by C. J. Archer
"It means kiss me, Husband."
He grinned. "Your wish is my command, Wife."
Still holding her face, he gently pulled her to him. Their lips touched in kiss after brief kiss. Tasting, testing, teasing. Heat brushed Isabel’s skin and coiled round her insides, pooling between her legs. She could stand it no longer. She locked him into a hard, long, fierce kiss, unable to get enough of him, wanting to sink into his warmth and strength, wanting to be devoured by him.
She pressed her body against his and was left in no doubt about his desire for her. His hands dropped from her face to her hips and pulled her in, pinning her to his erection. She reached up and ran her fingers through his hair, dislodging his hat, then caressed down his neck, shoulders and back. His muscles twitched at her touch, flexing with every movement of his body like a finely tuned lute.
A tiny shudder vibrated through him and he held her closer, as if afraid she would slip away. "Isabel," he murmured against her lips. "Let’s go upstairs to your room."
"Can’t," she said, pulling away, trying to gather her wits. "The shop..."
"There aren’t any customers now." He kissed her hard again and she responded by returning it with equal urgency. "Come," he said, tugging her towards the back door, "before I explode. You wouldn’t want your customers witnessing that, would you?" His look was all boyish innocence but his tone was that of a man with carnal pleasures on his mind and very little else.
"Most of my customers won’t be shocked," she shot back, resisting him. "Nick, no, not yet. Later. I promise."
He groaned. "You’re cruel." He kissed her again and she almost pushed him towards the door and up the stairs.
"No more," she said, putting her hands on his chest and trying to ignore the throb of need pulsing through her, "or I’ll give in."
"That’s the general idea." She held him at arm’s length and he smiled at her. "You’re beautiful when you’re determined."
"And you’re just beautiful," she said, unable to stop smiling back.
He crossed his arms and puffed out his chest. "Don’t you mean handsome in a rugged and strong way?"
"No, I mean beautiful." She stood on her toes to kiss his pouting lips. "But don’t worry, I’d love you no matter what you looked like."
He stared at her, unblinking, his lips slightly parted. "You love me?"
"Yes! I’ve always loved you. I only left because I..." She swallowed, suddenly wanting to put the past six years behind her and start afresh with him somehow. "I couldn’t bear to see you despise me for being a witch."
His fingers brushed the hair at her temple. "Never."
"Well," she cleared her throat as those stupid tears threatened to return, "I didn’t know that then."
"Now you do. No matter what. Understand?"
She nodded and gave him a watery smile of reassurance. But she didn’t feel completely reassured herself. There was so much yet to consider. Where would they live? She didn’t want to go back to Kent, or anywhere near his mother. Indeed, the more she thought about it, the more she wanted to stay working at Shawe’s. But what self-respecting knight would allow his wife to do that?
Then there was the question of where he always disappeared to, and whether he was a spy, and if so, was he spying on her even as he burned her with his kisses? She moved away, just a little, and turned to her workbench.
"Nick, we need to talk."
He groaned. "You really are cruel." She said nothing and he must have sensed her unease because he moved up behind her and touched her arm. "What do you want to talk about?" He asked it quietly, reticently, and she glanced up at him to gauge his mood. The boyishness had completely vanished, replaced by hard planes and hooded eyes.
The front door opened and a customer entered. Isabel moved away to greet him and Nicholas breathed a sigh of relief. Talking was the last thing he wanted to do with Isabel because he knew what she wanted to talk about—his absences. If only he could get through these next few days without discussing his spying. All he needed to do was find the traitor, tell Ash he was quitting Walsingham’s network then shower Isabel with love and constant devotion until she forgot the subject altogether.
That would happen about the same time man would fly.
He sighed as he watched her, his body aching with need, his fingers still tingling from touching her. She was amazing. The way her soft lips lifted in a smile just for him, brightening her face and making her eyes sparkle with life. She had flushed a pretty rose when he suggested they go upstairs, and he wished he could capture that color forever.
In many ways, she was so unlike the young girl he’d married. She moved around the shop with confident grace, her head high, her smile genuine and free. She chatted to the customer easily, with none of the shyness she’d possessed in her youth. Six years ago, he never thought it possible to love her more but looking at her now, he had to admit he did. He loved her so much his heart ached every moment he wasn’t with her.
So he had to be with her. Always. He was serious about ending his spying days. No more missions that sent him away for months. He’d tell Ash the first opportunity he got. But he already knew Ash would insist Nicholas finish the current job. At least it kept him near Isabel.
The customer left and she turned back to Nicholas. He had never seen her eyes so bright, so full of happiness. All for him. He’d put that smile on her face. She loved him. She really did.
He hardened again and he silently cursed his errant body part. "Are you sure we can’t go upstairs now?" he asked hopefully.
She grinned and stretched her arms around his waist. Her breasts crushed against him and he couldn’t keep his eyes off the flesh swelling beneath her thin partlet. He wanted to rip the strip of lace off and bury his mouth there, smell her delicious scent and lick the soft, pink flesh until her nipples peaked. God, he wanted to feel her naked so badly.
"As much as I want to, I can’t," she said, oblivious to his agony. "Fox is on an errand so there’s no one to look after the shop."
"What about when he gets back?"
"No!" She chuckled. "He’ll know what’s going on. And as much as I want to, I need to maintain some sort of respect with my apprentice. He’s wayward enough as it is."
"Want me to beat him up for you?"
She mustn’t have realized he was serious because she laughed. "That’s very generous of you but not yet. Anyway," she said, stepping back and examining him, taking her luscious breasts with her, "you’re not well enough to be beating people up or making love."
"I don’t plan on doing it at the same time." He reached for her because he needed to feel her curves again and wanted to see the mounds of her breasts rising and falling with her breathing. "As to the making love part, you’ll be gentle with me."
Her eyelids lowered and she stood on her toes to kiss him. "Don’t be so sure," she muttered against his lips then plunged her tongue inside his mouth.
She tasted delicious and desire arrowed into his loins. He groaned and she withdrew so he groaned again. He reached for her, wanting her touch and her kiss to go on forever, but she shook her head.
"We need to talk," she said, suddenly efficient. How could she switch off like that? He was still dazed and hard. So much for his distracting techniques. Somehow he’d ended up being the one to forget his plan. He wondered if that had been her plan.
"When you found that note in my herbal from Lord Croxley, you wondered if the latest plot against the queen was in some way linked to my father’s situation." She leaned back against the counter and studied a spot on the wall past his shoulder. Why didn’t she look at him?
"Yes," he said, wishing he knew where she was leading the conversation so he could head her off. He shrugged. "It was merely a suggestion since the traitor is attempting to embroil you in his scheme. However," he added, glad to be able to discuss Ash’s findings without bringing the subject up himself, "I recently discussed my suspicions with Ash."
"Lord Ashbourne?" She paled. "Oh, Nick, why?"
"He’s my friend and I trust him." He gripped her shoulders and dipped his head to look in her eyes. She drew her gaze up to his and his heart warmed at the defiance in it. She wasn’t going to stand by and watch as the traitor implicated her any more than he was prepared to let it happen.
Perhaps that’s why she’d brought up the topic in the first place—two heads were better than one—and it had nothing to do with her suspecting he was a spy.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. She was far too clever not to suspect him.
"And what did Lord Ashbourne have to say?" she asked, crossing her arms.
"He spoke to his friends in the Privy Council for me." He drew in a breath and let it out slowly. "It seems there was a little more to your father’s case than you may have been led to believe."
Her hands dropped to her sides. "More? How much more?"
"Before I tell you that, you should know that Ash assured me the man undertaking a crucial part of the investigation wasn’t given all of the information I’m about to tell you."
She waved her hand in dismissal. "I don’t care what the investigator was privy to, I just want to know what Ash found out. Was Father innocent?" She held out her hands, palms up, then as she waited for his answer, she brought her thumb to her mouth and chewed the nail. "He was, wasn’t he?" She threw her hands up. "I knew it."
"Isabel, slow down." He took her hands to still them and rubbed his thumbs along her knuckles. "It’s unlikely he was innocent." She tried to pull her hands away but he held them firmly. "But there is more to the case than I—that is, that anyone—at first thought."
He told her about the conference between her father and the three men whose signature cures he had debunked in his last book. "One was named Finch, he's now deceased, another was Pullman—"
"Pullman!" Her eyes widened. "It must be him! He’s a scoundrel, a cheat—"
"And Lawrence Shawe," he said above her fuming.
"Lawrence?" She frowned then must have realized he meant Lawrence Senior because she gripped the bench to steady herself. Nicholas pulled the stool over and guided her to sit down. "He was there? Are you sure?"
He nodded. "Quite sure. He never mentioned it?"
She shook her head, staring straight ahead. "He never told me he was involved. Not once." She shook her head again. "Why would he not say anything? Even just to acknowledge it, or..." Her frown deepened and he could almost see her reaching for a thought, grasping it, studying it from various angles. She turned to him slowly, deliberately, her face distorted with tumultuous emotions all vying for release.
"He did it, didn’t he? He tried to poison the queen then set Father up to take the blame. Then he felt so guilty afterwards that he took me in. It must be true or, or...why do all this for me? For the daughter of the man who nearly ruined him?" Her bottom lip wobbled. She shook her head over and over as tears began to pool. Nicholas ached for her. He wanted to tell her she was wrong, that her father must have been guilty because he had investigated Samuel himself, but he couldn’t. He felt paralyzed. All he could do was take her in his arms and comfort her, but even that felt wrong, somehow sullied because of his lie.
Isabel didn’t cry. Instead, she drew away from him and jumped off the stool. She faced him, her eyes flashing, her cheeks flushed with anger. "And that means he’s setting me up too." She pushed past him and stalked off towards the back door. "I’ll kill him."
CHAPTER 12
"Wait!" Nick caught Isabel’s arm.
She spun round to confront him. She had every right to find the truth from a man who had been there. A man who possibly, almost certainly, implicated her father. It must have been Old Man Shawe. If not, then why help her at all? It had been something she had wondered about for years. Shawe must have guessed that she had run away from her marriage, so why risk her husband’s wrath if he found her? Why get involved at all for a woman who was the daughter of a traitor?
Because he felt guilty for his involvement in her father’s demise. Perhaps he assumed he could atone for his sins by helping her.
"Nick, don’t." She snatched her arm away. "This has nothing to do with you."
"Nothing to do with me?" His voice sounded low, guttural, like the words were forced out with great effort through a tight throat. It stopped her cold. "Nothing to do with me?" he repeated. "Did I not make myself clear to you just now?"
She shook her head, not as a negative answer but because she didn’t understand why he was so angry at her. What had she done wrong? What had she said?
"I am your husband," he said. "This has everything to do with me." He took her face between his hands, forcing her to look into his deep blue eyes. "Don’t disregard me, Isabel."
She understood. She had shut him out of her life. Exactly what he had done with her after their marriage.
She reached up to his hand, warm and calloused against her cheek, and drew it gently away. "We’ll speak to him together," she said.
One corner of his mouth lifted. "Good answer. But first, you seem to have forgotten one thing."
"What?"
"Shawe Senior is bedridden. Whatever happened in the past, he couldn’t be implicating you now. He couldn’t possibly have put the poison in the sweetmeats, or tried to stab me or poison me."
"Not personally, no. Good Lord, Nick, I thought you of all people must have considered the fact that he hired someone else to do those things."
His expression darkened. "Me of all people? What does that mean?"
Interesting that he had latched onto that part of her speech. They would have to discuss his work later. "Let’s go."
They walked hand in hand up the stairs and entered Old Man Shawe’s room the same way when he answered Isabel’s knock. His quick, darting gaze took in their linked hands then lifted to study first Nick’s face then Isabel’s. If he saw the simmering anger in her glare he gave no indication. But he would have seen it. He was an astute man, and although his eyesight was failing, his other, sharper senses would certainly have perceived something was wrong.
"I was wondering when you would come for her," he said before either of them could speak.
"Excuse me?" Nick glanced at Isabel. She shrugged.
"You’re Sir Nicholas Merritt, aren’t you? Isabel’s husband? You took your time getting here."
"I’ve been busy," Nick said, lamely.
"The important thing is that you got here and Isabel didn’t turn you away. Or kill you." He chuckled which for him was as good as a laugh. Ever since his teeth had started falling out he had become self-conscious of his smile, something which Isabel had tried to persuade him didn’t matter. As with everything to do with his health, he had dismissed her with a joke.
"She did try to turn me away but I’m stubborn," Nick said. The twinkle in his eye had returned, and not from anger, she realized. It seemed Old Man Shawe had already won him over. One charmer to another.
Well, she was resistant to charmers. They had to work harder to gain her trust than the average, plain-speaking man, not the other way around. "How did you know he was my husband?"
"Because my son told me there was a Merritt paying you a lot of attention. It seems he doesn’t recall your married name. Perhaps he doesn’t even recall that you are married." He tapped his forehead with a crooked finger. "My body might be useless but my mind isn’t. The coincidence of the sudden reappearance of your husband and your presentation of this man in this manner are too great." His face slackened as his smile vanished. "But none of this explains why you are angry, Iza." He patted the bed beside him. "Come here so I can see you better."
She glanced at Nick but he only shrugged and let go of her hand. She approached the bed cautiously. The man in it might be a traitor, might have set up her father and now her.
She had sat on his bed every day since he’d been confined to it and chatted to him freely about what interested them—the shop, the customers, medicine, current events—and yet now she felt uncomfortable. There was so much about him she didn't know. All those
friendly conversations could have been an act.
She perched awkwardly on the edge and looked down at him. When she had first arrived in London, he had been a large man, in girth and height, but illness had gnawed at him so that his body barely made a bump beneath the covers. She was reminded of a snake’s skin she had seen in a jar in Pullman’s shop once. Thin, colorless and empty.
"Now, Child, tell me what has brought a frown to that pretty face of yours. And what has it to do with me?"
She lifted her gaze to his. He looked directly back at her. Unnerved, she drew in a breath. "I believe you were at Whitehall seven years ago when Father...when he was accused of attempting to poison the queen."
He expelled a long breath that seemed to deflate the frail body even more. "Ah, so you have found out. Well," his hand searched out hers, found it and patted, "it was bound to happen sooner or later. I’m just glad I can defend myself while I’m still alive."
