Rook flinched. “Then why didn’t you come to me sooner?”
Ellis shrugged and his tone dropped. “You got out, Constantine. No one ever gets out alive. I had to protect you.”
Rook’s eyes went wide at the use of his given name. Ellis hadn’t called him that in two decades at least. Now his cousin’s gaze flitted over him from head to toe and there was a slight smile on his face.
“I couldn’t drag you through shit again.” Ellis sighed, and again it seemed like the weight of the world was on his shoulders.
“I would have gone through that shit of my own volition if you had told me about the danger you were facing,” Rook insisted. “At least I would have told you that your plans were foolhardy. I would have kept you from playing Anne for a fool.”
Ellis tilted his head slowly and one eyebrow arched. “Anne, is it? But of course it is.” He shook his head. “I’ve been trying to find you two for a while. Since I returned to the island to discover you were gone.”
Rook’s eyes went wide. So his cousin had come back for her at some point. What would have happened if they’d stayed? Would Anne have gone with Ellis? No…Rook knew the answer to that question. But certainly things would have been different without that long, passionate road trip.
“It seems you and Anne became quite close on the road.”
Rook set his jaw. “Don’t you dare fucking talk to me about her, after what you did.”
That hit the mark, and Ellis jerked away. “I know it violated the code we always followed.”
“No games with innocents,” Rook snapped. “No games with those who don’t understand how the world works. Or at least you always chose women who deserved the bitter that went with the sweet.”
Ellis glared at the reminder. “You must see how desperate I was. I wouldn’t have done it otherwise.”
“Oh yes, I can see your desperation. It’s written all over you in a way I haven’t seen since you were fourteen,” Rook said. “What I don’t know is why. If Leonard were just threatening you, you’d laugh in the face of it. You’ve done it too many times before. And if he were threatening me, you’d tell me so I’d have my knife ready. So who is it?”
Ellis stared at him, silent. And Rook knew he’d already guessed the truth.
“Gabriel,” he breathed.
“I’ve hidden my connection to my brother for a long time,” Ellis said, and his voice cracked with the love he felt for the younger man. The one they’d both watched with pride—from a distance. “To protect the good things he’s built for himself with my money. But Leonard found out a few months ago and that has been his final pressure point ever since. He will kill Gabriel, you know he will. I had no other choice.”
“You do have another choice,” Rook insisted as he moved toward his cousin. His best friend for most of his life. His blood. His savior. Rook had to save him in return. If it were possible, he would do anything to save him.
“What’s that?” Ellis drawled, and contempt suddenly dripped from his tone. “Are you so enamored with this girl that you would suggest I talk to Harcourt?”
“Yes,” Rook said. “He could help us.”
“Help me into a hangman’s noose. Anyway, I still think that bastard has the treasure squirreled away somewhere.”
“Handsome!” Rook said. “You searched this place well enough, it seems, and haven’t found a damn thing.”
Ellis’s eye twitched. “Even if he doesn’t, I went after Harcourt’s wife. He’d shoot me rather than listen.”
Rook bent his head. “You don’t know him.”
Ellis was silent for a long moment. Long enough that Rook dared to glance up at him at last. His cousin was glaring at him. “Anne Shelley must be awfully sweet when she opens her legs to make you take sides with a toff,” he growled.
“Sod off,” Rook accentuated each word, fighting to rein in control.
Ellis edged forward. “I have to find that gem, Rook. It’s the only thing that matters to me now, do you understand? So I won’t stop. I can’t stop. I’ll do anything to protect my own. And my own isn’t Anne Shelley or the Earl of fucking Harcourt. They aren’t your own either.”
“I bloody well know that,” Rook said as he turned away from Ellis and the words that burned through his soul. The ones that only spoke the truth he knew down to his core.
“Good. Because it seems like you don’t know, but I must be wrong on that account. So tell me, cousin, are you going to be a villain? Or a victim? Because those are the two choices in life. Pick quickly.”
Rook pivoted to speak again, but Ellis was gone, leaving only the open window in his wake. Rook rushed to it and looked down into the darkness of the night. His cousin was gone without a trace. Smoke on the wind.
Rook slammed his hands down on the window sash as he screamed out into the night, “Ellis!”
But of course there was no answer. His cousin was gone, taking his desperation with him. But the danger remained. Ellis would return. He would keep coming back until he had what he desired. Winston Leonard was still in play, as well.
So Anne and her entire family were in desperate danger. To protect her, he knew what he had to do. And it involved the choice his cousin had just asked him to make.
The one he’d been trying to avoid and which was now inevitable.
* * *
When Rook stepped into Harcourt’s study, he scanned the tall shelves first. Books. So many books. He’d always liked books, actually. Reading penny dreadfuls and novels he’d stolen had been an escape for him when he was a child, one his mother had given him by teaching him the skill.
But those days were over. At least for now.
He moved to the shelves, scanning closer to see if he could find any clues. He was about to take one of the unlabeled tomes when he heard the creak of a footfall in the hall. Quickly he pivoted and watched as Harcourt entered the room.
“Mr. Maitland,” Harcourt drawled as he stopped in the doorway and straightened his shoulders. “What a surprise. I thought you were preparing to leave us tomorrow.”
“I thought you would be with your wife,” Rook replied.
Harcourt’s jaw tightened. “She and Juliana are comforting Anne.”
Rook bent his head at that statement. He hated that he was hurting her. He hated that he would hurt her even more before this was over.
But now it was time to get down to business. Villain or victim.
He straightened up and met Harcourt’s gaze evenly. “You realize that the best outcome in all of this is if this gem my cousin and Winston Leonard are obsessed with is found. Then it can be returned and the consequences Ellis and your brother created no longer have to be visited upon your family.”
Harcourt arched a brow in his direction. “Yes. That would clearly be the best conclusion for me and those I love.”
“Then despite your ill feelings toward me, your mistrust, I need you to tell me what you’ve found in your own hunt for this item. I don’t want to have to repeat searches you’ve already made.”
Harcourt seemed to ponder that for a moment. Then he shrugged as if acquiescing. “We didn’t know it was a gem. Ellis kept calling it a treasure at the meeting he arranged with me in Beckfoot the day after you took Anne away. So I had no idea what I was looking for, nor was there any record of it, at least in the diaries here.”
“You looked in all of them,” Rook asked.
“All of them. Everything my brother ever wrote that is housed in these walls. I reviewed them, and once Thomasina realized what was going on, what I had been hiding from her, she also looked through every line. There was nothing.”
“What about a code?” Rook pressed.
Harcourt blinked. “I hadn’t thought of that. I suppose those in your…profession…must use codes to protect information.”
“It’s not a profession,” Rook said with a humorless laugh. “I’m not a barrister. And yes, code comes in handy, especially in fraught situations such as this. Did anything stand out as odd? Cru
de or stilted language, number or letter lines, sketches in margins? Anything?”
Harcourt rubbed his chin and then shook his head. “No. I’m sorry. My brother loved to write about himself. He did so floridly. There was nothing in any of the language that caught my eye.”
Rook held back a curse. It would be much easier if Solomon Kincaid had just put a sign up explaining where he’d put them gem. “Your wife said something earlier about finding a hidden statue that you thought was the treasure.”
“Yes. I was certain it was because my brother hid it so well. We found it by chance, really.”
“May I see the item?” he asked.
Harcourt stared at him a long moment, then nodded and crossed to a painting on the wall. He lifted it away and revealed a safe, which he opened with a key he produced from some hidden pocket. He pulled out a cloth-wrapped item and handed it over.
Rook unwrapped the statue carefully and sucked in a breath. It had a marble base and a terracotta image of a woman was set into the stone. It was lovely, a well-done piece to be sure. And he recognized it for what it was immediately, though he tried to keep his reaction at bay as he nodded toward Harcourt. “Definitely not a gem,” he drawled.
“No.” Harcourt let out a long breath. “I fear it’s just something else my brother stole during his time underground with Ellis Maitland.”
“Well, that may be,” Rook said softly. “Though I’d say this piece has very little worth if it helps. It’s a replica.”
The relief that crossed Harcourt’s face was palpable. “Oh. Excellent. I wonder why he hid it then.”
“Drunken foolishness, perhaps?” Rook said with a shrug to keep the conversation light. “If the item isn’t here, then I will think on where else it could be hidden.”
“And I’ll continue to look once we arrive in London. I haven’t searched my home there, and I’m certain my brother had hideaways for mistresses and God knows what other bad deeds.” Harcourt sighed and it was a bone-weary sound that Rook felt in his own disappointed and exhausted heart.
“Very good. Well, I should go up now. I’m sure we’ll see each other in the morning before we all head our separate ways.”
He set the statue down on the edge of the desk and moved toward the door. Before he could exit, Harcourt spoke again. “Will you really walk away from Anne?”
Rook froze, hand extended toward the door. His heart rate jumped and he slowly turned to find the earl staring at him, arms folded across his broad chest, expression unreadable.
“You want to have this conversation with me?” he said through clenched teeth.
“Yes.”
Rook shook his head as he took a step back into the room. He could be glib now. But he could also be honest. And he chose to be honest because he knew it was probably the last time he could be so.
“Look at me,” he said softly as he motioned his hands up and down his body. “The best thing I can do is walk away. I know where I was born. I know what I did to survive.”
“And yet she still loves you,” Harcourt said.
That word: love. It felt like he’d been shot in the chest when the earl said it. He had accepted that he was in love with Anne. It had become a comfort, of sorts, to know that he would love her even if she wasn’t with him.
But the idea that she loved him? That was painful. And he couldn’t imagine it was true. She was attracted to him, certainly. He thought she cared for him. But love?
If she felt something akin to that, it would certainly fade when he was gone.
“If I am lucky enough to have even a sliver of her heart, then I must protect her all the more,” he said. “The best way I know to do that is to walk away.”
Harcourt’s expression softened as he stared at Rook across the room. He gave no indication that he agreed or disagreed.
Rook shifted. “When you get to London, I hope you will protect her, regardless of what she did in breaking your engagement.”
Harcourt hesitated another few seconds before he nodded. “I would have married Anne if she hadn’t run away. I never would have been able to love my wife. So in a way, Anne gave me my heart by leaving,” he said softly. “I will protect her with my life in your stead.”
Rook had always been good at reading people. It was a necessity on the street. The only way to stay alive sometimes. He looked into this man’s eyes and he saw the truth there.
“Good,” he said and hated that his voice cracked a little.
Then he walked away without saying anything more. Because if he did he would regret it. Just as he would likely regret the thing he had to do next.
Not for his cousin or to find the gem. But because the truth that he was walking away was very clear now. And he couldn’t do that without one last goodbye.
Chapter 20
Anne stood at her window, staring out at the stars that glittered above. She was alone for the first time in hours. Her sisters had stayed with her a long time, comforting her, helping her ready for bed, brushing out her hair like they had done for each other when they were young girls.
But it wasn’t the same. Too much had changed. Ultimately they had finally left her with hugs and support she knew she didn’t truly deserve.
And now she felt the aloneness deep in her bones. She hadn’t spent a night without Rook in two weeks. Not since they took to the road in Scotland.
She ached for him as she watched a star streak across the sky and wished with all her might that something would change and allow her to be with him.
There was a light knock at her door, and Anne turned to stare at the barrier. It was from the hallway, rather than Juliana’s adjoining chamber. She wrinkled her brow as she crossed to open it.
She expected a servant, or for Thomasina to have returned from her marital chamber down the hall for one more embrace. But instead, as she opened the door, she caught her breath.
Rook stood in the dim light of the hallway, sleeves rolled to his elbows, boots off to muffle his steps to her door, shirt unbuttoned at the collar. He looked so tired as he stared at her.
And then he caught her waist and drew her up against him, pushing her into the room while his mouth crushed down on hers. She opened to him immediately. What else was she to do when she craved him like air or water?
The moment she did so, the kiss slowed. Gentled. His fingers glided into her hair and he cupped her scalp, tilting her head to the side gently to deepen the kiss. She was vaguely aware that he reached behind himself and shut the door.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, ignoring every part of her that wanted to talk to him, to explain to him, to question him. He was here. And he would be hers one more time.
He drew back from the kiss and looked into her eyes as he slid his fingers beneath her nightgown straps and slowly guided one down her shoulder. He left it draped at the elbow and leaned in, pressing his lips first to the side of her neck and then sweeping them down over her collarbone, her shoulder, her arm. She shivered with sensation, dropping her head back as he pulled the other strap down and bared her from the waist up. She tugged at the silky fabric and then she was naked before him.
He stepped away with a ragged breath and stared at her like it was the first time, even though it wasn’t. He’d seen her this way so many times that she no longer felt ill at ease about her body. And yet he stared like he was trying to memorize her, a stark reminder that he was going to leave. A stark reminder that whatever happened tonight was very important.
She swallowed past the lump in her throat and stepped up to him. She placed a hand on his chest, feeling the thump of his heart against her fingers before she slid away, across the muscle, and unbuttoned his shirt. He tugged it over his head and threw it across the room.
She stared as he had stared, drinking in every inch of this amazing man who had captured her interest, her body, her heart. This man who had transformed the reckless choice she made on a desperate night into the best decision of her life. Because it had brought her to him. And he was
what she needed, even if it couldn’t be permanent.
Tears stung her eyes as she stepped into the warmth of his embrace once more. She lifted her mouth to his as she dragged her fingers around to his back, gliding her nails over his skin until he hissed a sound of deep, dark pleasure.
She smiled against his lips, her fears silenced for a moment by the connection they made with their bodies. She wanted that pure bond now more than ever.
“Please,” she whispered against his skin as she pulled her mouth down his throat, letting her hands make a path across the muscles of his chest and stomach, over his hip, around to the thick cock beneath his fall front. “Please.”
He nodded against her hair and reached between them to unfasten the breeches. She looked down, smiling at the hard thrust of him, as ready for her as she was for him. She took him in hand, stroking him once, twice, and he made a garbled sound as he pushed harder against her fingers.
Her body ached from wanting, from needing what they shared. All of it. She glanced up at him and smiled, then slowly dropped to her knees before him.
“Anne,” he whispered, her name barely carrying in the quiet room.
“Constantine,” she murmured in response, and he twitched in her hand before she darted her tongue out and swirled it around his tip.
“Christ.” His fingers dug into her hair as she took him into her mouth.
She rolled her tongue around him in a slow circle, reveling in the hard heat of him in her mouth, the taste that was only his. She took him as deep as she could, then a tiny bit deeper as he moaned with pleasure above her. She sucked as she withdrew, then repeated the action, over and over, reveling in the tiny gasps of pleasure coming from his lips.
She looked up at him, watching his neck flex with the sensations. Feeling him tense as she brought him closer and closer to climax.
Clearly that wasn’t on his mind, though. He met her gaze as she watched him, and shook his head. “Not like this,” he said softly, then crooked his finger for her to come back to her feet.
A Reckless Runaway Page 20
