Gabe hustled her out of the room.
God, he hoped he had his temper under control by the time he was ready to talk to her, because right now he wanted to hit something he was so damned angry.
Moreau watched her go, his face puzzled. He straightened his shoulders. ‘Doesn’t it bother you that she played you for a fool? That she was planning to help me?’
The hollow in his chest widened. ‘I doubt she’ll want to go where you are going.’ He gestured to Barker. ‘Tie him up and gag him.’
Once he was sure his prisoner could not possibly escape he went in search of Minette.
Chapter Nineteen
He found her pacing in Gabe and Nicky’s drawing room, her eyes sparkling with anger. Why did she think she had the right to be angry?
Seated beside Gabe, Nicky followed her with a worried expression.
The moment Minette saw him she stormed towards him. ‘What you heard. I wasn’t—’
He cut her off with a chop of his hand. Rude, yes, but he had to know. ‘Tell me one thing. Why did you go to his room?’
She gasped, looked indignant, then defiant. ‘Why do you think?’
Gabe made as if to stand but subsided at Nicky’s murmur of protest, watching them through narrowed eyes.
‘I think you are an idiot,’ Freddy said.
‘Falconwood,’ Gabe said with a growl in his voice.
He shot his friend a glare. ‘If you wouldn’t mind, both of you, I would like to speak to my betrothed alone. We have some matters we need to discuss.’
Looking troubled, Nicky rose. ‘I think that is a fair request.’
‘Listen to me, Freddy,’ Gabe said. ‘Hurt one hair of her head and you’ll have me to deal with.’ The man was barely holding on to his temper. Freddy knew exactly how he felt. His was rapidly slipping from his grasp.
‘Gabe,’ Nicky urged.
Mooreshead gave him one long last hard look and gently escorted his wife out.
The door closed softly behind them.
‘Well?’ Freddy bit out. ‘Did you think me so incompetent you had to try to capture him yourself?’
* * *
Minette stared at him. Took in his fury. Snapped her mouth shut. Was that what he believed? That she thought him incapable, the way his mother did? Thought him less than a man? Not good enough to produce the next heir?
She hurt for him. Badly. And wished and wished she’d spoken of her feelings out there on the lawn.
The weight of the miniature against her heart made itself known when she moved towards him. Brought her up short. If she let him continue in this misapprehension, for which he would no doubt hate her, he would never have to know how careless she’d been with her virtue. Never have to see the picture that would not only have ruined her but destroyed her sister in the eyes of society.
The man had offered her his heart. Told her he loved her. She owed him the truth. He would never expose her folly, not even when he turned away in disgust, glad of a lucky escape. At least she would know she had kept a shred of honour. ‘He had something of mine. Something I had to get back before he was arrested. He caught me before I could leave.’
He stilled. ‘Did you get it?’
She swallowed and nodded, fumbled in her bodice, and drew forth the miniature. She held it pressed close to her chest for a second or two then held it out, the back towards him, the ugliness of what she was staring her right in the face. She dropped her gaze to the floor, dreading seeing his anger turn to disgust.
‘You risked your life for a trinket?’
Her heart ached at the flatness his voice. The distance. ‘Not a trinket,’ she said, forcing herself to speak what was in her heart. ‘It is a portrait of Paul and me in what might be described kindly as in flagrante delicto.’ Her faced heated. If it was possible to go up in flames and have the ashes of combustion blow away on the wind, now would be the right time. ‘It was a jest between lovers. Our faces painted onto a lascivious picture by an artist in the market square. A jest in very poor taste.’ When he made no move to take the picture, she let her hand fall.
‘When I heard he was back in England I was terrified he might use it as blackmail. To get me back under his control. He would know I could not bear the idea of anyone seeing it, especially you. Worse, though, would be the ton’s reaction. Nicky and Gabe sponsored me, introduced me to society. To have it become public knowledge that they’d taken such a woman into their midst would have ruined them socially. Look at the way Sparshott behaved over the matter of a kiss. Moreau would know what would happen. And he would use that knowledge to gain his freedom. Those rivals of yours in the Home Office would be only too glad to see Gabe brought down. I could not let it happen. Surely you can understand?’
Bleak-eyed, he kept his gaze on her face. ‘I do understand, though I regret you did not trust me to retrieve it for you.’ He strode to the window, staring out as if he could not bear to look at her any longer.
Perhaps knowing that it was Moreau who had been her lover had destroyed his regard, his love. And how could she blame him? She had never been honest with him.
She crossed the room to stand at his shoulder. ‘I am sorry, Freddy. My intention was not to cause you pain.’
His fists clenched and then opened. He placed one hand flat on the window frame, as if to stop himself from striking out. But not at her. Never at her.
He gave her a hard glance. ‘You have no reason to apologise,’ he said in a low, dark voice. ‘He might have killed you when you were supposedly under my protection. Seeing you there, so close to that damned pistol... It would have been my fault. My damned fault.’
The pain in his voice squeezed a fist in her chest. ‘It was my decision. I thought I had time. I did not mean for him to find me.’ She glanced down at the miniature clenched in her hand. ‘I had to be sure.’
He glanced her way, shadows deep in his eyes. Sadness. ‘If you had trusted me more, you would have waited for my return.’ He shook his head. ‘But I do not blame you. Not one bit. And I certainly will not hold you to our betrothal,’ he added softly. ‘I know it is not going to work. Cry off, but give it a week or so. The ton will not be pleased at having been dragged out here for nothing.’
Oh, no! How could she tell him she loved him now? He would think it was all about his title and not about him. Oh, why hadn’t she spoken of what was in her heart when he had? Now he was giving her what she’d thought she wanted.
Or was she being a fool yet again? Perhaps he hadn’t meant what he’d said. Perhaps he was glad he’d found the way out of a marriage he had never wanted. He knew the truth of her relationship with Moreau now. A man of his standing would certainly have trouble explaining a wife who had taken England’s enemy to her bed. Something Moreau would no doubt delight in relating to anyone who would listen, even if he no longer had the proof.
‘It is likely for the best,’ she said, half hoping he would disagree. And the other half, the honourable half, hoping not.
He nodded.
Impenetrable cold clenched around her heart as he turned and headed for the door.
‘Freddy,’ she said.
He hesitated. So slightly she almost didn’t catch it, but that tiny hesitation provided the courage she needed.
‘What if I don’t cry off?’ she asked. ‘What then?’
He stopped, turned back, his expression impenetrable. ‘Then you’ll be tied to a man you will end up hating because we will never spend another night under the same roof.’
He walked out.
* * *
A clock chimed one in the morning. Freddy stared at the note he’d written, but instead he saw Minette’s face, her pained expression at his rejection. He hadn’t expected it to hurt her. He’d expected relief. Damn it all, what had made him say what he had out there in the darkness on the lawn? The laughter? He couldn’t remember laughing like that since his brother had died. No. Hell, no. He was still pretending, lying to himself. His brother hadn’t died. He’d killed him. In
tentionally or not, the accident had been his fault. Being sorry didn’t change what had happened or make it any less his fault.
What if she did insist on going forward with the wedding? Out of pity? For that was all it could possibly be. He could not in all honour walk away.
The pain of longing struck his heart.
And then what? He went cold inside. He’d never resist the temptation of having her under his roof. Past experiences proved he would not. God, he’d made love to her twice already and, despite being careful, she could even now be carrying his child.
They would have to wait to know for certain, before they called off the engagement. Even he wasn’t villain enough to abandon a woman carrying his child. Where the hell was his famous cold reserve when it came to Minette? His control. He’d have to talk to her in the morning before she left with Gabe. Make it clear that she must not cry off for a month or two. Just in case. A bubble of hope rose in his chest. What if she was pregnant?
Dear God. He closed his eyes. If she was, it would be a dream come true, and his worst nightmare.
He blinked his thoughts away, forced himself to focus on the task at hand. The resignation Sceptre had insisted upon. He’d been exposed and was no longer useful. Brief and to the point. He signed it. Folded it. Melted wax in the candle, surprised to see that despite his inner turmoil his hand remained steady. One drop. Two. He put the candle and the wax aside and pressed his seal into the blob.
Done.
Over.
What the hell was he to do now?
A whisper of sound behind him. He spun around.
Minette. In her nightgown, her unbound hair a soft fall over her shoulders, her face pale, her eyes wary. God, she look so lovely standing there in a gown so sheer he could see the outline of her form, the thrust of her breasts and hardened nipples, the dark triangle at the apex of her lovely slender legs. He rose to his feet, aware of the pounding of blood in his ears. And farther south. ‘What the deuce are you doing here?’
‘Don’t you want to know what I have decided?’
For a moment he couldn’t make sense of her words. He had never been in any doubt what she would decide. No woman would take the kind of rejection he had delivered and think about it. Unless the worst had happened.
His heart leaped as if to greet her, pull her close.
He backed away lest he be tempted to do something they would both regret. ‘Tell me in the morning. There is one more thing we needed to discuss.’
‘I am here now,’ she said softly, with an enquiring tilt of her head.
Damn it all. ‘I am asking you to wait awhile before you announced that we do not suit. There is a reason to wait.’ His lips felt stiff and awkward. It was hard to form the words, but he could leave nothing to chance. ‘Obviously, if you are with child as a result of our... We’ll get married.’
She gave him a dark look. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer me to pass it off on some other man so you won’t have the trouble?’
He flinched. ‘No. That would be dishonourable.’
‘Honour,’ she scoffed, as if she doubted she had a scrap. ‘Perhaps you would rather I leave for the country, discreetly abandon it on an orphanage doorstep or give it to some poor family who would be willing to raise it as their own for a large enough sum of money. I am sure you can afford it.’
A way out. She was offering him an escape. A way not to break his vow. His child raised by strangers. And what if that child—? ‘No!’
She recoiled.
He’d been too forceful. ‘If it is my child, I will do my duty by it.’ Too blunt. Too, too blunt. And cold.
A shrug of her shoulders rippled the soft fabric at her feet. ‘How very noble.’
‘Damn it all. What more do you want of me?’
Her expression softened, she stepped closer. ‘I want you.’
He stepped back, maintaining the distance between them, his body shuddering with the effort to retain the distance when he wanted to ravage her lush mouth, feel her lovely curves pressed against him, bury himself inside her. Ease the pain of his miserable past. Such a coward.
She reached out a hand. He ignored it. ‘I’m not expecting your child.’
The faint hope inside him died, though he had not even realised it had existed, not in any rational way. Disappointment swept through him, followed swiftly by relief. Blessed relief. Life would be so much simpler. ‘How can you be sure?’
‘There are certain herbs a woman can take. Rape was always a risk in France and the nuns taught us how to avoid unwanted children from such an event.’
She sounded so matter-of-fact it shocked him to the core. What must her life have been like in France? ‘And you continue to use the herbs?’
‘They have other beneficial effects.’ She coloured. ‘Less painful monthly visits.’
His own face heated. This was not a conversation he should be having with a woman who was not his wife. ‘So you are saying, if we married, you could continue taking them?’ She would be the one in control. He would have to trust her not to make any mistakes. And he would have his cake and eat it, too.
So very tempting.
And convenient. Keep to the letter of his vow, if not the spirit. The freedom to blame any errors, deliberate or otherwise, on her. He shook his head. ‘Too risky.’
‘I was looking for you when I recognised Moreau by his laugh,’ she said.
‘He’s gone. There is no more to be said about him.’
Her expression turned stubborn. ‘I thought I was hearing things at first. When I saw him in that disguise. But I knew I was right. The opportunity was too good to miss.’ She crossed the room to peer at his collection of rocks, picking them up and putting them down as if it would help put her thoughts in order. ‘I had to get that miniature for Nicky’s sake. He would not have hesitated to find a way use it against us once he realised he was caught.’
‘And you have it.’ He kept his voice cold and his gaze firmly fixed on a place above her head, but it did not stop him from seeing her beautiful body as she strolled around his room, touching his things so intimately he knew he would never see the items again without thinking of her. ‘There is no more to be said.’
‘Vilandry was an utter pig. Nicky let him use her in order to protect me.’
She put down a lump of granite and turned to face him. ‘She suffered years of that man for my sake. She thought I was too young to realise, but I knew. One of the maids let it fall that he liked very young girls. If Nicky hadn’t agreed when our uncle proposed the match, he would have taken me instead. He used the threat of it to keep her in line.’
Bile rose in his throat. ‘Then it is a good thing he’s dead.’
A painful smile curved her lips. ‘It is. I didn’t know it until much later but Moreau had visited Vilandry. Saw Nicky and wanted her. When he learned Nicky and I had escaped the fire, he searched for her. It took him a while but he found me. And I led him to Nicky.’
The guilt in her voice pained him greatly. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’
‘I try to tell myself that,’ she said.
‘No matter how many times you repeat the words, they never quite ring true, do they?’ Over and over he’d told himself he wasn’t responsible for the death of his brother.
She smiled sadly. ‘You understand.’ She picked up the tail feather of a grouse and stroked it across her palm. ‘I spent more than a year with Pierre, as he called himself, helping him catch loyalists without realising what I was doing. It was such a grand adventure, spying, reporting back, finding little pockets of resistance, people who needed help. I thought we were fighting for the king. But slowly, slowly, his talk became more revolutionary in tone. And, fool that I was, I followed his lead. For a while. He was handsome and outrageously daring. After a life of trying to be a perfect young lady I had embarked on a grand and courageous adventure. He was my rock in my new strange world. He taught me things. About my body no decent girl should know. He encouraged my wantonness, the results
of which you know.’ She glanced at him sideways from beneath lowered lashes. ‘And that you seemed to like, too, though I thought for certain you would be displeased.’
Displeasure was the furthest thing from what he was feeling right now, with her strolling scantily dressed around his room, her fingers brushing across surfaces he hadn’t so much as looked at in years. The thought that she would never do so again was a jagged pain in the emptiness of his chest. ‘You loved him.’
‘I loved a man who never existed, but I do not believe I was ever in love. I was his pet. I wanted to please him so he would keep me close. I feared being abandoned. It had happened too many times already.’
And Moreau had known it. Used it against her. Did she think he was also abandoning her? The thought tightened his throat.
She drew in a hitching breath. ‘He used me, Freddy. And I never suspected a thing. First to trap the local loyalists and then as a lure to force Nicky to do his bidding. By then, of course, I knew the truth of who he worked for and I mitigated the damage as best I could. When we left Boulogne I was happy to be free of him. Happy his plot against Nicky had failed.’ She paused in her wandering to look at him.
‘It was only later I remembered the gift I had purchased for him months before. Realised the harm it could do if it was made public. I didn’t care for myself, but it would have ruined Nicky and Gabe by association. I could not allow it. Not after what she sacrificed for me.’
‘The miniature.’
She opened her hand and set it on the desk. ‘A portrait of the most salacious sort. They were sold in the market. I had our faces painted in, his and mine, as a joke.’ She shrugged.
He glanced down at the scene. A woman sprawled without shame and a man giving her pleasure with his hand, the faces easily recognizable.
The Regency Season Page 23