The Brazen Bride

by Stephanie Laurens

  She faced him, but didn’t venture closer. “Wasn’t about to sleep alone?”

  Logan studied her face in the lamplight; the set of her features was uninformative, her eyes shadowed. “No.” He had no interest in sleeping alone ever again, not if he could help it. “However, if you’re wondering if that was part of the reason I insisted you came with me, the answer is no—that consideration didn’t occur at the time, and weighed not at all in my decision. Yet now you are here, with me, I can’t imagine not lying with you, sleeping with you in my arms.”

  She seemed to hear the truth in his words. Yet still she hesitated, her arms wrapped over the counterpane, her gaze on him.

  Then her lips firmed, and her gaze grew sharper. “An earl’s son?”

  The question was quiet, yet loaded with intensity. With intent.

  Mentally cursing his luck, he baldly stated, “My father was the Earl of Kirkcowan.”

  “Was? He’s dead. So who’s the earl now?”

  “His eldest son.” Standing, he shrugged off his coat, tossed it on a nearby chair. Started unbuttoning his waistcoat.

  “From which curt description, I take it you’re estranged?”

  He nodded. “I’m . . .” A bastard. “The black sheep of the family.” He had to tell her, and surely this was the perfect opening, but he hadn’t yet got all in place. He was too good a commander to charge in when his troops weren’t ready. Jaw tightening, he said, “You don’t need to worry about my . . . elevated connections. In every sense, they’re irrelevant.”

  “Are they?”

  “Yes.” Laying aside his waistcoat, he turned as she came closer, but she halted more than a yard away, studied his face as, raising his chin, he unknotted, then unwound, his cravat.

  From her stance, arms still folded, from her increasingly determined expression, from the frown tangling her brows, she was preparing for battle.

  Sure enough . . .

  “Originally you swore you’d return to me. Instead, you’ve managed to whisk me away with you.” Her green gaze locked on his eyes. “But you can’t keep me with you. You’ll have to let me go in the end.”

  Meeting her challenging gaze with adamantine stubbornness, he started unbuttoning his shirt. “I am not going to walk away from you.” Stubborn witch . “I won’t be letting you go. Not now, not later. You’d best get used to that.”

  The scoffing sound she made stated she was far from that.

  “Just how do you see that working?” Temper snapping, Linnet swung out an arm, encompassing the pair of them and the bed. Inside her roiled panicky fear—and the fact she felt it scared her even more. The desperate fight in the narrow yard, the race through the maze with enemies in pursuit, the knowledge that those enemies were still there, lurking beyond the Hall’s thick walls to fall on him again . . . her reaction to that, and to what that reaction meant and might mean, shook her to the core.

  She’d fallen in love with this stubborn, irritating, impossible man, and she’d never be the same again.

  Her heart would never be the same again.

  That didn’t mean she would let him trample it, cause her more pain—more pain than she would feel anyway when they came to part.

  She stepped closer, locked her eyes on his. “I refuse to allow you to keep me with you. I will not be kept.” Raising a finger, she pointed at his patrician nose. “I will not be a kept woman. I will not be your mistress, sitting waiting for you at your house in Glenluce.”

  Something flared in his eyes, some emotion so powerful that her unruly heart leapt and her nerves skittered, but then he locked his jaw, reined it, whatever it was, in.

  All but ground his teeth as, eyes burning darkly, he stated, “I don’t want you as my mistress.”

  She held his gaze. “What, then?”

  “I want you as my wife , damn it!”

  Slowly, she released the breath she’d been holding. Commendably evenly stated, “Wife.” She’d assumed he’d meant that, but . . . “You never said anything about marriage. You didn’t mention a single associated word—like wife , bride , wedding .” Belligerently stepping closer still, temper rising as her emotions churned, even more out of control than before—God, how did he make her feel so much?—she deployed her finger again, wagging it under his aristocratic nose. “And don’t you dare suggest that me not jumping to a wedding-bell assumption is in some way a slur on your honor. I can’t read your damned mind—and it’s not as if scions of noble houses don’t keep mistresses. It’s a time-honored tradition for earl’s sons!”

  The point that had been preying on her mind for the past hours. Folding her arms, a barrier between them, she glared at him from close quarters.

  Somewhat to her surprise, he didn’t glare back.

  Hands fisted at his sides, jaw clenched, Logan held his fire—because she was right. He’d spelled out his intentions to her men, but he hadn’t told her, not clearly. He’d sworn he would never give her up, had insisted that once he was free, he wanted to share his life with her, but he hadn’t mentioned marriage.

  He’d omitted stating what to him had been the obvious. He’d assumed she had, as he had, come to see their relationship as something any sane man would seek to formalize, that, indeed, being a very sane woman, she would view it in the same light . . . but she hadn’t.

  Clearly she hadn’t been thinking along those lines. Marriage lines. Vows and permanency.

  Which was both a blow to his pride, and a sudden, jolting disappointment—more, a threat. A threat to what he now wanted, nay, needed his life to be—a threat to his dreams for the future.

  Yet he couldn’t fault her—she’d always stated that in her view their liaison would inevitably end. She’d expected it to end in Plymouth. Instead, he’d all but kidnapped her, and now . . .

  His eyes locked with hers, he dragged in a slow breath, filling his lungs, fighting to clear his head while he grappled with how to forge a way forward. Her description of a mistress sitting and waiting in a house in Glenluce . . . the vision had rocked him, pricked him on the raw as nothing else could have. The thought that he would ever subject her to that . . .

  That had been his mother’s life. It would never be Linnet’s. Not while he breathed.

  Forcing his fingers to uncurl, his jaw to ease, he slowly lifted his hands and gently closed them about her arms, simply held her and looked into her eyes. “You’re irritated, annoyed—and you’ve already countered any argument I might make that you ought to have guessed what my intentions were, any righteous assertion that as a gentleman I’d never have slept with you—continued to make love to you—if my intentions hadn’t been honorable—”

  Eyes sparking, she opened her mouth—

  “No—it’s your turn to listen.”

  Reluctantly, all but smoldering, she subsided.

  “You countered those arguments before I made them because you’ve already thought back and realized that, all along, I could have been intending marriage—you just assumed I wasn’t.” He held her gaze. “But I was. As God is my witness, I never thought of making you my mistress—I don’t want you as that. I want you in my bed, but I also want to have breakfast with you, to spend my days, my time, with you. I want to dine with you, to follow you on your rounds and check the doors after you, and follow you up the stairs to your bed.

  “I want that as my life, my future. I told you I wanted to share my life with you, but I didn’t say anything about marriage because the fact that I might die, or be too seriously wounded to have a life to share, precludes that. You saw what I’m facing—the cult is determined to kill me and seize the scroll-holder. Until we reach the end of this, I can’t—in the traditional, honorable way can’t—make any formal offer for your hand.”

  He dragged in another breath. “But I can tell you this— you are the woman I want to share the rest of my life with, whether you consent to marry me or not. I won’t willingly let you go, and while, as you’re so relentless in telling me, I can’t force you to stay with me,
I can, and will, do everything I can to change your mind.”

  Still holding her gaze, he drew her to him, slid his hands slowly around the silky comforter in which she was wrapped. Quietly stated, “I want you as my wife, to have and to hold, and never release from the day we exchange our vows.”

  She blinked up at him. Watched as he bent his head to hers, but didn’t pull back, away.

  He sensed in her gaze, in the uncertainty of her stance—her uncharacteristic indecision over whether to sink against him or hold rigid in his arms—that she was caught in emotional turmoil, too.

  Unexpected turmoil. Matters between them were not proceeding as, apparently, either of them had thought.

  The realization lent a grim edge to his voice as, letting his lips cruise her temple, he murmured, “I want you. I want a life with you, a traditional, time-honored married life with you—and I would prefer not to settle for anything less.” He paused, his breath fanning her cheek, then added, “I’ve been a soldier, a commander, all my adult life, and I’m going to fight for you. And win. I will push to win. Because, for me, there’s no other choice.” He bent the last inch and his lips brushed hers. “You are my future, the only future I want.”

  He kissed her, pressed his lips to hers and caressed. Gathered her closer, inexpressibly relieved when she permitted it—more, when she came. When she sank slowly against him and let him settle her there, her hips to his thighs, her taut belly cradling his arousal.

  Arousing him even more.

  He wanted her with a power, a force, a raw need that ripped at him. A need their discussion, her miscomprehension of his intentions, had only whipped to more raging heights.

  But this wasn’t a battle that could be won with force and might, not with power. Only with persuasion.

  So he set himself to persuade, to hold all the power, the force and raw might of his need in check—let her see it, sense it, know it was there, but that it was, for her, held at bay.

  Held back so he could show her, demonstrate and reveal how real and vital, how vibrant and deep, was his ardor. His passion, his desire, his fathomless need of her, something that welled from his heart, not just his loins, that lived in his soul, not just his mind.

  Linnet sensed the difference, his intent. Felt it in the heavy thud of his heart beneath the palm she placed, braced, on his chest. Sensed it in the way his lips moved on hers, enticing, beguiling, not seizing, not taking.

  Knew it in the strength, masculine and demanding, yet tonight not commanding, that closed around her, surrounding her, but gently.

  All but reverently.

  And yet the passion built, the heat and the flames, until her own need rose. Until their lips turned greedy, hungry and needy, until their bodies yearned.

  He released her and shrugged out of his shirt. She dealt with the buttons at his waist, then, as he stepped back to strip off his breeches, she dropped the counterpane, quickly flicked the ties at her throat free.

  Naked, he gripped the nightgown, with quiveringly restrained care drew it off over her head.

  Then he flung it away, reached for her, and she went into his arms.

  Caught her breath as he lifted her, wound her legs about his waist, her arms about his neck and gasped, head back, as, slowly, he filled her.

  Filled her until she was full and complete.

  Held her in his arms while they both, for that magical instant, savored.

  Then he tipped his head up and his lips found hers, and he kissed her and she kissed him back and clung as he moved her on him.

  As he lifted her, drew her down, thrust in.

  Their bodies strained to race, to plunge and plunder, yet he held them back. Even though the drumbeat of their mutual desire had escalated, even though, steady and relentless, it pushed them on, he still took his time, held their rhythm to a rigidly reined cadence, and showed her.

  More.

  Lavished feeling and sensation and delicious delight on her, on her body. Fed her whirling mind with another type of joy, communicated by his hands as they held her securely, by his body as he used it in myriad ways to please and pleasure her.

  And she couldn’t fight this—couldn’t resist his lure. Couldn’t pretend she didn’t see, didn’t know, didn’t understand what he was doing, what he wanted her to see.

  What he wanted her to want.

  Him. Like this. For the rest of her life.

  She could have told him she did, that that very need was a barb buried deep in her heart, in her soul. But she didn’t.

  Head back, breathing labored, she shook free of all thought, gave herself up to the moment, and rode on through a landscape colored by sensation. He found her, snared her, pushed her up, quick and hard, to the peak of jagged desire, and she shattered in bright incandescence.

  Even as, tumbling her back on the bed, he followed her down, then came inside her, hard and fast, deep and powerful, again, she couldn’t find the words, couldn’t grasp the essential meaning of what she should say.

  What she could say, could tell him.

  Instead, she let all inhibitions fall, joined with him and let him drive them on into a landscape richer, more vibrant, more brilliant, more intense—let all she felt free to well through her and meet all the passion, the desire, the need he let her see.

  In that moment she accepted what lay between them—what he felt, what she felt, what together they had somehow created.

  This was real.

  Powerful, intense.

  That reality was etched on his face as, head rising, he groaned as his body clenched, then shuddered with release.

  She went with him, let the potent pleasure have her, shatter her, clung as together they flew. . . .

  They drifted back to earth, locked in each other’s arms.

  As he slumped, wracked and spent, upon her, as her arms closed around him and held him close, as her body welcomed his weight, his warmth, savored that incredible moment of closeness, she acknowledged this was right, that this was truth, that above all, this was their reality.

  For tonight, knowing that, recognizing that, was enough.

  Tomorrow, in the harsh light of a winter’s day, she would weigh, assess.

  She would have to adjust.

  Because this, and he, would never leave her. That much, she now understood.

  Late at night

  Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk

  “S o where do we really stand?”

  In the bedroom Alex had chosen as theirs in the temporarily empty house tucked into the arches of the old abbey ruins into which they’d moved that day, Daniel watched his lover pace.

  They’d just parted from Roderick, who had reported that, with heavy snow now blanketing the region, the boy-thief Roderick’s man Larkins had inserted into Delborough’s household—now quartered at Somersham Place with the Cynsters—would have to wait for the drifts to decrease before delivering the scroll-holder to Larkins at nearby Ely Cathedral.

  “Why so agitated?” Daniel bent to warm his hands at the fire. The house was still cold. Their people had been in residence for less than a day, not enough time for the fires to dispel the winter chill. “Delborough’s not going anywhere in this snow, and Larkins seems to have set up a reasonable scheme to get his hands on the colonel’s scroll-holder. We’ll just have to wait and see on that front. There’s nothing you or I can do to improve matters.”

  Frowning, Alex bit a nail—never a good sign.

  Inwardly Daniel sighed, and continued, his tone steady and reassuring, “Hamilton’s gone to ground and—given the weather—is unlikely to move north for a day or so. But when he does, we’ll know of it before he crosses the Thames. As for the other two . . . a rider just came in with news.”

  As he’d known it would, the information captured Alex’s immediate attention.

  Inwardly smiling, Daniel went on, “Monteith’s ship, the one he took from Lisbon, has failed to reach port. It’s believed to have been lost in a storm in the Channel.” Catching Alex’s pale eye
s, Daniel smiled coldly. “I think we can assume that, one way or another, Monteith is feeding the fishes as we speak.”

  Alex flashed a chilly smile in response, but didn’t cease pacing. “We’ve heard nothing more about Carstairs?”

  “No, but that may be to the good. It gives us time to deal with the others without having yet another on the doorstep.”

  Alex grimaced. “True.”

  Daniel waited, quietly pointed, for some explanation of Alex’s continuing concern.

  Alex waved. “It’s this notion of a puppetmaster. More than a notion—there is someone behind this, driving the entire scheme, and we don’t know who he is. That, my dear, is what’s worrying me. I hate not knowing who our opposition is.”

  Halting, Alex met Daniel’s eyes. “As I said earlier, this puppetmaster is someone with real power.”

  “You’re sure it’s not St. Ives?”

  “Yes. If what Roderick says is true, it won’t be him. St. Ives is . . . a lieutenant, if you like. Which only underscores our puppetmaster’s standing. He commands at a very high level, and he’s somewhere around here.” Alex sat on the bed and frowned up at Daniel. “It’s worrisome, to say the least, that we now have someone of that caliber involved.”

  Daniel left the fire. Halting before Alex, he wondered what the correct thing to say was.

  Alex could be difficult. Against that, Alex was rarely wrong.

  “Perhaps,” Daniel ventured, “either Delborough or Hamilton might lead us to this puppetmaster—after we relieve them of their scroll-holders, of course.”

  “Of course.” Alex sighed and fell back across the bed. “I just wish I could feel more confident that Delborough is the one carrying Roderick’s letter. That way, once we seize it, we can depart this drab, dreary, and oh-so-damp place, and never need to tangle with the puppetmaster.”