Dance of Seduction (38 page)

“I can’t live in this damned place!” he burst out.

She went still. Then she faced him, confusion spreading over her soft features. “What do you mean?”

“I can’t live in London.”

“But you already do.”

“Yes, because I have to. But I hate it, do you hear?” He strode up to her, fists clenched. “I hate all of it! I hate the poverty and the dirt and the crime. I hate the thick air. I hate…My God, I hate so much of it.”

“That’s only because you’re in Spitalfields now. But you won’t have to see all that if you work for Lord Ravenswood.”

“No one can live in London and insulate themselves entirely from the rest of it. You know that as well as I do.” He whirled around and strode to the opening of the arbor, staring through the tangled curtain of honeysuckle into the woods
beyond. “And it doesn’t matter where I live or work, it will always remind me of—”

“Geneva?”

He shook his head. “Not Geneva, but what I was when I lived there. What I became.” Idly he fingered a honeysuckle blossom. “When I’m at sea, I’m a different person, Clara. I’m in command. I’m the captain—respected, honorable. I’m all the things that my uncle and my father and even my brother want for me. But when I’m here—”

“You’re still that man!” Coming up behind him, she slid her arms about his waist. “Where you are has nothing to do with it. I’ve seen how you behave with Johnny and Samuel and me. You’re no less a good man here than you are aboard ship. I
know
what you are—here or anywhere.”

He twisted to face her, thrusting her away. “You don’t know, damn it! You don’t know anything!”

“I know that you stole to make sure your mother could eat. If I thought that made you a bad person, what kind of reformer of pickpockets would I be? No, I won’t believe ill of you, no matter what you say—”

“Did you know that I killed a man?” When her face clouded over, he added, “Not in the heat of battle, not in duty to my country. I killed a man out of sheer hatred. And the truth is—if I were given the chance to do it again, I would.”

There, he’d said it. And judging from her shocked expression, she thought exactly what he’d expected her to think of his revelation.

She stepped back, her face ashen. “W-Was it…someone you were stealing from?”

“No, not that. Even in my most desperate hour, I would never have killed for property.”

“Then why?”

“For revenge. Why else?”

She seemed calmer now. Gliding to the bench, she sat down and gazed at him with an expectant look. “Tell me what happened.”

Bile rose in his throat at the very thought. “It’s too ugly a story.”

“I don’t care. I want to know.”

With a curse, he shoved his hands into his pockets. He’d always known he would tell her some day. He couldn’t seem to resist this compulsion to force her to witness all his secrets. And for each secret that didn’t sway her, he wanted to reveal more. Because he needed to make her face what he really was, force her to acknowledge it. Then he’d know for sure if there could ever be something between them more than a “sometime marriage,” as she called it.

Yet he hesitated a moment longer, gathering his energy to tell a tale he’d kept hidden for so long.

“Morgan?” she whispered.

He sighed. “I lied when I told you my mother died of consumption.”

Clara said nothing, merely waiting.

“That’s what I told Sebastian. That’s what I told everyone. Except my uncle. Mother told him the truth.”

When he fell silent, Clara prodded, “And what
was
the truth?”

“First I have to tell you about my mother’s last lover, Jean-Paul. He was the worst of them, yet I think she loved him. He knew how to tell her exactly what she wanted to hear…all about the plans he had for them, the places they would go once he had money again. Only he never had any money, and when he did chance to get some, he spent it all on cheap wine.” It all sounded so sordid, so…Spitalfields.

He forced himself to go on. “One day he found out about my stealing. I don’t know how—perhaps he saw me. But he confronted me while Mother was out buying beef for our
dinner. He said he wanted a portion of everything I stole or he’d tell my mother what I was up to.”

“He sounds like a lovely person,” she said sarcastically. “So did you agree?”

“No. I knew he’d spend it on wine and we’d have nothing left. I told him if he laid a finger on anything of mine, I’d cut it off.” He cast her a faint smile. “At thirteen, I was feeling my oats. I thought I could do anything.”

“Boys at thirteen often do,” she said, concern shining in her eyes.

He turned away, unable to see her willingness to excuse all his faults. “Jean-Paul wasn’t so sanguine about it, as you might imagine. And he was drunk as usual, which only made everything worse. We got into a major row, and my mother came in during the middle of it. He told her about the stealing.” He dragged in a heavy breath, remembering. “Only he made it sound like I was keeping the money to myself so I could run away from her. I lost my temper. I launched myself at him, and we started to fight.”

The night came back to him vividly, despite the brilliant day outside the arbor. He remembered his mother shouting for them to stop. He remembered the blows raining down on him, and the extraordinary energy that kept him fighting a man nearly twice his size.

And then the flash of steel. “I was holding my own and he couldn’t get me off of him, so he drew out a knife and thrust it into my side. That pretty much…ended the fight. I lay on the floor bleeding, too weak to stand. I remember trying to plug the wound with my fingers.”

She gave a sharp intake of breath. “That’s how you got the scar in your side? From the knife?”

Her sympathetic voice jerked him out of the past, and he nodded. “Mother screamed at Jean-Paul that he’d killed me, and she started pummeling him.” His throat felt tight, raw.
“He really didn’t like
that
.” A shuddering breath escaped him. “So he beat her. Until she couldn’t stand. Until her eyes were swollen shut and—”

The words caught in his throat, and he felt rather than saw Clara hurry to his side. She tried to put her arms around him, but he shrugged her off. “The landlady heard the noise and came upstairs. She threw Jean-Paul out, got me to the hospital, got Mother to the hospital. They patched me up pretty well, but with Mother…”

He could still see his mother lying still and pale in that hospital bed. “She held on for several weeks, but I think he’d injured her…inside. Or perhaps her heart broke after taking so much abuse over the years. I don’t know.” He dragged in a harsh breath. “But that’s when she told me about the baron, had me send letters to him and my uncle. Fortunately, Uncle Lew came to Geneva at once, because she died two days after he arrived.”

“Oh, Morgan,” Clara said in a watery voice that threatened tears.

“That’s not all.” He made himself look at her, forced himself to continue. “It took several weeks for the letters to reach England and for my uncle to come. In that time, Jean-Paul found a new woman to push around. But I still saw him every day in the streets, in the market. He even had the audacity to ask about my mother. I wanted to tear his tongue out.”

“That’s understandable,” she said softly.

“The worst of it was,” he went on, ignoring the pity in her face, “I knew he’d never be punished by the local police. Who would care about the beating of an English whore and the knifing of her pickpocket by-blow? They’d say we deserved it. So I turned to the military authorities for my justice, and to get it from them I knew I’d have to make sure he was found guilty of something more serious than assaulting Mother and me.”

“Like what?”

He ran a shaky hand through his hair. “Spying. I set out to frame Jean-Paul. I forged letters in his handwriting, I paid all my little thieving friends to be witnesses, and then I told the authorities that Jean-Paul was a spy for the English.”

“What?” she said, clearly shocked.

“Geneva was in turmoil then. France had annexed it, but there were still rumblings left from the revolution, and nobody trusted anybody. I made sure I was very convincing.” A biting laugh escaped him. “And do you know what? It worked. A few letters and some lying witnesses, and Jean-Paul was found guilty of treason within days.”

“So you had your revenge,” she whispered.

His voice grew fierce. “No. I had my revenge when they took him to the guillotine. That was the punishment for treason. And I knew it when I set out to frame him.” He grabbed her by the arms. “I watched his execution myself. And do you know what I felt when they struck his head off, Clara? I felt glad—
glad
, I tell you.”

The truth of it sickened him even now. He dug his fingers into her arms. “So don’t say you know what kind of man I am.
That’s
what kind of man I am. The kind who’d take any devious means possible for his revenge, who would lie and cheat and frame someone for spying. The kind who wouldn’t feel one ounce of remorse when it was done.”

He started to thrust her away, but she caught his head between her hands. “You feel no remorse? Then why are you so afraid to live in London, to stay in a place so like the one you grew up in?”

“I’m not afraid of anything!” he protested. “I just…can’t…”

“You
are
afraid. You’re afraid that this is the sum of what you are. That an angry, wounded thirteen-year-old boy seeking a rightful vengeance for his mother’s death is all you’ll
ever be. That somehow London will drag you down into the hole again, and you’ll never be able to crawl out.”

“
Sacrebleu
, Clara, what are you doing to me?” he whispered. Why did she have to see so damned much? Why did she have to understand him so well, yet not understand?

“But you are not that boy, Morgan, no matter what you fear. You could never be him again. You’ve risen above it.”

“Have I? Is that why I can be a fence so convincingly that even you were fooled?”

“That was your duty, and I understand duty. We do things for duty that we might not choose to do. Don’t be ashamed of being good at what you do. I wish there were more Morgan Blakelys fighting for the soul of Spitalfields.”

“I’m not fighting for anybody’s soul, damn it! I’m fighting to escape this place—”

She shook her head. “That’s not true. You know perfectly well that Lord Ravenswood would have done his best to see that you had a ship. Even I can tell that he respects and admires you. No, you did this because it was the right thing.”

“Like I framed a man for spying because it was the right thing?” he growled.

“You behaved the only way you felt you could under the circumstances—”

“So you think lying and cheating to gain revenge is acceptable. Is that what you would tell your boys?”

“No, of course not. But then my boys have other recourses, and you didn’t.” She cupped his cheeks with all the tenderness of a lover. “If you’d watched your mother beaten and then
not
tried to stop the man from doing it again to someone else, I would think you unnatural.”

“I didn’t do it for that reason—”

“Didn’t you? You saw him with another woman. You saw he felt no remorse. You knew he was a slave to liquor and would do it again. So you stopped him. Perhaps it wasn’t the
right way to go about it, but it was the only way a foreign boy in Geneva knew how.”

Tears sprang to his eyes, and he squelched them ruthlessly. Oh, God, she made him want to hope. That wasn’t fair of her, damn it.

Thrusting her away, he went to sit on the bench, sure that if he stood near her a moment longer he’d turn into a blubbering idiot. “You keep trying to fit me into this…noble image you have of me, but it’s not what I really am inside.” He buried his face in his hands. “You don’t know—”

“What you think you are inside doesn’t matter, Morgan.” She hastened over to sit beside him. “In the end, it’s what a man does, how he acts, that shows his character. And I’ve never seen you act anything but nobly.”

He lifted his face to hers, astonished at how fiercely she defended him, even after knowing the darkest secrets of his soul. “How can you be so sure of my character when I’m not even sure of it myself?”

“I can’t help it,” she said, her voice trembling. She dropped her eyes to the bench, turmoil showing in her sweet features. “I love you. And loving someone means believing in them.”

She loved him? Despite knowing what he was? A fierce joy seized him before he could prevent it. He caught her by the chin and forced her to look at him, but her clear blue eyes held no hint of deception. “God help you if you don’t mean that,
ma belle ange
.”

“Of course I mean it, you big idiot.” She cast him a watery smile. “Why do you think the thought of watching you sail away without me torments me so?”

In that moment, he knew he could never leave her behind. “Then come with me,” he whispered. “Sail with me. Be the captain’s wife.”

“That’s not what you want—”

“I do.” He slid his hand along her jaw, caressing, stroking. “I want you with me, Clara. If these three days have shown me anything, it’s that I can’t bear to be without you.”

Her eyes looked troubled. “But what about my children? They need me—”

“
I
need you,” he countered. “I know it’s selfish, I know it’s unfair, but I need you as much as they do.” He dared not call it love, for if he let himself love her and she still refused him, he didn’t know if he could survive it. Instead he bent his head forward to kiss her, seeking some sign that she needed him as much as he did her.

Her mouth was soft and eager, but he could feel a distance in her that made him want to howl with frustration. He would not let it remain.

He broke free of her mouth to urge, “Come away with me, that’s all I ask. Marry me and sail with me. Your aunt could run the Home. Or somebody else…I don’t know who. Let somebody else save the world for a change.” Hauling her onto his lap, he tightened his arms about her. “Save me instead…”

Then he gave her no chance to refuse. He sealed his mouth to hers, determined to remind her of the bond between them, the bond he wanted to strengthen by marriage. He didn’t know how to convince her except with this—holding her, touching her, rousing the inevitable fire that leaped between them. If he could show her that she needed him, at least for this…