Linda Needham (21 page)

“That was your idea—” Ross’s argument was cut short by a knock on the door.

“Ah, here you all are.” Kate was standing in the doorway, her smile brightly focused on Jared, the baby snuggled under her chin. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

Ross and Drew burst into greetings and compliments and babbling bows.

Jared rescued her. “We were…reminiscing.”

“That’s good. I just wanted to make sure that Drew and Ross were settled in, and to apologize again for our chaotic first meeting.”

Drew grabbed her hand. “My lady, may I say that your husband is a lout and doesn’t deserve a wife like you.”

Her eyes widened and she laughed, shifting the baby higher on her shoulder. “And may I say ballocks to you, sir.”

Drew arched a wry brow at her and then at Jared. “You were right, Hawkesly, a lightning-quick mind. Dangerous in a woman.”

“Even more dangerous in a wife,” Jared said, feeling as content as he ever had, thoroughly pleased with himself.

“Are you married, Drew?” Kate asked.

“God, no! Who’d have me?” Drew relaxed against the sideboard. “Or Ross, for that matter. Jared went first into the muddy fray. And I think I’ll stop talking before I step into it completely.”

Jared found himself cupping his hand over the baby’s head, an amazing feeling that seemed to run all the way up his arm and into his chest. “She’s sleeping?”

“Like a champ. And I think I’ll join her after I’ve settled our two guests into their rooms. Now, if you’ll follow me, gentlemen?” She smiled at the men again, and again their mouths went a bit slack as they followed her out of the parlor.

Jared stayed behind to study the documents still spread out on the table.

More than that—to sort out his thoughts.

His head from his heart.

A cold, stormy sea and a fragile life.

A distant peace or intimate chaos.

His life was utterly chaotic at the moment, except for Kate, and the contentment that seemed to encompass her like a cloud of lavender.

No. Kate was the cause of the chaos. And the cure.

“Hell’s teeth.” So much for clearing his head.

He grabbed the first report on the top of the table. A sheaf of reports from the commissariat officer at Bantry, sent to Trevelyan.

“‘August twentieth,’” Jared read. “‘The wheat crops are poor and the oat crop smutted. Maggot and Hessian fly destroying the rest. The rain is unrelenting, potato rows turn to rivers’—Hell, that’s not even a month ago.”

An old familiar fear began to gather in the center of his chest, as though a hole had been opened, exposing his heart, his failings. He moved to the window for a sharper light.

“‘August twenty-seventh. The clearance of tenants
in arrears and the tumbling of their homes by landlords continue apace. Multitudes now living in mud banks and ditches like animals. The failure of the potato crop in Bantry is expected to be utter.’”

The more he read, the more his stomach dipped and churned and filled with helpless fear.

Dark memories and bleak glimpses into a future that he hadn’t wanted to see.

But it stretched out so clearly before him:

Kate, leading the children into the garden like a piper, through the woods and out across a stormy sea to who knew what fate.

“You win, Kate.” And she hadn’t even been here in the room to debate him.

“Now he’s talking to himself, Drew.” Ross strode through the parlor door, wearing a new shirt and his hair combed, Drew following after.

“Then a game of hazard is in order.”

Jared stood, prepared to face the music. “Actually, my wife and I have other plans.”

“Sounds like a liaison to me, Ross.”

“It is.” A dance in the moonlight, if the weather holds. “And I need your help.”

“Ours?” Drew laughed. “I rather expected that you’d have worked it all out yourselves by now.”

No time to be cagey. “We haven’t. Not at all. If you want the naked truth, I haven’t touched her in a married way.”

“But you told us—”

“A lie, Ross. I have my pride. Or rather I had it until I met Kate. As much as I hate to admit it, you were right, Drew.”

“Ha!”

“Kate insisted that I court her. And that I agree to…well, that doesn’t matter anymore. What does matter is that tonight, at long bloody last, will be our wedding night.”

Drew rubbed his palms together. “Tell us how we can help.”

“You must bluff my unsuspecting bride into going to the hunting lodge. I’ll take it from there.”

Ross snapped his fingers together. “We’ll just tell her that you’ve been overcome by an interest in fishing and that—”

“She’ll never believe that one.”

“How about a leaking roof?”

“A fire?”

“Hell, Drew, let’s just kidnap her.”

Trusting that his friends wouldn’t betray him, and satisfied that the other preparations for the night’s marital revels were solidly in the works, Jared crept into his wife’s bedroom.

She was sleeping soundly on her side, in the middle of the bed, her hair spread out in gilded tendrils across the mounded pillows, her hand resting fondly, protectively in the folds of the baby’s blanket.

Selfishly he wanted to wake her, but she needed her sleep after last night’s enterprise.

Would need it even more for tonight’s celebration.

The baby jerked suddenly in her sleep, stretching her thin arms out of the blanket, fists whirling for a moment, her little mouth working and her eyes peeping open for an instant.

Jared tiptoed to the baby’s side to repair the blanket,
but even in her sleep, Kate reached out and tucked the corners back into place, patting the baby’s chest.

What a lucky child, to have found Kate in the midst of this very messy world.

Unable to resist, he leaned down and kissed Kate on the temple, a warmth, a downy softness. She smiled crookedly and sighed, disarming him with her honesty, filling his lungs with her scent and his groin with pure lust.

Knowing that he’d better leave while he still could, Jared backed out of the room, and went off to take care of his own preparations for this long-awaited wedding night.

“J
ared’s been injured? Dear God!” Kate felt her heart stop, leaving an icy trail in her veins. She hurried down from the landing on the grand staircase, grabbed hold of Drew’s coat sleeve, trying not to panic, because nothing good ever came out of panic. “How badly, Drew? Where is he? Take me there! Please!”

Ross was glaring at Drew. “Dammit, Drew.” Ross took her hand. “Don’t listen to him, Lady Hawkesly. There’s nothing wrong with your husband.”

Relief flooded her limbs, made her knees sag. “Then why did Drew say there was?”

Drew lifted his eyebrows to her, stammered in a most charming way. “I was…well, I thought.” He glared at Ross and said through his clenched teeth. “I thought that was what you told me to say.”

“What exactly is going on here, gentlemen?” Kate’s
heart had settled some. Jared was fine. But his lunatic friends were a different story altogether. She hadn’t known them longer than a few hours, but if they were colleagues of Jared’s then they were clever operatives.

And they must be planning something.

Ross seemed to have found his way again. “Well, it actually does have to do with Jared. He wants to see you.”

“Supper is in just a few moments. He’s surely on his—”

“He won’t be there,” Drew said quickly, throwing a frown at Ross.

“Jared isn’t coming to dinner? Why?”

Ross frowned back at Drew. “Something came up.”

“Or certainly
will
come up,” she heard Drew say to Ross out of the corner of his mouth. “Ouch.”

Ross had shinned the man in the boot. “You see, Lady Hawkesly—”

“Please, call me Kate. And tell me the truth. Where is my husband going to be during supper? And why does he need to see me beforehand?”

The pair got stumbly again, Ross finally speaking. “The truth is that Jared’s at the lodge. There’s something there he needs to take care of and he needs you to be there with him when he does.”

“That’s for sure,” Drew said, unflinching as Ross’s elbow stuck him in the ribs.

“Why the lodge?” Kate asked, completely dumb-founded. “Has he found trouble there? Storm damage?”

“A fire,” Ross barked on top of Drew’s, “A leaking roof.”

“Excuse me, what?”

Drew heaved a heavy sigh then tucked his arm inside the crook of her elbow. “I told you we should have just kidnapped her.”

They lifted her by an elbow each, then hauled her out the door and down the stairs. Always gently. And loaded her with great respect into the hall’s small, closed carriage that had been waiting in the drive up.

If she didn’t know better she’d have to believe that they were abducting her for nefarious purposes.

At her husband’s behest.

It all made perfect sense. Rosemary had set out a two-piece gown for her, slightly more elegant than she was used to, given an evening with the children. It was soft, pale muslin, the bodice buttoned down the front, lightly stiffened points at waist, a chemise and two frothy petticoats. A lacy shawl.

But hardly a suspicious wardrobe, because tonight they had two guests at dinner, sophisticated men who were used to elegance.

Who were both completely mad.

As mad as her husband.

But such thoroughly charming abductors that she kissed them both on the cheek as they let her in through the front door of Badger’s Run.

The door closed firmly behind her, leaving her standing alone in the midst of the foyer, beckoned deeper into the dark, silent lodge by a pathway of candles perched on tables and in sconces and leading up the stairs.

“Jared!” Heaven knew where he was. The lodge had been closed up a few days ago, except for the suite that Jared had been using.

Which must be where he wanted her to go as she followed the flickering candles up the stairs and to the end of the hall.

The door was open a few irresistible inches, so she gave it a push, granting Jared his mystery, her heart long ago run wild with anticipation.

But there were still more candles, leading her through the anteroom into the warm glow of the bedchamber, which was awash with candle flame.

“Nearly two years late, my love, but I plan to make our wedding night well worth the wait.”

My love.
Kate knew the silky dark voice, had come to adore its force and its foggy depths. To look for it around unexpected corners. Now it came rumbling toward her, dancing on the sea of candle flame, and the power of it set off her pulse against her ears.

“You did this for me, Jared?”

He appeared out of the shadows near the velvet-draped windows, his smile devilishly dark, his hair a deep blue midnight, roguishly tousled and now long enough to reach his stark white collar.

He moved toward her, a menace to her willpower. But she stood there, enchanted by his towering shoulders, butterflies flitting and looping inside her stomach, her palms itching to slide over his chest.

The room smelled of him, of leather and bay and beeswax.

“For you, my dear wife, I would do anything.”

Anything? Oh, how she wanted to believe him, and this lovely night he’d made for them, wanted desperately to stay and be his wife for ever and ever, wanted him to love the children who’d been sent to them, as he
would have those who might have been born to them. But it seemed he hadn’t yet found room in his life, and hers was already overflowing.

As incredible as a wedding night with Jared would be, she just couldn’t let it happen, no matter how seductive he was. She’d already begun to compose a letter to her father’s ancient solicitor about finding a suitable house somewhere.

And yet here she was, being openly seduced by the most amazing man she’d ever met. Though she knew exactly what he was up to.

“But I can’t let you do
this
thing, Jared,” Kate backed away from him as he came forward.

“This
thing
?” His eyes glinted in the candlelight, burned with an unmistakable hunger, looking too satisfied for her own good.

“You’re courting me again.” With a whole pantomime’s worth of scenery and light and color, a fire blazing in the hearth and pillows heaped on the floor, and, oh, my…!

“A bathtub!” Steaming and scented, tucked into the bow of the window, the candles bright against the drapes. She ached everywhere. “Heavens, it would feel so grand! But I don’t think it’s a very good idea.”

“I’ve given up courting you, my love. Tonight I’m going to make you my bride.” He was so tall, so very close, slipping his arm around her waist, nudging her nearer, and bending toward her until he found her mouth and covered it fully, but far too lightly.

And not nearly enough!

She wanted to fold herself into his arms, to lose her
self there forever, but that could never be, so she shoved both hands against his chest.

“No, Jared! I can’t. You know why I can’t.”

“If I’ve learned one thing about you, my dear Kate,” he whispered against her temple, nibbling there, his smile loose and tilting and far too bewitching, his eyes never leaving hers, making her pulse surge and her heart soar when it should stand firmly on the earth, “it’s that you can do anything you set your mind to.”

She shoved him again, a piddly, halfhearted attempt that made her feel weepy and unsure of herself. “Don’t you see, I can’t set my mind to do this thing. Not a wedding night with you.”

He drew back slightly, his eyes wide, brows arched in mock offense. “Am I that loathsome?”

“That’s not the point.”

His smile turned utterly wicked, pleased with himself. “So I
am
that loathsome…. I had no idea.”

“Don’t tease me. I’ve told you why we can’t be married or stay married.”

He loosened his arms abruptly, but held her by the waist with his huge hands, his thumbs nearly meeting low across her belly. “Tell me again.”

“You can’t change my mind. I won’t split up the children and send them off to parish farms. That would be unimaginably cruel.”

“You’ve made that quite clear.” He was being remarkably calm in the face of this prickly issue between them, smiling crookedly, his eyes such a lush and smokey midnight that she had to look down at his shirt buttons to shake his influence.

“And because timing is critical, I’ve already begun composing a letter to Mr. Biddle, my father’s lawyer, to help me look for a suitable house.”

He frowned down at her, a sumptuous, bay-scented heat pouring off him, seeping through the linen of her shirtwaist, playing against her skin. “Just what would this suitable house look like?”

“It doesn’t matter what the house looks like.” But she slipped out of his arms, swallowing back the irksome tears that were suddenly clogging her throat. “It just has to be safe and large enough and in good repair. Even then, if it’s not too badly gone, I can have repairs made. The roof and rising damp and so forth. And it must also have room for the children to play outdoors.”

“Sounds like a lot of trouble to go through for a wretched old house.”

“Nevertheless it must be done. And so that’s the reason that I can’t stay here with you tonight.” She swallowed hard against the truth. “As much as I would like—”

“As much as you would like what, my dear?”

“To stay here with you, you big lout. To have a wedding night and a marriage with you, because…” She stopped because she’d been about to give away the secret of her heart and now he looked so smug, as though he already knew that she loved him.

Adored him.

“Go on, please, Kate. Because why?”

“Because…it would be simpler that way.”

He laughed. “Simpler?”

“Simpler to stay here with you and all the children, instead of packing them up and hauling them off to
some unknown, unfamiliar place where they’ll never be quite as happy as they are today. Instead of wading through all the legal muck of dissolving our wedded union. Instead of exposing the intimate details of our marriage, explaining that it had never been a real one.”

“It feels quite real to me.”

Her heart sank. “Please don’t fight me on the matter. It’s not real, Jared. We never finished it.”

“But we will tonight.”

Now her heart started clanging around inside her chest. After all this, he was going to demand his due. “Only if you force yourself on me. And I know that you would never.”

“I won’t have to. I guarantee that quite soon, you will be forcing yourself on me.”

“You’re a lunatic, Jared. Just like your friends.”

“I’m not jesting. I predict that in a very short time you’ll be freely tearing at my clothes, just as I will be tearing at yours.”

“Do you plan to lace my wine with an exotic aphrodisiac? Fruitbat guano and powdered tiger’s testicles? I won’t drink it!”

He laughed. “Only you would know of such a compound, let alone speak of it in mixed company. But I assure you that you will be under the influence of nothing more, nothing less, than your own will.” He seemed so serious, so sure.

“And if I thought you were the sort who would swindle a woman into your bed, I wouldn’t be here. But you’re not that kind. You’re a good and decent man. The best I’ve ever known.”

“Me?”

“You’re courageous and respectful and intelligent. I love your sense of humor and your patience with me and with the children.”

He showed his splendid profile, tilting a proud chin, posing for her like a war hero. “I’m deeply flattered, madam.”

He wasn’t! He was toying with her in the worst possible way.

“But you’re also deeply flawed, Jared. You lack one critical element in your character. One that I cannot overlook because it keeps you from understanding.”

“Understanding what? Grady’s terror when he’s alone in the dark? Or Glenna’s fear of everyone leaving her? You think I can’t imagine what a handful of rotting garbage tastes like?”

She didn’t know what to say to the sudden somberness of his mood, the anger buried just below the surface. “I wouldn’t expect you to.”

“Then you don’t know much about me, wife.”

“I meant that you’ve lived a different life than the children have—”

“What makes you so sure of that?” He was looking right at her, daring her to believe him.

“They’ve been orphaned, Jared.”

“So was I.”

Kate blinked at the image. A little orphaned lord. “I’m sorry. But these children have grown up in unspeakable poverty—”

“So did I.”

“What do you mean?” He must be leading her somewhere with this drama.

“I simply mean you to know that I understand the
children better than you might think, because I was orphaned sometime soon after my birth and lived in a filthy workhouse until I was fourteen, when I escaped with my life and my two friends.”

“You’re not serious, Jared.” Though he looked deadly serious, and a little proud.

“It’s no secret. I’m a success story. So are Drew and Ross.”

“All three of you?” An impossible story, with a stunning ring of truth.

“Slept in horse stalls, ate garbage out of dank, back alleyways, and were glad to have found it.” A muscle ticked in his jaw, his gaze so piercing that she suddenly knew that he was telling the truth, not spinning a yarn.

A spark of anger flared in Kate’s chest. “Why are you telling me this now?”

“I thought I’d impress you with my lineage.” Smug again, and offhand.

“Dammit, Jared, you’re a pompous ass.”

He finally looked offended. “Me?”

“You’ve known all along the horror that the children had come from and still you can find it in your heart to send them back there.”

He blew out a huge sigh, scrubbed his fingers through his hair. “I told you plainly, Kate, from the beginning. I had been seeking homes for them, good parish farms or boarding schools, not the slums of Calcutta. I had no intention of sending any of them anywhere without paying a surprise visit.”

“Don’t you see, Jared, that’s not enough for a child.”

“I know that.”

“Hawkesly Hall isn’t an orphanage to them. It’s not
a holding pen until we can place them elsewhere. It’s their home, their sanctuary.”

“Yes, I understand.”

“You don’t understand. We are a family. If you truly understood, then you wouldn’t let me take them—”