His voice broke. When he spoke again, his tone was as hard and cold as the stone walls of the priest’s hole. “I’m told he begged for his life, but the redcoats said, ‘No mercy here,’ and put a bullet in his brain.”
Her throat ached with pain for him. “And while this was going on, you were trapped in the tunnel?”
“For two days.”
A shiver swept her. “How on earth could that happen?”
When he shrugged, she felt the motion against her shoulder. “Everything was chaos the evening of the massacre. Then it took the guards the whole next morning to clean up the mess—half a day to wash away the blood of men it took only three minutes to murder and maim. And once the thousands of prisoners were let out of their quarters, it took hours for an accurate count to be made.”
“And they forgot you still.”
“Until one of my fellow prisoners, fueled by anger over the massacre, decided to go back to work in the tunnel. He found me insensible—thirsty, half-starved, and very near death.”
“Oh, my darling.” She threw her arms about his neck. “How awful for you!”
A shudder wracked him. “I tried to move the stone, but it normally took two men to move it from above—I couldn’t move it alone from below. Soon I was forced to blow out the lantern for fear of its burning too much of the breathable air. I spent both days in the dark, wondering if I was to die gasping for breath, or if they’d come for me only to riddle me with holes like the men whose screams I—”
When he broke off raggedly, she laid her head against his and cried. She cried for him and the cruelties he’d suffered, for the soldiers he’d known, for his father who’d died believing he was dead, and even for his poor mother.
She cried because she knew he couldn’t, because even now, after pouring out his soul in this dark cell, he sat rigidly, no dampness on his cheeks, no sobs erupting from his throat. He sat like a soldier and suffered in the dark, as all soldiers suffer defending their country.
“Shh, darlin’, it happened long ago,” he murmured. He brushed his lips over her cheek. “Shh, don’t go on so.”
That he could comfort her in such a situation made her want to cry even more. But the hoarse pain in his voice told her that her tears unsettled him, and she certainly didn’t want to do that.
As she fought to restrain her turbulent emotions, he stroked her hair. “It’s all right, you know,” he said soothingly. “It’s all right now.”
“No, it’s not all right,” she choked out. “You can’t go belowdecks on a ship, you have no family left, and you hate the English—how is that possibly ‘all right’?”
He cradled her close. “I don’t care if I ever go belowdecks again, you’re my family now, and I don’t hate all the English. Just the ones in red coats.” Nuzzling her cheek, he added in a low rumble, “I could never hate you.”
“You’d better not,” she whispered. But there was still so much bitterness and anger left in him. She’d heard it in his voice, felt it in his taut muscles when he’d told his story. It would be many years before he could forget.
Could he ever really live contentedly with an Englishwoman? If he couldn’t—
No, she wouldn’t think of that. He’d said he wanted a real marriage, and she would take him at his word. Somehow she would drive the past from his mind. Somehow she would make him love her.
Tears burned her eyes. Love. Oh, what an elusive dream. Would he ever love her?Could he?
Because she now realized that she loved him. It had been stealing over her gradually for days, but now she knew. She loved him so much that it ached to think of it. And it would break her heart if he couldn’t love her in return.
Fighting back tears, she rested her head against his shoulder. In the meantime, she would take what she could have of him. What else could she do?
“Listen, darlin’,” he murmured, “we should probably try to sleep while we have the chance. When we’re able to leave this damned hole, we’ll have a long night ahead of us.”
“I don’t know if I can relax enough to sleep.”
“Try.” Parting his thighs, he settled her between his legs, then pressed her head to his chest. “But first, tell me—what exactly is a priest’s hole?”
“When the Scottish Parliament made it a crime to be Catholic, and wild-eyed Protestants roamed the land seeking Papists to imprison, devout Catholic families hid their priests in specially built rooms like this. There are priest’s holes in England, too, from the days of Elizabeth, believe it or not.”
“I believe it. You English love to force your enemies to hide in the dark.” But the rancor in his voice had lessened, and his body was no longer stiff.
With a sigh, she settled into his arms, letting herself be lulled by his soothing warmth, his comforting embrace. And as the companionable silence stretched on, she fell asleep at last.
Lucas wasn’t so lucky. Speaking about the tunnel had drawn off some of his poisonous terror, but he could never be completely easy in the total darkness of the close room.
Worse yet, speaking of the massacre had dredged up painful memories of the days after it. The British government’s formal inquiry had absolved Shortland of any responsibility. Nobody had held the individual soldiers to account, because nobody had known who’d fired and who hadn’t. The whole thing had been termed a tragic misjudgment, with both sides partly at fault.
Right. Unarmed men responsible for being murdered in cold blood. Not in the heat of battle, not even in the interests of war. In cold blood. And for nothing.
The injustice of it still rankled.
Amelia shifted in his arms, mumbling something, and he pushed the dark memories from his mind. Other, more important things must concern him now. He had to figure out the best strategy for escape. Should they return the way they’d come or cut across the fields and pick up the road farther down? Which would the Scots anticipate?
Such thoughts absorbed him, lulled him. After a while, the exhaustion of several sleepless days and nights on the road overtook him, and he lapsed into a fitful doze.
The dream began as always. Wearing only his prison rags, he was trapped in the tunnel, listening to the screams, choking for air, desperately groping for his knife, with the blackness always surrounding him—
He woke gasping and trembling, but this time Amelia was there, too, running her hands over him, murmuring soothing words in his ear, kissing his cheeks, his jaw, his throat. She settled him as a groom settles a fitful stallion, and beneath her tender ministrations, he finally relaxed.
This time when he slept, it was a deep and dreamless slumber.
When he next awoke, he was sprawled across the cold stone floor. And Amelia was gone.
He shot up, panic seizing him until he saw—saw,damn it—her faint silhouette in the open doorway with the moon rising above her head. “What are you doing?” he hissed as he rose up on his knees to jerk her back inside.
“It’s after sunset. And you were right. If you really listen, you can tell when the sun goes down.”
He stared at her dumbfounded. He’d slept all day in this hellish spot? Amazing.
Rising to his feet, he moved to the opened slab and cautiously scanned the ruin beyond. Then he slipped outside. When she started to join him, he shook his head. “Stay here. If you hear anything alarming, shut the slab and wait until you can escape on your own.”
He left to prowl the ruin on silent feet. At the edge, he paused to stare at the woods. He saw no sign of a fire, though that didn’t reassure him. They might have fled for fear that Lucas and Amelia would bring back soldiers…or they might be hunkered down waiting somewhere outside the ruin.
He had to take that chance. He and Amelia might not get another.
After scanning the night sky to orient himself and determine which direction they should go, he returned to the priest’s hole, amazed that he could enter the cell without gasping for air. “We’re leaving. But I have some instructions for you first.”
“
Why doesn’t that surprise me?” she said, with a soft laugh.
“I didn’t see any sign of the Scots, but that doesn’t mean they’re gone. So once we leave this chamber, we don’t speak until we reach the road. Sound carries at night, and we’ll have a hard enough time passing unnoticed across the fields.”
“All right.”
Removing his coat, he put it on her. “Hold on to my hand and don’t let go unless I say. If I tell you to run, you do it and don’t look back, understand?”
“Yes, Major. Whatever you say, Major.”
“I mean it.” He caught her face between his hands. “Don’t stop to quarrel with me or try to help me. I can take care of myself. But no matter what happens, I won’t rest unless you’re safe.”
She sighed. “Yes, Lucas.”
He pressed a swift kiss to her lips, then tugged her out into the night.
Moving silently across the fields and up the ridge, they reached the road without incident and began the long walk back to Gretna Green. The moon gave them enough light to see by, though the road seemed deserted. No wonder the Scots had chosen to haunt this route.
They walked nearly a mile in silence before he felt it safe to speak. “Are you all right?” he asked softly.
“I’ll live,” she grumbled.
That’s when he noticed her limping. “Something wrong with your foot?” he asked in alarm.
“Nothing that a decent pair of shoes wouldn’t fix. These are nearly worn through. I’m afraid dinner slippers aren’t designed for tramping across Scotland.”
Cursing himself for not thinking of it sooner, he stopped and made her remove them. He unlaced one of his boots halfway, used his knife to slice off the top, cut the wide strip in half, and stuffed the pieces of leather inside her slippers. Maybe with the extra leather, they could hold out a while longer.
When she put the slippers back on and took a few steps, he asked, “Better?”
“Muchbetter. Thank you.” As they continued down the road, she threaded her arm through his. “Aren’t you a handy fellow to have around for escapes from brigands and kidnappings? Since I seem to attract adventure wherever I go, I’ll need a companion like you.”
He groaned. “I sure hope you’re joking, because many more adventures like this will be the death of me.” He shot her a glance. “And I can’t believe you can laugh about it.”
“It’s either laugh or scream, to paraphrase a certain major.”
He covered her hand with his. “Had enough of adventure, have you?”
“Bite your tongue! No one can ever have enough of adventure.”
He shook his head. “I swear, darlin’, you’re nothing like any woman I’ve ever met, English or otherwise.”
“I do hope you mean that as a compliment, Major.”
“Absolutely. You did a fine job with those Scots, slipping me the knife and keeping them distracted and the rest of it. I wish I had more soldiers like you under my command.”
She beamed at him. “So I’m not much like your mother, after all?”
“Darlin’, if my mother had ever been taken prisoner by Scottish brigands, she’d have fainted dead away. Or asked them to increase the ransom demand so she could have some of the money.” He stroked her hand. “Trust me, you’re nothing like my mother.”
They walked a while longer in silence. Then she squeezed his arm. “Don’t you even miss her?”
He thought a moment. “Sometimes, I guess. She had this habit of crooning to herself whenever she cooked. She couldn’t cook worth a damn, but her singing…” He sighed. “She had the voice of a nightingale. Even a dinner of corn mush and lumpy gravy was good enough as a boy if I got to hear Mother sing.”
“My father hums,” she said. “Only he can’t carry a tune, so his humming sounds more like cats mating.”
“With my father, it was whistling…”
For the rest of their trek back to town, they spoke of their families. To his shock, talking about his parents eased some of the grief buried in him for three long years. And it made it easier to hold his tongue when Amelia told him about Dolly.
By the time they reached sleepy little Gretna Green, most of the lights were out. Despite the hour, Lucas returned to the same inn they’d left from to confront the innkeeper about his “postboy.”
The innkeeper swore up and down that he’d had nothing to do with the robbery, that Jamie the postboy had only been hired the week before. Lucas was on the verge of slamming the man’s head against the wall to knock some truth out of him, when a familiar voice behind him said, “What the devil is going on here? My wife and I are trying to—Winter? Is that you?”
Lucas turned to find his cousin coming down the inn stairs and gaped at him…until he remembered that Kirkwood had said he meant to elope with Miss Linley. Apparently he’d succeeded.
Now Kirkwood was looking from Lucas to Amelia, shock suffusing his face. “For God’s sake, what happened to you two?” Then he glanced beyond them through the inn door to the empty inn yard, his shock darkening to a frown. “And what the bloody hell have you done with my bloody carriage?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Dear Cousin,
I have news! Lord Tovey received a letter saying that his daughter and Major Winter are on their way to London, now married. I wish I could witness the joyful reunion. However, matters at the school have called me back there. But as soon as I can return to London, I shall. I’m eager to hear how dear Amelia is enjoying married life.
Your much relieved friend,
Charlotte
As it turned out, Lord Kirkwood’s “bloody carriage” was in Carlisle at the very inn where the Scottish Scourge had ordered it taken. It still contained Lucas’s and Amelia’s belongings, but his mameluke sword had been driven into the interior’s back wall, pinning in place a note:
Tell Lord Duncannon he cannot escape the Scottish Scourge forever. One day I will come for what he owes me, and when I do, he will rue the day he denied me what is rightfully mine.
Young Jamie had vanished; apparently, the Scourge had warned the boy to flee when he’d ridden to Carlisle to leave his note. So Lucas and Lord Kirkwood spent a full day dealing with the authorities on both sides of the border before the two couples could set off for London in Kirkwood’s carriage.
While sharing the carriage seemed a godsend to Amelia and Lucas at first, it rapidly became a tribulation. Sarah’s constant chatter sent Lucas into a brooding silence. Amelia tried to steer the subject away from how many varieties of jewels Sarah meant to buy, but that soon proved impossible.
Even Lord Kirkwood began to show signs of strain after the first day, and Amelia didn’t know whether to pity him or berate him. After all, he should have realized what he was agreeing to when he married Silly Sarah for her fortune. While Amelia understood the circumstances, it was his own fault that he’d chosen such a flighty woman.
But if Amelia’s days in the coach were vexing, her evenings in the coaching inns were glorious. There was no posting through the nights on their return trip, oh no. They traveled like civilized people, at a leisurely pace. So every evening, after dining with Lord Kirkwood and Sarah, she and Lucas retired to their room—and their bed—as soon as possible. As if by tacit agreement, they didn’t speak of Dolly or the Friers; indeed, they didn’t speak much at all.
They spoke with their bodies, and their bodies were downright talkative. Amelia had never dreamed a man could pleasure a woman so many ways, or a woman discover so many secrets in a man’s flesh. And if Lucas’s lovemaking sometimes seemed almost desperate, she ignored that. She knew the situation with her stepmother worried him, but he would learn soon enough that Dolly was innocent. Then the cloud over their heads would dissipate.
Still, on their last night on the road, they could no longer avoid the subject. As she and Lucas lay sated in their bed, naked bodies entwined, he stared off with that distracted gaze he had more and more of late. She brushed a kiss to his bare chest, and with a start he cast her
a smile. But she could feel the tension in him as he took her left hand, then rubbed his ring.
“I’ll buy you a real wedding band in the city,” he said.
“I rather like this one, actually.”
“It belonged to my father. My mother gave it to him in the early years of their marriage, and he wore it all his life.”
She digested that a moment, thinking of how devoted her own father was to Dolly. “Lucas?”
“Hmm?” He stroked her hair. “God, I love your hair, the silky weight of it, the way it smells, everything. You’ve got the most beautiful hair I’ve ever seen.”
It was such an oddly intimate thing for her taciturn husband to say that she nearly lost her nerve. But she pressed on. “I know you’re eager to have this situation with the Friers resolved. But promise me you’ll discuss it with Dolly privately, without Papa present. I don’t want him…I don’t think he—”
“Would approve of a wife who’s a criminal?” Lucas bit out.
“Should be hurt by your baseless accusations,” she countered.
A weary sigh escaped him. “I’ll keep it private if I can. But only if you promise not to speak to her about it until I confront her. I don’t want you warning her off; I want to watch her face when she hears the name Theodore Frier for the first time. You owe me that, Amelia.”
She did indeed, especially after he’d put aside his own plans so gallantly for her by marrying her. “All right, as long as you keep it private.”
Later that night, he had one of his dreams. When he woke her with his cries, she soothed him as best she could, but she couldn’t help noticing that he hadn’t had a nightmare since they’d been shut up in the priest’s hole. Had talk of Dolly set it off? And if so, why?
As they neared London the next day, Amelia grew nervous. Lucas was as solemn as a priest, Lord Kirkwood seemed agitated, and even Sarah held her tongue. Between Sarah’s furious parents and Amelia’s wary ones, they all knew this would not be the joyous homecoming most married couples could expect.
Never Seduce a Scoundrel Page 23