Emma Jensen - Entwined

Entwined by Emma Jensen

After returning from war badly wounded at the hands of a would-be assassin, Nathan Oriel spends his days in bitterness and isolation. Until Isobel MacLeod - caught in his steely embrace one fateful night - shatters his world with her Scottish temper, her pride, and her courage.

Isobel, by her own admission a woman of too much brain and too little beauty, is a spinster devoted to keeping her wayward family out of trouble.

To Nathan, however, she is beauty, hope, and salvation in one tempestuous package, and he is not above blackmail to coerce her into his world.

Shaken by Nathan's raw passion and fierce determination, Isobel's own defenses and stubborn pride begin to crumble. But can she trust this enigmatic man enough to give him what he wants most dearly of all...her love?

"It isn't enough, my wanting you. I cannot bear the thought of your being unwilling."

"Nathan." Her free hand drifted, quick and trembling, over his cheek. "I want to be a wife to you, in every way possible. I want you to be a husband to me."

Husband to her. God, he thought, he wanted to be nothing more. And at times it seemed to him that he'd been made for that very purpose.

Her mouth was warm and still. Gently, he tilted her face to meet his fully. His hands itched to drop lower, to move fast and hard over the pliant curves now just brushing his chest and thighs.

She sighed into his mouth. It was a soft, wondering sound, and it thrilled him. There was so much, too much he wanted to give her. And right away.

He could only hope he would not kill them both in the process....

Copyright © 1997 by Emma Jensen

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 97-93814

ISBN 0-345-41659-0

Manufactured in the United States of America First Edition: November 1997

For my grandmother, Maxine Brown, who first explained to me the magic of the rose

PROLOGUE

Lisbon, 1810

The night air smelled of roses. Nathan Paget, Marquess of Oriel, stood just outside the wharfside tavern and inhaled deeply. "Hail the caprices of war," he commented dryly. "Our soldiers can't get food, but the ladies of Lisbon will have their roses."

"Whatever happened to your romantic soul, man?" his companion chided. "Think of the beds that will be strewn with petals later."

Nathan grunted. "My romantic soul is back in London, with the ghost of the last decent meal I ate."

"Yes, well, you'll be reunited soon enough with your fiancée, so you can cease whining," Gabriel Loudon, Lord Rievaulx said cheerfully, as he propped his long form against the tavern wall and regarded his friend. "By this time tomorrow, you'll be well on your way home."

"So I will. You know if it were up to me, I would stay to see this damned war through, and we would go home together."

"I know, but if our intrepid leader had had his way, you would have been on a ship weeks ago."

"Gerard should understand better than anyone why I needed to stay."

Nathan thought of their superior officer, no doubt wearing tracks in his carpet while waiting for news from the Peninsular campaign. "I am a rat catcher," he grumbled, "not a messenger."

Rievaulx chuckled. "You caught your rat, Nathan. Go home, gloat to Gerard about having ferreted out one more of Napoleon's spies. Reacquaint yourself with your fiancée's lovely blue eyes. If all goes as planned, I will be back in time for the wedding. Ah, I suppose I'll have to bring a gift.

What do you think Cecily would say to some Portuguese crockery?"

"Gabriel..."

"No, I suppose you're right. Too heavy. Some Madeira, then?"

Nathan sighed. "Gabriel, you know how much it would mean to me if you were there, but I would understand—"

"Now don't you start with that again! Cecily and I would never have suited each other in the end. She had her sights set on you, and I daresay she knew from the onset that you were the better bet all around. You, my friend, are the one with the heart inclined to love."

Nathan raised an eyebrow. "And you?"

"I have a heart inclined to quick leaps and quicker retreats, rather like the little Corsican's army these days."

True, Nathan mused. Gabriel did have the reputation with women of striking hot and fast, then trotting off before the sheets were cool. For his friends, however, his affection and generosity were boundless. "You really don't try to make me feel guilty, do you?" he muttered wryly.

"On the contrary. I intend for you to feel vastly sorry for me, abandoned in this dismal place without so much as a cross-eyed spinster longing for my return." Gabriel's easy grin flashed in the faint light. "Oh, Nathan, stop lashing yourself for imagined sins. Cecily made her decision; Gerard made his. You are naught but a sorry pawn in their clever strategies."

"Well, thank you very much for that kind observation. Would you like to kick me now?"

"I think not," Gabriel replied, chuckling. "The last time I tried, we were twelve, and despite the fact that you had yet to grow into the great, hulking beast you are, you had my face in the mud in seconds."

"So I did." Nathan was smiling, too, as he recalled the countless childhood scuffles in which only the best of friends could have indulged.

"You know, it really isn't too late for me to ignore Gerard's summons.

There's no reason Brooke shouldn't go, or St. Wulfstan."

"Brooke, I believe, is busy chasing Napoleon's rats in Salamanca, and, as usual, no one seems to know where Wulf is."

"Dennison, then."

Gabriel snorted. "Dennison is a toad. Besides, one of the Ten bucking protocol is enough to send poor Gerard into an apoplectic fit."

Poor Gerard had never, to Nathan's knowledge, suffered a fit of anything. He had earned his position as the head of one of England's most elite intelligence corps by being as cool as ice in a crisis and damned smart at all times. He was soft-hearted, however, when it came to his "Ten" and would no doubt forgive them this lapse in heeding his orders.

Nathan was late in obeying the summons to return because he'd had one more French rat to catch. Now that the job was completed he had no other excuse to delay returning.

As for Gabriel, he was nowhere near where he was supposed to be. He should have been in Ponte de Mucella, some two hundred miles away, with Wellington. Instead, he was risking, at the very least, a stinging dressing down by the general in order to wave good-bye to Nathan from the Lisbon dock. The damned hardheaded fool should have left him behind days ago, Nathan thought, and not spared a backward glance. But Gabriel had remained in Lisbon because no matter how hard Nathan had tried, he had not been able to fool his oldest friend into believing he wanted him to go.

There was no telling when Gabriel would be called home. Nathan could only hope it wouldn't be too long. They had torn up the playing fields of Eton together, cut a youthful swathe through London together, and had walked through Matthew Gerard's door side by side. Nathan knew his wedding to the lovely, blue-eyed Cecily would not be the same if Gabriel was not there to stand up for him.

"We'll find you a cross-eyed spinster," he offered solemnly, "just to be sure you don't lose your heart to some sloe-eyed senorita and decide to stay."

"You're confusing us again, old boy," Gabriel scolded. "I'm the one who believes in strategic strike and retreat. You accept the legshackles."

"Charming analogy to toss at a man who is eagerly anticipating his wedding."

"Oh, I daresay you'll be happy enough clanking along. It's all part of that romantic nature, you know. Now I believe I just spied a rather luscious barmaid through the window. We have plenty of time before we have to get you to the docks."

Nathan gazed down toward where the ship waited and caught another whiff of flowers. "Roses," he muttered.

"Better than the gun smoke I will no doubt be inhaling in Wellington's compound," Rievaulx said cheerfully. He peered into the tavern again.

"Now stop sniffing and move. I am beginning to envision a glorious future for myself."

Nathan, for his part, envisioned himself being quite drunkenly seasick when his ship set sail in the morning.

CHAPTER 1

Gie him strong drink until he wink,

That's sinking in despair;

An' liquor guid to fire his bluid,

That's prest wi' grief an' care:

There let him bowse, and deep carouse,

Wi' bumpers flowing o'er,

Till he forgets his loves or debts,

An' minds his griefs no more.

—Robert Burns

Hertfordshire, 1811

Armed with nothing more than a glare, Isobel MacLeod shoved open the inn's massive door and prepared to battle dragons. She was chilled to the bone, exhausted, and still rattling from an hour's ride on the swaybacked, mean-tempered beast that masqueraded as a horse. It was proving to be an utterly miserable night.

The innkeeper's wife was bustling down the hallway, a tray of pasties balanced in one hand, a hefty, knobbed walking stick in the other. On seeing Isobel, her broad, homely face creased into a smile.

"Told 'em you'd be along, dear," she said, giving a raspy laugh, "but they just set my heart a-thumping with those smiles and settled right in."

Isobel untied her cloak but did not remove it; she did not plan on staying long. "I don't suppose it would do much good to ask you to turn them away," she said wryly, and earned another laugh.

"Not a bit, I'm afraid. Those boys could sweet-talk Saint Peter himself into opening the Pearly Gates."

Aye, the dragons were of the incomparably charming variety, Isobel thought, but she could not take that into account when facing them. She eyed the older woman's cane. "Are you thinking to hasten them on their way with that stick, then?"

"Oh, just being prepared, dear. The squire's sons have dug in for the night, it seems, and there's no telling what might erupt with all that hot young blood about. Now, will you have a cup of tea? The wind's rattled every window in the place tonight."

"I haven't the time for tea, Mrs. Harris, but thank you." Isobel was already stalking ahead of the woman toward the taproom. Geordie and Rob had no call to be spending money they did not have on ale, even less so to do it when the Pattons were around. As young and thickheaded as her brothers, Squire Patton's sons never missed a chance to let fly a few choice comments about Scots penny-pinching.

Despite the fact that they were the least frugal creatures imaginable, Isobel knew that her brothers could not possibly let such a heinous slight pass. They were the most proud of their Scottish blood when it was slandered, and they were required to defend it.

Vowing that their soft-hearted sister Maggie would not be bandaging any split knuckles that night, Isobel quickened her stride.

"Oh, not to worry, dear," Mrs. Harris called after her. "Your brothers have bought three rounds since they arrived."

Isobel skidded to a halt. "With what? Sweet words?"

"A sovereign young Rob had. Shiny as my husband's pate, too."

It was all Isobel needed to hear. Resisting the urge to commandeer the walking stick and set it smartly over two auburn heads, she stormed into the pub. However her brothers had come into a sovereign, they had no right to be squandering it on liquor. Not with meals to be put on the table and their father's wretched hunter eating sack after sack of fine oats that would be far better served as breakfast porridge.

She heard Rob's booming laugh well before spying a tuft of artfully contrived curls just visible above the edge of a far table. Geordie was nowhere to be seen, but Rob was, for some reason, sitting on the floor. He glanced up as she approached, his handsome face made all the more so by the broad grin and ale-bright eyes. He made a token effort to get to his feet but only got halfway up before sliding cheerfully back onto his rump.

"Why, 'tis my favorite sister! And looking fine as a May morn. Have you come to join us, Izzy? A glass of something would do you good. Here, Harris! A pint for my sister—" He yelped as she smacked his waving hand.

"Why'd you do that?"

"For shame, Robbie MacLeod. 'Tis your sister I am, not your crony.

Offering to buy me ale!"

Eyes narrowed, she scanned the room and found her other brother.

Geordie, looking nearly identical to Robbie with mussed hair and rumpled, padded coat, was gazing dreamily into the fire, his chin propped on the hearth. One of the Patton boys was sprawled facedown over another table, his jaw resting on a bent playing card.

"All right, lad. How much did you lose?" Isobel prodded the closer brother with the toe of her boot. "How much, Rob?"

The aroma of liquor was so strong, she found herself holding her breath.