Angel In My Bed

by Melody Thomas

  And hers.

  The buggy appeared atop the far rise, a speck against the darkening indigo sky. Even with the brisk chill in the air, cattle congregated farther away. The ridge dipped and the buggy passed out of sight again, and David was suddenly looking at Rose Briar across the vale. He was no longer seeing a house made of stone and wood. He was seeing Meg’s vision and a hint of her dreams. He was seeing an opportunity for his own life, a glimpse of his future as Sir Henry saw it, if he chose to stay.

  He also saw danger to everything and everyone that had come to matter to him.

  The locket remained a constant in the back of his mind.

  It was later, after midnight, as he stood in his bedroom at his window, a saber weighting the sling at his side, that he realized he was no longer conflicted.

  Dressed in black, with black boots beneath a dark cloak, he descended the narrow servants’ stairs, the same way Meg had left the night she’d escaped the house. His saber scraped the walls. He lifted the lantern above his head as he walked around the outside of the house. His family was inside, and there were forces that threatened them. The foundation had been built hundreds of years before, perhaps even the same time as the church. He blew out the light.

  Mounting Old Boy, he swung the stallion around and stretched out in an easy canter. As the moon continued its flight across an ebon sky, he rode the estate, high and low, from one end to the other, searching the banks of the bluff and the silent fields for the answers he sought. Colonel Faraday could not have disappeared into thin air. Someone had to be shielding him. Or he was dead and another threat loomed. Tonight, not even Stillings’s men made an appearance to temper David’s quest for answers. And in the end, he knew he would find them only with Meg herself.

  Victoria stood at her bedroom window, watching David complete his kata. Dawn had not yet breached the dove gray clouds. But she’d known he would be there as he had been every day for the past week on the terrace, overlooking the valley when the first rays of sunlight topped the distant trees.

  Watching him, she was sure she had not wanted anyone or anything more in her entire life. Except perhaps, she wanted her son safe, and Sir Henry’s illness to miraculously disappear. She wanted Bethany to know she was not alone, and she wanted to be free to face her own destiny.

  This past week, David had switched tactics on her and, if she’d once thought her father was the target of his hunt, she knew without a doubt that it was she he held in his sights now.

  He probably knew she was at her window watching him.

  For watch him she did, fascinated as any artist patron would be by a masterpiece, no matter the sculptor or painter. Wearing a sleeveless, woven top and pleated skirtlike trousers, he moved with precise steps and coordination through the kata. She stared, mesmerized by his disciplined movements—her former mentor, her lover, her husband—caught by memories she had no business exploring. Closing her eyes, she felt her body stir.

  “You’re very good, David Donally.” Her breath misted the glass, and she dropped the edge of the curtain.

  Leaning against the wall, she drew in one slow breath at a time, recognizing a seduction when she saw one—David was very adept at his job. Yet, knowing that, she still wanted him. More than anything, she wanted to believe in him.

  You can take that first step with me.

  Even if it took her off a cliff?

  But Victoria couldn’t shake David. He’d been polite and civil, and as clairvoyant as a ghost. He managed to appear everywhere she was, as if he had the ability to read her mind and knew where she was at all times.

  Two days ago, she’d thought he and Mr. Rockwell were at the church, and snuck outside to see who might be watching the stables, to see if she could sit on a horse without experiencing pain in her side.

  But David had been there casually talking to the groom. Without any outward suspicion of her motives for being in the stable, he’d saddled Old Boy. He then helped her mount and swung up behind her. They’d ended up riding across the fields that had once sowed fertile crops. The horse’s gait had hurt her side, but it did not affect her as much as the scent of David’s presence, his warmth, his voice in her ear as he stopped to talk to Mr. Gibson and another tenant they’d met on the road as they passed the north edge of the property. Only David could think nothing of meeting others while sharing the same saddle with her in public or make her melt over such a mundane topic as the weather.

  But he was busy now, Victoria thought as she washed her face and teeth, and braided her hair. She adjusted her stays over her waist. The sun had yet to rise. She eased herself into a pair of trousers, shoving her shirt into her waistband as she rushed to find her boots. Surely, David would be too occupied to notice if she’d left her bedroom.

  She opened the door.

  David was leaning against the wall, two bamboo staffs in his hands, clearly waiting for her to emerge. Narrowing her eyes, she realized he must have hurried upstairs after she’d pulled away from the window. A mischievous grin on his lips, he tossed her a staff, which she caught midair, surprising even herself.

  “Not bad.” And despite her want to ignore the backhanded compliment, she felt warmed by the look in his eyes. “Join me,” he said.

  “I can’t, David. I’m still injured.”

  He continued to block her path. “All the better. I’ll win.”

  “Oh, please, must you show me your conceit, as well?”

  His open and appreciative scrutiny of her person brought a hot flush to her face. “The practice will do you good,” he said. “Do you remember the steps?”

  She examined the length of bamboo in her hand. “Where did you get these staffs?”

  “Doesn’t yours feel familiar? It’s the same one we used to practice with.”

  “One staff feels the same as any other,” she said.

  A slow wolfish smile showed his teeth. “Does it now? And here I was thinkin’ my staff was special in your magic hands.”

  She slid her fingers over the cool bamboo and peered at him from beneath her lashes. The unkempt, haphazard way his growing beard framed his jaw seemed to make his eyes bluer, like the sky at twilight or the sea at dawn. “Were ye now, David Donally?”

  She never could turn down a challenge. Especially against a man encased in a whisper of scarlet and a short woven shirt that did not hide his sculpted strength. His feet were bare, and he made her remove her boots before they walked to the studio at the other end of the house.

  David also made her wear the protective vest. She stood in front of him as he tied the leather strings at her waist and hips. Her braid lay over one shoulder. He moved in front of her and, taking her stance, she smiled at him over the bamboo staff. “If you feel the need to play nice because of some chivalrous sense of honor, don’t.”

  He did play nice though, she realized, as he patiently countered each move and allowed her to relearn the necessary cadence that came with the exercise. Her muscles were stiff. The action pulled at her side, while pulling at still deeper pieces of her she had buried long ago. She struggled within the spirit of the kata, every step coming back to her in slow degrees. Their staffs clicked and they circled each other.

  “You’re holding back.” He swayed from foot to foot, a reckless grin challenging her. “What are you afraid of?”

  She slammed the staff across his. “I’m not afraid.”

  But she was afraid.

  “Then fight me, Meg.”

  David met her every blow, moving with an indefinable grace and confidence that marked him as a skilled opponent. Not once did she think she had the upper hand, but neither did he overwhelm or defeat her.

  They skirted a mat and circled each other. “You don’t think fear controls you? Let it go, Meg. Fight me. Only then will you learn to master it.”

  His eyes never left her face. Her eyes never strayed from his, and before Victoria realized what had happened, she was moving with her old grace and confidence. It was as if with every blow she aimed at Dav
id, she struck at the wall of her heart and soul, only to find him always there guarding her, the teacher who set the pace and the distance, and the lover who beckoned more. She was eighteen again. He was twenty-six. She swept her staff high then low, her movements increasing in speed and dexterity, her smile intent as he countered, the hollow clicking of bamboo filling the empty sanctuary of the studio. Outside the sun topped the trees and sunlight moved into the room, across the floor in a blanket of amber as the dawn brought the warm colors of the day to life. Still David and Victoria went around the room, oblivious to the rest of the world.

  “I haven’t forgotten.” She swung the staff at his feet, feeling more alive than she had in years.

  He leaped the pole, turned, and countered, his movements restrained and carefully controlled, but not so weak that he didn’t strike the staff from her hand. It flew above her head, only to be snatched out of the air as David caught it first. He did have the advantage. He was six inches taller.

  She was breathing hard. Her side hurt, but she didn’t care.

  “One would think you practiced every day,” he said, offering her the staff, which she snatched back and attacked again.

  As if expecting the action, he ducked and was suddenly behind her. In a swift move, not a choreographed part of the kata, he brought the staff over her head and trapped her against his chest. “No fair, David.” Breathing in the scent of him, she felt his heartbeat against her back. “You’re improvising.” Her mouth touched his roughened jaw.

  “So are you, love.”

  Victoria could see nothing past the breadth of his shoulders. She possessed a desire to remain where she was. “If you were a priest, how is it that you’ve stayed in practice all these years?”

  He let her go, and she turned to strike at him again. Her staff hit his. “There are places in Dublin that rival streets in Calcutta, Shanghai, and even Boston.”

  “Have you traveled to all of those places?”

  “Every single one.”

  Again, he maneuvered himself around her back and she was beginning to feel like a mouse in the paws of a cat. Except David’s body felt warm and inviting, and this time she let her bottom lean into his groin.

  “Now tell me something no one knows about you,” he said against her hair.

  “My favorite color is lavender.”

  His mouth touched the shell of her ear. “I knew that.”

  Lord in heaven. Enticed by the bold feel of him, she cast the thought upward as if some higher power could save her from herself. “I’ve never told you that.”

  “Maybe not. But one only need look at your room.”

  She felt his subtle surrender as he allowed her to walk him backward. “What is your favorite color?” Breaking his grip with an upward thrust, she turned and pressed the length of her staff against his chest. She continued to walk him backward. “Black?” Like sin? her eyes challenged.

  His teeth gleaned in the sunlight. “Nothing so mundane. Unless you have the ability to read my mind.”

  She could not read his mind, and that was the problem, but he was aroused beneath the silky scarlet of pleated pants. “I may not be able to read your thoughts, but your body is an open book, love.”

  She’d walked him toward the mat he’d left out after his practice with Nathanial last night, and his heel caught the plump edge. He wouldn’t have fallen except that she took the opportunity to propel him backward by shoving him and sweeping her pole against his other foot. She thought he might have hit rather hard on his back, but without pausing, she straddled his hips and pressed the staff to his throat in the way of a Roman gladiator.

  “I win, Donally.” Her breath coming in uneven gasps, she smiled in triumph. “Surrender or face the consequences.”

  “The consequences?” David laughed unpleasantly.

  “Are you hurt?” she thought to ask.

  “Aye.” His hands wrapped around hers on the staff, and he lifted the pressure off his neck. “My pride could use a wee bit of your kindness just now.”

  Straddled across him as she was, his erection pressed between her thighs, she felt a wicked stir of desire. Her chest heaved as she continued to pull air into her lungs and, in a breathtaking rush, returned her focus to the staff in her hands. “You asked me to tell you something that you didn’t know. Are you willing to answer my questions in return?”

  He could easily have tossed her off him with very little force. But he had been careful not to hurt her thus far. He had always been careful, she realized, protecting her in a way she’d never been able to protect herself.

  He brought the staff over his head, pulling her arms straight until she was stretched taut over him, her lips nearly level to his. “Tit for tat?” He raised a dark brow.

  The fact that he was allowing her to manhandle him brought a surge of confidence to her actions. “Tit for tat.” Still holding the staff, she pressed his hands into the mat. “To the victor go the spoils. I get to ask the first question.”

  He slid his gaze across her lips down to the point where her shirt gaped opened, but she wasn’t about to play modest and lose her edge. “What do you want to know?” he asked.

  A hint of myrrh permeated his body heat. Victoria met his gaze, wary of her own raging desire. “What happened between you and Kinley that you distrust him so?”

  “We’ve never been close. Fourteen years ago, Kinley blew my cover on a job in Prussia and nearly cost me my life, not counting jeopardizing the mission we had been working on for almost a year. In Calcutta, he cost me one of my team when he acted too soon to spring the trap on Colonel Faraday. And he cost me you. Had he waited…”

  “Had he waited, nothing would be any different.”

  “Everything would have been different. I would have had time to get you out.”

  She shook her head. “And turned traitor to save me? I don’t believe it is in your nature, David.”

  “Then my nature is a mystery even to me.”

  Not to her, she realized. David had always possessed an inherent integrity and honor that she had not.

  Her braid fell against his shoulder. “Are you in love with me?”

  “A man’s heart is his greatest weakness. If I were in love with you, I would be a fool. Would I not be?”

  “Were you ever unfaithful to our vows?”

  “What the hell kind of question is that?”

  “Tit for tat.” Her grip tightened on his wrists. “Were you?”

  “No.”

  “Not even after you thought I was dead?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Then I could not be unfaithful, could I?”

  She knew by the look in his eyes there had been other women in his life after her.

  In one powerful move, he turned her over onto her back, stilling her fight with his body. His eyes tenderly brushed her face. “You have to take some of the blame. Your supposed demise was more than convincing. And it was two years before I became a priest.”

  “Get off me.”

  He studied her compressed lips with grim amusement. Surprisingly, he did as she asked, but there was something in his gaze that did not match the ease of his movement. As she struggled to stand and snatched up her staff, Victoria became acutely aware that he was furious.

  “If you think you can fob me off with your injured airs, think again, love.”

  Forcing an artificial laugh, she walked to the window. “Who was she?”

  “What does it matter?” His answer was barely audible above her racing heart. “I was never interested in keeping your memory alive. I was interested only in killing it.”

  Victoria didn’t have to turn to know David had left, for the studio felt suddenly empty of his presence. Her eyes drifting shut, she leaned against the cooling glass.

  For nine years, she had wondered about his life. She had lived, knowing he had never belonged to her. She was not angry that he had found sanctuary in another woman’s arms, no matter how brief. She was angry that she had not fought harder for what she h
ad.

  David was lying on the bed in his bedroom when Victoria found him fifteen minutes later. His hair was damp as if he’d washed his face. He wore a black silk robe belted at the waist, his fingers linked behind his head as he stared at the heavy tapestry that bordered the high tester. She raised her hand to knock but her movement in the doorway brought his gaze around.

  “Did it work?” she asked.

  He sat up and slid his legs over the side of the bed. Whatever he’d been thinking when she entered the room no longer showed on his face. He came to his feet. Clearly, he had not expected to see her in his doorway.

  “Were you able to kill the memory?”

  “No,” he said quietly.

  “Why not?”

  She needed to know because in seeking his answer, she hoped to find her own. But David did not reply. Instead, in the wake of his silence, the knot in her stomach tightened.

  Looking around the room, she saw David as if for the first time as a permanent fixture in her life and in Nathanial’s. “You’re really a baron, aren’t you? With your castle in Scotland. Your sister is married to a duke, and you have thirteen nieces and nephews. Is Pamela your mistress?”

  “No.”

  Hot tears stung her eyes. Chiding herself for not being calmer, she pulled the leather vest over her hair. Her shirt was damp and clung to her chest. “That last day in Calcutta, when my father knew the authorities had closed in on us and he gave me that earring, the last thing he told me…was that he loved me. No one had ever told me that before,” she said. “On the same breath he then calmly told me that if you were still alive, he was going to find you and feed you your heart for breakfast for what you had done to me.” She laughed, knowing now that threat had been a lie, since her father knew who David was before she did. “I remember thinking that you would be safe because you had no heart. Yet, I was also afraid that he would kill you. So I found a way to turn him in. Then I cut my hair, packed a valise, and boarded the first train out of Calcutta with a group of missionaries.”