The Swordmaster's Mistress: Dangerous Deceptions Book Two

by Louise Allen

  Guinevere was awake, he could tell by her breathing, by the almost imperceptible drift of her fingers in his hair. She seemed to like the length of it. In fact she had seemed to enjoy the entire experience. Jared allowed himself a moment of masculine satisfaction about that, then turned his head so he could look at her. ‘Am I squashing you?’

  ‘I like it.’

  Which meant he was. Reluctantly, provoking a grumble from Guinevere, Jared rolled onto his back, then summoned up the tatters of his self-control and got off the bed to investigate the dressing room.

  When he got back with the water pitcher and a towel Guinevere was still sprawled across the rumpled sheets. She smiled drowsily at him and pulled herself into sitting position against the pillows. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It is cold,’ he warned, dipping in the wash cloth and handing it to her.

  ‘Not for the water,’ she said, blushing a little as she took the cloth from him.

  ‘Thank you.’ He put aside the pitcher and got to his feet, began to search out his scattered clothing.

  ‘Where are you doing?’

  ‘Getting dressed.’ He pulled on his breeches and reached for his boots. ‘Then going down to the library to be found innocently studying the available reference books.’

  ‘Everyone knows where we are.’ Guinevere plumped up the pillows and curled against them, pulling a sheet over her in a manner that left far too many tantalising glimpses of body for a man attempting to do the right thing. ‘Come back to bed.’

  Where had the shy, blushing widow gone? She had been enchanting, if fragile, but this woman was provocative and just a little demanding, which was piquant. ‘Your reputation is something else I should be guarding.’ And I am now worrying about shutting the stable door after the horse has well and truly bolted.

  ‘Please.’ There was that faint pink beneath the pale skin again, that hint of uncertainty. ‘Only to talk.’

  Jared dropped his boots and went back to the bed, keeping his breeches on as a reminder to himself that this was just to talk. When he settled back against the pillows next to her Guinevere turned and burrowed down, her head on his shoulder, her arm over his chest. She made a contented little humming noise that stirred the hairs on his chest, made his nipples tighten. She noticed, sat up a little and reached out to touch.

  ‘Were you trained by the Spanish inquisition?’ Jared enquired, slapping his free hand over his chest like an outraged virgin before she enticed him into making love to her all over again.

  Guinevere chuckled, but did not try and dislodge his hand. ‘I have been thinking.’

  ‘Yes?’ he said. Warily.

  ‘We should go and visit the Quentens, whatever we find in the Landed Gentry, not write to them. One can tell so much more by talking to people face to face.’

  Jared could have sworn he controlled his reaction, but they were skin to skin, she could not avoid noticing any slight movement, any acceleration of his heart rate.

  ‘What is wrong?’ She sat up, the sheet pooling around her like water around a mermaid on her rock. ‘Why do you not want to go?’

  ‘I said nothing.’

  ‘I know you didn’t. You went very still and you do that when something is wrong.’

  Damn it. ‘Do I?’ He had thought he had disciplined every possible tell out of his reactions.

  ‘Yes. It is something to do with your early life, isn’t it? You come from around here.’

  ‘How the devil did you know that?’ He sat up abruptly, all his prized control lost in a moment. He used the movement to stand, instinctively covering the reaction.

  ‘Very occasionally there is the faintest trace of Yorkshire in your voice. I hear it when you are speaking to Thomas or any of the staff here. You did not want to come up here, even though you had decided it was the best thing to do. You hid it deep, but I could tell.’

  ‘It appears I have become very easy to read.’ Which was a disaster when his entire livelihood depended on the exact opposite.

  ‘Not at all.’ Guinevere studied him, head to one side, her lower lip caught between her teeth for a second. ‘For some reason I seem able to sense your mood. Will you tell me what is wrong?’

  Tell her? Tell her what he had never spoken of to a living soul, dig out the betrayal and the disillusion and the anger and reveal the vulnerable seventeen year old boy that he had been?

  ‘Yes,’ he said, startling himself. ‘I was born and lived the first seventeen years of my life between here and Whitby. I have an elder brother.’ William. ‘I loved and respected him and he betrayed me, lied about me and took my honour with that lie. My father believed him, not me, which I suppose is not surprising. He was the heir, the serious, sensible one.’ The cunning, scheming one, as it turned out. ‘I was wild, endlessly in trouble.’ And romantic and naive and in love with chivalry and swordplay, not with real life. ‘There was a… situation. Accusations were made that I denied. I left.’

  ‘The accusations were untrue.’ Guinevere made that a statement, trusting him without even knowing what he had been charged with. She gave a little nod, strangely decisive. ‘And you have never been back? Never contacted them?’

  ‘No. I suppose I should forgive them, it has been a long time.’ He did not hate any more and the betrayal had become a scar, not a wound, but the love had gone, the trust had gone. There was no respect and without those things, what was the point of family? Guinevere would not agree with that, he supposed, women usually valued reconciliation, whatever the provocation. Jared waited for the lecture.

  ‘Why should you?’ she demanded, startling him. ‘They betrayed you, the people who should have loved you. Did they look for you?’

  But then Guinevere is not an ordinary woman… ‘I do not think so. My brother had everything to lose by admitting the truth, my father believed him. My mother had died the year before.’ It had been then, he had come to realise as he looked back, older and wiser, that things had begun to fall apart.

  ‘Would they know you now?’ Guinevere smiled and he found he was smiling back, even as he marvelled at the effect she had on him, the way she undermined every one of his defences. ‘I expect you have changed somewhat.’

  ‘I was a lanky, skinny boy with short hair,’ Jared said, looking back through the smudged mirror of time. ‘I probably had a vague expression – I was certainly always in trouble for day dreaming.’

  ‘You have changed. I do not think anyone could accuse you of being either skinny or dreamy. You seem to have the focus of a rat trap and the muscles of an athlete.’ She reached out and touched his upper arm fleetingly, one nail scratching the swell of his bicep. ‘But there is no reason to think we would encounter your family. I suppose your real name is not Hunt? No, I did not think it was.’

  ‘Jared is one of my names. As I told you, it is an old family tradition. My surname I adapted a trifle.’

  ‘And I suppose you will not tell me what your brother did?’

  Jared shook his head, his hair falling to shield his face. No, that he found he could not do, even with Guinevere. The shock and the shame and the betrayal must have cut even deeper than he had realised. He could not speak of it, as though the dishonour had been his, not William’s. But then everyone but William and Bella thought it was and, apparently, a clear conscience was not much help under the circumstances.

  ‘It was a woman, I suppose,’ Guinevere said and this time he managed not to react. ‘I am not fishing, just guessing. What else would wound a romantic young man more than that? No, I do not expect an answer.’ She threw aside the sheet and slid from the bed, unashamedly naked, without a blush. ‘We have much to do. Look up the Willoughbys in the book, plan a surprise visit to the Quentens – I wonder what excuse I can come up with for just passing so much out of my way?’

  ‘Sightseeing,’ Jared suggested as he got off the bed and retrieved his boots. ‘It has been suggested to you as a way of taking your mind off your troubles. You have a desire to buy Whitby jet mourning jewellery, to see
the abbey ruins, admire Robin Hood’s Bay. And suddenly it occurs to you to have a good look at a map and see how close you are to Lord Northam’s remaining family.’

  Guinevere tied her garters, shimmied into her camisole and wrapped her stays around herself. ‘Please lace me up.’

  Yes, she had most definitely been trained by the Inquisition. First she interrogated him, forcing him to confront feelings and memories he had firmly buried and now she was half-naked in front of him, the warm aroma of well-satisfied woman filling his senses, the enticing curves of her buttocks inches from his groin as she presented her back and the laces to him. Jared fought back the urge to toss her onto the bed and make love to her all over again, and whipped the laces through their holes, then tugged.

  ‘Ough! Faith is far less severe,’ she protested as he tied the bow.

  ‘She does not have a vested interest in the delectable cleavage that tight lacing puts on display.’ Jared spun Guinevere round and kissed the area in question before retreating to where his shirt lay crumpled on the floor. He pulled it on and decided that sometimes a strategic retreat was the better part of valour. He looked for his coat and his neckcloth and, more importantly, his sword belt, then realised all were down in the study. The unlocked study.

  What kind of bloody bodyguard are you? he snarled at himself as he ran down the tightly twisting stair, the warm sensual glow of their lovemaking replaced by cold anger at himself. The rapier and belt were where he had left them propped against the desk, the neckcloth draped across the guard. The kind who gets run through with his own sword in the middle of lovemaking, that’s what.

  The familiar weight of the weapon at his side restored some of his equilibrium, enough for him to tie his neckcloth with a steady hand. The faded red and gilt of the Landed Gentry binding was visible on a shelf close to the desk and he pulled it out and sat down to study it, focusing on the simple task to steady his anger. The edition dated back almost twenty years, Lord Northam’s bookplate inside was scuffed and faded. It must have been an old one from his library that he had brought up here to help populate the empty shelves.

  Jared flicked through to Willoughby. There it was, confirming the headstone in the graveyard. Henry Fitzgordon Willoughby of Gordon Chase, Northumberland, married to Jane Arnold. Children Francis Arnold, born 1784 and Elizabeth, born 1777.

  No other children, so the theoretical murderous land agent brother was ruled out, and there was no sign of a marriage for the vengeful Elizabeth. He needed the most recent edition to find out about that.

  Jared closed the book with a thump, dislodging a faded pressed fern frond from between its pages, but he did not get up to replace it on the shelf. The room was quiet, the deep old chair made for comfortable contemplation and he settled back in it, although his contemplating was far from comfortable.

  This was his first commission after leaving Cal’s household and he had committed what was probably the cardinal sin for a bodyguard: he had become emotionally entangled with his subject. He had emotions for Cal – he was his best friend and he loved him like a brother – but that was different. It made him fight the harder to guard his back, it had made him devoted to the Duke’s interests, but it had not clouded his judgement, blunted his professional edge.

  If he made love to Guinevere again it would be in a locked room with shutters closed, a chest wedged against the door and a blade inches from his hand at all times. And she touches you and your brain turns to porridge, your reflexes migrate to your groin and you see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing but her. The house could burn down around your ears and you wouldn’t notice until it was too late.

  Jared sat and contemplated the truth of that, just as Monsieur Favel his swordmaster had taught him to analyse his every error. So, he did not make love to her again. That simplifies matters, he thought grimly.

  They would go and see what the Quentens could teach them, then find out what was happening with the new Lord Northam and, if necessary, go into Northumberland and see if they could track down the vengeful Willoughby sister. All he had to do until then was to stop the authorities arresting Theo Quenten for murder and keep Guinevere alive while staying out of her bed and avoiding his own family.

  ‘Such a simple plan, in fact,’ he said out loud.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Jared was still contemplating the tasks in front of him as there was a tap on the door.

  ‘Sir? I thought you might want me.’

  ‘Dover. We are going to Whitby tomorrow, you too. Tell Thomas and one of larger footmen that they are coming with us. I have no idea what is awaiting us, if anything, and it may simply prove to be a social call and some shopping for jet jewellery. On the other hand – ’

  ‘We go armed and expect the worst.’ Dover’s broad grin showed a certain bloodthirsty eagerness.

  Jared found he was grinning back. What the devil was happening to him? He never grinned. He rarely smiled except for effect. Guinevere was getting under his skin to a dangerous extent and that had to stop.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed, deadly serious again. ‘And I would wager that the worst is about to befall us if we are not very wary.’

  Jared was silent over breakfast, which did not concern Guin overmuch. The experience of two very different husbands at the breakfast table had taught her that men tended to be taciturn first thing in the morning. Last night she had hoped he would have joined her in her bedchamber after dinner, but when he did not come she told herself that he was concerned for her rest and her reputation. Although, now she thought about it, he had been silent at dinner too.

  She had expected him to join her and Faith in the carriage when they set out immediately after breakfast, but he ordered Dover into the coach, Thomas and Peter the footmen onto the back, and mounted the sturdy black hunter that Augustus had kept at Allerton for tackling the rough upland country.

  ‘Mr Hunt is making me dizzy,’ she complained, half joking, after a few miles. ‘I never know which side of the coach he is going to appear on next.’

  ‘Shaking the fidgets out of the horse, I expect, my lady,’ Dover said, his own gaze flickering from side to side, watching the country as they passed with far more attention that the hills and dales merited. Guin noticed that he had a rapier at his hip and that there were pistol butts sticking out of both the holsters built into the side panels of the coach.

  It took two hours to reach Cross Holme, the manor house that was now the Quenten cousins’ main home. It was situated just outside Whitby near the hamlet of Uggle Barnaby, which reduced Faith to helpless giggles, convinced that the name must be a joke by the inhabitants.

  ‘It is very small. Just a farmhouse really,’ Guin said as they all looked at the stone house flanked by high walls that curved away to enclose, she supposed, stables and yards.

  ‘It is nothing like as fine as Allerton Grange.’ Faith wrinkled her nose. ‘They must have been very sad to have to sell that.’

  ‘It was probably a relief if they had difficulty keeping up two houses. Much better to concentrate all the limited resources on one small one, I would have thought.’ Even so, the house had an indefinable air of neglect about it, which was depressing.

  Thomas jumped down and ran to knock and Guin reminded herself that this was, in a sense, a homecoming for him, with many of the servants familiar from when he had worked for the Quentens. Certainly the door was opened wide as soon as whoever answered it saw who was standing there and Thomas came back to the carriage with an elderly butler by his side.

  ‘This is Hopchurch, my lady.’

  ‘I fear we are not expected,’ Guin said to the old man who regarded her dourly from red-rimmed, watery eyes. ‘But I took the chance that my late husband’s cousins would be at home. Is Mrs Quenten receiving?’

  ‘I’ll ask, m’lady.’ He turned, stumped off back to the front door and they all sat patiently until he reappeared and made vague gestures at Thomas who seemed able to interpret them.

  ‘You are all to come in, my lady. Do
n’t mind Hopchurch, he’s a right misery, always was.’

  Guin was not sure how he managed it, but Jared was off his horse and through the door in front of her and Dover was close on her heels as they went in. She felt apprehensive, as though Jared was poised to throw her behind a sofa as he had when the firework came down the chimney.

  A couple in their mid-thirties rose to their feet as they entered, a large man who looked a little like Augustus if one knew to search for a resemblance and a short, plump woman with a determined chin and the air of having a temper, tightly controlled.

  ‘Welcome.’ The gentleman came forward holding out his hand in an awkward, angular manner as though his hands were bigger than he quite knew what to do with. ‘My dear Lady Northam – or may I call you Cousin? I am Julian Quenten and this is my wife, Mrs Quenten. Come, Lettie dear, and shake hands.’

  Mrs Quenten took Guin’s hand limply then snatched her own away. She must be shy, Guin thought, trying to be charitable. A noise by the window made her look across to find two boys, perhaps eight and six years old, standing staring at them.

  ‘Come along boys, come and make your bows,’ Quenten urged. ‘This is Charles, named for my father.’ He put a possessive hand on the shoulder of the older lad who looked wide-eyed at Guin, bowed and then fixed his gaze on Jared. ‘And this is Hal.’

  The younger boy bobbed his head at Guin then went to stand by his brother. ‘Is that a real sword?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jared said, his hand on the hilt. Mrs Quenten sat down abruptly on the sofa.

  ‘Permit me to introduce Mr Hunt, my agent,’ Guin said, determined that Jared was not going to be expected to join Faith and Dover in the kitchen. They all settled down, Jared in an upright chair slightly out of Mrs Quenten’s eye-line. Guin caught her giving him uneasy glances and supposed that the unexpected arrival of a black-clad, armed man in one’s sitting room was enough to alarm anyone.