Hunter’s hands shook as he listened to Wilkins talk. How had he not seen how evil this man was? Why hadn’t Ash said anything? So many questions that he knew he might not live to find the answers to. Hunter felt a slight tremble through the knife behind him, a sure sign that Gwen was sawing away at her bindings.
He sighed. “Is there a reason for this speech?”
“Patience, Hunter. I am getting there.” Wilkins raised a brow and continued talking. “I needed the money. After all, the War Office doesn’t pay well, and my smuggling business needed a fall-back. Who, other than I, would be intelligent enough to pull it off? Well, of course, it would be you. And who does the War Office have reason not to trust? You. After all, you went off the deep end after your wife’s death. Everyone thought so. And now? Now they will see what you have been up to.”
“You mean, other than saving lives?” Hunter sneered.
“Smuggling weapons to the French.” Wilkins smiled as Hunter frowned. “You see, you even brought the ciphers into your own house. The house that is painted with the name of traitor.”
Anger slammed Hunter in the chest. “You set me up.”
“And what a tragic little tale it will be! Two of England’s greatest spies turned lovers, in prison, set to hang.”
“No!” Hunter yelled as the cold metallic knife was dropped into his waiting hands. He took a tentative step away from Gwen. “Not her.”
“I’m afraid you do not have a choice. The chess pieces have already been played.”
“Implicate me. Take me.” Hunter shook his head. “But not her, not Gwen. She did nothing to deserve this. Allow me to take her punishment. Allow me to go in her place. I will admit guilt outright.”
Wilkins laughed, but Hollins shushed him. “You would admit all wrongdoing against the Crown?”
“From my very lips I will admit guilt. They will not even need testimony nor will they need proof.”
“You will hang immediately,” Hollins pointed out.
Hunter sighed as he felt the heat of tears pool in his eyes. “My place for hers.” It was what should have happened all along. It should have always been he who died nine years ago. Never Lucy. Not Ash. He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “The choice is yours, gentlemen. But know, if you send both of us in, I’ll use everything in my power to fight it, and we all know I have powerful friends. I will not stop fighting until my last breath is taken from me. I would do anything to protect the woman I love.”
“Even die for something you did not do?” Wilkins shook his head. “Well, I believe the plan has worked out to our advantage, then.”
Hollins and he nodded, and then Hollins put on his hat. “Well, it seems I have a call to make to Bow Street. Wilkins will release your duchess once we have your hands tied.”
Hunter nodded as Hollins went to Gwen’s hands and untied them. Hunter bent down to kiss her on the forehead, shielding her body and dropping the knife into her lap in the process.
Gwen jumped from her chair and lunged for Hollins, landing a blow to his face before spitting at him. He fell to the floor with a groan.
Hunter grabbed her and pulled her against him. “We do not have much time, Gwen.”
She turned around and hugged him. Her face pressed against his chest and he realized this might very well be the last time he had her in his arms.
How he loved her. How he wished he could do more, but the funny thing about pasts was they always had a tendency to repeat themselves, and for once in his life he was given a choice. And he chose her.
Chapter Thirty-one
Wolf—
What will I do when I no longer wake up next to you? How can my heart continue to beat when it no longer knows the rhythm of its soul mate? I feel lost in the woods and there is no trail, no wolf, to lead me home.
—Red
Gwen grabbed Hunter’s hand, held it within her own, and closed her eyes. Minutes, seconds, tiny fragments of time with the man she loved. And all because of one man’s greed, she was having everything taken from her. Everything she cared about, everything she loved, she was touching.
And she was losing him.
With a sob she threw her arms around his neck and memorized his smell, the way his strong arms felt around her. She wasn’t stupid. They were not only outnumbered, but she had no weapon save the knife. Even if Hunter did, that meant he could easily shoot one man but endanger her in the process. There wasn’t enough time to come up with a different plan other than sacrifice. She wasn’t worth it, yet she knew she would do the same for him; therefore by not allowing it, she was stealing what peace he could offer her. She would be throwing his love back in his face.
“I love you,” she whispered in his ear. “Hunter, my Wolf.”
“Red.” He choked. “My Gwen, I love you, more than you will ever know.”
But she knew, she saw it in his eyes, saw the pain it took for him to hold her close, knowing it might be the last time. Pain seized her heart as she kissed him one last time.
“Time’s up.” Hollins jerked Hunter out of Gwen’s arms and began pushing him toward the exit just as another figure approached the door from the other side.
“What have we here?”
Gwen gasped.
“Ash.” Hunter exhaled, made a motion with his hands to his brother that Gwen did not quite understand, and then ducked as Ash punched Hollins in the face. Hunter returned to Gwen’s side and shielded her with his body.
Wilkins was yelling. Gwen looked up to see a wheeled chair appear in the doorway, and then Lainhart lifted his blanket, revealing his hand on the trigger of a blunderbuss as a shot rang out. And then silence.
Hunter removed himself from her body and examined Wilkins. “Direct shot into the head.” He licked his lips and then looked to Lainhart. “You shot a blunderbuss with one hand.”
“He’s a crack shot,” Ash answered, hitting Hollins one more time, rendering him completely unconscious.
****
Hunter stared at his grandfather. He knelt in front of him and shook his head. “Why did you come? I don’t understand?” He looked up at Ash, who seemed to have aged over the years.
He grinned and patted Lainhart on the back. “I’ve been his butler for the past two months. The minute I heard you were back in town, I returned.”
Hunter pulled his brother into a hug and fought the urge to cry. “I thought you dead.”
“I deserved death.”
“No.” Hunter jerked back and stared into his brother’s green eyes. “No, you did not. You were doing what was right. You were going to expose him for what he truly was.”
“I was a coward.” Ash laughed bitterly. “I fled the minute Lucy died. I could not live with myself, did not want to live.”
Oh, how Hunter knew the feeling. He slapped his brother on the back and sighed. “Let us discuss it later. Thank you. It seems you were not a second too late.”
Ash laughed. Hunter noticed a piercing in Ash’s ear and then he pulled back his sleeves, exposing a small tattoo of an axe with the word Reaper on the handle. Ash had changed, that much was certain.
“Lainhart woke me.” Ash pointed to Lainhart, who was at the moment examining his gun as if he did not believe he was able to shoot with one hand, either. “He began yelling and yelling — moaning is more like it. Finally, I knew something was wrong, and he showed me the chalkboard.”
“—Saints alive, is that a dead body!”
“—Devil take me, I need a whiskey.”
The noise all came from the same door Lainhart was blocking, where Montmouth and Dominique stood. Both men looked at Wilkins’ lifeless body in shock and then back to Hunter.
“How did you know where we were?” Hunter asked.
Dominique stepped around Lainhart and examined the room before pulling Gwen into a hug. “We received a note from Lainhart.”
“Called in reinforcements, just in case, eh?” Hunter teased Lainhart. He shrugged and offered a smile before pointing to the gun. “Y
es, I imagine you were worried about being able to shoot that beast on your own.”
“‘Bout stopped my heart,” Ash admitted, giving Lainhart a pointed look.
“What the devil happened here, anyway? The note was vague. But it said to bring pistols. I thought I was going to get a chance to finally shoot you, Hunter,” Montmouth joked.
Hunter glared. “Sorry to disappoint.”
Montmouth waved him off. “It is only a matter of time, I assure you.”
“Right.”
Gwen came up beside Hunter, laid her head against his shoulder, and sighed. “May we go home now?”
Hunter took a look around. “Yes, I think we should. I have evidence to turn in.”
Silence fell heavily upon everyone in the room as they stared at the scene. Two men — one dead, the other unconscious — and a roaring fire, as the morning sun peeked between the curtains into the room.
A fresh start. That was what it felt like, and then Hunter shook his head. “I do not believe it.”
“What?” Gwen asked.
“What is the date?”
Dominique cleared his throat and spoke up. “It is May 31.”
The anniversary of Lucy’s death. Their first anniversary, a year after being married. Either God was insanely cruel or generous, for he had been given a gift on the memorial of the worst day of his life.
“Home,” he whispered in Gwen’s hair. “Let us go home.”
Montmouth and Dominique left with threats that they wanted details of the happenings of that day, or Montmouth would carry out his threat and truly shoot Hunter.
Ash pushed Lainhart through the door and wheeled him down the three stairs toward the carriage, which had been waiting a block down the street. Hunter and Gwen held hands and followed them out, but Lainhart began yelling again.
“Aghhh!” He swatted Ash’s hand and pointed up.
Hunter ran to him. “Is it your hand? Did you get burned from the powder?”
Lainhart shook his head and pointed down, then grabbed a piece of chalk and pointed at Ash.
Ash reached into the carriage, pulled out the old duke’s chalkboard, and handed it over.
Lainhart stuck his tongue out and concentrated hard as he wrote the word across the chalkboard. Hunter waited, still holding Gwen’s hand.
After a few seconds, Lainhart smiled as a tear ran down his cheek. He held up the chalkboard. It said Proud.
He pointed at Hunter and pointed back at the chalkboard, over and over again, until he began sobbing. Hunter released Gwen’s’ hand and embraced his grandfather as the old man cried on him.
Chapter Thirty-two
Red—
Never again. From this day forward, you may never leave the house. I am locking you in our room and you must carry a pistol with you at all times. Never hesitate, just shoot. I do not care if you shoot into the air when a pigeon scares you. You will protect yourself even if it need be from animals!
—Wolf
It had been two days since the incident, and Gwen had seen Hunter a total of three hours in those days. Today was the day the questioning was finished. He refused to let Gwen leave the house, even though he’d allowed her to begin hiring a staff to clean up the forest.
She was, in a word, lonely.
Her sisters visited her often, but her thoughts were always far off, dreaming of Hunter and wondering if things would ever be the same. He shared her bed at night but other than kissing her on her cheek, he did not make love to her, nor did he say a word. He merely held her in his arms until she fell asleep.
Gwen could not help but wonder if he regretted marrying her, or if she did something wrong? Perhaps the fear of losing her had been too much. It felt as if he was pushing her away.
She walked into the ballroom, now empty, and sat in front of the fire, not caring that her new satin blue dinner dress would be crushed.
The light from the fire was all that illuminated the large room. With its impressive ceilings and murals on the walls, it was a sight to behold. She would have never dreamed that Hunter had the money that he did.
But she’d discovered that, next to Stefan and Dominique, he was alongside some of the richest men in England.
But riches did not warm her at night.
She sighed and watched the flames flicker.
“I thought I’d find you here,” came a voice from behind her. Instinctively, she grabbed the knife from her bodice and held it out in warning, as Hunter sat down next to her.
“Ah, Gwen, always prepared.” He chuckled and handed her a glass of wine. “We have a few things to discuss.”
Here it was. Her heart ached as she watched Hunter — her Hunter, the man she loved — curse and run his free hand through his hair.
“Wilkins had been smuggling for a few years. When he got desperate, he began smuggling weapons to the French. The ciphers he left at my house were an attempt to implicate me for smuggling for the past nine years. The codes had documentation of my records. Who had paid me, and so forth. The idea, it seemed, or from what Hollins was willing to say, was that he would decipher the codes for the War Office, they would find me a traitor, and I would be put in prison or die.”
Gwen closed her eyes as a tear ran down her cheek. “But why? Why you? I do not understand! He could have placed it on Redding’s shoulders. He could have done anything. Was he truly that jealous of you? Or that angry at Ash? I’m sorry, Hunter, I just do not understand.”
“And that is what I have to talk to you about.” Hunter placed his wine on the table between them and turned his golden eyes upon her. “Ash and I have just been informed. Know that I had no idea of this woman’s existence until now.”
Gwen felt as if she had just lost all the air in the room as it whooshed out of her lungs. Woman, did he say woman? She felt tears form in her eyes as she watched him struggle to put into words what he was trying to say.
“Just say it,” Gwen blurted. “Tell me there is someone else, that you do not love me, but please hurry! I cannot take the silence. I cannot do this! I love you!” Her chest heaved with the exertion of yelling at him.
Hunter’s head perked up, and then his lips quirked into a smile before he threw back his head and laughed.
“I’m leaving.” She rose from the chair and bolted for the door, but Hunter grabbed her by the wrist and flung her back against his body so she was sitting on him. “I have a knife.”
“Then use it,” he growled into her ear. “But please be sure to be naked like last time. I found it quite distracting.”
She struggled to get free of his grasp, but he held her firmly and chuckled. “Yes, and please with your naughty foreplay.”
Gwen huffed and stopped struggling. “Are you finished making fun of me?”
Hunter lifted her off the chair, and while holding her in his arms, kissed her firmly across the mouth, plunging his tongue into its depths. This was no invitation of a kiss. This was not polite — it was hot and needy. He groaned as he knelt down and laid her across the rug, then began slowly undressing her as he kissed her neck.
“I love you, Gwen. I will always love you. I have to admit to being the worst sort of husband these past three days, but there were things that needed to be settled, and finally I realized something.”
Gwen gasped as he bit her lip, then swirled his tongue with hers, and pulled back again. “What is that?”
“It is not my job anymore.” He sighed against her chest and began kissing across her neck.
“Because, oh…” She arched her back. “Because you retired?”
“Yes, and because Ash has taken responsibility for… what must be done. I was worried about having to take care of a situation and trying to find a way out of it, but now it seems — You are absolutely…” He ripped at the sleeves of her dress, exposing her corset. “Fully…” He growled as he bit her neck. “Completely…” He moaned as he exposed the top half of her body. “Mine.”
“But what about what you needed to talk to me about?” G
wen gasped again as Hunter licked the inside of her wrist and then wickedly began sucking on her fingers.
“It can wait.”
“Wait? Until?”
But Hunter had stopped talking and was doing exceedingly well in making her forget what she’d been so worried about in the first place.
Two hours later, they lay in each other’s arms. Hunter rose and stoked the fire.
“I am suddenly thankful we do not have a full staff.” Gwen giggled. “I can only imagine what a stiff old butler would say to the duke and duchess of the house frolicking around in the ballroom.”
“Frolicking?” Hunter paused, his smile making her stomach clench with desire. “Is that what we were doing?”
Gwen laughed as Hunter pounced on her again and whispered, “I thought I was making love to my beautiful wife, but if a good frolic is what you desire, who am I to stand in your way?”
Another hour later and Gwen finally had a new definition for the word frolic, and found that she would never be able to hear it without blushing profusely.
Chapter Thirty-three
Wolf—
That was one time! And the pigeon terrified me! I thought it was an intruder! What do you expect me to do? Swat it with my hand? All I had was a pistol. I cannot believe you would hold one tiny indiscretion against me! And no, I refuse to stay locked indoors. And yes, you are an animal. A complete and utter animal, in and out of the bedroom, you scoundrel!
—Red
Hunter nudged Gwen awake as the sun was beginning to rise over the horizon. He had taken her to bed without having a much-needed discussion with her, but the moment he saw the life die in her eyes, he knew he needed to remedy the situation immediately. For it had nothing to do with them, though it had looked that way. He was just so terrified of losing her again and exhausted over the most recent news that he found all he could do was hold her and pray it would fix itself.
For he had been asked to complete a task, something that he could not say no to. Dominique was his best friend. He would die for him, do anything to protect him. And though he wanted to say no, the delicate situation made it hard to. But he could not leave Gwen, so Ash had stepped in, said it was a way for him to redeem his many sins.
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