A Lady of His Own (43 page)

Fothergill burst into the court—and skidded to a halt. Wide-eyed, he stared at Charles, then his gaze fell to the throwing knife Charles held in his hands.

Turning the knife lightly end over end, Charles demanded in rapid-fire French who had sent him.

Off-balance, his gaze locked on the knife, Fothergill swallowed and replied, confirming it was elements of the French bureaucracy attempting to conceal past follies.

“Attempting to cover their arses so that no one would know how gullible they’d been—how they’d been taken in, not once but countless times over the years by an English lord…is that right?”

White-lipped, Fothergill nodded.

Charles watched him like a hawk, ready to use the knife. Fothergill hadn’t yet reached for his own knife, but his fingers were flexing, tensing.

Behind him, Dalziel glided soundlessly from the shadows of the opening.

Straightening the knife in his hands, Charles waited until Fothergill glanced up; he caught his eye. “What’s your real name?”

Fothergill frowned, then answered, “Jules Fothergill.” He hesitated, then asked, “Why do you want to know?”

Charles felt all animation drain from his face. “So we know what name to put on your gravestone.”

It was done quickly, neatly, with barely a sound. Fothergill heard nothing, suspected nothing, not until the dagger passed between his ribs; Dalziel was that quiet, that efficient. That effective. Realization flashed through Fothergill’s eyes as he stared at Charles, astonished that retribution had caught up with him, then all life leached away, his eyes glazed, and his body crumpled at Dalziel’s feet.

Jaw set, Charles rounded the long pool and joined Dalziel; they stood looking down at the body. “That was a faster, cleaner death than he deserved.”

After a moment, Dalziel murmured, “Think of it more as the type of death we deserve to deal in. No need for us to descend to his level.”

Charles drew breath, nodded. “There is that.”

Dalziel stepped back, absently lifting his dagger, taking out a cloth to clean it. “I’ll take care of this.” With his head, he indicated Fothergill’s body. “I’d appreciate it if you kept Lady Penelope and Amberly at bay.”

Charles grunted. He lingered a moment longer, looking down at the crumpled form, then he looked at Dalziel. “He isn’t the one you seek, is he?”

Dalziel looked up, met his eyes, his dark gaze cold, saber-sharp and incisive. After a moment, he shook his head. “No. But he was, in his fashion, efficient—he was dangerous, and he was young. I’m grateful we had the chance to remove him—who knows what the future holds?”

Charles murmured an agreement, then turned away, and walked out of the central court, back toward the house.

He was halfway across the lawn when Penny came out of the music room. She paused on the terrace, her gaze racing over him, then, somewhat to his surprise, she picked up her skirts, rushed down the steps, and flew across the lawn to him.

She flung herself at him; he caught her, staggered back a step before he got his balance. Arms around him, she hugged him ferociously. “Thank God you’re all right!”

For a frozen moment, he simply stood as the world about him tilted and swung, then he closed his arms more definitely around her, tightened them. Laying his cheek against her hair, he closed his eyes and breathed in, let the subtle fragrance of her slide through him. Let the feel of her in his arms claim him. With all his other missions, he’d never had anyone waiting for him, anyone eager to see him, to anchor him and welcome him back into the normal world—to reassure him that he still belonged.

They stood locked tight, then, releasing him, she pushed back, reached up and framed his face, looked deep into his eyes, then stretched up and kissed him. Hard. Lips to lips, then she parted hers and drew him in; for uncounted heartbeats, they drowned—then she pulled back, and simply looked at him, her gaze devouring his face.

Penny sighed, reassured, relieved and so much more. Stepping back, she looked toward the maze. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

Charles nodded. He took her hand and drew her on, back toward the house. “He’s been stopped.”

She glanced at him. “So no one else will die.”

He met her gaze, then nodded. He tightened his hold on her hand, she tightened her hold on his; looking ahead, they walked on.

Amberly was relieved; so were the staff. Dalziel disappeared, but was back in time for dinner; he was talking quietly to Amberly when Penny and Charles joined them in the drawing room.

Later, after a meal that, courtesy of Amberly and Penny, verged on the celebratory, Amberly invited them to view his secret collection. They’d earlier refused so if things had gone wrong, he would be protected by virtue of being the only one who knew how to open the priest hole.

It was similar to the one at Wallingham Hall, just a few feet larger. And filled with snuffboxes the like of which the three of them had never seen. Sitting in a chair while they admired the craftsmanship of the various styles represented, Amberly related how their “game” had started, how he and Penny’s father had worked out the mechanism of the scheme that had run for so long.

“But now he’s gone, and so is Granville.” As they left the priest hole, he nodded toward the contents. “I’ve been thinking, now it’s all over, that those should be put in a museum somewhere, perhaps with the pillboxes.”

He looked inquiringly at Penny.

She nodded. “I don’t think they should remain in the priest holes, either here or at Wallingham.”

Amberly smiled wryly. “I know Nicholas will agree with you—poor boy, this has all been such a worry to him.” He looked at Dalziel. “Do you think it might be possible to create a story to account for them that people would believe?”

Dalziel smiled. “I’m sure, if we put our minds to it, we’ll be able to come up with something. And”—he glanced at the snuffboxes—“I doubt any curator you offer the ‘Selborne collection’ to is going to ask too many questions.”

“Do you think so?”

Charles tugged Penny’s arm. They left Dalziel and Amberly discussing potential tales with which to allay any public concern.

“Without having to explain the whole unlikely past.” Charles shook his head. “He must have been a formidable adversary on the diplomatic front.”

Penny smiled and led the way down the corridor. They reached her room and went in. On arriving at the Grange, she’d puzzled the housekeeper by insisting she did not wish the maid assigned to her to wait on her at night; as Charles had yet to sleep in the bed in the room he’d been given, she assumed the housekeeper would by now have guessed why.

Undressing in the same room, being physically close, had come very easily to them both. Standing before the dressing table unpinning, then brushing out her long hair, she watched Charles in the mirror, watched him strip off his coat, then unknot and unwind his cravat. Unbuttoning his shirt, unlacing the cuffs, he drew it off over his head; clad only in trousers, he prowled absentmindedly to come up behind her—he looked up, and met her gaze. She felt the tug as he undid her laces.

She held his gaze as he did; her senses still alert, very much alive, she considered all she saw. He was taller than she by half a head—his hair was dark, black as the night, while in the faint candlelight hers held the silver of moonlight.

His shoulders and chest were broader than hers; she could see his body on either side of hers, a visual promise of his strength, of his ability to surround her with it.

Raising his hands, he pushed her loosened gown off her shoulders; she withdrew her arms and let it fall to the floor with a soft
swoosh
. The sound focused her mind, her eyes, on the contrasts revealed, on the steely muscles that flexed in his arms as he ran his palms down her arms—over the delicate skin, the subtle feminine curves.

She was slender, delicate, where he was broad, heavily muscled; she was pale to his dark, weak to his strong, yet she didn’t, never had, feared his strength; instead, she reveled in it.

Complementary, well matched. Equals, but not the same.

A pair, perfect foils each for the other.

Reaching out, she placed her brush on the table, quelled a shiver of anticipation as he shifted closer, as his hands slid around her and she felt his strength slowly, carefully engulf her. Easing back in his arms, she watched as he lowered his head, as he nuzzled her throat, then nudged her head aside so he could fasten his lips over the point where her pulse raced.

A smile curved her lips. She knew beyond question that she was the only woman who had ever interacted with him as she did, as she always had—close with no barriers, inside his mask, dealing with the real man rather than the persona he showed to the world. Seeing his vulnerabilities as well as his strengths, being allowed to know of them and ease them.

There was no other man she had ever wanted, ever needed to be with. Only him.

She could feel the tension still thrumming through him, not so much the aftermath of the day’s events as a sense the episode had yet to be laid to rest.

Her smile deepening, she turned into his arms.

Charles had no idea what she meant to do when she insisted on taking the reins. But he yielded, let her do as she wished with his body, with his heart, with his soul. He’d given her all three long ago; it was a relief to be able to consign them so simply into her keeping. Into her care.

Hours later, lying on his back, sated, exhausted, and at peace beside her in the rumpled bed, he acknowledged how different this was to the end of any previous mission. This time, thanks to her, he’d reached a completion that had never before been his; he’d traveled full circle from initiating protectiveness to final conclusion, and she’d welcomed him back, guided him back—absolved him. She’d acted as his anchor, his guardian and mentor in the personal sense; he’d never before had that connection, had someone not just acknowledging but personifying the link between his mission and those he sought to protect.

He glanced down at her, slumped, boneless, beside him. Accepted wisdom held that a lady’s life revolved about her lord’s; with them, he knew beyond doubt that his life would always and forever revolve about her. His place would be wherever she was, his bed would always be hers, not the other way around, no matter what society thought.

She stirred; after a moment, she lifted her head, glanced at his face, then shifted over him, leaning her forearms on his chest so she could study his eyes.

He studied hers, but could read little beyond a certain satisfaction, a certain decisiveness. “What?”

Her lips lifted. “Can we go directly back to Lostwithiel rather than going via London?”

He blinked. “Yes. Why?”

She held his gaze. “If we’re going to get married, then there’s a lot we need to organize, and if we announce our engagement in London, you know what will happen—we’ll be expected to make a social event of it, attend all the right balls and allow the major hostesses to dictate to us. We’ll be placing ourselves in your and my sisters’ and our mamas’ hands, and much as we love them, it’ll be so much easier if we keep the reins in our hands—”

He shut her up in the only way he could—he kissed her. Kept kissing her until she was floundering as much as he was. She was racing impulsively ahead again. Raising his hands, he cradled her face, aware to his bones of the simple honesty behind the kiss, of the unalloyed sweetness of what they now shared.

Drawing back, he looked at her, with his thumbs brushed wisps of her hair aside, met her bright eyes. Took a moment to wallow in the light that lit them, in the warmth he could feel even through the shadows.

His mind was still reeling. “I don’t understand. I haven’t yet given you what you want, or at least you don’t know I have—I haven’t yet told you I love you, or sworn undying love forever more.”

A wise man would have hidden his surprise, seized her acceptance, and kept his mouth shut, but…he frowned. “I thought, being you, that you’d at least demand a red rose and me on my knees.” He’d been anticipating doing something rather more flamboyant when the time came; strangely, he now felt cheated of his moment.

She blinked at him. “A red rose…on your knees?” She looked faintly stunned, as if he’d told her something new.

He frowned more definitely. “I haven’t yet shouted it from the steeple—that can be rectified—but you
know
I love you, that I always have.”

She frowned back. “You haven’t always loved me—you didn’t years ago.”

He stared at her. Felt his muscles harden, tried to keep them relaxed. “I’ve loved you for forever.”

At his flat tones, her frown grew more direful; she pushed up from his chest. “You
didn’t
. Not before.”

Jaw setting, he came up on his elbows. “I’ve loved you—only you—since I was sixteen! What the devil did you imagine that episode in the barn was about? How did you think it came about? Just because you decided?”

“That was lust!” Face-to-face, eye to eye, she dared him to deny it.

“Of course it was lust!” He heard his roar and fought to lower his voice. “Good God—I was twenty and you were sixteen. Of
course
it was lust, but it wasn’t
only
lust. I never would have accepted your invitation if I hadn’t been in love with you!”

He glared at her. How
could
she not have known, not have seen that? “Dammit, woman, you’re my mother’s goddaughter, my godmother’s stepdaughter! What the hell do you think—”

Penny flung herself at him, covered his lips with hers, and let all the emotion that had suddenly welled and was now sweeping her away pour through her, let it flow unrestrained through her into him. Let him see, taste—know.

His hands closed on her sides; the kiss deepened, ignited their fire, fanned it until passion rose full and deep and swirled around and through them.

He gripped and tried halfheartedly, as if he thought he should, to ease her back. She dragged her lips half an inch from his, dragged in enough breath to say, “Shut up—just love me.”

Twitching the sheet from between them, she straddled him. Set her lips to his, met him when he surged and claimed her mouth, sighed through the kiss when his hands closed around her hips and he eased her back and down, then thrust up, in, and filled her. Her nerves slowly unraveled as she took him into her body, sheathed him to the hilt; her senses exulted.