When her spine met the bole of a tall tree, she pulled back on a gasp, eyes wide. “What?” She glanced to either side, then met his eyes as he released her arms, grasped her waist, and stepped closer.
“Another lesson. Alfresco.” He wedged one thigh between hers.
Her hands gripped his shoulders, whether to hold him back, or to her, she didn’t seem sure. “Here?”
“Right here.” Locking his eyes on hers, he pushed her cloak wide, reached down, and drew up her skirts. “Right now.”
“But …” She licked her lips, stared into his eyes.
Lifting her skirt and shift out of his way, he reached beneath, slid his hand under the hem of her chemise, and found her curls. Reached past, and found her.
He watched her lips part, heard her breath hitch, felt her tense as he cupped, stroked, and stoked her passion. Watched her gaze grow unfocused as her all but instant response coated his fingers in slick heat.
With his other hand he undid his breeches, then withdrew his fingers from between her thighs, pushed aside her clothes, and reached beneath to close his hands about her bottom and lift her.
To just the right height.
Linnet gasped, braced her hands on his shoulders, eyes wide as she looked down into his eyes, at the hot blue flames flaring in their depths. She struggled to breathe, to assimilate the sensation of the hard head of his erection poised at her entrance.
To assimilate just how ready, how wantonly willing her, body was, how eager to receive him. To have him fill her and stretch her, pound into her and pleasure her.
His eyes held hers; she couldn’t look way. His hands kneaded, his grip shifted, tilting her hips. She surrendered to impulse, raised one leg and curled it around his hip.
Brazenly, she licked her lips, looked at his.
Wordlessly dared.
His lips twisted, half grimace, half acknowledging smile. “This won’t be slow, and it won’t be short. You can scream as much as you like—no one’s going to hear.” He shifted his hips, teasing her with the promise of the rigid rod riding at her entrance; anticipation shivered through her, sharp as any knife. He repeated the movement and her eyes closed; her breath caught. Her fingers slid over his shoulders and dug in.
Logan leaned closer, angling his head to whisper as he pressed into her just a little way, “I’m going to take you thoroughly, and I guarantee you’ll scream.”
Opening her eyes, she looked into his. “All right. Show me.” She arched her brows. “It’s the least you can do.”
He shut her up. Filled her mouth with his tongue and silenced her.
Ravished and took, knowing it was precisely what she wanted. That she would revel in the heat, in the passion and the hunger.
He thrust deep and filled her, and simply let go—let all he was free to engage, unfettered, unleashed, with her. It was what she wanted—and after her little lecture on him and commitment, it was what he needed.
He needed to imprint himself on her soul.
Linnet clung and let his passion take her. Felt her own rise to meet it, to taunt and challenge and boldly mate, to give and take in a storm of sensations.
Felt heat and desire surge and merge in a fiery wash of grasping, greedy need.
Hungry need.
Frenzied greed.
Their lips clung, mouths mating as thoroughly and completely, as their bodies. She held him to her, moved against him as they raced for the distant peak.
As he’d promised, it wasn’t a short ride.
But it was fast. Hard, powerful, exhilarating.
He took her breath and gave it back. She arched against him, demanding more.
Commanding more. Whipping him on, driving herself as much as he drove her.
Pulling back from the kiss, she tipped her head back, gasping, struggling to find enough air to breathe. Fighting to expand her senses to take it all in.
To fully appreciate the heavy bucking thrust of his hips between her thighs, the forceful repetitive surges that rocked her against the tree. Pinned her there as he filled her, and took his fill of her.
The tempo built, and built. She caught his nape and locked her lips on his—and gave. Gave.
Felt the rush as they reached the last stretch, the surging power as they raced up the rise.
Higher and higher, faster and harder.
She flung back her head and breathlessly screamed.
In the indescribable moment of brain-scrambling glory as together they crested and flung themselves high—over the precipice and into the void.
Linnet knew the engagement had been at least partially fueled by anger—his that she hadn’t believed him, perhaps that she hadn’t begged him to return, hers because he was all she’d ever wanted and yet knew she could never have. She didn’t care.
Head back against the tree, eyes closed, she wondered when she’d be able to fill her lungs again. He lay against her, slumped, his head on her shoulder, his shoulders pinning her chest, his hands still beneath her bottom, supporting her.
He didn’t seem able to move any more than she could.
So she let her lids rest closed, let her lips ease into the satisfied smile they wanted to form, and savored. Absorbed.
Stored up all the little details of having him out there, in the wild. In her wild, in her wood.
He’d surprised her, yes, but at no point had she been averse to another of his lessons. She needed to—should—take all he would give her while he was still there.
She had a strong premonition his time there, with them, with her, was coming to an end.
The winter’s dark had closed in by the time they made it back to the house; they’d had to wait in the clearing until she’d been able to command her limbs enough to walk.
He’d offered to carry her. She’d declined. Quite aside from seeing no need to feel that helpless again so soon, she worried that his recent exertions might have harmed his stitches.
When she’d said as much, he’d looked at her, then reminded her that he hadn’t screamed.
She glanced at him as they stepped free of the trees, pulled a face at him that he didn’t see. Damn man—he annoyed her so much by the way he made her feel.
He was looking grim. Grim because she hadn’t let him sweep her away into his impossible dream. What irritated her most was that, even though she knew how futile and unutterably stupid it would be, she felt ridiculously tempted to let him do just that—just to see him smile.
Just to make him happy.
That she could contemplate such an action, even knowing it was pure delusion and would only lead to emotional devastation far worse than anything she would, as things now stood, feel, was a real measure of just how dangerous to her he’d grown.
Never had she imagined feeling for a man as she already did for him; never had she imagined that her emotions could be this deeply involved.
They entered the house through the kitchen door. No one used the front door; she’d never known why—the back door had been the door for all her life. As they paused in the small hall to remove and hang up their cloaks, a rich aroma of blended spices wafted out from the kitchen.
She breathed in; the exotic smell made her mouth water. “Pennyweather hasn’t made curry for months.”
She glanced at Logan—and froze.
He’d frozen, too, caught in the act of hanging his cloak on a peg. Arm raised, he stood stock-still, his eyes unfocused, his expression not blank so much as not there.
Her heart thudded, one painful thump. She waited a moment, then, her mouth suddenly dry, asked, “What is it?”
But she already knew.
Slowly, he returned, animation reinfusing his features, then his gaze refocused on her face.
Eventually he met her eyes, and he said the words she’d known were coming. “I’ve remembered. All of it.”
It was like floodgates opening—a roiling, tumbling powerful river of facts and recollections rushing in. Logan felt overwhelmed, close to drowning, at first.
Seated at the dinner table surrounded by the rest of the household, all eager and excited to hear his news, he started with the most important—most pertinent—facts. “I’m Major Logan Monteith, late of the Honorable East India Company, operating out of Calcutta under the direct orders of the Marquess of Hastings, Governor-General of India.”
Absentmindedly eating the curry-stew and rice placed before him, he frowned. The missing pieces had arrived, but not in any order; he had to sort them, fit them into the right blank spaces, before he could see a cohesive whole.
At the foot of the table, Muriel was beaming, thrilled that what had apparently been her stratagem to use smell to jog his memory had worked. He was sincerely grateful, yet he’d sorted through enough to know he didn’t need to burden them—the innocents of this household—with all he knew.
After one searching glance at him, Linnet waved the children, all bubbling with questions, back. “Let him remember it all first. The faster you clean your plates, the sooner we’ll go into the parlor. Logan can tell us what he’s remembered then.”
The children looked at him, then applied themselves diligently to their plates.
He was grateful to them all. There was so much to slot in, to realign and confirm.
To acknowledge.
His instincts hadn’t been wrong in presaging approaching danger. He’d been right in thinking that the assassins who had attacked him on the ship were part of a greater whole, and that their colleagues wouldn’t have given up.
The more he remembered, the grimmer he felt, but he forced himself to go through it all, to examine and verify that each segment of memory was now clear, consistent, no longer had holes. That what he remembered rang true.
The memory of his last sight of his friend and close colleague, Captain James MacFarlane—the sight of James’s body, of the torture he’d endured at the hands of Black Cobra cultists before he’d died—that, above all, was blazoned in his mind.
That, and the knowledge that he and James’s three other close friends, Colonel Derek Delborough, Major Gareth Hamilton, and Captain Rafe Carstairs—all of whom Logan regarded as brothers, having fought alongside them for more than a decade—were ferrying vital evidence to England, evidence that would bring the Black Cobra cult’s reign of terror to an end.
That—his commitment to that—took precedence over all else.
Movement around him had him refocusing. Discovering that he, like the children, had cleaned his plate, not just of the main course but also of the coconut-flavored blancmange that had followed it, he laid down his spoon as Molly and Prue arrived to clear the table.
He glanced at Linnet.
She caught his eye. “Let’s go into the parlor.” Pushing back her chair, she rose. “And you can tell us what you’ve remembered.”
He nodded. Hung back as she, Muriel, and Buttons went, ahead, trailed by the children, heading for their places before the hearth. He followed them in, Edgar and John, equally curious, on his heels.
Setting foot in the parlor, his gaze went to the wooden cylinder lying on the sideboard. The scroll-holder it was his duty to ferry to the Duke of Wolverstone. Walking across, he picked up the holder and carried it to the armchair he’d occasionally occupied—the one facing Linnet’s across the hearth. The place that, in just a few short days, had come to feel like his.
The children swung to face him as he sat. They watched, eyes growing round as, with confident flicks, he opened the six brass levers in the top of the cylinder in the correct order, then lifted the cap of the cylinder free.
Reaching inside, he drew out the single sheet the scroll-holder contained, unrolled it, and glanced over it, verifying that that, too, was as he remembered.
It was. He’d got his past back, every last bit.
The good news was that there was no impediment to him returning to Linnet, and remaining with her for the rest of his life.
The bad news …
Looking across the hearth, he met her green gaze. “I have to get to Plymouth.”
Eight
Three hours later, Logan followed Linnet up the stairs. During those hours, he’d talked and answered questions, satisfying as much of the household’s curiosity as he could. The only elements he’d omitted were the grim details of the atrocities the Black Cobra cult had committed, presumably was still committing, in India; those were the stuff of nightmares.
The children had gone up after the first hour, chased to their beds by Buttons, who had later returned to sit with Linnet, Muriel, Edgar, and John as he’d outlined his mission, which explained why he had to reach Plymouth as soon as possible. According to the orders he’d memorized months ago, he was already two days overdue.
Linnet had, too calmly, assured him she would help him arrange his onward journey tomorrow. He would have to cross the island to St. Peter Port, the deepwater port on the east shore where oceangoing ships put in, and hire one to take him to Plymouth.
He brooded on that, on the part she’d have to play in arranging his departure, how his leaving so abruptly—having to leave immediately now he’d remembered all—sat with their earlier discussion in the wood, while he trailed her to the children’s rooms, propping in the doorways to watch as, exactly as he’d imagined, she tucked them in, kissing them even though they were asleep.
As was now his habit, he’d followed her on her rounds downstairs, assuring himself that all was indeed secure, doubly important now he’d remembered who was after him. He hadn’t again mentioned his concern that cultists might follow him there; Linnet would only dismiss it as she had before. The best way he could protect the household was to leave as soon as possible.
Which was why he’d followed her to the upper floor, knowing this would be the last chance he would have for some time to watch her tuck her wards in. His last chance—until he came back—to watch the softer side of her that she only allowed to show around the children.
He’d wanted that memory to add to his stock, to balance out some of the horrors.
To remind him why—give him a specific reason why—his mission was so important, why his unwavering determination to see it through was the right and proper course. Why James’s death had to be avenged, why evil—a real and present evil—had to be defeated.
So the good could live.
So women like Linnet could tuck children who weren’t theirs into bed at night.
So those children could grow up safe and secure, never knowing terror, never seeing evil’s cold face.
Linnet straightened from Gilly’s bed, then, picking up the candlestick, came toward him. He straightened from the doorjamb, stepped back into the corridor to let her past, then followed her down the stairs to her room.
Leading the way in, she set the candlestick on the tallboy, then crossed to her dressing table and sat before it.
Closing the door, he paused, watched as she reached up and started unpinning her chignon. It was the first time he’d seen her tend her long hair; when the mass of rippling tresses fell loose, veiling her shoulders and back in red-gold fire, he drew in a breath, then walked to stand behind her.
Sinking his hands into his pockets, he watched as she plied a brush, drawing it through the silky strands, then he met her gaze in the mirror. “Tomorrow. I’ll have to hire a ship, but, as you know, I don’t have any funds here. I’ll need to contact London, but that will take days.”
Her lips curved lightly. “Don’t worry. I know a captain who will take you on account.”
Logan wondered what he was supposed to make of that. Was this unnamed captain a rival, or simply another of Linnet’s male acquaintances? He’d noticed that, presumably because of her peculiar status as queen of her realm, her interactions with men—the vicar leapt to mind—were different, as if she were more lord than lady.
She’d refocused on her hair, on the soothing, repetitive motion of the brush down the long tresses.
Unable to help himself, he reached out, closed his hand around hers and lifted the brush from her f
ingers. Ignoring her questioning look, he settled behind her, settled to brush her hair.
Another memory he wanted—of the brush sliding smoothly down, the black bristles stroking the gleaming curtain of fire, making it gleam even more.
Another image to hold on to, to know he would return to.
Linnet watched him, watched the concentration in his face as he steadily worked through the heavy mass, laying each brushed strand down as if it were in truth the red-gold it resembled.
She tried to ignore the gentle rhythmic tug, the subtly soothing, almost hypnotic caress.
Felt her lids grow heavy, seduced nevertheless.
He’d be on his way tomorrow, and although she would be going, too, this would be the last night they would share here—in her bedroom, at Mon Coeur.
No matter what he said, she knew he wouldn’t be back.
Reaching up, she caught his hand, took the brush, and set it down on the dressing table. Then she rose, stepped around the stool, and turned.
And boldly went into his arms.
He was waiting—waiting to close his arms around her, to bend his head and take the lips she offered.
To kiss her long and lingeringly, deeply and possessively—as she wished, as she wanted. Tonight she was determined to claim one last lesson, and she knew what she wanted to learn.
Logan sensed her intent, her focus. Felt her determination when she pushed his coat open, then down his arms. Breaking off the kiss, he let her go and drew his arms free of the sleeves, tossed the coat aside. By the time he had, she’d opened his waistcoat and fallen on the buttons closing his shirt.
He wasn’t averse to letting her undress him—to a point.
Somewhat to his surprise, with his shirt dispensed with, she pushed him around to pick at the knot securing the bandages around his chest.
“I need to examine your wound.” She tugged, and the bandages loosened.
As she unwound them he almost sighed in relief. The long wound, the stitches she’d so neatly set into his flesh, had been itching like fire all day. A good sign, he knew, but he was more than happy to lose the constriction, the restriction.
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