The Spy’s Convenient Bride: The Macalisters, Book Five

by Taylor, Erica

  The tips of Vivian’s fingers trailed over him, teasing him awake.

  He turned his head towards her and Vivian’s gaze met his, her eyes dark and stormy. Her skin shimmered in the moonlight reaching across the room from the window. His gaze trailed down her shoulder, her bare breast, and into the shadows below the cover.

  Belatedly, Luke realized she was not wearing the nightgown she’d gone to sleep in. She’d removed it, in preparation for this, for what she seemed to want from him.

  More attuned parts of him sprang to life at this notion. He was willing to give her whatever she wanted to take.

  Slowly, she leaned towards him. Her hand abandoned its torment of his chest, and reached into his hair and cupped the back of his head. She pulled herself to him, or he went to her, though he doubted there was a difference. Hungry for her as he was, he tried to be a gentleman. Best not scare her away with the intensity that pulsed through him.

  But he was not listening to himself. He was listening to Vivian, and the little mews she made when her tongue met his, stroking tentatively, as if she was testing the waters for the first time though, it was hardly the first kiss they’d shared. His arms wound around her, holding her to him as their legs entwined together, his thigh pressing into her center. He thickened even more at the skin on skin contact, reaching for her through his drawers.

  “Are you truly awake?” he asked as he broke their kiss.

  “Very.”

  “Good.”

  Her kiss was long and drugging; her tongue barely touched his, but it was enough to tease him, to set his skin afire.

  He trailed one hand down her abdomen and found her center hot and wet for him. He traced the tip of his finger over her wet slit, pressing one finger into her. He felt her tighten around him, and he added another.

  His lips found the skin below her chin, kissing down her throat as his fingers slipped in and out.

  Her breathing increased, hitching every time he contacted the tip of her heat.

  “Here,” she said, breathlessly. “Like this.” Her hand came to cover his. With her fingers, she pushed the heel of his hand onto the bead of pleasure and purred as he hit the right spot. Her hips made little circles, pressing into his hand as he moved, his fingers moving deeper inside her.

  Desire surged through Luke’s blood, eager for her to teach him more, to show him what she liked.

  She kissed him again, with a fervor and passion he felt reflected in every morsel of his body. He’d known she would be responsive, known things would be pleasurable between them, but he could never have anticipated this. He’d brought a woman to completion before, but never had he wanted it more than his own finish. He wanted to watch her find her release, riding his fingers, the idea she could finish nearly on her own boiling his blood.

  Leaning down, he pulled her nipple into his mouth. Her back arched as a breathless moan resonated through the darkness. As she tightened around him, he felt her orgasm shudder through her.

  She clung to him and her fingers tightened around the curls of his hair.

  “More,” she said, after a long moment as she regained herself, her face buried in his neck. “I want more.”

  He twisted her onto her back, moving over her in one fluid motion.

  “Tell me to slow down and I will.”

  “Don’t you dare slow down.”

  A part of him thought he should perhaps go slow, make their first time together special. Gentle.

  He felt anything but gentle, and there was time for special later. Right now, he needed to be buried inside her before he spent himself against her hip. She didn’t seem opposed to his hitch in intensity. If anything, the dazed look in her eyes meant she was enjoying herself just as much as he was.

  He pressed into her, forcing himself to go slow, stretching her as he moved. Fully sheathed, he paused, hoping to make the act pleasurable for her, but he wanted to make certain.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said softly, his voice strained with effort to maintain control.

  “It doesn’t hurt,” she said, breathless. “Oh my lord.”

  “Right here, love,” he said and captured her mouth again. He slid out and pressed into her again, and she moaned into his mouth. Her hips flexed up to meet his, and then he wasn’t moving slowly any longer. He thrust into her, hard, and fast, and he only hoped she was being honest with him when she said she was not in pain. This felt too glorious to stop.

  Her moans of pleasure only urged him on and he was lost as his release pulled the last ounce of energy form him.

  As he lay with his head buried in her neck, he felt her heartbeat cascade out of control with his own. Her limbs were tangled with his as he tried to remove his weight from her, but she held him to her for a moment longer.

  “Heavens above, Luke,” she said softly. “That was…”

  “It was,” he agreed.

  He rolled off her and stared at the darkened wooden ceiling as his breathing eased back to normal.

  Without comment, he rolled and pulled her towards him, her back pressed against his chest. He didn’t say anything, not wanting to ruin whatever that had been with something silly or inconsequential. Nor did he want her to know how shaken he was by what had just happened between them. First their Wells wedding, and now this… he was far too emotionally entangled.

  He found he really didn’t care.

  Chapter Twelve

  With Luke’s length stretched alongside her, Vivian was starting to overheat. The heat from the fireplace was warm against her face, the room immersed in a sweltering glow.

  That didn’t seem right.

  In the fog of sleepiness, she wondered if the fireplace had been moved closer to them while they slept. She shouldn’t feel the heat so close.

  Her eyes snapped open as the rest of her brain rushed to the same conclusion.

  They were not too close to the fireplace.

  The room was on fire.

  Memories flew through her mind of the night of the fire at the Abbey. Her father unmoving as the flames crept down the halls; her mother, arms wrapped around him, trying to pull him free; fire licking against Vivian’s arms as she beat out the fire threatening to take her mother with it.

  Vivian shot out of the bed as the flames flicked up the wall alongside the door. The wooden floorboards felt warm under her feet, and panic flooded through her. It was too much to put out with the water they had in the pitcher on the table.

  “Luke!” she shouted, shaking him but he didn’t move.

  She tossed her shift over her head and stuffed her arms through her stays, pulling the laces with one hand as she thrust her feet into boots. Snatching her gown from where she’d set it atop her traveling trousseau, she pulled it over her head, not bothering to do up the buttons. She couldn’t reach them anyway.

  Climbing on the bed, she shook Luke again, cursing under her breath when he still refused to wake.

  “I’m sorry, Luke,” she said before giving him a shove. He rolled to his back and she shoved him again. This time he rolled off the bed. He hit the floor hard, finally waking as he fell.

  “Bloody hell!” He struggled to his feet, tangled in the bedsheets. It took him half a heartbeat to feel the heat and notice the flames starting to engulf the room. His gaze swung to hers. A moment of shock raced across his face, but he was instantly in motion.

  He untangled his feet from the sheets, finding his trousers and shrugging them on. He threw his shirt over his head, grabbed his great coat and headed towards the door.

  Suddenly the door burst open. Adam Poppins stood in the doorway and for a moment no one moved.

  “Poppins, what are you doing here?”

  “I’ve been following you,” he replied as he turned around, looking wildly about the room, as if he were just now noticing the flames. But he stopped when he spied Redley’s journal by the bed. Luke leaped towards it at the same time Poppins did. They crashed into each other. Luke wrestled him to the floor before Poppins reached th
e side table where Redley’s journal and ring lay.

  Vivian darted around the two men as they grappled with one another, neither willing to relent despite the fire. With their room about to be overcome in flames, there was no time for any of this. The fire had spread from the door along the wall to the exterior wall, the wood cracking under the flames. Smoke filled the room. She could barely see where Luke and Poppins struggled with each other, wrestling on the ground for what seemed like an eternity. Vivian screamed for Luke to stop, but he couldn’t hear her over the sound of the inn burning around them, or he did not want to.

  Vivian dropped to her knees, coughing as she breathed in a lungful of smoke. Her eyes burned. The fire had spread to fully consume the two interior walls, their path to the door nearly blocked. Golden red fingers of flame snaked across the ceiling.

  A large crossbeam overhead snapped under the assault of the flames, and started to fall into the room, catching on the high posts of the bed.

  Vivian screamed.

  There was another person in the room, she realized as she choked from inhaling the smoke. It was Redley, though where he’d come from, she’d no idea. Her sight was impaired by the heat and she was having difficulty registering what she was witness to. She doubled over coughing, no longer able to call out to Luke for help.

  Suddenly, arms came around her and pulled her out of the path of the beam as it crashed into the room. Shards of glowing splinters of wood scattered across the floor.

  Luke held her and brushed the hair from her face. He asked if she was okay, but Vivian could barely hear his voice. The heat closed in. Their path to the door was completely blocked.

  Luke pulled one of the towels from beside the water basin, doused it with water, and pressed it to her mouth. He backed her against the wall, the only one not yet engulfed in flames, and enveloped himself around her, holding her as if his last act would be to protect her. He yelled something to Redley, but she could not make it out. Redley threw something, a vase maybe, against the glass of the window and it shattered. Her ears were filled with the roar of the fire, as she watched the glass shatter to the floor.

  Luke was out the window, and yet standing on something to make him taller than he should have been. Redley held her arm as she climbed out the window and jumped down to Luke. She landed hard against him, but he did not waver as he steadied her, and pulled her down to a sitting position.

  She was on top of a carriage, she realized belatedly as Redley jumped down from the window and landed beside her.

  Luke’s arms wrapped around her, and she fought for a clear breath as the carriage lurched into motion, the three of them still sitting on the carriage roof. They watched the inn grow smaller as the carriage moved away from it. Golden red flames stretched into the sky and it burned to the ground.

  * * *

  The night air was cold compared to the heat of the blaze they’d just escaped, but Vivian would take shivering in the cold over burning to death any day.

  Her breathing was difficult to control as she slumped against Luke, his arm strong around her as she coughed and struggled to take in breaths of fresh air.

  They were stopped a good distance away from the inn. The golden haze of the fire lit the area, sending streaks of gold and black through the trees. They’d come down off the top of the carriage, but the urgency of their escape still lingered in the air.

  “You saved us,” Luke said to Redley. The man they’d searched for for over a day shook his head, but he was not calm. His gaze darted around and his breathing was erratic.

  “Did Poppins set the fire?” Luke asked and Redley nodded. He made an elaborate gesture with his hands, quick furious motions, but Vivian did not understand.

  Neither did Luke.

  “You have to calm yourself; I can’t understand what you are saying.”

  Redley looked about ready to burst. His face was red and agitated. Vivian could not imagine the level of frustration he must have felt, betrayed by his own voice when he needed it.

  “You’re here, we can help you,” Luke told him. “We can go to Halcourt, we can go above him if we need to.”

  Redley was shaking his head again.

  “You have to tell me what this is all about,” Luke insisted.

  “No!” The word ripped from Redley’s mouth, but that was all he managed to get out, his jaw clenched tightly closed again.

  “No what? No to Halcourt?”

  Redley nodded and pointed upwards.

  “No to going above Halcourt?”

  Redley nodded again.

  Luke frowned at him. “Is what Poppins said about you true? Are you a traitor? Did you shoot Martin?”

  Redley shook his head vehemently, his gaze clouding in anger. He pointed at the building burning in the distance.

  “Adam Poppins is the traitor then. He lied about you shooting Martin. Is Martin alive?”

  Redley nodded and made more movements, gesturing to himself and then grand sweeping motions towards the road.

  “Don’t disappear again, dammit. Stay, and we can figure this out.”

  Redley’s hands moved again, and Luke struggled to make out what he was saying.

  “Home?” Luke asked, mimicking some of Redley’s movements. Fingers walking, a hand like an axe chopping wood, pointing to the trees behind them, a sort of steeping of his fingers. “You want us to walk home?”

  “How are you understanding him?” Vivian asked quietly.

  “Badly,” Luke admitted, his brow furrowed as Redley moved on to a new set of motions. “It is literal, mostly, what he does with his hands. Some movements are assigned a word, but he never has to convey information like this. Anything lengthy he usually writes down. And the more agitated he is the more frantic he moves, and the harder it is to decipher.”

  “That looks like a book,” Vivian added, watching Redley’s movements. “And he’s motioned like he’s pulling something from his hand—a ring? The journal and the ring? From Canterbury.”

  Redley pointed to her, nodding excitedly.

  Luke crossed his arms. “Poppins has them, unfortunately.”

  “I saw Poppins flee on horseback,” Quan interjected. “I would have gone after him, but you’d been in the fire too long… I feared—”

  “My friend, you saved us.”

  Vivian slowly registered they spoke in English, and not Chinese as she had come to expect. Quan’s English held the hint of a French accent.

  “With Longfield’s help. He went in after you, while I pulled the carriage under the window. But I accept your gratitude for saving your ugly face. You would be lost without my help.”

  “That’s likely true.”

  Quan and Luke grinned at each other.

  There was a familiarity between the two, a friendship that far surpassed the easiest of working employer-employee relationships. She’d had serving staff who felt like family and had been devastated when they had to be let go due to her family’s change in circumstances. She understood how servants could quickly become family but this seemed something more.

  Vivian looked away. The more she learned of Luke proved he was not the lord of leisure she’d originally presumed, but nothing explained exactly what he was.

  Redley was moving his hands again but Luke interjected.

  “Stop, I get it. Poppins has the journal and the ring, and I take it you don’t have another copy readily available. But you have another copy?”

  Redley nodded and pointed down the road.

  Luke turned to Quan. “Move our trunks to a wagon, or… something, and leave the carriage here in the road. Drive the wagon around in large circles around Kent, long enough for whomever might follow to do so, and Redley can slip away unnoticed.” Luke turned to Redley. “Take one of Bradstone’s horses, I know he has some in one of the horse yards. Get as far away from here as quickly as you can. Now that Poppins knows you’ve made contact with me, he will want to know what you’ve told me.”

  “Where will you go?” Quan asked wit
h a pointed look at Vivian.

  Luke glanced down at her and sighed. “Can you walk?”

  “If I’m standing, I can walk.”

  “Then we will walk home. It is likely the safest place for us right now. Quan, after you’ve given them a Grand Tour of Kent, please join us. I suspect you will need a reprieve as well.”

  Quan laughed. “I have not gone soft as you have. My senses are still sharp as blades.”

  “Good. You will need them on your goose chase. Redley, you are good?”

  The question was simple, but held a heavy meaning. Redley held Luke’s gaze for a long moment before giving a firm nod.

  In a matter of minutes, Redley had disappeared again, and Quan was perched at the front of the carriage, rolling down the road into the darkness.

  Vivian watched the carriage drive away in mild horror. She glanced around, taking in their surroundings along the side of the road some ways away from the inn. Far enough away from the burning inn to no longer be in danger, but close enough to see its glow in the darkness.

  Her gaze focused on Luke and she stared at him, overwhelmed with questions but unable to ask any of them.

  “Will you please button my dress?” she asked instead. “I feel as though it’s about to fall off.”

  He chuckled and turned her around, fumbling with the buttons along her spine.

  “Will you explain any of this?” she asked.

  “Yes, though whether you will believe me is the other quandary.”

  “If you say you are truthful, I will believe you.”

  He didn’t offer any answers, just worked the buttons.

  This is happening, Vivian thought to herself. Her gaze roamed about the empty road, the inn burning in the distance, the man behind her playing lady’s maid. The madness of the past two days. This is my life right now.

  Silently, he grasped her hand and pulled her off the road and further into the woods.