Silver’s breath caught. So this was the man behind the attacks on Lavender Close!
But Millbank was already moving, his pistol trembling between his fingers. “Stay back! She is mine, only mine. I’ve waited and watched and damn you, I’ll not lose her now!”
“An interesting dilemma, to be sure,” the new arrival sneered, holding his rifle steady at Hamid’s head. “Millbank wants to auction off the woman’s lovely body to his intriguingly depraved little club. I imagine he also covets her father’s precious formula for Millefleurs. Hamid, meanwhile, yearns to teach her the joys of enslavement and utter submission in a Barbary harem. And I, you ask? I simply want some answers. Yes, a problem fit for Solomon himself.” The Englishman smiled faintly. “But I believe I have the solution. We shall simply divide her among us, as Solomon would have done with the contested child. I shall take Miss St. Clair’s head and you, Millbank, shall take her delectable body. Unfortunately, Hamid, that leaves very little left for you — even considering your rather loathsome fetishes.”
At this jeering speech Hamid’s eyes went flat with rage. “You are very quick with your insults, Renwick, and for this you will die. As you should have died five years ago when you bungled the capture of William St. Clair and took the Marquess of Dunwood instead!”
Renwick.
Silver’s eyes widened as she recognized the long, thin face and haughty, sneering lips — the features she had seen in the last sketch in Bram’s notebook.
Lord Damian Renwick, Ian had called him.
By whatever name he was called, he would always be but one thing to Silver: the man who had murdered her father and mother.
Bitter rage exploded through her. This man had harrowed her father through those long months, driving him to question his own sanity and then murdering him with cold-blooded deliberation.
He would pay for that and everything else.
Silver drove her elbow into her captor’s stomach and threw her body sideways. Rage gave her the power of three women as she flung off Hamid’s arm, grabbed up a glass-paned lantern, and hurled it into Renwick’s sneering face.
Around her the deck seemed to explode with movement. Flames shot out from the shattered lantern. India Delamere, crouched behind the tea crate, put a rifle ball into Millbank’s arm and sent him screaming to the deck. Ian Delamere launched himself upon Damian Renwick, who was already staggering from Silver’s well-aimed missile.
Silver backed toward the port railing, stalked by Hamid. The pirate held a pistol clenched in his fingers.
“You have many friends, Englishwoman. It has made my plans fare badly from the very start. How fortunate for us that your father did not have the same.” He moved in chilling silence, skirting a waist-high coil of rope and folded canvas, his eyes never leaving Silver’s face. “Renwick was a fool. So was Sir Charles Millbank. But you, I think, are not, and your bravery is most surprising. Which means, of course, that you must be brought to submission, for no mere woman can be allowed to thwart me.”
Torn sails flapped around them. Silver caught the smell of tar and salt and sodden timber.
And then she caught another smell.
Faint it was, but unmistakable.
The hint of citrus. The tang of tobacco and brandy and fine, aged leather.
She saw him then, his eyes dark hollows of savage determination as he strained his way up the anchor cable. His shirt was gone and his back was crossed by bloody welts.
But his smile was as cocky as it had ever been — and his highwayman’s face was every bit as dangerously handsome.
Silver swallowed, fighting to keep the wild joy from her eyes. She turned to Hamid and smiled, inching backward to bring him astern so that Luc would be out of his line of sight. “Do you really think I’ll give in so easily? You’ll never have my secrets, just as you could not have my father’s. They will stay buried at Lavender Close forever.” Her lips curled. “Unless you want to dig up every inch of ground.”
Luc was at the railing now, his body edging toward the deck. Silver kept moving backward. “Not that I understand why my father’s records can be so important to you.”
“Foolish woman. Your father had a list of the network of our friends in London, men who were very well paid to provide us with names of ships and sailing dates and ports of call. Men like Renwick, who could be made to perform whatever services we required. Such a list cannot be allowed to come out — especially not now, when many in your country would like to send a punitive force against our coast.”
“But you’ve just told me,” Silver snapped.
Hamid’s thin lips curved as he raised his pistol. “Of course. Because you, are about to die.”
A shadow hurtled over the deck. Hamid staggered. Their enforced inactivity at an end, Ian and India ran toward Luc.
But he had no need for their assistance. Revenge came very sweet after long years of torment, and he took a primitive delight in watching Hamid’s jaw shatter beneath his fist.
Two left hooks and a punishing fist to the stomach finished the job.
It was all over. The pirate gasped and fell panting to the deck, blood gushing from his jaw.
Luc swayed as he stared down at the man he had lived only to hate — the man he had in the sights of his pistol now.
His finger tightened. His eyes hardened as the muzzle leveled at Hamid’s throat.
“Fire, ferenghi,” the pirate spat. “Do me this honor. And know that I shall meet you in hell soon enough.”
A muscle flashed at Luc’s jaw.
Slowly his pistol fell.
It was over. Hatred would only keep him chained to the old nightmares. Once, he would have killed Hamid. But now…
“You have one unpleasant stop before you depart for hell, Hamid, and I doubt you’ll care very much for the inside of an English gaol. I’m certain that the English prisoners won’t care at all for you.”
Luc wiped away a trickle of blood, then smiled as Ian threw an arm around his shoulders. “My thanks, little brother. You are as resourceful as always. And you,” he said, smiling at India, “are unnervingly good with that rifle, minx.”
His sister merely smiled. “I learned it all from my chucklehead of a brother.” India shot a thoughtful look at Silver, who was leaning against the stern, her fingers locked on the wooden rail. “But I think that we have work to do. Let’s get this piece of dog meat below with the others, shall we, Ian?”
Silver heard none of this. Her eyes were only for Luc, for the pallor of his face and the blood at his shoulders.
For the man she loved more than her life.
A little broken sound came from her throat. “You’re — safe,” she said raggedly.
“So I am, Sunbeam. But I wouldn’t be — not without your heart and wit and sweet courage.” Slowly Luc moved toward her. “Marry me, Silver. Share my days. Haunt my nights. Make me laugh and swear and shout. I want to see your eyes go silver in your passion. I want to drink your laughter and watch you bear our children.”
Pain tore through Silver’s heart. He was everything she’d ever wanted, her every innocent dream of dashing valor.
And yet she knew it could never be.
Fear — and the certain knowledge of the unbridgeable gap between the firstborn son of a duke and the nearly penniless daughter of a mere perfume merchant — made her stiffen and draw back. “I … can’t.”
Luc’s eyes narrowed. “No? And why is that?” he asked softly.
Very dangerously.
Silver inched away from him. “Because — you lied to me. You let me think you were a common outlaw!” she said desperately.
“I might have managed to say more if you’d stopped trying to rescue me every five minutes!”
Silver’s voice rose. “You never tried to tell me. Not once!”
“Which only makes us fair, hellion,” Luc answered grimly. “Because you never told me about Waldon Hall!” His eyes hardened. He stalked closer.
“Stay back! I won’t marry you
, do you hear me? Go and find some other naive female to cozen. You must have dozens of them littered about the countryside!”
“Oh, thousands of them, I should think.” Luc’s lips curved in a silken smile. “But none half so intriguing as you, termagant. Now stop yelling and tell me you’ll marry me.”
“No.”
“Very well, you leave me no choice.” With one fluid lunge he seized Silver’s shoulders and hauled her against him. His mouth slid down over hers, hard and hot and hungry.
She twisted, desperate to escape his embrace, desperate to ignore how perfect his lips felt on hers.
And all she wanted was to pull him close and kiss her way slowly over every inch of his splendid body.
Silver muttered angrily. It was positively lowering that this man managed to produce such ungovernable passions in her. “I won’t have you.”
Luc stared down at her, confused. Slowly realization dawned. “It’s because of my title, isn’t it? Because you don’t feel bloody good enough for me.”
Silver shrugged. “We’re different, that’s all. Our lives have no place together.”
“Indeed?” Luc smiled, a dangerous glint in his eye. “Then I shall have to continue my life of felony, won’t I? Only in a more reckless way this time, prowling from dawn to dusk for any coach that I can find. Taking all sorts of risks.”
“No, you can’t! I didn’t mean—”
This time he cut her off completely, lips crushed to hers until the world seemed to sway quite deliciously beneath her feet.
At the far end of the deck a shout went up from Luc’s dusty little army. The ferrets squeaked. Cromwell barked happily, his dusty tail thumping on the deck.
“Welcome to the family, Miss St. Clair.” Ian Delamere crossed his arms, grinning. “Try to keep him in line for us, won’t you?”
Luc glared at his brother. When Connor moved closer to Silver and kissed her hand with lazy bravado, Luc’s glare grew even more pronounced. “That will be quite enough, MacKinnon,” he warned.
His friend merely laughed and bowed to Silver. “A true pleasure to meet you, Miss St. Clair. Welcome to Bedlam.”
From her vantage point near the railing the Duchess of Cranford watched the young people laugh. She stood a little apart, looking very pleased with the situation. Yes, everything had been resolved for Luc quite as well as she had hoped. He was safe, and Silver would make him a happy man.
And now she would have to do some serious planning about that hoyden India!
EPILOGUE
“It is done. At least I think it is.”
The Marchioness of Dunwood and Hartingdale frowned down at the half-finished watercolor painting on an easel overlooking the Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore. Venice was spread out before her like a string of jewels, glorious in a summer haze of azure and gold.
Silver cocked her head, toying absently with her gown of ecru lace. “What do you think of my painting so far?”
Behind her Luc smiled lazily. He came to his feet and stood looking over her shoulder at the half-finished watercolor, enjoying the way heat had already begun to knife through his body. “Hmmmm.” That would goad her. It always did.
“Hmmmm? Is that all you have to say?” Silver gnawed at her lip.
Luc felt a dozen muscles leap to painful awareness at that unconsciously sensual gesture. She had a speck of red paint on her cheek. It made her look about twelve years old.
Twelve going on thirty, in truth. In Luc’s eyes she had all of a child’s limitless zest for life — and a woman’s ineffable beauty.
“Oh, it’s no good. I can’t work. How can I, with the thought of the fete your parents insist on holding in honor of our wedding?”
“Don’t worry, sweeting.” Luc smiled lazily. “It will only be my family — and six hundred of their nearest friends.”
“I can’t, Luc,” Silver said desperately, glancing at the elaborately engraved invitation beside her paintbox. “I won’t know how to act or what to wear. This is all too new.”
“Wear this.” His eyes glinting , Luc pulled a slender box from his pocket. Inside a superb forty-carat emerald glinted on a strand of pink pearls.
Silver’s breath caught. “Oh, Luc. But I couldn’t!”
“You must, my dear. It is yours as my wife. The Star of Ceylon is always given to the wife of the eldest son. I have heard it said that there was once a mate to this emerald, a fabulous ruby of forty-six flawless carats stolen from the eyes of an ancient statue. But there was a curse upon the stone, so my father’s father sent a man to return it to the village from which it had been taken.” Luc’s eyes hardened. “Alas, the man was never heard from again. We have often wondered what happened to the Eye of Shiva. But I will bore you with family history no more. Only one favor do I ask. Wear Millefleurs for me tonight, my love.”
Silver smiled, thinking of the bottle of Millefleurs on her dressing table at the palazzo. Soon there would be more, distilled from the flowers of the precious lavender seeds Luc had restored to her that night at Lavender Close. And those particular flowers would be only for their children and their children’s children, an undying sign of their love carried down for generations.
“Of course,” she whispered.
“And when the party is over,” Luc said softly, “wear nothing else but Millefleurs.”
Silver’s breath caught the way it always did when he showed his love so clearly. She was blessed, she knew. And she swore that she would make him happy. If only it weren’t for the vast array of people his parents were assembling this evening! “But, Luc, I won’t know what to say.”
“Talk to them about perfume. You’ll enchant them the same way you did the Prince Regent. He’ll be there, too, by the way.”
Silver sighed. “Oh, very well. I suppose I shall manage.” She frowned down at her painting. “Do you think there is too much red?”
No answer.
“Well?”
“Hmmmmm,” Luc said, sliding his arm around her waist. She smelled like bergamot and hyacinths and oakmoss today.
He drew in the smell of her and her unbridled energy, thanking God again for the strange twist of fate that had brought them together three months before. She smelled like Norfolk in spring. Like the Bois de Boulogne in June. Like Tuscany in autumn.
And that was where he was going to take her.
To watch her paint. To watch her light up with the beauty around her.
All in good time, of course.
Now, however, Luc was a man with a mission.
His hands slid slowly over the satin ribbon above her waist. “Too much color, I think. Too hot. Too … red.” His fingers eased higher, brushing the fullness that began just above her ribs.
“Too … red?” Silver’s voice grew breathy.
Luc liked that. He needed to know that she was feeling everything that he was. “I’m afraid so.” His fingers glided feather light over nipples already budded hard. “Very nice. But I’m afraid too full.”
Silver spun around, her green-gold eyes full of outrage. “Too full! But last night you said—”
Luc’s grin was all innocence. “The roofs, my love. They are out of proportion to the piazza. Just a bit.”
Silver frowned and turned back to the luminous scene before her. “It was difficult to get the perspective. And all that wine your parents forced upon me at lunch certainly didn’t help.”
“They love you and wish you to be happy, Sunbeam. You can’t begrudge them their caring.”
“No, of course I don’t.” Silver’s head cocked as she studied the distant line of the Piazza San Marco, shimmering in the afternoon sun. “What about Millbank? I notice that you have refused to discuss what happened to him?”
“So I have.” Luc smiled grimly, thinking about the arrangements that had been made for Silver’s attackers. Sir Charles Millbank had been packed off to the Indies, where he would remain for the rest of his days. Hamid would spend the rest of his life cursing the damp stone walls of an English pris
on cell. Lord Renwick, too, had received a most fitting end. He had been shipped off to the Dey of Algiers as a captive, to remain forever unransomed in the same squalid quarters where Luc had been held.
The Lord of Blackwood, too, had faded out of sight. As easily as Luc had usurped the role, so had he put it behind him.
Yes, all in all there was a wonderful justice to how things had ended. But Luc did not intend to upset Silver with the details. Otherwise, soft-hearted as she was, she’d probably ask for lenience toward her old enemies.
And that Luc would never permit.
“Your family have all been so wonderful. Ian has promised to teach me how to follow tracks in the forest and India has promised to give me one of her favorite rifles.”
“Bloodthirsty female.” Luc smiled. “You’re much alike. Indeed, if anyone gives you even a cross look tonight, pull out that little pistol of yours and shoot ‘em.”
“Do be serious, Luc.”
“I’m trying, Sunbeam, but you make it very difficult,” he said huskily. “And you haven’t yet said what my grandmother gave you.”
“The duchess?” Silver stopped, her cheeks turning a faint pink.
“What is the incorrigible old woman up to now, my heart?”
“I’m afraid it’s rather … private.” Silver gnawed her lip. “Something she means to give me. To — to sleep in.”
Luc felt his lower body fill, harden, ache. Lord, she was impossible. And Lord, but he did love her.
His fingers moved higher in search of heat and satin skin. A moment later he found both. Unconsciously Silver’s head slid back, braced against Luc’s shoulder.
“Are they what you expected?” Her voice was throaty. “The — the roofs, that is.”
Luc’s smile grew dark. He palmed her ivory softness and warm curves. One tiny button at her bodice slipped free. “I’m not sure what I expected.” He eased between satin and cambric, taking more of her. “I’ve seen so many already, you know.”
Silver spun about, color hectic in her cheeks, eyes ablaze. “Lucien Tiberius Delamere, unhand me this second!”
Come the Night (The Dangerous Delameres - Book 1) Page 36
