A Duke's Temptation (29 page)

How awful. Would she suffer from nerves forever? When would she forget what she had seen in London? Lady Alice and Samuel had recovered from misfortune. But both of them had been changed.

It could only be Samuel coming to check on her. She sprang to her feet, setting the book on the stool. “Are you ready to turn in for the night?” she called down into the stairwell’s void of echoing dark. “It’s getting late. And cold. We ought to go to bed soon.”

He didn’t answer. Lost in thought again, she supposed.

“Samuel?”

She hoped it was Samuel she had heard. In this part of the castle it could have been a rat or a badger. But a heavy-footed one to have drawn her from
Don Quixote.

She descended the tower staircase one cautious step at a time. It was so dark. She should have brought the lamp. She would have to climb back to fetch it. Her skirts dragged against the old stone. “Samuel?” she said again, aggravated now. “Do you mind not hiding in the shadows?”

The wolfhounds in the bailey broke into a howling racket. She’d have been alarmed if she hadn’t known their ferocity disguised a friendly temperament.

Perhaps she had read too many of Samuel’s earlier books about feudal Scotland and midnight raids. She fancied that her bones ached in foreboding. Or, more likely, from sitting on an uneven-legged stool for too long.

Her nerves eased as she clambered down the stairs and reached the walkway. She peered out at the vaporous crags of the moor.

Anything could be hiding behind the menhirs or in the hollows on the horizon. An army could be waiting to attack behind the moorland hills. It was too misty to see past the track. Still, for now she seemed safe from claymore-wielding clansmen or even nocturnal creatures skulking about, unless one counted Samuel.

A light shone from the tower where he was still working. She knew he wasn’t wearing his warm coat. She knew he hadn’t drunk the pot of chocolate that Emmett had carried up, silver pot, cup, and spoon clanking like a ball and chain.

She would not have minded a footman or two to accompany her. She assumed Samuel had forbidden any further disturbances.

She shouldn’t disturb him. She should wait for him to come to bed. Wasn’t she resigned to spending the rest of her life waiting, feeling loved but ignored? She sighed as she noticed his slender figure in the tower window. Back. Forth. Another fencing match. She leaned her elbow against one of the merlons to watch.

Sir Renwick’s rapier-wand danced a magical display that enthralled her. Indeed, it looked as if her villain was going to win this match. What that meant for the future of
Wickbury
provided delicious fodder for her mind. She decided she
would
disturb him. Art was all well and good. But she had no intention of being neglected
every
night of their lives.

Besides, a chill had crept into the air. Samuel was lightly dressed, as usual. He would overheat himself, only to come out in the cold. She had a duty to protect his health. And a desire for his presence.

She knew her way around St. Aldwyn House. Castle Gravenhurst presented a mystery she did not care to solve by herself. She had a morbid enough imagination without fending off a wolfhound wanting to make friends at this hour.

In truth, she was gripped again by the implausible notion that a phantom danger awaited her in the dark. It was such a strong feeling that it overpowered her fascination with Samuel’s performance. She slowed.

Surely the shadow that fell beside her was another of her fancies. She turned. The cruel face of the man advancing on her confirmed what her logic had struggled to deny.

N
o sooner had Samuel cut a fresh nib and dipped his quill in the inkwell than his thoughts took wing. It was too late to work. He needed his other pen. Would it hurt to sneak across the walkway and lose a few minutes helping Lily? He cringed to think of the disarray the woman would wreak upon his library. He also knew that a few minutes would lengthen into the rest of the night.

Work, you besotted fool. Write just one more sentence.
If it wasn’t done right the loose threads would tighten into a noose. Strung by the tongue.

Brilliance.
Scrape it out of your marrow. Do not force a word.
Intuition trumped intellect. He could go into hiding. Philbert would hunt him down. They would sue each other into perpetuity. Good. Better his publisher finish him off than his readers.

A blessing he was anonymous, although that did not stop Lily from pointing out every mistake Lord A had ever made. He swore she took pleasure in unearthing the tiniest errors. Perhaps he should ask her to transcribe his pages to keep her occupied. But then she would only change his punctuation.

It was enough to inhibit his creative impulses. But not for long. He often thought that if he did not hover on the brink, he would die of boredom.

And as for dying, he had left poor Wickbury languishing in the dungeon, a priest summoned to administer the last rites. Sir Renwick claimed victory. His rival’s prison cell was impenetrable. Wickbury’s communion chalice contained enough poison to foil an unlikely escape. He would die a martyr to the Royalist cause, like the beheaded King Charles I.

Wickbury’s ragged band of retainers had been captured or killed. No man could deliver him from this snare.

A woman of unconventional courage could, however.

A writer
had
to leave a reader with hope.

Lady Juliette Mannering had always been more than a heaving bosom in a black velvet bodice. Or in a priest’s vestments, as described her current attire. She had shorn her hair for her role as Wickbury’s rescuer. The details of his liberation would be refined in the upcoming tale. Samuel hoped that by then he would be able to put Lily from his mind long enough for Juliette to be herself again. And that these odd visions of Wickbury talking to him would end.

All in all, however, Samuel thought it a fitting irony that Juliette don a religious disguise to save the one who had enabled
her
to escape the veil. Of course, there were critics who would accuse Anonymous of depicting another immoral act.

Maybe they were right.

 

 

 

Kirkham locked his left arm around her waist. She thought her ribs would crack from the pressure. The instinct to scream died as the steel blade of his sword settled across her throat.

His voice rasped against her cheek. “I’m going to quiet you, Lily. And Jonathan can’t do a thing about it. No one can. Look how low you have fallen. A duke’s whore. A servant. No one will miss you.”

She lifted her head to swallow. The blade pricked her windpipe. She felt drops of stinging warmth pool in the hollow of her throat. Kirkham brought his left hand to the wound, slowly smearing her blood. Lily became less aware of the pain than of her anger. She struggled free for only a moment before he caught her again.

“Ladies,” he said in a mocking whisper, “are supposed to be silent.”

 

 

 

“Death to Wickbury,” Sir Renwick had proclaimed, raising his rapier to the night. Or tower roof, as it were.

Samuel was surprised that the prospect made him feel maudlin. Had it been that long ago that he’d been tempted himself to finish off the popular hero? Killing him would end the series. Was it possible to reinstate himself as one of Michael’s supporters? To admit he believed in the prig? Good grief. It was true. He couldn’t say farewell to the hero. When and why had he lost faith in Michael?

He laid his rapier against the wall. He wanted to weep and ask Wickbury’s forgiveness. Preposterous. It was as if Wickbury were talking to him again.
Had
Samuel come unscrewed? His thoughts had gone delusional. He wasn’t on the brink. He was falling off the cliff.
Oh, God.
He couldn’t be getting another fever.

He pressed his fingers to his forehead. As cool to the touch as castle stone. It was damned perishing in the tower, in fact. He needed exercise to get his blood going. Or he could visit Lily, whose blue eyes managed the same effect. She shouldn’t be up here this late.

He stood up and stretched his arms.

Should he go?

He swung around, shaking his head. The tower was empty.

“Go,” Wickbury said in a voice that Samuel had never heard before.

“And take my sword.”

Samuel had thought of the tower stairs as snail shells when he was a boy. Curving, to slow an enemy on the attack. Difficult for anyone to maneuver in the dark unless one knew to seek the handholds and avoid the broken stones that could cause a fall.

His world fell the instant he sighted a man on the walkway with a cavalry sword laid across Lily’s beautiful throat. Her eyes flew to his. The horror in them raised a bloodlust that obliterated every gentle impulse that composed him.

His hand tightened around the broadsword’s hilt. “Let her go.”

Kirkham pulled her closer. “Why should I?”

Samuel stepped forward, staring at the blood on Lily’s skin. Dark like the ink that signed Kirkham’s death warrant. Fury consumed him.

He heard footsteps echoing from beneath both watchtowers. Emmett and Ernest rarely disobeyed his orders to stay away. What instinct had alerted them tonight?

“I said, let her—To hell with it.”

He lunged toward the wall, swinging his weapon low, and pivoted in a half crouch. By the time he straightened, a bright line of crimson appeared from Kirkham’s right thigh to his shoulders and he’d dropped the blade from Lily’s throat.

“Well-done,” Lily whispered, closing her eyes. “But—”

He could have done better. He regretted that he wasn’t carrying Renwick’s rapier. The broadsword was heavier to wield. Still, when the blade sank a blow, it tended to be deadly.

Kirkham looked down at his shirtsleeve, then shoved Lily to her knees. Without waiting for a signal from his master, Emmett darted across the walkway to lift her away from harm. His twin brother stood at the opposite stairwell, watching Samuel’s back.

Samuel watched Kirkham. “Take her downstairs, Emmett. Lock her up in the keep with the others. Warn Lawton—”

Kirkham hefted his sword and flew at Samuel before he could finish.

 

 

 

Lily gave a cry. “We can’t leave him.” She broke away from Emmett as he dragged her to the arched entrance of the lower stairs.

“Ernest is standing on the opposite side,” the footman said, positioning himself to block her return. “You ought to know we always travel together.”

“You ought to know
I
won’t leave him. And that we always stand in the background to direct his duels.”

“Not this time, miss,” he said, his mouth set. “He’ll have my head, and I’ve known him longer than you.”

Panic quickened her pulse. She could not lose Samuel. How could she help? Would she only distract him? She stared down into the spiraling blackness of the stairs. “I’d rather stay up here and die myself than flee like a . . . a frightened old duchess.”

She saw Emmett hesitate. Her advantage. She took it, jerked from his hold, and pummeled his shoulder with a strength she had never suspected she could summon. For an instant he froze, so stunned by her attack that she almost could not move for the guilt she felt.

He blinked, recovering before she did. “No, miss,” he said, and recaptured her arm as she stole another frantic look in Samuel’s direction.

He danced with a fatal beauty that deceived the beholder. Had he woven that cloak of mist to enchant Kirkham into making a careless move?

“Emmett, I’m begging you. No. I
order
you.”

“He orders me first.”

“Then what are you doing here now?” she cried. “He wanted privacy. You disobeyed him by coming back.”

“Yes, but we heard the dogs barking and thought something might be wrong.”

She shook her head in desperation. “He doesn’t order anyone. We do what he wants without being asked because we cannot help ourselves.”

“I have an obligation to him,” he said, doubt in his voice.

She was going to bubble over like a cauldron. “And I have an obligation not to witness another murder while I do nothing but wring my hands in horror.”

He didn’t budge.

She added, “He would do the same for us.”

“No.” His voice caught. “No. He’s got his honor.”

“And you are willing to lose him for that?”

He looked across the walkway.

Lily looked past him.

Above, rising higher than the eye could perceive, was Lily’s heaven, and her heart.

Shards of light lanced the mist.

It irradiated the terrible smile on Samuel’s face. She gave a gasp.

The broadsword lifted. Emmett released his grip on her arm, transfixed. She started to turn away and stopped. She didn’t want to watch but something compelled her. Samuel had a talent for commanding an audience.