“I’m a soldier, not an assassin,” Westerly said.
“Whereas I am an assassin,” Val said. “Such a vast gulf between us.”
Westerly shrugged. “Not really. We both served our country. Different jobs require different methods.”
For a long moment Val lay suspended with surprise. “Charitable of you.”
“No, it’s realistic,” Westerly said. “Don’t be an ass, Oakenhurst. I used to be self-righteous, and you never had any morals, but I for one have changed. I have nothing against you as long as you leave Miss Southern be.”
Val barely stopped himself from raising insolent brows. He was used to being an ass with members of his own class. It would require practice to change. In as polite a voice as he could muster, he said, “You have an interest in her?”
Westerly’s face hardened even more. “She is both a guest and a valued friend. I won’t have her discommoded.”
Another long pause, during which Val made a decision. “That puts me in a pretty pickle.”
Westerly grew even colder, quite deadly in fact. “For your sake, I hope you intend to tell me why.”
“I’m probably not supposed to.” Val sat up, wincing as the bandages shifted on his arm. “Not that I care about secrecy anymore. We’re not at war.” He sighed. “Someone wants Miss Southern to marry.”
“What?” Westerly was understandably perplexed. “Which someone?”
“I don’t know. Someone to whom my spymaster owes a favor. Hand me that cup of small beer, will you?” Westerly obliged. Val took a long swallow and made a face. “I could use something decent to drink.”
“Later. Why would anybody care whether Miss Southern marries? Surely that’s her business.”
“Perhaps someone thinks she would be happier married than single. Most women are. My spymaster refuses to reveal his identity, but he’s of our class. I assume he knows someone who’s related to Miss Southern and cares about her.” He blew out a long breath. “My ridiculous mission is to arouse her interest in sensuality in the hope that she will choose to, as my spymaster put it, fall in love and marry. I have been forbidden to so much as kiss her.”
There was a silence, whilst unreadable emotions chased themselves across Westerly’s face. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“I couldn’t make up anything so absurd,” Val said. “You needn’t look as if you’d like to murder me. She’s not my sort of woman at all.”
“Which brings me to my other concern,” Westerly said. “Madame Beaulieu, who I would say is your sort in more ways than one. Who is she?”
Val grimaced. “A former spy.”
“I thought so.” Westerly paused. “I’ve met her before, although I don’t recall quite where. I think perhaps she was not French at the time, but Spanish.”
Val nodded. “She is French by birth, but after losing her parents she was fostered in Spain and eventually sent to England. She can play a convincing Englishwoman or Spaniard if she chooses. She worked for our side, if that matters to you.” This might not be the truth. She’d certainly been working for France when she had destroyed Val’s mission. He’d watched her after that until the war was over, dreading the prospect of having to kill her, but she had never trespassed again that he could see—in fact, she’d done some damned dangerous and highly efficient work for England. He still didn’t understand what game she’d been playing.
“I don’t care who she worked for,” Westerly said. “She’s not the sort of woman with whom I want Miss Southern to associate.”
“Surely Miss Southern’s friends are her business?” Val suppressed a laugh at Westerly’s glower. “Maybe she’s bored with being a pure, untouched virgin. Maybe she enjoys the titillation of having a worldly sort of friend. Maybe whoever thinks she should marry is entirely right about her needs and desires.”
“And maybe you should mind your tongue before I lose my temper,” Westerly said. “There’s something damned havey-cavey going on here. I don’t believe the story of a carriage breakdown in front of the vicarage any more than I did your tale of highwaymen.”
“I don’t believe it, either, but she refused to tell me why she’s here.” He laughed. “Has she tried to flirt with you? Maybe someone wants you to marry, too.”
“Then they can go to the devil. I’ll let you stay here long enough to convince your spymaster that you did your best, but in return you’ll have to do something for me.”
* * *
Christmas Eve passed quickly. Lucille helped Theodora make table decorations with holly and rosemary. They all tramped into a nearby wood for a ceremonious cutting of the Yule log, which was dragged to the house by servants and placed in the great hearth. The guests arrived—five chattering young women with their parents, as well as a few unprepossessing men to keep the numbers even. Lord Valiant descended from his sickroom, raven-haired, brooding, and irresistibly romantic-looking with his arm in a sling. The young ladies whispered and sighed.
Their parents whispered, too. Fathers scowled at Lord Westerly and mothers sent shocked or reproachful looks at his aunt. On the way downstairs, Lucille caught the sound of raised voices in the bedchamber next door to hers and stopped to eavesdrop.
“Lord Valiant is the worst sort of lecher,” a man’s voice growled. “God knows why he has such an effect on women, but he’s extremely dangerous. Have your maid pack your things. I won’t have my daughter in the same house as him.”
“But, dearest, we’ve just arrived,” said his wife. “I had hopes that Lord Westerly would fall in love with our Anne.” Ah, this was Lady Shaw, a pleasant matron Lucille had met once or twice during the Season.
“He won’t fall in love with any girl who’s making eyes at Oakenhurst,” said her husband, Sir Digby, an old roué with a big belly and a roving eye. “I’m beginning to have my doubts about Westerly, too, allowing that libertine under his roof.”
“But, darling, Lord Valiant was shot by highwaymen. Lord Westerly couldn’t leave him bleeding to death on the doorstep.”
“Nothing wrong with the fellow today, as far as I can see. I shall speak to Westerly now. Either Oakenhurst goes, or we do.” At the sound of irate footsteps, Lucille hurried away down the passage, but not quickly enough to escape Sir Digby, who did his best to paw her before descending upon Lord Westerly.
A half hour later Sir Digby and his wife and daughter got into their coach and drove away.
Theodora, it transpired, had heard the entire row. “Lord Westerly seemed to enjoy it,” she told Lucille. “He asked Sir Digby if he feared his daughter’s morals were as lax as his own. I don’t know how I managed to keep from bursting out laughing.” For an innocent, Theodora wasn’t easily shocked.
Everyone gathered in the drawing room before dinner. Lady Westerly floundered through excuses for the abrupt departure, but Lord Westerly put up a hand to silence them.
“Nonsense,” he said. “They left because I refused to send Lord Valiant away. I could not in all conscience do so. In the first place, he is still recovering from his wound, and in the second place, it is Christmas Eve.”
“Indeed, it would have been wholly contrary to Christian charity,” Theodora said.
“Instead you sent Sir Digby and his family away!” cried Lady Westerly. “That isn’t Christian charity. Think of his poor wife and daughter. Night was falling, and there are highwaymen about.”
“I didn’t send them,” Lord Westerly said. “Sir Digby chose to leave, and there is a respectable inn only a few miles away.” When Lady Westerly began to remonstrate, he interrupted, his tone harsh and clipped. “I suggest you drop the subject. You would not wish me to lose my temper and drive away the rest of our guests.”
At this precise moment, Lord Valiant strolled in. No doubt he had been listening outside the door. “What a pity that would be.” He cast an appraising glance
about. “Such beautiful young ladies and their delightful mothers.”
Amidst the sighs, blushes and wrathful mutterings that followed this entrance, Val sidled over to Lucie. “It’s Christmas, darling,” he whispered in French. “Let us call a truce.”
“One only calls a truce during a war,” she retorted. “Are we in a war?”
“Not of my making,” he said.
“Nor mine,” she snapped back.
“No? You seemed rather warlike last night. I wasn’t the one waving...pistols...about.”
She struggled to keep her smile in check. She wished... But wishing was no use.
“Come now, Lucie,” he said. “For old times’ sake. You want it as much as I do.”
She shrugged and walked away, not because she thought it would fool him, but because she needed to think about practical matters such as life and death, rather than how much she wanted to crawl on top of him and make him hers.
“What a dreadful man,” said Lady Westerly in her ear, startling her. “Did he make a lewd suggestion to you?”
“Bien sûr,” Lucille said. “Of course, and so did the hypocritical Sir Digby. But you must not think it bothers me. I am a widow, so I am not easily discomposed.” She smiled kindly at Lady Westerly’s visible struggle between embarrassment and her desire to be thought an equally worldly-wise widow. “What did Lord Valiant do that has given him such a dreadful reputation?”
“He ruined an innocent young woman.” Lady Westerly lowered her voice to a shocked whisper. “When he was only fifteen years old!”
Lucille gave an appropriately scandalized murmur.
“His father, the Marquis of Staves, found a husband for the poor girl. Not that I approve of her behaviour, mind you, but one has but to look at Lord Valiant to realize it was all his fault. I can’t think what my nephew is about to allow him to stay.”
“Lord Valiant is no longer a foolish schoolboy,” Lucille said. “Surely he knows better than to seduce innocent maidens.”
“His father has disowned him,” Lady Westerly said darkly.
Lucille didn’t need to feign surprise. “Oh, surely not!”
“The Marquis of Staves is an upright and proper nobleman. He would not do such a thing if he did not believe his son had gone beyond the pale. I have heard the most dreadful rumours... Oh! I have an excellent notion.” A crafty look crossed her pinched features, but the butler appeared to announce dinner, so Lucille didn’t get to hear what the excellent notion was.
It soon became apparent. Lady Westerly, at the foot of the table, disregarded good manners and spoke loudly and over everyone else about her nephew’s praiseworthy career, painting him as a noble war hero.
“Enough, Aunt,” Lord Westerly said. “I am merely one of the lucky ones who emerged from the slaughter alive and in one piece.”
“It seems Lord Valiant was lucky, as well,” she said. “Dear Lord Valiant, you were away from England during recent years, too. Tell us, what did you do?”
Val leaned back in his chair. His wonderful long eyelashes—oh, how Lucie loved those lashes—hid the challenge in his eyes. “I was a spy.”
Shocked whispers went around the table. Lady Westerly’s smile turned smug.
“And on occasion, an assassin,” Val said.
One of the indignant fathers surged to his feet. “This is unacceptable!”
“All in the service of God and country,” Val murmured.
“Necessary, no doubt, but most ungentlemanly,” said a ruddy young man. “Such work should be left to the low fellows to whom it comes naturally.”
“Oh, it came quite naturally to me,” Val said with an utterly charming grin. Again, it took all Lucie’s control not to smile.
“No wonder your poor father disowned you,” a second father said. “How can you blatantly admit to such infamous work?”
“Why wouldn’t I? It’s the truth,” Val said.
“But not a suitable topic for ladies,” said a third father, more mildly.
“Why not?” Lord Westerly interposed. “Perhaps ladies should know what Englishmen have done in the service of their country.” His narrowed eyes and clipped tone betokened anger, rigidly suppressed—but not anger at Val. “Perhaps, instead of thinking only of balls and gowns and jewels, they should be made to understand what those men have suffered and sacrificed for their sake.”
“Definitely not.” The second father shook his grizzled head. “It harms their delicate sensibilities.”
“I don’t mind knowing,” Theodora said. “I would much rather possess knowledge than delicate sensibilities.”
“I think I would, too,” one of the young ladies said shyly, and was immediately shushed by her mother.
“Perhaps, my dear, but not about spies and assassins,” her father, the milder one, said.
If Lucille hadn’t known Val in the past, she might not have realized that under his insolent front, he was not enjoying himself much at all.
* * *
He came to her at midnight, silent and dark, intent as a panther. Swathed in her nightclothes, she clutched her wrapper tightly against his approach. What had happened to her? She had once been bold with men, never at a loss. She’d been bold with him...
No longer. She loved him, but she had made a choice long ago, a choice that meant losing him but keeping her honour, and living with that had turned her into a shadow of her former self.
He had his own notions of honour. She didn’t think he would break a truce.
He slipped into her bedchamber, shut the door and leaned against it, watching her. Even as her heart beat heavily and desire pooled in her loins, anxiety and regret gnawed at her. “Why did you do that?” she asked. “Why expose yourself to their unkindness?”
He grinned, all mischief now. “I’m not at liberty to say.”
He was trying to rile her. She managed a mocking laugh. “If it was to gain my sympathy, it worked. I wanted to slap them.” As always, he stole her breath, her resolution, her very soul. She had to decide now.
He prowled forward and took the decision, illusion that it was, out of her hands. “I didn’t come here for sympathy.” He pulled her against him and kissed her hard. Pleasure washed through her, the same as always, dark and hot and irresistible. No other man had this effect on her. Oh, how she had missed him. She gave a tiny sob and twined her arms about his neck, drinking him in like a parched wanderer in the desert who has finally found the oasis.
After drinking one’s fill in the desert, one moved on.
But she didn’t want to think about that, so she set herself instead to doing. She unbuttoned his waistcoat and pulled his shirt gently over his head, skimming it over the bandages on his left arm. She knelt, unbuttoned his pantaloons and pushed them down. He stepped out of them, and she went for his smalls.
His member sprang out, thick and heavy and ready for her. She took it in her hand, inhaled its musky scent, and gave it a long, slow lick. He shuddered, but slid his hand into her hair and raised her to her feet.
“Lovely Lucie,” he whispered, “as sweet as cherry wine.” She quivered at the sound of his voice. He wasn’t like other men, silent and panting or blurting obscenities. While making love, Val murmured of passion and wooed with possessive heat. She had always thrilled to the sound of his voice. Like no other, she thought, the reminiscent pang sending a tiny, cold arrow into the heat of desire.
He began on the buttons of her wrapper, and she knew he would have undressed her slowly, painstakingly and tantalizingly with his one sound arm, but she was afraid to pause for fear that the arrow would force its way in, that the cold would take over and destroy what little was left to them. She let the wrapper fall, ripped the nightdress over her head, and pushed him onto the bed.
She crawled up after him, drinking in his virile beauty. I love you
, she thought, but she didn’t say it, because he wouldn’t believe it, probably didn’t even want to hear it.
She mustn’t think about that, must merely lose herself in pleasure for this short, sweet truce. She played with him, rubbing him against her core, pulsing unbearably, and he pulled her face to his and kissed her again, possessive and sure. She broke away, panting, to guide him inside her.
Ah. She had done this with many men, but with Val it was different. It was right.
One arm lay gently against her hip while his other hand roamed. Skin to skin, mouths and arms and hands, her breasts against his hard chest, his every thrust a caress, their every rise and fall an exchange of ultimate pleasure. Of love.
No, it wasn’t love anymore. It couldn’t be, but she didn’t have the strength to resist, and then their pace quickened, and she couldn’t think anymore. Dazed with the heat of their joining, she rocked over him, mindless, riding up the crest to pleasure. He pounded up into her, and she sensed his climax and let herself explode with bliss.
As she lay in his arms afterward, the pulsing gradually slowed, and realization hit her. Except for that first endearment, he had said nothing to her. No whispers, no murmurs or growls or...anything. Contentment drained from her.
There was nothing right about this. She’d been a fool to think it meant anything more to him than a quick tumble.
She rolled away. “Just this once for old times’ sake, but I cannot do this anymore. As you say, it is no longer wartime. I cannot be a succubus without good cause.”
His brows drew together. “You’re not being a succubus with me, any more than I’m being an incubus. We’re just Lucie and Val.”
“No,” she said, “there is too much between us for that.”
He slid off the bed, lean and strong and beautiful. “We’re here together. There needn’t be anything between us except...this.”
Two naked bodies and two guarded souls. They could never trust one another, and without that there was only this pleasure—which, while wonderful in its way, no longer held any appeal for her without love. She wished she could be innocent like Theodora, who had opted for true love or nothing.
UNDER A CHRISTMAS SPELL Page 3