn’t respond, he drew back. The flat of his palm whipped across her cheek. Her head snapped back against the stone wall behind her, but through her terror she barely felt the sting of the blow.
From within her fright, determination to survive surged. With a strength she hadn’t known she possessed, she swung her fists upward, connecting with her assailant’s jaw. The shock of it thrust his head back. Laurel lashed out with her knee. A solid thud sent the man staggering backward. He cried out, but just as quickly launched himself at her again.
She screamed and jumped back as his blade slashed through the air in front of her; closer, closer it came, filling her vision. She slid along the wall, trying to evade him. He caught her shoulder and swung the knife. With a loud rent the blade tore through her velvet cloak.
Then, from somewhere beyond the building, a shout echoed. Impossibly, she heard her name being called. Her attacker flinched, went rigid. She seized the opportunity to rush at him, shoving him with both hands. Together they toppled, landing on shrubbery, rolling into soft grass and then onto the cobbled walkway. The stones tore at her elbows and knees. The dagger flashed at the edge of her vision, then suddenly receded as she felt herself being gripped from behind and hauled to her feet.
“Laurel, go!”
Aidan’s command sent her to the corner of the building, but the knowledge that he was now grappling with her attacker halted her retreat. The dagger swung between them, flashing in the light of the streetlamps. The tangle of limbs and billowing cloaks cast a gyration of grotesque shadows.
A grunt of pain set Laurel into motion again. She must run to the nearest doorstep and plead for help. As she started for the street, a clanking close behind her brought her up short. She turned back around to behold the dagger bouncing end over end across the pavement. An oath rang out, and Aidan said, “De Vere?”
In the next instant the attacker shoved him against a wall. Aidan sprang instantly forward, but the cloaked figure turned and fled, blending into the inky gloom to the rear of the town houses.
His shoulders heaving, Aidan clenched his fists and stood poised to run. On wobbly legs Laurel scrambled to his side and wrapped both hands around his arm.
“Let him go. Please, don’t go after him,” she begged.
Aidan turned and caught her in his arms. “Did he hurt you?”
“No, I . . . I think I’m all right.”
He raised a hand; his fingers were clenched around a glove. “This slipped off him as we wrestled for the knife.”
Anchoring an arm around her, he started to walk her out from between the buildings. A glimmer on the ground caught Laurel’s eye. “What is that?”
Aidan released her long enough to retrieve the item. When he straightened, he held up a man’s weighty signet ring for her to see. “This must have come off the bastard’s finger along with his glove.” He stared down at it for another moment, and dropped the piece in his coat pocket.
Beneath a streetlamp, he cradled her face in his hands and raised her cheek to the light. His fingers stiffened, and his expression turned dangerous. “Good Christ, he hit you.”
Her eyes misting, she covered his hands with her own. “I suppose he did.”
“I wish I’d killed him.”
The words chilled her soul. She trembled beneath his fierce regard, and at the thought of what might have happened if he had not arrived in time to save her—again.
A recollection made her gasp. “You called him by name. You knew him.”
His hands slid to her shoulders. “No. I only thought I did. He resembles a man by the name of Henri de Vere. But it could not have been him. This devil is taller and leaner.” He hugged her close before drawing back again. “This did not have the look of a random theft. Laurel, what did he want?”
She began stammering an explanation that even to her ears made no sense. He set his fingertips against her lips.
“Not now. Let’s get you home. Can you walk?”
Only now did she become aware of the pain in her knees and elbows, still throbbing from her fall. But she nodded.
They found her reticule lying in the gutter, and after retrieving the attacker’s knife and tucking it into his waistband, Aidan enfolded her against his side and swept the edge of his cloak around her. Grateful that her legs cooperated, she depended on his strength to guide her. Some minutes passed before she realized they were hurrying along Brock Street. When he had spoken of bringing her home, he had meant, not her lodging house in Abbey Green, but his own home in the Royal Crescent.
Aidan believed Laurel’s assurances that she had not been physically hurt, at least not seriously, but the bewildered glaze in her eyes frightened him, as did the way she clung to him. Such passivity was unlike the Laurel he had come to know.
Yet what did he know about her? Only that the Fernhurst village records listed no such person as Mrs. Edgar Sanderson, and that men with concealed faces dragged her into corners and threatened her life.
Within minutes they emerged from Brock Street and crossed the Royal Crescent to his front door. After pausing to make a few requests of his manservant, Phelps, Aidan brought Laurel up to his private rooms on the second floor. He removed her cloak and settled her onto a sofa close to the hearth, then set about lighting the fire. By the time Phelps arrived with brandy and a steaming pot of tea, Aidan had coaxed a respectable blaze to life.
Pouring tea and mixing into it a generous measure of spirits, he pressed the china cup into Laurel’s hands. “Drink this. It will help.”
She sipped absently, seeming unaware of what she consumed. Meanwhile he poured more brandy into a snifter and tossed back the contents in a single gulp. Now that the danger had passed, the sting and throb of his own injuries from the night before revisited him with breath-stealing vigor. His ribs especially plagued him. He had determined they were not broken, but one or two might bear hairline fractures.
Even here, where they were safe, he could not banish the sickening images of what might have happened if not for the lucky kick that had dislodged the dagger from the assailant’s hand. Before that moment, Aidan had felt his strength fading, a strength that, in his present condition, had sprung solely from determination.
Pouring another draft of brandy, he returned to the sofa and crouched at Laurel’s feet. He had so many questions he wanted—needed—to ask, so many mysteries to unravel. For now, though, all but the simplest would have to wait.
“Are you certain you weren’t hurt?” When she nodded, he placed a hand on her thigh. “I got your note earlier. What were you doing there?”
“Waiting for you.” Shaking, her voice held but a wisp of its natural timbre. “I had a plan, you see, for both of us to attend Lord Munster’s supper party. I wanted to search his rooms, or rather suggest that you do it. He trusts you. . . .”
“Search for what, Laurel?”
“Documents. Stolen letters that link . . .” She hesitated as if unsure whether she should confide in him.
“You sent for me,” he reminded her. “So why not trust me?”
“I do trust you.” Fingers spread, her hand went to his cheek. “But there are certain things I’ve sworn to tell no one.” She lowered her hand, holding it with the other around her teacup.
If he didn’t know better, he would swear that she, too, worked for Lewis Wescott. Of course, he could think of no good reason why the Home Office would have sent another agent, much less a woman, to run roughshod o
ver his own investigation. But she was obviously working for someone, which meant his best course for now was not to push her beyond her boundaries, self-imposed or otherwise.
“Very well, then,” he said, “leave out what you must and tell me what you can.”
She clenched her jaw, continuing her inner debate for another several seconds. Then she said, “It is believed that George Fitzclarence is in possession of letters dating back to before the wars . . . which link his and Claude Rousseau’s fathers.”
“William and André Rousseau?” Stunned that she should have such information, Aidan sat back on his heels. The Home Office had suggested a sinister aspect to the link between Fitz and Claude Rousseau, and now Laurel all but confirmed it.
Good God, the French traitor and England’s former king? What brand of mischief could Fitz be planning with such inflammatory documents?
His eyes narrowed as he regarded her. “Did Lewis Wescott send you?”
She frowned and shook her head. “Who?”
For some odd reason he believed her denial. But how did tonight’s events figure into the larger picture?
“What about this villain who attacked you?” he asked. “What does he have to do with what you just told me?”
“I wish I knew. I’ve never seen him before. At least, not before that night at the opera.”
“You mean when I found you in the corridor outside the boxes?”
Fresh fear glazed her eyes as she nodded.
Suddenly remembering the ring they’d found on the ground at the Circus, he fished it out of his coat pocket. “This might give us a clue to his identity.”
Laurel took it from him and held it to the firelight. The heavy gold band held an onyx stone, with an inlaid golden crest that depicted a shield divided by a bar sinister, with a fleur-de-lis on one side and a crown on the other.
Laurel went rigid. “I know this design.”
Before he could question her, she tugged a delicate gold chain—the very same that on more than one occasion had piqued his curiosity—from inside her bodice. At the end dangled what appeared to be a gold button bearing an insignia identical to that of the ring. “I’ve had this for as long as I can remember. It is a memento, you see, from my early life.”
“What does it mean?”
Her expression became anguished. “That’s just it. I don’t know. I have never known . . . or I don’t remember. When I was a child, I kept it hidden away as if it were a precious treasure, thinking it connected me to my past and to my parents. How could that man bear a ring with the same design?”
“Do you remember anything he said to you?”
“No. He spoke in French. I never learned French well. Uncle Edward did not deem it a priority in our education. Oh, we all spoke Latin and, of course, German and a smattering of Greek, but—” She broke off, shivering, her frightened gaze darting about the room.
Aidan slid up onto the sofa beside her, took her teacup from her hand, and set it on the side table. Gently he gathered her in his arms. “It’s all right, Laurel. I’m here. You’re safe.” He stroked her hair and pressed kisses to the crown of her head. “You’ve nothing to fear, I swear.”
But he burned to know the meaning of her jumbled response. Who was this Uncle Edward, and the “we” she spoke of?
That she insisted the assailant spoke French brought his thoughts spiraling back to Henri de Vere. De Vere was French, though over the years his English had become almost perfect. Before the bastard had turned and fled, Aidan had glimpsed enough of his face to assure him it was not de Vere, but there had been a resemblance. . . .
“Whoever that man is, he knows me,” Laurel said, her voice stronger, her eyes clear of confusion. “He knows things about my past.”
“What things?”
“The fire. When I was young, a fire killed my parents and destroyed our home.” Her features tightened in concentration. “He said something about flames. He . . . was so angry.” She trembled and her teeth chattered, but when Aidan moved to hold her close again, she drew back. “I know him, Aidan. I remember him, or things about him.”
“From where?”
“My nightmares.”
Setting the ring aside, he pulled her back into his arms, chafing his hands up and down her back to warm her. Despite the proximity of the fireplace, her skin felt like ice. Reaching for her tea, he held the cup to her lips and coaxed her to drink. It wasn’t physical discomfort making her shiver, he knew, but a bone-deep fear that gripped her, and he felt helpless to do anything other than hold her and continue to whisper reassurances.
Finally she seemed to relax, burrowing her cheek against his shoulder in a childlike gesture that squeezed his heart. Just as quickly, her head snapped up. Her eyes were large, filled with alarm.
“What if he had hurt you? You chased him off this time, but you had the advantage of surprise. It might not be that way next time.” She began to pull away from him. “I won’t risk that.”
“Stop.” He tightened his hold on her until she stilled. “I can take care of myself. It was rather more than surprise that frightened him away.”
The resistance drained from her limbs, and her lips curled in something approaching a smile. “Yes . . . yes, I believe that. Even last night, those footpads got the best of you only because there were two of them.” She studied him, her parted lips glistening in the firelight. “You are no ordinary gentleman, are you?”
“About as ordinary as you are, Mrs. Sanderson.”
The tip of her tongue darted over her trembling lower lip, and like a wall crumbling stone by stone, the artifice in which she had cloaked herself fell away before his very eyes, leaving a vulnerable, frightened young woman who needed him, who stirred his every protective instinct and thoroughly claimed his heart.
“Aidan,” she whispered, “I—”
He dipped his head and kissed her, intentionally silencing anything she might have confessed. It wasn’t that he didn’t wish to know. He most certainly did. He just didn’t need to hear it then, while he held her so close that he could feel the beat of her heart against his chest. For however long he might preserve the moment, he would not for the world interrupt the hissing of the fire, the rasp of her rapid breathing, and the light smack of her lips against his as he kissed her again and again.
Her shudder brought him to his senses. He broke away, disgusted by his actions and by a desire he could not control. From the start, he had not been able to resist her, not when it was in his own best interests to do so and not now, God help him, when it was in hers.
His eyes fell closed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
Her silence seemed to confirm how much of a cad he had been, but the touch of her fingertips beneath his chin and brush of her lips against his own nullified the charge. He opened his eyes, only to close them again as Laurel combed her fingers through his hair and drew him down for a long, heated kiss that held nothing of fear or confusion and everything of an insistent, mutual hunger that must be sated.
“Yes,” she said. “You should have.”
Desire came on like a storm across an open plain, with nothing to hinder it—not secrets or fear or social barriers. He hardened with need, with wanting her more than he’d ever wanted any woman. His affairs since he’d joined the Home Office had been part of the persona he’d invented, a necessary deception. For all her duplicity, Laurel was the first woman who filled him with the conviction that neither of them belonged anywhere but with each other.
Yet even as he drank in the taste of her, he felt as though he could never have enough of her, never know all of her. Through her parted lips he swept his tongue, exploring her mouth and savoring the vibration of her moans against his teeth. He filled his hands with her breasts, finding the nipples through her bodice and teasing them until they puckered between his fingers.
Needing more, he smoothed his palms down her corseted sides to the softness of hips and thighs and the firm, mind-consuming curve of her bottom. Lifti
ng her, he molded his hands to the shape of those high, rounded buttocks and wondered how anything could be so perfect, so delightful.
The release of a few pins brought down her hair, a silky cloud of spun gold. He buried his nose in it, dragging her long legs across his own until she sat perched in his lap, her arms tight around his neck, all of her his for the taking.
Dare he?
He slipped his hand beneath her skirts, gliding along the silky skin to her knee and allowing his fingertips the pleasure of tracing its shapely bend. Insatiable, he dragged his lips across her face, her throat, down the fragrant curve of her bosom. His free hand followed, fingers sliding into the sweep of her neckline.
“Laurel, I want you. You know I do, but I want more than kisses and a few stolen caresses. My only question is what, and how much, do you want?”
Her bosom trembled against his lips. “I want your hands on me. Everywhere.”
“Are you quite certain?”
“Oh, yes.”
He brought her hands to his lips and kissed them, turned them over, and suckled her palms. “And will you put your hands on me, in return, or are you afraid?”
A mingling of uncertainty and joy brightened her eyes and daubed her cheeks with fevered patches of color. Her bottom lip slipping between her teeth, she slowly set about unbuttoning his waistcoat, working the knot free from his cravat, opening his shirt.
With each light touch his lust for her mounted, yet he sat motionless against the cushions, tensed but passive, giving himself up to her ministrations and the dark, enveloping bliss of erotic pleasure. When at last she peeled the layers away and leaned to press her mouth to his bare skin, his chest muscles quivered; his blood raced.
Tenting his trousers, his sex throbbed visibly. Laurel saw it, and the candid wonder in her eyes nudged a part of his conscience that was fast turning numb. How innocent she seemed. Indeed, he had even compared her to Virgo, the virgin. Yet at the shy touch of her fingers closing around him through his trousers, his breath hitched and he dismissed all lingering notions of guilt.
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