An Extraordinary Lord

by Anna Harrington

  Ignoring that statement, which sounded wholly ridiculous even to her own ears, he stripped his own tunic over his head, then ripped off the sleeves. He balled up the rest of the fabric and pressed it against her shoulder to stanch the bleeding.

  A bolt of pain shot out through the top of her head, along with a cry from her lips.

  Guilt gripped his face as he leaned over to lightly kiss her in what she knew was an attempt to ease the torment.

  “When I saw that knife at your throat,” he said quietly, his voice raw, “I thought…”

  When his confession died away, she finished, “That you would lose me…just as you lost Joanna.”

  He gave a jerking nod.

  “But you didn’t.” She touched his cheek, heedless of the blood she smeared there. “You saved me.”

  He looked down at her chest, focusing his attention there, but not before she saw his eyes glisten in the morning sunlight. “I can’t bear to lose you.”

  Anguish rose in her throat. If he uttered the word again, she would have died right there. “I’m not Joanna,” she said as firmly as possible despite the choking hitch of breath. “I can never be the woman she was.” Respectable, acceptable…

  He snatched up the sleeves and tied them around her shoulder to hold the makeshift bandage in place. “I know exactly who you are, Veronica Chase.”

  Mercenary, convict, by-blow… When he looped one sleeve under her arm, she gritted her teeth so he wouldn’t know how much pain he was causing her. Not just the wound to her shoulder but the one he’d put into her heart. The same one he was now carving deeper.

  “You’re unlike any other woman I’ve ever known. I knew it from the moment we met, and I don’t mean because you came after me with a sword.” For once, he wasn’t teasing, and his expression remained bleak. “When Joanna was killed, I couldn’t stay in England. I didn’t belong here. I didn’t belong anywhere.”

  Her eyes blurred with hot tears. For all her life, she’d felt the same.

  He cinched tight the tie around the bandage. “Since I returned, my life has been nothing but hunting—every night, every day… I thought I knew what I was hunting for, why I was out there. But I know now that I was wrong. I wasn’t hunting for that man.” He admitted quietly, “I was hunting for you.”

  The pain was so brutal that she could barely keep her breath, and she whispered a plea for him to stop. “Merritt…”

  “Now that I’ve found you, I’m not letting you go. I want a new life, one with purpose. One with you.” He tied off the sleeve and slowly lifted his gaze to fix on hers. “Marry me, Veronica.”

  She couldn’t stop a tear from sliding down her cheek. “I have to leave, you know that.” She swiped at the tear, and the pain of jostling her arm was nothing compared to the anguish that pierced her chest when she rasped out her hoarse confession. “I care about you too much not to go.”

  “That’s odd. Because I care about you enough to make you stay.”

  She bit back a cry of desolation. God’s mercy, how hard it was to keep her resolve when he said things like that! “I’ll ruin your life.”

  “You’ll be giving me a life.” He fussed with the bandage. “You’ll be pulling me back from the dead.”

  She sucked in a ragged breath and desperately tried again. “I’ll ruin your career.”

  He shrugged a shoulder as casually as if they were discussing the weather. “It’s ruined either way, because if you leave London, I’m leaving my position to come after you.”

  Her watery eyes widened at that promise.

  “I mean it, Veronica. If you go, we go together.” As he said that, a determination so fierce pulsed from him that the intensity of it made her tremble. “But I’d sure as hell rather stay right here with you.”

  Her throat tightened as a second tear spilled free. “You can’t—we can’t.” Grief swelled inside her as pitiless as when her mother died. “I’m a convicted criminal… You’re a baron, a King’s Counsel—”

  “Damn King’s Counsel.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “Damn the law.” Another kiss to punctuate his words. “Damn the barony.” He released her hand and leaned over to stare down at her. “Damn everything else but you and me.”

  He reached toward her chest. She thought he would touch the bandage on her shoulder. Instead, he tenderly fluttered his fingertips over the breastbone that guarded her heart. Her pulse spiked beneath his fingers.

  “Marry me and let me spend the rest of my life sparring with you, arguing with you…loving you. I love you, Veronica. I’d be mad not to.” He curled a smile for her. “You might just sink a sword into me if I didn’t.”

  A bubble of laughter escaped through her tears.

  “I need you, Veronica. And you need me.” He traced an invisible pattern over her breastbone. “So let’s just admit it and be happy together, all right?”

  Heedless of the pain, she grabbed his shirt and pulled him down to her to stare into his eyes. His mouth lingered a hairsbreadth from hers. “Let’s get something straight, shall we? I’m strong and independent, more than capable of taking care of myself. I don’t need you, Merritt Rivers.” When he began to argue, she interrupted, “But I very much want to be with you.”

  He held his breath. “Is that a yes?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, unable to find her voice beneath the emotions cascading through her, a swirling mix that left her both light-headed and elated at the future now waiting for her. For both of them. “I love you, Mrs. Fitzherbert.”

  He grinned and kissed her.

  Epilogue

  January

  Three months later

  Veronica held tightly to Merritt’s hand as they hurried down the front walk of Charlton Place. Large, delicate flakes of falling snow were rapidly blanketing the city and casting a white sheen over the ebony carriage waiting for them, with its uniformed footmen in dark-blue velvet and four matching black horses. On the path leading to the carriage, red rose petals from the Duke of Hampton’s greenhouse contrasted brightly against the snow.

  Behind them, their friends and family spilled out onto the front portico of the duke and duchess’s grand London house. They’d all gathered to celebrate Merritt and Veronica’s wedding, and now they waved goodbye and tossed more rose petals into the air. When Veronica paused to glance back, wanting to imprint this scene into her mind forever, Merritt affectionately placed a hand to her lower back to guide her onward. Home was waiting for them.

  The footman opened the door. Merritt tossed him a sovereign, and the man nodded gratefully. “Thank you, my lord.” Then he sketched a bow to Veronica. “My lady.”

  My lady. God’s mercy, they were married, and she was officially a baroness. The realization struck her with enough force to halt her in her snowy tracks.

  Merritt grinned and snatched her up into his arms, eliciting a gasp of surprise from her and laughter from their friends. “Too late now to change your mind, my darling wife.”

  Wife…another name she would have to grow used to. But this one warmed her down to her soul. She caressed his cheek. “Never.”

  He placed her into the carriage, then swung inside and closed the door. As the carriage rolled away, they both leaned out the window to wave goodbye.

  The carriage turned a corner, and their friends and family vanished from sight. With a sigh, Veronica sat back from where she’d been leaning across Merritt to ease onto the seat beside him.

  Strong arms slid around her and pulled her down fully across his lap. “It’s cold outside.” He took her long wrap of white ermine and velvet and tucked it around her. “Better stay right here and keep warm.”

  “I’m warm enough.” Yet she slipped her arm around his neck and shifted herself closer.

  The sage-green bodice of her velvet wedding dress slipped smoothly over the matching satin waistcoat he wore beneath
his black kerseymere jacket. He’d looked so handsome and dashing that morning that she’d lost her breath when she saw him standing at the front of the church, waiting for her to join him. To join with him, now and forever.

  He grinned wolfishly as his hands slipped beneath the ermine wrap and caressed up her body. “Who says I was talking about you?”

  She laughed. Dear heavens, how happy he made her! And now they would have the rest of their lives to laugh together, love together, and poke at each other with swords.

  “I wouldn’t want you to be cold.” She pressed herself against him, her breasts flattening against his chest and sending his pulse spiking. When she brought her mouth to his ear, she seductively murmured, “Whatever can I do to make you hot, hmm?”

  The tip of her tongue traced the outer curl of his ear in a wantonly suggestive gesture of what she could do to other parts of him if he would let her.

  “Oh, I might have a few ideas,” he mumbled, his voice thickening with desire. “Starting with a cup of hot chocolate brought to you in bed.”

  She smiled against his throat at his thoughtfulness, and for a moment, she lost herself in fantasies of leisurely breakfasts in warm beds on cold winter mornings. “I love hot chocolate.”

  “Oh, it won’t be for you. It’s for me.”

  She laughed lightly at his teasing. “For you? Why should you have it all?”

  He brought his mouth to her ear. “So I can pour it over your naked body and drink you up,” he murmured the wicked promise. “One lingering lick at a time.”

  A heated sigh of longing escaped her. “I didn’t realize I’d married such a libertine.”

  “Did I shock you?”

  “Not yet.” She nipped his earlobe in a playful bite that made him suck a mouthful of air between his teeth. “So you’d best keep trying if you want our marriage to be a happy one.”

  He laughed and buried his face in her hair, holding her close as the snow crunched beneath the carriage wheels and muffled the horses’ hooves on the cobblestones. “You have no idea how much I love you.”

  Oh, she had a pretty good idea. As she’d convalesced at Charlton Place after the riot, he’d refused to leave her side while both her wound and her heart healed. More than that, he’d not gone after the man who’d killed Joanna. But for once, fate had been her friend and made certain that Merritt gave up the hunt, because the man’s body was found in a Covent Garden alley two days later, his throat slit from ear to ear. Most likely a victim of Scepter.

  As for the others involved with the riots, they’d managed to escape Scepter’s wrath. Miss Jones had somehow magically disappeared after the Home Office had finished interrogating her about Scepter. When Veronica pressed Merritt for answers, all he would say was that the Duchess of Hampton was a very resourceful woman.

  General Liggett had also vanished. When a storm forced his ship to seek shelter in the bay at Dakar, he managed to sneak ashore and hide until the ship sailed on. The last anyone saw of him was boarding a ship bound for Barbados. Clayton Elliott was certain he’d never set foot in England again.

  The riots and the evil behind them had been stopped. For now. And at that moment, safe within Merritt’s arms, all that mattered was how much she loved him.

  “Did you have a lovely day?” he asked.

  She sighed. “It was perfect.”

  Truly, it was. They were married at St George’s Church in a very small gathering of family and close friends, with Brandon Pearce standing as Merritt’s best man and his wife, Amelia, as her matron of honor. The Duke of Hampton’s niece, Pippa, practically danced through the church in her role as flower girl, showering red rose petals everywhere, much to the priest’s dismay. And Merritt’s father escorted Veronica down the aisle, the judge as dignified as ever despite the faint glistening in his eyes.

  Even Madame Noir was in attendance. The woman had been genuinely moved by the ceremony, although she would never admit it of course. But Veronica knew—after all, Madame hadn’t once referred to Merritt as Snake all morning.

  Veronica had barely had time to catch her breath before the ceremony was over, vows made, and the parish registry signed to make their marriage official. Then they were through the church doors, with Merritt tossing coins to the children and poor who had gathered on the steps, and into their carriage, and through it all, inundated by the rest of Pippa’s rose petals. By the time they reached Charlton Place, the snow had covered them and all of London in a light dusting. Neither cared. They finally had each other. Nothing else mattered.

  The entire day had been nothing less than a dream, and she hadn’t felt so loved and accepted since her mother died. Perfect. Wonderful. So very happy.

  Except…

  “I wish Filipe could have been here,” she whispered and nuzzled Merritt’s shoulder with her cheek to hide all traces of sadness. Her brother’s absence was the only gray cloud lingering over an otherwise perfect day.

  “He was there in spirit.”

  She fiddled with the gold buttons on his waistcoat. “If we ever travel to the Continent, perhaps we can visit him in Portugal.”

  “Of course we can.” He smiled against her hair. “He’s family.”

  “And now I have your father as family, too.”

  “He already thinks of you as a daughter.”

  She prayed he was right. Whatever ground she’d lost in the judge’s eyes because of her past, she’d made up for by insisting Merritt continue his legal work, encouraging him to become even more dedicated to the law. Now he was working to do what he’d wanted all along—stop the violence before it happened. He was using his connections to establish a professional street patrol and to press for changes in the laws that would work to eliminate the corruption inherent in the arrest and trial process.

  But Merritt still couldn’t care less about the barony.

  Neither could she, although society seemed absolutely fascinated with her and would only become more so now that she was a baroness. Her past had been wiped clean when her legal records had inexplicably all gone missing, most likely thanks to Clayton Elliott, who hadn’t been able to hide his grin even as he’d denied having a part in it. As far as the world knew, she’d simply appeared out of nowhere, like so many of the continental aristocracy who had been displaced due to the wars. It allowed her to tell the truth—that she was the daughter of a Portuguese count, albeit an illegitimate one, which only served to make her seem notorious and exotic yet made society keep their distance. Exactly what she preferred.

  She tilted back her head in invitation to be kissed. He obliged, giving her a passionate, openmouthed kiss that seared through her all the way to the tips of her toes.

  When she tore her mouth away from his to catch her breath, she glanced out the window. “We’re going in the wrong direction.”

  He persisted in placing kisses down her neck as his hands stroked her body beneath the fur. “No, we’re not.”

  She began to tingle and ache as she always did when he caressed her. As she prayed she always would. “Why aren’t we going to your town house?”

  “Our town house,” he corrected. “It’s our home now, my love.”

  His words sparked a thrill inside her more powerful than all his kisses and caresses… Our home.

  “I have a surprise for you first,” he murmured. “A wedding gift.”

  “You shouldn’t have.”

  He touched his lips to hers. “I wanted to.” Another kiss, this one lingering heatedly until he groaned and pulled away. “So we’d better stop all this or I won’t be in any condition to leave the carriage and give it to you.”

  “Good idea.” She slid onto the opposite bench and put the distance of the cold compartment between them. “Because you’re already warm enough, and something tells me that if you grow any warmer, I’ll be the one with my clothes off.”

  He flashed her a wolfi
sh grin.

  A few minutes later, the carriage stopped. Veronica looked out the window, and disappointment panged in her chest. Her wedding gift was here?

  “We’re at the Armory.” She tossed him a dubious glance. “Unless you’re planning on tying me to another chair, I don’t think—”

  “Tying you up is tomorrow night’s plan.” He grinned devilishly. “And the night after that, and after that…”

  When she opened her mouth to give him the scolding he deserved, he flung open the door and bounded to the ground, then reached back for her.

  “Trust me, Veronica,” he said, suddenly serious. “I think you’ll like this gift.”

  With a deep breath, she placed her gloved hand in his and allowed him to help her from the carriage and across the outer courtyard. The place felt positively medieval in the snow, its gray stones as ominous as the darkening sky above it, especially when he led her beneath the two portcullises and into the dimly lit entry hall.

  When they reached the octagonal room of the central tower, she stopped and stared.

  “What on earth…?” she whispered, barely louder than a breath as she stared at the group of women waiting for her there.

  Merritt leaned down to murmur in her ear, “Your gift. It was their idea.”

  Her gaze moved over the women, all of them from the Court of Miracles. Sweet heavens… She hadn’t seen them in nearly three months, not since the night of the riot when she’d collected her belongings and left, never to return. But here they all were, including Ivy, and all of them stared back at her just as apprehensively.

  “What are you all doing here?” she asked, blinking hard. She couldn’t believe her eyes! She released Merritt’s arm as she stepped forward and held out her trembling hands toward Ivy.

  “We missed you. The Court isn’t the same without you,” Ivy told her, moving tentatively forward. But when their hands touched, the girl launched herself into Veronica’s arms for a tight hug, so tight that she squeezed the air from Veronica’s lungs. “We need you with us!”