The Raider’s Bride

by Kimberly Cates

  "No!" Lucy cried out. "I don't believe you! I want to, but I can't!"

  "Listen, Lucy. Listen to the song." The melody spun out from Emily's lips, even more beautiful for the ragged edges to her voice. Pain and sorrow, joy and hope, a vision of a hundred tomorrows, bright and beautiful, seemed to shimmer in the air and wrap themselves about the child.

  Lucy's eyes widened as the notes died into silence, the song seeming to cling to her like the fragrance of the roses all about them. Tears trembled on the child's sable lashes.

  "You left me alone," Lucy said at last in a small voice. "I should be very angry at you."

  Emily knelt down before the little girl, taking Lucy's hands, holding them tight. "I didn't know, Lucy. I swear that I didn't know you were alive. If I had, I never, never would have left you alone." Emily swallowed hard, knowing how terrifyingly wonderful this must seem to the little girl. How frightening. How fantastical.

  Lucy chewed at her bottom lip. Her eyes narrowed.

  "Would you have to call me Jenny then? I'm quite 'customed to Lucy. Though, perhaps, since I already have so many names, I shall have you call me Dulcinea instead."

  Emily gave a choked laugh. "Lucy suits you quite perfectly," she said. "It's a wonder I never thought of it myself."

  "Humph." Lucy seemed to consider. "You are a very strange lady. My other governesses always didn't like me and were mean to me, but you never were. Maybe that is because you would make a better mama."

  The last word was hushed, as tremulous as a prayer. Emily felt her heart take flight. She opened her arms, and the child flung herself into them. Lucy embraced her so fiercely that Emily felt pain... the most healing pain she had ever known.

  She turned with her daughter in her arms to where Ian stood. Tears were coursing down those arrogant cheekbones as he turned away, and Emily knew the agony jolting through him, because she had so recently felt it herself.

  He was going to give Lucy up. Surrender her. Emily felt the certainty slam into her heart like a stone.

  "Uncle Ian," Lucy piped up, "now everything will be quite perfect. We can be together for always. The lady and you and me."

  "Lucy," Ian began, "you have to understand that—"

  Emily felt Lucy stiffen. “Sweeting, your uncle Ian and I both love you very much. But—"

  "I hate it when grown-ups say 'but.' It always means that they are going to be difficult. I don't want you to be difficult. I want Uncle Ian to be my papa and you to be my mama. And I demand that you give me baby brothers and sisters so that I can tell them what to do. And I would name them Arantha and Mahitibel and Roderigo."

  Agony flooded Ian's eyes, and in that moment Emily knew just how deeply she had hurt him, how thoroughly she had destroyed the part of him that was vulnerable and needing beneath his hard layer of inner strength. And she wanted to spare him any more pain, wanted to ease the darkness in his eyes.

  "Sweeting, my coming back here doesn't change what happened between your uncle and me. The fact is that I did something very wrong, and—"

  "Damn it, Emily, you did what you had to do." She was stunned when Ian broke in. "Lucy, it is my fault that you can't have everything the way you might like it. But I will buy you and your mama a lovely house, with a pasture for Cristofori and a beautiful chamber for your pianoforte. And I'll make certain that you have all the lovely gowns you could ever imagine."

  "But then I wouldn't have you."

  Ian's hands knotted, and he looked away. "I could visit you often. You would be near enough so that you could run between the houses and terrorize both the lady and me. That way you could..." He hesitated for a moment. "You could keep both of us."

  The sound of Ian echoing Lucy's treasured words, twisted the grief even tighter in Emily's chest.

  Lucy's face crumpled into a formidable scowl, and she ripped herself from Emily's grasp. She faced them, her hands balled up and planted on her hips, her blue eyes spitting fury.

  "This is very stupid. I just might decide not to keep either one of you unless you stop being despicable. Your eyes are all red and sad, lady, and you love my uncle very much, even though he is being the most detestable blockhead in the whole world right now. And you, Uncle Ian"—she jabbed a finger in his direction—"you keep looking at the lady like you want to do the kissing thing with her so bad it makes you all trembly inside. But you are afraid to."

  "Lucy, please." Emily tried to cut the child off. "You don't understand."

  "That is what grown-ups say when they are doing something they know is very foolish and they can't think of how to explain it to children who are very much smarter than they are. And you, lady, have already been very bad today. You went away in the coach and made Uncle Ian and me cry." She glowered. "You were going to leave me again. That is turning into a most disagreeable habit."

  "I was... Oh, Lucy..." For a heartbeat Emily wavered, knowing that whatever she said would hurt either Ian or the child. Her eyes stung, and she knew that there was nothing to say except the truth.

  "I love you so much, little one. You were... were the most beautiful thing that had ever happened in my life. When I was sad and frightened and alone, you showed me all that was good and beautiful." Her voice dropped low. "I wanted you to give those dreams back to your uncle as well."

  Lucy regarded her solemnly. "When you were going away I was so sad I wanted to cry and cry forever. I wanted to run and make that coach stop taking you away. But I knew that Uncle Ian was very sad, too. He would need me to make him laugh sometimes and not... be alone."

  Oh, God, Emily thought, stealing a glance at Ian. His whole body was rigid; his hands trembled. For him to hear this. To know that they both had seen his hidden pain.

  "Are you going to leave me again, lady?"

  "I... don't know, Lucy. Your uncle and I haven't discussed—"

  "I think that you have been disgusting quite enough, and if you don't stop, I will take my cunning little scissors and cut off all the buttons of everyone I see, and I will be so naughty that you will have to do the kissing thing together just to get me to stop."

  "Lucy," Ian said, "it's not that simple."

  "Yes, it is. You go and at least try to do the kissing thing or your well will be so full of buttons that every time you sip a cup of tea, they will clink against your teeth." Lucy brandished the scissors as if they were the most menacing cutlass.

  "Perhaps we could talk," Ian said, uncertainty wreathing his features. "We need to work out some arrangement." He gestured toward the path where they had walked on that afternoon when Lucy had been stitching buttons.

  That sun-kissed afternoon seemed an eternity ago.

  Without a word, Emily started down the ribbon of pebbles. Lucy's voice made her pause but a moment. "Do not forget what I said the day I told you about becoming Uncle Ian's mistress. If you shed copious tears he will carry you off to his bedchamber." Lucy suddenly looked nonplussed. "But I don't know what you need to do to make him want you for his wife."

  Blindly, Emily hastened away from the child who looked so incredibly hopeful, so pitifully vulnerable, ensconced among the flowers.

  Emily retreated to the arbor, hoping the shade would hide her expression. The coolness of the arch of beech trees kissed cheeks, which were still damp with tears. She shivered as the dimness encircled her, knowing that Ian had chosen to walk forever in such shadows, living the half-life Emily herself had endured in those long years she had spent with the Quakeress in England.

  She heard Ian's footsteps behind her, heard him give a weary sigh.

  "Oh, God, Emily," he breathed in a stricken voice. "What have I done?" She looked up to see him rake his hand back through his hair.

  "We had to tell her the truth. You were right."

  "No. I was wrong. So damned wrong. Tony tried to tell me, but I never bloody listen." He stopped, his voice a rasp low in his throat. "You would have left her here with me, Emily. Forever. Knowing what I am—a bastard, hard, cold, cynical. A devil feared and despised by dece
nt people clear up to Boston."

  "I would have left her with you, knowing that no one could love Lucy more. Knowing that she would be safe and protected from harm. Knowing that"—her voice dropped low—"you would never crush her spirit. My one hope was that someday I would be able to see her again and find out what a formidable young lady she had become."

  Ian caught his hand in her own, his face twisting in pain. "Perhaps the little termagant is right. The best solution is for us to wed."

  They were words she had wanted so desperately to hear. Words that painted a picture of a future so magical she scarce dared imagine it. It was almost too beautiful to believe in.

  She looked down at their linked fingers, remembering what it had felt like to have them skim over her skin in passion, remembering them attempting to wield a needle under Lucy's instruction. To be Ian Blackheath's wife. To share his bed, bear his children. It was everything she'd ever wanted. And yet, would this be so much different from her first marriage?

  She drew away, squaring her shoulders in resolve.

  "No, Ian. Alexander married me because he felt duty bound to do so. I'll never subject myself to such a relationship again. It was... degrading."

  He cupped her chin in his hand, lifting her face so his gaze could feather across it. "Emily, I'm no self-sacrificing hero like Alexander. You know that better than anyone. I want you for my wife because I'm a selfish bastard who isn't noble enough to send you away from me, even though I know I should. Because I... I love you, Emily Rose. And for some reason God alone can name, you love me, too."

  "How can I be sure you love me?" she asked, her voice quavering. "How can you expect me to believe you love me, when you could not believe it yourself?"

  His hands swept up to frame her face, his fingers tracing her cheeks, his eyes glowing, soft above a breathtakingly tender smile. "How can you believe me, Emily Rose? Because you are an angel sent to save me from myself. Angels can see into the souls of us poor sinners and know things we try to keep hidden from mere mortals. Look into my heart, Emily Rose. Tell me what you see."

  She let her gaze probe into those crystal blue depths, her lips parting in a gasp at what she saw—love. A love that made her soul soar in answering wonder.

  "What do you see, Emily Rose?"

  "Love," she whispered, "so much... love."

  "I've been saving it for a long time," Ian said, his voice breaking. "Hoarding it away. I just never knew why. I didn't know that I was waiting for you. Marry me, lady. Not because of Lucy or some notion of honor or duty. Marry me because I love you more deeply than any man has ever loved a woman from the beginning of time."

  His eyes glowed with reverence and passion and dreams for a thousand tomorrows. "Ian... oh, Ian. Yes. With all my heart." Emily's breath caught as his mouth closed upon hers, gentle at first, tender, so tender.

  Her arms twined about his neck, pulling his mouth tighter to hers, the heat of his kiss melting away the last pain inside her, banishing the last lingering fears.

  And she gasped in joy, in pleasure, her lips parting, her tongue seeking the crease of Ian's lips, tasting them, then sliding past, into the dark heat of his mouth.

  With a harsh animal groan, Ian welcomed her with his own tongue, delving into the sweetness of the kiss again and again with honeyed thrusts that whispered of last night and of the far more intimate melding of their bodies, the dance of passion that they would share for so many years to come.

  "I'll never get enough of you," Ian rasped, trailing kisses across her cheeks, down her throat. "My love. My lady. Oh, God, Emily," he breathed against her ear, "you can't know how much I want you in my bed right now. Want to be inside you, deep, so deep. If Lucy wasn't such a short distance away, you would be in deadly peril, I assure you."

  A shiver of raw desire, pure elation, tore through her, and Emily whispered, "Perhaps we could steal away somewhere later where we would not be disturbed."

  She blushed, remembering all too well the night they had kissed in the east wing. The night Ian had explained the siege d'amour to her, filling her mind with such lascivious, sensual thoughts that she'd all but collapsed from the heat they spawned in her.

  She knew, the instant he realized what she meant. He flashed her that irrepressible scoundrel's grin. "Emily Rose, you're thinking of my chamber of love, aren't you? Well, there is something I think you should know about that room, my sweet. Mostly, it was for show. A place where we could do our dastardly rebel business without fear of being interrupted."

  "But the siege?"

  "That was a jest. A gift from Tony. God, how we loved to shock people by describing its uses. However, I assure you that the thing has gone unchristened."

  "Perhaps"—Emily blushed—"you and I might try it sometime, as long as... as we are alone."

  Ian's eyes grew solemn, the tenderness inside them warming the depths of Emily's soul. "You never have to fear that I will take another woman, Emily."

  "I'm not afraid of anything, as long as I can hold you, Ian, touch you, know that you love me." Emily clung a moment more, bathing in the glorious miracle of the love in Ian's eyes. "And now I think there is a very impatient moppet who needs to know that everything has been arranged to her complete satisfaction. As usual."

  Ian curved his arm about Emily's waist, and they walked out into the sunshine together. Lucy was pacing before the stone bench, her brow furrowed, her lower lip red where she had worried it with her teeth.

  When those wise blue eyes locked upon them, she gave a cry rife with satisfaction. "I am glad to see you being very sensible now. If people would only do what I tell them to all the time, there would not be so much difficulty in this world."

  Ian shot Emily a devilish grin. "Blast the child, she's enjoying being right entirely too much. You know, she'll be insufferable now."

  "I was always insufferable. It's just that now I will be happy, too. And I never have been before. If you would just come here and do the kissing thing with me, too, I would like it very much."

  Ian knelt down and opened his arms, and Lucy raced into them, tugging Emily down among the flowers as well.

  After a moment Lucy raised her head. "While you were gone, I spent a lot of time thinking," she said.

  Ian laughed. "Saints preserve us. What were you doing? Plotting more villainy should we not accede to your wishes?"

  "No. I was thinking about a real live villain. That duke who stole me away. I have decided that if I ever meet him I will make him very sorry for making me and the lady so sad. I will... I will..." She laid one finger against her chin, considering for a moment. "I will be quite dastardly, but I can't think of anything to do for revenge right now. The happiness inside me is too big to leave any room for wickedness."

  Ian's laugh rumbled out as he kissed the child's cheek. "I am certain you will recover soon enough, my sweet."

  "The duke is dead, Lucy love," Emily said, stroking back a wisp of golden curl. "He can't hurt us anymore."

  "But what about that bad duchess? Is she dead, too?"

  "No. The duchess is still alive," Emily said. "She is a very bitter and lonely woman. Just look at the granddaughter she lost."

  "P'raps someday she will find me," Lucy said with a diabolical gleam in her wide eyes. "P'raps I will make her very sorry she has."

  "Perhaps." Emily felt a sting of something like fear, then felt it melt beneath the light in Ian's eyes, the determined tilt of Lucy's little chin. The duke and duchess of Avonstea might have banished their granddaughter from her ancestral home and deprived her of noble birthright, but nothing could rob Lucy of her aristocratic pride.

  The girl was more than a match for any d'Autrecourt alive. And when she was older, what a formidable young lady she would make!

  "That was a very mean secret they kept," Lucy complained. "And I have decided that I don't like secrets at all. Uncle Ian, I think you should tell my... my mama that you are Pendragon now."

  Ian all but dropped the little girl, his face almost comical, h
e was so stunned. "P-Pendragon? Where did you ever get such an absurd idea?"

  "It's not a disturbed idea. I sneaked in very quietly and looked behind your clothespress, and I found that cunning little hiding place you have there for your Pendragon things. Your mask was in there and your cape and a very shiny pistol. I put it all on and played for a little while, but Priam came in and I had to climb under the bed so he wouldn't see me. I decided it wasn't a good game after all."

  "Why, you little imp! I can't believe—Wait! I stand corrected. Of course you found my costume. You would have done so even if I had hidden it in the next colony."

  "I am very glad you didn't get dead when you got that hole in your mask, Uncle Ian, though the blood made your mask much scarier. You know, you cannot be my papa if you get your brains blown out all over."

  "I will be very careful when I wear my mask from now on," Ian promised gravely. "In fact, I don't think that I shall be wearing it at all anymore."

  There was a wistfulness in his voice, the slightest shading of sorrow. He looked away, and Emily knew he was remembering countless night raids. Raids in which Ian had allowed what was best in himself to be revealed, the hidden strength and the fierce sense of justice that had become the entity called Pendragon.

  She took his hand, held it tight.

  The sound of someone clearing his throat made all three turn to see Tony Gray standing a short distance away on the path, his hazel eyes gazing down at them, his face flushed with unease.

  Emily felt Ian go still. Slowly he rose to his feet and offered his hand to help Emily rise, his beautiful mouth achingly solemn, his cheekbones touched with dark red.

  Silence stretched out, neither man seeming able to speak, both seeming to understand the words that remained unspoken.

  Tony recovered first, his voice more than a little husky with emotion. "I hope you don't mind my intruding. Priam told me where to find you." He cleared his throat again. "I rode off in a fury, but after I had time to think, I—"

  "I know." Ian stepped forward to lay his hand on his friend's broad shoulder. "And I thank you—for all you have done for us."