by Ava Stone
She slid beneath the counterpane and moved to the far side of the bed to make room for him. And for a moment, the briefest of moments, Marc just gazed at her. God, he loved that woman. He loved every single thing about her. And the sight of her, lying in bed, waiting for him was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
“You’re going to sleep in your trousers?”
He flashed her a grin. “Probably the only way I can make myself behave tonight.” Because it was. Even as tired as he was, he wanted her. And he was certain he could even seduce her with very little effort, but he wouldn’t be in his top form, and she’d been so overwrought with emotion all evening, it would hardly be fair to either of them. Besides when he did make love to her, he wanted to leave her breathless, not wanting.
Marc dropped onto the edge of her four-poster, extinguished the light on her bedside table, bathing them in darkness. Then he rolled onto his side and drew her up against him, her back to his front. He breathed in the soft lilac scent of her and buried his face in her hair. God, he could stay just like this for the rest of his life and never complain.
Caroline’s delicate fingers dance across his forearm that held her tight. “Thank you, Marc, for everything.”
There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her. Marc kissed the side of her head. “I am always your most humble servant.”
“You are not humble,” she laughed softly into the darkness.
What was the point in being humble? Marc grinned against her hair. “Lucky you, tomorrow night I’ll show you why.”
“I can hardly wait,” she said, making him even harder still.
“Me either.”
Afternoon sun streamed into Caroline’s room, but she didn’t want to open her eyes. She didn’t want to wake up, and she didn’t want to the leave the cocoon of Marc’s arms. Heavens, having him with her all night was…well, heavenly. But when she pulled herself from bed, the real world would come crashing back. Had it been a mistake to come to London? What was she going to do with Rachel? And how would Marc escape Staveley House without anyone noticing him? That was going to be particularly tricky.
If she could just stay right where she was, she wouldn’t have to think about any of those things.
“I know you’re awake,” his deep voice rumbled over her, and Caroline’s belly fluttered. She did love his voice.
“Let’s just stay here all day,” she suggested.
His hand moved possessively across her side, settling on her hip, sending frissons of need washing over her. Oh, if he would just touch her a little lower. “While I could be talked into that, I think Emma would miss you,” he said. “She pounded on the door about an hour ago until one of the maids ran her off.”
So the real world was already crashing down around them? Caroline’s eyes fluttered open and she spun in Marc’s arms until she was above him. “They ran her off?” Emma could be most insistent when she was of a mind.
“Mostly there were whispers,” he told her, his light blue gaze holding hers. “But I heard them tell her you went to bed late and to let you sleep.”
Then he lifted his hand to her face and caressed the side of her cheek before tucking a stray curl behind her ear.
“How did you sleep?” he asked.
“Better than I have in forever.” She grinned down at him. “I’ve been wondering how I could make you stay with me every night.”
That familiar roguish smile of his tipped his lips. “Well, I’ll have to check my schedule, of course…” He pushed up on his arms and very gently kissed her. It was the softest of kisses and really very tame, but it sent a blazing hot fire coursing through her.
Caroline’s breasts felt swollen and her core pulsed and her nipples tightened against the silk of her nightrail.
Marc groaned against her lips. “There. Cleared my schedule.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. He made her feel so alive, like she was young and adventurous again, like that carefree girl she’d been once upon a time.
Marc dropped back down to the pillow and his stomach growled.
“You’re starving.” What time was it?
He shrugged. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
“Marc.” She scrambled off him.
“I’ve suffered worse,” he told her and in that moment, she noticed a white sunburst scar near his left shoulder.
Caroline moved back toward him and gently touched the place on his chest. The scar was much more smooth than the skin around it. “This is where Brookfield shot you.”
That night came rushing back into her mind. After weeks with the two of them trying to sort out who was threatening Cordie and blackmailing Clayworth, Marc had locked her in his coach and gone on to Vauxhall to face the villain without her. By the time Lady Astwick had freed Caroline, the two ladies arrived just in time to see the madman aim his pistol at Marc and fire. Heavens! She remembered the sheer terror that had flooded her at the sight. But Marc had fired his weapon a moment later and fortunately had a much better aim than Brookfield.
“He could have killed you,” she whispered, cringing at the memory.
“He didn’t.” Marc grasped her hand and caressed her knuckles with the pad of his thumb. “Better men than him have tried.”
Had they?
What was that long white scar on his right side that vanished beneath his waistband? She hadn’t noticed that the other day. Of course soapy water would camouflage that sort of thing. But goodness, the scar was long. “What is this?” she asked, pulling her hand from his grasp and tracing the line down his side with her finger.
“Rapier outside of Le Havre,” he said, his muscles constricting under her touch.
A rapier outside of La Havre? Was he serious? Caroline’s gaze flashed back to Marc’s face. “What in the world?”
His roguish smile was firmly back in place. “If I thought you’d touch all my scars, I’d have shown them to you a long time ago.”
All of them? “How many do you have?”
He shrugged. “You might find this hard to believe, my dear, but not everyone likes me as well as you do.”
“Oh, I do not find that hard to believe at all.”
And that made him chuckle. “Go on and get dressed,” he said. Then Marc slid out from beneath her and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Go to your daughters. I’ll be back in a few hours.”
Caroline gaped at him. “And just how do you expect to leave here without anyone seeing you?”
Marc winked at her. “My dear Caroline, I am a man of many talents.”
And even more secrets, it seemed. Rapier outside Le Havre, indeed.
Chapter 15
Marc rapped twice on the front door of Weybourne House, and when it swung open, a decrepit butler blinked up at him. The fellow had a baldpate with a few wild white hairs that stuck out in odd directions. He had to be old as Methuselah.
“Christian Hawke,” Marc said loudly, afraid the fellow wouldn’t be able to hear him otherwise.
“Lord Kelling is not receiving visitors,” the man said clearly, his voice sounding surprisingly crisp for his age.
Oh, he’d receive Marc, especially after he’d thrown a goddamned dagger at him. He pushed against the door, forcing the aged butler to take a step backward. “Afraid I can’t leave without speaking to the man,” he said, stepping into the Kelling foyer and shutting the door behind him. “Now where can I find him?”
“Sir,” the butler continued, “his lordship is not at all feeling well today.”
That Marc had no doubt about. “Tell him Lord Haversham wants a word.” Marc reached into his jacket and retrieved a calling card. “I have no doubt he’ll see me.”
And at that moment, Doctor Watts appeared in the corridor. The old man had bandaged Marc up more than once over the years, and he smiled when he recognized him the foyer. “Lord Haversham.”
“Watts,” Marc returned. “Good to see you, as always.”
The doctor, black bag in tow, continued toward the fron
t door and nodded at the butler. “He’ll need new bandages in the morning. I’ve left more instructions with Sarah for his eye.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” the butler replied, opening the door so the man could head out.
Once Watts was gone, Marc gestured down the corridor. “Go on. Haversham to see Kelling.” Odd to call him that. Kelling, to Marc, was still the man’s father even if he had been gone a number of years.
The butler scowled down at the calling card in his hand, but he did turn on his heel and started down the corridor to do Marc’s bidding.
Left to cool his heels, Marc glanced around the Weybourne foyer, which was nothing spectacular. Of course, the Duke of Weybourne was a notoriously tight-fisted old fellow. Odds were the rest of the place would be just as sparse.
A moment later, the butler returned, looking slightly more harried than he had when he left. “His lordship will see you. Follow me.”
Marc followed the old servant down the corridor and up a flight of stairs. Kelling’s bedchamber was the second room to the right and the butler opened the door for him.
“Thank you, Poole,” the young baron called weakly from the middle of his four-poster, and it sounded like speaking was rather painful.
The man’s right eye was swollen shut, the majority of his face was varying shades of purple, and his torso seemed to be wrapped tight in a white dressing cloth.
Marc waited for the butler to take his leave before walking across the floor to stand over the bandaged man. “Aren’t you pretty today?”
“Come to admire your handiwork?” Kelling glared out of the eye that wasn’t swollen shut. “What the hell do you want?”
“Honestly?” Marc shook his head and dropped into a chair across from the fellow’s bed. “Did you think you could throw a dagger at me and there’d be no piper to pay? Best to select your adversaries a little better next time, my boy.”
“Is that why you’re here?” The man winced in pain. “You’ve come to finish me off? I think I may have a few ribs you didn’t break.”
“Buck up, man,” Marc drawled, not feeling the least bit sorry for the bedridden fellow. “You’ve chosen the path you’re on. Consequences always go along with choices. Next time aim better, you won’t be the one recovering in a sickbed.”
“What grand advice,” Kelling wheezed out. “I’ll remember that the next time you’re accosting some girl.”
“Accosting her?” That was hardly the case. But that girl was the very reason Marc was there. He might have secured Rachel’s begrudging acquiescence about hieing off to Covent Garden on her own, but if she was anything like her mother, and he suspected she was a great deal like her mother, Rachel had not abandoned her quest to learn the dagger-throwing guardian’s identity. And the consequences that lie down that particular path would not be good for her. “That’s the problem with playing judge, jury, and executioner. You rarely get more than one perspective.”
“So she wanted to go with you? I missed that, did I?”
“I’d imagine, under that mask, you miss a lot.”
If Kelling could scowl, Marc thought he might do so. “If you’ve come to talk me out of—”
Out of his life as the Covent Guard? Marc snorted. “Do I seem altruistic to you?” Then he shook his head. “I don’t care what you do with your time or what motivates you to don a mask and throw daggers at people in the dark of night. But that girl last night...She’s another matter.”
“Seems a little young for you.”
“What she is to me is none of your bloody business. But you’ll stay away from her. If you see her coming in one direction, you’ll head the other. Am I clear?”
“I don’t even know who she is,” Kelling muttered.
And Marc meant to keep it that way. “She’s a girl who doesn’t need to get mixed up in whatever it is you’re involved with. So you see her, you turn around.”
“So she’s safe, then?” the fellow asked.
Despite her best efforts otherwise. “Aye, and I intend to see that she stays that way.” Even if she wouldn’t thank him for his troubles. Then he heaved a sigh as he pushed back to his feet. “You’ve created quite the name for yourself, Kelling. I can’t see how any of this is going to end well for you.”
“I thought you didn’t care.” He seemed to suck in a rather painful breath.
“I don’t.” Marc shrugged. “Just an observation. Whether or not you get yourself gutted makes no difference to me.”
“Just so long as the girl isn’t mixed up in it?”
“Just so,” Marc agreed. And just as he started for the exit, Chase Winslett bounded into the room.
“Christian, you’ll never...” But whatever else the young fellow meant to say died on his lips as his gaze landed on Marc. “Haversham?”
Winslett didn’t seem at all surprised to find Kelling laid up and covered in bandages, and the butler hadn’t announced the young man’s arrival, all of which made Marc suspect that Winslett was involved in his friend’s Covent Garden activities. There was apparently not enough to do these days to keep young lordlings entertained. And if Winslett was involved with all this Covent Guard business, then Marc made a mental note to keep that particular idiot away from Rachel Benton as well. “I’ll leave you to your friend,” he said as he quit the room.
Perfect. Sebastian spotted his cousin Phineas Granard, Viscount Carraway, at the far corner of White’s, and he smiled. It would be much easier to talk to Fin here than it would at Carraway House with Felicity hovering nearby.
Sebastian handed his beaver hat to a footman and made his way across the room to drop into a seat across from his cousin. “Fin.”
“Barely got to see you last night,” Fin said in greeting.
Indeed. The swarm of ladies that found Sebastian as he arrived hadn’t left him alone all evening. One very good reason why he hated attending such events. Had he been able to further his acquaintance with Caroline Staveley, the nuisance of it all would have been worth it. But that blasted Haversham had put a rather quick end to that plan with whatever awful thing it was he’d said to the lady that sent her scrambling back to her own home before Sebastian had even been able to say hello. “Yes, well, I barely got to see anyone I wanted to.”
A ghost of a smile tipped Fin’s lips. “So none of those girls should count on being the Countess of Peasemore anytime soon?”
Sebastian scowled in response. “Felicity told you.” He shouldn’t have been surprised about that. She was probably too eager to run to Fin with tales of Sebastian looking for a wife.
Fin shrugged. “Felicity and I keep no secrets from each other, not anymore.”
Not after the last one got a handful of people killed. But Sebastian held his tongue instead of saying as much. After all, what was the point in stating the obvious? “And all the better when they’re my bloody secrets.”
At that, his cousin laughed. “You don’t really think Grandfather will cut you off?”
“Grandfather, no.” Sebastian heaved a sigh. “Grandmother in a heartbeat. Vicious old harpy.”
“She adores me.”
“She would.”
Fin laughed again. He was much more jovial these days than he had been in years past. Felicity, for all that she was a foolish little thing, had done that for his cousin. If only there was a way for Sebastian to pick her brain. She knew the Staveleys better than he did. Actually, Fin did as well, now that Sebastian thought about it. He’d never involved his family in an operation before, but it might be easier to get something useful from Fin than it would be Lady Staveley, at this point, especially with bloody Haversham in his way all the damned time.
“You’ve known Lady Staveley a while,” he began cautiously, in an effort to keep the conversation light and to keep Fin from becoming suspicious.
His cousin nodded. “She and Georgie were lifelong friends.” He leaned back in his seat and studied Sebastian. Blast it, he might be suspicious after all. “She’s Beckford’s sister. Why?”
/> Sebastian shrugged slightly and schooled his features into a look of boredom that he’d perfected over the years. “I don’t know her well at all. I’d hoped for her assistance.” Hopefully that would assuage any suspicions Fin might have. “She seems engaging, but the whole Haversham thing is odd to me. Is he at all like her late-husband?”
At that, a bark of laughter escaped Fin, louder than most of his laughs in any event. Then he wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. “Not in a single, solitary way.”
Sebastian figured as much but also figured saying something so ridiculous would be the fastest way to loosen Fin’s tongue a bit. “You knew Staveley well?”
Fin was still blotting his eye and then shook his head. “He was a decent fellow, honorable, but I wouldn’t say I knew him well. Rarely came out of his library long enough to engage anyone in conversation.” Then all the mirth left his countenance as he sobered up. “I was the last one to see him alive, you know. If I hadn’t run into him on his way to Prestwick Chase—” he cringed “—If Pierce had gotten his hands on Felicity…”
She’d most likely be dead at the hands of her first husband. But Felicity had lived, and Staveley had died. Sebastian knew that part. Everyone knew that part. “Poor fellow,” he muttered.
Fin agreed with a nod of his head. “I owe him every ounce of happiness I’ll ever have the rest of my days.”
If only the man had left his deciphered code some place obvious, Sebastian would be happy the rest of his days. Wait. What was that? “He rarely came out of his library? Odd place to spend all of one’s time.” How many books were in that particular room? And how damned long would it take to go through each one?
“Staveley was unique,” Fin said, still solemnly, still obviously contemplating what could have been if he hadn’t stumbled upon the late viscount when he had last year.
Sebastian frowned a bit. “All right. So explain to me how Lady Staveley can go from a hermit-like library-dweller to…Haversham?”
“How can any lady have anything to do with Haversham?” Fin countered with a scoff. “One of life’s greatest mysteries. Whatever hold the bastard has over the fairer sex, I’ve never understood it “