Love, he thought bitterly.
He didn’t have much time. The worst possible end to this farce would play out if he was caught on these shores by Ram—a disaster second only to the problem presented should Kit MacNeill find him here. He had to be away by the time both or either man returned to England and his sources told him that would be soon. And then…? Then he couldn’t come back until the final curtain was set to be drawn.
He would not be distracted by the thought of Charlotte waiting for an invitation from St. Lyon. The comte was a practical man. A wary man. Even if he did send for Charlotte, the odds were greatly in favor of his waiting to do so until after the auction of the letter. By then the impetus that forced her to his bed would be gone. But what if the comte—
No. He had to leave. It was imperative. He could not stay and keep Charlotte from St. Lyon, no matter how much his heart insisted he do just that. There were things for which he had worked half his lifetime. People, perhaps hundreds of people, depended on the success of his mission and he would not forfeit their lives because he’d fallen in love with Charlotte Nash.
“Monsieur Rousse?” The maid who served the apartments he’d rented knocked at the door. “Message for you, sir.”
He supposed he should put on his shirt so as not to offend the girl, but he was hot and sticky and the girl had probably seen a great deal more interesting things in her short life than a man branded with a rose. He swung his legs over the bed, got up, and opened the door.
“Yes? The message?” he asked curtly.
The girl dropped the note into his outstretched palm, bobbing a quick curtsy and hurrying away, leaving him to retreat back into his room.
He wasn’t surprised by the arrival of a note. He was still collecting information in London from various sources, most of whom preferred the anonymity provided by a letter rather than risk exposure by seeking him out for a face-to-face interview. Still, the quality of the paper was better than his correspondents usually employed.
He broke open the seal and at once the elegant feminine hand leapt out at him, the signature discreet, with only a few flourishes, far less elaborate than would have expected from so extravagant an owner as Charlotte Nash.
“Please. Come tonight.”
Stuffing the tails of his shirt in his trousers, he took the stairs down to the front hall two at a time, snatching up his coat before plunging into the rain.
St. Bride’s Abbey
Spring 1799
“No one must know where you are going. None of the other lads, nor any of the monks. As far as they are concerned, you have decided you have had enough of the monastic life and are heading out to experience the fleshpots of Edinborough.” Father Tarkin paused before each of the young men standing straight-backed before him. He looked into each pair of eyes with a deep, probing stare. “No one will find any reason to doubt the story. The four of you lads have been living in each other’s pockets close to a decade.”
Kit MacNeill hesitated. “What of John Glass?”
“What of him?” Father Tarkin asked.
“He knows something is up. He’s been pestering Douglas with questions about where we go after matins and why Ram is so intent on perfecting his French accent.”
“And what have you told him, Douglas?” Father Tarkin turned his attention to the brown-haired young man at the end.
“I told him we’re planning to fly some evening, to turn our backs on the abbey and make a name for ourselves in the world.” Douglas grinned. He was excited, Dand could see, eager to undertake the mission that Father Tarkin, Brother Toussaint, and the mysterious visitor from France had formulated. “And that’s not far from the truth, is it?”
“Not if things go as I pray they do,” Father Tarkin said. “In which case no one will ever know who you are. Just like now.” His eyes touched upon and held Dand’s gaze for a telling instant that the other lads did not seem to notice.
He had taken the old wrecker’s advice to heart those many years ago when Father Tarkin had picked him up off the side of the road. It had been years before he’d admitted to the canny abbot the name of the family he’d been born into. Of course, by then it had hardly mattered. His immediate family was all dead, and those who would be interested in knowing his whereabouts would have been hard-pressed to find him. Added to which, there was no proof—none—that he was who he knew himself to be.
Except, he hadn’t forgotten. He’d never forgotten. He never would.
“I know who I am.” Beside him Douglas spoke with quiet assurance. “And I know these men beside me. I don’t need know their lineage to know their quality.”
Father Tarkin looked at him approvingly and gave a slight nod. “Well said, Douglas.”
“I only hope it proves true,” muttered Brother Toussaint, dividing his doubtful gaze between the four young men. “Kit’s too impetuous. Ram is too silky for his own good, Douglas needs to rid himself of the notion that he’s on some noble mission, and Dand…” He shook his head. “I don’t know what he’s thinking. But then I never have.”
“Dand doesn’t know what Dand is thinking half the time,” Douglas said, clamping his hand on Dand’s shoulder and breaking the tension. “Luckily for him there are three of us to lend him some thoughts when he runs out.”
The others broke into laughter. Even Toussaint gave an unwilling smile.
“Don’t worry, Brother,” Douglas said more soberly. “We’ll do you proud. I swear it.”
16
Culholland Square, Mayfair
August 3, 1806
CHARLOTTE SAT ON THE HALLWAY BENCH directly across from the standing clock, listening to the falling rain. A single wall sconce bathed the corridor in a honeyed glow, muting the rich colors of the Oriental runner and steeping the bouquet of yellow roses on the hall table to tea-colored umber.
She trained her gaze on the front door, waiting for a shadowy form to coalesce on the other side of the narrow sidelight. She heard the clock’s mechanism slip and whir and slowly toll out ten deep chimes.
An hour ago she had substantially finished packing her bags. Forty-five minutes ago she had sent her message to Dand. Thirty minutes ago she had dismissed the staff for the evening. They had needed no encouragement to accept their mistress’s charity and quickly, lest she change her mind. Fifteen minutes ago she had come down here.
The punishing bang of the brass knocker caught her by surprise. She leapt to her feet, moving swiftly to the door and unlatching the lock. She opened the door. Dand Ross towered over her, his head bare and dripping with rain, his great coat unbuttoned, his shirt soaked, and his eyes dark as the night sky.
He was startled at finding her opening the door. His gaze traveled over her shoulder, searching behind her for her staff. His mouth, generally so ready to smile, was tight-lipped, his expression intent.
“What is wrong? Where are the servants? What has happened?”
Now that he was here, moving deftly past her into the dimly lit hallway, the confidence with which she’d written that note vanished.
“Nothing is wrong,” she said, twining her fingers tightly together. “I gave the servants the evening to do with as they would. As for what has happened…”
He turned and waited, water dripping from his shabby greatcoat, a puddle forming under him and spreading across the marble parquetry floor. He’d rid himself of Ram’s finery, she realized. He wore his old clothes, patched and ill-fitting.
“St. Lyon has written, extending an invitation to me to visit him in his castle.”
His body tensed. “When?”
“His coach is coming…the morning after next,” she lied, unwilling to invest this encounter with unnecessary haste.
He took one step toward her and stopped as if checked by a leash. “In two days?”
“Yes,” she answered softly.
His brow dipped in a fierce scowl, and his lips parted on something like a snarl. “I’ll be damned.”
“I believe that is my role,” she sa
id, trying to win some humor from the situation. “Unless I eventually repent my wicked ways, which I shall surely do.”
“Don’t.”
She turned her back on him, using the excuse of shutting the door to master a kaleidoscope of reactions: joy, fear, guilt, desire. She heard him shedding his greatcoat, felt him move close behind her. He reached beneath her chin and urged her head around so that she looked at him over her shoulder. His face was composed, but his eyes…there was unplumbed darkness in his gaze. Always before she had seen the wry glint of humor, the patina of indolence. Why had she never noticed the depths beneath the gleam?
Gently, he cupped her cheek. With a soft sigh, she closed her eyes. He didn’t make a sound, not a single breath from the lips so close to the wispy curls at her temple. The rest of her body pirouetted toward him, like a flower seeking the course of the afternoon sun. She felt his other hand, the fingers gliding beneath the silken curls at the nape of her neck, palming the back of her head.
“Why did you send for me, Lottie?” The hands so gingerly holding her face, shivered.
She opened her eyes. Her heart raced in equal parts fear and apprehension and anticipation. “I want you to make love to me, Dand.”
He caught his breath. “Why?”
Because you were my first hero, and you still are.
There was truth and there was such a thing as too much truth. “I am a virgin,” she said simply and waited.
It did not take him long to understand her meaning. His hands abruptly dropped away from her face. He fell back a step, as if he’d been struck. His expression was stunned, disbelieving. “My God.”
Flames rushed to her cheeks. “I can’t go to St. Lyon as a virgin.” As an excuse it was a damn good one. No, better than an excuse. It was the truth, but it was only part of the truth, the greater part being that she wanted him to be the man who introduced her to the mysteries between men and women.
He half turned from her, his gaze searching the ceiling, the walls, looking anywhere but at her. “And you have decided to grant me the honor of relieving you of your maidenhead?” He spoke with astonished and bitter restraint.
“Who else?” she asked softly. “Who else should I ask? Where else should I go? To a stranger?”
Her words vanquished the feral curl of his lip, the deadly glint in his eye. With a sound like a laugh but terrible, he shook his head. “No. You should not go to a stranger.” He crashed his fist into the wall in front of him. “No.” The plaster exploded beneath his knuckles. “No.”
“Dand!”
He stopped, flattening his palms against the wall, his head hanging below his shoulders. The wet material of his shirt stretched across his broad back, every muscle delineated, tense and rigid. “A moment, my dear,” he said in a voice beleaguered. “A moment.”
“I am sorry, Dand,” she said. She had known he would find this…hard. What she asked him went against every code of honor a gentleman lived by. Yet she could not explain to him the truth, that she loved him, that she wanted him with a hunger that needed no facile reasoning, no excuses to follow the dictates of her heart.
But she had to be careful. He would never allow her to go to St. Lyon if he suspected she loved him. It wouldn’t matter whether he returned her feelings or not—and she had no reason to believe he did. He only allowed her to go now because he believed she was as inured to sentiment as himself, as coolly detached from softer emotions as he was. Why would he think differently? Until recently, she had thought so herself. But looking at him here, now, his broad back tense and virile, his long arms pushing at the wall, she felt the leap of desire.
“Please, Dand. It is just that it would be so much more…comfortable for me because,” I love you, “I trust you.”
“You trust me?” He echoed in a dazed voice. His back muscles bunched. With a curse, he pushed himself away from the wall and straightened. “You trust me.”
“I do. I think most highly of you, too, and that makes a difference to me in this…endeavor.”
He turned. His gaze locked on hers. He looked older in the shadows, dangerous, unpredictable. A little shiver, half of trepidation, half of excitement, raced through her. “High praise, indeed. And not unwarranted, surely? Because who else but Dand Ross would take a lady’s maidenhead and send her forthwith off to another’s bed, having rid her of the inconvenience?” His gaze grew black. “You’re right. I can’t think of another.”
“Dand.” She reached out and captured his hand, lifting it to her face and rested her cheek against it. “Neither of us would have this play out in such a way had we a choice. I know that.”
She turned her head and pressed her lips against his palm. His head drew back, his eyelids dipped and his nostrils flared.
“I know you are not indifferent to me. I have…felt you. And you must know for all my protests, I like your kisses very much.” Such tepid words for such a vibrant longing.
“Dear God, Lottie,” he whispered. “How am I to do the right thing when you say things like that to me?”
“This is the right thing,” she answered earnestly, willing him to do this. “This is what I want. What you’ve made me want. I lie awake at night and chase after every sensation you’ve awoken with your touch, your glance, your kiss. And I know that with all the fakery and masquerading, this at least is not counterfeit. Not on my behalf.” Because I love you. “And not on yours. I know because I know you.”
“Do you?” he whispered, his tone raw.
“Yes. So please make lo—”
She never got a chance to finish. He pulled her roughly to him, his mouth finding hers. In answer, she lashed her arms around his neck.
He was wet and cool, the rainwater drenching him, soaking through her thin silk night rail. His arms shook, his body trembled, and they were falling to their knees on the carpeted floor. She clung, needing him, wanting him, yielding against him as he lavished kisses against her eyes and temples, searing a fiery trail along her jaw and down the downy softness of her neck, plunging his hands into her thick curls holding her still for his questing mouth, as if he could not have enough, as if he was afraid she would leave him starving.
“I won’t. I can’t,” he muttered thickly against the soft white flesh rising above the gauzy décolletage. “God, Lottie. Think what you are asking me to do!”
He pushed away from her, holding her shoulders in a grip too tight. He shook his head, his upper lip twitching in a snarl with his fierce attempt to master himself. Master this moment.
“There,” he panted, looking down at her with wild eyes, his voice filled with tortured humor. “You once asked me if you’d succeeded in making me your slave. Well, be satisfied with this: You’ve brought me to my knees. But don’t ask more. I cannot do this. Don’t ask it of me.”
She stared up at him, her mouth alive and lush from his kiss, her body tingling with craving. She would die if he left her in this state. She had to find some means to convince him to forgo his honor, his sense of right and wrong, his obligation to her father’s memory.
“Am I to abandon our plan then? Or find another who will accommodate me? I will. I vow it. You once told me you would do anything, risk anything, to achieve your goal. Credit me with the same resolve. I will not give up now, so close to the goal.”
“It might not even work!” he ground out. “You might lose everything, give away everything, even the right to experience this first time with someone you love, all for nothing. Don’t you understand? There has never been more than a chance for this to succeed.”
“It’s a chance I must take,” she said. “We must take. Because it’s the only one we have.”
“No.”
She pulled away from him, rising shakily to her feet and he thought she would go then, leaving him to search for what scraps of peace he might find in this night. But she did not. She moved down the hallway to the table and jerked a yellow rose from the vase. Like a battle-dazed soldier, she returned to where he remained on his knees. Her ey
es shimmered. The rose trembled in her hand.
“No.”
“You said anything.” She dropped the rose at his knees. “Make love to me.”
A shudder coursed through his body and then he was surging upright, scooping her up into his arms, his face set. With a sound of joy, she linked her arms around his neck, settling her head against his chest. The heavy drum of his heart pounded thickly with each measured rise and fall of his breast. Beneath the damp material his skin was hot.
He strode down the hall and climbed the darkened stairs, finding her room at the top and backing through the doorway. Her lamp, lit as she prepared for the evening, cast a nimbus of light across the pristine counterpane that covered her bed.
Carefully, he laid her down on it, easing her shoulders against the soft pillows before releasing her and sitting down beside her hip. He leaned over her, bracing his hands on either side of her face. His gaze roved hungrily over her features. “You have created for me a brighter hell than any I could imagine.”
She held up her arms.
All reason, all resolution, all the years dedicated to a single purpose, died at the sight of her, washed away by the implicit honesty of that gesture. Beneath him, in the shadow he cast over her, her silky flesh glowed amidst the tumbled gauze of her gown. The flickering light made a lustrous firebrand of her reddish curls. Her eyes glittered, gold shot umber, lambent, unshadowed by question, bright with anticipation. He could not move away from her. He could not force his will to make him act.
“I thought I was lost before,” he breathed. “But you have wholly undone me.”
He bent, his lips grazing the soft scented flesh swelling above the low neckline. Shudders of pleasure rippled through him, disarming him with the overwhelming tenderness of his response.
Her eyelids fluttered closed and he moved up, tasting her, his tongue sweeping against her lower lip, dipping into the corner of her mouth. Her breath checked. He abandoned her lips, his mouth drifting over the point of her chin and down to the graceful column of her neck. It arched in welcome for him. For him. Intoxicating. A delirium of fantasies come true.
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