“They’re busy, Syl. They’ve got work to do.” Bram, as usual, had his nose buried in a scientific treatise.
“They should have been back ages ago.” Silver turned and paced back the way she’d just come. “Not that I care. They’re both insufferable meddlers. I wouldn’t mind a whit if they never came back.”
Bram looked up, absorbing this wealth of new information about female behavior. In the past his sister had been unflaggingly cheerful, unfailingly practical. He had loved her, admired her, respected her, ever since he could remember.
And now in a matter of hours she was restless and impatient, showing lapses of thought and jagged bursts of emotion. Especially when the intriguing highwayman was about.
Most interesting, Bram decided. He would have to make a new entry in his notebook: Effects of Profound Emotion on the Adult Female. “I understand that he put a pistol ball through a fellow down in King’s Lynn. Robbed two jewelry establishments on the same night.”
Silver spun about, her face as pale as the moonlight ghosting through the windows. “He didn’t! I don’t believe it, not a word of it.” Her hands tensed at her waist. “It’s just talk. All odious talk!”
Repentant, Bram crossed over to put his arm about her shoulders. They were stiff and very cold. “Of course it is, Syl. Stupid of me to bring it up. He’s a devilish right sort of fellow if you ask me.”
“Do you think so, Bram?” Her eyes were wide, the color of the first spring rose shoots. “Do you really?”
“Haven’t a doubt of it,” the boy said cheerfully, patting his sister’s shoulders.
Yes, this whole business was all vastly interesting, Bram decided. He made a mental note to expand the entry in his notebook to an entire section.
~ ~ ~
Across the valley ghastly screams pierced the night air.
“Answer me, you dog! Exactly what I want to know or I’ll hit you again.”
Another moan.
“Do you want me to break the other arm too?”
A foot way from Luc, Tinker knelt on the ground, flanked by an opened door that led down to Lavender Close’s underground icehouse. A good place to store ice, it was also a good place to hold three men who might otherwise pose a security problem. Now only one man was aboveground, lying bound and gagged at Luc’s feet, still unconscious.
But it was Tinker who leaned close to the door and hurled more blood-curdling screams down into the darkness.
“Not bad,” Luc said, too softly for the men below to hear. “Especially not for a man so gone in years.”
“Not bad yourself, highwayman. But you’d best watch your tongue or I’ll show you just how old I am.”
“Noted.” Luc dropped a stone to the ground with a thunk. His voice rose in a dramatic shout. “Now are you going to talk, scum?”
Tinker groaned right on cue. “Don’t know nothing! Never told me nothing. Ask them what’s down there.” More groans. “They was the ones as hired me.”
“I think I shall do just that. But not until I’ve broken your other arm. Just for the fun of it.” This time the stone fell on a branch, producing a ghastly snap.
Tinker produced a very realistic shout of agony.
“Try not to bleed all over me, will you? Now I think I’ll go have a few words with your friends.”
Before Luc had set one foot on the stairs two voices shouted up from the darkness. “We’ll talk! Didn’t pay to get ourselves broken up in pieces. Tell yer whatever yer want to bloody know!”
Luc held up the lantern. He had replaced his mask and his mouth was hard beneath it. “Three questions. Who paid you? Why? And what exactly did he want done here?”
Scuffling sounds came from the darkness. “Didn’t see his face. Said as h-how he wanted them off, the girl and the boy. The old man too. Said he had something he had to do here. Don’t know why, Guv. He didn’t say and we didn’t ask.”
Luc made a clicking sound. “Not good enough, gentlemen.”
“It’s true, honest! Ain’t it, Mr. Harper?”
“All of it. Every bleedin’ word! I swear on m’ old mum’s heart.”
“If you ever had a mother.” Luc held up the lantern, and light cut through the darkness. As he did, another dramatic groan came from aboveground, punctuating the silence. Luc caught back a smile at Tinker’s enthusiasm. “How did he find you?”
“Across the fens. The Green Man, it were. Publican there knows us.”
“I’ll just bet he does,” Luc said grimly. “And how were you to contact this man afterward, when the job was done?”
“Same way. At the Green Man. He were to pay us our wages there.”
There was nothing more to be gotten from the villains, Luc decided. Whoever had hired them had been careful to cover his tracks. Frowning, he climbed up the steps and started to close the heavy door.
“What’re ye doing? Let us outter here! We told ye what yer wanted to know, didn’t we?”
“Ah, but maybe you’ll think of something more by the time I come back for you. If I come back for you.” Laughing harshly, Luc dropped the heavy wooden door back into place and slid the bolt home. In a few more hours he would come see if they’d “remembered” anything else. In the meantime he wanted them locked up somewhere safe. When the one on the ground woke up, he’d be put in with his friends.
Tinker gave Luc a hard look. “Happen I’ve a mind to visit the Green Man. Mebbe you’d care to come along.”
Luc stared out at the night. All was silent except for the soft sigh of the wind and the faint cry of a kestrel far across the valley. The air was lush with a dozen scents. He filled his lungs, picking out lavender, roses, and jasmine.
Every one made him think of Silver, of her white face and worried eyes, of the red welt at her forehead.
The small branch he’d been holding snapped cleanly beneath his fingers. “No, not yet. Tonight we’ll do best to keep watch here. There could be more like them on their way. I’ll go over to the Green Man tomorrow and have a little talk with the publican.”
“Why?” Tinker’s eyes were very sharp. “It’s not your affair, highwayman. Or do you have another name I should call you?”
“You can call me … Luc. And it might just be my real name.”
“Luc.” Tinker eased his mouth around the word. “Any last name to go with it?”
“I might be reckless, but I’m not yet a complete fool.” Luc’s lopsided smile softened the blow.
“Understandable, I suppose. Luc it is, then. But I’m still wanting to know why you’re taking such an interest in this affair.”
Luc took a slow lungful of air. “That fragrance, was it called Millefleurs?”
Tinker nodded.
“I remember it. My mother bought some once. It came in a crystal bottle with a lily on the top. A long time ago, but I still remember the scent. Sweet and honest and very beautiful. It reminds me of this place. And of Silver.”
Tinker studied the flower-decked hills, thinking about all the work that went into making even one bottle of fine fragrance. About all the hours of hoeing, watering, and weeding, followed by the toil of harvesting and distilling. Last of all came the blending of the final essential oils, which was the hardest part of all.
With the loss of William St. Clair’s priceless formula, that final step could never be completed.
“Aye, Millefleurs was that sort of scent. You could never forget it. That was William St. Clair’s genius.” He sighed. “Bloody shame it’s gone. Now are you going to tell me why?”
Luc stared out at the silvered fields, asking himself the same question. He took a long breath. “Maybe because that woman in the cottage is clean and fresh and bright, just like these fields of hers. Maybe because she makes me feel that way whenever I’m around her. Maybe because it’s the right thing to do.” He shrugged. “Hell if I know.”
“Obviously besotted,” Tinker muttered. But he was careful to say it low enough that Luc couldn’t hear.
The grizzled old servant
was smiling broadly as the two men started up the trail to the wisteria-covered cottage overlooking the valley.
~ ~ ~
Silver sat on a sack of dried rosemary, fighting to stay awake. Bram was curled against her right shoulder, book forgotten and lost to the world. Without his spectacles he looked half his age.
Silver straightened, her eyes dark with worry and a hundred unasked questions as Luc and Tinker strode in.
“I’ll take the boy,” Tinker said softly. He looked back at Luc, then at Silver. “You two better get some rest.”
Silver didn’t move. Her hands were white fists against her brown breeches. Though she didn’t realize it, they were shaking.
Luc wanted to kneel before her and take those trembling fingers in his own, to touch her and kiss her and smooth her tumbled hair. But he didn’t.
He knew if he started touching her, he might not be able to stop.
So instead, he braced his shoulder against an elegant cast-iron column and started talking. There were things the stubborn woman needed to hear even if she didn’t want to hear them.
“Someone hired them to drive you away. They didn’t know who it was. But it’s serious, Sunbeam. And it’s not over yet.”
She raised her chin, a look of determination in her eyes. “We’re not leaving.”
“Tonight we succeeded, but there’ll be other men and other nights.” He studied her, his lips tight beneath the black mask. “Leave now. You and Bram. Tinker, too, if he’ll agree. I have a place, a safe place. With you out of danger I can concentrate on—”
“No.” It was a flat, hard sound.
“You have to. They’re serious, these men. There’s no way you and Tinker can possibly hold out here. Not without a small army, and that you don’t have. Come with me. Tonight.”
“No.” The word came more desperately now, as if it cost her a great deal to say.
“Blast it, woman, you have no other choice!”
“I do have a choice. And I’m not leaving.”
Something snapped inside Luc then. Maybe it was her white face or maybe it was the angry red welt on her forehead that pushed him over the edge. He strode over the polished floor, seized her hands, and pulled her to her feet, hard.
“You are going.”
“I am not. I am staying — we’re staying.” She spoke slowly and precisely, the way an adult speaks to a child.
“How can you? The whole idea is mad! It’s stubborn and reckless and — and impossible.” His fingers snagged a coil of auburn hair. “I should turn you over my knee, hellion. I should pick you up and haul you away here and now.”
Her eyes were dark with defiance. “Just t-try it.”
Luc felt a tremor go through her. By God, the woman was terrified and trying not to show it. With a curse he caught her shoulders. In spite of all his fine intentions he found himself leaning into her.
One touch and he was lost. He groaned as her soft thighs cradled his granite ones. Her scent drifted around him, all lavender and roses.
Damn it, he wanted her. Right there, pinned down against a sack of sun-dried herbs. With her eyes alight with passion as he eased all the way to forever inside her and made her moan his name.
But Luc wouldn’t give in to that lust. He’d ignored his desires before.
But never for a woman so rare as this, a voice whispered.
“You’re going.” Desire made his voice harsher than he had intended. “Get your things.”
“No. It will always be no. This is our land and our lavender and we are not leaving.”
Luc cursed harshly. “You’ve got to go, Sunbeam. I can’t protect you here.”
“That’s fine, because I don’t recall asking you to.” Silver tried to twist free. Her breast brushed his chest and sent a whole new set of muscles pounding in agonized awareness. Luc fought to keep his head clear.
Anger, that was the way. If he focused on that, maybe he wouldn’t want her so much. Ignoring the pain at his shoulder, he caught her up in his arms. “I’m taking you upstairs. There you are going to undress and get into bed. And in the morning you are going to leave this place. Do you understand?”
“No.” This time her eyes were luminous with what would soon be tears. “It’s all I have. It’s all we have. We can’t leave, don’t you see that? And if you try to make me go up there I’ll just come back down. Again and again and again.”
“What do you want to do, blast it?”
She took a little steadying breath. “I want to be out there.” She nodded toward the porch that ran along the front of the cottage with a commanding view of the whole valley. “I want to watch in case they come back. I want to help.”
She surely was one hell of a woman, Luc thought. Her eyes were heavy with sleep and she looked on the edge of exhaustion, but he knew she meant it. She probably would come right back down if he took her upstairs. And all he would have to show for his trouble would be a sore arm — and sorer ears.
Yes, she was a truly rare woman.
“Fine.” The word surprised Luc as much as it did Silver. He knew he was going to regret it. The only way he could let her stay was with him nearby to keep an eye on things, and that meant his own business wasn’t going to be completed tonight.
But looking into her sleepy green-gold eyes, Luc found he didn’t mind.
“I must be a sore travail to you,” Silver said softly, her face turned against his chest.
Sore travail? He could think of a lot of words for Silver St. Clair, but not those two. “You do have a thorough knack for being stubborn and irritating.” Luc smiled faintly. And damnably attractive. “But sore travail? No, I think not.”
“Truly? I’m very glad to hear it. Jessica — she was my older sister — always said I was Mama and Papa’s Cross to Bear. She said I’d drive them to an early grave. Maybe … I did.”
Luc felt a stab of anger at such cruelty, but decided now wasn’t the time for questions. “At the moment, I happen to be bearing you, cross and all. You don’t hear me complaining, do you?”
“It must be because you’re so amazingly strong.” Her head cocked. “Are all highwaymen this strong? It’s really quite … overwhelming.”
“I couldn’t say.” Luc decided she was never going to find out. No other highwayman was ever going to get near enough for her to find out.
“But I must be terribly heavy. And your arm — oh, dear, you shouldn’t be—”
“Be quiet, virago.”
“I shouldn’t. I absolutely shouldn’t.” Gently she touched his mask and the little scar above his lip. “How I wish you didn’t have to wear this.”
“So do I, Sunbeam.” Luc’s voice hardened. “So do I.”
Silver sighed as her head settled against his chest. It felt amazingly good there, Luc decided.
“You understand, don’t you? About why Lavender Close means so much to me. It’s Bram’s future and the only home that Tinker has. For me it’s — oh, it’s richness and memories. All I have left of my parents. Can you see why I have to stay?”
“I understand. But I still don’t like it,” he said grimly, carrying her out to the porch.
He started to argue, to say she’d have to leave at dawn, that he was a sheet short even to consider giving in on this.
And then Luc looked down.
Her auburn lashes fringed her pale cheeks. He realized she was already fast asleep, her hand tucked beneath his arm.
Women, he thought. But there was the hint of a grin on his lips as he sat down and eased her against his shoulder.
On the porch. Exactly as she’d wanted.
~ 19 ~
The moon was a pale disk hanging over cut-paper trees when Tinker emerged from the cottage, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He took one look at Luc and shook his head. “Ah, to be young and reckless again. Has she wakened?”
“Quiet as a kitten, though I fancy her rib’s bothering her more than she admitted. She’s been rubbing it in her sleep.” Luc pointed to a damp strip of gau
ze at his side. “I cleaned her forehead, but — well, the other wound needs to be looked at.”
“And what about yours?”
“It’s of no importance.” Luc’s tone did not invite further questions.
“Ought to be tended, nevertheless.”
“Later.”
Tinker, used to the company of the two strong-willed St. Clairs and their father before them, snorted and went off in search of medical salves and fresh bandages. When he returned, his eyes carried a cool challenge.
Luc met it squarely. “Unnecessary, I assure you. I’ll be off soon enough. With dawn I expect your dangers here will end.” He smiled faintly. “And mine will increase.”
Tinker frowned down at the tall, black-clad figure, not about to be deterred. “Which arm is it?”
Luc gave a reluctant chuckle. “Damned hard-headed, aren’t you?”
“Aye, so I been told,” came the laconic answer. “Which arm?”
Without waking Silver, Luc sat forward and eased out of his jacket. He was not entirely surprised to see his forearm dark with blood.
“Oh, aye, a mere scratch indeed.” When Tinker worked Luc’s sleeve free, his breath caught. “Bloody fool!” Scowling, he began to unwrap the bloodstained length of gauze. Underneath, the skin was raised in a jagged wound. “Pistol ball?”
“So it was.”
“Sir Charles Millbank’s, by any chance?”
Luc studied the velvet sky and the stars blinking down like diamonds. His mother had worn diamonds like that once, set in golden clasps that gleamed against a blue satin gown.
He told himself not to think about that.
“I’m not entirely sure, but I doubt his aim is steady enough. More likely it was Lord Carlisle.”
Tinker harrumphed as he applied a liberal amount of cleansing rosemary vinegar, followed by a lavender oil liniment. “Don’t underestimate Millbank. He’s a scoundrel and a bully, and he finishes what he starts.” He studied his handiwork with satisfaction, then began to pack fresh gauze around the wound. “Don’t happen that you ever lived in London, did you?”
Come the Night (The Dangerous Delameres - Book 1) Page 18
