Come the Dawn

by Christina Skye

  Alexis’s hands tightened on her doll. “I don’t know. She’s been gone.”

  “So she has.” He laughed softly. “But your answers are unnecessary. It is you we need, you who will summon your solicitous guardian and his adventurous lady. Then everything we want will be ours.”

  “Don’t do it!” Alexis’s eyes were wide as she watched the gray shapes twist and coil about the man in the mask. “They’re waiting for you right now. If you change, if you speak to them nicely, they might go away.” She knew it was not true, but her pure spirit rebelled against the sight of such evil. Somehow she had to try to change his dark fate.

  Her captor threw back his head and laughed. “Be nice?” he sneered. “Bide my time, do my work, and don’t ask questions?” He bent before her, in the candlelight his mask a horrible, misshapen gargoyle. “But I won’t wait, my dear, not any longer. The game is nearly ours. All that we require now is the diamond, and your beautiful friend will soon bring that to us. Thanks to you.”

  Alexis shrank back, out of reach of the drifting gray shapes. With every angry word her captor spoke, their numbers grew. But she knew there was no way this man would believe her.

  Not until it was too late.

  She could only stare at him in fright, the doll clutched to her trembling body, while he slammed the door behind him and strode laughing back into the darkness.

  ~ ~ ~

  It was after midnight when the Duke of Wellington gathered up his greatcoat and prepared to leave. He studied the tense faces before him and nodded. “We are close now. We will find the girl and through her the rest of this barbarous cabal. Meanwhile, my men are at your command, Thornwood.” He turned, brisk as he had been among the firing cannons at Waterloo, and motioned to his secretary. “My satchel, Stevens.”

  And with that he was gone.

  ~ ~ ~

  Gradually the city stilled. The carriages thinned out, the footsteps ceased, and the night grew as quiet as it ever could in the restless giant that was London.

  Devlyn sat in his study, watching the last red sparks flicker and die in the grate. He could not sleep. He could not plan. All that he could think of was Alexis’s face, white and terrified somewhere in the night.

  And that vision was going to drive him mad. He ran his hands through his hair, tensing when he heard a noise at the door.

  It was India, her face showing the same strains that his did. “I couldn’t sleep.”

  Thornwood gestured to the chair beside the fire. “Nor could I. Come and join me. Sherry?”

  After a moment India nodded. But when he brought the drink, she made no move to take it, only looked at him, her eyes haunted. “Dev, do you think that they will—”

  “Don’t. It doesn’t do any good to imagine the worst. I know, because I’ve done nothing else for the last hour.” His hands gripped the mantel, each joint outlined in white and his eyes burned as he looked down into the fire. “India, I know I have no right to ask this. In fact, I know I’m a cur even to think of it, but—” He looked up, a world of torment in his face. “Do you think we could — that is, could you possibly—”

  Her eyes were liquid in the dying firelight. “Say it, Dev. Tell me what you want from me.” She couldn’t make it easy for him, not now, not after all the shadows between them. This time he had to be clear, entirely without question.

  “Could you stay with me? Just for tonight, India? As my wife and as my love? As the one fine and stable thing in this bloody world that has any chance of keeping me sane until tomorrow? Otherwise, I…” He couldn’t finish.

  In a heartbeat, India touched him. In aching silence her hands were on his shoulders, her body warm against his.

  He wanted no time for thinking or regrets. No time for anything but her skin, soft as a rose petal. To touch her left him hard with desperation.

  Her hands were trembling.

  Lord, his were too.

  He closed his eyes, letting the first brush of her skin warm him as brandy never could. Maybe if he tried very hard, he could block out the thought of Alexis, shivering and afraid somewhere in the night.

  No, he could never forget that. His low, hoarse cry was like a wound.

  India caught him then, fierce in her generosity. She would not lose him again, not after so long. During the dark months since Waterloo she had learned her own lessons of survival. “Hold me, Dev. Make me remember. Make the days slide away until it’s spring again and there are rose petals beneath us on the ground.”

  His eyes burned over her face. “You believe in me, don’t you? You always have,” he said wonderingly. “Even when I didn’t believe in myself.”

  “It’s another Delamere trait,” India said softly. Her hands slid across his chest and began opening his shirt.

  And Devlyn Carlisle was utterly lost.

  They were both too urgent for sense. Her hands yanked at his shirt. She inched to the floor and pulled him down against her. His body was already hot and hard, red-tinged in the firelight. Frowning, Thorne caught her face and stared into her eyes as if he could see all the way to forever. “India? Is this what you truly want?”

  She nodded. “Please, Dev,” she whispered. Her eyes did not leave his face as she found his hardness and took him in the span of her hand.

  He shuddered and moved back, kissing an urgent path over her breasts and down to her creamy stomach. He was on fire for her, reckless with desire too long controlled. Breathing her name, he slid his fingers into her heat and stroked her until she shuddered in turn. “Tell me what you want, my heart.”

  “I — oh, Dev—”

  Pleasure, moving in a blind crest.

  Heat and need and endless, aching homecoming. Her eyes were pools of welcome and he fell blindly. Gladly.

  “Only you. Now.”

  He paused above her, his hard, aroused body like forged copper in the glowing light. Only when India was hot and hungry, her body stretched taut with desire, did he part her legs deeply.

  He wanted her.

  He could no longer wait to have her.

  But he was going to be damned sure that she needed him, too.

  Silver eyes burning, Thorne teased the sleek petals so familiar from a thousand nights of fantasies. She caught him tight, rippling velvet in her desire. Her body arched and she drove blindly against him, her fists angry. “Now, Dev. Now, or I’ll—”

  Thorne closed his eyes. With a groan he held her still as he buried himself deep inside her. Like silk she spread, holding him, savoring him, wrapping him in unspeakable pleasure. Dimly he felt her long legs rise to grip his back.

  “Closer, India,” he ordered hoarsely. “Don’t spare me. Don’t spare us. Not tonight, Princess. I need you wild and unquenchable tonight.”

  Her nails gripped his shoulders as she rocked beneath his shuddering thrusts, lost in a shimmering haze of need.

  As wild as even he could wish.

  It was no gentle, poignant claiming. They knew each other too well for that. Tonight each touch was wild and rough, each kiss full of blindness and need. There were no soft words or muted whispers, only the urgent slide of skin on naked skin.

  But there before the dying fire, they blocked out the night. Between them they made their own dawn, where war and loneliness and the thought of a young girl’s frightened face disappeared for at least a few minutes.

  Dev’s fingers locked in India’s hair. He watched her back arch and heard a ragged cry of pleasure spill from her lips. His eyes were ablaze with triumph when she shuddered and arched beneath him a second time, her fingers twined with his.

  A single tear glistened on the curve of her shoulder. It might have been hers or it might have been his — perhaps it was both of theirs.

  But when India’s eyes opened, they were accusing. “Damn your honor, Dev. I don’t want duty or restraint, I want you with me. I want to feel your hot seed drive up inside me and know that there’s no room for thoughts of any other woman but me. If you can’t give me that, I’ll just have to
find another man who—”

  He cut her off with a curse, his fingers locking around her thighs and holding her still, willing captive to the dark fury her words had unleashed. “No other man. Not now or ever.”

  A log hissed, exploding with a shower of sparks inside the grate.

  India’s eyes glinted. “No?”

  “No, damn it.” Thorne’s jaw hardened as he proved his claim, sliding half-hilt in her hot folds.

  She wriggled.

  He did not budge.

  “Only you?” It was half whisper, half challenge.

  “Always.” And then the word was a groan as she closed tight, urging him home, urging him to the dawn their need would kindle. “My heart,” he rasped, moving deeper, finding the core of her sweetness.

  She shuddered. “Don’t — spare me, Dev. Don’t spare us.”

  He was lost, just as he had been lost in the crowded Brussels street when her silly hat with the silk strawberries had blown away before him. Just as he had been lost in the moonlit garden while the scent of roses drifted around her. “I won’t.”

  And he didn’t. Breath harsh, he pounded deep, each thrust moving her across the fine old carpet. She met him, matched him, goaded him.

  Completed him.

  And she screamed when the pleasure rocked through her yet again.

  Her eyes were hazy and her hands were buried in his hair when he found his own hammering release, bare seconds after hers.

  Even then his fingers did not loosen, nor his body pull away. He only dropped his head slowly, then rolled to his side and pulled her tight against him.

  Much later, when the fear returned, when the thoughts of Alexis could no longer be kept at bay, he took her beneath him and their bodies met again, urgent and blind, driven by a force more primitive even than fear.

  The end of lies.

  The dawn of all their tomorrows.

  And when they finally slept, her head drawn to his chest, it was the most natural thing in the world.

  But even then they were aware of dim shadows creeping closer.

  CHAPTER 28

  The ransom note came at dawn.

  The significance of the time was not lost on Devlyn, amid the words so simple yet chilling. “Hyde Park, near the Serpentine. Just before daybreak tomorrow. Lady India Delamere must bring the diamond — if you ever want to see the little girl again.”

  Dev looked down at the crumpled sheet, a pulse throbbing at his temple. “Tomorrow,” he said hoarsely. “Just before dawn in Hyde Park.” His eyes hardened on the scrawled commands.

  India watched the emotion go out of him as he became all cold soldier. Only in that moment did she realize exactly how much Devlyn Carlisle had changed. This part of him, too, he had hidden from her.

  “Ian and I will choose the point of greatest advantage. We’ll make our plans carefully — and hope we’ll have a chance to use them.”

  “Hope?” India said.

  “If they have any sense, Alexis’s captors will be making their own plans, too,” Thorne explained grimly.

  ~ ~ ~

  “And Froggett will be hiding here, five feet to the right, just behind a clump of brambles.” Dev, Ian, Connor MacKinnon, and Froggett sat in the kitchen beside India, with Dev’s sketch of the park before them. An X marked the spot where India was to wait for Alexis’s kidnappers. If they tried to draw her elsewhere, it was crucial that she think of a way to hold them in place.

  “Do you understand? Right here by the oak tree.” Thorne tapped at the dark X. “It all depends on your bringing them here.” He looked at India then, a flicker of warmth in his eyes. His hand brushed hers for the space of a heartbeat. And then he was all soldier again, hard and impersonal. “We’ll need two carriages and blankets and food for Alexis. She’s bound to be — upset.”

  No one contradicted him, though they all knew the word was far too gentle for the terror she would be feeling when they freed her.

  If they freed her.

  ~ ~ ~

  An hour before dawn India was waiting at the base of a giant oak tree in Hyde Park. Below her stretched the gleaming Serpentine. To her right lay a dark tangle of berry bushes. A single lantern in the tree boughs shone down, outlining India’s pale features.

  Connor and Ian were hidden in the tree’s dense foliage, ready to leap down as soon as Alexis was brought into view. Froggett was concealed five feet away behind the thicket, and the diamond, the blush-pink gem that was the source of all their troubles, rested safely in India’s shoe.

  India’s eyes went to the top of the hill. Each time she’d asked about Dev, Ian had whispered that he would be there later and not to worry. She frowned at the dense shadows running along a stony rise. Where was Devlyn?

  Through the trees the first streaks of dawn brightened the eastern sky. Suddenly, leaves crunched behind India. “Lady India Delamere?”

  India swung about, her heart pounding wildly. “I’m here.”

  A man stood up on the hillside, his features hidden beneath a broad-brimmed hat. “Where’s the diamond?”

  India tried to swallow the lump of fear in her throat. “In a safe place. Where’s the child?”

  The man pointed behind him. “In a carriage up the hill, where we can keep an eye on her. Come along and we’ll turn her over to you.”

  India shook her head. She and Dev had gone through this possibility carefully. Somehow she had to persuade the man to bring Alexis here, or all their preparations would be ruined. “No,” she said flatly. “Right here, right out in the open. Otherwise there’s no telling what you cutthroats will do to her.”

  The man moved closer. “And there’s no telling what arrangements you have made,” he hissed. “If you want to see the child alive, my lady, you’ll do exactly as I say.”

  But India had heard the edge of uneasiness in his voice. She prayed her own voice was convincing. “You want the diamond and I want the child. We can both have what we want. But only here and now, while no one is about. The sooner done,” she added, “the sooner you can be off to freedom.”

  The man looked behind him for a moment. India saw his hand move in a sharp gesture. Then he turned back and started down the hill toward her. “Very well, but if you’ve deceived me in any way,” he growled, “the two of you are going to find your throats slit.”

  With the sheer force of willpower, India kept her eyes from drifting up where Ian and Connor were hidden. Her knees were trembling, but she kept her voice level. “Where is Alexis? You’ll get nothing from me until I see the child safe and sound.”

  “She’ll be along soon enough. Where’s the diamond?”

  He was nearly to the tree now. India moved off the path, hoping to stop him in perfect range beneath the branch where Ian was hidden. “You’ll have everything you want, everything you deserve, just as soon as the girl is brought here safely.” The wind fluttered the leaves and an acorn broke free and went pinging off a branch. For one terrified moment India thought the man was going to look up into the foliage, but he simply cursed as the tiny missile hit him on the head.

  Then there was a muffled cry and two figures were coming toward India. Her heart lurched when she saw that one of them was Alexis, her mouth bound with a cloth.

  The man in the hat took a step closer. “Now you’ve seen the girl. Let’s have that diamond!”

  India knew that this was the moment of greatest danger, the moment when all would have to act as one. Carefully she bent down to the ground, every motion larger than life. “It’s in my boot for safekeeping, but I’ll get it for you now. It will just take me a moment.”

  Carefully she bent to one knee and tugged at the soft leather. With every step Alexis came closer. Almost time…

  Her fingers closed over the cold stone. If only the second man would get close enough to Froggett, hidden just behind the bushes…

  “Damn it, what’s holding you up?”

  “I’m done now.” India stood up slowly, palm closed. The man on the hill inched close
r, hoping for a better view of the stone.

  Slowly India opened her hand.

  The first prink rays of dawn glinted over the hillside, tossing bright sparks off the diamond in her fingers. The man on the hill shoved Alexis forward, while his accomplice made a low sound of satisfaction. “It’s a pleasure doing business with you, my lady,” he said mockingly. “And now if you don’t mind, I think I’ll take that diamond and ask you to come along up here while we—”

  India heard Alexis scream, and then the crack of a gun. In an instant both Ian and Connor had dropped to the ground and were running toward their targets. Froggett, meanwhile, had tackled Alexis’s captor and the two were struggling on the ground.

  Alexis was stumbling toward India when a third man appeared on the slope, moving in a direct line for the little girl.

  India’s heart lurched. She yanked her pistol from her reticule and tried to focus, but he was too close to Alexis. She couldn’t risk a shot, not with the possibility of hitting the child. She could only watch, horrified, as the man closed in on his captive.

  And then in a wild storm of leaves, Devlyn catapulted from the bank on the far side of the oak tree, where he had been hiding. In a second his great whip coiled through the air, snaking out toward the man behind Alexis. There was a loud crack and a man’s wail of pain.

  A moment later Alexis was in India’s arms, her body shaking.

  “Did they hurt you, Alexis? My little love, are you safe and well?”

  The little girl nodded, her face covered with tears. “I was brave. I only cried once. You would have been proud of me.”

  “I am proud of you. Very, very proud,” India said hoarsely.

  “And I didn’t forget my doll either,” the girl said, holding up the battered figure that accompanied her everywhere. It was dustier now, and the skirt more ragged than ever, but like Alexis it was in one piece.

  “You were very clever to have saved her,” India said, hugging the girl close.

  Up the hill Ian and Connor had their prisoners in tow, while Devlyn wrapped his whip around the third man and dragged him none too gently down the hill.