A Lady of His Own

by Stephanie Laurens

  His voice had grown progessively colder. When he said her name, even though she’d guessed it was coming, Penny had to fight to quell a shiver.

  When Nicholas glanced down at his hands, lying atop the covers, and said nothing, Charles continued in the same, coldly judgmental tone, “You said you’d reasoned he’d make for the library, and that he was swearing over the pillboxes. Am I right in guessing that you believed the pillboxes would be part of his target?” He stopped, waited.

  “Yes,” Nicholas eventually said. Closing his eyes, he rested his head back on the piled pillows.

  “I assume you thought that because he’d gone after Mary—she was the downstairs tweeny, so she was responsible for dusting in the library.”

  Eyes still closed, Nicholas nodded.

  Charles studied him, then looked at Penny. Mouthed what he wanted her to say. She nodded and sat forward.

  “Nicholas, we know of the pillboxes in the priest hole.”

  His eyes jerked open; he stared at her. “You know…?”

  He looked at Charles, who nodded.

  “Not easy to explain, not at all.”

  Nicholas sighed, and dropped his head back once more. He stared at the canopy over the bed.

  “The thing I can’t fathom,” Charles went on, “is how the pillboxes fit with our theory of revenge. No one could have known…”

  He paused. He’d been speaking his thoughts as they occurred, as he followed the train, yet hearing it aloud…suddenly he saw the light. “Not quite true, of course. The one group who most definitely would have known about the pillboxes is those who handed them over—the French.”

  Fixing his gaze on Nicholas, he felt the jigsaw shift, saw the difficult pieces slide smoothly into place. But he was still missing one major piece.

  Nicholas had a stubborn look on his face—one Charles actually recognized; it was very like Penny’s intransigent mask.

  “Very well.” Settling back, he watched Nicholas. “This is what I know so far. Your father and Penny’s set up some scheme decades ago passing secrets to the French. The French paid in pillboxes. The secrets were delivered mostly verbally to a contact from a French lugger who met one of the Selbornes out in the Channel. The Smollets arranged the meetings using their yacht and the appropriate signal flags, then Penny’s father and later Granville would go out with one of the smuggling gangs, meet the French, effect the transfer, and come away with a pillbox.

  “A very neat exchange for everyone concerned, except the soliders who died in the wars.” He was unable to keep the icy contempt from his voice.

  Nicholas heard it; he paled, but otherwise didn’t react. He continued to stare at the canopy. But he was listening.

  “Now, however,” Charles continued, reining in his feelings, “for some reason we have a French agent sent to recover some or all of the exchanged pillboxes, and”—watching Nicholas’s face he guessed—“to punish the Selbornes, indeed, to kill any of those involved, or even their relatives.”

  Nicholas didn’t react. Charles’s blood ran cold as Nicholas’s lack of shock or surprise confirmed he’d guessed right. He glanced at Penny; the stunned look on her face as she stared at Nicholas showed she’d followed the exchange and read it as he had.

  Drawing a deep breath, he looked again at Nicholas. “Nicholas, you have to tell me what you know. This man is a killer—he’ll continue until he succeeds in what he’s been sent here to do, or he’s stopped. He can be stopped.”

  He paused, then added, “Regardless of the past, the current situation is that you have a French agent about who wants to kill you. That puts you and me on the same side.”

  Nicholas’s lips curved fractionally. “An enemy of my enemy must be my friend?”

  “War makes strange bedfellows all the time.” Charles waited, then quietly said, “You have to tell me. If you don’t, and he kills again, that death will be on your head.”

  His final card, but he suspected, from all he’d seen of Nicholas, perhaps a telling one. He certainly hoped so.

  “Nicholas.” Penny leaned forward and laid her hand on Nicholas’s. “Please, tell us what’s going on. I know the family’s reputation weighs with you.” Nicholas lifted his head enough to meet her eyes; she grimaced. “No matter how bad the past has been, the family might not have a future at all if you don’t speak now. You must see that.”

  Nicholas held Penny’s gaze.

  Charles held his breath.

  A long moment passed, then Nicholas sighed and let his head fall back. He stared at the canopy unseeing. “I have to think.”

  Charles fought to keep impatience from his voice. “This killer’s on the doorstep. We don’t have much time.”

  Nicholas lifted his head and met his gaze squarely. “It’s not my story. I can’t just”—he gestured—“make you free of it. I have to think what I can reveal, should reveal, and what isn’t mine to tell at all.”

  “You just have to tell me enough.”

  Nicholas searched his eyes. “Twenty-four hours. You can give me until after dinner tomorrow”—he glanced at the clock—“no, that’s now today.” He drew in a shaky breath, and met Charles’s eyes. “Give me until then, and I promise I’ll tell you all I can.”

  CHAPTER

  17

  CHARLES HAD TO BE CONTENT WITH THAT. ASIDE FROM ANYthing else, Nicholas was exhausted and needed to rest.

  Returning with Penny to her room, he checked that no villain was lurking, then locked her in and went to check on his patrols. All was quiet, yet the silence was rife with anxiety. After chatting to the four men presently on watch, he slipped back into Penny’s room, stripped, and slid under the covers.

  She turned to him and tugged him close. He went, found her lips with his, kissed. Grumbled, “What is the matter with your family? It’s never your story, and you all want twenty-four damned hours….”

  Penny looked into his dark eyes, softly smiled. “It’s not us—it’s you. It’s obvious that once we tell you, all control will be out of our hands.”

  He humphed, and kissed her again.

  She let him, met him, then encouraged him. Not just invited but dared him to take her, to give himself, let her give back to him and so reassure them both. To touch again and share the comfort they now found in each other, through the physical to reach further once again, onto that other plane.

  Responding, accepting, he rose over her, pressed her thighs wide, sank between, and with one powerful stroke sheathed himself in her softness, joined them, and set them careening on their now familiar wild ride. She gasped, clung, and rode with him, absorbed, drawn wholly into the moment, yet dimly aware of the contradiction between his nature and his behavior with her.

  He never pushed, cajoled, pressured; he never had. In this arena, he’d always been the supplicant, and she his…not mistress, but perhaps empress, dispensing her favors as she chose. As she decided and deemed him worthy.

  And he’d never once argued with that. Never once sought to change their status quo, to demand or simply seize control and take.

  A wall of flames rose before them, a surging, greedy conflagration; they plunged into it, rode through it, fell into it. Wrapped in each other’s arms, they let the fire have them, consume them, weld them, leaving them at the last clinging to the edge of the world. Gasping, shuddering, gazes meeting, locking, holding…

  Then that too-brief instant of absolute communion faded; lids falling, all tension released, they tumbled headlong into the void.

  They settled to sleep, him sprawled beside her, one arm slung possessively over her waist. Her thoughts circled, spiraling down, yet despite her languid state, they didn’t stop.

  His breathing deepened and slid into the cadence of sleep.

  Her mind continued to drift.

  His willingness to cede the reins to her, to allow her to dictate their play, continued to nag, to register as, if not suspicious, then certainly significant, but in what way she couldn’t tell. She’d already asked him why. He’
d replied with words she’d interpreted as a challenge: Whatever you wish, however you wish. I’m yours. Take me.

  She mentally paused, through half-closed eyes stared unseeing into the darkness as she replayed those words in her mind. What if they hadn’t been a challenge, but instead an honest reply?

  Her instinctive reaction was to scoff, but she could hear his voice in her head; he hadn’t spoken lightly. What if…?

  The possibility shook her, tightened her nerves, sharpened her wits. Her mind whirled and drew another puzzle piece into her mental picture.

  The link that had opened between them, that emotional communion that had somehow become an integral part of their joining, was still there, consistently there, and very real. She’d been stunned initially, shocked that he of all men would reveal so much of himself in such a way. That first moment, so intense, had taken her aback, left her momentarily uncertain. Now, however…she needed and wanted to learn more, to explore that connection and see where it led, learn what it meant.

  He wanted her, not just physically but on some deeper, more emotion-laden level. That was what that connection, by its very existence, conveyed; she’d seen the yearning, the longing, woven through it.

  She accepted he couldn’t pretend to such emotions; she couldn’t recall that he ever had, not with her. But he could conceal; he was a past master at hiding what he felt, one of his most spyworthy talents. While she could sense and be sure of his wanting her, of the sincerity of his belief that he needed her, she couldn’t see what was driving it, what lay behind it. What, indeed, had given rise to it.

  One thing she knew beyond question. At twenty, he’d neither wanted nor needed her, not as he did now. She’d been right in defining how the years had changed him—at twenty, the superficial, the obvious, had been all there was; now he was a complex, complicated man, one with hidden depths, still ruled by intense and powerful emotions, but those emotions were now harnessed, controlled, often screened.

  The man behind the superficial mask had grown in many ways, had developed depths he hadn’t previously possessed. What drove him to want her was new, one of those facets the years had wrought in him. But what was it?

  Her thoughts continued to circle, examining that question from every possible angle…until sleep crept up on her and dragged her down.

  The next morning, Nicholas remained confined to his bed awaiting a visit from Dr. Kenton, who Penny had summoned over Nicholas’s protests to check his wounds. When Nicholas appealed to Charles, wordlessly man-to-man, Charles met his gaze stoically and refused to countermand Penny. If it made her feel better to have the doctor call, so be it.

  They left Nicholas still weak, but now sulking. Charles hoped he’d grow restless and consent to speak sooner; he was very conscious of wasting the day. He filled the morning writing reports; the first, to Dalziel, he dispatched by rider, the second, a succinct note to Culver informing him of the attack on Nicholas, he left on Norris’s salver.

  Culver would be shocked. He would sit in his library and tut-tut, then retreat into his books. He was one person whose reactions Charles could predict with confidence. Not so others in this game.

  Once both reports were gone, there was little else for him to do. Dr. Kenton came and went, gravely noting how lucky Nicholas was that neither knife thrust had nicked anything vital. After commending Em’s ointment and Figgs’s bandaging, Kenton advised Nicholas that rest was all he required for a complete recovery.

  After seeing Kenton off, Charles prowled around the house. Penny was still in conference with Figgs. He wandered through the library, now cleared of the debris from the smashed display cases, then circled the ground floor, growing ever more restless and edgy. The combination was familiar, the prelude to battle; patience had never been his strong suit.

  Yet the battle to come would not come today. Everyone at the house was alert, watchful, careful, very much on guard. While he might have thought to surprise them by returning last night, the French agent—Charles felt confident in dubbing him that—would not call today. Soon, yes, but not yet; he’d wait, hoping they’d relaxat least a little of their vigilance.

  To pass the time, he walked through the shrubbery, confirming his memories of the villain’s favorite escape route. He’d been right in not following the man into its shadows in the black of night. The shrubbery was old, its trees and shrubs thick and dense; it would be child’s play for anyone fleeing into it to circle any pursuer and return to the house, leaving said pursuer chasing shadows, unaware.

  He walked out of the shrubbery and saw Penny on the terrace. She saw him and waved, then descended the steps and headed his way.

  They met in the middle of the lawn; smiling, she linked her arm in his and strolled by his side. He listened while she told him of the household’s reactions, of the staff’s determination to hold firm against the unknown attacker who had taken one of their own, then dared to violate their domain.

  Lifting his head, Charles looked at the house. With the staff so resolute and guards in place, Nicholas was safe; he could have so many hours to think. For himself, he wanted to keep Penny with him, which meant keeping her occupied. Nothing from London would reach the Abbey before the afternoon…“If I don’t get out of here, I’ll start badgering Nicholas.” He caught her eye. “Why don’t we take a picnic and ride to the castle? I haven’t been there in years.”

  She blinked, then her eyes lit and she nodded. “You get the horses. I’ll order a picnic, then change. I’ll meet you in the stables.”

  He let her draw away. Smiling, she headed for the house, clearly eager despite her tiredness. They’d got precious little sleep last night, but more, battling an unidentified assailant was inherently draining. He was accustomed to it, she wasn’t, yet she was holding up well.

  Better than most females would, but then he’d always known there was a spine of tempered steel concealed within her slender form.

  He watched that slender form cross the lawns and reenter the house, then he stirred and strode for the stables.

  Distraction was what they both needed.

  It was noon when they reached the ruins of Restormel Castle, dramatically perched above the Fowey valley with sylvan views over field and estuary to the distant cliffs and the sea beyond. A favorite picnic spot for the surrounding families in summer, today it was theirs alone.

  Built by the Normans from local gray stone, the castle was a rarity—perfectly circular. Disused for centuries, the curtain wall and outer bailey were long gone; they rode across the dry ditch and into the courtyard of the inner keep, a place preserved out of time.

  Dismounting, they exchanged glances. Every child from both their families had run wild here; it was a special place, a well for the imagination to draw on. As he tied Domino’s reins to an ancient ring in the wall, Charles recalled battles he and his brothers had staged there, in the courtyard, their boots scuffing on the stones as they fought with wooden swords, high-pitched voices echoing from the walls. Their parents and sisters had looked down from the battlements, and laughed and smiled.

  Penny, too, had her own hoard of memories, in similar vein, happy moments bright with the magic bestowed by childhood’s eyes. She handed her reins to Charles, looked around while he tethered her mare. “Leave the picnic for now.” It was stored in their saddlebags. “Let’s walk the battlements first.”

  He nodded. Taking her hand, he led her to the flight of steps that gave access to the now empty hall; from there they took another flight up to the crenellated outer wall.

  She stepped onto the stone walkway and paused to look around, to confirm that the building below them, the inner keep, was still as she remembered it, then she turned and let her eyes drink in the sweeping views.

  The wind was cool yet soft with the promise of summer, the air fresh and clean, the sun warm but not hot. White wisps of clouds streaked across a cerulean sky. It was an idyllic place, soothing to the soul.

  “I don’t know why,” she said, tucking back wisps of ha
ir the breeze had teased free, “but I feel as if the villain, whoever he is, can’t penetrate here. Simply can’t exist here.”

  Charles squeezed her hand gently; they started to stroll. “I used to think this was one of those faerie places our nurses used to whisper about. A place that was of this world, but also of the other—a spot where the real and the faerie worlds met, and time didn’t behave as it does elsewhere.”

  She shivered delicately, but it was a delicious shiver. “An enchanted place—yes, you’re right. But it never felt haunted to me.”