An Unexpected Gentleman (32 page)

“You don’t like to speak of it,” she guessed.

“Remembering is not always best.” He’d come to terms with those dark months and banished the fear and nightmares that had plagued him for years after his escape. Damn if he would invite them back so her curiosity might be assuaged.

He waited for an argument, but she surprised him by nodding as if she understood. “Will you tell me of Boston, then? Of you and Gregory and Michael?”

Bloody hell, she was like a dog with a bone. “You want to know what sort of business we ran,” he guessed.

She tilted her head at him. “Is there a reason I shouldn’t know?”

He could name any number of reasons, but none that would put her off for the next thirty to forty years of marriage. He rolled the tension out of his shoulders and decided he didn’t care what she knew. There was nothing he’d done in Boston that he wouldn’t do again. He’d never killed anyone, never stolen food from the mouths of babes. He wasn’t ashamed of his past.

If Adelaide didn’t care for the answers to her questions . . . Well, there wasn’t much she could do about it now, was there? She’d signed the contract, said her vows, and taken her fifteen thousand pounds. It was too late for second thoughts.

 

A
delaide watched with uneasy fascination as the man she’d witnessed kissing a little boy’s ouch transformed into the remote, apathetic man she’d met in the widow’s cottage. A coldness settled over his face as he moved to lean a hip against a writing desk and fold his arms over his chest.

“Forgeries,” he said suddenly and gave a careless lift of his shoulder. “We made forgeries.”

Her eyes widened. She’d expected something a mite untoward, not wholly criminal. “You said you weren’t wanted for any crime in any country.”

“I’m not. We were never suspected of wrongdoing, let alone charged.”

“Oh.” She blew out a short breath, with the ridiculous hope it might ease the tight knot in her belly. “Well, what sort of forgeries did you make?”

“Deeds. Wills. Even a marriage certificate once.” Another shrug. “Whatever the customer was willing to pay for.”

“Did . . .” She swallowed past a ball of fear in her throat. “Did you forge money?”

His mouth hooked up in a patronizing smile. “That’s counterfeiting, love. Different skill, entirely.”

She gave a small, breathless laugh. “Needleworking and horsemanship are skills, Connor. Forgery is a crime.”

In some cases, like counterfeiting, it was a hanging offense. The thought of Connor being dragged back to prison and then onto the gallows made her mouth go dry and her stomach roll. Hoping to relieve the discomfort, she straightened from the poster and walked to the nearest window.

“You’re pale,” Connor said, sounding more angry than sympathetic.

“Well, what did you expect?” She pushed the window open and let the fresh air cool her skin. “This is disturbing news.”

“It’s too late for you to back out of this marriage.” His voice took on a hard edge. “I won’t allow it. Do you understand ?”

She turned to face him, stunned not by his sudden anger but by the whisper of fear she heard beneath. At first glance, he looked to have not moved an inch. But upon closer inspection, she saw that he’d lowered his head, just a little, and his fingers were digging into the fabric at his sleeves.

“I have no intention of backing out of this marriage,” she said carefully, certain her words were important, even if she wasn’t certain why. He had to know she wouldn’t leave. For pity’s sake, she’d married him after he’d broken into Mrs. Cress’s home—which occurred very shortly after he’d been cleared of charges of highway robbery—for the express purpose of stealing another man’s intended through trickery and deceit. What was a bit of forgery tossed into that unholy mess?

“But you’d like to,” Connor guessed with a sneer.

“What I would like is for you to cease making assumptions long enough for me to get a thought in edgewise,” she snapped, losing patience.

His lips curved up, but there was no humor in the smile. “What is it you want to say?”

“To know, actually. I want to know if that is how you acquired your entire fortune.” Is that where her fifteen thousand pounds had come from? Is that how he paid her brother’s debts and bought manors like Ashbury Hall? “Are you still making forgeries?”

“You can rest easy, wren. We made a small profit as criminals, but it was shipping that built our fortune. I’ve not sold a forgery in more than a decade.”

Oh, thank heavens. “Why did you stop?”

“We were careful, but there is always risk. Once we had the funds to invest in other ventures, it made sense to be rid of the risk. Simple as that.”

She found herself picking at the folds of the drapes and forced herself to stop. “You are very cavalier about it.”

“Why shouldn’t I be? I don’t regret my actions.” He studied her a moment, then straightened and moved toward her. “And I’m not inclined to act the remorseful sinner for your benefit. I’d not be a legitimate man of business now if not for the profits I turned as a criminal. I did what was needed to secure my fortune.”

She wasn’t sure if she agreed with that assessment, but he didn’t give her an opportunity to comment one way or another. He stopped just inches from her, his tall frame towering over her.

“It’s your fortune as well, you’ll recall,” he reminded her. He lifted his hand and trailed a finger along the green velvet trim at the neck of her gown. The dress was new, expensive, and purchased with Connor’s money. “Willing to give it up now that you know the unsavory truth of its origins?” He let the back of his hand brush across the sensitive skin at her collarbone and gave her a cold, mocking smile. “What say you, Mrs. Brice? Shall we hand it all to charity in the name of making amends? Or do you suppose you could scrounge up the fortitude to stomach my ill-gotten gains awhile longer?”

Adelaide studied him with curiosity. With every second that had passed, every word that was spoken, he’d grown more callous, more contemptuous. He wanted her anger, she realized. He wanted her to proclaim him a hopeless rotter and toss her hands up in defeat. And she might have obliged him, if she’d not heard the fear in his voice only moments before.

Holding his gaze, she reached up and placed her hand over his, trapping it in place. “May I ask why you are going to such pains to be offensive?”

“Merely reminding you who it is you married.”

“I know who I married. I watched him wipe the tears from a little boy’s cheeks not ten minutes ago.”

A wariness settled over his features. “Is that who you think I am?”

“It is part of you.”

He slipped his hand out from under hers. “The part you like.”

“I like it better than this.”

He caught and held her chin; his eyes burned into hers. “I am not ashamed of
any
part of who I am, nor anything I’ve done.”

“I can see that.” There wasn’t a hint of remorse in him, not one iota of regret, but there was still the fear.

It dawned on her then that it wasn’t his own judgment that he feared. It was hers. She remembered something he’d said to her the first night they’d met, when she’d admitted that she was willing to marry a man for his fortune.

“Perhaps the shame is that you were given no other choice,” she said quietly and waited while the anger in his eyes faded and the grip of his fingers relaxed. And then, because she wasn’t quite generous enough to absolve the man of
all
his sins, she added, “In Boston.”

Connor blinked and released her. “In . . . I beg your pardon?”

“You
should
be ashamed for what you did at the house party.”

Astonishment, and the first light of humor, crossed his features. “So, my misdeeds were perfectly acceptable, so long as they didn’t touch you and yours, is that it?”

She pretended to consider. “Yes, I believe so.”

He ran the back of his hand over his jaw, eyeing her with frank amusement. “Well, well, Mrs. Brice. How self-centered of you. I’d not have guessed you capable of it.”

“We all have parts,” she said softly.

Slowly, his humor faded. His gaze drifted from hers and landed on a distant spot on the floor. After a long moment, he whispered, “I suppose we do.”

She’d rather see him smiling, but this new pensiveness was an improvement over his earlier mood. For now, it would have to be enough.

Believing he might like to be left alone with his thoughts, she ran a hand down his arm before stepping away.

“Shall I see you at dinner, then?”

He gave a small nod without looking at her, and she turned for the door. She had one foot in the hall when his voice fell on her back.

“My father caught a poacher on the grounds once.”

Slowly, she turned around again and found him standing, still as a statue, staring at the same spot on the carpet.

“I was twelve, nearly thirteen,” he continued. “He handed the man over to the magistrate, who sentenced him to two years on a prison hulk, at my father’s request.”

She stepped back into the room, drawing the door closed behind her. “That seems severe.”

“My father could have had him shot. He fancied himself a compassionate man.” He moved, finally, but only to turn his eyes toward the window. “I remember . . . He sat me down in the library and explained to me that there was room in the world for mercy, but none for leniency. He told me that a demonstrable lack of morality was indicative of a weak mind. Thieves like the poacher were to be pitied for their inferior make, but not coddled lest they fail to understand the purpose of the punishment and revert to their shameful ways.”

“He was wrong,” she said quietly.

“He was, and a hypocrite to boot, as his own life was hardly free of iniquity.” He was quiet a long moment before, at last, he turned and looked at her. “I loved my father.”

And he would have remembered every word of the lesson, Adelaide thought as her heart twisted. Even after he’d known those words to be false, they would have retained the power to turn every bite of stolen bread into sour paste and every successful illegal endeavor into a bitter accomplishment.

She ached for him, unable to imagine what that must have been like, having to choose between the fear of hunger and the fear of shaming a lost, beloved father. She wished she had the words to soothe away those memories, wished she could assure him with some confidence that his father would have been proud of the man he’d become. Failing those, she wished she could go back and give the baron a piece of her mind.

Because none of those were possible, she did the only thing she could think of. She crossed the room, laid her hand on his chest, and stretched up to press a soft kiss to his lips.

“I’m not ashamed of you,” she whispered. And then, because the want to see him happy again was almost painful, she patted his cheek with exaggerated condescension. “But you are exceedingly inferior of mind if you honestly believed I would give up this gown.”

Connor’s smile was slow and accompanied by a wolfish gleam in his eyes. His hand slid around her waist, pulling her close. Her heart skipped a beat. “What are you doing?”

“Proving you wrong.” Still grinning, he bent and gently nipped her earlobe. “You’re giving up the gown.”

“What? No.” She laughed with both excitement and nerves as she pushed at his chest. “We’re not in our bedchamber. We can’t—”

“Your sister is in the garden. Your brother is in town, and George is in the nursery.”

Her eyes darted at the door even as she shivered with pleasure from the feel of his mouth moving over the sensitive skin of her neck. “But . . . the staff—”

“They won’t intrude.” He paused to linger at the juncture of her neck and her collarbone, something that never failed to weaken her knees. “Not if they want to keep their positions.”

“Oh . . . Oh, but—”

He silenced her next protest with a two-pronged approach. First, he stepped away to lock the door (a task he accomplished with commendable speed), and then he returned to take possession of her mouth with a long, lush kiss. She gave up the fight without further ado.

In truth, it had been only a halfhearted argument. She didn’t want to stop. Not really. If she could, she would draw out the delicious sensation of building passion forever.

Possibly not forever, she amended as his mouth settled over hers for an even deeper taste and pleasure built to a dizzying level. Restless, she moved against him, her fingers seeking the buttons of his waistcoat. There was too much between them, too many layers of clothes, and she sighed with satisfaction as Connor stripped them away with quick and clever hands. She forgot her fear of discovery and heard herself moan when his tongue found the heat of her breasts.

She forgot everything when she was with Connor like this, everything but the pleasure of the moment and the building anticipation of what was to come. There were no secrets or bargains when they made love, no revenge and no fifteen thousand pounds. There were only expectations she knew would be fulfilled, and promises she knew would be kept.

She didn’t feel like a means to an end when he laid her down on the bed. She felt like a cherished lover, a beloved wife. There were no thoughts of marionettes as she drew her hands boldly over the long line of his back and watched the fire leap in his eyes. She was powerful here, an equal to him in every way. It hadn’t taken her long to discover that with a careful brush of her fingertips, she could turn Connor into a man of wild demand. Or she could sap the strength from his limbs and draw a helpless moan from his lips. The choice was hers.

She chose demanding, reaching between them to caress his manhood with a brashness she’d not have imagined herself capable of only a week ago. The harsh groan that tore from his throat fed her own desire, and as his mouth and hands moved over her skin in rough insistence, she became just as helpless as Connor, just as lost to the demands of her body . . . and his.