Blackhaven Brides (Books 5–8)

by Lancaster, Mary

  He closed the door softly behind him and looked around. Several doors led off the main sitting room, to bedchambers. And in the sitting room, pride of place had been given to a large table in the middle of the floor. Six chairs surrounded it, and at each place had been set a neat sheaf of blank paper, an ink stand and several pens.

  A room for work, not relaxation.

  Louis swiftly checked the furniture in each room, but the desks, chests of drawers, wardrobes, and night stands were all empty, with no obvious space for any secret compartments.

  He stood by the central table, frowning. The setting up of this room was a minor matter for a squad of well-trained servants, the work of minutes. There was nothing here to cause the kind of resistance offered to the Bradleys yesterday evening. These rooms could easily have been theirs, and the mirror set at the other end of the passage quickly prepared for the other guests.

  Unless there was something he was not seeing. The secret was not in the furniture, so it had to be in the room itself. In the walls…

  The sitting room walls were lined with wood paneling that made it quite difficult to make out the bedchamber doors in poor light. Louis went to the outside walls and peered closely, raising his candle to check every inch he could reach.

  The tiny hole was almost invisible, like a dark spot in the grain of the wood, but it was enough clue for Louis, who began to push at the wood paneling around it until with a sudden click, a door opened inward.

  Beyond was a dark, narrow passage that had to run between the walls. Louis entered. As he pulled the secret door closed behind him, he found a lever that obviously opened it from the passage side. He found the tiny hole which had first drawn his attention to the panel and put his eye to it. It gave him a fine view of the sitting room.

  Turning, he followed the passage along to some roughly cut stairs leading downward, along another short passage and up a shorter set of stairs that came to a dead end.

  But no, another wooden lever, similar to the one at the other end of the passage, only smaller, stuck out above his head. When he pulled it, a trap door unlocked, and Louis, suddenly, could smell horses.

  Warily pushing up the trap door, he climbed out. He was in a stall of the hotel stables.

  This was the reason those particular rooms were being reserved, presumably, at the hotel owner’s discretion. The occupants would have a secret way out, if necessary. A way to avoid unwelcome visitors or even to spy on those one had invited.

  Louis blew out his candle and left the stables. Dawn was breaking, and the stable boys would soon be out and about. It was time to walk up to Braithwaite woods and meet Anna.

  The passage was an interesting discovery, but one he decided not to share with her yet. At least, not until he had discovered who she truly was. Not until she was won. Excitement stirred in the pit of his stomach. Oh yes, it was time.

  *

  Anna woke the following morning, full of both excitement and certainty. The way Louis had looked at her last night, the way he had just stood silently by her side as she gazed out of the window… He was ready to eat out of her hand. A kind word, a kiss, and she would win. She felt in her bones how close she was. The victory, as well as the prospect of the kiss, made her heart drum.

  When she opened the curtains, the bright beauty of the land under snow added to her anticipation. Like a child, she wanted to go out and play in it, be the first to make her footprint in the pristine whiteness.

  She dressed in the dark riding habit as usual, though as a concession to the cold, she donned a dark red military-style spencer under her cloak. She used only the hood of the cloak to cover her hair and sallied forth.

  She could hear the sounds of servants moving around various parts of the castle, cleaning and setting fires, carrying water and preparing breakfast. She left by one of the quiet side doors and walked through the crisp snow, leaving a trail that would be easy for anyone who cared to follow. It didn’t matter. By the time she returned, she expected her business to be completed. She would travel back to London with him…in separate vehicles, of course, but she could rely on him, surely, to go there just to meet her. If she promised enough.

  The snow seemed to muffle all the usual sounds of early morning. All she could hear was the crunch of snow under her boots. Her breath streamed out in front of her.

  As she entered the woods, a bird flapped above her, dislodging some snow from a tree branch that scattered over her head and shoulders. The woods looked different, the paths hidden, the trees white and silvery like some magical land in a fairytale.

  Coming upon the fallen tree, she brushed a patch of snow off it with her gloves and sat there to wait for him.

  What if he doesn’t come, and I’m wrong about everything?

  I’m not wrong. I’m not.

  She could hear him, the faint crunch of snow, the rustle of brushed branches. At least she hoped it was him. Her fingers strayed to the stiletto, not in her gloves today but in a different pocket in the folds of her habit.

  But it was Louis who wandered through the trees, moving easily and without hurry, as if he, too, was enjoying the first snow of the winter. He wore his gentleman’s morning clothes, buff pantaloons and a blue coat beneath his open greatcoat. He carried his hat, and his dark blond hair had fallen forward over his forehead. He looked boyishly handsome, almost angelic—which he was not.

  “Anna.”

  She stood, meaning to go to meet him as she had planned, but he increased his pace, catching her before she had taken more than a step, and taking both her hands. As she looked up at him, smiling, her hood fell back, barely covering her head at all. She thought it would make a charming image, and he appeared to agree.

  “How beautiful you look in the snow,” he said softly. He stood so close that his breath mingled with hers in the cold air. “My enemy, my ally.”

  Her heart thudded. Now was to be her moment. Not later in the hour, when she would have grown more used to his nearness. “I don’t want to be your enemy, Louis,” she whispered.

  His fingers slid up to her wrists, gently caressing. “Then don’t be. Trust me.”

  “I do trust you. I’m meeting you here, alone, am I not?” She shivered as his hands moved up to her shoulders, warm and heavy. But she felt no panic, only a thrill of anticipation.

  “Why?” he asked. “Because you care for my wellbeing? Because you are drawn to me as I am to you?”

  “Yes,” she admitted. The truth was no longer so hard to say.

  His arm went around her, pulling her against him, his palm flat against her back. His other hand caressed her arm, brushed against her waist. Everything about him was hard, strong, and yet it was his gentleness that beguiled her.

  “What shall we do, Anna?” he murmured, inhaling the scent of her hair. “Is there a way forward for you and me? Together?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “There has to be. Louis—”

  Too late, she felt the soft play of his fingers dip suddenly into the folds of her gown, not in a bold caress, but to withdraw the stiletto from its hiding place. She made one instinctive move to snatch it from him, and then was still, for his expression had not changed. Neither his face nor his voice threatened her. And yet for the first time, he did not veil the fierce intelligence in his eyes. Her stomach dived with sudden fear.

  “Did you come to kill me, Anna?” he asked evenly.

  She shook her head, blindly. He’d always known about the weapon, watched the movement of her hands whenever she felt unsure or threatened.

  “I needed to protect myself,” she whispered, raising her face closer to his. She didn’t know if she was fighting now for his trust or for her own life. “You must understand that. I need to protect us. Louis, tell me everything. We have to go now to safety, to save you and to end the war. Nothing else matters.”

  “Do you believe you and I can do such things?” he asked.

  “If we save you, it is a start. I feel it.” Her heart pounded. Their lips were so close she
could taste his breath—coffee and a faint, fresh tang of herbs. “We can be together, Louis. Kiss me and you will know. Kiss me and come with me. It is the only way for us.”

  His hand slid into her hair, pushing the hood aside to cup the back of her head. “There is another way. I will not argue the kiss, but trust must begin with you. You must tell the truth.”

  His eyes were warm, his breath unsteady. Whatever was happening to her, she was still winning. She could agree to anything. One kiss would reel him in completely.

  “I have always told you the truth,” she whispered. “You will see.”

  His lips quirked and he angled his head, closing the last hairsbreadth between them. His mouth covered hers and parted her lips. Wonder, not panic, filled her, for this was gentle, too, his lips moving on hers in a soft, sensual caress. And then his mouth clung and sank into hers, and she gasped in shock as waves of emotion flooded her, battering her like a stormy sea.

  There was no escaping it, for his hand behind her head held her steady. His other arm crushed her to his body as the stiletto fell into the snow, and the kiss went on and on, a tender tangle of lips and tongues, blinding, terrifying in its sweetness, utterly overpowering her.

  For a long, long, moment, she didn’t even know she had lost, so overcome was she by this new pleasure. And then she knew. She understood the feeling at last.

  She cared. And she could not hurt someone she cared for. Worse, she knew she had betrayed the fact with her devastated lips, as surely as if they had spoken the words.

  A tear squeezed out the corner of her eye and trickled down her cheek.

  One kiss and everything changed. It bound her, defeated her, and now only the truth would do.

  His fingers caressed her throat and cupped her cheek as slowly, gradually, he detached his mouth from hers. “Who are you, Anna?” he said huskily.

  “I’m Anna Gaunt,” she whispered. “And my brother-in-law, Henry Harcourt, sent me to help you escape the fort. You did that without me…”

  “And what exactly is Henry Harcourt?”

  “He has a position at the foreign office, is building himself a unique career in finding information no one else can. I help him.”

  “Does he pay you?”

  “When he can. I do it for fun, mostly.”

  “I hope I am the most fun.”

  A laugh that was more like a sob broke from her. “You are the most of everything. I’ve failed and I don’t even care.”

  To her surprise, his head dipped and he kissed her again, when there was no need, when she was already won. Daringly, because she would never have another chance, her hand crept up to touch his cheek.

  “It’s gone beyond success and failure, winning and losing,” he said against her lips. “Who is Banion?”

  She drew back, frowning. “Banion? What has he to do with anything?”

  He smiled, and she knew she had said something that pleased him. “Something more important than our little game is happening here, something I suspect threatens both our countries. Banion is Gosselin, my enemy and yours.” The smile faded as he touched her cheek. “Why so stricken, Anna? Do you care for him, after all?”

  She blinked. “Banion? I barely noticed him. You suspected me, used me all along.” I thought you liked me. I thought you were different.

  “I have been doing this a long time,” he said. “Too long.”

  “Doing what?” she asked. Stupidly, she felt like weeping. She, who never wept.

  “Asking questions, listening, learning, playing so many roles that there is no longer any difference between them and me. They are all part of me. I cannot even wish to be different any more, and I certainly don’t wish you to be.” He bent, brushing his cool lips against hers. “You are magnificent, Anna Gaunt, and I wish you were mine.”

  She pushed him away. “Who is pretending compassion now?” she snapped. “I do not need it. And I can still have you arrested.”

  “But you won’t,” he said with so much certainty that her fist clenched. “Because, like me, you have to know how this ends.”

  Her brow twitched. “This? Do you mean Banion? Or you and I?”

  “All of it.”

  She drew in a shuddering breath. She felt as if the earth she stood on was sinking, that all the foundations she had so carefully built for her life, had crumbled. Because of him. And yet, he had not hurt her, had not taken her information and run, safe in the knowledge that she would not betray him. He had not even taken advantage, beyond the kiss she had offered, and those she had allowed for reasons she couldn’t fathom save for the fact that they were sweet and thrilling. And she had always craved thrills. She had just never found them in a man before.

  “You’re cold,” he said, pulling her cloak more closely around her. He bent and retrieved the fallen stiletto and unerringly returned it to the pocket in her habit. A smile twisted his lips. “Madam, will you walk? Madam, will you talk with me?”

  Chapter Eleven

  A beam of pale sunshine filtered through the trees. The whiteness seemed to fold them into their own isolated world.

  “Did you know?” she asked. “Did you know all you had to do was kiss me?”

  “All? I would like to do a great deal more. But if you had not invited me, I doubt I would have gone even that far.”

  “You said we could be friends,” she recalled. “But…you do not like me in that way?”

  He looked startled. “Oh, I like you in every conceivable way there is. It was not my preference that concerned me but yours.”

  “I thought you knew I liked you.” Somewhere, she couldn’t quite believe she was having this conversation.

  He shrugged. “I knew you were not indifferent. I am observant… And I confess I felt your pulse to see if your reaction was genuine. For at other times, you avoid me and flinch.”

  Warm blood seeped into her cold face. “I do not like to be touched.”

  “Which made it hard to seduce you.”

  “I am still not seduced,” she said hastily.

  His eyes laughed though his voice was grave. “Quite right,” he said outrageously. “It gives me something to aim for.”

  “And allows me another chance to win,” she suggested, and this time he laughed out loud, and lifted her fingers to his lips.

  “I look forward to that… You do not flinch anymore.”

  “I am used to you,” she said at once.

  The smile in his eyes began to fade and she looked away.

  “Did something happen to you, Anna?”

  “To me…to all of us, through me.” She turned suddenly, hitting him in the chest with her clenched fist. “Stop it!”

  He caught her hand and held it there. “Stop what?”

  She could not look at him. “Stop…working on me. I will not tell you this.”

  Beneath her hand, his heart beat strongly, steadily. “You need tell me nothing. But there is no working with you, Anna.”

  Slowly, she raised her eyes to his face. “Why not?”

  “Because we are not objects, machines to be switched off and on. And I care for you.”

  Almost unable to help it, she let her cheek fall against his chest. His arms came around her and held her.

  “You have not lost, Anna,” he whispered into her hair. “God help me, I have not won unless—” He broke off on a hiss of laughter. “But there, there are some things a man like me cannot win from a marquis’s daughter.”

  She understood what he meant. She had been around men enough, flirted with them enough, to know. But the disgust that normally came with such recognition seemed to be absent. It did not fit him.

  Her arms lifted, tentatively embracing him. “A man like you is not the problem,” she said into his coat. “A woman like me, is. And I do not mean my family’s rank.” Her fingers curled in the hair at the back of his neck. “I cannot give you what you want.”

  Instead of stepping away, his arms tightened. She should have felt threatened, but she didn’t. She fel
t…safe.

  “And yet,” she said with something like awe, “And yet, I confess I am…curious.”

  She felt the stretch of his lips against her hair as he smiled. “Let us settle for curious,” he said. “For now.”

  In a little, they walked on again. Anna did not feel at all as if she was with a dangerous French spy who had just extracted from her the admission of her work for Henry and the Foreign Office, to say nothing of the more personal. She felt as if she were walking in the snowy woods with her lover, her suitor. Which was ridiculous in so many ways it was laughable. And yet, it was undeniably blissful.

  He said, “Someone is coming to Blackhaven. Someone important is coming secretly to the hotel. I got into the reserved rooms. The bedchambers are all made up, and the sitting room is set with a table and lots of blank paper and pens. More than that, it is my belief someone is also going to Roseley, where your friend, Mrs. Alban—”

  “Mrs. Lamont,” Anna corrected. “Alban is her husband’s Christian name.”

  “Mrs. Lamont,” he allowed, “seems to be preparing for an important visit, too. I think Gosselin is here for that meeting—to protect it, to disrupt it, I don’t know which. I do know it’s more important to him right now than I am.”

  “We could have him arrested,” Anna suggested. “I’m sure it would be easy enough to convince Mr. Winslow.”

  “Or I could kill him,” Louis said brutally. “Either way, it would stop him. Only…”

  “Only what?”

  “What if he is doing something right? What if stopping him is the wrong thing to do?”

  Anna stared at him. “Are you and I likely to agree on the right and wrong?”

  “No,” he admitted. “But it would help both of us to know. Can you find out from your brother-in-law who is meeting in Blackhaven?”

  This, of course, was what he needed to know. Perhaps she should have been hurt, but the boundaries between the personal and the professional had become so blurred that she simply accepted that they both needed the answer to his question.

  “Henry doesn’t know anything about it,” she said impatiently. “Even if the meeting had been arranged after I left, he would have found a way to tell me if he knew it. But…Henry is only building his empire. He does not yet hold a senior post. And if this meeting is as important as you think, and as secret as you think, then it could easily happen without his knowledge.”