The Reckless One

by Connie Brockway

  She turned her head. In the dim light of the carriage her eyes looked nearly black. “Monsieur?”

  “Your husband, how did he die?”

  “Oh. An infection of the lungs.” She averted her face once more.

  “You were much attached to him?” he asked.

  She remained mute.

  She did not want to speak to him. He could not much resent her decision. She knew nothing of him other than that he was English and she’d found him in a prison. She hadn’t even asked his name. Of course, she needn’t fear for her safety what with Jacques only a heartbeat away.

  The thought of the giant servant damped the spark of ardor still plaguing Raine—but did not altogether drown it. He could not forget the feel of her trapped between his thighs, her hands against his naked skin, her body molded to his. Even now, while his mind unraveled the next few minutes into a hundred possible ends, his body was still preoccupied with hers.

  The minutes ticked by, the interior of the carriage grew warm with their shared heat. From outside came the clatter of an occasional passing vehicle, the sharp clink of shod hooves on cobbled streets, men’s voices, distant and muted.

  “Why were you so crude, so rough with me?” The stiff leather seat creaked as the girl shifted.

  Her sudden query surprised him. He’d been relaxed, simply enjoying her scent, her warmth, and the sight of her. She repeated her question grudgingly, her gaze anchored firmly outside. “Why were you so crude?”

  “The woman you impersonated is crude,” he said, perplexed. Surely she knew the sort of woman her aunt was, especially since she had used her proclivities so effectively to obtain his release.

  “But you touched me even when I made clear that I did not want it.”

  He was unsure of what she wanted and so remained silent, waiting.

  “Yet you speak well, in the accents of the aristocracy. Are you? Are you well-born? Is your crime against the well-born?”

  “Madame, is it not a bit late to be asking for a letter of introduction?” Raine asked, amused by her accusing tone.

  “Why were you in prison?” she blurted out, this time accompanying the question with an anxious glance. “Did you … did you assault some woman? An aristocratic lady?”

  She thought him a rapist? Ah well, the mistake had been made before. Still, at one time, he would have been affronted. He would have politely damned her to hell and proceeded to spend the night proving his irresistibility to the opposite sex.

  But yes, he supposed she would think that, given how he’d nearly forced himself on her earlier. He rubbed his cheek consideringly and for the first time in years he wondered what a mirror would reveal. He smiled and she misread his reaction, shrinking back against the cushions.

  “No,” he said to ease her fear, “I have never taken a woman against her will.”

  “Then”—she hesitated—“then why were you in prison?”

  “ ‘Political reasons,’ a phrase I give you leave to interpret into meaning someone hoped to profit by my incarceration.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “And you an ambassador’s wife?” he taunted lightly; but she’d turned that disconcerting gaze upon him again and he answered with a small sigh, amazed at her seeming youth and perturbed by it.

  “What did you do?”

  “What didn’t I do?” he muttered, and then, “I was imprisoned because I could be and I was kept imprisoned because of some French bureaucrat’s fantasy that someday someone might ransom me.” He leaned closer and was rewarded by her faint, heady fragrance. “’Twixt we two, however, I can assure you that no one other than yourself would ever have found a reason to set me free. My thanks.”

  He smiled again, this time without rancor, suddenly heedful that, indeed, were it not for this woman he would not be sitting in a warm carriage, clean and clad, astonished by his unexpected freedom and fearful he might yet lose it.

  But instead of reassuring her, his smile seemed to make her even more anxious. The corners of her mouth dipped unhappily and her fingers worried each other in her lap. “You hated being caged.”

  He laughed this time, in spite of himself, and heard Jacques shift atop the carriage in response.

  “Rest easy, friend Jacques,” Raine called out in a low voice, “your mistress would play the wit. I simply appreciate her sallies.”

  He studied the girl. She looked fresh and vulnerable and, he allowed, a bit piqued that he’d laughed at her. Jacques was right to worry about her. Raine had once known a hundred men who would have feasted on such innocence as hers. They’d once been his boon companions.

  “Aye, Madame. I hated it. But never so much as now.”

  “Why is that?” She moved forward, her curiosity momentarily making her forget her fear. The carriage window framed her head and shoulders, the light outside glinting off her hair and spinning a bright nimbus about her silhouette. She would, indeed, be unsafe traveling unescorted. She was, he thought distantly, unsafe with him.

  “Because I’d forgotten what freedom was like,” he said, “and now I remember and the comparison is … keen.”

  Backlit as she was, it was impossible to read her expression.

  “Why did your family not—”

  “My turn,” he cut across her query. Ash was gone, Fia probably bartered off to the wealthiest suitor by now, and he did not want to think of Carr. He had no interest in his sire, nor any desire to ever again behold him. Though he supposed it might prove inevitable once he’d reached Wanton’s Blush.

  Wanton’s Blush.

  Once again his future held choices, options, and prospects beyond the simple ambition not to be killed in the next prison brawl. The realization rushed in on him with heady force.

  “Monsieur?”

  He blinked like a man coming into the sun after too long in the dark, overwhelmingly aware of the debt he owed this young woman. Even if, as he suspected, there was more to this girl’s scheme than she was letting on, at least tonight possibility existed where yesterday there had been none.

  “I owe you a debt,” he said.

  “Please, Monsieur. You owe me nothing. You are aiding me.” She dipped her head, studying her gloved hands. A long tendril slipped over her shoulder. She looked fresh, soft, and tantalizingly vernal with a youth he’d never experienced himself. “I am in your debt,” she murmured.

  Now, to ask the heavens for that boon would take even more audacity than even he had ever owned. But she’d made the declaration and he had never denied being an opportunist. “It would seem we are mutually indebted, eh ma petite Madame?” He paused. “Can I … May I touch your hair?”

  It hadn’t been what he’d meant to say and he heard in the stumbling hesitation of his voice a yearning controlled only by some remnant of pride. Oafish bore, he berated himself, blathering fool. How polished, bow urbane. ‘May I touch your hair….’

  Yet he awaited her answer.

  He saw the slight dip of her chin, the barest of assents. Slowly he reached out, as careful of alarming her as if she’d been a Highland colt seeing a man for the first time. She held herself just as still, just as cautiously. His fingers hovered above the gleaming tresses, moved. Felt.

  Silk Cold silk. So polished as to seem crisp, so slickery cold. He rubbed the lock between thumb and forefinger, closing his eyes, intently cataloguing its texture and richness. His fingers worked higher, moving up, identifying the point where the strands lost their metallic coolness and grew warm with proximity to her skin. He opened his hand wide, letting the strands flow between his fingers, crushing the silky mass in his fist and releasing it and the feint fragrance of soap. He sighed.

  “How old are you, Monsieur?” he heard her ask wonderingly. He opened his eyes.

  “I am a few years into my third decade, Madame.”

  “So young? Mon Dieu,” she breathed. “How many years were you in prison?”

  “What matter—”

  “How many?” she insisted.

 
“Four.”

  “You were just a youth …” He barely heard her and the horror in her voice made him uncomfortable. Disconcerted he looked away and then immediately back again because he’d not feasted his eyes on a woman like her in years.

  “It is unfair,” she murmured. “This is not right.”

  Once more her naivete goaded awake the long-dormant devil within, a misplaced part of himself that could still be amused by such things as a girl’s innocence. “ ‘Right,’ ma petite? What has right to do with my fate … or yours?”

  His hand was still in her hair. Slowly, his eyes never leaving hers, he wound a handful about his fist. She resisted, but not adamantly. With each light tug, the stiffness of her body melted like warm wax before a brassier. Her lips—as full of voluptuous promise as her brows were of stern disapproval—parted slightly in astonishment. He saw the glint of her white teeth, a flicker of surprise in her eyes. Sweet clove-scented breath fanned his—

  “There he is!” The small, driver’s hatch flew open and Jacques looked down at them.

  The girl jerked back, wincing as she came to the end of her tethered tresses. Raine freed her. Damn Jacques.

  “Remember, speak only English,” Jacques hissed. “Wait until he is very near. He won’t want you to draw attention to him and I daresay his French is abominable.”

  He snapped the trapdoor shut. Raine looked at the girl. The odd light had leached the color from her skin.

  “A kiss for luck, ma petite?”

  Her eyes grew round. “Non, Monsieur! I am but recently a—”

  “—and I am but recently free.” He clasped the back of her head and pulled her forward, crushing her petal-soft mouth beneath his. For just one heady instant her mouth was pliant and then she fought, pushing him away.

  “Get on with it,” Jacques called down.

  Raine angled his head in a courtly bow, reached past her, and opened the carriage door. “Madame, your debt is paid.” He jumped down to the street and without bothering to look back crossed toward Le Rex Rouge.

  A tall man stood under a lantern hanging beside the door. He held his voluminous cape close to his body, warding off the stiffening wind. His expression was eager, his body tense.

  Raine slowed his pace, glancing about. Three men stood huddled together at the corner the building, rubbing their hands together above the sullen glow of a small brassier. At the end of the street, a driver slumped atop a closed landau, his ill-matched pair shifting in their traces. It was too quiet.

  The tall man stepped beneath the lantern. He’d a pale, cruel face.

  “Lambett?” he called out.

  “Yes,” Raine answered. He halted. Jacques had warned him to be discreet, yet the smuggler called his name loudly across a nearly deserted cul-de-sac.

  At the corner, one of the men lifted his head. Down the road the chaise door opened. The tall man nodded with evident pleasure, extending his hand, moving rapidly forward, his pale face—

  Pale.

  No seafarer had a face so pale.

  He’d been set up. He heard the woman’s voice call out behind him. “It’s a trap! Run!”

  The advice was unnecessary. He was already running.

  The girl watched the tall figure of the nameless young man sprint past the soldiers tumbling from the carriage and be swallowed by the night. From his position atop the carriage “Jacques,” also known as Jamie Craigg and more currently “La Bête,” cursed roundly, whipping up the horses and heading for the docks.

  Once he got over his anger, Jacques would see she’d not only done the right thing, but the best thing. Soon the soldiers from the docks would join their fellows in chasing down the man they thought was La Bête, the most notorious smuggler to ever make mock of the French authorities. For the first time in a fortnight the docks would be relatively free of troops. The real La Bête could thus, in relative safety, load important cargo before heading back to his native Scotland.

  The “cargo” touched her fingertips to her bruised lips. She had never been kissed before. Never known an unrelated man’s touch. His had been the first. A tall, hard Englishman with sherry-colored eyes, sprung from a fetid jail. He would not have liked his fate had she really been Madame Noir, of that she was certain. Then why did she feel so guilty?

  The honesty the Sisters at Sacré Coeur had demanded of her provided a quick answer. She was no better than Madame Noir. She’d simply put the young man to a different use.

  She bowed her head and offered a short prayer that he find his way to freedom. Yet, even as she finished her prayer and crossed herself, guilty at having used another being so wretchedly, she knew she would not have done one thing differently. She did not act on her own behalf now.

  She drew back from the window, snapping the curtain shut as though by doing so she could shut out the Englishman’s image. What she did, she did for her clan, to rectify the decade-old wrong she’d caused them.

  She was the only who could rectify it.

  She’d been reared on that knowledge, molded and shaped by it. Even in the French convent where she’d been sent so many years earlier, the letters from Muira Dougal had kept her obligation ever before her. Now, finally, the time had come for her to act.

  Favor McClairen was going home.

  Chapter 6

  It took an hour to row out to the ship. The half dozen men in the long boat strained silently against the oars. At the helm, Jamie guided their way, threading the heavily laden boat through black water like Charon bringing the newly departed across the river Styx.

  Except she wasn’t dying, Favor reminded herself. She was going home. She should be ecstatic. They’d made it when all odds were against them.

  For days the entire north coast had been covered with not only soldiers but guards and laborers, merchants and seamen, all seeking the notorious smuggler, La Bête—or more to the point seeking the unheard-of sum being offered for his capture. Apparently Jamie had made fools of the French authorities once too often.

  After a few days in his company she understood how he’d managed that not inconsiderable deed. ’Twas Jamie who’d determined that their best odds in evading capture lay in hiding in plain sight. He’d anchored his ship in a port, not in one of the tiny inlets smugglers generally favored.

  Still, while most of the authorities’ efforts had been concentrated on coastal areas, they hadn’t altogether neglected the harbor towns. It had been necessary to arrange a diversion that would give them time to load their contraband—as well as Favor. Again, Jamie came up with a plan. But for it to work they’d needed an Englishman—an Englishman they could leave behind. But where and how to find a willing dupe?

  Amazingly, it was Sacré Coeur’s Most Reverend Mother who provided the answer.

  Now, perhaps the Abbess had information from other sources, but it was certainly interesting that her brother, Father Dominic, was also Madame Noir’s confessor. For whatever reasons the Abbess was uncommonly well versed in that notorious lady’s habits and for this Favor was grateful.

  The plan had been simple. One of the convent’s milkmaids dropped a word into a French lieutenant’s ear regarding the Abbess’s anticipated windfall of fine Scottish wool blankets on a certain night at a certain locale. In the meantime Favor went to the local prison disguised as Madame Noir to select an Englishman who might readily be mistaken for the infamous English smuggler.

  Everything had gone as arranged.

  Except for the Englishman’s eyes. And that he’d sworn he would never return to prison again. And that in asking her permission to touch her hair he’d looked quite as naked as Favor had ever felt.

  The rowboat bumped lightly against the side of the ship’s barnacle-covered side. Favor frowned. She had nothing to feel so guilty about. Once the guards realized they didn’t have La Bête, the Englishman would simply be sent back to prison where he’d have ended up if she had been Madame Noir.

  Hushed voices called out from above and Jamie answered in kind. A second later a
rope ladder dropped down and two men leaned over the side of the ship. She took hold of their hands and they hauled her onboard. A second later Jamie, panting and swearing, hoisted his girth up and over the gunnel, followed shortly by his men.

  “Get her to the cabin,” he ordered in a heavy Scottish accent, jerking his head in Favor’s direction. “Hoist anchor and put yer backs to settin’ sail. We’re fer home, laddies.”

  A rumble of approval met this announcement. Curious glances followed her as a balding man took her elbow and steered her through a doorway into a small cabin. Before she could turn, the door closed behind her.

  She looked around. A narrow cot was nailed to one wall, likewise a table on the opposite wall. On this stood a chipped washbasin. Gratefully, she dipped the end of her kerchief into the frigid water and dabbed at her face.

  Outside the door she heard a woman’s voice. Apprehension followed her surprise. It could only be Muira Dougal, the woman whose iron will and driving determination had shaped Favor’s last nine years. No one had told Favor Muira would be onboard. She hadn’t prepared herself to meet the woman who’d … Favor floundered for a word that could adequately describe the degree to which this woman had influenced her life. All of it done from hundreds of miles away, mostly through letters.

  In some very real ways, Muira Dougal had invented Favor McClairen. Certainly the child who’d arrived on this foreign soil no longer existed.

  “How did it go?” Favor heard her asking Jamie.

  “Well enough, Mistress,” Jamie Craigg answered deferentially. “The guard at the prison didn’t blink twice when the girl said she was Madame Noir.”

  “Is she any good then? Will she succeed in what she must do?”

  Jamie paused before continuing. “Aye. She’ll do. Though I’ll say this”—a deep chuckle rumbled out—“if a man was in on the joke, so to speak, he would see right enough that the lass dinna understand the woman she played.”

  “Well, Jamie Craigg”—Muira’s voice dropped in pitch, became biting and hard—“I’m glad you’re so amused. But this isn’t a joke. It’s our last chance to regain what was stolen from us and if you no longer hold that a sacred endeavor, there are those of us that still do.”