She crossed the tower and thrust the creamy sheaf against his chest. “Not just the clothes on your back. You have far more than that now. You have your freedom.”
The last traces of mirth vanished from his face. He took the paper from her hand and gazed at the royal seal without unfolding it.
“My freedom?” He cocked a mocking eyebrow. “You mean your freedom, don’t you, Duchess?”
A cry caught in her throat as he tore the pardon in two. “With the gold gone, I’m worth far more dead than alive. Surely you and your precious Killian have figured that out.”
She backed away from him, knowing she did not want to be alone in the tower with this man. She wasn’t even sure who he was.
He stalked her, his eyes sparkling. His smile would have shamed an angel. “You owe me thirty thousand pounds, darling.”
“You can’t be serious.”
Her knees trembled with relief as he strode around her to the trunk. He pulled out an ink and quill and carried them to the windowsill. “What’s your yearly pension?”
“Ten thousand pounds.”
“Mathematics always suited me better than spelling.” He scribbled on the back of the pardon, then held it up, grinning cheerfully. “In three years, you’ll be free and clear of me. I’m sure MacKay will wait. He’s proved to be a very patient man. If he lives that long.”
She cocked her head. “You’ve gone quite insane, haven’t you?”
“We musn’t forget your other skills—bookkeeping, embroidery, dusting.” He arched one eyebrow in a diabolical leer. “There might even be a hastier way of paying me off. Just how much do you think you’re worth per night, my dear?”
He jotted down another figure. “So many choices. Should we make this per night or per event? No doubt you’ll expect me to pay you back wages.” He gave a beleaguered sigh. “I could be generous and throw in a few extra pounds for the first time. Most gentlemen would.”
She circled him, her eyes wide, her mouth a circle of shock. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing, could not comprehend the sheer audacity of the man. He was only too eager to reduce each tender moment they’d shared to pound notes and cold shillings.
He tucked the quill between his lips. “I’m not sure about this afternoon. Should I pay half for that?” He cast her a provocative look. “Or double?”
Heat flooded her cheeks. Her first instinct was to box his ears so hard he would suck the quill straight down his smug throat. A deeper intuition stopped her. Sebastian was furious. But the madder he got, the more cheerful he got. How many times had he been forced to swallow his anger? How many tantrums had his brutal father denied him in this very room? She might not be a faro player, but she knew how to call a man’s bluff. She unclenched her fists and lifted her hands to the buttons of her bodice.
His smile faded. “What are you doing?”
She slipped a button from its loop, her eyebrows lifted in elegant surprise. “Isn’t this how it’s done in London? Surely a sophisticated man like you has frequented enough bawdy houses to know the routine.”
Sebastian’s ferocious good cheer vanished, dispelled by desperation and something dangerously near self-loathing. Prudence nudged off her slippers and propped her foot on a stool, hiking up her skirts to reveal one long leg. With graceful languor, she slid her garter down the silky contours of her calf and peeled off her stocking.
“Prudence.” His voice was choked.
She bared her other leg without looking at him, then lifted her arms to draw her gown over her head. She wore no petticoat, only a silk chemise worn to transparency by too many washings in rough lye.
“Don’t do this,” he whispered hoarsely. “This isn’t what I want.”
Even as he said it, though, he was moving toward her like a spellbound man, beguiled by the dusky pout of her nipples against the silk, the delicate shading at the juncture of her thighs.
Sebastian wanted to weep. He wanted to fall to his knees at her feet and worship her. He wanted to beg her forgiveness for a myriad of sins, some his own, some his father’s, some committed by other men over the centuries.
“No,” he breathed even as he reached for her.
She stepped back from his touch. “How much am I worth tonight, Sebastian? A hundred pounds? A thousand?” She tossed her hair over her shoulders. His gaze wavered, drawn to the rippling motion. “I’ll tell you how much I’m worth tonight—thirty thousand pounds. If you lay so much as one finger, one pretty eyelash on me, we’re even. No debts. No regrets.”
He gazed at her sideways for a long moment. “No regrets?”
She shook her head, her eyes luminous.
He came for her then, bearing her back against the wall with a guttural growl. Like the starving boy he’d once been, he devoured her with his mouth, his hands. She was the only one with the power to fill him, to nourish him, to take him to the place where the hunger pangs could not follow. Now all he wanted to do was fill her until she cried out with the wonder of it. He felt her thigh angle upward and caught her long, silky leg, wrapping it around his waist.
Prudence was not nearly as composed as she’d pretended to be. She was shaking, trembling with the same fever that possessed him.
He shoved up her chemise, crushing her breasts against his palms. He tore open his shirt and freed his straining arousal from his breeches, desperate to feel every inch of her skin against his own. He cupped one arm around her buttocks, lifting her, opening her. She was hot, so very hot. He remembered the long winters at Dunkirk when he’d thought he would never be warm again—when he couldn’t remember what the sun felt like against his skin or how the summer smelled. Prudence’s skin was the sun, her delicate scent the fragrance of endless summer.
He buried his face in her hair and drove himself into her. They sprawled against the wall in a tangle of hair, limbs, and pleasure. He took her with long, deep strokes, cradling her to him when she might have slammed against the wall. She clung to him like a child, arms and legs wrapping him in a cocoon of melting delight. He groaned, sliding dangerously near to a place where only his own selfish pleasure existed.
Bracing her weight with his own, he reached between them and gently touched her, marveling anew at the delicacy and grace of her femininity. Her shuddering response came fast and hard. He felt it to the very core of his being, felt his own release coming too quickly on its heels. Panic gripped him.
Prudence tightened her legs at the small of his back and softly moaned his name. It was like touching the trigger on a primed pistol. A rolling thunder of ecstasy shot through his loins and poured into her. He lowered his face to her throat, biting back tears, knowing he would have to let her go before she discovered just how low he would sink to make her stay.
Prudence awoke sprawled on her stomach in a tangle of blankets. She opened her eyes, then closed them again, content to nestle deeper into the heather pillow. Her hands balled into fists as she stretched. Sebastian-cat was curled at her feet. The bed beside her was cool and empty. She slid her hand over the faint indentation where Sebastian had slept, assuring herself it hadn’t been a dream.
“Slept” was too generous a word. No one could accuse Sebastian Kerr of not getting his money’s worth. She sat up, delighting in the faint throb of her muscles, the odd twinges in the nether regions of her body.
The door swung open. She hugged the blanket over her knees, fighting a sudden wave of shyness.
A wicker basket was draped over Sebastian’s arm. She recognized it as the one she used to gather eggs. As he gave the bed the barest of glances, her heart faltered a beat.
She watched, perplexed, as he folded his only other shirt and tucked it inside the basket. “Sebastian-cat should be comfortable traveling in here,” he said without looking at her. “You musn’t risk him running away again. The wee fellow’s luck might not hold this time.”
She stared at the dusty spot where her trunk had sat only last night. A clean gown and her redingote were folded neatly over the stool. Sudd
enly she understood the fierce desperation of Sebastian’s lovemaking, the agonized hunger of his touch. He intended never to touch her again. Never.
“I won’t go.”
He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “You can take the wagon to MacKay’s. I’ll send Jamie for it tomorrow. I’ve written this statement swearing our marriage was invalid and agreeing to a dissolution.” He slipped the paper in the pocket of her redingote, ducking his head. “I wasn’t sure if dissolution had two l’s or one.”
“One,” she whispered.
He reached for the cat, obviously intending to tuck him into the basket, but she snatched the puzzled animal to her breast and glared at Sebastian. “Is that what you’re going to do to me? Fold me up and tuck me away?”
He ran a hand through his hair, finally meeting her gaze. His eyes were filled with such despair and quiet determination, she wished he hadn’t. Sebastian-cat squirmed. His claws raked her arm, but she didn’t feel it. Sebastian reached over and gently took him from her.
He set the cat in the basket. His hands stroked the animal’s soft fur as he spoke, each word as precise and deliberate as a blade. “MacKay kept his word. I shall keep mine. I haven’t much else, but I’ve still got my word. I want you to go back to England where you belong. Forget about me. I don’t need you in my life. I don’t want you in my life.” Ignoring Sebastian-cat’s piteous mew, he closed the lid and reached for the latch.
“You don’t love me?”
Sebastian’s hands faltered. How many times, he wondered, had this brave, sweet woman choked back that very question when faced with her father’s absentminded fondness or Tricia’s halfhearted affections? He hadn’t the eloquence to make her understand how glorious and terrible love was. Brendan Kerr had loved his mother. He had abducted her for revenge, but had kept her for his own dark obsession. Sebastian still remembered his father’s desperate pleas as he had begged the proud, broken girl for some scrap of love in return. It was the one thing she had the power to withhold from him. So he had used his fists to try to beat the words out of her.
Sebastian latched the basket, plastering on his most rakish smile. “No. I don’t love you.”
Prudence’s face went white.
He shrugged. “I found your innocence intriguing. Had I married Tricia, you would have made a convenient mistress. I wouldn’t have had to leave the house to seek my pleasures. And I’ve certainly found you a quite pleasant diversion in the past week. I’m sure you understand. Entertainments are scarce in this part of the country.” He dragged a chair in front of the window and sat down, his back to her, desperate to escape her stricken gaze.
“You’re lying,” she said. “To me and to yourself. What are you so afraid of, Sebastian Kerr? Why are you hiding behind—”
“Don’t.” He cut her off coldly. “We made a bargain last night. No debts. No regrets. You swore.”
He could hear her behind him, dressing with quick, angry movements. The basket creaked as she paused in the doorway. He felt her stillness and knew it was the last time she would ever swallow her pride for him.
“Did you ever think of making a real life together?” she asked, her voice husky. “A roaring fire? Babes playing around the hearth?”
“No,” he lied. “Never.”
When he turned around, the doorway was empty. Prudence was gone.
Sebastian propped his boots on the windowsill as the misty shadows of twilight painted the tower dark. He had left the chair only once during the day. A loaded pistol sat at his feet. He would have need of it when D’Artan’s men discovered he had let Prudence go. He did not stir to light the torches, though the fire had dwindled to embers. A cool wind drifted through the window, caressing his face with mocking fingers. There was no need to close the window now. He had nothing left to fear from it. Neither the wind nor the heathered abyss beneath the window was his enemy. All he had to fear now was the silence.
He remembered the sunny day he had buried his father. The silence had been a chiming gift then, the cessation of cannon fire after a long and bloody war.
He stared into the gathering darkness. It was as if Prudence had taken all the sounds of the castle with her, leaving him deaf as well as blind. There was no bright tap of her slippers on the stairs, no whisky-soft ripple of laughter, no purring rumble from Sebastian-cat. He had sent her away, leaving himself to grope through the barren halls of Dunkirk without even the charred stench of her black buns to guide him.
Men don’t cry.
An ugly bellow, a bright flash of pain, and a warm spurt of blood from his chin. Even at the age of five, Sebastian had known it to be a lie. He had come upon his father in the twilight that same day, kneeling in the fresh dirt of his mother’s grave, his burly shoulders hunched, his florid face twisted with grief. Men don’t cry.
Downstairs, a door crashed open. A jarring bump was followed by an emphatic curse.
Sebastian closed his eyes. Not now, Jamie. Please, dear God, not now. Jamie’s grumbling cheerfulness might well be his undoing, like rubbing salt in the wound of a dying man.
Sebastian’s prayer went unanswered.
Jamie thumped up the stairs, mumbling to himself. “Doesn’t anyone know it’s the bloody eighteenth century? You’d think we was livin’ in the Dark Ages. Hasn’t anyone in this dungeon ever heard of oil lamps? Candles? A man could get hisself killed …” His voice rose to a nasal whinny. “Sebastian? If ye’ve got Pru’s clothes off, you’d best get ’em on ’cause I’m comin’ up.”
Sebastian buried his forehead in his hand, groaning. Why couldn’t God be merciful and just let Jamie shoot him?
Jamie stumbled into the tower, throwing down a fat parcel in a rustling heap. “Christ’s blood! I suppose ye were waitin’ for me to come back and stoke the fire. Bloody slave, ye think I am.” He stomped around, feeding the fire and lighting torches.
Sebastian flinched at the sudden blaze of light.
“Where’s Pru?” Jamie’s brow furrowed in alarm. “If ye’ve let her in the kitchen again, I’m marchin’ straight back to the village.”
Sebastian stood and opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He could not face the questions, the accusations, the recriminations he knew he would read on Jamie’s face. He closed his mouth. How odd, he thought. For the first time in his life, he had been struck dumb. Had Prudence left him nothing?
“What is it?” Jamie asked. “Sebastian-cat got yer tongue?” He scooped up the parcel. “My seamstress lady friend said I was to deliver this to ye. I can’t imagine why. Changin’ clothes every day is a vain and sinful habit. Me mum always said so.”
He tossed the parcel at him. Sebastian lifted his hands too late, and the package hit his chest. The fragile tissue split, spilling out yard upon yard of soft wool in alternating squares of green and black—the Kerr plaid in all of its brilliance and splendor. Sebastian stared numbly at the sea of tartan.
The edge of an ivory-colored card peeped out of the fleecy mound. He knelt, holding the card up to the light.
It was inscribed in a delicate script: Sebastian Kerr, Laird of Dunkirk, Always. Your Loving Prudence.
Jamie squinted over his shoulder. “What’s it say? Ye know I don’t read so good.”
Sebastian rested his elbow on his knee, his eyes distant. “It says I’m a fool, Jamie. A complete and utter fool.”
Thirty-two
Sebastian tossed his new plaid over his shoulders as he led the horses from the stable. “Stop squalling, Jamie. I don’t have any choice. I have to go after her.”
A light mist drifted over the courtyard, chilling the air without obscuring the moon or stars. Jamie trotted behind Sebastian, peppering his entreaties with curses. Sebastian tossed a saddle on the horse’s back and Jamie pulled it off the other side.
“Ye can’t do it. D’Artan’s men are still in the village. How long do ye think it’ll be before they find out ye let her go? Ye’ll be dodgin’ lead balls all the way to England.”
Sebastian’s voice was d
eadly soft. “Jamie, give me the saddle.”
Jamie backed away, the saddle held like a shield in front of him. “Let me go for ye. I’ll catch up to her. I’ll tell her yer a bumblin’ fool who loves her. Hell, I’ll even kiss her if ye want. I can be as charmin’ as the next lad when I set me mind to it.”
Sebastian circled the horse, stalking Jamie with all the grace, but none of the shyness, of a Highland wildcat. His gray eyes burned with determination.
Jamie’s legs came up against the water trough. “It’s not just D’Artan ye’ve got to worry about. That bonny puss of yers is plastered all over Scotland. Don’t ye remember what that stiff-necked sheriff promised? If ye go anywhere near the border, ye’ll be hanged fer sure.”
Sebastian stretched out his hand, speaking as if to a child. “The saddle, Jamie.”
Jamie briefly considered bursting into tears. His wailing had never failed to break his mum. He doubted it would work with Sebastian, though, and hurled the saddle at him with a particularly imaginative epithet.
“Thank you,” Sebastian said calmly, striding back to the patient horse.
Jamie drove a hand through his hair, snaring his fingers in the tangles. Sebastian mounted, securing his bedroll in front of him.
Jamie bounded across the courtyard and caught the reins. “Take me with ye then. Ye mustn’t go alone.”
Sebastian attempted to pry Jamie’s fingers off the reins, but his bony strength held. “I have to go alone. You said it yourself. It’s too dangerous.”
“Then ye’ll be goin’ with me danglin’ off yer reins all the way to England.”
Sebastian continued to tug at Jamie’s fingers as his other hand eased his pistol out of his waistband. “I can’t ask you to risk your neck because of my own foolishness.”
Jamie gazed up at him, his eyes wide and guileless. “Ye’ve asked me to risk it fer less.”
“So I have.” Sebastian smiled—a sweet, tender smile. Then the butt of his pistol came down against Jamie’s neck, dropping him like a sack of potatoes.
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