Come the Night (The Dangerous Delameres - Book 1)

by Skye, Christina

  “What, no arguments?”

  “None at all.”

  “I don’t trust you, Sunbeam. Not for a second. You gave in far too easily. What scheme are you planning now?”

  Silver gave a dramatic sigh. “I fear that I am indeed a sore travail to you.”

  “Rubbish.” Luc glared down at her. “And if I ever hear you speak such nonsense again, I’ll — I’ll do something drastic!”

  “Very well,” Silver said, not the least bit frightened by this thundered threat. She settled herself back against Luc’s pillow, savoring the hint of citrus soap that clung to the cloth.

  Yes, it was a lovely room. And it was furnished far more elegantly than she would have imagined.

  She did not tell Luc why the room had seemed familiar. Instead, she closed her eyes, envisioning the walls without their fine new paper and furnishings. In her mind Silver saw how the room had looked the last time she had been here, dark with mildew, windowsills cracked and floors bare of rugs.

  Then Waldon Hall had belonged to the St. Clair family. It had stood bare and skeletal, the furniture all sold, along with the paintings and silver, to meet the bills that had come to light after her father’s death.

  No, there was no need to mention any of this to Luc. Silver decided it would only make him uncomfortable. And he shouldn’t be. He had restored the old house to all its former beauty.

  Silver sighed as a wave of weariness swept over her. If only her father hadn’t died when he did. If only he had left a record of Millefleurs’ ingredients.

  If only. If only…

  She barely felt the fingers that smoothed the covers at her neck.

  “Cold. Need to cover the lavender. Tell Tinker…”

  But sleep took her before she could finish. And as she slipped away, Silver could have sworn she felt a hard hand brush her forehead.

  ~ ~ ~

  “No, not that way, stripling. Like this. Keep your wrist steady.” Dressed in a white shirt and dove-gray breeches, Luc paced, foil in hand, at the center of Waldon Hall’s candlelit ballroom. “Let the foil rest lightly. Then breathe deep and feel its balance.”

  Bram frowned, fingering the smooth metal hilt. His hand rose, and slashed the air experimentally.

  “That’s it. Now again.” Luc watched the boy move, nodding. He was quick and agile, an apt pupil. In a few months he would be able to…

  Luc bit back a curse. It was a fantasy.

  Soon they would be gone.

  Then Luc would dedicate himself to hardness once more, to anger and to the plan of revenge that had kept him alive for the last agonizing five years.

  “Keep your eyes open. Lunge. Step, step, lunge. Damned good!” Luc finally pronounced as the sweaty but beaming boy fell back and mopped his brow. “No more today, I think. You’ve an aptness for the sport, young fellow. Your sister must engage you an instructor in town.”

  Bram frowned; something wistful crossed his face. He looked away, settling the foil carefully back in its case. “Of course. I’m sure there must be someone,” he said softly.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing. You are very kind to bother about a silly boy. It must be a damnable nuisance.”

  Luc strode to the boy’s side and dropped beside him. His hand cupped Bram’s shoulder. “Not a nuisance. It’s just that — well, I’m no sort of a teacher. You’ll do much better with a professional. Someone trained in these things.”

  Bram stared at him, his eyes dark. “Of course.”

  But the disappointment in the boy’s face hit Luc squarely in the stomach. He wasn’t ready for the wave of guilt that came with it. Damn it, he was a highwayman. A notorious cutthroat! What business had the boy looking up at him with such patent hero worship in his eyes?

  How soon it begins, Luc thought. How soon I start hurting them.

  “Damn it, Bram, it’s not what you think. I — I can’t, don’t you see? It’s better for you not to be involved with me. Anything could happen. One night I might go out that door and never come back, do you understand? And if anyone connected me with you, it would go hard for all of you. After everything your sister’s been through, I don’t want to see her made unhappy.”

  Bram nodded soberly. “I never thought of that.” He pulled off his spectacles and cleaned them carefully on his shirt. “I suppose that’s why you’re all huffish around Syl too.”

  Luc stiffened. “I haven’t any notion what you’re talking about.”

  Bram studied him for a moment, then slid his glasses back over his nose. “Of course there’s no reason for you to explain to me. I’m just a silly boy, after all. But I’ve seen the way you look at her. The way she looks at you too. When you’re not aware of it, at least.” The boy fingered the brass hinge on the foil case. “Just the same way Lord Easton looked at her last year. Said he was interested in some lavender water for his mother, but if you ask me, all the man wanted was to get my sister alone in the conservatory and paw her about.”

  Luc’s jaw hardened. “What happened?”

  Bram smiled. “A trump, my sister. Syl taught the man a lesson or two. When Easton finally wobbled out of the conservatory, his lip was bruised and his exquisite white cravat was all covered with peat. He ran off howling about how she’d assaulted him with a copper distilling pipe. In a very delicate part of his anatomy, you understand,” Bram added, with a fiendish smile. “And this was after she’d given him a perfect left hook. Taught her that myself, you know.”

  “Just the thing to round out a gentlewoman’s education,” Luc said dryly.

  “Exactly what I thought. Tinker didn’t see it that way, but what does he know?”

  A lot more than the man let on, Luc decided. “And has Lord Easton come back to, er, paw your sister about since then?”

  “Haven’t seen a trace of him. The bleater said he’d set his dogs on her if she came within a mile of his place. Which none of us would dream of doing, for the man’s an unappetizing specimen to be sure. He has deplorable manners and bad teeth. Uses some kind of appalling scent, a mixture of cinnamon and lilacs. Cinnamon and lilac for a man! It passes all bounds.”

  Luc smiled slightly. “So you really do have the St. Clair nose. Silver told me. I couldn’t quite believe it.”

  “Shall I prove it? I fancy you’ve just come back from the stables, because I can smell the oats you gave your horse. I can even smell the moss and pine needles you crushed beneath your boots on your way back.” Bram studied Luc for a moment. “She’s a devilish good sport, my sister. Not at all missish, you know. Never snaps at one, never tells a fellow to put away his clothes or get his head out of a book. Besides, she’s got deucedly fine legs.”

  “She what?”

  “Well, so she has. I heard Lord Easton say so just before he disappeared into the conservatory. Nor was he the only sprig to come up to Lavender Close to hang about my sister.”

  “Are you setting yourself up as a matchmaker, boy?”

  “Devil a bit,” Bram said cheerfully. “Just want to see my sister happy. And she hasn’t been, not really. Not for the longest time. She’s a great gun, of course. Never complains, not ever. But a fellow would have to be blind not to notice.” Abruptly, he jumped to his feet. “I’d best go see how she’s doing.”

  At the door he turned. “Aren’t you coming?”

  “I think not.” Regret lined Luc’s face as he stared down at his foils.

  Shrugging, Bram went away humming loudly, too happy to notice.

  ~ ~ ~

  Silver was staring out the window when Jonas knocked at the door and poked his head inside.

  “Interested in some food?”

  “Actually, I’m more interested in — in Luc. Tell me about him, Jonas.”

  Jonas put down the tray he’d brought for Silver. “Always was a wild sort. Reckon that boy goes and gets himself shot the way normal folks go buy a new hat.”

  “When did it happen?”

  “Leaving your place, lest I’m mistaken. Said one of Carli
sle’s men shot him.”

  “The fool,” Silver said softly. “The doltish, idiotic, irresponsible—”

  Jonas gave a short laugh. “Now there’s the truth! He barely made it home. Had to dig the ball out myself, so I should know.”

  Silver looked around her at the beautiful room, at the watered silk walls, at the elegant prints of fighting ships. Hardly the domain of a typical highwayman.

  What made a man take that kind of risk?

  “He wasn’t always this way, miss. Nor was his life this sort of life. It could be very different for him. Aye, if only he’d let the past be forgotten. But he won’t. He just plain won’t.”

  “Why not?”

  Jonas shifted uncomfortably and stared down at the tray of food. “Not that I wouldn’t like to tell you, miss. Talking would be a relief. But I can’t. It’s his secret, you see.”

  Silver felt her thoughts whirling with a thousand questions. “I know he cannot be a common criminal!”

  Jonas took up a knife and began carving a loaf of bread in narrow, perfect pieces. “Oh, don’t be mistaking me, miss. Master Luc’s done his share of robberies. Had to if we was to survive, you understand. It was beans and water and not a feather to fly with when we got back.”

  “Back from where?”

  “There,” he said grimly, in a tone that warned Silver not to ask any more questions. Carefully the old servant placed several pieces of shaved ham and buttered bread onto a gleaming china plate. “Best that you eat. You’ll feel better for it.”

  Barely mindful of what she was doing, Silver picked up a slice of bread. “Can you tell me nothing, then? I so want to understand. To help him, if I can.” She smiled sadly. “Though I’ve never met anyone who possessed such stubbornness.”

  “Odd, but them’s the same words he used about you, miss.”

  Silver made a startled sound, then began to smile. She felt her cheeks grow hot.

  “No need for that. He’s a damned fine man and I’m thinking you’re a rare sort of lady. Luc’s had his pick, sure enough. Two widows. A countess. Even an encroaching duke’s daughter with a very taking sort of figure.” Jonas shook his head, smiling fondly. “But the boy wasn’t having any of ‘em.” He sighed and moved to the door. “Finish that bread, you hear? And there’d be no harm in your having a glass of that wine along with it.”

  “I can see why he relies on you so much,” Silver said softly.

  Jonas gave her a sudden smile. It made her think that one time he had smiled that way often.

  Before something had happened, something terrible about that place he had spoken of.

  Silver meant to find out exactly what.

  ~ ~ ~

  It was that same raw need to understand that made Silver sit up several hours later when she heard voices drifting up from the courtyard.

  Luc’s came deep and determined, Jonas’s sharp and irritated.

  She made her way to the window and looked out. Luc stood bare chested, a white gauze strip wrapped around his chest. Nearby, Jonas was busy pouring water into a pewter basin.

  “Be the death of you, so it will. Maybe I’ll be glad of it too! Nothing but an everlasting travail, that’s what you are! Ever since that midnight trip to town on a mission of love five years ago. Just look where that got you! Caught up by as foul a bunch of cutthroats as ever haunted the docks.”

  Silver went very still as she realized she was listening to things not meant for her ears. But she did not draw back. Her need to understand Luc’s pain was too great for that.

  Luc flung back his head and combed his fingers through his wet hair. “I couldn’t have managed without you, Jonas. You’ve been a thorn in my side, yet a true friend nevertheless. There, I’ve finally admitted it. Now would you kindly cease your incessant complaining?”

  Jonas lifted the basin and squinted at his cocky charge. “Not until you give up this mad scheme of revenge.”

  Luc’s voice hardened. “I think we’ve been over this piece of ground before, Jonas.”

  Silver stared down at the two men. The sun was nearly gone and Luc’s bare shoulders glistened, full and bronze in the day’s last red light. But it wasn’t his hair or his muscled shoulders that kept her frozen, breathless at the window.

  It was the jagged marks, ten inches long, that snaked across his back and down his sides. They were old and long healed, but their savagery still made Silver gag.

  Dear, what had put them there?

  She moved closer as Jonas began to speak.

  “Aye, so we have. I thought it was madness then and I think it’s madness now. Give it up. Let the Admiralty find out who—”

  “Enough, Jonas! There’s only one person who’ll ever get to the bottom of it and that’s me! When I think of all that happened, of the people left to rot over there — damn it, it’s the least I can do to see the system changed, don’t you understand?”

  “All I understand is that you’re gonna get yourself killed, boy. And without a word to your mother and father so that they know you didn’t die like they thought you did.”

  At that moment Jonas looked up.

  He saw Silver at the window.

  “What is it, Jonas?”

  The servant hesitated, then shrugged. “Nothing. Thought I saw one of those ferrets climbing about, that’s all. Reckon I was wrong.”

  But the servant’s eyes were thoughtful as he followed Luc inside.

  ~ ~ ~

  She was still dazed when Bram came in and sank down in the chair beside her bed.

  She barely listened to his exploits, nodding and seeming interested even while her thoughts were far away.

  What could have left such marks on his back? And what was the revenge that Jonas was trying to talk him out of?

  “Luc even let me use the foils. Said I was an apt student.” Bram’s eyes gleamed at the memory. “And you should see what he’s done to the ballroom, Syl. Looks ever so much better than when we lived here. Of course, I expect we hadn’t half the money to put into repairs that he does. But why didn’t you want me to mention it to him?”

  “Because it would be bound to make him uncomfortable. After everything he’s done for us, I don’t want that for him.”

  Bram frowned.

  He had heard almost the same words from Luc only a few minutes before. Oh, yes, the two were in deep. Smelling of April and May, they were. The problem was, what was he going to do about it?

  Silver struggled up to a seated position against the pillows Bram had piled behind her. “Did he … say if he was coming up later?”

  “Don’t recall if he did. He’s a devilish busy man, you know. I had a glance at his study and it was chock full of correspondence, journals, and newspapers in all sorts of outlandish languages. Not at all the kind of study you’d expect a highwayman to have. Meanwhile, Tinker and that fellow Jonas have been thick as thieves. The two were drinking whisky down in the kitchen with their heads close, almost as if they were making some sort of secret plan.”

  “I’m certain you must be imagining that,” Silver said. “The two have barely met. What could they possibly be planning?”

  Bram shrugged. “There’s a lot of things I don’t seem to understand around here. One of them is why you look so sad right now.” The boy looked at his sister’s flushed cheeks. “Another thing is why Luc got so upset when I mentioned Lord Easton to him.”

  “Bram, you didn’t!”

  “So I did. Why shouldn’t I? No need for the man to think he’s the only one who’s ever been interested in you.”

  The flush on Silver’s cheeks grew more pronounced.

  “And if you ask me, the two of you are making a proper mull of it. Of course no one does ask me, seeing as how I’m just a lowly boy of twelve.”

  Silver looked away. “It’s not that way, Bram. It’s just … well, I can’t quite explain it.”

  She picked up the small hand mirror lying beside her on the bed and sighed. “What a fright I look. I’ll never get these tangles out
of my hair, but I suppose I must try.”

  She picked up the little silver-handled brush that Bram had brought over from Lavender Close. She winced as she tried to work her way through the mass of tangles. “Not that he would notice,” she muttered. “He never comes up here. Not anymore.”

  Her eyes glinted with tears when she tossed the brush down on the bed. “Nor do I care. Who wants to spend time with a notorious highwayman? Who wants to be just another silly woman whose heart he’s broken?”

  Frowning, Silver scrubbed at her cheek. Her side was burning and she had a pounding headache. But that wasn’t what was bothering her, not really.

  The ache in her chest went far beyond physical suffering.

  Oh, why didn’t the insufferable man come?

  ~ ~ ~

  “Do you have everything?” Luc stared grimly at the wagon he and Tinker had been busy preparing for two hours. A pile of muskets lay in one corner, next to ropes and ammunition enough for a small army.

  “I reckon I do,” Tinker said grimly. “Enough to keep the brutes off for one more night at least. All the same, I’m glad that Bram and Silver will be safe up here with you.”

  “They’ll be safe,” Luc said darkly. “Just you take care of yourself, man. Jonas has arranged for half a dozen men to join you at Lavender Close for the next few nights. Ex-soldiers, I believe, so they should be of considerable help. I wish I could join you, but—”

  “No need to explain. I like it just the way it is. We’re too beholden to you already. Now I best be off.”

  Luc stood for a long time, watching the heavy wagon rattle off over the hill. Even when it vanished, he didn’t turn away. He felt a keen reluctance to go up to the candlelit room on the second floor.

  It had all been so simple before. So clear cut. All anger and revenge, with no room for softness or regrets.

  Now things were not nearly so simple.

  His face was hard as he turned and made his way back inside.

  He met Bram on the stairs.

  “She’s been asking for you. Aren’t you going up to see her?”

  “Not yet. That is, I have some correspondence to finish first. And then I have some maps to study…”