How I Met My Countess (21 page)

“She’ll know of Darby’s love now,” Clifton told her. “We’ll make sure of that.”

We
. It was a word with too many implications for Lucy to imagine.
There is no “we,”
she wanted to tell him, but somehow so many things had changed in the last few hours.

It was as if they had rediscovered the ties that had brought them together. Reminded them how alike they were. How much they held in common.

Lucy still couldn’t believe he’d thought of her all these years, sent her flowers to make sure she’d known. Where had all those tokens gone?

She sighed. Her father, most likely. Doing everything in his power to put an end to what he’d seen as a disastrous alliance.

What would he say now?
she wondered. Oh, she could just imagine.

You haven’t told him all, Goosie. What of that little secret you possess, the one slumbering away in a narrow bed back at the house on Brook Street?

Would Clifton be furious to discover Mickey? Shun the boy because he was baseborn? Or would he welcome the child into his heart, into his home? Certainly Malcolm had always been welcome, but would Clifton’s wife be as open-minded as the previous countess?

Lucy didn’t know, couldn’t know for certain. But one thing was true: she’d guard the boy with her life, as she had since the day he’d been born.

And as they closed the last account book, Clifton shook his head at the collection of villainous evidence. “I must say Strout is, if anything, meticulous.”

“Why ever do you think he kept these records?” Lucy asked as she sorted the last of the wills and handed them over to Clifton.

“It ain’t easy to remember a lie,” Sammy said, sounding more sage than one could think. “I keep a record of the houses I’ve cracked so I don’t waste me time robbing a place that ain’t got the silver no more.”

Lucy conceded the point with a nod to Clifton.

There it was. Strout, ever the thief, had kept a record so as not to dip into the same well and run the risk of it noticeably drying up. Or his being caught.

“But if he kept everything,” Clifton said, “where the devil is Malcolm’s will?”

Lucy held herself still and lied. “Perhaps it is as Strout claimed, lost.” She glanced over at Thomas-William, who thankfully had his gaze fixed on the ceiling, for she had to imagine he was the only one who’d noticed her slipping it up her sleeve. “You’ll have time to look closer when you come back at first light with Pymm and the warrant.”

Clifton hardly looked convinced, but there was naught more they could do but put everything to rights and close up the safe.

They had decided to leave everything where they had found it, a suggestion that had left Rusty and Sammy sputtering over the foolishness of leaving so much money behind—that is, until Clifton informed them the money was intended for widows and orphans.

A notion that completely escaped Sammy. “Guv’ner, everyone wants to help them widows and orphans, but no one is ever going to give me a handout.”

There was no arguing that, but just then Thomas-William, who had said nothing up until this moment, pointed at the door. “Off with you. Both of you.”

It was enough to send Rusty and Sammy scurrying out like a pair of rats.

Lucy and Thomas-William went to follow, but Clifton loitered, taking one more look around the shadowy room.

“Come along, my lord,” Lucy whispered. “There will be time enough later to tear the place apart board by board.”

He nodded and followed her out.

She felt guilty leading him like this, but she had her reasons.

It matters not that he sent you flowers. That he didn’t forget you. It is all different now,
she thought, knowing that the real trick was going to be escaping the earl once they were free of Strout’s offices.

But as her luck would have it, when they got to the alley, they found Sammy holding a tall, scrawny fellow, one hand clapped over his mouth, the other curled around the fellow’s chest.

Clifton took one glance at him. “The clerk.”

“We caught him coming in,” Rusty explained. “Can’t have him squawking about like a right fine chicken, so I says we should slit his throat.”

The fellow’s wide-eyed gaze fell on Lucy, as if imploring her to help him.

“It will leave a mess,” she told them. “Can’t have that.” Then she glanced over her shoulder at the earl. “Do you think he could be of some assistance?”

While the clerk nodded furiously, for it appeared he’d probably agree to sell his sainted mother’s life at the moment, Clifton tipped his head and eyed the terrified man. “Might. I could take him to Pymm. He’ll know what to do.”

It took some time for Lucy and Thomas-William to return to the house on Brook Street, for they’d given their horse and cart to the earl so he could carry off Strout’s clerk.

Just before he’d driven away, Clifton had looked ready to say something to her, but then he’d turned on his booted heel and climbed into the cart.

What had he thought to say to her? Lucy trembled as her imagination ran wild.

Come with me, Goosie. Spend the night in my arms
.

She shook off such thoughts, but it was nigh on impossible to dismiss them when she still could feel the brush of his hand over hers as they’d passed papers back and forth.

The times she’d caught him watching her. Studying her. As if he’d been looking at her once again.

Taking a second measure of her.

Somehow, during the course of the evening, the tables had turned between them. As they’d gathered evidence and compared notes of their case against Strout, she’d realized they had reached an accord, a peace of sorts.

But what could that mean?

Nothing!
she admonished herself.
Nothing at all.
So what had he been about to say?

She hadn’t the least idea, and had only been able to watch him drive out of sight, into the inky streets of London.

Left on their own, and dressed as she was, Lucy and Thomas-William were hard-pressed to find a hackney willing to take them up, but Thomas-William finally found a carter who agreed to go out of his way to Mayfair, though it took all of Lucy’s ready coins to convince the fellow.

When they arrived the house on Brook Street sat dark and quiet, and Lucy breathed a sigh of relief that Minerva and Elinor had not yet returned from the Gressinghams’ ball.

She’d made it back to the house none the wiser.

Or so she thought as she made her solitary way through the halls, Thomas-William having gone off to his room.

She entered her room, relieved to find it entirely cast in shadows; not a single candle burning, for she’d always found the dark strangely comforting.

She stood with the door to her back and gave way to the musings she’d tried to ignore the entire way home. Like how her body ached for Clifton’s touch. His kiss. How she longed to revisit that long-ago night in Hampstead.

One more night with the earl … then she’d be off and away with Mickey and her household, and Clifton could go about his business of finding his proper countess, none the wiser.

“What the devil were you going to say to me, Gilby?” she whispered into the night.

“Why don’t you just ask me?” came a reply.

And then there was the strike of a match. In that tiny flicker of flame, she watched the earl reach over and light a single candle before he blew the match out and tossed it in the grate.

Even in the shadows, even in the meager light, she knew what he’d been about to ask back there in the alley behind Strout’s house.

And her answer … oh, she’d known it all along.

She was like the match he’d held, ready to burn with fire, lacking only a single strike to set her ablaze.

A single kiss.

She crossed the room without a word and threw herself into his arms.

And reignited a passion she’d thought forever lost.

Clifton had expected an explosion of another sort.

But this—Lucy, his Lucy, in his arms, her eager lips claiming his—was enough for him.

At least for now.

For he wasn’t fool enough to think that all the misunderstandings and broken promises between them could be swept aside so easily.

Yet this brazen woman in his arms, her acquiescence, her eagerness, was a start, and one that reawakened him.

It wasn’t the way his body responded to her, for it did—he was already rock hard and losing any bit of sense he claimed—but it was as if something he thought long lost suddenly flashed to life.

And he knew exactly what it was.

His heart. For he’d never stopped loving her. Could never forget her. And that was what love was. Something far beyond the ken of reason, far beyond the anger and grief with which he’d lived all these years.

For here was the balm and the light of his life.

She brought him to life like no other.

His scandalous, wonderful Lucy.

Lucy felt the shift in his attention. It was as if at first he’d been hesitant, but suddenly Clifton became only too impatient, hungry, like a man starved.

His hands tugged her shirt free from her britches and roamed up beneath the muslin, touching her, claiming her. Pulling her close.

But it wasn’t enough.

He plucked her shirt off, sending the few buttons scattering across the floor. For one frantic moment she remembered Malcolm’s will concealed there, and she was able to let it fall quietly to the floor, where it was quickly buried and hidden away.

Her britches followed, leaving her in her chemise and drawers, but not for long. Once she was naked, he caught hold of her and set her atop the dresser, sweeping it clean before he set her down, sending her comb and brush scattering.

Lucy reveled in the strength of his arms, of having him take her … without asking, without begging her permission.

Clifton just took what he wanted. And he wanted her.

Perched as she was, she sat eye to eye with him, her legs wound around his hips. She pulled him right up against her.

His taut manhood strained beneath the tight buckskin breeches he wore, and she dragged him closer still, so she could feel him right up against her. Her body seemed as hard and taut as his, eager for him. For what he, and he alone, could give her.

He leaned over and took one of her nipples in his mouth, sucking hard and pulling from her waves of desire.

Lucy arched back, her hands on his hips, tugging him ever closer.

All those years—never mind how long it had been since he’d loved her—came back to her as if it had only been last night.

Pulling her legs from his hips, he leaned back, and Lucy moaned at the loss of him—the loss of that hard, tempting manhood pressed against her—but not for long.

“Ssh, Goosie, you’ll wake the house,” he teased. Lucy didn’t see anything amusing about it. “I want you, Gilby.”

Clifton grinned up at her, then leaned over and gave her what she wanted.

His hands caught her thighs and opened her to him, then he leaned over and swiped his tongue over her sex.

Lucy moaned, deep and loud.

“Good God, woman, you are going to wake Mayfair.”

“I’ll be quiet,” she managed to say. “But demmit, Gilby, do that again.”

And he obliged her, running his tongue over her, exploring her sex with long, sultry swipes, then taking her into his mouth and sucking her as he had her nipple.

Lucy’s body came alive. Oh, how had she forgotten what this felt like, this throbbing, dangerous need. She wanted to cry out and awaken all of London.

Take me. Please take me. Give me …

And then she reached her crisis, that burst of waves, that tempest that took her from a tightly wound knot of need and darkness to the freedom and fire—like a match being struck and bursting into light.

“Oh, yes, Gilby! Yes! Oh, yes!” she managed as quietly as she could, clinging to his shoulders and barely aware of being whisked into her bed—that is until the earl tumbled atop her seconds later, gloriously naked, and covering her with the heat of his body, his hard manhood thrusting between her still quivering thighs.

Lucy knew that the passion still holding her in a dreamy thrall was only the beginning, and oh, how her body was still eager for more.

For she knew what “more” meant, and she opened herself up to him and let him fill her, take her in one hard stroke.

Now it was Lucy’s turn to grin, for the earl groaned loudly as he filled her, as he began to move within her, as he sought his own release.

And all too soon, his desires were hers as well, and they both chased after them—seeking the rewards that lovers pursue in the embrace of night.

“Lucy,” Clifton whispered sometime close to dawn, with her nestled tightly in his arms.

They were both spent and tired, but neither was sleeping, and he sensed that now was the time.

To clear the air and settle the matters between them.

So they could start anew before the sun rose when he would need to leave to finish the business with Strout.

“It is nearly morning, and I must go,” he said.

She stirred and glanced up at him with half-open eyes. “Stay,” she whispered, reaching for him and pulling him close.

“I dare not.”

“I’ll make it worth your while,” she said, opening the coverlet in invitation.

“I must be gone before the house stirs,” he said, then winked at her. “Before Minerva is up. I dare not risk another encounter with her.”

Lucy laughed, then covered her mouth. “Oh, bother, I suppose you must.” She arose as well and began to help him gather his clothes in the faint light.

“I know why you married Archie.” His words stilled her, but he pressed on. “I know about the house, the eviction. His part in all of it.”

She rose up and faced him. “If you knew, why didn’t you do something?”

“I just discovered the truth last night. At Strout’s.”

She tipped her head and stared at him. “How?”

“There was some correspondence.”

Lucy tipped her head and studied him for a moment. “You must be mistaken. Archie had nothing to do with any of that. It was all Parkerton’s doing.”

Clifton leaned over the side of the bed, caught up his jacket and pulled the papers from his pocket, offering them to her.

She moved to the window, where the light was better, and quickly read through the pages. “That rotten, conniving bastard,” she muttered after she’d finished.

“Which one?” Clifton asked. “The duke, Strout, or Archie?”

“All three.” She tossed the papers aside. “Well, I can’t hang Archie,” she conceded. “And I suppose I must leave it to Pymm to take care of Strout. But if I ever have the ill fortune to run into Parkerton, it will be an interview he won’t forget.”

“Not if I get to him first. I almost fear for the Parkerton line.” He reached for her and held her close. “I am so sorry,” he said. “I should have been there. I should have stopped them. Seen to it that you were cared for. I just thought—”

“That I would be there,” she said.

“Yes. Stupid of me.”

“I thought you would come back,” she said quietly. “But you never did.”

He let go of her, his face serious. “I longed to, but my orders were always the same—stay put,” he told her. “Though Malcolm was able to go back and forth, much to my chagrin. I sent a note with him once, when he knew he would be able to come to Hampstead.”

“When?”

“A year after we left. Malcolm was sent with information for your father. When he returned he said he’d seen Mariana, but you were gone.”

“Papa must have known he was coming and sent me on some errand to keep me from receiving any communications from you.”

“He knew of us?”

Lucy nodded. “He caught me coming home from your inn that night.”

Clifton whistled softly. “Malcolm said he’d given the note to Mrs. Kewin.”

Lucy closed her eyes and groaned. “Oh, no, he didn’t! Mrs. Kewin, bless her soul, couldn’t remember where we kept the sugar pot most days. She probably took your note and tucked it in her pocket and that was the end of it.”

“I didn’t get back to England until … well, I was on the same ship as Malcolm,” he said, turning from her.

“When he was lost,” she said.

“Yes. I came straight to Hampstead—after— only to find you were already married and the house let to strangers.”

Lucy’s eyes filled with tears. “And now you know why,” she said, nodding toward the papers scattered on the floor. “Mariana died first, then Papa and Mrs. Kewin within a day of each other. It was so very terrible, the house was so empty. And then Parkerton’s notice arrived. I had a sennight to come up with the money for the lease or leave.” She paused and glanced away. “I should have found some way to raise that money. I should have waited for you. I am so sorry I failed you.”

Failed him? Ridiculous. If anything, it was the other way around.

“I thought you’d heard of Malcolm’s death and my part in it and knew … knew I was what you always suspected, a failure. Unworthy.”

She stepped back from him. Gaping. “You? A failure? Hardly!”

“Lucy, Malcolm died because of me,” he said, the words tumbling out of him. A confession he’d never uttered aloud.

But had haunted him all these years.

She shook her head. “I heard what happened on that beach. It took some time, but I heard. You were nowhere near.”

“No, I wasn’t, I was still aboard Dashwell’s ship.” He paused and considered his words. He’d never spoken of that night, not even to Jack. He hadn’t wanted anyone to know the truth.

Then Clifton drew a breath and confessed what he’d never told anyone.

“Malcolm was so eager to get ashore. We only had a few days before we were slated to go back, but with each delay to get ashore, we were losing time.” He reached over and tussled her hair. “I had planned to come to you. I was going to get a special license in London and come straight to Hampstead so we could be married.”

She gazed at him. “You were going to marry me?”

“Of course, foolish Goosie. I had promised, and …” He paused. “I loved you.”

“I didn’t know,” she said. “It had been two years since you’d left, and not a word of where you were. You don’t know how many times I searched Papa’s map room looking for some note, some dispatch that held your name.” She bit her lips together, tears welling up in her eyes.

“Malcolm insisted on going ashore first and setting out to London ahead of me. To add to it, Templeton was there. He was eager to get to his wife, so we played cards for the one available seat in the longboat.”

Lucy gaped at him. “You cheated!”

“Aye, I did. Templeton isn’t all that good at cards, so he was out almost immediately, and it was down to Malcolm and me. It was my deal—”

“And you decided to give yourself the winning hand,” Lucy said.

“Yes, in my haste, I didn’t do a very good job of it, and Malcolm caught me out.” He shook his head.