Clandestine

by Julia Ross

  If Lord Moorefield walks out of Wyldshay alive, I am the only one who will lose him. Yet though I love him more than I love my own soul, I cannot hope for a death in order to win him. I cannot!

  Boots thudded at last in the hallway. The door to the room burst open. Anne opened her eyes and met her husband’s bright smile. Guy strode in behind his cousin, brushed the hair back from his forehead, and bowed to his aunt.

  “Well?” the duchess said. “Am I to arrange a wedding or a funeral or both?”

  “Not dead,” Guy said. “It was pistols. Moorefield’s badly wounded. But in front of a half a dozen witnesses—including the duke, Lord Grail, and Lord Ayre—he apologized to d’Alleville and renounced all claim to the child.”

  “Then a wedding,” the duchess said, smiling. “No, two weddings.”

  She glanced at her son and his wife, and the three of them left the room.

  His eyes dark with passion, Guy’s met Sarah’s gaze. Her heart soaring, she stood up and walked straight into his embrace.

  HE slept heavily, his newly washed hair spilled on the pillow, his freshly shaved jaw sharply defined in the candlelight.

  Somewhere in Wyldshay, Anne and Jack, similarly reunited, were no doubt sleeping together with equal delight.

  Lord Moorefield, bandaged and disgraced, had been driven away in his carriage. Lady Moorefield, against every entreaty, had decided to go with him.

  Guy, Jack, and Claude d’Alleville had ridden across France without stopping and then galloped straight to Wyldshay as soon as they reached land. Yet in spite of his fatigue, the Frenchman had prevailed. Not with swords, but with pistols. A duel decided by first blood. The earl would walk with a limp, if he ever walked again, for the rest of his life.

  It was over. The duchess had quietly sent up food and drink and a bath, after which Sarah had allowed Guy to fall unmolested into bed. Further explanations could wait until morning.

  Meanwhile, Rachel had begun to weep piteously as soon as she recovered her senses and saw the father of her child and love of her life. And so Claude was very likely sitting by her bedside, watching her sleeping face, as Sarah watched Guy’s.

  Sarah woke next to the ticking of the clock and the light sound of Guy’s steady breathing. A high moon rode the clouds outside their tower room. Restless, she slid from the bed and walked silently to the window.

  At the base of the castle walls, the River Wyld spread into a calm lake, shimmering with silver and shadows in the moonlight. Sarah leaned on the sill, her heart entirely at peace, and gazed down.

  Warm fingers touched her nape. Her blood leaped. She turned her head and smiled.

  Guy kissed the back of her neck, then enfolded her in his arms.

  “The goddess walks,” he said quietly. “The White Lady of moonlight and flowers.”

  “And the god has returned,” she said. “Oberon, king of the wild realms of Faerie.”

  He laughed with that uniquely wry appreciation for the absurd and stroked her hair back from her cheek.

  “I drove to the Chateau du Cerf entirely without real hope,” he said. “Jack had caught up with me by then, so I knew that Claude d’Alleville must be dead. I tried to take comfort in the knowledge that Anne and the duchess were both here to support you, but at that moment—”

  “Yes,” she said. “At that moment, when it seemed that all real hope was lost…Yes, I felt the same way. Yet you didn’t give up?”

  “God, no! How could I give up, feeling as I do about you? So Jack and I drove on and arrived at the chateau to find the place in chaos. Claude d’Alleville shared the same name as his father. Claude Père had indeed just died, but Claude Fils had been called back from Alexandria as soon as the old man first became ill.” His arms tightened about her. Sarah leaned her head back into the warm hollow of his shoulder. “Yet my letter arrived in the days soon after the father’s death, and his secretary assumed it was once again for him.”

  “And so returned it unopened to Wyldshay? Meanwhile, Berry’s father was on his way home from Egypt, and he arrived to find you there in his home. How did he react?”

  “At first he was inclined to send us to the devil, but then he found Rachel’s letters amongst his late father’s papers. He brought them down into the grand salon—”

  “The chateau is imposing?” Sarah asked.

  Guy chuckled in her ear. “Very! Which may be the reason why Claude Père had been so hysterically opposed to his son’s marrying a penniless Englishwoman. He apparently couldn’t bring himself to actually destroy Rachel’s letters, but he’d kept them without sending them on to his son. Claude believed his father’s suggestion that Rachel had found a new lover. He never knew about Berry.”

  His fingers gently stroked the hair away from her nape. Sarah wished she could purr.

  “Until you told him. After which, he agreed to come back here with you to marry Rachel?”

  “Not exactly. He was furious that he’d been so betrayed by his own father. Yet he was still inclined to believe that Rachel might just be some kind of hussy, after all—until he was able to take the time to read her letters. Of course, Jack and I were frantic with impatience by then, knowing the havoc that the returned letter must be creating here at Wyldshay. We’d written to you and Anne as soon as we knew Claude was alive, but when he agreed to come back with us we rode across France like the devil, told him the rest of the story on the journey, and obviously arrived here ahead of the post.”

  He felt so solid and real and ardent, enveloping her in his warmth and strength. Sarah caught one of his hands and kissed his palm. “So Claude no longer believes that Rachel never really loved him?”

  “My dear Sarah, I don’t know what the devil he believes. Yet he will marry her and take her back to France. He’s filled with determination to rescue his little son and agonizing over the fate of his damsel in distress. So they’ll be mad romantic fools in a home full of drama. Fortunately, I believe he’ll be an excellent father. Betsy Davy will go, too, so Berry will always be safe.”

  “And Lord and Lady Moorefield?”

  Guy became very still and took a moment to answer. “May stew in their own misery down in Devon. Yet I believe the earl’s pride is finally broken, which may make him a better man. He’ll have to accept now that his brother’s his heir, and he’ll have a hard time beating his wife again, especially if he can only walk with assistance or not at all.”

  Sarah closed her eyes. “I cannot feel too sorry for him when I think of the misery he caused, yet I’m glad that neither you nor Lord Jonathan had to shoot him.”

  “So am I,” he said. “But enough about everyone else. What about us?”

  She rubbed her cheek against his hand. “I rather hoped that you and I could continue to be mad romantic fools here in England,” she said.

  He spun her about. Moonlight glimmered in his dark hair and outlined the fine bones of his cheek and jaw. “Why? Because you and only you stir my soul in a way that I’d never imagined possible? Because I would lay down my life—not just as a figure of speech, but my very life’s blood—if it were ever required, only for you? Because I burn for you as ardently as any man ever burned for a woman?”

  “Well, yes,” she said, “if you like.”

  He laughed in real joy. “Then will you marry me, Sarah?”

  She reached up to cradle his face in both hands, so the moon silvered her fingers and glimmered on her arms. “Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, I will marry you. Yes, I want to give you babies of your own. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, if you’ll have me, with all my heart and soul I will marry you.”

  Guy laughed as he swung her up into his arms and carried her back to the bed. He slid in beside her, then tugged her nightgown off over her head.

  His fingers trailed in erotic little patterns over her hot skin. “This is what you want?”

  Desire flared as her palms feasted on his firm flesh, and she laughed.

  “I’ve wanted it forever, Guy. Don’t you know that?”

  E
PILOGUE

  Chateau du Cerf, February 1830

  My dear Sarah,

  Claude and I are just thrilled with your news. So Berry will have a cousin before next Christmas! You know that any baby of yours will be as dear to me as my own, and we’re very, truly happy for you, dearest, and for Guy. I’ll love him forever for rescuing Berry, and so will Claude. I can’t tell you what it means to both of us to know that you and Guy are so happy together. I’ll wager you’re almost as happy as we are! Living here at the chateau really is like living in a fairy tale.

  Is Birchbrook just heartbreakingly lovely right now? Remember the snowdrops at our house in Norfolk? How very brave those little flowers were to defy the winter frosts like that, poking their white faces up through the snow in the woods, so confident that spring was coming, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary!

  We both did that, didn’t we? Defied the threat of winter to find the perpetual summer in our hearts.

  Berry is quite the little master now. He can talk French just as well as English, and Claude is as proud as a peacock. He’ll always be our firstborn, so it’s nice to know that there’s none of that silly business with entailments. Even if we have another son, Berry will one day inherit the estate from his father.

  Meanwhile, I can’t say that I’m sorry to hear that Lord Moorefield’s faction was so soundly defeated in the House of Lords. Though I’ll never understand politics, whatever the Duke of Blackdown’s party proposed must be right!

  Oh, and there’s news that will amuse you about Betsy Davy. She loves Berry as dearly as ever, of course, but she’s also been walking out with one of Claude’s grooms. Though her French is still lacking and his English more so, the language of love must transcend all of that, for they’re to marry next April, and will no doubt set up a nursery of their own. Claude doesn’t mind, since he indulges his little English wife in everything, and Betsy and her new husband will be given their own cottage in the grounds as soon as they’re wed.

  I regret nothing now, dearest, except that I ever lied to you and Guy, and caused you both so much pain. But all’s well that ends well, they say!

  In the greatest affection, believe me your ever-devoted cousin,

  Rachel d’Alleville

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Jack and Anne’s story was told in the bestselling Night of Sin, first released in January 2005, where Guy first met Rachel to take her out for that fateful day on the yacht.

  Games of Pleasure followed in November 2005. Ryder plunged his horse into the sea to rescue a lady cast adrift in a small boat, only to find her unconscious and half-naked. That lady was Miracle, though Ryder had no idea then what she’d been doing for a living.

  And Olwen’s daisy path? That’s an exact description of a footpath I discovered in Devon while researching Clandestine.

  Further details may be found on my

  website at www.juliaross.net.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Julia Ross was born and grew up in Britain. A graduate of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, she has won numerous awards for her novels. Julia now lives in the Rocky Mountains. Visit her website at www.juliaross.net.