A Lady of His Own (23 page)

Charles looked like he was suppressing another snort; turning, he continued to the study.

He released her hand only as they reached his desk.

Subsiding into the chair before it, she watched as he picked up the sealed packet, glanced at the direction, then, dropping into the deep chair behind the desk, reached for the letter knife.

Breaking the seal, he smoothed the three sheets, then started reading.

“Is it from your ex-commander?”

“Yes, Dalziel. This is in answer to the first queries I sent him.”

She thought back. “About Nicholas?”

“And Amberly.” Charles sat back, scanning the sheets. “Amberly was very high at the F.O., a full secretary responsible for European affairs. He retired late in ’08.” He set aside the first sheet.

“Nicholas joined the F.O. at the beginning of ’06, and rose rapidly through the ranks, courtesy, it seems, of not just his father’s name but also his own talents.” Charles’s brows rose. “It seems those Dalziel consulted consider Nicholas one of their most promising men. He’s presently an undersecretary reporting to the principal secretary. Interestingly, he’s always worked in European affairs—perhaps not surprising given his father’s background.” He glanced back at the first sheet. “Amberly’s record is impressive—there would have been much to gain by building on that.”

“Contacts, friendships, that sort of thing?”

Charles nodded. He’d moved on to the third sheet. Although he hadn’t asked for it and time had been limited, Dalziel had investigated Nicholas personally and turned up nothing of note. He’d also added a postscript.

“What?” Penny asked.

He glanced at her, reminded himself that Amberly and Nicholas were her connections. “Dalziel is going to, very quietly, investigate Amberly. Both Nicholas and Amberly are and were respectively in positions to learn secrets that would have interested the French, but while Nicholas might have continued the trade, it wasn’t his creation.”

Refolding the sheets, he tapped them on the desk, wondering just how deep Dalziel’s desire to bring justice to all spies who had trafficked in secrets to the detriment of English soliders ran. He’d heard whispers, faint but nonetheless there, that gentlemen Dalziel had proved guilty of treason had a habit of dying. Usually by their own hand, admittedly, but dying just the same.

It was a point to ponder, but not aloud.

He stirred, laid aside the packet, and pulled out a fresh sheet of paper. “I’m going to report what we learned today.” Including that he didn’t think Nicholas was guilty of Gimby’s murder, but that he certainly knew the details of whatever scheme had been afoot. “Aside from anything else, the information will give Dalziel some idea which questions will most quickly reveal what those five strangers are doing down here.”

Penny nodded and sat back. Filchett came in with the tea tray. She thanked him, and he left; she poured for Charles and herself, then sat sipping, watching while he wrote.

Eventually setting aside the empty cups, she rose and walked to the windows behind the desk, and stood looking out. The view was to the northwest; in the distance, she could see the ruins of Restormel Castle from which the Abbey took its name, and could just make out the silver ribbon of the Fowey sliding past between its lush banks.

It was complicated dealing with Charles and a murderer simultaneously, but she’d always been one to reach for what she wanted, to grasp opportunities as they occurred, to bend situations to her cause. As she had long ago, but long ago was in the past, and the here and now beckoned; she’d always taken advantage of what fate deigned to offer.

For some mystical reason, fate was offering him. Again.

She had to make up her mind what to do, make sure she wasn’t making a huge mistake—again. And it would be wise to do her thinking now, safe and sane, out of his arms, rather than pretend the inevitable wouldn’t happen and instead find herself struggling to think when he’d already whipped her wits away.

He was offering physical passion the like of which her stubborn will, her unwavering allegiance to her dreams, had condemned her to live without. When he’d first appeared, she’d been convinced the course of wisdom was to avoid any degree of indulgence with him. To guard her heart at all costs. He, after all, posed the greatest danger to it, and always had.

Now…in five days, he’d changed her mind, undermined her resistance. Made her think again. Yet it wasn’t just him and his persuasions influencing her. She’d told him the truth—it was her decisions that ruled her life, no one else’s. Independence was something fate had granted her from an early age; she’d guarded it zealously and still did.

No one was in any position to dictate to her. That made it much easier to reassess and, when the circumstances warranted, change her mind.

The present circumstances, she firmly believed, suggested a change of direction.

Harriet’s gibe over her being suitable marriage fodder for some widower—and Yarrow’s clear concurrence—had not so much struck a nerve as reminded her of where she stood, of how others saw her. She was far beyond marriageable age, an acknowledged ape-leader, a confirmed-beyond-doubt spinster; as such, she was no longer subject to the same restrictions that applied to younger ladies. If she wished to take a lover, she could; there might be whispers, but as she wasn’t planning on marrying anyone, where was the scandal? She had no desire to return to London, and county folk were prosaic about such matters; where no damage was done, who had the right to cry foul?

Unlike Harriet, she did not feel—never had felt—desperate to marry at any cost. Her identity, her status, had been hers from birth; she didn’t need to marry to create it or shore it up. She’d never believed marriage of itself—the ceremony, the institution—had any intrinsic value; its value derived from what it represented—mutual respect and sincere affection at the very least, preferably the far more powerful emotion the poets called love.

The thought brought Millie and David Essington to mind, and their new state. While she could feel pleased for others knowing how much children meant to them, she felt no maternal urges herself; the wish to procreate had never ranked as a reason to marry, as it did for some ladies. Her attitude to children might have changed if she’d ever married, but that was one question to which she accepted she would now never learn the answer.

She glanced back at Charles, still writing, the
scritch-scratch
of his nib across the paper the only definite sound in the room. Half-turning, she leaned against the window frame and studied him; he was concentrating on his report and thus not attuned, as he habitually was, to her.

As usual when they were in the same room, she was aware of him at some level that had nothing to do with conscious thought. Yet with his attention deflected, she could look at him, examine him if not dispassionately, then at least rationally.

His head was bent, silky locks so black they ate the light curling over his collar. He could have been a model for Lucifer, with his rakish, hard-edged, sculpted features, his sensuous mouth, the arrogance of his chin, nose, and heavy-lidded eyes.

Her gaze lingered on his broad shoulders, the wide expanse of his back, acknowledging the power and harnessed strength inherent therein.

She turned back to the window.

On most counts, she’d chosen to let life as other ladies knew it pass her by. She’d held firm to her ideals and even now didn’t regret it. Yet Charles had proved to be the only man with whom she could be physically close, share any physical relationship, and here he now was, back again, laying seduction at her feet.

There was no compelling reason to refuse. Whatever he offered—whatever degree of sexual interaction—she would take it. She owed herself that much. She deserved that much. It had been so long since she’d experienced physical hunger, so long since she’d felt its mind-numbing heat.

And this time she knew the score; her heart would be safe. She didn’t need to hand it over in exchange; that wasn’t, as she’d learned, any part of his contract.

Fate had decreed she couldn’t have her heart’s desire; her will and her pride had prevented her making do with any other man. She wasn’t going to refuse whatever Charles offered to share with her. To her mind, it was rightful consolation.

A sound behind her had her turning to see him affix his seal to the folded packet. He set the seal aside, waved the letter to cool the wax, and swiveled to face her.

“Ready?”

She met his gaze, held it for an instant. “Yes.”

Stepping away from the window, she led the way from the room.

I
N THE HALL
, C
HARLES DROPPED THE PACKET ON
F
ILCHETT’S
salver, then remembered he needed more clothes.

Penny waved him up the stairs. “Go on. I’ll wait.”

He went, but she followed. He wasn’t surprised when she halted in the open door to his bedchamber and leaned there, arms folded, watching him gather a selection of shirts, cravats, and hose.

“Where have you been keeping them? Your clothes?”

He glanced briefly at her. “In Granville’s old room—the one he used before he succeeded your father.”

“Why there?”

“So I could search it at leisure, and because, if I were Nicholas, it’s the first room I would have searched—it’s therefore a room he’s unlikely to return to, and the maids don’t go in there anymore.”

“You didn’t find anything?”

“No. A diary would have been too much to hope for.”

“From Granville? Indeed.” After a moment, she asked, “How did you get back to my room last night? I thought you’d left the house.”

He wrapped his selections in a soft hunting jacket. “No. Norris knows I don’t leave. I head for the garden door, then go up the back stairs.”

So she was never truly alone with Nicholas.

Picking up his bundle, he waved her back, closed the door, and followed her to the stairs and down.

He’d already sent word to the stables; their horses were waiting. Stuffing his clothes into a pair of saddlebags, he tossed them across Domino’s neck, then lifted her to her saddle, mounted Domino, and they were away.

This time she led, urging her mare into a gallop as soon as they left the park, streaking up the grassed side of the escarpment, then flying south, riding into the wind. He joined her, thundering along beside her. The wind rose to greet them, shrieked in their faces, dragged at their hair.

They paid it no heed but streamed over the green, checking only to descend to the flat and clatter across the bridge at Lostwithiel before taking to the heights again. The wind followed their progress, whistling like a banshee as they turned east for Wallingham and thundered on.

A sense of
déjà vu
rose and crashed through him. They’d ridden this way, just like this, many times before, but he was so far removed from the youth he’d been, and she from the girl he’d known.

Exhilarating and disconcerting, that sense of sameness only emphasized all that had changed.

And all that hadn’t.

They raced, not each other but simply for the sake of it. Late afternoon edged into evening, the sun a ball of fire dousing itself in the ocean ahead of them. In the last of the golden light, they rode wild along the ridge, then down through the fields to clatter into the Wallingham Hall stable yard.

Penny kicked her feet free and slid from her saddle; he met her gaze as, boots touching ground, he hauled the saddlebags free, slung them over his shoulder—and suddenly couldn’t breathe.

Awareness, sharp, intense and familiar, flashed between them.

Eyes wide, she stared, then swung on her heel, grabbed up her trailing habit, and headed for the house.

He fell in beside her as she walked past the kitchen garden. She glanced at him; he caught her gaze, held it—sensed the raw energy prickling over his skin, arcing between them, felt its compulsion in his veins.

Knew she felt it, too.

It was he who stepped away, increased the distance between them. He looked ahead. Impossible to whisk her off to her room or anywhere else, not like this, with the elemental hunger their wild gallop had set free riding him. And her. He wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

He dragged in a breath, held it. Forced himself to open the garden door and stand back, to let her precede him and walk a safe distance down the corridor to the front hall before he stepped across the threshold.

Pausing just inside the door, he waited.

She realized, stopped, and looked back.

He nodded. “I’ll see you at dinner.” With that, he turned, walked the other way, swung onto the back stairs, and climbed swiftly upward.

Away from temptation—a temptation that hadn’t changed with the years but had simply grown.

By the time she returned to her bedchamber later that evening, Penny’s nerves were jangling, taut, tightrope-tense—
waiting
. Not with innocent expectation, but an educated and quite specific anticipation; she knew what she wanted.

Having made her decision, wild impatience had infected her during their ride home and hadn’t dissipated in the least, not over their fifteen minutes in the drawing room, where she’d played the dutiful damsel for Nicholas’s benefit, nor over dinner, an unusually silent meal.

Charles hadn’t been interested in talking any more than she; they’d both had other matters on their minds. As for Nicholas, he’d remained sunk in thoughts that appeared little short of openly distressing. He’d looked wretched, but had shown no signs of confiding in them.

Climbing out of her evening gown, she donned the nightgown Ellie had waiting, then sat at her dressing table to brush out her hair—anything to keep her hands busy, to conceal her rising, nervy impatience.

Charles had been discretion itself, appearing from outside as if he’d just driven over for dinner, then later, after they’d sat through the required hour and the tea trolley had come and gone, formally taking his leave and, apparently, heading out to the stables.

He’d be waiting to see Ellie depart, to hear her go down the back stairs.

“Will that be all, miss?”

“Yes, thank you, Ellie.”

Ellie curtsied. Penny nodded in the mirror, watched as Ellie went out.

The instant the door shut, she rose, set down her hairbrush and looked at the bed. Imagined…then stiffened her spine.

The candles…should she snuff them? The single candle by the bed and the two in the dressing table sconces were all relatively new; they’d burn for hours before guttering.

Years ago, she’d been a prude; she hadn’t looked, hadn’t wanted him to look. Now…drawing in a deep breath, she left the candles burning. She wanted to know
everything
. Wanted to experience all there was, every sight, every sensation, to gather them greedily to her and hoard them.

The latch clicked; by the time she glanced at the door, Charles was inside. He’d seen her; she heard the clunk as he locked the door.

His gaze had locked on her. “Penny…?”

She flew across the room, flung herself into his arms. Knew he’d catch her. She didn’t want to talk.

Charles swore, the oath muffled beneath her lips as she framed his face and kissed him. At least he had the answer to the question she hadn’t waited for him to ask. He rocked back against the door as he took her weight, without conscious direction his arms wrapping about her and locking her to him.

With a herculean effort, he broke from the kiss. “Pen—”

She caught him again, dragged his mouth down to hers, found his tongue with hers, and breathed fire down his veins.

His next curse was entirely mental; she was racing faster than the wind had blown, and it wasn’t wise, wasn’t safe—not for her, not with him. He’d been half-aroused before he’d entered the room; now he was rigid, one step from pain, his demons eager and straining, his control seriously weakened.

By her. Again.

He seized her. Tightened his arms, lifted her from her feet, and wrenched control of the kiss from her.

Tried to; to his amazement, it didn’t work. She levered herself up in his arms until she leaned over him, her forearms on his shoulders, his head clasped between her palms, and kissed him as if he were the last man on earth and tonight was her only time with him.

Women and their passions were his specialty, but this…this devouring, hungry,
ravenous
need—where had it come from? He’d known she wanted him, had known since they’d reached the stable yard; he hadn’t anticipated any resistance tonight, but he hadn’t expected this.

Hadn’t expected to be left gasping, wits reeling, pulse pounding, reduced to elemental need with just a kiss.

She angled her head, pressed the kiss deeper, and he shuddered. She spread her thighs, gripped his hips with her knees, and something inside him quaked. Then his cravat loosened; he felt her hands slide down, working between them, felt his shirt give—felt her hand slide in, fingers spreading, palm gliding over his upper chest.

And down as far as she could reach.

He’d been caressed by courtesans expert in their art; no touch had ever rocked him as hers did. It nearly brought him to his knees.

Never, not ever before, had any woman met him like this. Challenged him like this. Relinquishing any thought of sophisticated play, of hours spent introducing her to all he’d learned in the years he’d been away, he staggered to the bed and fell across it.

Later.

He rolled to pin her beneath him, and succeeded. In position, at least. As for the rest…in a blinding flash of insight he realized where they’d gone, where she’d taken him. Straight into blind lust, just like the last time.

He wasn’t in control, and neither was she.

Their mouths remained welded, hot and urgent—there was no chance of either of them ending that kiss, not anytime soon, not until they had something else to cling to. Like each other.

Her hands were everywhere, tugging at his clothes; they rolled and tussled as with her help he shed them in a frenzy, one bit here, one flying there. He toed off, then kicked off his boots. At last she broke from the kiss, but only to help him strip off his breeches. Then her hands were on him, sliding up his flanks, along his hips.

It was the innocence in her touch, almost a sense of wonder, that gave him pause, that was just uncertain enough to jerk him back to some semblance of sanity.

He smothered a curse against the silk of her hair, then rolled again and brought her atop him. The sudden change to a position that was new to her momentarily stopped her. He framed her face, pulled her down to him, and covered her lips, dragged her back into their incendiary kiss. He knew what he had to do, knew he had to do it now, before she shattered his control again.

As he knew absolutely beyond doubt she would, and soon.

Just the thought…

He had to get his hands on her, now, this minute. Her lawn nightgown had ridden up to her knees, but was inextricably tangled between their legs. The front placket only opened to her breasts; seizing one half in each hand, he yanked—and heard it rip. Frantically, he kept ripping, down and down; through the kiss, through the eager pressure of her lips, the wanton dance of her tongue over his, the almost desperate flexing of her fingers on his chest, she urged him on. Then she shook her arms free and the halves fell away, and were forgotten.

He gripped her waist, felt her skin bare beneath his hands, held her as he plunged deep into her mouth, returning her fire, then he ran his palms up, over her breasts, shuddered as he leaned back and closed his hands.

And kneaded. Not gently but with the same urgency that coursed through their veins. With the same devouring need with which she spread her fingers and desperately clutched.

At last, she broke the kiss, flung her head back, her glorious hair spilling like a living veil down her back, strands sliding over her shoulders, caressing her as he did, as she whimpered and shifted under his hands.

Begging for more.

He rose up on one elbow and gave her what she wanted. Pressed a kiss into the hollow beneath her ear, then traced down. Over the taut line of her throat, over the swell of her breast, full and swollen cupped in his hand, to the furled nipple he was rolling between his fingers.

He took it into his mouth, and she gasped. He suckled, and she moaned.

Penny heard the sound, and could only wonder that he could draw such a confession of surrender from her. Wonder she could manage; thinking was beyond her. Her mind was awash with sensation, her body thrumming with need, every particle of her awareness engaged in this, with him, her very soul bathing in their heat.

She was straddling his lower chest, his ribs solid between her thighs, his naked chest and shoulders displayed before her, a fascination revealed as he suckled strongly at her breast, sending lightning streaking down her veins to condense in pulsing heat deep within her.

His hands roved everywhere. Hard and demanding, caressing, claiming, exploring, urgently learning. He’d always been bold; now hunger added another dimension, a more flagrantly possessive edge to his touch. Heat flared wherever his palms traced, fire danced where his fingers grazed.

Remembered feeling flooded her, an internal sensation of molten emptiness that opened inside her even before he slid a hand between her widespread thighs and touched her swollen flesh. Closing her eyes, she spread her hands over the powerful muscles of his shoulders, slid them over and around, holding tight as he stroked, then caressed, then probed.

His mouth was hot and wet and demanding, leaving flames dancing under the skin of her aching breasts, leaving dampness the air cooled to create a startling contrast, heightening the sensation of fire and burning heat. A heat that was alive, that beat in her veins in a compulsive tattoo, escalating with every heartbeat, spreading beneath her skin and greedily, hungrily, demanding more. More from her. More from him.

She could barely breathe, but oh, she could feel. Every touch, every lick of desire’s fiery lash, every knowing touch he pressed on her.

With lips and tongue he tortured the throbbing peak of one breast; the second his hand possessed, kneading, tweaking, blatantly claiming. Between her thighs, his other hand worked, long fingers buried in the slickness he’d drawn forth, forcefully penetrating, pressing deep.

And it wasn’t enough; she dropped her head back with a gasp that was half sob, sank her nails into his back in an incoherent plea.

He reacted, rose beneath her and flipped her over, reburied his hand between her thighs as he leaned over her and took her mouth. In a kiss so devastating it stole the last of her breath, so desperate it echoed her own desire, so driven it reassured her as nothing else could—he was with her, wanting her, needing her and all that was to come every bit as much as she.