Coming awkwardly to her feet, Francesca twisted and twined her fingers together, staring not at Lathan but at those damned trembling digits that confirmed what her mouth had failed to.
“Francesca?” he demanded, his voice climbing an octave.
She finally lifted her head. “Would it matter to you?”
“That I bedded a marquess’ future wife?” Even as those words left him, Lathan hated himself for reducing what they’d shared to a vulgar insult rather than the magical moment it had been.
Francesca brought her chin up, and her eyes blazed with fury. “I don’t like you crude, Lathan.”
God, she was breathtaking in her outrage, and he hated that he hungered for her all the more because of that passion. Some of the fight went out of him, and he gave her a sad smile. “Well, then, we’re even, because I don’t like you being untruthful.”
“When was I untruthful?” she shot back, not cowering from him.
He slashed a furious hand through the air, and she winced. “My God, Francesca, you’ve told me everything else. What you dream of in life. What regrets you carry.” He stomped over to her. His jerky movements strained his left leg, and the limb dragged uselessly behind him. “But not once, not once,” he hissed, “did you mention a betrothed.”
Francesca lifted her palms as if in supplication. “We’re not betrothed.”
Lathan’s heart soared, only to fall back down at her next words.
“Well, not yet. It’s more of an unspoken arrangement that was put forward by my godmother and father and the marquess.”
“And is it what you want?”
She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
He didn’t let her try a second time. “Or is it simply you yet again doing that which your father wanted without a thought for what you really want?”
A log shifted in the hearth, sending sparks and hisses flying, punctuating the charges he’d leveled.
“You… you said you don’t want any future except for your work.” She wet her lips. “Might you not have really felt that way after all?”
He rocked back on his heels. What was she saying? What was she asking?
And then, because she was as bold as the English day was cold, she said precisely what she meant. “What if we had a future together?”
“Us?” he asked dumbly.
She nodded hesitantly.
“Together?”
She gave another nod. “As in… married. Husband and wife. Bride and groom. Joined—” Francesca stopped rambling and peeked at him from under her lashes.
He’d been befuddled before. That confusion was nothing to his perplexity at what she… asked. Is that what she was doing?
“Marry me, Lathan?”
She said it. She’d proposed marriage… to him.
If he wasn’t already one moment away from tossing his head back and raging at the world for the future she’d have with another, he’d have laughed in awe and appreciation for her breaking every convention Polite Society expected her to adhere to.
Marry her. Why can’t we spend forever together? The two of them shut away…
What? Here, in a dilapidated cottage? Two recluses together?
As quickly as the dream of more had slipped in, it died.
Restless, Lathan turned, putting some space between them. He couldn’t marry her. Not when there was a marquess waiting for her. A good man, too. One who was known throughout Society for the foundations he headed and the charity boards he served upon. Not a man whose name was mud and would always be. Vitriolic rage tightened Lathan’s gut. God, how he wanted to take the other man apart for being everything Lathan wasn’t… and for being the better man for Francesca.
“You’re wrong.” Her quietly insistent voice came just past his shoulder.
Steeling his features, he made himself face her. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t need to, Lathan.” Her eyes penetrated him. “I know you.”
I know you.
Stop, please stop. Did he speak that entreaty aloud? Either way, she proved merciless.
“You think yourself unworthy. You believe your reputation and your past mean you aren’t deserving of a future or happiness. But you are worthy of a future, Lathan, and so much more.” She moved in a whir of skirts, putting him so close.
To her.
To everything he’d never known he wanted.
To everything he wanted to be selfish enough to take.
He clenched and unclenched his fists. But selfishness and greed had cost him his past, present, and future. He couldn’t make those same mistakes, not when the result would be that Francesca would suffer.
Lathan held her gaze. “My future has always been the Home Office, Francesca. I told you that.”
A tremulous smile curled the corners of her lips in the saddest of smiles. “If that is the case, then, it shouldn’t really matter if the Marquess of St. James is mine.”
Knock-knock-knock.
As one, they glanced to the door. “It appears as though your bridegroom’s staff has returned,” he said quietly.
He braced for her protestations. For her to order him away from the door, and yet, she didn’t.
Instead, she gave him a forlorn smile and climbed the stairs.
Lathan wanted to curse and rail. And cry… He wanted to do that, as well.
He’d believed he’d known precisely what he wanted and what was missing in his life… until Francesca Cornworthy had broken into his home and into his heart and made him question everything he’d previously believed.
Stalking over to the door, he grabbed the handle and yanked the panel open. He growled, “I told you—” His mouth went slack.
Rubbing his leather gloves together, the Marquess of Tennyson gave Lathan an up-and-down look. “I’d already begun to question my decision to come here. I’d advise you to not make me do so any more than I already have.”
“Forgive me,” he blurted. “My apologies.” Lathan found himself briefly reduced to the awestruck, stammering boy he’d always been around the marquess.
Lord Tennyson lifted a single, icy brow. “Nor am I looking to conduct a meeting outside in this fucking cold, Holman.”
“Of course not.” Startled into movement, Lathan stepped aside, letting the other man enter. “Forgive me, my lord,” he said, finding his footing.
His former superior passed his gaze around the room.
Lathan reached for the marquess’ cloak and hat, but the other man gave a dismissive wave and took a slow turn about the room. He spoke without preamble. “It has come to my attention that your brother has been delivering work to the Home Office on your behalf.”
“Yes,” Lathan said carefully, following the marquess’ path to the makeshift workspace set up beside the hearth, the place where he and Francesca had sat so comfortably, so companionably, with a closeness he’d never before known with anyone. Lathan’s gaze slid back to the last place she’d stood, the spot where she’d acknowledged there was a marquess between them and had presented Lathan with the possibility of marriage anyway.
“This isn’t much of an office,” his former superior remarked, jolting Lathan’s attention back over.
“Hmm?”
Lord Tennyson shot him a look before resuming his study of Lathan’s things.
Forcibly pushing aside thoughts of Francesca, he concentrated all his focus on where it deserved to be, on the man he’d betrayed and the possibility of, if not redemption, forgiveness. He cleared his throat. “Forgive me. I was—”
“Distracted,” Tennyson said. Not bothering to pick up the book on top of Lathan’s pile, he reached down and flipped the pages with one finger, a study of boredom and indifference.
“Surprised,” Lathan allowed himself to say. “You were the last person I was expecting at my door.”
Rather, the Marquess of St. James, or the fine lord’s servants, come to spirit Francesca back to the life awaiting her. He fisted and unfisted his hands, his nails fee
ling as though they left imprints upon his callused palms. Not a gentleman’s hands. Not—
Lord Tennyson glanced over.
Lathan made himself relax his hands.
“Yes, given that you believed all the worst things about me and betrayed me in favor of my traitorous superior, I could certainly see the reason for your startlement,” Tennyson said, so conversationally they might as well have been discussing the volatile weather they’d been enjoying.
And yet, there was nothing casual or forgiving in those tones.
Nor would there be.
“You think in proving yourself to the Home Office that you might undo your past. But, Lathan, there’s no changing our pasts, only our presents and our futures.”
It slammed into Lathan all at once what Francesca had meant.
“I’ve never expressly stated how regretful I am for the decisions I made,” Lathan said quietly, and Tennyson glanced up.
The marquess’ mouth tensed. “Decisions that nearly cost my wife.”
Loving Francesca Cornworthy as he now did, Lathan could well understand how he’d happily dismember any man who dared to hurt her. Loving her? Sweat slicked his skin, and fear and horror… and joy, too, created the unlikeliest blend of tumult inside him. He loved her. “Nor will I waste your time with pretty apologies that mean nothing. Not to you. Because they can’t undo the greatest mistakes I shall carry with me to my grave. You were the best of mentors to me, and I failed you.” His throat worked, and he shook his head. “There’s no undoing that. There’s no restoration of trust. And…” He swallowed hard past the wad of emotion there. “I’ve come to peace with the knowledge that my mistakes are not moments that can be erased. They are mine to live with and own. But I love my country. And that”—he grimaced—“along with greater aspirations I wasn’t even aware of until you called me out that night, was the reason for my downfall.”
Tennyson didn’t say anything for a long while. Finally, he set one of Lathan’s notebooks down. “You’ve changed, Holman.”
“I hope so,” he said automatically.
“You have. You’re a man who has reconciled his past in a bid to make a future for himself.”
And yet, any change… every change wasn’t because of his brief impressment, or the hell he’d suffered through. It wasn’t the one trial and the near retrial that accounted for any of it. Nay, through all those moments, he’d been mired in bitterness and regret. His ability to now look at himself and his past and his future was all because of Francesca.
The marquess picked up Lathan’s notebook once more. “I’m not generally consulted by the Home Office anymore.”
“You’ve retired, then?” Lathan couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice.
Lord Tennyson grinned wryly. “Shocking, I know.” That cynical twist grew wistful. “Alas, love trumps all, including, it would seem in some cases, one’s devotion to the Home Office.” Color spilled over the other man’s cheeks, and Lord Tennyson coughed into his hand. “Either way, I’ve been informed of your works and the value in them.”
Lathan made no attempt to mask his surprise.
“And that is why I’m here.”
Lathan shook his head. “I don’t follow.”
Reaching inside his cloak, Lord Tennyson brandished a folder. “The Home Office is prepared to offer you an assignment within the encryption services. You are being restored.”
Chapter 15
It was both wrong and imprudent to eavesdrop.
Not just for the simple fact that there was a moral wrong in listening in on another’s private business, but also because of what one might hear.
Francesca knew as much. She’d learned that lesson as a young girl when she’d come upon a closet of maids lamenting the fact that Francesca was motherless and in desperate need of guidance in all matters.
That lesson had been cemented during her debut when she’d overheard ladies at Almack’s having fun at Francesca’s expense. About how she looked. How she lacked suitors. How she didn’t act. How she did act. All were sins up for Society’s discussion.
From that moment on, when she’d happened upon private exchanges, she’d bolted in the opposite direction.
And yet, the moment she’d taken shelter in the kitchen and pressed her ear to the door to find it wasn’t the Marquess of St. James in pursuit, but a different marquess—one here for Lathan—Francesca had been unable to move away from the oak panel between them.
Based on the terseness of the gentleman’s greeting, this wasn’t a friend, but someone Lathan knew from his time at the Home Office.
He had a black reputation. A foul mouth. A propensity to bed any and every willing woman whose path he crossed. He drank too much.
Francesca was no agent with the Home Office, but it didn’t take much to deduce that the unexpected guest was none other than the notoriously wicked—if reformed—Lord Tennyson. Lathan’s former superior.
And she could no sooner walk out than she could abandon the plans she had for her recently composed list.
At first, she was besieged by a need to protect Lathan, until the marquess revealed his reasons for being here.
The man Lathan had accidentally betrayed had come here… and come with but one intention.
You are being restored.
He’d offered Lathan everything he desired… nay, the only thing he desired.
And she was a bloody selfish, miserable person because, God help her, she couldn’t bring herself to feel any happiness. Which she should… for him. Because he was getting what he wanted.
But he was what she wanted.
And those two wants couldn’t coexist.
Tears pricked her lashes, and she pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes.
Why, it was preposterous to believe that she’d fallen so helplessly and hopelessly in love. What had she expected? That after just a few days, Lathan Holman might not only come to feel the same, but also give up on the one thing he loved?
“You seem surprised once more,” the marquess was saying.
“I would be lying if I said I was not.”
Francesca strained, struggling to make out anything from Lathan’s tone or response, but he was as masked as he’d been the first time she’d come upon him. And how he’d not been since… until this moment.
“This is what you’ve been asking for, isn’t it?” Lord Tennyson asked quietly. “It’s what you want?”
The pause between that query and Lathan’s answer went on… forever. And Francesca didn’t breathe through it. Her breath lodged sharply in her chest until he spoke.
“It is.”
Her eyes slid briefly closed. Surely the pair of gentlemen in discussion could have detected the jagged exhalation. Or the breaking of her heart.
Collecting her hem, she started carefully up the stairs. She avoided the places on the boards that creaked and groaned.
That was just something else she’d come to know after only a short time… this household.
With its roof given to leaking in places and the panes in need of replacing, Lathan’s cottage would never be mistaken for a comfortable, inviting place.
And yet, that was what it had become to her.
Here, she felt… at home.
As she reached her rooms, she felt tears threaten again. She blinked frantically.
For they weren’t her rooms. There’d been only a temporariness to them.
Just as there’d been in terms of her time with Lathan.
She’d deluded herself, lulled herself into imagining this was something more and would forever be something more. But it wasn’t.
Foolish, isn’t it? Believing anyone, particularly the Home Office, would forgive me those crimes. And yet, that is all I want.
Francesca wrapped her arms about her middle and hugged herself.
For Lathan had gotten precisely what he’d wished for—forgiveness from his superior and the opportunity to begin again in a role with the Home Office.
If she
was the friend she’d claimed she was to him, if she loved him as he deserved, then she should feel only happiness for that meeting taking place below.
Her lower lip trembled hard, and she sank her teeth sharply into it.
And yet, she didn’t feel only happiness. She was a vicious, ugly, selfish creature for wanting him to, if not forsake those dreams for a future with her, then have a life with both: his work and her.
Except…
“I wanted to be enough,” she whispered. Tears wound down her cheek, and this time she didn’t bother to check them. For, out here in this modest little cottage, she’d found that which she’d only recently begun searching for—joy. But Lathan Holman was wrapped so very much in that discovery because of her love for him. Her love for the two of them together, freely speaking about issues of import and matters that weren’t important. She’d laughed more. And she’d wanted more with him, because of that and because of who he was, an honorable gentleman who’d no idea how very honorable he, in fact, was.
That exchange between Lathan and his superior played over and over in her mind.
“This is what you’ve been asking for, isn’t it… It’s what you want?”
“It is.”
She’d always known what he wanted. Even if she’d wished it was different.
But Lathan’s dreams… they weren’t hers.
That was why she needed to leave.
That was why she should have left days ago. Because every moment she’d played at make-believe with him had brought her deeper and deeper under his spell, wishing for things that would never be.
That was also why, a short while later, with her valises packed and in hand, that Francesca slipped down the stairs into the kitchens and out the back door… and left.
Lathan stared on as the Marquess of Tennyson recited details about what was to be Lathan’s new assignment.
Lathan wouldn’t be part of the Brethren, that illustrious branch of top-secret spies.
He would be strictly responsible for refining the encrypted codes he’d already begun to develop.
The Spinster Who Saved a Scoundrel (The Brethren Book 5) Page 15
