That had been his mother’s life. It would never be Linnet’s. Not while he breathed.
Forcing his fingers to uncurl, his jaw to ease, he slowly lifted his hands and gently closed them about her arms, simply held her and looked into her eyes. “You’re irritated, annoyed—and you’ve already countered any argument I might make that you ought to have guessed what my intentions were, any righteous assertion that as a gentleman I’d never have slept with you—continued to make love to you—if my intentions hadn’t been honorable—”
Eyes sparking, she opened her mouth—
“No—it’s your turn to listen.”
Reluctantly, all but smoldering, she subsided.
“You countered those arguments before I made them because you’ve already thought back and realized that, all along, I could have been intending marriage—you just assumed I wasn’t.” He held her gaze. “But I was. As God is my witness, I never thought of making you my mistress—I don’t want you as that. I want you in my bed, but I also want to have breakfast with you, to spend my days, my time, with, you. I want to dine with you, to follow you on your rounds and check the doors after you, and follow you up the stairs to your bed.
“I want that as my life, my future. I told you I wanted to share my life with you, but I didn’t say anything about marriage because the fact that I might die, or be too seriously wounded to have a life to share, precludes that. You saw what I’m facing—the cult is determined to kill me and seize the scroll-holder. Until we reach the end of this, I can’t—in the traditional, honorable way can’t—make any formal offer for your hand.”
He dragged in another breath. “But I can tell you this—you are the woman I want to share the rest of my life with, whether you consent to marry me or not. I won’t willingly let you go, and while, as you’re so relentless in telling me, I can’t force you to stay with me, I can, and will, do everything I can to change your mind.”
Still holding her gaze, he drew her to him, slid his hands slowly around the silky comforter in which she was wrapped. Quietly stated, “I want you as my wife, to have and to hold, and never release from the day we exchange our vows.”
She blinked up at him. Watched as he bent his head to hers, but didn’t pull back, away.
He sensed in her gaze, in the uncertainty of her stance—her uncharacteristic indecision over whether to sink against him or hold rigid in his arms—that she was caught in emotional turmoil, too.
Unexpected turmoil. Matters between them were not proceeding as, apparently, either of them had thought.
The realization lent a grim edge to his voice as, letting his lips cruise her temple, he murmured, “I want you. I want a life with you, a traditional, time-honored married life with you—and I would prefer not to settle for anything less.” He paused, his breath fanning her cheek, then added, “I’ve been a soldier, a commander, all my adult life, and I’m going to fight for you. And win. I will push to win. Because, for me, there’s no other choice.” He bent the last inch and his lips, brushed hers. “You are my future, the only future I want.”
He kissed her, pressed his lips to hers and caressed. Gathered her closer, inexpressibly relieved when she permitted it—more, when she came. When she sank slowly against him and let him settle her there, her hips to his thighs, her taut belly cradling his arousal.
Arousing him even more.
He wanted her with a power, a force, a raw need that ripped at him. A need their discussion, her miscomprehension of his intentions, had only whipped to more raging heights.
But this wasn’t a battle that could be won with force and might, not with power. Only with persuasion.
So he set himself to persuade, to hold all the power, the force and raw might of his need in check—let her see it, sense it, know it was there, but that it was, for her, held at bay.
Held back so he could show her, demonstrate and reveal how real and vital, how vibrant and deep, was his ardor. His passion, his desire, his fathomless need of her, something that welled from his heart, not just his loins, that lived in his soul, not just his mind.
Linnet sensed the difference, his intent. Felt it in the heavy thud of his heart beneath the palm she placed, braced, on his chest. Sensed it in the way his lips moved on hers, enticing, beguiling, not seizing, not taking.
Knew it in the strength, masculine and demanding, yet tonight not commanding, that closed around her, surrounding her, but gently.
All but reverently.
And yet the passion built, the heat and the flames, until her own need rose. Until their lips turned greedy, hungry and needy, until their bodies yearned.
He released her and shrugged out of his shirt. She dealt with the buttons at his waist, then, as he stepped back to strip off his breeches, she dropped the counterpane, quickly flicked the ties at her throat free.
Naked, he gripped the nightgown, with quiveringly restrained care drew it off over her head.
Then he flung it away, reached for her, and she went into his arms.
Caught her breath as he lifted her, wound her legs about his waist, her arms about his neck and gasped, head back, as, slowly, he filled her.
Filled her until she was full and complete.
Held her in his arms while they both, for that magical instant, savored.
Then he tipped his head up and his lips found hers, and he kissed her and she kissed him back and clung as he moved her on him.
As he lifted her, drew her down, thrust in.
Their bodies strained to race, to plunge and plunder, yet he held them back. Even though the drumbeat of their mutual desire had escalated, even though, steady and relentless, it pushed them on, he still took his time, held their rhythm to a rigidly reined cadence, and showed her.
More.
Lavished feeling and sensation and delicious delight on her, on her body. Fed her whirling mind with another type of joy, communicated by his hands as they held her securely, by his body as he used it in myriad ways to please and pleasure her.
And she couldn’t fight this—couldn’t resist his lure. Couldn’t pretend she didn’t see, didn’t know, didn’t understand what he was doing, what he wanted her to see.
What he wanted her to want.
Him. Like this. For the rest of her life.
She could have told him she did, that that very need was a barb buried deep in her heart, in her soul. But she didn’t.
Head back, breathing labored, she shook free of all thought, gave herself up to the moment, and rode on through a landscape colored by sensation. He found her, snared her, pushed her up, quick and hard, to the peak of jagged desire, and she shattered in bright incandescence.
Even as, tumbling her back on the bed, he followed her down, then came inside her, hard and fast, deep and powerful, again, she couldn’t find the words, couldn’t grasp the essential meaning of what she should say.
What she could say, could tell him.
Instead, she let all inhibitions fall, joined with him and let him drive them on into a landscape richer, more vibrant, more brilliant, more intense—let all she felt free to well through her and meet all the passion, the desire, the need he let her see.
In that moment she accepted what lay between them—what he felt, what she felt, what together they had somehow created.
This was real.
Powerful, intense.
That reality was etched on his face as, head rising, he groaned as his body clenched, then shuddered with release.
She went with him, let the potent pleasure have her, shatter her, clung as together they flew.…
They drifted back to earth, locked in each other’s arms.
As he slumped, wracked and spent, upon her, as her arms closed around him and held him close, as her body welcomed his weight, his warmth, savored that incredible moment of closeness, she acknowledged this was right, that this was truth, that above all, this was their reality.
For tonight, knowing that, recognizing that, was enough.
Tomorrow, in the harsh light of a win
ter’s day, she would weigh, assess.
She would have to adjust.
Because this, and he, would never leave her. That much, she now understood.
Late at night
Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk
“So where do we really stand?”
In the bedroom Alex had chosen as theirs in the temporarily empty house tucked into the arches of the old abbey, ruins into which they’d moved that day, Daniel watched his lover pace.
They’d just parted from Roderick, who had reported that, with heavy snow now blanketing the region, the boy-thief Roderick’s man Larkins had inserted into Delborough’s household—now quartered at Somersham Place with the Cynsters—would have to wait for the drifts to decrease before delivering the scroll-holder to Larkins at nearby Ely Cathedral.
“Why so agitated?” Daniel bent to warm his hands at the fire. The house was still cold. Their people had been in residence for less than a day, not enough time for the fires to dispel the winter chill. “Delborough’s not going anywhere in this snow, and Larkins seems to have set up a reasonable scheme to get his hands on the colonel’s scroll-holder. We’ll just have to wait and see on that front. There’s nothing you or I can do to improve matters.”
Frowning, Alex bit a nail—never a good sign.
Inwardly Daniel sighed, and continued, his tone steady and reassuring, “Hamilton’s gone to ground and—given the weather—is unlikely to move north for a day or so. But when he does, we’ll know of it before he crosses the Thames. As for the other two … a rider just came in with news.”
As he’d known it would, the information captured Alex’s immediate attention.
Inwardly smiling, Daniel went on, “Monteith’s ship, the one he took from Lisbon, has failed to reach port. It’s believed to have been lost in a storm in the Channel.” Catching Alex’s pale eyes, Daniel smiled coldly. “I think we can assume that, one way or another, Monteith is feeding the fishes as we speak.”
Alex flashed a chilly smile in response, but didn’t cease pacing. “We’ve heard nothing more about Carstairs?”
“No, but that may be to the good. It gives us time to deal with the others without having yet another on the doorstep.”
Alex grimaced. “True.”
Daniel waited, quietly pointed, for some explanation of Alex’s continuing concern.
Alex waved. “It’s this notion of a puppetmaster. More than a notion—there is someone behind this, driving the entire scheme, and we don’t know who he is. That, my dear, is what’s worrying me. I hate not knowing who our opposition is.”
Halting, Alex met Daniel’s eyes. “As I said earlier, this puppetmaster is someone with real power.”
“You’re sure it’s not St. Ives?”
“Yes. If what Roderick says is true, it won’t be him. St. Ives is … a lieutenant, if you like. Which only underscores our puppetmaster’s standing. He commands at a very high level, and he’s somewhere around here.” Alex sat on the bed and frowned up at Daniel. “It’s worrisome, to say the least, that we now have someone of that caliber involved.”
Daniel left the fire. Halting before Alex, he wondered what the correct thing to say was.
Alex could be difficult. Against that, Alex was rarely wrong.
“Perhaps,” Daniel ventured, “either Delborough or Hamilton might lead us to this puppetmaster—after we relieve them of their scroll-holders, of course.”
“Of course.” Alex sighed and fell back across the bed. “I just wish I could feel more confident that Delborough is the one carrying Roderick’s letter. That way, once we seize it, we can depart this drab, dreary, and oh-so-damp place, and never need to tangle with the puppetmaster.”
“I thought”—Daniel leaned over Alex—”that you reveled in taking on challenges.”
Alex smiled up at him, pale eyes like winter ice. “Only when I’m sure of winning, my dear. Only then.”
Twelve
December 17, 1822
Paignton Hall, Devon
Linnet was late down to breakfast. When she reached the breakfast parlor, she discovered that the cause of her lateness had already broken his fast and gone out riding with Charles and Deverell.
“Of course,” Penny said, “while they carefully did not say so, they’re eager to see if they can find any cult people who might be watching this place.”
From her position at the head of the table, Phoebe smiled at Linnet. “Did you sleep well?”
The question might have been innocent, except for the twinkle in her hostess’s eye.
Luckily, the question was one Linnet could answer with perfect truthfulness. “Yes.” Sitting opposite Penny, she shook out her napkin, turned to thank the butler as he set a rack of fresh toast before her. Turning back to her newfound friends, she said, also perfectly truthfully, “I was so worn out, I slept like the dead.”
Penny chuckled. Phoebe grinned.
After completing the ritual of nibbling on toast and sipping tea—a ritual not that much different from Linnet’s habitual, breakfast at Mon Coeur—Phoebe and Penny declared they would help her pack, and then she could help them pack for themselves and their children.
They and their children kept her engaged and amused for most of the day, yet despite her involvement, again and again Linnet found her mind drifting to other matters. Personal matters.
Hardly surprising. Her impossible man was determined to marry her.
She hadn’t consciously thought of what his intentions had been, not until yesterday when the specter of him wanting her as his mistress had risen out of the revelation of his being an earl’s son, yet, contrary to what she’d allowed him to think, unconsciously she’d assumed marriage had been his goal.
Regardless, she hadn’t spent time considering the prospect because she’d been so sure they would part when he left Guernsey to pursue his mission, and the consequent separation would see the connection, and his impulse to marry her, wither and die. But now he’d taken her with him, and she’d decided—felt compelled—to remain by his side, no immediate separation was likely, and far from withering and dying, what had grown between them was deepening and burgeoning and growing ever stronger.
Sitting polishing her knives and cutlass on the window seat in her room while Phoebe and Penny sorted through the clothes—mostly theirs—they felt she should take, Linnet grappled with that fact. With the direction Logan had reiterated that morning in forceful, undeniable, senses-scrambling fashion. He was fixed on marrying her, and wasn’t merely in earnest, but determined, dogged, and as stubborn as she.
Most ladies would be in alt, delirious with delight, yet … she was who she was, and she’d given up all thoughts of marriage, laid all hope of it aside years ago. She was, after all, the virgin queen in her domain; she’d seen no way of marrying while retaining both the responsibility and the ability to act that was her birthright.
And it was that—the difficulties that arose from being a virgin queen—that Logan was challenging. She suspected he knew it, too. It was a question of power and command, and the wielding of both was something he understood, something of which he had long and real experience.
He was, in effect, challenging her. To reassess, to rethink. To explore. To take the risk.
What if she married him? Could a marriage between them work?
How could she know? How could she tell?
Yet the answer was vital, and not just to her. Her whole household, her wards, all who sailed for Trevission Ships, would be affected if things went wrong.
That was one great unknown. Another hurdle was, to her at least, utterly obvious. She might have been born a lady—indeed, she could correctly claim to be the Honorable Linnet Trevission—yet her life had never been that of a lady, certainly not the sort to marry the son of an earl.…
Even as her mind stalled, Penny came over, Linnet’s leather breeches in her hands.
“I am still insanely jealous, but at least I’ll shortly have a pair of my own. I wasn’t sure if you roll the
m or fold them to pack.”
“Roll.” Linnet took them and showed her. “The fewer creases you put in them, the longer they’ll last.”
They chatted for some minutes about the care of fine leather, what to do, what to avoid, then Phoebe called.
“Linnet, come and decide what gown you’ll wear tomorrow.” Staring at the options laid upon the bed, Phoebe frowned. “I was wondering if there’s any way you might wear your cutlass, but disguise it.”
Even as they assessed the possibilities, Linnet’s reservation over not being the right sort of lady for Logan resonated in her head.
Finally, she sat on the bed and looked up at Phoebe and Penny. “Tell me—before you were wed, was there ever any, time when you wondered if you were … I can’t think how to put this, but enough of a lady for him?”
Both Phoebe and Penny looked at her, then, sobering, sank down onto the counterpane.
“For me,” Penny said, “it wasn’t so much that. I’m the daughter of an earl, and I’ve known Charles all my life. We moved in the same social circles and our families were close. It wasn’t anything social that was my problem—it was more if I was woman enough to accept all of him, all the parts he’d kept hidden from us all, not just me, but his whole family. It was like trying to embrace a man where half of him remained permanently in shadow. I wondered, at the time, whether I could be strong enough to see him all, know him all, and yet continue to love him all—not just the laughing buccaneering adventurer that anyone with eyes can see, but the devoted and deadly spy beneath.” She paused, and an expression Linnet could only define as serene joy passed over her features as she smiled. “But I discovered I was strong enough, and I’m still reaping the rewards.”
“Hmm.” Phoebe tapped her chin. “I did wonder at the time if I was suitable—suitably suitable, I suppose you might say. I was already immersed in the agency, it took up most of my time, and I’d convinced myself that marriage was not for me.” She smiled, the expression as joyous as Penny’s. “Deverell convinced me otherwise, but I can see parallels with your situation.” Phoebe met Linnet’s eyes, understanding in hers. “The thing one needs to remember is, while we may not be the most conventional of ladies, they are, indubitably and indisputably, not conventional gentlemen.”