by Jo Beverley
He grinned, clearly seeing straight through her ploy. “I’ll mark that with another coin when we’ve sorted this out, my charming debtor. I want to know exactly what you’re up to.”
Though his tone was light, Justina shivered again. In her wildest dreams she had never expected an encounter such as this, never expected to fight a battle confused by such sensuous maleness.
She had to escape his touch!
The warmth of his finger on the sensitive skin beneath her chin was tearing her apart. No man had touched her so since Simon.
She had to escape his closeness.
She could even smell him. Nothing unpleasant, but him.
“Perhaps,” he said softly, brushing her chin with his thumb, “you made no mistake. Perhaps you are just where you planned to be. Do you have someone primed to interrupt us?”
That snapped Justina out of her weak, muddled thoughts. He thought she was here to trap him into marriage? “Of course not,” she declared, twitching her chin out of his control. “I merely mistook the rooms, your grace.”
He moved away and tossed two more coins onto the small table. “You must think the forfeit will be pleasant. A lifetime imprisonment here, perhaps?”
“Really!”
But he overrode her. “So, no accomplice. Perhaps you are relying simply on your charms. Let me guess how it was. You knew you would have no chance to be noticed out among the pretty young things with their simpering admiration and artistically exposed ankles. But here, you thought, in private, you might catch my eye. Congratulations, Esme.” He gave her the accolade of a nod. “You have, in fact, caught my eye.”
Justina was gaping at this interpretation. It was so far from reality that she had no idea how to react.
He moved closer, and again raised her face with his hand, raised it to study. “You are not bad looking, you know.” His thumb came into play again, stroking across her chin. “Good bones. But even better strategy. Everyone knows that the way to attract a man is to listen attentively to his ramblings.” He grinned. “You look astonished.”
Furious was more like it. Furious at his appalling arrogance! Justina grasped his wrist to force his hand away, but her fingers didn’t even meet around it and her push had no effect. “I came here looking for a book. I am not such a clever creature as you imagine.”
“Not clever?” His thumb brushed her skin again. “I’ve learned that cleverness and good looks do not relate, Esme, but there is a look that goes with intelligence, and you have it. Don’t try to act the simpering idiot. Please. At least be honest.”
Justina pressed her head back, trying to escape him, to escape his words, his touch, but above all, the effect he was having upon her. “I tell you honestly that I have too much sense to want to marry Torlinghurst!”
His finger and disturbing thumb never lost contact with her skin. “Fustian. It’s a burden, but even I’d choose it over servitude to Great-aunt Caroline.”
Desperate to be free, she shifted her grip to his thumb, remembering a trick Simon had taught her. . . .
Then froze and squinted down.
“I’m sorry,” he said, suddenly passive in her hold. “Does it bother you?”
His index finger was missing, leaving an ugly knob of scar and bone. It must have been his middle finger that had raised her chin.
“No,” she said, trapped, for how could she thrust him away now? “I thought you undamaged, though.”
He removed his hand and returned to his chair. “Why make such an unlikely assumption?” With a slight smile he added, “You can count my other scars if you wish.”
A new danger wove into the room, causing her heart to flutter. “I thought you promised not to be a bad drunk, your grace.”
Without comment he added a golden guinea to the coins on the table. Though Justina told herself those coins could count for nothing, they sat there like warning signs.
“In what way am I being bad?” he asked. “Am I seizing you? Am I demanding anything of you? Yes, that was a slightly scandalous suggestion, Esme, but it was an offer, nothing more.”
He filled his neglected glass with a remarkably steady hand and sipped from it. “You’re probably going to be mightily offended, Miss Esme Richardson, but it’s not unusual for a lonely spinster to simply want a night’s comfort. In the true spirit of Christmas, I am offering it.”
Justina froze, stunned by his casual words.
Then she wanted to throw her wine in his face. She wanted to shatter the glass, even, and use it to ruin his handsome, decadent, tempting beauty. How had he sensed her loneliness? How had he guessed the number of nights she had lain awake wanting comfort?
He couldn’t have.
He couldn’t have!
Please God, he did not know the hollow, aching need that stirred within her now, summoned in some inexplicable way by him. Not a need of passion, but a need that sprang from memories of tender embraces and sweet kisses beneath the apple tree in her father’s garden.
Simon’s kisses, she reminded herself.
Simon.
Dead because of this man.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his expression somber. “I see I have offended you. I will not mention it again. As for my war wounds,” he continued lightly, “my hand is the most notable deformation. The finger was neatly shot off by a musket ball. I hardly even felt it at the time. Such a loss is minor enough compared to those suffered by others.”
Justina grasped the opportunity to get back on course. “So you consider yourself lucky?”
He was about to drink from his glass, but halted in place like a statue. “Oh, no, Esme. I consider myself damned.”
Her startled heart rattled off tempo for a moment. Now the moment had come, she almost didn’t want to hear the words, but she gripped her hands tight on her own untouched glass and waited for his confession.
And waited.
And waited.
After what seemed an age, she moistened her lips and prompted, “Why do you consider yourself damned, your grace?”
Like a clockwork model switched back into motion, he sipped from his glass, then shifted to produce another coin. But he did not merely place it with the rest, but deftly set it spinning. “I am damned,” he said, studying the spinning coin, “because I seem condemned to live and live and live while those I care for fall in their blood all around me.” The coin slowed, then wobbled down beside its fellows. He looked up, shadow-eyed. “Can you imagine living with so many ghosts?”
“No.” It is bad enough to live with one, and that not soured by guilt. But she would not, could not, be sorry for him. He’d as good as admitted his sin. All she needed now was proof and retribution. “Are you saying you would rather be dead than Duke of Cranmoore?”
He laughed bitterly. “Oh, no doubt of it!”
But even as he opened his mouth to say more, the mantel clock chimed, ripping through the intimate moment. Distantly around the house, others joined the chorus, high and low, slow and merry, counting out the full twelve hours of midnight.
He smiled in a more conventional way and raised his glass. “Happy Christmas, Miss Richardson.”
He was retreating, escaping, aided by those damned clocks. She crudely jerked him back. “But all those deaths in the war were not your fault, so why consider yourself worthy of damnation?”
“As Juvenal said, we can never escape the judgment of our own heart.”
“And your heart condemns you?”
But now other bells began to ring—distant church bells from three parishes. He turned to listen. “Hark, the herald angels . . . No, that’s wrong.” He rose and grabbed her left hand to pull her to her feet, pulled her so roughly that her wineglass was knocked from her hand to roll on the carpet.” ‘Hence loathed melancholy, of Cerberus and blackest midnight born.’ Though we have no mistletoe here, dear Esme, I feel we must kiss.”
And he kissed her hotly, binding her to his body with strong arms so that, struggle as she might, she was helpless.
So she surrendered.
Even with an enemy, an hour of dim-lit, wine-fed intimacy has power to enchant, and Justina had not been kissed for many a long year. The port also weakened her, robbing her of the power to resist this man, who was not quite the monster of her dreams, though still her darkest enemy.
What did it mean, she wondered dazedly as his lips pleasured hers, to kiss the enemy?
Was this a Judas kiss?
Who was the Judas, though? He was surely a betrayer, but she would betray him to the gallows as soon as she could, despite the alarming sweetness of his mouth on hers, of his supportive arms, his strong body pressed to hers. . . .
He drew back smiling, dark dazed eyes absorbing her, admiring her as he stroked her cheek. . . .
His eyes widened, and he blinked as if trying to focus.
Then his smile vanished as he tore off her cap. “Justina Travers?”
Snatching her wits, Justina ripped free of his slackened hold and ran behind the desk, aware that her hair was escaping its loosened pins and tumbling down her back.
“What on earth . . . ?” It was clear he was still dazed with drink, shock, and perhaps lust. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Justina was judging the distance to the door, and the angle of his interception.
“I had no idea you’d fallen on hard times, Miss Travers. I understood you to be well provided for by your family.”
She relaxed a fraction. He thought her driven into servitude under a false name? Such a strange notion would not survive his return to sobriety, but it gave her breathing space now.
“I don’t know why you would take an interest in me, your grace.”
“Simon was like a second brother to me.”
“And yet he died.” She could not stop the bitter words.
“Being my brother is no ticket to immortality. That is proved.”
He’d killed his brother too? His older brother, who would have inherited . . . But no, his brother had died in a storm. And he didn’t want the dukedom. Unless he was the greatest actor ever seen, Jack Beaufort didn’t want the Duchy of Cranmoore.
Slowly, like wounds tearing, a part of her was opening, letting in doubt that this man was quite the black-hearted villain she had lived with through the years.
He admitted it, she reminded herself. He admitted his guilt. He described himself as damned.
But he seems quite pleasant, and so sad. . . .
As Justina’s convictions warred with the reality before her, she watched him warily.
He did not attack, however. Instead, he went to throw up a long sashed window so the still-pealing bells poured in on frosty air. Laughing voices told of young people running outside to welcome Christmas. They must have seen him, for they started to sing the mummers’ wassail song beneath the window, calling up to him to throw them pennies.
He turned his back on them. “Justina, will you marry me?”
“What?” She really wished her voice hadn’t squeaked like that, but he’d finally shocked her.
Surely no villain could ever smile so sweetly. “I can think of no better way to start this season of joy and hope than by playing St. George and rescuing you from the Great Dragon Caroline. Simon spoke of you a great deal, you know, and often showed us his miniature of you. I’ve been half in love with you for years.”
It felt like a violation that he’d ogled that miniature, fellow to the one she wore now around her neck beneath her gown. The lockets had been gifts to each other upon their engagement, just before their last parting.
She’d wanted to marry immediately, but her parents had insisted that they wait. Simon hadn’t pressed for it, though she knew he’d wanted the wedding, too.
When the news of his death arrived, her mother had remarked how fortunate it was that Justina was not left a widow, perhaps with a child. Justina had never quite forgiven her for that.
“Well, Justina?” he prompted. “Can you not answer me?”
“I couldn’t consider it,” she said coldly.
“Why not?” The impromptu beggars were still singing and with a distracted curse, he scooped up the coins on the table and tossed them out the window, calling, “Merry Christmas! Now, cut it!”
Then he slammed the sash on their laughter and thanks. “Can we think of that as throwing our problems out and starting afresh?”
“I doubt it,” she whispered.
He went to throw extra logs to crackle on the fire, then turned to her, dusting his hands. “Let me at least make my offer in better form, my dear. I don’t expect you to love me, but you seem to be a pleasant companion, and you’ll make a good chatelaine of this place. I really cannot bear to think of you brought so low. Simon would have my hide.”
The bells, the laughter, the frosty air blending with the roaring fire, all conspired to make Justina feel that she had lost touch with reality. “Simon is dead. The dead know the truth.”
“Lucky corpses. Or perhaps not,” he added with a sigh. “Truth is a harsh rider. But if Simon knows the truth, he’ll know that my intent is nothing but to make reparation. He’ll know that you’ve never broken faith with him, that you marry for convenience, and perhaps out of kindness since I’ve told you of my sorry state.”
It was shockingly tempting to say yes.
“What do you mean,” Justina demanded desperately,” ‘truth is a harsh rider’?”
He came closer, to stand on the other side of the empty, sterile desk. “Do you not have truths you’d rather forget, or at least sugarcoat into something easier to swallow?”
Again she tried to pin him down. “Why did you say marriage to me would be reparation? For what sin?”
“For living.”
Justina wanted to tear him apart with her bare hands and expose his dark secret. Oh, he was sorry. She sensed that. But he was damnably guilty as well.
This night, however, would be her only chance. Something—perhaps Christmas—had softened him, weakened him, but when morning came, Jack Beaufort would retreat out of reach and keep his guard high forevermore.
How, then, could she tear him apart?
Drink wasn’t fully working. She suspected that sex might. Men, they said, went wild when with a woman, and lost all self-control. Hadn’t Samson let Delilah cut his hair because of love and sex? Naked in bed, Jack Beaufort might lose his last restraints and become just as foolish.
Then she would destroy him, and perhaps at last be at peace.
But her own thoughts startled her. Naked in bed . . . Could she really do such a thing, now, tonight, with a man who was as good as a stranger, even to win justice and peace?
She looked at her quarry with sex in mind, and swallowed nervously. He’d thought of himself as St. George opposing his great-aunt, the dragon, but Justina knew she was the hero here, and he the monster.
She just wished she felt heroic.
Had St. George quivered with terror when he’d first sighted the power and strength of his opponent?
Perhaps there were other ways, she thought frantically. There must be other ways. He had teetered on the brink of confession time and again as they spoke. More conversation was a great deal less daunting than naked intimacy.
Warily, she left the barrier of the desk and moved toward the warmth of the fire. “Tell me about Simon’s death.”
He turned to keep her in view. “You don’t want to get into that on Christmas Day.”
One hand on the cold marble mantel, she challenged his uneasy eyes. “Don’t tell me what I want. You were the only survivor.”
“Yes.”
“So tell me what happened. I will never rest until I hear it from the only witness. You.”
He rubbed his hands—one deformed—over his face. “Does it not occur to you that I might not want to speak of it?”
Oh, she’d go odds he didn’t! She continued to look at him, so when he lowered the shield of his hands he saw only her. “You owe it to me.”
She thought he’d protest that, but he sighed and
surrendered. “Perhaps you’re right.” He gestured her back to her chair and took the other, but not before getting her a fresh glass and filling it, then refilling his own. “Where do you want me to start?”
She’d had an account of sorts from the colonel of the regiment, who’d had the facts, of course, from Jack Beaufort. She didn’t expect this retelling to be any different, but she had to hear it from him. She hoped to pick up nuances that would fill in details.
“Why not start with that Christmas Eve at the estancia?”
He was studying her over the rim of his glass, puzzled, and perhaps wary. He must be confused by the change from Esme to Justina, from stranger to indirect acquaintance, from nervous spinster to interrogator.
She could sympathize. She was equally disturbed by the change from faceless monster to troubled man.
“I’m sorry I mentioned that dinner party earlier,” he said, “I couldn’t know it would upset you.”
“It didn’t upset me. I just want to hear about it all from the only person who can tell me the truth.”
Though she watched intently, she detected no flinch at the word “truth.”
Instead, he sighed. “Very well. If it’s any consolation, it was an unexpectedly merry Christmas. Wellington had put the army in winter cantonments to rest. We’d had the rest, but supplies were thin and there were few luxuries. We didn’t expect much better at Christmas. Anyway, by the time Christmas came we were stirring for the assault, which would start with the New Year. With that in mind, I was sent with a troop of men to investigate the Estancia Cabrera, estate of the Conde de Cabrera. Simon was my lieutenant.”
He glanced at her as if he expected her to stop him, perhaps hoped that she would stop him. Justina sipped from her glass. “Go on.”
Again he sighed. “I don’t know how much you know of the situation then. The French were being beaten back and the Spanish were generally on our side, but the Cabrera family had always been suspect. Wellington had plenty of evidence of their support for France in the past, and their estate sat right on the preferred route to Ciudad Rodrigo. He wanted to know the state of affairs there. Whether the family was in residence. How many able-bodied men were around. If there was any sign of the French. We approached the estancia cautiously—it was close to the French lines—but found nothing suspicious. Eventually we left most of the troop in concealment and approached the house. Myself, Simon, and two troopers.”
