by The Charmer
So he ignored his yearning heart and simply favored her with that cocky grin of old. “Besides, I know where Louis Wadsworth will be having dinner this evening.”
Rose followed Collis through the service entrance of Etheridge House. He breezed through the kitchen with a flirtatious word to the cook, who slapped at him playfully with a plump, floured hand. Then he led the way up the service stairs to the servants’ passage outside the dining room.
“Why don’t you give me that pistol?” he whispered to her when they had paused at the plain door marked only D for dining room.
“Why don’t you take a flying leap over the Thames?” retorted Rose. She pressed the catch and allowed the door to open a tiny slit.
There, at a lovely table set with the finest of everything Etheridge House had to offer—which was finer than anything Rose had ever seen—sat the Prince Regent, his bruised face highly powdered, the Prime Minister, Lord Etheridge, Sir Simon Raines…and Mr. Louis Wadsworth.
“What’s your plan?” Collis whispered in her ear.
“Plan?” She was watching Louis with disbelief. He was laughing carefully at something the Prince Regent said as the Sergeant, resplendent in his military-style livery, bent to offer him something savory and expensive from a salver.
Louis was being feasted?
That was beyond all she could bear. Rose brought the pistol from her dress pocket and stepped forward. Leveling the barrel directly between Louis Wadsworth’s eyes, she stopped within a yard of him. No chance of missing at this distance.
“Confess,” she said.
“Wh-what?” Wadsworth nearly choked on his beef.
The royal guards in the room leaped forward but dared not touch her while she held the pistol. Collis waved them back.
Liverpool jerked in shock. “Dare you pull a weapon in the presence of His Highness?”
George burped delicately and patted his royal lips with a piece of snowy monogrammed linen. “What weapon? I see no weapon.”
Wadsworth flicked a gaze from the barrel of the pistol to the Prince Regent, then back to a now-silent Prime Minister. Dalton moved to stand but halted when Simon shook his head.
“Confess,” whispered Rose.
“You’re mad,” Louis sneered. Then he blinked and looked closer. “Who are you?”
“I’m no one.” Rose smiled. “No one at all—with nothing left to lose.”
“I’ll have you brought to justice for this! You’ll be hanged!”
Rose tilted her head. “You won’t be there to see it.”
“You’re dead already.”
“Am I? When it is I who hold the pistol?” She waggled it. Wadsworth’s eyes followed the movement and his jaw worked. He let his eyes flicker around the table, but Rose guessed he saw no help there.
“What was it you said the other day, Louis?” mused George. “Ah, yes.” He leaned back, the fingers of one hand gingerly exploring his bruised mouth. “You are pressing your luck, Mr. Wadsworth.”
Louis’s eyes flicked to the fading bruises on George’s face, to the more battered Collis, then back to the hole in the barrel of the disturbingly pretty pistol aimed unerringly at his brain.
“Confess,” Rose sang softly.
Louis, obviously still hoping to salvage something, shrugged ruefully. “It was my father who made the deal with Arch-Chancellor Talleyrand. Wadsworth Munitions was built with Napoleon’s money. Then the favor came due. I was only afraid—they threatened me! I had to fulfill the bargain, don’t you understand?” He turned insistent eyes on the Prime Minister and the Prince Regent. “They said they’d break me!”
Liverpool narrowed his eyes. “You’re a fool, Wadsworth. A bit of bankruptcy is nothing next to treason.”
“No! Not treason—you can’t prove that!”
Rose cleared her throat. “Pardon me for the interruption, but I should like to point out that I needn’t prove a thing. All I need to do is tighten my finger the slightest bit….”
“Rose. No.” Collis’s voice was just a breath, but Rose closed her eyes momentarily at the sound of her name on his lips. Then she eased her trigger finger.
She turned her head to gaze at Liverpool. “He ought to pay. He tried to have us assassinate you.”
Liverpool slid his gaze sideways to take in Dalton and Simon. “Interesting.”
“He forged your name on a manifest, to make it seem as though you were behind a plot to have George declared as mad as his father.”
The Prince Regent also raised a brow at Dalton and Simon. Dalton managed a cool smile, as if he’d never believed a word of it.
Lord Liverpool’s gaze flicked back to Louis. “Did he now?”
“Who are you, woman?” Louis snapped.
She tilted her head and regarded him without emotion. “I wasn’t a woman when we met. Don’t you remember seducing the housemaid, Louis? Don’t you remember twisting her up in knots to get her into your bed, only to beat her nearly senseless when your own equipment eventually failed you?”
Shock paled his features. “You?”
She nodded calmly. “Me.”
He stuttered for a moment, then his gaze sharpened. “Then—then, Your Highness, my lords—this is simply a bit of female vengeance—”
“This isn’t revenge, Louis. I don’t care one way or the other about you anymore.” She let the candlelight shimmer from the lovely pistol, reflecting it into his eyes. “I could kill you, I’m sure. I’m quite capable of it now. However, I don’t yearn to kill you.” She gazed at him serenely. “Unless you force me to.”
Louis appeared to be close to breaking. Rose could almost hear the panicked, plotting thoughts swirling through his mind. It would be best not to let him think overlong. “Louis, confess. My hand grows tired. I daresay my finger will slip soon.”
“Very well,” he spat. “I forged the manifest!”
Rose eyed the other four men at the table. “Do you gentlemen have any more questions for Louis? He seems to be in a talkative mood.”
Dalton gazed at her appraisingly. “Thank you, Miss Lacey. I believe we can take it from here.”
Wadsworth protested. “You cannot put faith in a confession at the point of a pistol!”
Rose shook her head. “I don’t give a rotten fig, Louis.” She glanced toward the Prime Minister. “Do you?”
Lord Liverpool quirked his lips. “Not particularly.”
Rose released a breath. Then she carefully handed the pistol to the Prime Minister. “It’s a very nice pistol, my lord. I recommend its maker highly.”
“Indeed.” Liverpool regarded it for a moment before training it quite purposefully on Louis Wadsworth.
George leaned back from the table and bent a kindly smile on Wadsworth. “Louis, dear boy. It seems the responsibility of such an important industry has become too much for you. Might I recommend an extended stay in the Tower? At His Majesty’s pleasure, of course. No need to worry about your factory. I’m sure the British government would be happy to confisc—relieve you of such a tremendous burden.”
Rose faded back, away from the table. It was over at last. Louis had cost her dearly, but it was finally over.
Wadsworth was spilling everything in a rush, obviously desperate to get back into his patron’s good graces. Collis stepped up to corroborate the facts of the matter.
Rose saw Collis turn his head to look about the room. She ducked quickly behind a fascinated footman and calmly escaped the dining room.
It was time to disappear.
As Rose made her way through the fine halls of Etheridge House, heading out a side garden door she was fairly sure would be unguarded, it occurred to her that she had nowhere to go.
Perhaps she could work at Mrs. Blythe’s, she thought wryly through her pain.
Then she heard Collis calling out to her. Quickening her pace, she ducked down the heavily carpeted gallery. High, wide windows punctuated the length of the chamber along one side, and life-size paintings of past Etheridges hung upon the other
.
A hand came down heavily on her shoulder. “Rose, please—”
Thud.
Rose squatted down next to a prone and panting Collis, shaking her head. “You never learn. Did that hurt?”
“Yes,” he wheezed.
She eyed his splinted and bound arm worriedly. “Did I jar your broken bones?”
“Probably.”
“Good.” She stood to gaze down at him in exasperation, her hands on her hips. “You deserve it for spoiling my perfectly good clean getaway.”
“So sorry.” His breath seemed to be coming back to him. “But I must talk to you.”
She folded her arms. “I can’t imagine what we have to talk about.”
He sat up slowly, wincing. “I don’t think I can stand at the moment. Would you mind terribly coming down here?”
She couldn’t help a short laugh. Damn him for making her laugh when she hated him so! Dropping to her knees next to him in the hall, she made sure there was more than an arm’s length of floor between them. “I’m listening.”
He took a deep breath. “You cannot leave m—us. You cannot leave the Liars.”
The Liars. Of course. “Watch me.” She moved to stand again. “If I don’t want to be found, no one will find me. Kurt and the others trained me as well as you, you know.”
“No!” He reached out his hand to stay her. “Wait. It isn’t simply that. You need the Liars, Rose. And I…and they need you.” His gray eyes beseeched her so earnestly that she actually considered it for a moment.
If she stayed, she would be in dire trouble for what she’d just done, if Dalton’s expression had been any sort of clue, but surely it would pass eventually. She could stay with the Liar’s Club, be the first lady Liar—
And spend the rest of her life desperately trying not to love a man who didn’t love her. Could she see Collis every day, possibly even work with him, as if she’d never loved him at all? Could she be his friend? She shook her head with involuntary rejection. “Collis, you don’t know what you’re asking of me.”
Collis couldn’t bear the pain in her eyes. Pain he’d put there. “I’m asking you to stay, that’s all. Stay and see this through. Be the Liar you were meant to be, the woman you were meant to be.”
She dropped her gaze to her hands resting on her thighs. “No. That isn’t enough.” She stood.
Collis scrambled to his knees in hope. Not enough? What would be enough? Him?
Certainty shot through him like a bullet.
Oh, yes. I finally found her, Mum. My Briar Rose.
“Marry me!”
She froze in place. Only her gaze shot to meet his, her eyes unreadable. “What?”
When he needed it the most, his glibness failed him. “Bloody hell. Rose, I love you and I want you and I admire you and I need you and I must marry you.”
“Hmm. All that?” she said faintly.
Fool! “I can do better,” he blurted in a panic. “Let me try again!”
She held up one hand. “No! No need. My answer is no.”
No. He couldn’t breathe. “It’s because of what you thought I said about Louis, isn’t it?”
“Bugger Louis!” Rose threw out her hands in frustration. “Look, Louis is a right wanker, I won’t deny that. But I survived him. He’s behind me, like a shadow that I don’t even pay mind to anymore. My answer isn’t about Louis, it’s about me.”
She sighed and wove her fingers together as if she didn’t know what to do with her hands. “Collis, I can’t be your lady.”
“But—”
She held up a hand to halt him. “I know I could pass as one if I tried—Lord knows I’ve been trained for it—but to take a pose for one mission isn’t the same as lying for the rest of my life.”
“Rose, I never asked you to be Lady Etheridge. I asked you to be mine, for always.”
Her face crumpled and she looked away. “That sounds lovely,” she whispered.
His chest ached at how unhappy he’d made her. How could he undo what he had done? Unsay what he had said? “There are no words,” he blurted. “There is no apology I can make to erase my stupidity.”
Amends, my darling. Oh, heartfelt amends. “Can you not forgive me?”
She shoved her hands into her pockets. “I already forgave you. I’m simply having a little trouble forgiving myself.”
He blinked at that. “Forgiving yourself for what?”
Her gaze went somewhere over his shoulder. “For loving you anyway.”
She loved him. She loved him anyway. His aches and pains disappeared before a tide of pure joy. He stood swiftly. “But that’s wonderful!” He moved to take her in his arms—well, arm, at any rate.
She backed two steps away, holding up her hands. “No, Collis. No. Nothing has changed.”
“Everything has changed! I love you! You love me!”
She laughed, a bitter, damp sound. “Collis, not everything is that simple! You cannot wave your aristocratic hand and make these obstacles disappear! I am a butcher’s daughter!”
“And a spy.”
Frustrated, she waved assent. “Very well, a butcher’s daughter and a spy. You are a lord’s heir!”
“And a spy.” He tilted his head to smile at her. “I won’t be the heir for long, you know. Clara’s increasing even now.”
She blinked. “Oh. She must be so happy.” Then she frowned. “That changes nothing, Collis.”
“Of course it does! Even if this one is not a boy, the next may be, or the next! Should we wait ten years, waste ten years, until we know? I want to live now. Not for the future, nor for the past.”
She smiled at him then, a truly proud smile, through damp eyes. “I’m very happy you have come to that decision.” Then she shook her head again. “But the answer is still no.”
“Why? I want to marry you. I want green-eyed daughters and black-haired sons. I want to grow gray with you, and be buried next to you under an oak. I want—”
She laid her fingers over his lips, unable to bear his aching pleas any longer. “You have a fine and worthy heritage to live up to. I would only be in the way of that.”
“Are you so sickeningly honorable, so selfless, as that, Rose, that you think the world owes you no happiness at all?”
She shook her head sadly. “No, I am not so sickeningly selfless as all that. But I do not think the world owes me anything but air to breathe. The rest must be earned, for such as me.”
“And how do I earn you, Briar Rose? What sacrifice must I make? What kingdom must I give up?”
Her hand jerked within his and she blinked. “What did you say?”
He frowned slightly, then kissed her hand. “Did I wax too melodramatic? Sorry, I didn’t mean to be theatrical. I’m just so bloody tired, Rose. Bone-deep and down-to-my-boot-heels tired, and I simply don’t know what else to do. How can I let you walk away? I’ll be losing half of myself!”
Rose felt his love fall upon her upturned face like the first sunlight of spring. She closed her eyes against it, fighting to keep out the awareness, but it sank into her skin and through to her heart like sweet poison that she would never survive.
Her resistance melted. Her resolve faltered. Even her knees weakened. She sank against him for a moment, needing to draw on his strength and solidity. His arm came around her and she melted into him. It felt so good to give in. She knew the weariness he spoke of. To resist was costing her far too much.
To give in to him would cost him more.
She pushed away. His hand clung, but she was determined. “I am who I am, Collis. I am not a lady. Do you truly want to tie yourself down to a wife like me?”
He smiled. “I would be honored to have you as my lady.”
“I cannot pass in Society, not really. Nor do I wish to.” She gazed at him, trying to see into his eyes, into his future. “Ethan said you were looking for ‘the man after.’ Well, I have found the woman after and I intend to keep her. I will not lose her again in order to pretend to be your lady.” She
opened her arms wide, displaying her stained male attire, her trained fighter’s figure, her plain, uninspiring face. “This is the bargain, Mr. Tremayne. Your world will not forgive you easily. You might want to think what it will cost you.”
“You might want to think what it will save him from.” The voice came from behind them.
Rose started at the unmistakable fruity tones of George IV, Prince Regent. She turned to see him several yards down the gallery, lounging against a window embrasure, accompanied by two stone-faced guards and a very repressed-looking Prime Minister.
In fact, Lord Liverpool looked as though he were about to “shit diamonds,” as Stubbs might say.
George’s words swirled through Rose’s thoughts. Save him from.
Could she save him? If a prince’s bastard—but acceptably well-born—son married a butcher’s daughter, one with a distinctly tarnished past yet, would that union not remove him from royal consideration?
Rose eyed the Prime Minister. By the fury on Lord Liverpool’s face, that answer would be a resounding “Yes.” The man looked as though he could slit her throat on the spot, just for receiving such a proposal.
Oh, blimey. To have her heart’s desire and score one off the heartless, manipulative Prime Minister? She sent Lord Liverpool her sweetest smile.
Then she turned to Collis, dropped to one knee, and said clearly enough for all concerned to hear, “Bloody hell. Collis, I love you and I want you and I admire you and I need you and I must marry you.”
He gaped at her.
She grinned up at him and tilted her head. “I can do better.”
“No need,” he breathed, laughter and love shining from his storm-cloud eyes. “My answer is yes.”
Chapter Thirty-two
Rose Lacey stood with her eyes clenched shut tight and her hands held fast in the grip of her closest friend—a woman who was soon to be her family in truth. “Clara, please, let go. I have to—”
