Confessions of a Little Black Gown (29 page)

“A condition? Let me guess. Has it to do with Lady Philippa?”

Gossett shook his head. “No. It has to do with Lady Gossett. My wife.”

It took only a moment for Dash to see what he was saying. Larken as well.
Christ sakes, no!

Lady Philippa had married Gossett to save Dashwell.

The sheer anguish darkening Dashwell’s expression tore at Larken’s heart. Gossett could have been kinder if he’d just put a bullet in the captain.

And as the finality of it all sunk in, Dash raged forward, catching the bars with his hands. “What the hell have you done? What did you do to her?”

The viscount stood his ground, and said with just as much intensity, “Nothing more than what you should have done when you had the chance.” He
paused. “I married her.
She’s well and good out of your reach now.
”

His tone and implication were clear.
Pippin had always been out of his reach.

Dash paced about the cell wildly. “She wouldn’t have done this. She wouldn’t do this. Not unless…” He swung at the bars again, his hand snaking out, and this time Viscount Gossett stepped back.

“If you think I forced her, you’re wrong. And I might add, it took very little convincing, for I have much to offer her, and what can you give her, Dashwell? A hanging for aiding you? Having her hunted as you have been? Is that what you offer the lady?”

“I should kill you.” Dash’s knuckles glowed a ghostly, deadly white as he clung to the cell bars.

“That would be one way of doing it,” Gossett said, even as he pulled a long chain from his pocket, obviously having thought of everything, including the key. “But it would not regain the lady’s favor.” He paused before he set the key in the lock. “Freedom Dashwell, or death?”

Dash nodded, and Gossett let him out.

Oh, Christ
, Larken thought.
This isn’t going to turn out well
. He would wager his London town house that Gossett had no idea how dangerous the man he’d just freed could be. But Larken did, having seen the captain fight his way out of more than just tavern brawls.

The American stepped out of his prison, paused as he weighed the viscount with his narrowed gaze and then rolled up his fist and punched him with a facer that would have toppled a man twice the viscount’s size. As it was, the force sent Gossett flying
backward, sprawling on his ass and rolling across the stable ground in the straw and dirt.

But to his credit, he got up, shook himself off and stared at Dash with all the deadly calm of a man who may be bleeding and blackened but still victorious. “I suppose I deserve that.”

“I should kill you, you bloody bastard,” Dash said.

Gossett ignored him, reaching over and picking up the reins to his horse, tossing them to Dash. “Take good care of him.” Then he pulled a packet from his jacket and handed it over. “There is a map inside there, marked with my properties between here and Hastings, as well as a note to my staff with my seal upon it that will see you well fed and aided until you reach the coast. I assume the gold inside will be enough for you to find someone willing to overlook your current situation and aid you in securing safe passage from England.”

Dash looked inside and nodded. Then he glanced at the spot over Gossett’s shoulder where Larken was concealed.

So he
had
seen him come in.

“I only hope I can get there without any interference.”

Larken knew what he meant. That he wouldn’t step forward and stop his escape. He tipped his head out of the shadows and saluted him, then turned his back as Dash climbed up on the strong horse.

“Take good care of this animal. He’s the best in the land,” Gossett said. “And if you would see that he is returned, I would be indebted.”

Larken nearly laughed. Gossett! Always the hon
orable man, thinking everyone else was the same.

But to his credit, Dash nodded. For he understood that a good horse to a gentleman was like a fleet ship to a sea captain. Then he leaned down and said something to Gossett that Larken couldn’t hear, before spurring the horse and riding from the stables as if the devil were on his heels.

Still, he couldn’t fathom how Lady Philippa could have done such a thing. With her decision, she’d gained Dash his freedom and his life, but at such a terrible cost to them both.

Larken closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the post, listening as Gossett walked away from the stables.

What if it had been Tally? Married to another? What if he let his obsession with honor and duty, his fears over his dark past, like Dashwell’s reckless nature, drive them apart forever?

Once he knew that Gossett was far from the stables, Larken slipped into the gardens, for he knew he couldn’t make the same mistake as his friend and lose his heart.

Larken walked down the forest path to the folly carrying a well-laden basket. The duchess had spent the last half hour on his heels, helping him pack it and prodding him over his intentions toward her sister—which, thankfully, he’d been spared from sharing by the timely arrival of Hollindrake, who’d all but dragged his wife away and left Larken in peace to find his own way forward.

As he tromped along, the smell of leaves and
wildflowers blended with the damp air beneath the trees. Dappled sunlight found its way through the thick canopy above.

If only his heart wasn’t hammering wildly in his chest. Gads, one would think he’d never faced adversity before.

Of course, adversity hadn’t a fair face and a talent for tangling up his heart, like Tally did.

As he came to the folly, he spied her sitting on one of the far-off stones, sketching. With her brows furrowed and her mouth set, it appeared that she was doing more erasing than actual drawing, along with a good bit of cursing.

“Problems?” he asked.

She spun around, nearly dropping her sketchbook and charcoal. “Oh, dear. ’Tis you!”

He didn’t know if that was an accusation or her way of saying she was happy to see him.

Since she hadn’t set Brutus after him—the little dog was curled up at the base of the stone, watching first him and then his mistress before going back to his sleepy watch—he had to assume she wasn’t furious at his invasion of her privacy.

Meanwhile, Tally had hastily gathered her sketchbook and pencils together and set them aside. She chewed at her lower lip, before running a distracted hand over her hair, as if trying to set it to rights.

He would have told her not to bother, for her bonnet had long since been discarded, and the breeze had tousled her fair hair. The soft tendrils fell past her shoulders and she looked as if he’d just awakened her from a long nap.

“I must look a fright,” she said, glancing down at
her gown. “You always seem to find me when I am hardly presentable.”

“I beg to differ,” he said, coming closer. The wind stilled, and the rustle of the leaves died away, and it was as if he’d come into a fairy glen and one wrong move, one errant word could scatter her from his reach forever. The image of a stricken Dash still burning inside him, he didn’t want to do anything to lose her. “I find you quite lovely.”

She glanced away, a faint blush rising on her cheeks.

Coming closer still, he set the basket down on the stone opposite her.

“Whatever is that?” she asked.

“I believe it is a picnic.”

She edged off the stone and looked at the basket. “You don’t know?”

“I’ve never been on one,” he told her. He supposed hardtack and cold tea atop a Portuguese plain did not count.

“Never?”

He faced her. “Never. Perhaps you could—”

But she was already off the stone and edging past him cautiously, so that only the briefest hint of her hem touched him. “Never been on a picnic,” she was muttering.

Larken grinned at her dismay…and her willingness to help.

It was a start. But to what?

Something…

In the meantime, Tally pulled out the contents, setting them out in a delicious array on a pair of plates, handing him the bottle of wine to uncork,
and sneaking, when she thought he wasn’t looking, a perfectly plump and ripe strawberry.

He reached over her shoulder and fetched out a bone for Brutus.

“You’ll spoil him,” Tally chided.

“Wasn’t my idea,” he told her. “The cook added it in when your sister wasn’t looking. She said it was, ahem”—he cleared his throat and did his best imitation—“to keep that little beastie occupied.”

Tally laughed. “And so it is,” she said, pointing at Brutus, who dragged his prize up the path and well out of sight so as not to have to share. Then she stilled. “Did you say, ‘my sister?’”

He nodded. “She rather cornered me.”

“I am so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he told her. “She was full of advice.”

Tally groaned. “Oh goodness. Whyever do I have to have such a sister? Why couldn’t I have had an ordinary sort of twin who minded her own business?”

Now he laughed. “Yes, but then we wouldn’t have this,” he said, holding up the bottle of wine. “And a very good vintage I must say.” And to prove his point, he uncorked it and filled the glasses. They settled in atop a large block of marble stone and Tally passed a plate to him.

Was it his imagination, or were her hands trembling?

He glanced up at her and saw her brow as furrowed as it had been when she’d been drawing. “Thank you,” he told her, and he began to eat.

They did so in silence, each taking furtive glances at the other, until finally she set down her plate and faced him. “Are you leaving?”

Her question startled him. And after he took a gulp of wine, he answered her. “Yes.”

Her lower lip trembled. “And have you come here to say good-bye?”

Good-bye? Larken’s heart stopped. Is that what she wanted? For him to leave? And before he could stop himself he blurted out, “Lord, I hope not.”

And after that confession, he reached over to take her hand in his and do the most dangerous thing he’d ever done.

Propose.

Tally’s gaze bolted up to meet his, even as his hand covered hers.
I hope not?
Could it be possible?

She tamped down the rush of happiness that threatened to overtake her heart. She’d spent the entire day unable to even dare hope that he could forgive her—why, she’d nearly gotten him killed by not going directly to Hollindrake. She’d convinced herself that he must despise her foolish, headstrong ways.

But his eyes burned with a fiery, passionate light that gave her hope. Gave her much more than that.

It ignited her desire for him in a heated rush.

“My lord—” she whispered.

“Geoff,” he corrected.

“Pardon?” she asked, glancing up from his hand, from where his fingers were entwined with hers, binding them together. It was such a simple gesture, but it held so much meaning. He hadn’t let go of her. Not yet. And he wasn’t here to say goodbye.

“Please, call me Geoff.”

Tally blushed, the heat rising up from her slippers
at the very intimacy of such a thing. “Geoff,” she said softly, letting his name fall from her lips like a sweet confection. “Can you ever forgive me?”

“For what?” he asked, looking utterly confused.

“For everything,” she rushed to say, her other hand covering his. “For bringing you here, entangling you in all this. If I hadn’t helped Pippin break Dash out of jail, then you would never have been sent to…to…”

Kill Dash.

The unspoken words stilled the air around them.

He pulled her closer, into his arms, and kissed the top of her head. “Yes, yes, we both know what I was supposed to do. And if you hadn’t done what you shouldn’t, then we might never have met,” he told her. “And that would have been most unforgivable.”

“I nearly got you killed,” she said, sick to her heart over the memory of seeing him lying on the stable ground, bound and tied, blood on his head.

“Nearly, but I am still here,” he said. “And more so because of you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, of course you. You’ve done more for me than you could ever know. I was so utterly lost before I met you. How much so I didn’t realize until you tripped into my life.”

“Quite literally,” she teased, her heart brimming over. “Thank goodness you were there to catch me.”

“And I would like to be there for you, to catch you that is,” he said tentatively, before looking into her eyes and saying the one word she never thought he’d say. “Always.”

Tally knew this was a proposal in his awkward sort of way. No long lofty speech, no direct question, just his own way of saying he wanted her. Always.

And she knew she should say yes, but she answered him in her own way.

With a kiss.

Larken watched her eyes go from tentative to a mischievous sparkle as he posed his question. He held his breath as he awaited her answer, and she gave it, quickly and as only Tally would.