by Lucy Ashford
Then he was gone.
She leaned her back against the door and listened to his footsteps fading. Something was hurting so badly deep inside her that it was as if a vital part of her had been torn away.
Luke was right. Whatever had happened between them must never happen again—she knew that. But ever since that kiss in the snow-covered garden, she’d lost her sense of what was right and what was wrong. She just longed, whenever he was near, for him to touch her—to kiss her and more.
Remembering what had just happened between them made her shake. She’d never known, never imagined, that a man’s lips and tongue could create such a shockingly intimate caress. Had never dreamed that his hands on her sensitive breasts could send such heat and such yearning flooding through her to her very core.
But her body had known how to respond, there was no doubting it. She sat down on the bed and bowed her head, remembering how she’d clung to him. How she’d let her palms rove across his back, marvelling at the strength of his muscles while at the same time pulling him closer to her, inch by inch...
Dieu du ciel. So foolish of her. And yet she hadn’t been able to help herself.
It was impossible that there could be anything further between them, and that was what he’d been trying to tell her. That was why he’d been trying to push her away, because he’d known very well that she was beyond reasoning. He was a man with a tormented past, scarred mentally as well as physically, and his whole being was embittered by what had happened to his brother. Besides—it came back to her with a jarring sense of hopelessness—he’d been in love already, he’d been rejected, and after that particular kind of betrayal, was he going to allow himself to become entangled with someone like her?
She, Ellie, was a homeless orphan. She belonged nowhere. Her father had worked for Napoleon.
And in a few hours, I have to get back to the Hall. I have to pretend that none of this has happened at all.
She sat on the bed and stared at the wall. Luke Danbury was a man who had chosen to live on the very fringes of normal society. He was trying to revive his estates by working the land himself, thereby alienating his landowning neighbours and attracting rumours that he collaborated with the free traders and with the French. He was a bitter man with a vengeful heart; he was using her, as he no doubt used everyone he came into contact with. And yet—and yet...
She believed everything he’d told her about his brother and Les Braves. She completely understood his overwhelming determination to clear his brother’s name. She believed in his courage, believed in his integrity. But the way he despised himself almost broke her heart.
She slept at last, only to dream of him as she turned restlessly on her pillow. She dreamed of his brother, Anthony, gazing out to sea through the long night at La Rochelle, waiting for the British navy vessel to take him home. But instead, Anthony was betrayed—and Luke had guessed all along that Lord Franklin was involved in that betrayal.
As for her—Luke Danbury had resolved to use her, and now he felt pity for her, because she was alone and friendless. That was all.
But when he touched her, her body was on fire for him. And that was what really, really frightened her. On fire for him.
* * *
She was wakened early by a knock at her door. ‘It’s six o’clock, ma’am.’ It was Mrs Bartlett’s hesitant voice. ‘Time for you to be up, the captain says. If you please, ma’am.’
Ellie rose quickly and dressed—she’d slept in her chemise. When she got downstairs, the captain’s men were gathered in the kitchen, talking together over coffee and bacon and eggs. She saw Luke there in their midst.
He turned to her and her heart shook as the memory of that kiss last night rippled through her, melting her insides again. Yet now he looked remote, almost forbidding. She would guess that he hadn’t slept at all; she could see there were shadows under his eyes, and his jaw was dark with unshaved beard.
His face was expressionless as he came over to her. ‘My men are ready to take you back to Bircham Hall. Joseph has been warned to look out for you and he’ll let you in at the side entrance.’ He drew a deep breath and lowered his voice. ‘You’ve done all I could have asked and more. But you must not try to get into Lord Franklin’s library again, under any circumstances.’
She gazed up at him. ‘But you need to clear your brother’s name!’
‘I’ll do it myself,’ he said.
‘So there’s nothing more you want me to do?’
He shook his head. ‘Not at all. It’s too dangerous for you to be involved.’
‘I’ve told you. I don’t mind—’
‘What I mean,’ he said, cutting in, ‘is that you will endanger me and my men if you are discovered. I should never have asked you—forced you—into doing what you did. And there will be no more of it.’
Ellie felt herself shaking inside, but she tilted her head proudly. ‘I didn’t think,’ she said, ‘that you were the kind of man to give up so easily.’
For a second Luke’s blue eyes narrowed. Then he glanced over his shoulder towards his men. ‘Josh,’ he rapped out. ‘Go and saddle up a pony for Miss Duchamp, will you?’ He turned back to Ellie, and just for a moment she thought she saw a fierce, passionate regret burning in his eyes. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘For what you did for Monique and Harry.’
She shrugged. ‘Il n’y a pas de quoi. It was no trouble.’ But really she wanted to say, Luke, I don’t know what to do next. Because I cannot imagine not seeing you again, not being held in your arms again...
She braced herself. Was already wrapping her cloak around herself, her head held high. Was already walking out into the courtyard, into the grey light of early dawn, where his man—Josh Watterson—was standing beside two saddled ponies.
* * *
Luke watched her ride off, sitting very straight in the saddle, in those clothes that were far too big for her, but which still couldn’t hide the utter femininity of her figure. She was disappearing now, into the early morning mist.
And she didn’t look back at him. Not once.
He took deep breaths of the fresh, cold air that blew in from the sea. He’d made hideous assumptions about the girl from the very start. He’d thought that she would be spoiled and silly, eager to come to London with the rich Lord Franklin in hopes of living in the lap of luxury and finding herself a rich English husband. He couldn’t have been more wrong.
It sounded as though she’d lived through great danger and great hardship. Those months of flight must have been terrifying—he could imagine it only too well, travelling by night, living briefly in strange and alien places, always having to evade Napoleon’s clever spies. She must have endured things that no well-bred girl should have to endure.
Then came her father’s death—and Lord Franklin had taken her into his care, after falsely telling Ellie that he was a distant relative of her English mother’s.
Why? Ellie had asked. Why would he do that?
And Luke had given Ellie what he was certain now was the answer—that Lord Franklin had hoped she might be in possession of information about Napoleon’s agents, Napoleon’s supporters—even perhaps the rumoured locations of the warehouses Napoleon was said to have stocked with quantities of arms in the event of his return from exile.
Though once Ellie had realised that someone had been searching her belongings and she’d tackled Lord Franklin with her suspicions, he’d banished her to the countryside. So she’d arrived, alone and lost, at Bircham Hall—and she’d played straight into Luke’s hands, by letting him see her father’s compass with its lethal inscription.
And hadn’t he, Luke, treated her just as badly, just as cynically as Lord Franklin, by ordering her—compelling her—to get into Lord Franklin’s library? And then—by kissing her?
He couldn’t stop thinking about the way that she’d looked
at him when he’d told her that by acting as she had, she was endangering him and his men. As if he’d stabbed her to the heart. Given her, in return for her loyalty and courage, another bitter taste of betrayal.
But, oh, her kiss had been sweet. If it hadn’t been so early in the morning, he’d have been pouring some of Jacques’s brandy down his throat in an effort to forget the scent of her dark curls, the taste of her silken lips, the feel of her soft breasts pressed against his chest. Last night, she’d been practically begging him to make love to her, and even now he felt the fierceness of wanting her spiking through his veins. The look in her eyes—the look that spoke of her belief in him, her trust—would stay with him for a long, long time.
She’d wanted him to make love to her; yes, him, with his damaged body and his bitter soul. And perhaps it was the one honourable thing he’d done in his entire dealings with her that he’d refused.
* * *
He realised suddenly that Monique had come out of the house and was walking towards him, with her child cradled in her arms. ‘Monique,’ he said. ‘How are you this morning? How is Harry?’
Luke’s French was hesitant, but even so Monique understood and smiled. ‘We are well,’ she said, softly stroking her son’s hair, ‘thanks to you and that beautiful French girl—the girl who was last night so kind to us. So brave. Is she still here, Luke?’
He shook his head. ‘Ah,’ Monique sighed, ‘I would have liked to thank her properly. What is her name?’
‘Ellie. Ellie Duchamp.’
Just then Luke’s mare, Diablo, whickered in the nearby stable and Harry reached out eagerly towards her. With a laugh, Luke swung Harry into his own strong grasp and held him up so he could stroke the mare’s glossy mane.
‘Listen, Harry. We’ll feed him together later on, shall we?’ Luke said. ‘But now, I wouldn’t be surprised if Mrs Bartlett has something for you. Freshly baked bread, perhaps, and eggs she’s just collected.’ Carefully he handed the little boy back to his mother.
‘Thank you, Luke,’ said Monique, ‘for all your kindness. And Ellie. You and she...?’
She let the question tail away.
‘No,’ he answered gently. ‘No, there’s nothing between us.’
‘A pity,’ she said and walked back into the house.
Luke stood there in the morning sunlight. Nothing. There had to be nothing.
* * *
He got on with grooming Diablo until Josh returned to say that he’d got Ellie safely back into Bircham Hall without anyone except Joseph seeing her. Tom, meanwhile, had gone down to Bircham Staithe to gather what news he could about the soldiers last night, and after putting his mare back in her stable, Luke busied himself loading up a cart with some farming tools for one of his newest tenants, a young local man called Ned Rawling.
Ned was a former soldier who was trying to revive an area of arable land that had been abandoned during the war. A harrow and a hand plough, and some sacks of seed corn—Luke was piling them all on the cart, and would shortly be sending it off to Rawling, who had been told that the equipment was to be his for the next two months.
Rawling had looked disbelieving when Luke informed him of the loan. ‘Captain, I can’t even afford to pay you any rent!’
‘I’ve told you before. You can pay me when your first harvest’s in,’ said Luke.
Now the cart was fully loaded and Pete Watterson was harnessing up a horse, ready to take it to Rawling’s farm. But no sooner had Pete and the cart disappeared off down the track than Tom came riding into the yard.
‘The soldiers have returned to barracks, Captain. And I heard they’re being sent out on artillery exercises for the next few days, so they shouldn’t be troubling us for a while.’
He hesitated and Luke narrowed his eyes. ‘Nevertheless, you don’t look very pleased. Is there something else you want to say to me, Tom?’
Tom put his hands on his hips. ‘Yes. Yes, there is. And it’s about the girl, Captain. The girl from Bircham Hall.’
Luke said quietly, ‘Well?’
‘You and me, Captain, we’ve known each other a long time.’
Luke’s eyebrows lifted. ‘We have. Anything else obvious that you care to state?’
‘Yes. Yes, there is, and it should be obvious to you as well, Captain! If you ask me, that girl deserves a whole lot better than what you’re doing to her, and that’s a fact!’
‘What exactly am I doing to her, Tom?’ Luke’s voice was dangerously polite. ‘That she had to stay here for the night was unfortunate—but she slept by herself, in case you’re wondering, and I’ve done my utmost to make sure she got back safe and unseen to the Hall this morning. What more could I do?’
Tom scratched his spiky hair. ‘Even so—’
‘I’ve told her,’ Luke interrupted, ‘that she is on no account to come near this place again. That she’s on no account to do or say anything at all that would betray the fact that she and I have even met.’
His tone indicated that the discussion was over, but Tom stood exactly where he was, sighing and shaking his head.
‘You know, Captain, sometimes I wish that you and I could just disappear. Start new lives somehow.’
Luke looked amused. ‘What sort of new lives, Tom?’
‘Now, there’s the question.’ Tom was still frowning, but then his face brightened suddenly. ‘How about the pair of us going to Spain again? Do you remember all those little villages, far away from the cities and the battles? We could settle down in one of them, Captain! Grow oranges, perhaps, do some fishing. Drink wine with pretty Spanish señoritas at the local taberna...’
Luke laughed openly. ‘I’d be bored witless within a week. And so would you.’
‘No doubt you’re right. And soon enough, you’d be sticking your nose in some business that wasn’t your business at all. Just like you always do.’
‘I’m righting wrong, Tom. Not sticking my nose in.’
‘Well, Captain,’ Tom said resignedly, ‘whatever you want to call it, I’ll be there at your side.’
‘Glad to hear it,’ said Luke calmly. ‘Because I want you to come with me, now, over to the five-acre field by the ash plantation to help me dig some ditches.’
‘You’re not hoping to grow crops there?’ Tom looked aghast. ‘That field’s been waterlogged for years!’
‘Wheat grew there once. My grandfather told me.’
‘Digging ditches,’ Tom muttered. ‘Your family’s one of the oldest in the county. Your grandfather once had a dozen good farms and scores of men working the land for him—’
‘That was a long time ago,’ broke in Luke abruptly. ‘And I’m not afraid of hard labour, are you? It’s March, it’s the planting season and there are jobs to be done. Get your horse ready and we’ll head over there.’
Tom was already on his way to the stable, but Luke could hear him muttering. ‘A rich heiress, Captain. That’s what you should have found yourself. A rich heiress.’
* * *
Luke didn’t actually mind physical labour, he reminded himself as he worked through the morning and into the afternoon with Tom—digging a ditch. He had never cared much for the way that wealth isolated you from the reality of how most people led their lives. He enjoyed the camaraderie of working in the fields with other men, and the sense of purpose he got from having obstacles to overcome and goals to achieve in trying to resurrect his estate.
The only advantage he could see in having money was that wealth might have given him more power. The power to get other men on his side, in the struggle to uncover the truth about his brother. Power to expose Lord Franklin. And perhaps to help and protect Ellie Duchamp.
Though it was Luke’s fault now that the girl knew far too much for her own safety. With his spade, he heaved a fresh clod of earth out on to the bank and turned his fac
e for a moment to the sun, listening to the shrill calls of the rooks in the nearby ash woods.
He hoped to God that Ellie would listen to what he’d said and stay away from the papers in that library. From now on it was up to him alone to get what he needed, because if Lord Franklin and his government colleagues ever knew what she’d done—what she’d seen in there—she could be arrested as a French spy. Even hanged as a French spy. You fool, Luke. You selfish fool.
* * *
It was almost two o’clock when Tom’s voice alerted Luke to the sound of hoofbeats. ‘Captain! Rider coming along the track!’
Luke turned sharply to see Josh Watterson galloping towards him, then pulling up his horse in a flurry of mud. ‘There’s news in the town, Captain. Napoleon’s escaped!’
Tom had drawn up close. ‘Ah,’ he said scornfully, ‘there’s always wild stories about Napoleon.’
‘Yes, but this time it’s the truth! He’s sailed away from that island of his, cool as you please, and got back to France. There’s going to be war again.’
Tom Bartlett still looked doubtful. ‘Steady there, Josh. Just because old Boney’s escaped, it surely doesn’t mean the whole French army will rise up for him, does it? And what about the new Frenchie King, who’s just been crowned in Paris?’
‘Running north as fast as he can towards Brussels, they say.’ Josh had sprung from his horse and was gazing anxiously out to sea—as if expecting already to glimpse French ships on the horizon.
‘Pah. He’s spent his life running.’ Tom turned to Luke. ‘And, Captain, you and I know that by the time the British army had finished with them last year, Napoleon’s soldiers were nothing but a starving rabble, all of them fed up to the back teeth of war and of their strutting little general!’
Luke took his time in answering. ‘Napoleon has a strange effect on his men, Tom. I wouldn’t be surprised if all his former soldiers flock to him again. In which case, King Louis will be begging the British and their allies to save his throne for him yet again.’
