She had absolutely no doubt that the cauldron of hungry awareness she’d sensed across the table had been an eruption of lust, both his and hers. It had definitely been lust that had burned in his eyes, lust that had heated her from the inside out.
Which, as she understood the matter, was by no means a bad thing. Her problem lay in having no idea how to take that lust and convert it into love.
From what she’d observed, that was, more or less, what happened; lust overtook couples, then, either simultaneously or arising out of indulging said lust, love blossomed and bloomed.
What she had yet to learn was how the transformation, connection, or whatever it was, occurred.
Admittedly, ignorance alone wouldn’t have done more than give her pause; if matters had been different, she would have been tempted to leap in with her usual confident abandon, commence her education, and trust that she would muddle through.
But the power of what had erupted between them had shaken her to her toes.
That was why she’d panicked.
The maelstrom that had manifested between them last night had been so turbulent and strong, so elementally powerful, she’d been instinctively sure that if it had broken loose, she—and possibly not even he—would have had any hope of controlling it.
People thought her impulsive, but she rarely leapt into situations she couldn’t control. And while she imagined that he, stronger and even more accustomed to exercising control, would have assumed he’d be in control, would he have been?
Admittedly he’d had sufficient control to allow her to escape, but if he’d seized her, kissed her? Would he have been able to hold the tide back then?
Regardless, the critical issue she now faced was whether she could risk not being in control if her aim was to take charge of their lust and convert it into love. How could she channel it, or influence it, if she couldn’t control it?
Her uncertainty sprang from her conclusion that she would have to accept the risk, or else risk running out of time.
She’d agreed to give him her response to his offer of marriage after he’d reclaimed the goblet and saved his clan; that translated to after the first of July. She now knew him well enough to guess that he would demand her answer by the second of the month at the latest, and neither he nor her family would readily countenance further delay.
Which meant that her window for inducing him to fall in love with her ran from now until then. But in a week’s time, he and she would reach his castle and have to deal with whatever waited for them there; she wasn’t silly enough to imagine that convincing his mother to return the goblet would require nothing more than her turning up and curtseying.
Once they reached his castle, he and she would have other matters demanding their attention, other issues claiming their minds.
Realistically, the best time for her to engage their combined lusts and shape them into love was from now until they reached the castle. During that period they wouldn’t have any other major distractions, any urgent calls on their attention. In Edinburgh they would be staying at his town house, and from Edinburgh to the castle they would be riding and stopping at inns every night.
All of which confirmed that she’d been correct in viewing the journey to the castle as a deity-given opportunity to draw closer to him; her mistake had been in assuming that “closer” had meant through talking.
Thinking over the whole, her resolve firmed. She’d recognized from the first, on that night she’d agreed to help him, that her way forward would require unconditional trust in love. It was time to stop being a control-coward, to trust in love and take the risk. A risk that, as she wanted him as her husband, she couldn’t avoid taking at some point.
Their future, the nature of their marriage, lay in her hands. It was time to act and move forward.
The coach had rumbled out of York long ago. They were bowling through darkness lit only by the faint glow cast by the carriage lamps. Mulley and Brenda had already settled, curled up in their respective corners, eyes closed; Mulley was softly snoring.
Beside her, Dominic was still awake. She didn’t need to look to know he was; she could sense his alertness, although it wasn’t focused, just there in case of need.
Midnight was upon them, the witching hour ahead.
She sat still for a moment more, letting sleep draw near, then she yawned, shifted, and drew up her legs, curling them on the seat and tipping sideways to pillow her head against his upper arm. “You don’t mind, do you?” she mumbled, then stifled another, perfectly genuine yawn. It truly had been a long day.
She felt him staring down at her, sensed his surprise, and perhaps a touch of suspicion, but she wasn’t the least surprised when he whispered, “No.” After a moment, he added, “Just sleep.”
Lips lightly curving, she relaxed against him, and did.
They reached Berwick at ten o’clock the following night.
Descending from the coach, Dominic walked to the inn’s open door, forcing himself to allow Angelica to trail after him. The impulse to escort her properly—so she was within his sight and reach—had only grown after the previous night.
In the small hours, he’d finally given into temptation and had lifted her until her hatted head had been pillowed on his chest, and in her sleep she’d curled against his side, then he’d put his arm around her, closed his eyes, and, to his surprise, had got a few hours’ decent sleep.
Other than that, however, he’d yet to decide how to react to her unexpected breaching of their invisible wall, or if, indeed, he should react at all. As an indication that she was willing to draw closer, it was all well and good, but was it enough of a declaration to be taken as an invitation to proceed to intimacy? He suspected not. Regardless, now was not the time for that.
Sitting alongside her as their group rapidly accounted for a supper of soup, bread, cold beef, ham, pickles, and assorted condiments, he pretended not to notice her thigh touching his.
Not that he moved away. Not that he imagined she didn’t know he felt every inch of the sleek feminine limb she pressed against him.
As usual, she ate less than anyone else, but politely filled the gap with conversation. “I have to admit I’ve had enough of traveling on the mail. I can’t wait to stretch out in a bed.”
He looked up and met her eyes as the others voiced their agreement. He swallowed, then said, “Sadly, we have one more night to endure.”
“Hmm.” She studied him. “As I’m the smallest of the group, I suppose I can’t complain—or at least not too loudly.” She allowed her gaze to sweep the others before returning to him. “I truly cannot imagine how you’re all faring, there being so much more of you than me.”
“Oh, it’s not that bad,” Brenda said, oblivious to the undercurrents on the other side of the table.
“For me,” Mulley said, “it’s that ‘one more night.’ I hold a vision in my mind of my bed at the Edinburgh house as incentive—as what I’ll have tomorrow night if I can just make it through tonight.”
The others all agreed.
“Edinburgh Mail! Passengers back on board, please. Hurry, now—we’ve a schedule to meet.”
With a sigh, they all rose, and after Dominic paid their shot, they trooped out and climbed back into the coach or clambered up to their seats on the roof. They’d dropped the pretence that they weren’t all one party after York.
He followed Angelica into the coach and sat beside her.
From being on tenterhooks at the Bull and Mouth, then living in expectation of running into some hurdle at every halt until Newark, once they’d reached York, he’d started to hope. Now, with Scotland three miles up the road, he was no longer concerned enough to growl at Angelica to keep her hat tilted down as she scanned the yard.
In the press and crush of the crowds around the coaches, in the yards, or in the taverns at which they’d stopped, no one had yet looke
d closely enough to detect the subtle differences, still vividly clear to his eyes and vibrantly apparent to his senses, that revealed her true gender.
With luck, they would make Edinburgh without leaving any trace.
Once they were away again, they all settled to get what sleep they could. Dominic waited only until Brenda’s and Griswold’s heads started to nod, then raised his arm, reached around Angelica—who, he was well aware, had been waiting for the gesture—and drew her against him again.
She came readily, sighed and curled close, settling under his arm.
Tipping his head back against the squabs, he closed his eyes.
Later—he didn’t know how much later—he heard her whisper, “Are you holding in your mind an image of your bed in Edinburgh as incentive for suffering through tonight?”
All but asleep, he tried to think, couldn’t, so answered truthfully. “Yes.”
She gave a little hum in her throat, patted his chest lightly. He heard the sultry, well-pleased smile in her voice as she confessed, “So am I.”
It took a full minute for the connection between her question, his answer, and her response to register. Abruptly awake again, opening his eyes, he glanced down at her, but all he could see was her hat . . . had she really said what he thought she had?
Tipping his head back, he wrestled with that question—whether she’d meant her bed in his Edinburgh house, as distinct from her in his bed under the same roof . . . with her weight a soothing warmth against his side, he fell asleep.
London’s bells were pealing the midnight hour when, having been summoned posthaste from a ball, Celia and Martin Cynster arrived on the doorstep of St. Ives House. Sligo, Devil’s majordomo, opened the door before they reached it.
Ushering Celia inside, Martin fixed Sligo with a commanding glare. “What’s happened?”
Sligo’s lips twisted in sympathy. “News, but not of Miss Angelica—not as such.” He waved them down a corridor leading from the front hall. “His Grace and the others are waiting in the library.”
When Martin and Celia entered the long room, it was to discover that Sligo’s “others” meant most of the family presently in London, barring only those of their grandchildren’s generation. Even Aunt Clara and Therese, Lady Osbaldestone, were there.
“What is it?” Celia asked, unable to bear the suspense an instant longer. Sinking onto the chaise in the space Horatia and Helena made for her between them, she clutched their hands, one on either side, and fixed Devil, as usual seated behind his desk, with a determined look. “Just tell us, please, without any roundaboutation.”
Holding her gaze, clearly choosing his words, Devil said, “It’s not necessarily bad news, but it is disturbing. I’ve waited for you to arrive so I can explain to everyone at the same time.” He picked up a letter. “I received this from Royce earlier this evening—he sent it by courier. He and Hamish finally located the band of reivers who had collected the body from the base of the cliff.” Devil raised his gaze from the letter. “Body. Singular. According to the reivers, there was only one body, no sign at all of a second, and by all accounts the body they found and conveyed to a magistrate for notification and burial was that of Scrope. From the descriptions we have of the laird, it definitely wasn’t him.”
Silence reigned for a full minute, then—
“How the devil did he survive that fall, let alone walk away?” Jeremy Carling was dumbfounded. He glanced at Eliza, seated beside him. “We saw the cliff. We saw the laird disappear over the edge.” Looking back at Devil, he shook his head. “I can’t see how he could have survived.”
Devil looked grim. “Royce went to the spot and found a narrow ledge, barely wide enough for a man to stand on, about twenty feet down. Royce thinks it’s possible a man of immense strength, with significant experience of climbing sheer cliff faces, and absolute cold-blooded courage, could have managed it—and by the signs at the site, Royce is now convinced that the laird did, indeed, climb up and walk away.”
Tossing the letter on his desk, Devil glanced at the other men standing behind the chairs and propped against the bookcases.
It was Gabriel who ground out, “So the laird is still alive—still at large. Is it he who has kidnapped Angelica?”
No one answered, but then Helena, head tilted as she considered, said, “I am wondering if this piece of news has, perhaps, a golden lining.”
Devil looked at her. “It’s usually silver, but I’ll settle for gold. In what way?”
“Why”—hands rising expressively, Helena appealed to the ladies around her—“is it not true that whenever this laird has taken one of our girls, he has always given the so-strict orders that she is not to be harmed? Not in any way? So is it not reasonable to suppose that if it is indeed he who Angelica is with, that he will take excellent care of her?”
“Yes—you’re right.” Celia seized on the point. “We don’t know his motives, of course, but at least we know that much—she will be safe.”
The males of the family said not a word.
They did exchange glances.
“Dear Angelica’s a survivor.” Aunt Clara reached across to pat Celia’s hand. “She’ll do.”
“Indeed, when has she not?” Lady Osbaldestone observed.
The ladies gathered around Celia, exchanging positive opinions on the likelihood of Angelica’s being hale and unharmed.
“No matter how it appears, I—we—think she’s definitely pursuing a goal of her own.” Eliza, chin firm, swept the faces of the older ladies, many of them among the most powerful in the ton. “When she disappeared, she was wearing the necklace from Catriona—the one supposed to assist us in finding our husbands, our heroes.” Eliza glanced at Henrietta, standing behind her mother, Louise. “Henrietta saw it.”
All gazes swung to Henrietta.
Louise reached back and caught one of Henrietta’s hands. “How did she seem when you saw her?”
“She was in good spirits . . .” Henrietta frowned, glanced down, then touched the bridge of her nose, a habit when thinking. She looked at her mother, then at the others. “Actually, now I think of it, she was . . . well, hunting, for want of a better word. I don’t know whom, but I got the distinct impression she had someone in her sights.”
The ladies exchanged glances, then Helena stated their collective thought. “That puts quite a different complexion on this episode, no?”
Horatia nodded. Celia did, too, even more definitely.
Heather and Eliza exchanged a vindicated glance.
Lady Osbaldestone thumped her cane. “If you want my opinion, I would have to say that if this laird has inveigled Angelica away, then it’s he who should have a care for his future. She’s neither a child, nor weak. Naturally one cannot approve of such a situation, but until we know her role in this drama—and I’m sure none of us will make the mistake of imagining her a passive pawn—then there’s no reason I can see to panic, much less to lose hope.”
“Indeed.” Honoria nodded decisively. “We should wait on more certain news—preferably from her—before leaping to any conclusions.”
That decided, the ladies looked across the room at their menfolk, all gathered around Devil’s desk, arguing the merits of this or that action.
Patience shook her head. “There’s no point trying to make them see sense.”
“Sadly, no.” Alathea sighed. “We’ll just have to leave them to run as they will. On a brighter note, out of all this, we’ll get to see Phyllida and Alasdair’s latest addition. Alasdair went home to fetch them both, and they’re on their way up from Devon.”
While the ladies turned their minds to family matters, the gathering about the desk focused on the one new aspect that offered some hope after a week of totally futile searching. None of the men present were accustomed to failure, especially not when it came to protecting one of their own, and the laird had transgres
sed and successfully invaded their territory not just once but three times.
Feelings were running high.
“I accept that just because he’s still alive, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it was the laird who seized Angelica,” Vane said, “but for my money, it’s him behind this.”
Devil nodded. “The coincidences are too many and too great to swallow. I believe we should assume that it is indeed he behind Angelica’s kidnapping.”
“But who is he?” Gabriel growled. “And how could he have got his hands on Angelica?”
“Let’s list what we know,” Vane suggested. “His description alone should make him stand out.”
“That and being a Scottish peer.” Devil glanced at the other men. “I suggest our first step in catching up with this gentleman is learning exactly who he is, and there aren’t that many Scottish peers in town, or who might have been here recently, and every single one of them will be known to someone we know.”
Gabriel nodded. “I’ll check my sources in the City.”
“I’ll ask at the House of Lords,” Devil said.
“Meanwhile”—Demon exchanged a glance with Vane—“we’ll check at the clubs.”
“Arthur, George, and I can help with that,” Martin said. “The older men might know of a younger nobleman not so well known in town.”
“And we”—Breckenridge looked at Jeremy and received a nod in reply—“will search everywhere else we can think of.”
Devil nodded. “If any of us discover a Scotsman fitting our man’s description, don’t engage. Send word here and we’ll call a meeting to decide what our best—and most satisfying—course of action will be.”
The others all agreed.
Seeing their ladies preparing to depart, the men went to assist, all feeling rather better now that they had something to do that held real hope of catching up with their elusive enemy.