A Notorious Love

by Sabrina Jeffries

  “Are murdered? I thought of that. It’s why I drew them up in the first place.”

  “Jack said Crouch wouldn’t kill us.”

  “But you don’t trust him, do you? Even if he is your uncle.”

  Pain slashed over Daniel’s face. “Exactly. But if he proves villainous, we’ll threaten him with all that information you gathered. It just might keep us alive.”

  “Do you think Seth can gent to London?”

  A smile ghosted over his lips. “He sneaked in and out of here successfully, didn’t he? The boy’s half-mad, I swear. And he makes a damned ugly girl. Good thing, too, or that randy arse Ned would’ve tried to buss the poor lad and probably got his teeth kicked in for the effort.”

  She laughed at the outrageous image. “It was rather clever of Seth to come dressed as a girl, wasn’t it?”

  “Reckless, more like.”

  “I suppose.” She sidled up to him. “Though I have no doubt you were just like him at that age.”

  Inexplicably, he stiffened and whirled away from her. “I was nothing like him.” With quick, angry strides, he walked toward the window, but the chain didn’t go that far and forced him to halt short of it. His back was to her, but she could see the tension in his broad shoulders and rigid arms. “I only wish I had been.”

  Bewildered by his stormy reaction, she folded her arms over her chest. “I wasn’t trying to insult you. I only meant that he’s bold and brave. And clever. I’m sure you were clever at his age.”

  “Oh, yes, very clever,” he said sarcastically. “Clever enough to start my wenching and drinking early on. Clever enough to keep the books for my own uncle’s smuggling gang without even knowing who he was.” He spun back to her, his gaze bleak. “Clever enough to get your sister tangled up in my dirty linen.”

  “You had nothing, to do with it! You didn’t know Crouch tried to blackmail Griff, or I’m sure you would have done what you could to prevent Juliet’s abduction.”

  Surprise flickered in his features. “Well, at least you trust me enough to believe that.”

  Ah, so he’d thought she might not? It hurt to hear it, but she couldn’t blame him. She’d certainly been stingy with her trust until now. “Of course I trust you. Completely, utterly.” She cast him a shy smile. “Why wouldn’t I trust the man I plan to marry?”

  For a second, hope flared in his face, fierce and feverishly bright. And then it was as if the fire burned out, leaving nothing but cold gray ash. “No.”

  Confusion clamored in her mind. “No? No what?”

  “We are not marrying, Helena.”

  “What?” she whispered. “Why not?”

  He turned back to the window. “I should never have asked you. I see that now. It was bloody stupid, and I’m sorry, but I cannot, will not marry you.”

  The words hammered her, beat at her self-respect, and nearly undid her. Her first impulse was to accuse him of being exactly what she’d feared from the beginning—a more wily rendition of her worst suitors.

  But he wasn’t, and she knew it. Perhaps she’d always known it. Why else had she let him close to her when she’d never done so with the others? Why else had she exposed herself so wholly to him? Because she’d sensed that he, of all men, was exactly what he seemed, that he would never strive to hurt her.

  Until now. Somehow this morning’s revelations had brought on this sudden reversal. Perhaps she could find the root of it if she ignored her wounded feelings and dug deeper into his.

  She spoke as steadily as she could manage. “As it happens, I don’t think it was ‘bloody stupid’ at all.” She tipped up her chin and prayed she was not misjudging the situation. “In fact, I accept your offer of marriage.”

  “Too late for that. I’ve withdrawn it, m’lady.”

  “Don’t call me that!” How dare he try to negate these past few days! With furious strides, she rounded him, forcing him to look at her. “I have no such rank, and you know it. Even if I did, it wouldn’t stop me from wanting to marry you.” She paused, gathered her heart in her hands, then added, “It wouldn’t stop me from loving you.”

  He flinched as if struck. Looking hunted, almost wild, he rasped out a curse that seemed to contain all his frustration. Then he glanced away from her. The light of the setting sun limned his taut features. “That…doesn’t matter. It has naught to do with it.”

  She swallowed down her hurt. “Well, it happens to matter to me, and I’d say it has everything to do with it.” She pressed him, determined to push past this sudden change in him. “Last night you said you wanted me for your wife, and as far as I’m concerned that’s the only thing that counts.”

  A muscle ticked in his jaw. “A man will say anything to a woman when he’s bent on seduction.”

  “Perhaps,” she retorted acidly, “but if that’s what you were about, then you did it very badly. You said it after you’d already seduced me, when it could gain you nothing.” She tried to provoke him. “Are you claiming that you lied when you said you wanted me? That you are merely one more Fickle Farnsworth after all?”

  He refused to answer. He just stood there, remote, his hands clenching into fists at his sides.

  A pox on him! She would make him talk to her if it killed her. Walking up close, she said with deliberate coldness, “Or have you merely reconsidered the wisdom of settling down and decided that you would miss not being able to bed all your strumpets? Is that it?”

  “At least strumpets know better than to ask a man for what he can’t give,” he ground out.

  At last she was getting somewhere. “Like what? Trust? Honesty?”

  “A future, damn it!” His belligerent gaze shot to her as he jerked his leg to rattle the chain. “I can’t marry you when I’m leg shackled for life to…to Crouch and his bloody gang!”

  Her breath hitched in her throat. “Don’t be silly. Once we’re out of here—”

  “Once you and Juliet are out of here, you mean. I’ll never be out of here. Weren’t you listening in the coach this morning? No matter what happens, it’ll never stop. My past with Crouch follows me around like…like this damned shackle!”

  So that was the source of all this: Mr. Seward’s unsettling revelations. “What if it does? You’ve never let it stop you before, and that was clearly wise. As long as you’re open and honest about your past—”

  “For all the good that’s done me.” His pain was starkly evident in the drawn cheeks and rigid jaw. “I thought to rid myself of the monster under the bed by shining a light on it, by acknowledging it openly. But that only works for a child, not an adult. Shining a light on it just made it come after me. It didn’t banish it a’tall.”

  His gaze was heartrending in its remorse. “And this time it came after more than me. It came after Juliet and Griff and now you. Even if we escape it this time, it’ll always come back in some fashion. He’s my blood, damn it, which means it’s not an association I can escape!” He released a ragged breath. “So we won’t be marrying, lass. I might have to live with shackles, but I won’t put you in them. And that’s the end of it. I’ll not change my mind on this.”

  Helena’s heart twisted in her chest. Her poor, sweet love, so foolishly determined to protect her. And she doubted that saying she didn’t care about the “shackles” of his past would convince Daniel once he’d set his mind to something.

  Nonetheless, she wasn’t about to lose the stubborn lout merely because he’d decided to be noble. She knew exactly how to bring him to his senses: use his nobility against him. “You mean you’re abandoning me now that you’ve ruined me?”

  The barb hit its mark. He glanced away, flustered, guilty. “It’s better than dragging you down with me. I’m very sorry for taking advantage of you last night. It was a great mistake. But that doesn’t mean we should compound it by making a worse one.”

  She pressed her point. “I can see how marriage would be a mistake for you, but I’m still confused on how it would be a mistake for me. I am the one who’ll suffer the
consequences of being ruined, you know.”

  He gritted his teeth. “You’re not ruined. I daresay many men would marry you, no matter what you think. When Griff and Rosalind return, they’ll launch you properly into society. They’ll see that the right men court you, men of your rank and breeding, who’ll see you for the treasure you are, who won’t care about your leg or your…”

  “Lack of innocence?” she finished for him.

  He nodded curtly.

  She gave a mirthless laugh. “I was unaware there were any men of my rank and breeding who would ignore a maid’s ‘lack of innocence.’”

  To her satisfaction, he looked decidedly uncomfortable. “There are…ways for a woman to…disguise—”

  “What a grand idea,” she snapped, infuriated that he’d even suggest such a beastly thing. “With Griff’s money and Rosalind’s help, I can sell myself to some paragon of virtue who would take me despite my lameness. Then I can deceive this paragon about my chastity to ensure marital bliss.” Her voice dripped sarcasm. “And if I should happen to find myself with child by you, I can always fob the baby off on him.”

  His shocked gaze swung to her. “Good Christ, Helena—”

  “That is, as long as Griff and Rosalind find me a husband quickly enough.” She planted one hand on her hip, the other gripping her cane so tightly it was a miracle she didn’t crush it. “Or have you forgotten talking about the possibility of children after you made your ‘mistake’ last night? Made it twice, I might add.”

  “I took precautions,” he protested. “You won’t find yourself with child.”

  That hit her like a physical blow. True, he had not spilled his seed inside her. Had he been thinking even then that they had no future?

  No—he wouldn’t have proposed marriage if he hadn’t wanted to marry her. “Are you sure your ‘precautions’ are foolproof?”

  He blanched, his eyes flitting over her belly as if considering it. “No. But if by some rare chance you should…become pregnant, that would change matters, of course.”

  “You mean that forcing a child into ‘shackles’ is all right, but forcing me is not?”

  A dark flush spread up his neck. “Damn it, you don’t underst—”

  “You’re saying that if you haven’t sired a child on me, it won’t bother you in the least for me to marry some other man. Even though I gave myself to you, and you claimed to want me.”

  She went on relentlessly. “Or perhaps you’re assuming that a marriage to another man needn’t stop me from taking you for my paramour. I understand that such things are acceptable as long as one is discreet. Then your ‘past’ wouldn’t cause us so much trouble.” She swallowed, wondering if she was just torturing herself with this little speech. “Is that what you were hoping for all along? To be my paramour while some other man keeps me?”

  “You know I wasn’t!” he gritted out.

  She did know it, but she was determined to force him into considering the possibilities. “For you, it would be no different than going to one of your tarts, except that you’d not have to pay me, since I’d rely on my husband for my allowance—”

  “Stop it!” Catching her by the shoulders, he shook her. “You know I don’t want you to be my ‘tart’!”

  “I’m not good enough for that?” she said, deliberately pretending to misunderstand him, determined to goad him past his irrational nobility. “No, I don’t suppose there are many men who’d want a crippled strumpet.”

  “Don’t talk about yourself like that, d’you hear?” he shouted. “You could be blind, deaf, and dumb, and I’d still love you, damn it!”

  The words rang very clearly in the room, the most poignant declaration she could ever have wanted. Hope leaped in her chest. “You…you love me?”

  Raw emotion flashed over his features. “I shouldn’t have said it, but yes, of course I love you. Why else do you think I don’t want you to marry me?”

  She caught his face in her hands and whispered, “I won’t let you get out of it, my darling.”

  He shut his eyes as if to block her out. “Oh, Christ, Helena…you know I’d marry you this instant if…if…”

  “If what? You were a different man? You’d had a better upbringing, a nicer set of parents, a less complicated past? Then you wouldn’t be who you are, and I wouldn’t want you.”

  His eyes shot open. Powerful hands gripped her shoulders, and a powerful need shone in his face. “I want to protect you, is all.”

  “From what? Happiness and a future with the man I love? Thank you very much, but I can do without that kind of protection.”

  “You are so bloody stubborn,” he growled, but he did not thrust her away.

  She wound her arms about his neck so he couldn’t. “I certainly am. How do you think I managed to live when the surgeon said I would die, to regain the use of legs he swore would never work again? And I shall be very stubborn about marrying you. Because the possibility of having your shady past occasionally overshadow our lives is not nearly as fearsome to me as the possibility of losing you.”

  “Then you’re as daft as you are stubborn.” He was weakening—she could see it in his face, in the hint of hope that he kept trying to banish with a scowl.

  “If I am, it’s all your fault. You made me see that being the soul of caution and propriety has merely brought me a lonely bed and a cold future. So if you think I shall let you turn into the soul of caution and propriety all of a sudden, you’re more daft than I.”

  “Propriety?” he said, arching one eyebrow. “Me?”

  “In one respect, yes. Like a proper gentleman, you’re trying to protect me from things I don’t wish to be protected from.” She tugged his head down until his mouth was a mere inch from hers. “I really wish you’d stop. I like you much better as a wicked rascal.” She brushed her lips over his.

  With a groan, he grabbed her head to hold it still. His hands cupped her jaw, and he shook her head just a little, as if to shake her wild ideas from her brain. “So you think to marry a wicked rascal, do you?”

  “Yes,” she whispered fiercely. “I’m very set on it.”

  “Last night you weren’t.” He dragged his thumbs roughly down her throat. “Last night you barely dipped your toe in my wicked past, and it sent you running. But if you marry me, you’ll be swimming in it. You won’t be able to banish it with your tart tongue. I can’t change what I am and what I’ve been. So you either swim with me or you drown. And I don’t know if I could bear to see you drown, love.”

  “Ah, but I’m a very good swimmer.” She tightened her arms about his neck. “You might as well give up this ridiculous resistance, you know. I’ll become as wicked as you if that’s what it takes.”

  Untempered need flared in his face. “You couldn’t be wicked if you tried. A little naughty, p’raps, but not wicked.”

  “What about that night at the inn, when I practically threw myself at you?”

  “You were drunk, that’s all. People are different when they’re in their cups.”

  “Are you sure that’s all it was?” She dropped her hands to his waistcoat and began undoing the buttons. “Shall I tell you what I was thinking just now, while Mr. Seward was shackling you? It wasn’t about your criminal, past or your free-trading uncle or anything like that, I assure you.”

  “What, then?” he said hoarsely.

  Opening his waistcoat, she slid her hands inside. “I was thinking how I wished he would shackle me to the bed with you. I was anticipating you and me, naked and trapped together, unable to do anything but make love all night long—”

  With a groan, he brought his mouth crashing down on hers. He tasted of brandy and desperation—wild, hot, urgent—and oh, how she reveled in it. She had him now, whether he knew it or not.

  His kiss teetered between anger and desire as he drove his tongue deep, taking what he wanted with a single-minded purpose that made her give her heart to him with complete abandon. He loved her. He might not want to, but she would change that.
Tonight, now. And once this nightmare with Juliet was over, she would make him marry her if she had to hold a pistol on him to do it.

  Suddenly he jerked back to stare at her with glittering eyes. “All right, prove it to me.”

  Dazed by need, she murmured, “What?”

  “Prove you’re wicked enough to be married to a man like me. Last night I had to seduce you. You wanted none of it at first—admit it. You came to my bed because you were coaxed, and afterward you regretted it—”

  “I did not!”

  “You acted like you did.” His eyes searched her face. “But if you marry me, I want you to be damned sure you chose it freely. So prove that it’s your choice.” Abruptly, he dropped his hands from her and stepped back. “Seduce me. Coax me into your bed. Show me you want me badly enough to throw out all the rules of your fine upbringing, and act like the wicked woman you claim to be. Do that, and I might be convinced that you mean what you say.”

  She gaped at him, taken utterly by surprise. Seducing him would indeed mean throwing out all the rules. She was sure a Well-bred Young Lady never seduced a man, probably not even her husband. And certainly not a man to whom she wasn’t married.

  Well, here stood the man she loved, and if the only way to show him that they belonged together was by seduction, then by God, she would seduce him.

  If only she had any idea how to go about it without looking like an utter ninny. It had been one thing to allow his attentions, to follow his guidance in lovemaking, to never take the initiative except when drunk.

  But seduce him? What did she know about seducing a man who was clearly determined to resist her?

  His lips curled up in a grim smile, as if he knew how his suggestion had flustered her. “Not feeling so wicked after all?”

  The taunt firmed her resolve. “How little you know me,” she shot back. She dragged her hair loose of its pins, letting them tinkle on the floor like so many raindrops. Striving to hide her self-consciousness, she shook it out to tumble about her shoulders,

  “Taking down your hair hardly counts as being wicked,” Daniel rasped even as desire blazed in his face.