“It won’t last,” he said smiling as he shifted up to cover her body with his. “You do it to me all the time and eventually I always recover.”
His cock leapt up to press against her thighs and Grace shifted to accommodate him, eagerly reaching for him to guide him toward the slippery taut entrance of her body. He fit perfectly inside her and her muscles immediately gripped the head of his erection as if her body’s hunger were a separate being.
He dismissed the urge to drive into her and give in to the voracity of his appetite for her. He lingered there, notched up against her with the silken head working against the sensitive clit.
“Michael, please!”
He shook his head, a sadness seeping into his bones. He wouldn’t rush it for any price. If this were the last time that she allowed him to touch her, to make love to her, to hold her; he would savor every moment.
He entered her so slowly he feared he would climax before he’d touched her deepest core. She fought the pace, desperately trying to urge him on, biting his shoulder in her frustration.
“There, there, dearest. Soon now…”
Too soon, he was there. Melded into her in an embrace that redefined his soul and then he had to move. He had to take her and all the divine pleasure that Grace’s body alone could provide. But this was no frenzied rush to release. Even Grace had accepted the leisurely build that tugged him along on a relentless path. Each thrust was measured and complete, every turn of his rigid member inside her sheath was wrought with a raw tension that left him breathless.
At last, it was a fever that broke over him in waves. He came with her in a free fall of give and take, that made every movement a strange prayer, an homage to the unique beauty in his arms. She was all that he wanted. There would never be another to take her place and when the light of love in her eyes was dimmed to hatred, it would a mortal blow.
Even so, it didn’t matter.
Loving her was all that was left to him. And he had no intentions of ceasing until the end; not until the very bitter end.
Michael sipped his morning tea, savoring the quiet light in the private dining room outside their door. He’d slept in and found a note from his wife explaining that Maggie had offered to teach her to use her hands to talk more easily with Tally. She was downstairs enjoying her first lesson and would return with lemon biscuits later.
It was just like her, he thought, to be kind and make the effort for Tally.
And to remember the lemon biscuits.
Michael heard them coming, not that they were attempting to be quiet. The door to the east entrance downstairs opened several times and by the sound of the number of men’s boots coming up the stairs, they’d apparently decided to come en masse. Michael set his teacup down and kept his seat. “Gentlemen, good morning.”
Ashe led the way with a very unhappy looking band of brothers behind him. Michael noted the bruised shadow on his chin and had to swallow hard at the raw relief at seeing Blackwell obviously on his feet and recovered.
“I was expecting you.” He stood slowly, holding his hands up as if to demonstrate that he was unarmed. “Though a very tired and sore part of me was hoping to expect you later in the afternoon.”
Rowan sighed. “Blackwell was sure it couldn’t wait.”
Ashe’s temper flared. “It won’t! The Jackal has the mystic diamond, thanks to your vile betrayal, and there’s no time to waste!”
“We’re going to go after it, Michael,” Galen stated flatly. “Without your aid, obviously, but also we would hope, without your interference.”
“I see.” Michael nodded. “You’ve a plan already?”
“We do!” Ashe growled. “I still can’t believe you’ve done this, Rutherford. But just in case you had the vague hope of ever crossing our doorsteps again, this circle is closed to you!”
“Blackwell,” Darius’s voice was calm. “We don’t need to cover that ground.”
“I understand,” Michael said. “But here, before you gallop back down the stairs, ransack Sterling’s home and Ashe ends up hurting himself, you might want this.” Michael reached in his pocket and held out a leather pouch toward Rowan.
“What is it?” Rowan asked as he took the bag from Michael’s hand.
“Open it.” Michael sat back down and added more hot tea to his cup from the steaming pot on the tray.
“My God!” Ashe exclaimed as a diamond the size of a large plum came to fiery life in the palm of Rowan’s hand. “Is that…? But how is that…possible?”
Michael added two lumps of sugar to his tea and milk as he spoke. “I’ve never had much talent with sleight of hand but I deliberately made sure the church wasn’t well lit, so that might have helped. I had two leather pouches in my pocket last night. I showed Sterling the diamond, then appeared to have a change of heart so I could it back in my pocket.”
“You gave him a different stone?”
Michael nodded. “A lovely hunk of diamond about the size of a peach pit but terribly flawed, I’m afraid.” Michael looked up at them all. “It had to be a good size or he would have questioned it.”
“You didn’t give him the diamond?” Ashe repeated the question uselessly as he sat down in shock near the fireplace. “Why not tell me your intentions? Last night, you had every chance but you allowed me to believe the worst!”
“I had no choice,” Michael confessed. “At any second, Sterling was going to be within earshot and one word to the contrary would have foiled everything.”
“He wasn’t in earshot when we spoke at the sports club or…you could have told us, Rutherford!” Rowan protested. “We’d have kept your secrets without risking your neck!”
Michael hesitated. “I needed Sterling to believe that he had me. I never knew exactly when things were going to come into play and I needed your reactions to be genuine and natural. If we appeared cozy or if there were signs of your support, he’d have become suspicious.”
“Damn it!” Ashe ran a hand through his hair. “I’m a bit ashamed to realize my natural reaction was to behave like an ass.”
“None of us have behaved well,” Galen added. “For that, we’re truly sorry, Michael.”
“Wait,” Josiah spoke up. “What about Sterling? Aren’t we in the same bind again? Once he finds out that Michael didn’t give him the right diamond, he’s bound to be furious.”
“He won’t ever bother us again.” Michael finished his tea and set the cup down. “I made sure of it.”
“You made sure of it?” Galen asked. “What did you do, Michael?”
“Sterling borrowed money to finance his schemes and the promise of that diamond was his only collateral. He admitted more than he meant to about the pressure he was under and that he had his own deadline to meet.” Michael leaned back in the chair as his friends began to settle into their own seats to hear the tale. “In fact, I think he meant to meet them after the exchange to deliver the gem into their hands.”
“There’s an awkward moment,” Rowan noted.
“Exactly,” Michael agreed. “Because once Sterling hands over that common rock to men who have waited impatiently for years for a stone without equal, they’ll call in their debts and it won’t be taken in coin. Sterling is gone, as surely as the sun rises, his body will never be recovered.” A small ball of ice formed in his stomach as he spoke aware that he’d literally arranged for Sterling’s demise and while he hadn’t dirtied his own hands he knew it wouldn’t make a difference to Grace.
“How do you know this? If he looked at it before his own meeting… How can you be so sure he won’t double-back and demand the real treasure?”
“For several reasons. If he’d looked in the bag and discovered the switch, his rage would have brought him immediately to my door. It was a long sleepless night waiting but he never came.” Michael ran a hand through his hair.
“And the men holding the Jackal’s leash? Won’t they think to come after us?” Darius asked.
“I
don’t expect them to. Yesterday, I had two notes delivered by courier in the city. I wrote an anonymous note to the secondary buyer he was lining up for the diamond warning them that Sterling was a con artist. The prince’s mistress, Miss Pierre, wouldn’t have taken the news lightly considering she’d already given him an advance payment. I told her that she was being swindled, that the East India Trading Company was being cheated and that if she received word of the diamond’s availability, it would be a ruse. They won’t be able to ignore her complaints.”
“And the other note?”
“A bit riskier but I didn’t want to leave any avenues open. I wrote to Lord Waverly via my lawyer that a certain man in his employ had been harassing me for some time now about imaginary treasures and demonic diamonds. I told him that I’d met Mr. Porter once in India while he was mumbling about mystic gems and that I had made a crude joke about possessing a treasure that I hide in my piss pot. Mr. Porter must have misunderstood me. I told Lord Waverly that as a simple soldier with a small pension, I would appreciate it if he would ask Mr. Sterling Porter to stop haranguing me or perhaps escort his man to an asylum.”
“It’s too ridiculous!”
“Exactly,” Michael agreed. “Between their own doubts, Sterling’s bluster, and my blatant misrepresentation of the facts, they will never ever look in the Jaded’s direction again, god willing.”
“When have the gods ever been willing?” Josiah asked.
“When the right hands have the diamond and have arranged to keep it safe. Prophecy respected, right, D?” Ashe teased with a wry grin.
“Not necessarily. You are all forgetting that extremely interested third party. The one who set fire to the Thistle and haunted every jewel cutter from London to Edinburgh,” Darius replied. “If they believe that Michael gave Sterling and the East India what they were after, then we may be in even more danger than ever before.”
Michael raised his hand. “No. I met one of their assassins accidentally after he tried to kill me and…” Michael shrugged his shoulders. “I invited him to meet me after midnight, after Sterling had left.”
Shock in the room was almost universal. “You—invited a would-be assassin to meet you in a dark secluded location after midnight? Just in case, Sterling didn’t kill you?” Ashe asked.
Michael smiled. “I wanted him to see that I still had the diamond; that it was still in my hands. He seemed satisfied with my vow to protect it with my life.”
“My god, we’re finally safe and out of it,” Darius whispered. “Thanks to Rutherford!”
“The Jaded are safe,” Michael stated flatly. “And my oath is fulfilled to Ashe to see to Sterling Porter. There is no way that Sterling survived to see the sun rise and if he did, then it’s to beg for a quick end. The Jackal is finished and by the hands of the devils he served.”
“But not your hands?” Grace asked from the top step where she stood frozen. “What do they call it when you watch someone walk to their doom and say nothing?”
CHAPTER THIRTY
“Grace.”
“Who are these men?” she asked and stepped forward, her face pale. “Who are these men who all seem so calm and pleased to discuss my brother’s demise, magical diamonds and jackals?”
Every man abruptly came to his feet and Michael knew every single one of them was wishing he was somewhere else…including himself.
Michael took one slow breath. “Gentlemen, I believe you haven’t yet met my wife. Grace, these are my good friends—whose names escape me at the moment only because…I fear I might…be suffering a stroke.”
In his worst nightmares, he was always on his knees initiating a confession to a very horrified Grace who was sobbing and unable to look at him. But in that nightmare, they had always been very much alone.
No, this is definitely worse.
None of the Jaded had recovered to speak yet and the delay was only a few heartbeats but to Michael it was an eternity falling away from his hands. He expected her to flee in tears, find Mrs. Clay and force him to begin a very long uphill siege. But once again, Grace’s approach to her world had nothing to do with anyone’s expectations.
“Eavesdropping,” she began as she climbed the last step, “is a terrible thing and in books, I always found it a weak literary device for revealing someone’s true nature. I always thought that if a person truly knew someone, they would hardly need to be reduced to standing on stair landings to realize that—“ her voice broke and her eyes filled with unshed tears. “To realize that the man you love has married you only as part of some…twisted plot.”
Ashe cleared his throat. “Madam, I grant you that circumstances are beyond strange but it’s—“
Darius put a hand on his shoulder. “Perhaps we should go and leave Michael to explain things more clearly.”
Grace folded her arms defiantly, apparently aware that she was in fact, blocking the only exit from the room as she stood squarely at the top of the stairs bottling them in. “Explanations are not part of my husband’s skills,” she said. “But how lucky for me to have the company of so many well-informed men. My brother—“ Grace took a moment to steady her nerves. “My brother was unkind and often cruel but I never remember any word of a diamond. He did not speak of his time in India but I know he had vast hopes of advancing himself. He was ambitious and…”
“Grace,” Michael began carefully. “He was more than ambitious. But we never sought him out. We’re no gang of thugs. We were simply men who crossed his path once. Fate makes odd enemies sometimes and your brother was never willing to accept that he was alone in his quest for wealth and power. We never meant to interfere with his schemes. And if there had been any chance of him relenting and leaving us alone, all of us would have preferred it. I would have preferred it.”
“Did you kill him, Michael?” she asked in a fearful whisper.
Michael shook his head slowly but he owed her the truth. He loved her too much to keep any more secrets. “I didn’t but I knew he would be killed by others for his debts and lies and I did nothing to stop it.”
She gasped and this time, Michael was sure she would run but the rapid rhythm of a new set of footsteps pounding up the stairs interrupted the scene. Tally slipped past her, his face set as he ignored everyone in the room but Michael to hand over a folded note. Michael took it from him but didn’t open it. He held it out to Rowan. “It’s addressed to you, Dr. West.”
“Gayle’s handwriting,” Rowan opened the paper and read it immediately. Only Michael was close enough to realize that his breathing changed and that something very serious was underway. Rowan looked up at Ashe. “It’s Caroline. Gayle sends word that she’s in labor. It’s time.”
“It’s too soon,” Ashe said in a hoarse whisper. “Weeks yet, God’s mercy!”
Rowan gripped him by the shoulders and forced him to look into his eyes. “All will be well, Ashe. But I need to leave now to attend her as quickly as I can.”
“We will all go,” Galen amended. “Blackwell cannot await the babe’s arrival alone.” The unspoken message was clear. Ashe can’t do this alone and if it ends badly, it would take all of them to prevent him from harming himself to follow his beloved Caroline to her grave.
“Let’s go then!”
“Ashe and Josiah are with me,” Rowan calmly announced. “We’ll see you at the house.”
Michael stepped aside, agonized to be left behind but he couldn’t see abandoning Grace, not when they had so much yet to say to each other. Grace deserved an opportunity to storm and rage and Michael wouldn’t rob her of it.
But once again, the Jaded intervened.
“My name is Galen Hawke.” Galen stepped forward to take Grace’s arm, as if they’d decided to head out for a stroll in a park. “Come on, Mrs. Rutherford! You two can fight in the carriage.”
“But, I—“
“You are one of us, by marriage, and as you’ll soon learn, this is a circle that one does not simply step away from without very good cause,” Galen ex
plained as he propelled her quickly and carefully down the stairs. “Rowan is an excellent physician and we’ll have to hurry but I feel compelled to say that your brother was the worst kind of man and while death gives many villains a certain saint-like aura, I fail to see it. Besides, if he’s dead, it’s through his own stupidity and criminal actions, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Sterling…was hardly a criminal! He was…ruthless but…”
Michael was right behind them. “Lord Winters, I don’t see how this is helping.”
Galen ignored him. “The Jaded are cursed with misunderstandings early in our relationships, Mrs. Rutherford. I’m sure you’ll sort Rutherford out but for the moment, we must attend to Ashe and offer him our compassion and prayers.”
“The Jaded? I’m sorry, which of you is Ashe?”
Galen pointed. “That gentleman vaulting past Dr. Rowan West’s waiting carriage there. The one who just commandeered that hackney and is even now shoving the driver aside. He is also probably about to whip those poor horses into a ridiculous and death-defying gallop through the streets of London…”
The hackney cab pulled away with a lurch and Grace’s breath caught in her throat at the reckless speed of it. “I see. He is the father-to-be I take it?”
“Theo!” Rowan called up to his driver as he helped Josiah up into his carriage. “We’re off to Blackwell’s, as quick as you can, please.”
Theo nodded, “Guessed as much!” As soon as Rowan’s feet left the pavement, Theo snapped his whip. “Off then!”
Michael held out his hand to help her climb up into Lord Winter’s waiting coach but Grace had a fleeting flash of stubborn rebellion. “I could wait here just as easily.”
“Darius Thorne, madam.” Darius stepped forward and held out his hand instead. “I don’t think Michael would survive the worry that before we return you’d change your mind and decide to go without hearing him out.” He moved his hand subtly forward. “And there’s no time to delay. We are keeping the good doctor from his work and from Mrs. Blackwell’s side.”
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