Blackhaven Brides (Books 5–8)

by Lancaster, Mary

  “Take you on?” Javan repeated incredulously.

  “I can look to your horses, drive ‘em, be your bodyguard, whatever you want.”

  “You want to work for us?” Caroline said carefully.

  “No one ever saved my life before. Never thought enough of me, I suppose. I never gave ‘em cause to. Give you my word, sir, I’d never do no wrong to you or yours again—whether you take me on or not. But I’d like to pay it back. For shooting your missus. Because I’ll be honest, I never wanted to shoot her, but I did it anyway, for money. Never meant to kill her either, but if it had happened—and it easily could have—I wouldn’t have lost any sleep over it.”

  “And all this has changed because I stopped Swayle sticking you?” Javan asked dubiously.

  “Na, it was changing before. Being with your family and Williams there made me think, made me see things…different. I was going to run off and be a soldier like him, and you, do some good with my shooting. Then I thought I’d rather work for you.”

  Javan and Caroline both looked at Williams who stood by the horses’ heads.

  Williams shrugged. “I could use help in the stables. And in the house, but that’s a discussion for another day. You and me, sir, we’ve knocked worse men than Miller into shape before now.”

  “Trial for a month,” Javan said, walking away to the front steps and drawing Caroline with him. “You obey Williams implicitly and show respect to the other servants or you’re out.”

  “Understood, sir,” said Miller blissfully.

  *

  Rosa slept peacefully in her bed. Caroline and Javan stood for a few moments looking down at her. Javan touched her hair for an instant, and then they tiptoed from Rosa’s chamber to Caroline’s and quietly closed the door.

  Javan gazed around it. “I drove myself mad thinking of you in here, wondering what you were doing, if you were sleeping. If you were thinking of me.”

  “I usually was,” she confessed. “I listened to your footsteps every night, as you left Rosa, and imagined them coming to my door.”

  His lips quirked. “What would you have done? Would you have invited me in? Or cowered in the corner and left first thing in the morning?”

  Embarrassed suddenly, she made light of it. “Oh, I wouldn’t have left. I had nowhere to go!”

  “That’s why I never came,” he said ruefully. “I never found my position of authority, of power, so damnable. And yet, feeling helpless is worse. I couldn’t have borne to be allowed into your bed from fear of destitution or worse.”

  “I don’t think that would ever have been the case,” she admitted. “You always…affected me.”

  He lifted one hand and cupped her cheek. “Do I affect you now?”

  For answer, she leaned her cheek into his palm, then took his hand and placed it over her galloping heart. His breath hitched. He stood very still, gazing down at her, By the dim glow of the single candle, his face was dark and shadowed and unutterably thrilling. She craved his embrace, his kiss, so intensely it felt like pain.

  But when she released his hand to reach up and hold him, he turned away from her. It felt like a blow. Under her bemused, desperate gaze, he picked up her old hairbrush and sponge from the washing stand and dropped them into her carpet bag that lay open on the bed. Then he went to the dresser and wardrobe, pulling out the few meagre garments he found there–a thin under gown, a pair of darned stockings, and Serena’s altered peach evening dress. They too went in the bag before he walked to the desk and swept up her pens and letters and laid them on top. He reached over and lifted the book from her bedside table, adding it before he picked up the bag.

  “You have so little,” he said, “and yet, you give so much. What did I pay you?”

  “I’m not sure we ever discussed that. A pair of boots, certainly.”

  She heard his breath of laughter as he lifted the flickering candle. “Come.”

  Her throat constricted as she followed him out into the passage. He turned left, in the direction she’d never been, toward his bedchamber. She swallowed convulsively. He was moving her to his own chamber. Because he was making the point that she was no longer merely the governess? To whom? To her or to the servants?

  Or was this, at last, her wedding night?

  A lamp and several candles bathed his bedchamber in a warm, friendly glow. The fire in the grate added to the atmosphere of welcome. Old but still heavy velvet curtains hung over the windows in two walls, for his was the corner room. Faded carpets broke up the polished wood floor. There was a grand wardrobe and chest of drawers, an escritoire under one window, and bookcases around most of the available wall space. An open door led to a small dressing room with a truckle bed and wash stand.

  Her gaze came back to the main room, finally settling on the large, curtained bed that dominated the chamber.

  “Could you be comfortable here?” he asked softly. “We can redecorate it to suit you, of course, change—”

  “It’s perfect,” she interrupted. “At this point, there is nothing I would change.”

  He dropped her bag on the floor, pushing it aside with his foot as he blew out the candle in his hand, and set it down on top of the nearest bookcase. “I have a question.”

  “I hope I have the answer.”

  He glanced at her over his shoulder, half of his face in shadow. His lips parted to speak, then closed again. His brow furrowed. And then he said abruptly, “Shall I sleep in there?” His head jerked toward the dressing room and the truckle bed.

  Her instant reaction was pain that he did not wish to be with her. Only then she registered his erratic breathing, the difficulty with which he asked. He was considering her injury, her tiredness, her inevitable virginal fears. He was sparing her.

  “I do not wish to be spared,” she whispered, all but running to him. “Javan, I love you.”

  He caught her in one arm, still being careful of her wound, and cupped the back of her head. “Then, my sweet,” he said hoarsely. “May I take you to bed?”

  She raised her face to his, searching for his lips, which came down on hers so suddenly that she gasped. His hands in her hair, drew out the pins until it tumbled loose about her shoulders, and he drew back to look.

  He smiled. “That is how I long for you.”

  Slowly, deliberately, he unfastened her ball gown and let it slip to the floor around her feet. Under gown and stays quickly followed, until she stood before him in nothing but her chemise. Taking her hand, he led her to the bed, and sat, drawing her down beside him while he kicked off his shoes and unbuttoned the skin-tight legs of his pantaloons.

  Daringly, she slid one hand up under his shirt, caressing the warm, velvet skin of his back, finding other ridges, other scars that were part of his past and the man he had become. As he straightened, she drew the shirt up and over his head, and he gently pushed her back until she lay flat on the bed with him looming over her.

  He lowered his head, kissing her until she was lost in his mouth and her own fire. Only then did he drag the chemise up her body and over her head. His already erratic breath caught. His Adam’s apple jerked as he swallowed.

  In sudden shyness, she moved her arms inward, to cover herself, but he caught them, pressing them into the mattress above her head while his gaze devoured her. And somehow, she was no longer embarrassed but triumphant, powerful, and even more desperate for what was to come. He shifted, lowering his head once more to kiss her breasts, and she thought she would die of this new bliss.

  Her eyes closed and she held him to her in wonder. He shifted, letting her feel his full, glorious weight for an instant. His pantaloons and undergarments were gone, for it was hot skin which caressed hers, the hard length of his erection stroking between her thighs.

  “This will be a first for both of us,” he said shakily. “For I have never done this before with so much love. With true love.”

  She touched his scarred cheek, kissing his lips with longing. His fingers roamed over her body, stroking and car
essing in her most intimate places until her shock turned to wonder and pleasure.

  “Tell me to slow down, or tell me to stop,” he got out. “I will. It may kill me, but I will…”

  The fierce, male passion in his face should have frightened her, and perhaps it did, somewhere, but it seemed she trusted him more, for even the short pain, the strange stretching of her body was part of the wonder and somehow added to her blind desire. For the caresses of his hands and mouth, the movements of his body were all miraculously, deliciously tender. He was so gentle compared with the wild ferocity of his eyes, that she got lost in curious new delight. She held on to him, following him, until her body seemed to act on its own, undulating with him. She kissed him, bit his shoulder in this shock of need until waves of bliss began to grow out of it and consume her, building and flooding within her until there was only joy.

  And in the midst of that, the sound of Javan’s ecstatic release powered through her and made her weep with love.

  At some point after he collapsed upon her and they lay in a tangle of tingling limbs and soft, linen sheets, his lips found the wetness on her cheeks.

  “Oh, my darling,” he whispered, stricken, “what have I done?”

  She clung to him. “Made me the happiest woman who ever lived. I never dreamed you would be so gentle… Will it always be like this?”

  His relief turned quickly into something much more sensual and predatory. “Never exactly like this. I have much to show you, and much I hope you will show me.”

  “Oh my,” she said weakly.

  He moved, laying his head on her breasts. She stroked his hair languidly, lost in sheer feeling.

  “Javan?”

  “Mmm.” He nuzzled her softly.

  “Do you know,” she said, a trifle breathless all over again, “I think we have made this a happy house.”

  “I hope so.”

  “I think we can make it happier yet,” she said confidently.

  And they did.

  The Wicked Spy

  Blackhaven Brides

  Book 7

  Mary Lancaster

  Chapter One

  Being an ambitious man, Henry Harcourt always entered his neat London house with faint dissatisfaction. He disliked its modest size and unfashionable location. This evening, however, he had more important matters on his mind—matters, which might, in fact, lead to promotion and a larger house before too much longer.

  His heart lifted as always at the sight of his wife, Lady Christianne, descending the narrow stairs to greet him. He had married well above his own rank, his wife being the sister of the Marquis of Tamar. Although she was penniless, that had never concerned him, for his was a love match.

  Striding to meet her, he realized belatedly that the lady approaching him was not his wife but her twin sister. The twins shared the same petite, delicate figures, raven locks, and lustrous, dark brown eyes. Their beauty was almost ethereal. But there, all similarities ended.

  Although most people thought them identical, Henry rarely confused them, even at a distance, for Anna lacked Christianne’s impulsive warmth and sweet disposition. Anna walked with icy poise, her eyes veiled and watchful, her beautiful face betraying little except bored amusement at life. With her sharp perception and caustic tongue, she was one of the most intimidating women Henry had ever met.

  She was not an entirely comfortable house guest either. On the other hand, she had proven surprisingly useful to him in his work, and she was just the person he needed to see this evening.

  “Ah, Anna. Come into the study, if you please.”

  For an instant, her eyes betrayed a spark of interest that was almost relief, but she merely inclined her head, and obligingly followed him into his tiny study.

  Henry wasted no time on pleasantries. “Are you on visiting terms with your brother?” He squeezed behind the desk which was really too large for the room.

  “God, no,” Anna replied with revulsion. “Which brother?” she added as an afterthought.

  “Your eldest brother, Lord Tamar.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind him. But I can’t imagine his wealthy new wife condescending to our Kensington hovel.”

  Ignoring her slur upon his home, Henry corrected her. “No, I wish you to visit him up in Cumberland. At Braithwaite Castle.”

  “Why the devil would I do that?”

  Henry frowned. Like Christianne, Anna had grown up wild with little company but her siblings and she clearly saw no reason to mind her tongue with family. “Find your own reasons,” he said curtly. “He is newly married, that should be enough. I want you there because it is a mere ten miles from the Black Fort which houses French prisoners of war.”

  That caught her attention. “Go on.”

  “In October, an attempt was made to blow up the fort. It was foiled, and the French agents captured or killed. But such a strange act drew the fort to my attention. Why pick on such an obscure prison? Who were they trying to rescue? The men we captured had no idea or weren’t telling. So, I’ve been looking into the inmates and discovered this man.”

  He took a sheaf of papers from the inside of his coat and pushed them across the desk to Anna. “Captain Armand L’Étrange. A man of the same name and the same regiment died at Salamanca. I know because a report was made of his bravery.”

  “Then who is this?” Anna enquired, flicking through the papers.

  “Whoever he is, he surrendered in Spain at the beginning of this year without much struggle and has given no trouble since. I have reason to believe he is Colonel Delon, the commander of all Bonaparte’s spies—under Bonaparte himself, of course. An intimate—or at least a past tool—of the likes of Fouché and Talleyrand, the one-time ministers of police and foreign affairs.”

  Anna cast him a skeptical glance. “What reason could you possibly have for so wild a guess?”

  “Well, it is a guess,” Henry admitted, “for we have no physical description of Delon. He was never a very visible commander. But, according to a spy of our own, about a year ago, there was some kind of purge in the ranks of the French police, with several of their spies being killed, or given away to whichever enemy would deal with them. No one has seen or mentioned Delon since, so we think he was pushed out, forced into hiding. He was last heard of in January, in Spain. I imagine his lifespan would have been severely curtailed had he returned to France. He must have a head full of information, dangerous to a lot of powerful people.”

  “And so, he pretended to be this L’Étrange and gave himself up to us? A rather drastic move, is it not?”

  “Perhaps,” Henry agreed. “But our man placed this Delon within a few miles of where the supposed L’Étrange was captured. It seems likely Delon surrendered in disguise, and as a result, no one has ever asked him to betray anything. But can you imagine how useful his knowledge would be to us?” He smiled faintly. “And this is where you come in, my dear. I would like you to visit the prison, in charitable spirit, and make friends with the man. Help him escape, find out what you can and bring him to me.”

  Her face did not change, yet Henry knew that she was pleased. Her very stillness betrayed her excitement.

  “To bring such a man to the British side…” she mused. “It would surely help end the war. And it would be quite a feather in your cap, would it not?”

  “And in yours,” Henry said steadily. “If you succeed. But make no mistake, Anna. This man is dangerous, and not only for what he knows. They say he was once a mere spy himself and rose to control the whole of Bonaparte’s secret police system under the likes of Fouché. He couldn’t have done that without being highly intelligent, devious, and utterly ruthless.”

  Anna smiled and rose to her feet. “Then surely we are well matched. If you procure me a seat, I shall leave on the early mail coach.”

  *

  Two days later, Lady Anna Gaunt stepped down from her hired chaise. The impressive front door of Braithwaite Castle was already open and a very superior butler regarded her from the top s
tep.

  “Be so good as to pay the post boy, if you please,” she said carelessly, mounting the steps. “And announce me to Lord and Lady Tamar.”

  Both instructions appeared to bewilder the butler, though not enough to remove him from her path.

  “What name shall I say, madam?” he enquired, making no effort to attend to the impatient postillions who were anxious to return to Carlisle.

  Anna gazed at the butler as though astonished. “Lady Anna Gaunt, of course. Lord Tamar is expecting me.”

  His surprise at least enabled her to sail past him into the house, although he recovered quickly.

  “This way, if you please, madam,” he said repressively, and led her across the vast hall and oak staircase to an uninspiring reception room. “I’ll see if her ladyship is at home.”

  Anna allowed herself to look slightly offended. “His lordship should have had my letter a week since,” she observed. “I cannot be above a few minutes later than I intended.”

  The butler merely bowed and went on his stately way.

  In truth, Anna was not remotely offended since she hadn’t written to anyone, and the butler was only doing his duty, preserving his masters from uninvited hoi polloi. Her departure from London had been sudden, her journey north urgent and appallingly uncomfortable, though she had no intention of advertising the fact.

  The reception room was small and somewhat soulless, though perfectly decorated. It had struck her, on first approaching the castle, that it resembled her own home, Tamar Abbey—another medieval pile. However, the nearer she approached, the fewer were the resemblances. Both the older and newer parts of Braithwaite Castle were clearly in excellent repair, the estate in which it was set well-cared for and prosperous. Here, the best was obviously made of a difficult and wild landscape. And the question uppermost in Anna’s mind remained, what on earth had possessed the Earl of Braithwaite to marry his very eligible sister to Anna’s entirely ineligible brother? The advantages were all clearly Rupert’s, and Anna was likely to be merely the first of her siblings to take advantage.