She could feel her heart thudding, but it wasn’t excitement that had her in its grip.
He was her hero. Nothing he’d said had altered that conviction, only underscored it. And he’d just offered to marry her and allow her to dictate how they lived their future lives . . . on the surface, that appeared an offer she should leap on, grasp, and later, after, use to demand . . . what?
That he love her?
He’d offered her his name, his title, his purse, his houses, along with his body and a certain regard, but that was all.
She knew men like him, knew love wasn’t something any lady could demand from them. More, love wasn’t an emotion men like him fell victim to readily; he would instinctively guard against it, resist it if it struck, and shield himself from it as far as he was able.
Yet he was her hero. She might not love him yet, but if she believed in her instincts, in The Lady’s guidance, at all, then if she spent much time with him, she would.
She couldn’t be so foolish as to close her eyes to the fact that he was proposing to marry her in cold blood—just as his father had married his mother. Did he see the parallels? What he was offering was in essence a dynastic marriage, which given the situation, for him was a necessity, but for her was a choice.
His offer left her facing a decision more fraught than any other Cynster female of her generation, or the previous one, had faced.
If she accepted his bargain, she would fall in love with him, but would he fall in love with her?
If she accepted his bargain, fell in love with him, then discovered that he couldn’t love her . . . what then?
What of the life of love and shared happiness she’d always imagined would be hers?
She could refuse the bargain. Refuse to help him. Couldn’t she? Eyes still on his, she quietly asked, “What if I refuse?”
His face didn’t alter, but his eyes grew bleak. His voice, however, held to the same measured and even tone as he replied, “If you can’t see your way to assisting me, I’ll return you to your home within the half hour. Your family will have concealed your absence thus far, and you arriving home with whatever tale you wish to tell will ensure that you take no lasting harm from my . . . interference with your evening.”
He was speaking the truth, as she suspected he had throughout. But if he returned her to her home, she would never see him again. And if she ever whispered anything about him to her family, the males, at least, would ferret out the truth and try to force a marriage, which would be infinitely worse.
She wanted him as her hero, wanted him to love her, needed him to grow to love her, and the only way forward was, apparently, to take the risk—to lay her heart on the scales, to risk it, risk all, and trust that everything she’d ever believed of love would come true.
Blind, unconditional trust . . . in love.
She’d wanted a challenge—here it was.
Was she brave enough, courageous enough, to accept it? To take him on, fight for his love, and win?
She’d been staring into his mesmerizing eyes. She blinked, then locked her gaze with his again. “I have . . . a few questions.”
He arched a brow, inviting her to ask.
“Should I refuse, and you send me home, what will you do after that?”
He held her gaze; several moments ticked by before he replied, “I don’t know. I haven’t thought beyond this moment.”
Because he understood, as she did, that this was his last, final, and ultimate throw of the dice.
Raising the glass she still held, she drained it, then set the empty glass on the small table by her chair. “First, I want a promise from you that, before we reach your castle, you will tell me anything pertinent that you’ve not yet revealed, as well as anything and everything I wish to know about your mother, the castle, and your clan.” Looking up, she met his gaze. “I don’t wish to find myself in a situation where you’ve withheld information because you thought I didn’t need to hear it, or that you didn’t need to sully my ears with it, or any similar excuse.”
His lips tightened, but he inclined his head. “Granted. All of it.”
“And I wish to rephrase the bargain—are you willing to consider my terms?”
His gaze grew intent, sharper and more incisive. “As you’re perfectly aware, you have me over the proverbial barrel. Whatever you ask, if it’s in my power to give, I will give it.”
She tipped up her chin. “In that case, my terms are these. I will agree to help you save your clan. Specifically, I will travel to your castle with you and enact a charade sufficient to have your mother return the goblet so that you can complete your late father’s deal with the bankers and save your clan and its holdings.” Watching his eyes, she saw confusion creep into the gray-green; he thought she’d agreed to everything. Drawing breath, she continued, “However, as to the matter of marrying you, I reserve the right not to make that decision until after you have the goblet in your hands.”
His black brows drew down. He regarded her with what she could only interpret as suspicion, with a healthy dose of disapproval behind it. Eventually he said, “If you travel north in my company—even if you remain here for the rest of the night—your family will demand a marriage between us as the only acceptable outcome.”
“Yes, they may—or at least, the men will. But we’ve already touched on how the social strictures can be circumvented if families like mine put their minds to it.” Holding his gaze, she felt increasingly confident that in this she was taking the right tack. “Those are my terms—take them or leave them. I’ll help you get back the goblet and save your clan, but the question of a marriage between us will remain unresolved until later, your offer to remain on the table until I decide whether to accept or not.”
Chapter Three
Dominic Guisachan, Earl of Glencrae, a highland laird accustomed to absolute rule, absolute command, stared at the diminutive female sitting in the armchair opposite and fought an irrational impulse to scowl. He had no idea what she was up to.
He rapidly replayed the exchange, but could see nothing in it to account for the determination that had slowly infused her, for the resolution he could see in her expression, in the set of her chin, the curve of her lips . . .
Nothing to account for the instinct that was screaming at him that he’d just, somehow, stepped into some snare.
What snare? It was his plan. And how could her refusing to agree to marry him possibly be a trap?
He shook off the feeling; perhaps it was some strange symptom of inexpressible relief.
He looked at the mantelpiece clock. It was nearly three o’clock. He and she had been talking for hours. He glanced at her. She didn’t look overtired, but focused and aware. Engaged, alert, and subtly challenging in a way he found viscerally alluring—
He blocked the sudden awareness of his half-aroused state. Complications of that ilk he didn’t need. “Very well. I accept your terms.” He paused, then tipped his head down the room to the desk before the windows. “If you wish to write a note to your parents, I’ll have it delivered. As you’ve no doubt guessed, their house isn’t far.”
“Hmm.” Her lips, rosy and full, firmed, then relaxed. “I appreciate the offer and would prefer to let them know I’m safe, but I’m not sure where they’ll be—at home, or will they have gone to St. Ives House by now, or perhaps to Horatia and George?” She arched her brows, then met his eyes. “If you’ll agree to have a note delivered in the morning after breakfast, I suspect that will be preferable. It will also give me time to think of how best to phrase it.”
He studied her face, wondering . . .
“No, I’m not imagining that I’ll change my mind.” She regarded him measuringly. “And I’m assuming you realize that you can’t send any note in my stead. It’ll have to be in my handwriting. Anything else risks escalating the family’s collective anxiety, and that’s precisely what we
need to allay.” She wrinkled her nose. “As best we can.”
He had been thinking of sending a note if she didn’t, but . . . she was correct. “It’s late.” He rose, set his empty glass on a side table, then looked down at her as she raised her gaze to his face. He hesitated. He didn’t want to give her a chance to change her mind, but . . . “Sleep on your decision. If you’re still of the same mind in the morning, we can discuss the matter further and work through the necessary details.”
“I won’t change my mind.”
“Nevertheless.” Turning, he headed for the door; he needed to get out of there—to somewhere without any distractions, so he could think. Grasping the doorknob, he looked back at her. “I’ll send up a maid to attend you. You should find all you’ll need in there.” With his head, he indicated the bedchamber next door.
“Thank you.” She paused, then inclined her head. “Good night.”
He responded with a curt nod, then went out and shut the door. Releasing the knob, he stood for a moment, then shook his head. He couldn’t understand why he felt so off-balance; he should be rejoicing.
He exhaled. Experience had taught him to distrust anything that came too easily, especially if it came via the hand of fate. Everything about the evening had gone far too easily, too pat, almost as if his plan had grown legs and run away with him—only to be brought up short when she’d rescripted their bargain.
Inwardly grimacing, he turned for the stairs. He could do nothing but accept her counteroffer and go forward. Too much was at stake for him to even waver.
Reaching the front hall, he strode for the servants’ hall. He wasn’t surprised to find lamps burning and his entire staff sitting about the central table waiting to learn of the outcome of his meeting with Miss Cynster, their prospective savior. The five numbered among his most trusted people: Griswold, his valet, Mulley, his majordomo, Brenda, the senior maid, Jessup, his coachman, and Thomas, his personal groom.
He halted, met their expectant gazes. Nodded. “She’s agreed.”
A fervent “Thank God!” was the communal response.
“Brenda—go up and help her to bed. And please sleep on the truckle in the dressing room. I don’t think she agreed just to sneak out later, but I don’t want to take any chances.”
“Aye, m’lord.” Brenda rose, picked up a candle, lit it, and went.
Dominic looked at Jessup. “It seems we won’t be needing the carriage again tonight. However, by dawn tomorrow I expect the Cynsters to have thrown a cordon around the entire town. I want you and Thomas to set out at first light and carefully check how tight it is. We’re going to need to find some way through it, but initially all I want to know is that it’s there, and what form it takes—how they watch, through whom, and where.”
“Aye, m’lord.” Jessup nodded, as did the much younger Thomas. “We’ll put the carriage away and turn in.”
Dominic nodded a dismissal. As Jessup and Thomas rose and headed for the kitchen door, he transferred his gaze to Griswold and Mulley. “Despite her agreement, we should keep watch on the front and back doors through the night. Just in case.”
“I’ll take the front,” Griswold said.
Mulley nodded. “I’ll stretch out here, then.”
“Thank you.” Dominic turned and walked back into the house, canvassing his arrangements, looking for anything he might do that he hadn’t already done. Angelica and her agreement to help him were too important—to him and to so many others—for him to risk leaving any opening or having any weakness in his plans.
He knew she’d agreed, yet his instincts weren’t convinced, weren’t yet ready to accept that, after all the dramas and mishaps, the missteps and unforeseeable calamities of the past five months, he’d finally succeeded in securing what he and his clan needed to survive.
He’d finally got a Cynster sister in his keeping and had persuaded her to aid him.
That the Cynster sister in question was the one of the three with whom, had he had the choice, he would have preferred not to deal was neither here nor there.
That she was already showing signs of being significantly more assertive and unpredictable than he’d anticipated was much more troubling.
An hour later, Angelica slid from beneath the crisp new sheets and freshly plumped feather-quilt on the countess’s bed. Clad in the pretty, if modest, white cotton nightgown the maid, Brenda, had pulled from the chest of drawers, she slipped through the shadows to the window.
This room, too, had been refurbished. Glencrae, evidently, knew how to plan.
Quietly, so as not to disturb Brenda, who was peacefully sleeping on the truckle bed in the adjoining dressing room, Angelica slowly drew back the heavy velvet curtains, careful not to let the rings rattle.
Courtesy of Brenda’s ready tongue, loosened by Angelica’s assurance that she was indeed committed to helping Glencrae regain the goblet, she’d confirmed that everything he’d told her of the situation had indeed been true; if anything, he’d downplayed the seriousness, the devastation that threatened not just the clan but him as its laird.
She doubted she had as yet truly grasped how deeply the threat affected him. She didn’t know that much about highland clans, but from what Brenda and he had let fall, Angelica had gathered that clan was like a very large extended family, one even more intricately interdependent than a family like her own.
If clan was family taken to the extreme, then Dominic’s position was equivalent to Devil’s taken to extreme . . . and Devil, and how he would feel if such a situation threatened the welfare of the entire Cynster family . . . that, she could imagine well enough.
Luckily for Dominic, fate and The Lady had arranged for her to be his helpmate. Easing back the latch on the casement window, she carefully pushed the pane wide. Breathed to herself, “Just as well for him that he got me, and not Heather or Eliza.” Heather wouldn’t have wanted to do it, and nor would Eliza, for the simple reason that he wasn’t their hero. They were also significantly less qualified for the role, being far less bold, adventurous, and inventive, and also less histrionically gifted.
Also far less steely in resolve, one quality that was going to be essential, both in the quest to regain the goblet and in her personal quest to capture the Earl of Glencrae.
Her natural confidence had reasserted itself. Nevertheless, she stood at the open window and couldn’t explain the impulse that had driven her there.
Regardless, she leaned out, looked down and around. Fading moonlight shivered in the thick leaves of an old creeper; it covered the wall, reaching up and around the window, and had obviously been recently trimmed away from the window frame. For anyone with a little gumption, the old, gnarled stems provided ready access to the ground.
Looking further, she traced a path across a small square of overgrown lawn to a section of stone wall that, from its position opposite the rear gardens, had to border a main street. Old ivy grew in a straggling ladder up and over that wall.
If she wanted to escape, the path lay before her. If she wanted to leave her reckless bargain with Dominic Guisachan behind, run home, and keep her heart safe and intact, she could. It would be easy.
Bathed in the luminosity of the fading moonlight, she leaned on the windowsill and waited. Gave her heart permission to choose as it would, to consider again, to reassess.
She was fully aware of the risk she’d taken with said heart, with her life, with her future. Once Dominic had left, she’d waited for panic, or at least some uncertainty, to rise and swamp her, but neither had.
Drawing the old necklace free, she held up the pendant; in the faint light, it almost glowed. “He is my hero.” The words were nothing more than a breath as she turned the crystal in her fingers. “He needs my help—help only I can give. So no matter what his vision of our marriage, I will go forward with faith that, just as I will learn to love him, he will learn to love me.”
/> She remained at the window for several more minutes, then, finally tucking the pendant away, she drew back, quietly shut the casement, closed the curtains, and padded back to the bed.
She’d made her choice. For good or ill, she’d taken the first step, turning from the comfort and safety of her family to embark on her own adventure, her own quest for love; she wasn’t going to refuse fate’s challenge.
Sliding back beneath the sheet, she lay on her back and looked upward into the darkness. Boldness, confidence, and faith had got her through most of life’s challenges to date. They’d get her through this one as well, and see her triumph.
The worthy things in life rarely came easily, but . . . “I’m not widely regarded as the most forceful, willful, and determined Cynster girl for no reason.”
Settling beneath the sheet, she closed her eyes.
Her sole regret of the evening was that she hadn’t been able to send word to her parents. She knew they would be frantic, but, quite aside from the quibbles she’d advanced to Glencrae, real enough in their way, she hadn’t wanted to write until she was absolutely certain that she knew what she was doing, and that she wouldn’t need to be rescued; that missive might have been her only chance to alert them to her whereabouts. But now she was convinced that her path was correct, she would send them word in the morning.
She was trying to think of appropriate phrasing when sleep crept up on her and drew her gently down.
“I don’t understand.” Lady Celia Cynster clung to the hand of her husband, Lord Martin Cynster, and looked at Devil Cynster, Duke of St. Ives. “How can this be? The laird is dead. So who has taken Angelica?”
Standing before the fireplace in the drawing room of Martin and Celia’s Dover Street home, Devil shook his head. “We assumed the laird was the instigator of the kidnappings, but perhaps he, too, was a pawn. Regardless, I’ve sent men to the posting houses on all the major roads leading out of the capital. If Angelica’s been taken out of London, as Heather and Eliza were, we should hear something before dawn.”