No Longer a Gentleman (25 page)

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Richard said, his voice low and laced with pain. “Did you think we didn’t care?”

Cassie looked down at her port and realized that she’d drunk it all. She rose and poured more, topping up her cousins’ glasses as well.

When she resumed her seat, she said, “I was an orphaned child in France, lucky to be alive. My English life seemed very distant, no more than a dream. With a war going on, it wasn’t a simple matter of writing a letter. By the time I was old enough to return, too much time had passed. I didn’t think anyone would remember or care who I was.”

“You should have known better, Cat,” Richard said. “I meant what I said to the Costains. You were like a sister. How could you imagine Neil or I would forget you?”

As she gazed into her wine, she realized there was another reason. “I needed to believe that … that your family was well and happy,” she said haltingly. “If I’d found that one of you had died, I wouldn’t have been able to bear it.”

Neil leaned over to give her shoulders a brotherly squeeze. “We were well and happy, Cat. But we would have been happier to know you were alive.”

“What have you been doing all these years?” Richard asked. “Did you marry? Have children? How have you survived?”

She hesitated, wondering how much to say. But Richard and Neil were family. They deserved some truth. “I’ve spent much of my time in France, but I return to England regularly. I do work that the British government considers useful.”

“You’re a spy,” Neil said with dawning understanding. “Damn, Cat, but you always were the gamest girl I ever knew!”

“I think I better understand why you didn’t write us,” Richard said soberly. “The work you’ve been doing must be very dangerous.”

Cassie shrugged. “There was no reason to disrupt your lives, and if something happened to me, you wouldn’t have the pain of losing me a second time.”

“Actually, you had a very good reason to let us know you were alive, Cat,” Richard said. “Didn’t you know that you’re an heiress?”

“An heiress?” Cassie echoed, startled. “My parents’ marriage settlements would have specified portions for each child of the union, but surely that went back into the St. Ives estate after our deaths were reported. Why would there be any money due to me?”

Neil grinned. “You tell her, Richard. You’re the one who spends all the time with the estate lawyers and bankers.”

“For my sins.” Richard rolled his eyes. “You’re still eligible for your portion since you are alive, but that’s just the beginning. Your mother had a substantial fortune, and the settlements divided it equally among her children. Since you’re the only surviving child, her entire fortune comes to you, along with your portion from the St. Ives estate.”

Still doubting, Cassie said, “The Montclairs were well off, but I assumed all their wealth was confiscated by the French government during the revolution.”

“Perhaps. I have no information about that,” Richard replied. “But since your mother married an Englishman, her fortune was transferred to England, where it’s been growing very nicely ever since.”

“We St. Iveses are businessmen at heart, you know,” Neil said with a grin. “We’re much better at making money than the average aristocrat.”

It was more than Cassie could grasp. “So now I can afford to buy myself a cottage by the sea.”

“You can buy a castle by the sea if you like,” Richard assured her.

Cassie shook her head, having trouble grasping the magnitude of this news. “I never thought I’d live long enough for money to matter. My expenses have always been reimbursed by the people I work with, so I’ve had salary to spare.” There was no point in buying clothing or jewels when she could almost never wear them. “I’ve never worried about the future because I never expected to make old bones.”

“Enough of that nonsense, Cat,” Neil said, his voice stern. “As a soldier during war, there are any number of ways I might come to a premature end, but I jolly well intend to retire as a crusty old colonel and live till I’m ninety. There’s no point in assuming one will die young.”

Cassie had assumed that. But now she was discovering reasons for living.

“Enough talk of death,” Richard said. “Cat, come back to London with us. My parents will be overjoyed to see you.”

Leave Grey? Leave Summerhill? But she must, and soon. Stalling, she said, “I must think about it. This is all so sudden.”

“The world turned upside down,” Richard agreed. “Bring Wyndham along. He should meet your family. I’d like to get to know him better. See if he’s good enough for my almost sister.”

“He’s just returned to Summerhill and he won’t want to leave again so soon.”

Her cousins nodded with understanding, then began to fill her in on family news of the last couple of decades. She felt as if a bright, shiny new world was being created right before her very eyes.

It would replace the bright world she’d glimpsed here that could never be hers.

By the time Cassie and her cousins ran out of conversation, the rest of the household had retired. When she became too weary to continue, Cassie hugged them both good night. “I’d forgotten how wonderful it is to have a family.”

“There’s nothing more important,” Richard said as he released her so Neil would have his turn. “Now that we have you back, you’ll never lack for family again.”

“Do return to London with us, Cat,” Neil added. “I’m leaving for Spain by the end of the week, and I feel like we still have years of conversation to catch up on.”

“I’ll consider it.” With a last smile, she returned to her room, feeling lightheaded from all the port she’d drunk. She’d never forgotten Paul and Anne, her true brother and sister, but she should have remembered that she had other brothers as well.

A crack of light showed under the door of her room, so a maid must have left a lamp for her, and perhaps a fire to warm the chilly night. With a sigh, Cassie realized she must ring for Hazel to help her out of her gown.

She stepped into her room and was unsurprised to see that she was not alone. Grey was lying stretched out on the bed, his hands folded under his head and his gaze on the ceiling. He’d shed his boots and coat and was all lean, pantherish power, his hair golden and his masculine frame etched by firelight.

When she entered, he turned his startling dark-rimmed eyes to her. “You’re going to leave, aren’t you?” he asked quietly.

She closed the door and leaned back against it, her decision made. “Yes.”

“I can see how much it means to you to have a family again. Your cousins seem like good fellows. Nonetheless…” In one smooth movement Grey was off the bed and across the room to stand an arm’s length from her. “Don’t go, Cassie. Please.”

She wanted to walk into his arms, hold him and never let go. She wanted to learn ever deeper mysteries of his soul, to be intertwined as closely as two humans could be.

But she couldn’t. “It’s time for me to leave, Grey,” she said, fighting to keep her voice steady.

“Why?” he asked fiercely. “Don’t you think we could have a good life together?”

“I don’t know. Neither do you.” She shook her head. “You’ve been free only a few weeks. We’ve been together constantly ever since, facing danger and sharing passion. I’ve been the one constant as you’ve reentered the world. But that’s not a good enough reason to marry.” She made a sweeping gesture that encompassed her surroundings. “You don’t need me anymore, Grey. Everything you really need is right here at Summerhill.”

“I’m not asking you to stay because I need you, but because I want you,” he said gravely. “Does that make a difference?”

She shook her head again. “Desire is powerful, but it shouldn’t be allowed to overcome judgment.”

“No? You think this is so easily dismissed?” He moved forward and trapped her against the door with a searing kiss. His hands slid over her with heat and promise, bringing her body to yearning life.

Resistance and judgment vanished as she gave herself to the passion that bound them. They drew together, writhing with the need to join, yet too impatient to undress.

Breathing harshly, he drew her green satin gown up till it crushed around her hips. Then he delved into moist silken heat with unerring skill.

She gasped, pulsing against his hand. She wanted to melt into him. Equally she wanted to tear off his clothing. Mayhem won and she yanked his shirt from his trousers so she could slide her hand over the taut warmth of his belly.

When she found hot, hard flesh, his whole body jerked and a low moan escaped him. He ripped open his trousers while she raised one leg and wrapped it around his hips. When he sheathed himself inside her, they merged with panting breath and fierce rightness, male and female finding wholeness together.

“Catherine,” he breathed hoarsely as his hands tightened on the perfect curves of her derriere. “Cat. Cassie!” He shattered, tumbling into the abyss and taking her with him. She bit his shoulder to stifle her cries as he filled and fulfilled her, dissolving the pain that had shaped her life and leaving only sensation.

Yet it wasn’t enough. Not when passion faded and left her with gasping lungs, weakened muscles, and regret.

She might not have made it across the room if he hadn’t half carried her. Once they were standing by the bed, he deftly unfastened the ties and hooks of her satin gown. As he removed her layered garments, she wondered if the gown could be saved.

She supposed it didn’t matter since she could now buy any gown she wanted as a replacement. But Cassie was the product of too many years of frugality to not care if a beautiful garment had been wantonly destroyed.

And she was too much a product of danger and deception to give herself entirely to a man who wanted her now, but would not want her forever. That was the crux of it, she realized, as she slipped under the covers, then watched him strip off his clothing.

He was beautiful, all hard muscles and strong planes. He was a man who loved and liked women, and when the passion that joined them now faded, he would find fresh passions elsewhere.

Grey wouldn’t be unkind. He’d do his best to keep his affairs hidden from her to protect her feelings and her dignity. But she’d know. An expert spy was impossible to deceive about a matter so close to her heart.

In a year or two, when the fractured parts of his character had healed into a new shape that couldn’t yet be known, he might be ready to find the next Countess of Costain. She’d be a beautiful, sophisticated virgin who would be content with what he had to offer, and perhaps enjoy the freedom to take lovers of her own after passion faded and they had the heir and the spare his position required.

But Cassie the Fox would never be such a woman. She had no desire to share. She must leave now, before she was too deeply in love with him to leave.

As he held her close, he said with sad resignation, “You’re still going to leave, aren’t you, my lady vixen?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “There is attraction between us, and the bond created as we escaped from France, but that’s not enough to build our lives on.”

“I rather think it is, but if you disagree, I don’t know how to change your mind.” His caressing hand moved down from her shoulder, warming and shaping the soft flesh he found along the way. “I want to give you everything, yet there is nothing you need from me. You’ve found your way back to the life of wealth and position that you were born to, so I can’t even give you that.”

“You’ve given me something more valuable than a title and a fortune.” She turned her face to kiss his lips with lingering tenderness. “You’ve opened my heart in a way that makes a different kind of future thinkable. If I survive this war, and I’m beginning to believe that perhaps I will, I’ll be able to live a better life than if I hadn’t known you.”

He cupped her breast. “I’m glad you value the time we’ve been together. I thought all the benefit had been to me, and I’m not so selfish as to prefer it that way.”

“You’re not selfish.” She kissed him again, tenderness sliding into heat. “You’re generous in ways none of the other men I’ve known can match.”

He rolled so he was above her, supporting his weight so that his body barely skimmed hers. “You’re right that recovering from hell will take longer than a month. Will you think me a better, saner prospect a year from now? When you’re in England, can I take you for mad, passionate holidays by the sea?”

“No!” she said sharply. “We must end this now. You mustn’t wait to see if I’ll change my mind, and having an affair will only prolong the pain. Find joy in all the things you were deprived of. A year from now you won’t be interested in an aging spy.”

“I’m tempted to spank you,” he said with exasperation. “You worry about my state of mind, yet you’re so daft that you don’t recognize what an extraordinary and beautiful woman you are.” He began kissing his way down her throat, stirring sensations she’d thought exhausted. “Can I at least convince you that you are incredibly desirable?”

She opened her legs and he settled between them, his hardening length sliding along her exquisitely sensitive flesh. As she rocked against him, she said huskily, “You make me feel like the most desirable woman on earth.”

“Because you are.” He buried his face in the angle of her shoulder. “Ah, God, Cassie! If we only have tonight, let us spend every moment of it well.”

“We will,” she breathed as she drew him into her. “We will.”

When passion and words were exhausted, Grey cradled her spoon style, her back against his chest so she could feel the strong beat of his heart. She wondered if she’d ever feel so close to another man again.

Perhaps. Her time with Grey had changed her in fundamental ways. She could now imagine a life beyond war. If she survived, she’d buy a home in Norfolk to be near her family. Perhaps she might even marry someday. But just now, it was impossible to imagine loving any man but Grey.

She was half asleep when Grey began to sing, the soft words and melody barely audible. She hadn’t heard him sing since finding him in the dungeons of Castle Durand. She’d been surprised as much as by his strong, rich voice as by the amazing bawdiness of his song.

His voice was still rich, but this time he sang of love, or rather lost love. Her throat tightened as she recognized the haunting song from her childhood.

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?

Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.

Remember me to one who lives there

She once was a true love of mine.

The verses continued in the series of challenges to accomplish impossible tasks before love could be achieved. Aching, she closed her eyes against the sting of tears.

Remember me to one who lives there

He once was a true love of mine.