The Spy’s Convenient Bride: The Macalisters, Book Five

by Taylor, Erica

  “We could just kill him in his sleep,” the second man said.

  Vivian gasped. “That seems awfully cruel. Would you really kill a man in his sleep?”

  The first man frowned at his friend. “Bart, you wouldn’t, right? That seems like a step too far.”

  “Nate, be quiet!”

  Vivian realized something, as she watched the two exchange intense whispers. If anything, these two were not much older than university age. They were just boys, pretending to be highwaymen. The pistol wasn’t likely even loaded.

  She glanced again at Mr. Quan. His shoulders had relaxed, as he had likely come to the same conclusion.

  “Right, you can have the carriage, but you’ll have to wait until he awakes,” Vivian said, cutting into their argument. “Until then, we will have to occupy ourselves.” She gathered her skirts and crossed the road to the carriage. She pulled the basket of breads and jam from the inside the carriage and closed the door.

  Vivian turned towards Bart and gave him her best look of friendly concern. “Are you hungry? If you are insistent upon robbing us, you will have to wait until my brother wakes. Until then, you are welcome to share what is packed in this basket.” Without waiting for a reply, she set off across the road, leaving the two “highwaymen” with mouths gaping wide. At least, she imagined their mouths were gaping, but their faces were still covered with handkerchiefs, so she could only hope.

  “Nate and Bart, come along! I’d hate to be eaten by something in this forest.”

  “There isn’t anything in this forest to worry about,” Nate insisted, catching up to her. He’d pulled the handkerchief from his face.

  “There could be bears,” Vivian stated. “Or lions!”

  Bart fell into step beside her. “Nonsense, miss, there are no lions or bears in England.”

  “Just because you haven’t seen one doesn’t mean they are not here, hiding,” Vivian stated in complete seriousness, though she knew there were no bears. She just needed to keep these two spinning in circles until she could divine a way out of this mess.

  She gave Mr. Quan a half smile and a wink as she passed him. “Please join us, Mr. Quan. I suspect his nap might drag out for hours.”

  Mr. Quan nodded, but she could see amusement race through his eyes. She started down the embankment towards the field spread with wildflowers. The more she could keep the two on their toes and preoccupied, the longer she could give herself time to work her way out of this.

  * * *

  It was true, Luke slept like the dead. He also woke like the dead.

  He stretched his arms over his head, yawning and scratching at the side of his face, and other ungentlemanly places on his body.

  The realization that the carriage was not moving came a few moments later as the light began to penetrate his sleepy stupor.

  Had they arrived in Bath? he wondered. No, they wouldn’t arrive until dark.

  Luke snapped awake, realizing Vivian was not in the carriage with him either.

  He descended from the carriage, assessing his surroundings while taking in a few facts.

  Quan was no longer atop the carriage.

  They’d stopped in the middle of a wide road, with nothing to see in either direction.

  Two horses were tethered near the top of a sloping hill.

  It was certainly not Bath.

  He could hear light feminine laughter followed by male voices.

  Luke stormed ahead, following the sound of the voices across the road, down the hill and to the edge of a field where Vivian sat atop a fence, two men beside her. Quan stood a few paces away from her, leaning against the fence as he enjoyed a piece of jam slathered bread.

  Vivian was smiles and laughter, no bonnet, bright auburn hair pulling from her coiffure, dancing in the breeze. And she was awfully familiar with the two men at her side.

  He stormed forward, grasped Vivian by her hips and lifted her down to the ground. Rounding on the two men, Luke maneuvered Vivian behind him in one swift motion.

  “Steady on!” one man said, taking a step back from Luke.

  Vivian tried to step around him, but he blocked her with his arm.

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous!” Vivian snapped and ducked under his arm. “It’s about time you woke up!”

  Her chastising tone made him pause. What had happened while he was asleep?

  “Why have we stopped?”

  “These are two new friends, Bart and Nate,” she told him. “Boys, this is my husband-to-be, the Earl of Kenswick.”

  “Husband?” the one called Nate asked in surprise.

  “You said he was your brother,” Bart added.

  Vivian shrugged. “You were highwaymen trying to rob us. Had I told you he was an earl you might have gotten violent. You were waving your pistol rather indelicately.”

  Pistol? Highwaymen? Luke looked around to Quan for an explanation, but all his friend could do was shrug.

  “What are you talking about?” Luke sputtered.

  “It’s simple,” Vivian explained. “We’d stopped for a moment so I could get some fresh air. Nate and Bart came upon us and attempted to rob us. I handled them rather spectacularly and no one was shot, thank goodness. But they really weren’t highway robbers, you see, they’d just been wanting to give us a scare. It was a lark. When they realized I was not believing it, they came clean, and we’ve been chatting ever since. And Mr. Quan has not let me out of his sight.”

  Luke glanced between the two men, realizing they were rather young. He narrowed his eyes at the one she’d called Bart.

  Vivian continued to chatter. “Did you know Bart is good at arithmetic? Give him a problem and he can solve it in his head! Isn’t that marvelous! And Nate has a lovely singing voice.”

  Luke’s eyes narrowed as he regarded the young man. There was something familiar about him. “Bartholomew Landow?”

  Bart’s eyes grew wide. “Uhm, no?”

  Luke grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and hauled him back up the hill to where their horses were tethered near the carriage.

  Bart struggled against Luke, trying to break free from his grasp. “Get off me!”

  Luke tossed him towards his horse. “Go home before I inform your father of this.”

  “You don’t know who I am!” Bart insisted.

  “You’re Bartholomew Landow, Viscount Landow’s son,” Luke stated. “And I know that because you are friends with my brother.”

  “Who are you then?” Bart demanded.

  “Luke Macalister,” he stated, happy to have his own name carry some weight and not just his new title.

  Bart’s face paled and Nate burst out laughing as he came up the bank, helping Vivian.

  Luke frowned at her hand pressed into Nate’s, not enjoying any part of this game.

  “You’re Nick Macalister’s brother?”

  “Yes. Now give me your name.”

  Nate shook his head.

  Taking a step forward, Luke’s voice dropped to something more threatening. “If my brother has told you anything about me, you should know I am not to be trifled with. I have means of finding your identity. You do not want me to do it my way, for I will tear your life apart.”

  “Nick said you were the nice one,” Nate insisted. “The funny one.”

  “Do I seem nice and funny now?”

  Bart and Nate glanced uncertainly at each other.

  “I am Nathaniel Briggsmore,” Nate said finally. “I’m the second son of the Earl of Notte.”

  Luke turned towards Bart. “If my memory is correct, Mr. Landow, you’ve already been punished for this same trick before? Would your father like to know about your return to highway assault?”

  “There was no assault!” Bart cried.

  “We just tried to scare you!” Nate insisted.

  “And I really wasn’t scared,” Vivian interjected.

  He glanced at her in disbelief.

  “We truly are sorry, Vivian,” Nate said, and Bart nodded.

  “E
nough,” Luke snapped, wanting to be done with this entire thing. None of it was funny. “She is Miss Burke to you, and when I marry her, she will be Lady Kenswick or ‘my lady.’ When you encounter her again do not presume to be so forward.”

  Luke could practically feel Vivian’s eyes rolling to the sky, but his little show wasn’t for her. These two pups clearly had too much energy and not enough to do.

  “I will not inform your fathers of this little endeavor, if you agree to never do this again. And don’t mention this encounter to anyone. Ever.”

  Nate and Bart didn’t wait to be told again. They were both on their horses with dust billowing up behind them as they tore down the lane before Luke could change his mind. At the very least, he’d been able to protect Vivian’s reputation. Traveling alone with him, without a chaperone, had not been one of his better ideas.

  Luke turned his glare on Quan.

  “Your anger is not with me,” Quan told him in Cantonese. “And your anger is not with her either.”

  Luke heard the words but didn’t want to think about the truth in them. “Was there really no danger?” he asked in the same language.

  Quan smirked. “Those boys were more in danger of falling in love with her than you are. And I did not let her out of my sight.”

  Luke held his gaze for a moment longer before looking away. “Please give me a moment alone with her.”

  “Take your time,” Quan replied with a wink and turned back down the hill. “I will fetch the basket, and weave myself a daisy head chain or something.”

  Luke turned on his heel and walked back to the carriage. He opened the door and motioned for Vivian to follow.

  She regarded him, her mouth agape. “What, pray tell, was all that about?”

  Luke didn’t answer, hoping she could not see his true displeasure of her actions.

  She crossed her arms over her chest, and her brow popped up in a defiant arch. “I am not getting inside the carriage until you explain your actions.”

  Luke laughed incredulously. “My actions are the ones that need questioning?”

  She stomped towards him, stopping when her toes nearly touched his. She tilted her head up to meet his gaze. “I am demanding an explanation for your ill treatment of those boys. And of Mr. Quan. Your tone with him just now was awfully cruel.”

  Luke pulled her to him, crushing his lips against hers, just wanting to feel her safe beside him. It had been jarring to wake up and have her gone, then to discover she’d high-tailed it after highwaymen—it would not do. He’d already lost one wife, and his brother’s betrothed. He should be able to keep this one safe, but her jumping into danger would not help.

  Vivian tensed for a moment under his kiss, but within a few heartbeats she relaxed into him, her arms winding around his neck, her mouth opening hotly for his. He backed her against the side of the carriage, hoping to show her his displeasure at her actions, how frustrated and terrified he’d been to find her gone. What came through in their kiss was likely something else.

  She was responsive, his bride-to-be, and he reveled in it. He thought her an innocent, but the way she responded to his kisses, the intensity that burned between them, he began to have his doubts. He didn’t mind either way, as whatever experiences she had before him were none of his business, but he was grateful for whatever she had taken from those experiences. She certainly knew how to heat his blood with a simple kiss.

  He pulled away from her, not moving further away than to lean back and stare her square in the eyes. “Do not ever confront highwaymen again.”

  The arousal drained from Vivian’s eyes, dousing the heat in his own blood as her gaze turned hard and cold.

  “You do not have the ability to dictate my actions,” she stated, her eyes narrowing, but she didn’t move out of his arms. “Despite my agreeing to be your wife, you will not own me.”

  Luke’s lips twitched, and though he knew it wasn’t a time to be funny he did so anyway. “Well, technically.”

  Vivian leaned closer, planting a kiss to his cheek before whispering, “Do not forget I grew up with four older brothers. I know many ways to hurt a man and will not hesitate to employ such tactics.” She set her thumb and forefinger against the fleshy part of his hand below his thumb and pressed.

  A shout of pain shot up through his arm and he yelped, yanking his hand away and staring at her in shock.

  Brows raised as if to say, “See? I told you so,” Vivian pressed another kiss to his cheek before stepping away from him.

  Luke felt his lips working into a smile, but he was far from amused. Intrigue washed over him, swirled with arousal and a pesky desire to let her walk all over him.

  “Vivian Burke,” he began, shaking out the pain in his hand. “You vex me in the most ardent way, and yet I have an inkling you were the very best person I could have asked to be my wife.”

  Vivian nodded in agreement. “Now that we have that out of the way, I will still need an explanation.”

  Chapter Five

  Vivian watched him carefully, reining herself under control. His eyes still danced with something that made her slightly giddy. It was either his kiss, or his dimple, or those damned curls atop his head, but he made her a little silly.

  “If you demand an explanation, it will happen after we reclaim our journey,” he stated. “We’ve wasted enough daylight loitering about. Please, let us be on our way.”

  “How are we to drive without a driver?”

  Luke glanced across the road where Quan had disappeared. “Quan will return in a moment. I suspect he’s been allowing us to discuss this privately.”

  Vivian knew she shouldn’t be put out with his irritation at her recklessness, but she really hadn’t seen another option. At the time she hadn’t known they were just pretending to be robbers. She’d really thought their lives were in danger. And he had been no help in the situation whatsoever.

  Luke held the carriage door open for her again, but she hesitated, though for no reason she could find. Simply because he seemed to expect her to jump to his every command and she refused to be that type of wife, or woman for that matter.

  “If you do not get inside on your own accord, I will toss you over my shoulder and do it myself.”

  Vivian should have been offended, or shocked at his barbaric threat, but the idea of his hands on her did things to her she did not want to think about.

  He moved before she could decide, and in one smooth motion she was lifted over his shoulder. Bracing her arms against his back, she wiggled and kicked in protest.

  “I will drop you, if you don’t quit,” he warned.

  “Put me down!”

  He did, on the floor of the carriage, after he gave her bottom a pat, laughing at her stunned expression.

  “I have never been so manhandled in my entire life!” Vivian declared, jutting her chin out. “You will not ever touch me like that again!”

  Luke pulled her ankles, so her legs were outside of the carriage and he stepped between them. The fabric of her skirts bunched against her core. He wrapped an arm around her back and pulled her against him.

  Vivian stopped breathing; the sudden nearness to him sent a shock through her. For propriety sake she did not want him to touch her like this, standing between her legs, but her own arousal towards him took precedence. What did propriety matter when she was to wed him anyway? She’d tossed propriety to the winds with the promise of a marriage proposal once before, but this time with Luke felt different. He was different than Lord Catfish had been, and this time in London would be different. She was different.

  “You don’t seem as though you want me to never touch you again.” His breath was hot against her neck.

  “Luke.” Her voice was a sultry needy version of itself, her own blood boiling with want for him to touch her, claim her, just not in the middle of the road.

  Resting her hands against his chest as he trailed kisses down the side of her neck, she pushed against him. “Please, stop.”

 
He pulled back; his gaze latched onto hers and searched for something. He likely saw more than she wanted to admit. Her attraction to him was nearly overwhelming. Part of her wanted to just get it over with, get him out of her system, but another smaller, wiser part warned against imbibing more than was necessary. Nothing good could come from falling further under his spell.

  He took a step away. “As you wish.” The physical distance was a welcome pause and she scrabbled back into the carriage before she could change her mind.

  Quan came strolling up the hill and crossed the road. He handed Luke the basket she’d forgotten by the fence and Luke tucked it into the space on the seat beside Vivian.

  With a nod to the coachman, Luke launched himself into the carriage and reclaimed the corner he’d fallen asleep in earlier. He lounged languidly across from her, appearing unaffected by the events of the afternoon.

  “Where did you learn to do that bit with my hand?” he asked.

  “A game with my brothers. They were much larger than me, so the only way I could get their attention or get them to stop picking on me were these little spots on their hands and joints. If applied a bit of pressure pain shot through them. My father taught it to me as a way to defend myself.”

  “Have you needed to defend yourself?”

  She hesitated to answer truthfully but shrugged away the question. “If I had, no one would admit to being bested by me.”

  Luke nodded but didn’t give further comment. His gaze fell out the window. The trees and meadows moved on as their carriage rolled on, continuing their journey without thought to what lay behind them.

  “There is one thing you must know about me.” Luke’s voice cut into the silence she had begun to feel comfortable with. He turned his head to regard her and she met his gaze. “I will not be able to reveal everything about myself, my activities, my position, or my actions. If it is something you need to know, I will inform you. Prepare yourself for the likelihood I will not be at liberty to discuss much of my life with you.”

  So much for the truth.

  “I don’t need the intricate details of your life, simply an explanation for your brutish behavior towards those two boys.”