by Laura Landon
“Claire, step over here. Now.”
Claire quickly stepped around Roseneau and came to stand beside Sam.
He didn’t look at her. He couldn’t risk seeing the hope in her huge, dark eyes. It took all the willpower he possessed not to pull her up against him, not to take her in his arms and kiss her until neither of them could breathe. “Watkins. Keep your mistress with you.”
“Yes, Major.”
Sam focused his attention on Roseneau. “Release the marquess. Now.”
“Of course, Major. The marquess was only my guest until I got the necklace.” Roseneau slowly turned to the side where Louis had Alex pinned in a painful grip. “Louis,” Roseneau said, “help the marquess across the room.”
Louis gave Roseneau a knowing look, then shoved Halverston forward. Claire’s brother was too weak to stand unassisted, and he stumbled as he tried to catch his footing.
Before Sam could react, Roseneau grabbed Halverston by the arm and pulled him in front of him to act as a shield. Then he pulled the pistol from his pocket and pressed it against Halverston’s temple while Louis quickly rushed forward and clamped his hands around Halverston’s arms.
Sam heard Claire’s startled cry and lifted his gun, but realized how helpless he was. Roseneau would kill the marquess before he got off a shot.
“I suggest you drop your gun, Major,” Roseneau said, jabbing the pistol hard against Halverston’s temple. “I’d hate for my gun to accidentally go off and kill the marquess.”
Sam hesitated a fraction of a second, then dropped his gun to the floor.
Roseneau smiled tightly. His grin indicated he considered himself in control. And he was. Sam tried to come up with a way to escape, but the two men who entered the room from Sam’s right only lessened their chances.
“Now, Lady Huntingdon. The necklace. Give it to me.”
“Claire, no,” Sam ground out through clenched teeth.
“Enough, Major! Or you’re dead.”
One of the men stepped up behind Sam and shoved the barrel of a gun into his ribs.
“Pierre,” Roseneau said to one of the men holding a gun on Sam, “tell Jacques to bring the carriage round to the back. It is time we left.”
The man raced from the room and a few minutes later rushed back. “The carriage is ready. We must go quickly, monsieur. There are several men watching the streets. If we do not leave now, it might be too late.”
“How regretful. Lady Huntingdon, I think you have something in your possession you wish to trade for your brother’s life?”
There was a gleam of desperation in Roseneau’s eyes, and Sam knew if he was going to prevent Claire from giving away the necklace, he had to do something now. His gun lay on the floor to his left, and in a swift move, he dove to get it. Before he could reach it, the man to his right brought the gun in his hand down against Sam’s temple.
A searing pain shot through his head and took him to his knees. He struggled to keep from giving in to the blackness that wanted to overpower him. Only Claire’s pained cry reached through the hazy fog surrounding his brain and kept him from succumbing to the darkness.
Chapter 30
“No!”
Claire saw Sam fall to the floor, saw the bright red blood stream from a cut above his eye and fought the welling panic rising inside her.
“Enough!” Roseneau shouted, pulling Claire’s attention from where the major was slumped on the floor.
“The necklace, Lady Huntingdon. Now! Or I’ll shoot both the major and your brother and leave you to bury them.”
Claire nodded as Sam anchored his hand against the arm of a chair and staggered to his feet. The blood still ran from the cut on his head and his face was unnaturally pale. She should have turned away from him before he rose, but she didn’t.
Her gaze locked with his, studying every feature on his face. From the sharp angles she remembered tracing with the pads of her fingers. To the hard form of his lips that had kissed her with such abandon. To the steel gray of his eyes that had turned almost black in the height of passion. Eyes that now looked at her in anger and rejection. And she was forced to face—as she’d always known she’d have to—a look that would haunt her for the rest of her life. A look that had the power to destroy her.
“The necklace,” Roseneau said, his hand outstretched, the glare in his eyes lethal.
“No, Claire,” she heard Sam whisper again from behind her.
With a trembling hand, she slowly reached her right hand into her pocket and pulled out the red velvet bag.
“Don’t, Claire.”
She clutched the bag in her hand one last second, then held it out to Roseneau.
“Keep our friends detained, Louis,” Roseneau said, tucking the velvet bag into the inside of his jacket. He walked across the room and turned when he reached the door. “Good day, Lady Huntingdon. Major.” Roseneau paused. “A special farewell to you, Lord Halverston. I’ve so enjoyed our time together.” Then he left the room.
Claire fought to stand up under the painful weight pressing down on her. Every part of her felt numb. A cold empty void gaped open inside her as the minutes ticked by until this was over. Louis and the second gunman kept their pistols aimed at them. No one moved. Claire, because she couldn’t. Alex, because he was too weak. Sam, because moving would have brought him closer to her, and she could tell from the clenched fists at his side and the hostile glare in his eyes, he feared what his reaction might be. He thought she’d betrayed her country.
When enough time had passed that Louis was assured Roseneau had escaped, he and the other gunman made their way to the door. With a mocking salute, they exited the room, locking the door behind them.
Claire breathed a shuddering sigh, then rushed to where Alex sat. “Watkins, help me. We have to get out of here. Alex, can you stand?”
She heard Sam work to open the door while she leaned down where Alex was crumpled against the side of the settee. “Hurry, Alex. Before they come back.”
She reached out her hands to assist Watkins, then pulled back when Alex made no effort to try to rise.
“Why would they come back, Claire? You’ve given them everything they want.”
His spiteful words were like a slap in the face. The look of disappointment in his eyes contained the sting of a painful blow.
Claire stepped back and watched as her brother struggled to his feet without her help. He took several labored breaths, then turned to face her. “Pray to God you didn’t do this for me, Claire. How do you expect either of us to live with ourselves knowing the necklace you gave to Roseneau guarantees the deaths of innocent British soldiers?”
Claire fought to breathe. She staggered backward and would have fallen if Sam’s hands hadn’t clamped around her shoulders to steady her. She spun away from him as if his touch burned her and looked upward. Upward into Sam’s hard, unreadable glare.
The air caught in her throat, and she stepped away from both of them. “You would rather I let you die?” she said, staring at the desolation in her brother’s eyes.
“What do you think?”
The floor fell out from beneath Claire’s feet. Her plan had worked. The risk she’d taken had been successful. And yet she felt as if she’d failed. On legs that trembled beneath her, she walked to the open door.
“Claire, wait,” Sam said, grasping her arm as she walked down the long hallway to the stairs.
“Don’t. Touch. Me.”
She shook his hand off her and walked down the stairs, then out into the late afternoon sunshine. Her carriage waited across the street where she and Watkins had left it a lifetime ago. But she couldn’t expect to ride home in it. Alex would need it, and she wasn’t strong enough to survive hearing him refuse to ride in the same vehicle with a traitor. Instead, she turned the corner and began the long walk home.
“Claire, don’t.”
“I’d like to be left alone, Major. Go back where you’re needed.”
“I’m needed here.”
Claire spu
n around and fired every hurtful word festering inside her. “No. You’ll never be needed here. Go back where men exist who live by the same set of rules as you. Where what Hunt did was, if not admirable, at least acceptable, regardless of the one life that was destroyed. After all, what is just one life? Isn’t that how you feel? Isn’t that how my brother feels? It was obviously how Hunt felt. Just one life was not that significant. Regardless of whose life it is. It is only one life! And Heaven help the fool who goes against such a philosophy. Where the attempt to save just one other person is considered the greatest of travesties.”
Claire couldn’t hold back her anger and gave vent to the fury raging inside her. “Well, Major. The one life that was destroyed was important to me. Very important. Because it was mine!”
She faced him squarely and pointed back in the direction they’d come. “Now, go back and console my brother because I didn’t allow him to die for a noble cause. Go back and commiserate with him because he’s still alive and Roseneau has escaped. Go—” She glared at him so there would be no mistaking how serious she was. “Go to hell, Major. And leave me alone.”
Claire stared at the hard expression on his face, then spun away and continued down the street. Only Barnaby’s voice sliced through the blood rushing inside her head.
“Claire, stop.”
Barnaby’s voice came at her from somewhere, but she refused to stop. If Alex’s reaction had been so vehement, Barn’s would be twice as severe. He was, after all, an agent of the government everyone believed she’d betrayed.
“Claire! What’s wrong?”
Claire walked a little faster to escape a confrontation with her brother, but it wasn’t necessary. The major must have halted him before he reached her. His words sifted through her anger even though he stayed far enough away from her not to intrude.
“Linscott. Help Watkins get your brother to the carriage and take him home. Then send another carriage round for your sister.”
Claire listened to Barnaby’s heavy boots knock on the cement walk as he ran to follow the major’s orders. She kept walking. With each step, she prayed everyone would leave her alone so she wouldn’t be forced to look at the condemnation in their eyes.
Claire walked on. Her heart sat in her chest like a heavy boulder.
The traffic was heavier as she walked through London’s busy streets. She forced her feet to take one step after another and not stop. Oh, how easy it would be to curl up beneath one of the huge linden trees lining the walk and close her eyes and never wake up. How easy it would be to wend her way through the throngs of people rushing about at the end of a busy day and get lost in all the confusion. That was how she felt. Lost. Even though there were crowds of people around her.
She reached the end of the walk and stepped onto the street. The major’s hand clamped around her arm and pulled her back as a team of horses raced by.
“Bloody hell, Claire! Watch where you’re going.”
His voice sounded angry, his hold on her tighter than she was sure he intended. She understood his animosity was in response to what he thought she’d done. Yet, what choice had she had? To hand the necklace over to the major, knowing he would let Alex die rather than give it up?
No. Using it to free Alex was a risk she’d had to take. A risk she’d take again if she had to.
Claire pulled out of his grasp and continued on her way, not sure where she was going or why. Only knowing she needed to be far away from where she’d been. From where she was. She walked faster.
He was close behind her, his presence like a looming thundercloud. His closeness as enveloping as a thick fog from which there seemed to be no escaping. She raced onward, hoping he’d leave her be. Knowing he wouldn’t.
Claire ignored the slowing of a carriage on the road beside her and walked faster.
“Claire, one of your servants is here with a carriage. Get in and he’ll take us home.”
She was suddenly consumed by an unquenchable desire to run as far away as she could. Suddenly desperate to put as much space between herself and Sam as she could. Loving him hurt too much. Losing him hurt even more.
Before she reached the next corner, he turned her around, picked her up, and carried her to where the carriage waited for them.
“Get us home. Now!” he ordered, then lifted her into the carriage and jumped in after her.
“What the bloody hell are you trying to do?” he bellowed the minute the carriage lurched forward. “Get yourself killed?”
Claire grabbed handfuls of her skirt and wadded the material in her fists. Her head throbbed as if someone had fired a cannon inside it. “Of course not, Major. I wouldn’t dream of doing anything so accommodating. I plan on living a long eventful life to make up for the years of loneliness Hunt forced me to endure while he raced to the country every spare minute he had to spend time with his loving wife and family. I plan to wake up every day with the renewed vow to think of no one but myself, to make no sacrifices that aren’t beneficial to me alone. But most important, I plan to put immediate effort into forgetting these past weeks ever happened.
“Then, if I’m very, very lucky, I might be able to forgive the Marquess of Huntingdon for everything he did to me. And forget how much I love—”
Claire’s heart slammed against her ribs. She’d almost said it. Almost revealed her innermost secret. A secret that would not only give him greater power over her, but would expose a heart already broken and bleeding.
“How much you love who, Claire?”
She forced herself to look at him, to meet his gaze and hold it, while inside her heart was aching with a pain that, at times, stole her breath.
“I want you out of my house before nightfall, Major Bennett. The servants will be at your disposal to help you pack and transport your belongings wherever you wish. But, I want you gone.”
The carriage turned a corner, then stopped in front of her town house. Before the major could open the door, Claire reached for the handle and pushed.
The door opened, and Claire jumped down without help. She raced past the startled servant and through the open door a footman held for her. She ran across the entry hall toward the stairs, then stopped with her foot on the second step. She lifted her hand from the oak railing of the winding staircase and touched the hard lump nestled in the pocket of her skirt.
She turned as the major came through the door. She hadn’t intended to look at him, didn’t want the hardened steel gray of his eyes to be the last memory she had of him, but it was too late. Their gazes locked, all the confusion and hurt laid bare for them both to see.
Without flinching, she walked to the center of the hallway and placed a small red velvet bag on the ornately carved receiving table.
Sam’s startled expression was plain to see, his gaze moving from the bag on the table back to her.
She turned and walked away.
“Bloody hell, Claire.” Sam’s hard, quiet voice stopped her on her way up the stairs. “Do you know the chance you took?”
“No, Major. I only know that I lost.”
Chapter 31
Sam hadn’t been able to tear his gaze away from her as she retreated up the stairs. He held the red velvet bag she’d risked her life to protect, and listened to her muffled footsteps as she walked down the long hallway. When she reached her room, she softly closed the door behind her, shutting herself off from him and everyone else. If he lived another hundred years, he’d never forget the haunted emptiness in her expression. The hurt. The . . . loneliness.
She carried herself away from him with the same regal grace he’d witnessed the night she’d accompanied Hunt to Roseneau’s ball. It was a defense posture. He knew that now. The cloak of armor she wrapped around herself to keep all the hurt from showing. To keep from exposing her loneliness to the world. For seven years she’d played as magnificent a part as any actress on stage. She’d convinced the world that her marriage to Hunt was perfect. That there was not a hint of unhappiness. And all the time, she�
��d been dying inside. Because all she wanted was to be loved.
And she never was.
Sam wanted to go to her, but he couldn’t. Not until he took care of the more urgent problems. He swiped the back of his hand across his cheek and wiped the blood that still trickled down the side of his face, then looked up as Barnaby hurried down from his brother’s room. Sam motioned for him to follow, then went into Hunt’s study and closed the door behind them.
Barnaby walked to the small table that held decanters of Hunt’s fine liquors and poured them each a glass. He handed one to Sam and took a swallow from his own. “Where’s Claire?”
“She went up to her rooms.”
“Is she all right?”
“This hasn’t been easy on her. It’s going to take time. How about your brother?”
“I got Alex settled and sent for Bronnely.”
“How badly is he hurt?”
“I think he may have a broken rib or two, and it doesn’t look like he was fed too regularly. He’ll be fine once we get some nourishment down him. How about you?”
Sam took the clean handkerchief Barnaby held out to him and pressed it against the gash above his eye. “I’m fine, but we don’t have much time. I need you to find McCormick.”
“Why? Roseneau’s got the—”
Sam reached in his pocket and held out the red velvet bag. Barnaby looked down at Sam’s outstretched hand, then up to his face. His eyes opened wide. “What the—”
“Your sister switched bags.”
“She what! Do you know what could have happened to her if he would have discovered what she’d done?”
Sam nodded. “Only too well. We’ve got to get this to McCormick. Take every available man with you. We only have hours before the Russian emissary arrives. Negotiations begin tomorrow. Offering to return the Queen’s Blood will perhaps prove we’re negotiating in good faith.” He held out the necklace, and Barnaby took it.
“What about you? What if Roseneau comes back?”
“He won’t. Once he realizes he doesn’t have the necklace, if he’s smart he’ll take himself where he can never be found.”