“Yes, General,” she answered, as any good soldier would.
Her pulse spiked to be included, no matter how improbable their plans, but also because of the dark glance Merritt darted at her across the room. From the way his jaw tightened, he wasn’t at all pleased at her answer.
Marcus gave a decisive nod. “Then we’d best get started.”
He turned on his heel and left the Armory to prepare. Pearce and Clayton knew their roles in how the rest of the night would play out, right up until the breaking dawn, so they followed after. Their roles in the plan had commenced.
The iron doors clanged shut behind them.
When the last metallic rattle died away, Merritt turned toward Veronica. She’d been aware of every glance he’d given her during the past hour, but now his stare prickled electricity through her to the ends of her hair—which then stood on end when he began to stalk toward her—because she knew…
The next battle of the night was about to begin.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said mildly, a soft deception of the knockdown brawl she knew was brewing. “This isn’t your fight.”
“It’s become my fight.” Because of you.
“You can stay here until it’s over. You’ll be safe inside the Armory.”
“I’ll be safe fighting beside you.”
He faltered in midstep. Only a moment’s imbalance, but Veronica noticed. “You might not be,” he admitted. “Not in the midst of rioters and soldiers.”
Her chest squeezed. Joanna. That was what he meant. That he would fail to protect her the same way he’d failed to protect his fiancée.
The woman still haunted him, even now.
Her pulse increased with each step that brought him closer, yet she stood her ground. “Then it’s a good thing I’m an experienced fighter.” More—she was a survivor, and when this was over, she would continue to survive without him. Somehow. “I can take care of myself.”
He stopped in front of her, so close that she had to tilt back her head to look up at him, so close that her skin tingled from his nearness. Yet instead of reaching for her as she’d expected, he crossed his arms over his chest in his best impersonation of an immovable mountain.
“So let me be clear then. I don’t want you there. Not in the riot, not anywhere near it.” His gaze bore into hers. “I don’t want you to be part of this.”
His rejection of her help took her breath away. She’d expected to vanish from his life after the dawn. But she certainly hadn’t expected him to exile her now when the men needed her most. “That’s not your decision to make.”
“I’m the one who brought you into this mess.”
“And I’m the one who decides how I’ll leave it,” she countered. More truth lay behind that quiet statement than she wanted to admit. “I promised to help you stop the riots, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” There were so many promises in her life she’d never been able to keep, but not this one. This one she would see though to the end. Or die trying. “You need a good fighter with you for this battle, Merritt.” She added before he could shatter her heart anew by stating that he didn’t need her, “And I’m not your responsibility to protect.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. You are mine to protect.”
His words sliced into her. “I’m not yours, Merritt.” Her voice cracked at the horrible truth of that. “I never can be.”
“Because of what you said tonight?” His eyes darkened somberly. “About a criminal with a King’s Counsel? A by-blow with a baron?”
Sadly, she shook her head, knowing the truth now. Peerages and pardons weren’t what stood between them. “None of that matters.”
“Good. Because you are mine, Veronica,” he argued gently. “Just as I’m yours. Tonight proved that. That’s why you came to me, because you needed me. That’s why we made love, because we needed each other. And that’s why I don’t want you in this fight.” He paused beneath the weight of his confession. “Because I couldn’t bear to lose you now.”
No, not now… “Again,” she corrected in a whisper, the breathless sound barely audible.
He blinked. “Pardon?”
“Again. That’s what you said earlier, when you were threatening that attacker, that he wouldn’t take me from you—again.” Her lips trembled with the pain of it, but it needed to be said. “But you didn’t mean me. You couldn’t have, because I’ve never been taken from you.” Because I’ve never completely been yours to begin with.
“I meant I wouldn’t lose another woman I care about.”
Instead of making her soar with joy, his words ripped her apart. “No, you meant Joanna,” she breathed out, unable to speak louder for fear of breaking into sobs. “Dear God, Merritt, after all these years…you’re still trying to save a dead woman.”
He flinched as if the quiet accusation hit him with the force of a punch. His arms dropped to his sides, and a stricken expression gripped his face.
“I’m not her,” she forced out hoarsely. “I’m not Joanna.”
“I know that.” The seductive purr of his deep voice landed with an aching tingle between her legs. “Trust me, Veronica. I know exactly who I made love to tonight.”
The rush of loss and sadness overwhelmed her, and she choked as she challenged softly, “And in the heat of the fight afterward? Who were you with then?” She drew in a ragged breath. “Because it wasn’t me.”
He froze, every inch of him tensing so hard that his surprise radiated into her.
“That’s why you ran after that attacker, why you left me alone—because of Joanna.” The guilt that darkened his expression pierced her, and what was left of her heart shattered irreparably. “You chose revenge for a dead woman over staying with me.”
“Veronica…” Yet there was nothing he could say to defend himself because she was right. They both knew it.
“You cannot protect the world, Merritt. No man can. Accidents happen, missteps are taken—people die. Good people die. No one can stop that.” Her arms fell to her sides in a gesture of defeat. “And certainly not if you insist on chasing the dead instead of focusing on living. Believe me, I know that better than anyone.”
“I will not lose another woman I care about because I failed to protect her.”
“And I’m not Joanna. I’m capable of holding my own in any fight.”
“That’s the problem.” He touched the brass studs on the leather corset she wore like plate armor and admitted quietly, “If I couldn’t protect Joanna, a pastel-wearing society miss, what chance in the world do I have of protecting a fighter like you?”
His confession pierced her, so brutally that she flinched.
“They took Joanna from me. I won’t let them take you, too.”
“You can’t lose what you don’t have.” That reminder emerged barely louder than a whispered breath. “As long as you’re still clinging to Joanna’s memory, you’ll never truly have me. Not in your heart.” She placed her hand to this chest, and the strong pounding of his pulse drummed against her fingertips. “Let her go, Merritt.” The soft plea to be loved rose up from her soul. “And let me inside.”
Anguish cut deep lines into his handsome face, and his broad shoulders slumped.
“I can’t let go of her,” he admitted starkly, placing his hand over hers. As if he were afraid he would lose her right then. “If I let go, if I turn my back on her—” He choked off, then admitted the awful truth. “I’ve tried to move on, but always, I get pulled back.”
“I know.” She’d seen that happen tonight with her own eyes, and just like him, she had no idea how to stop it.
The enormity of all they could never have hurled itself at her with the force of an explosion, and she shuddered, the pain too much to bear.
“But I’m not Joanna,” she repeated hoarsely, her throat raw. Yet she knew it mattered not at
all how many times she said that. His heart refused to let go of the past.
“Veronica—”
“I’m fighting tonight with you and the men. I’m carrying out my part of the plan.” When he began to argue, she cut him off. “I want to do it with your agreement, but I’ll defy you and do it on my own if I have to.” Desolation warred with her resolve as she admitted, “But I’d so much rather be fighting with you than against you.” One last time…
He gritted his jaw silently, as if his mind were racing through all possible options for a way to argue against her, a way to convince her to stay behind and let him protect her. He might as well have been chasing the wind.
With no other choice, he gave a grudging nod of acceptance and looked away. He’d lost the battle.
But she’d lost the war. The fortress he’d built around his heart had proved impenetrable after all.
She pulled in a deep breath to gather as much strength as she could. When dawn came, she’d fight at his side, the way she’d come to love. They’d end the riots, stop Liggett, and finish what they’d started. Then she’d leave London. And him.
For the rest of this night, though, he was hers. She wouldn’t waste a minute of it.
Slowly, she reached to unfasten her sword belt and let it fall away to the floor around her boots.
His gaze snapped back to her, and the heat in his eyes flamed into a bonfire when she drifted a hand down her front to unfasten her waistcoat. The metal fastenings slipped free, and the leather parted.
He inhaled sharply through clenched teeth. With his gaze fixed on her, she shrugged and let the thick waistcoat slip off her shoulders, down her back, and off. Then she loosened the gusset tie for her breeches at the small of her back.
Her hand went to her corset next, and she temptingly tangled her fingers in the front tie. “Do you want me to stop?”
“No.” He swallowed, hard enough that his Adam’s apple bounced. “Not if you don’t.”
“I don’t.” She did her best to push down her sadness that this would be the last time they would be intimate and smiled as seductively as possible. “I might need your help, though.” She glanced down at the corset. “Silly me. I seem to have knotted the lace.”
“Damn shame,” he murmured as he slowly closed the distance between them. “May I?”
“Yes,” she whispered, agreeing to so much more.
He deftly pulled at the tie of the corset. With a long, slow, torturous slide of his hand down her front, from breasts to belly, he pulled the lace free. The stays dangled open, revealing the man’s linen shirt she wore beneath.
“There.” He stepped back and put several feet between them. “All untied.”
She dropped her fisted hands to her sides. Oh, frustrating man! “That’s not what—”
Without warning, he grabbed her into his arms, scooped her off the floor, and carried her to the fireplace. As he lowered her onto her feet, he slid his hands beneath the open corset and caressed her breasts through the soft linen. Her nipples immediately tightened into hard, aching points… Oh, frustrating man.
He leaned forward to bring his lips to her ear and nibbled at her earlobe as his hands continued to stroke her. “I thought you might be cold.”
“Not at all.” Despite herself, she couldn’t help arching into him, to encourage him to tease even more wickedly at her nipples and stoke the growing ache between her legs. “Actually, I feel…quite heated.”
His hands pushed the corset off her shoulders to the floor, then pulled the shirt taut across her breasts. Her dark nipples pressed against the white material. He stared hungrily down at her and said huskily, “My mistake.”
She inhaled sharply when he lowered his head and captured her nipple in his mouth through the soft linen. When he began to suckle at her in gentle but persistent pulls, she ran her fingers through his hair and let out a long, shaking sigh. Would any other man ever be able to make her feel this way again, this beautiful and desired? Would any other man stir this much longing inside her with only a caress of his lips?
She trembled with growing pleasure as his tongue laved at her, then moved to do the same to her other breast, leaving a damp circle in the linen. When he bit at her nipple, she cried out softly at the wanton sensation of pleasure-pain he spun through her.
“Then perhaps we should remove some of your clothes before you overheat,” he murmured against her breast and placed a soft kiss to its tip.
“A fine idea.” But even as she returned the teasing flirtations, she felt the anguish of losing him flood the dark corners of her heart. But wasn’t this where they’d always been the most comfortable with each other since the beginning—in the middle of teasing banter and conversation without consequence? This was what she would cling to tonight, this part of him that she loved, and somehow not think of the rest.
His hand slid lower to unbutton the fall of her breeches. Then lower still to slip beneath the buckskin and caress between her legs. Shamelessly, she moaned at his touch. She was already hot and damp there, and she was certain he could feel her desire for him throbbing beneath his fingertips.
He teased his middle finger against the hollow at her core, then slipped it inside her. But it wasn’t enough. She craved far more than this small bit of him inside her and longed for him to fill her completely, to end the emptiness that throbbed hollowly between her legs.
“Merritt,” she panted out and arched her hips toward him, begging with her body for more of him.
He tucked a second finger inside her tight warmth and wickedly stroked inside her. A soft whimper left her lips, and he smiled in triumph as his mouth darted down to seize hers. As he plundered her mouth with his tongue and lips, his hand continued to pleasure her. Every plunge rubbed his knuckle against that aching point in her folds, every retreat came as an agonizing loss. His free arm snaked around her waist to hold her steady as her trembling increased and her legs grew boneless, as he tightened an invisible coil tighter and tighter inside her toward the breaking point—
She cried out at the expected loss of him as he pulled his hand away from her just as release was about to overtake her. But with a devilish grin, he grabbed her breeches in both hands and stripped them down over her hips.
She stood in front of him, bare in the firelight from waist to ankles and without a trace of shame. She brazenly stroked his cock through his trousers. He was steely hard for her, his bulging erection tantalizingly enormous. When she licked her lips in anticipation, he growled and pulled her to the floor with him.
She wanted him too desperately to take the time to remove her boots and clothes, yet she managed to scramble enough to free one leg from her breeches and spread herself wide to him. “Make love to me, Merritt.” One last time…
With a groan of masculine need, he tore open the fall of his trousers. He covered her body with his and settled into the inviting cradle of her thighs.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, and the rough scratch of his trousers against the bare flesh of her inner thighs thrilled her with its wantonness. A small cry of pleasure tore from her as he sank inside her, and she welcomed him eagerly, encouraging him with a bite to his shoulder to claim her as greedily as he dared. Deep, powerful thrusts of his body stole her breath away and left her clinging helplessly to him, never wanting to let go.
Locking her ankles together at the small of his back, she arched into him as the breathless release she craved began to overwhelm her. It licked at her toes and fingers, stirred in her hair until her scalp tingled—until every inch of her tingled with a fierce yearning she knew only Merritt was capable of satiating. A yearning that went beyond mere physical desire, beyond the melding of bodies…one that made her want to brand him onto her forever.
When she broke beneath him, the shattering of body and soul was more than she could bear. A sob tore from her, and she buried her face against his neck to hide
all evidence of her tears.
Twenty-three
A knock rapped sharply at the town house’s front door.
“It’s about time,” Horatio Liggett grumbled as he strode toward the entry hall from the study where he’d been making last-minute additions to the correspondence he was sending to Parliament to inform them that he had the riots under control. It would all be over by dawn. By afternoon, Westminster would proclaim him to be England’s most recent hero, and by nightfall, everyone across London would be making comparisons between a man of strength like him and that cowardly buffoon Prinny.
He snatched up his hat and sword from the waiting footman and put them on, then gestured for the man to open the door.
“General.” A tiger in a plain uniform greeted him with a small bow. “Your carriage is here, sir.”
“Carriage?” he boomed out in surprise. “I didn’t ask for a bloody carriage! I asked for a guarded escort.”
He shoved the tiger aside and looked out at the street where a plain black carriage waited beside the footpath. Around it stood three horse guards, their uniforms bright red against the dark night.
“General Liggett.” The lead officer called out to him with a salute but didn’t dismount from his horse. “Captain Nathaniel Reed with His Majesty’s Horse Guards. We’re here to escort you behind the barricades. It’s an honor to guard you, sir.”
Well, that was more like it. And exactly the deference he deserved.
Everything was coming together, just as planned. Once he’d left Carlton House earlier this evening, he’d spent the night overseeing the building of the barricades at the eastern edge of Westminster, where his soldiers would hold their position to keep the rioters from penetrating into St James’s and Whitehall. But the mob had been paid well to ignore the soldiers and push through, and the only thing stopping them would be him and a volley of musket fire.
But a carriage? His jaw tightened. “I should be going on horseback, like one of the guards.” Like a general. Wellington would never have arrived for battle in a carriage, for God’s sake!
An Extraordinary Lord Page 25
