Sweet Treason
by Gail Ranstrom
Copyright © 2013 by Gail Ranstrom. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Southeast Coast of England
April, 1779
Chapter One
The night, with a new moon and a steady driving rain, was made for thievery. The rising wind made a moan that drowned the creak of straining oarlocks in a turbulent sea and muffled the whisper of furtive voices. Honest men would be home in their beds. Honest women, too. But not Emily Nevins.
She stood toe to toe with Captain Jacques Reynard, shouting over the wind and masking her fear with an extra measure of defiance. “You gave your word that you would bring wine. I have a buyer for wine, but I cannot find a market for so much lace.”
The small man’s pale blue eyes narrowed, and his lips drew back in a snarl. He leaned forward in an effort to intimidate her and was doing a fair job of it. “Moutard! You must be thankful for what I bring you, no?”
“No.” She held her ground, ignoring her maid’s firm warning tug at her sleeve and the burn of fear in her stomach. If she were not so desperate, she’d not be here. Reynard was a Frenchman. Her country’s enemy. A ruthless smuggler known for perfidy. “Our bargain was for wine, Captain Reynard. And I, sir, need the cash the brandy will bring—by tomorrow. My buyer has cash for that, but he has no need of lace.”
Hands palm up, Reynard gave her a typically Gallic shrug. “I ’ave what I ’ave. Tonight I ’ave lace, not wine.”
She would fall to the bottom of the smuggler’s route if she refused delivery, and she couldn’t afford to lose her favored place. Neither could she afford to pay for lace she could not sell by tomorrow.
“Yes or no? I do not ’ave time to dally. Every minute at anchor is another for your navy to close in.”
She calculated Reynard’s need to dispose of the lace against her own desperation. “I…I’ll take it,” she conceded. “But not at your price. Twenty pounds for the lot, Captain.”
“Zut! I can get twice that!”
“Not tonight. If you want to unload and return to La Havre, you will have to take my offer.”
“Sacre bleu!” He looked heavenward with a dramatic sigh, oblivious to the rain that trickled down his neck. “You drive the ’ard bargain, Anglaise.”
Taking the smuggler’s distress as acceptance of her terms, she nodded to Simon Bart, the lanky man standing behind her holding her father’s flintlock pistol at the ready. “Pay the man, Simon.”
She took the pistol while Simon reached into his pocket and brought forth a pouch containing their dwindling hoard of cash and counted the coins into the smuggler’s hand.
“Voilà!” Reynard exclaimed, his lips drawing back in a smile that revealed yellowed teeth. “Now I am the wealthy man. I make to you the loan, no? You will ’ave coin for your needs, eh?”
Emily was startled by such an offer. “You would make me a loan?”
“Mais oui. Business, n’est-ce pas? You pay the usury.”
Simon, all six and a half feet of him, leaned over her shoulder and whispered in her ear. “Miss Emily, you’d best not make a bargain wi’ the French devil. That one scares me, miss.”
Her maid, Bridey Sullivan, agreed, whispering, “He’s a canny one, miss.”
Reynard scowled at them. “She ’as already made the bargain with the devil, Mr. Bart. ’Ave a care, lest the devil come to collect, eh?”
Simon moved forward as if to challenge the veiled threat, but Emily stepped between them. “Load the lace on the dray, Simon, and take it to the tunnels. We shall look for buyers in the morning.”
She turned back to the Frenchman and gave him a tentative smile. For all his diminutive stature and his unexpected offer of a loan, the smuggler had treachery written in every line of his body. She did not dare give him a reason to come looking for her.
“I appreciate your offer, Captain Reynard, but I cannot compromise our business arrangement.”
“As you wish, Anglaise. Next trip—the brandy, eh?”
“Next time,” she agreed, a sinking feeling settling in her heart. Deprived of the profit she so desperately needed tonight, she now found herself in dire straits. She would need another solution for tomorrow.
…
Finding her way as much by memory as by sight, Emily stumbled up the bluff. Her black skirts, heavy with rain and mud, trailed behind her like a broom, obscuring her tracks. “Curse the night and the man.” She tilted her head to one side and twisted her dark hair to wring out the rain.
“Captain Reynard? Aye, miss. He’s a wily one, an’ make no mistake about that,” Bridey murmured, her carrot red hair hanging in wet strands to frame her heart-shaped face.
“Not Reynard—Henry Dodge. What more could he do to complicate my life?”
“Hush, miss. The fairies will hear you.”
Emily gave a rueful smile. Her maid was the paradoxical Irish mix of pagan superstition and Christian faith, and she likely did believe such a statement would tempt the fairies to mischief.
She sighed. Henry Dodge. The bane of her existence—if one did not count Captain Reynard. If her late father had had any notion of how Mr. Dodge would misuse his trusteeship over the Nevins women, he would have killed Dodge before he’d appointed him to the position. Her mother had drummed the lesson into Emily’s head that they dared not owe Mr. Dodge so much as a farthing, because he would use their debt to control Emily and her little sister, Lucy.
Mother’s last warning to Emily as she and Lucy departed on that ill-fated trip to Scotland six years ago had been, “You and Lucy must keep out of his clutches, sweetling, or suffer the consequences.” And then she had blushed. Emily could only imagine what she had been hinting at, and it had chilled her to the bone. Chilled her still when she thought of her beautiful little sister. And now she was certain Dodge was up to some skullduggery to lengthen his trusteeship.
She was so close. Just a few more months, and she would inherit.
She shivered under the weight of her sodden cape and trudged along, her steps making alternate squishing and sucking noises on the muddy path up the face of the embankment. Beside her, Bridey slipped and flailed her arms in an effort to catch her balance. Emily gasped and reached out to steady her.
“You shouldn’t have come tonight, Bridey. It’s too dangerous. Should the king’s men discover us—”
“Enough of your nay-saying, miss. It is dangerous for you to face Reynard and his minions alone. We’ve all got our secrets, miss. Tush! Carrying the weight of Oak Hill all by yourself and no one the wiser—it just isn’t fair.”
Emily stared into the darkness. Fair? What did fair have to do with it? In the three years since Bridey had come to Oak Hill Farm, she had learned just how weary Emily was of carrying the weight of Oak Hill all by herself. Nothing had been fair since Papa died and Mama had been thrown from her horse.
“If the crown did not raise the taxes and the lenders compound the interest on the mortgage every time I spin around, Papa’s provisions would have been adequate. But it is my family, my estate, my responsibility, and thus my problem.”
Meantime, her life was in danger every time she met the smugglers. Every time she sold the goods she’d gotten from them. But she could not worry about that now. One problem at a time. And tomorrow’s problem was to find enough money to pay Mr. Dodge the quarterly tenant farmers’ rents, tax, and mortgage money.
Just a few more months…
A raindrop trickled down her neck and made her shiver anew. After tomorrow’s payment, if she could just come up with the last of the taxes and interest when they were due, she would inherit her father’s estate free and clear. She would be able to pay all their debts. She could stop smuggling, and nothing else would matter. She could become Lucy’s guardian and bring her back from Scotland. Even after a generous dowry for Lucy, there would be enough to sustain and care for Oak Hill. Her touchstone. Her home. Her very heart.
“Well, we’ll not be caught, Miss Emily, never worry your pretty little head over that. I only worry that we’ll have enough to satisfy that nasty prig, Mr. Dodge.”
“You were not here then, Bridey, but I still recall how, when I could not pay the increases several years ago, he loaned me the money from his own pocket. It took me two years to pay him back. I do not want to risk another disaster like that, especially when we are so close to being free of him.”
She topped the last knoll to see the manor house and outbuildings of Oak Hill Farm illuminated by a flash of lightning. It was past midnight and she glanced toward a faint light in the window of the little cottage behind the manor—Bridey’s cottage. She touched her maid on her shoulder.
“Go on to bed, Bridey. I won’t need you again tonight.”
“If you’re sure, miss. I’m fair on my last legs, I am.”
They parted, and Emily cut across the broad sweep of lawns that separated the manor house from the ocean bluffs. No need to keep to the woods surrounding Oak Hill Farm, since neither man nor beast would be out in this weather.
At the kitchen door, she removed her father’s pistol from the deep pocket sewn into the seam of her cloak, hung the sodden garment on a peg in the small cloak room, then stripped away her muddy clothes and slipped into a brocade wrapper left on a peg for just such purposes. She left her muddy clothes on the floor for tomorrow.
She went to the lantern in the kitchen window and turned the wick high and low three times to signal Bridey that she was safely home, then extinguished the light.
She padded to the library on bare feet to complete her last bit of business for the day. After replacing the flintlock in the desk drawer, she turned to the bookcase behind the desk and tripped a spring hidden by a nondescript tome at one end. The bookcase pivoted open, revealing a narrow windowless room with a steep stairway down to a collapsed tunnel that had, nearly two hundred years ago, led to a secret opening in the shrubbery above the bluffs. The tunnel had been built to shield British watchmen and signalers during the attempted invasion of the Spanish Armada. The signal station was long gone, but Oak Hill Manor had been built atop the ruins and the tunnels.
Sighing, Emily retrieved a small metal cash box from a shelf in the hidden room and brought it back to the desk. She poured herself a draught of brandy before opening the box. A lump formed in her throat when she finished counting. Not enough! She needed more by tomorrow afternoon when Mr. Dodge arrived to collect.
Five and twenty pounds short. In a reckless—almost hopeless—gesture, she drank her brandy in a single gulp and let the heat spread through her before taking the cash box back to the secret room. By her calculations, she’d need three pipes of wine; one pipe of madeira; two hogsheads of brandy; various assorted gallons, pints, and bottles of cognac; and five dozen bottles of claret to make her final payment next time.
She lifted another box from the shelf and opened the lid. The glitter of gems twinkled in the candlelight. So few left. If there were only another way! She selected a small brooch set in gold with tiny glittering diamonds around a baroque pinkish pearl. Soon all the family treasures would be gone. Tears stung her eyes, and she wiped at them with the sleeve of her robe. Keeping the brooch in her hand, she replaced the little jewelry box on the shelf, then pushed the bookcase back in place.
Tense and nervous, she rarely slept after a visit by the French smugglers. Seeking anything to occupy her mind, she selected a copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets she knew by heart from the bookshelf and went to curl up in a chair in front the waning fire. Mesmerized by the glow of embers, the book lay open in her lap as she fondled the brooch, committing it to memory—the only place it would exist for her after tomorrow. It was her favorite piece, and the only one with enough value to pay Mr. Dodge.
“Five and twenty pounds,” she muttered. She was waging a losing battle. No matter how much money she raised from selling Oak Hill’s produce at market, it was never enough. Only the smuggling allowed her to keep afloat in the sea of debt. That, and the sale of her mother’s jewels.
Lord, how weary she was of being lonely and afraid. Afraid of Henry Dodge on the one hand, and Jacques Reynard on the other. Afraid of being exposed as a smuggler, of losing everything she had fought so hard to keep, and the certain knowledge that she would live alone the rest of her life to protect her sister and her own carefully constructed lies.
She yawned and pulled her robe closer. A dull lethargy stole over her, deepened by fatigue, the warmth, the brandy, and the fact that she’d resolved herself to the solution of her problem.
Please Lord, just two months and no disasters…
A cold puff of wind lifted damp tendrils on the back of her neck and elicited a shudder. The candles flickered and died in the sudden draft as the room narrowed to the dim glow of the fireplace.
She glanced over her shoulder to catch the glint of the firelight off metal—a pistol pointing at her head.
“Do not force me to hurt you, miss,” a shadow-figure shrouded in a deep hooded cloak whispered from the draperies beside the window. “Turn around and keep your back to me.”
Chapter Two
Terrified, Emily whirled in her seat, her attention riveted on the barrel of cold steel aimed at her temple. This was what she reaped from trafficking with smugglers! A nastier, more treacherous group there never was!
The pounding of hooves penetrated her numbed consciousness. A moment later, sharp rapping at the door broke the hypnotic hold of the stranger’s gun. She stood and spun to look in the direction of the front foyer, the forgotten copy of Shakespeare’s Sonnets sliding from her lap and landing with a dull thump on the carpet.
“Open for the King’s men!” came the call beyond the door.
The barrel of the intruder’s pistol pressed into the small of her back. His breath was warm against her cheek as he leaned over to whisper in a slow, soft tone. “Do not turn around. You’ve seen nothing—heard nothing. Do you understand?”
His voice calmed her, but the pressure against her spine told her he meant every word. She swallowed hard, fought back her fear, and took a deep fortifying breath. Thus braced, she nodded. A firm hand on her shoulder guided her to the front entry.
“You know the price of betrayal?”
She could guess. She turned the knob, her mind working to form a plan. First, survival. Using the door to shield the fact that she was clad only in a robe, she peeked around the panel and feigned confusion. Soldiers stood outside, pistols drawn and swords unsheathed.
A captain stepped forward. “Sorry to disturb you, miss. We’ve been chasing a spy. He disappeared a few miles back. Have you heard or seen anything unusual?”
A spy! Not one of the smuggler’s crew out to thieve back my goods! Relief mingled with trepidation. This cast a different light on matters, but she was not safe yet. Matters could, in fact, be worse. “A spy? La! Nothing like that here, sir.”
She did not recognize these soldiers as being from the garrison at Hastings. Their uniforms were unfamiliar. Their pursuit must have taken them far afield. She could use this to her advantage. She blinked and continued. “I hoped you were the physician. We sent for him hours past.”
“Miss.” The captain bowed. “I offer my apologies in advance. I fear I must search your house. The man we are chasing is a murderer. He left the body of one of our own men in the mud alongside the road. Did you know a man named Erickson, miss? Leon Erickson?”
“N-no, sir,” Emily shivered. The barrel pressing into the small of her back was suddenly more sinister than a moment before. He was a traitor—and now she knew he was a killer, too.
Risking death at the hand of a spy, or hanging when the captain discovered her muddy clothes in the cloak room, she nodded. “But of course you must search. A man has his duty, after all.” She made a move to swing the door open to admit him, then stopped when the pressure against her spine increased and the hand moved to her waist to draw her closer. The spy’s cold, rain-sodden cloak pressed against her back, and she shivered. She wedged the door with one foot to keep it from opening wider. “Oh, one small matter, Captain.”
“What would that be, miss?”
“My housekeeper. I think it is the pox. That’s why I thought you were the physician, you see. We sent for him hours ago. Still, if you must search, you must do so now, as we may be under quarantine once the doctor arrives.”
“The pox? Are you certain?” The captain took several steps backward.
“I assure you most earnestly, sir, there is something pernicious present in this house. Pox would aptly describe it.” The spy’s arm tightened almost painfully around her. “It could be a rather nasty rash. In all, though, I’ve never seen poison oak make such marks or cause such fever. Have you ever seen pox before, Captain? Would you know it if you saw it now?”
“No! I’ve not seen anything like it.” The captain backed away, drawing his soldiers with him. “I…did you say you had heard nothing, miss?”
“Just poor Mary’s crying.”
“I see,” he muttered, looking baffled by the odd set of circumstances.
“I hate to hurry you, sir, but the physician will surely arrive soon. ’Twill be best to have a search done by then, should he choose to quarantine Oak Hill. Else you’ll be stuck here for heaven only knows how long, and we haven’t enough to feed and shelter you all.”
“Perhaps, if you assured me there is naught amiss?”
“Assure you? But of course. Have I not? There is no one here of consequence, Captain—only servants and the like.”
“Very well, then,” the captain conceded. “Send to us if you hear aught of interest.”
“I shall, Captain. Are you going to look about the grounds? I fear we are out of oil for the lanterns. Did you bring your own?”
“That will not be necessary, miss. I can see that you have the situation well in hand and have quite enough trouble already. We must be on our way. The spy escapes even as we dawdle.”
Emily nodded and waited while they disappeared into the rain. She closed the door and leaned her forehead against it. Her knees were weak, and her heart was racing. She couldn’t decide if she was relieved to have the soldiers gone or afraid now that she was at the mercy of a murderous spy. She threw the bolt, listening to the departing hoof beats.
The spy’s breath tickled as he whispered in her ear. “Very nice, miss. You were quite remarkable with those soldiers. I’ve seldom met a man or woman who can think as quickly as you. Nevertheless, it would be best if I allowed them a good lead in the event they decide to search the grounds after all. I shall pass ten minutes here, no more. You have my word that I shall leave promptly and never return.”
Her back still to him, she asked, “Is the word of a traitor and a murderer to be trusted?”
There was a long, tense pause before the spy replied, “The man I killed was about to betray me. He was responsible for the deaths of several of my comrades. I do not kill for sport, miss, but I will kill for the cause if I must.
“Come,” he urged. “I only require ten minutes. I will try to keep you amused. Did I glimpse wine in the library and a bowl of fruit? I am famished. All I ask, miss, is that you not turn around. I cannot risk that you could recognize me.”
Never mind that from this day forward, she’d recognize that deep, honeyed voice with its colonial accent anywhere. There was something quite distinctive about the soft slow speech—though there was nothing soft or slow about the man—and she knew she would not soon forget either.
She turned away from the door, heading back to the library with the spy still behind her. “Wine, did you say?”
“If you have it.” He paused, and his voice lowered an octave. “And tell me your name, that I may know of whom I dream, and where to place my fondest hopes.”
Remembering a line from her Shakespeare, she answered, “Rose. My name is Rose, sir.” Her hand clenched so tight that her mother’s forgotten brooch pressed its pattern into her palm. She placed it on the desk before stooping to reach into the back of the cupboard and bring forth a nearly empty bottle of brandy. “All I have is brandy.”
“’Twill do,” he said, and she thought she detected a smile in that slow velvet voice.
She heard the scrape of a tinder box, and a moment later, the light of a single candle, together with a renewed fire, infused the room with a warm glow. She continued to work the cork from the bottle, blinking to focus as she did.
She heard him stirring behind her, then the ruffle of pages—her beloved sonnets, no doubt. “Shakespeare?” the spy inquired. “Who is the scholar here, Rose? Your father?”
“The book is mine.” She poured the deep golden liquid into a glass. “I read, sir, but I do not indulge.”
A softly amused laugh sent a shiver up her spine. “Indulge in what, miss?”
She whirled to confront the impudent intruder and realized her mistake too late. She had surprised the spy in the act of untying the cord of his black hooded cloak.
His hair, as dark as her own, was pulled back in a club and tied with a green velvet ribbon. His surprised eyes were the precise color of her chestnut mare, and his skin was unfashionably tan and healthy.
Forgotten, the brandy bottle slipped from her nerveless fingers. Only the shatter of the glass broke her fascination. When she could think again, she turned away, a sinking feeling twisting her stomach.
She heard him take several steps toward her before stopping close enough to feel the heat of his breath on her neck. “Too late, Rose,” he murmured. “The damage is done. You’ve seen me. No use to pretend otherwise.”
She swallowed, trying to find her voice as she made a slow turn to face him again. He was not dressed in the pastels so popular at the moment, but in a gray coat and breeches, a white ruffled shirt, and a green waistcoat. His narrow hips fell into long, powerful legs that were encased in black riding boots, muddied to mid-calf. He was taller than she by a good ten inches, and the width of his shoulders seemed to block out the world.
But his smile! Slightly lopsided, exposing two rows of white, even teeth and a boyish dimple in his left cheek, the effect of that smile on her pulse was devastating.
And here, at her feet, lay an example of her idiocy—shards of broken glass and a puddle of brandy.
“What a pity,” the spy said, following her gaze to the floor. “That looked to be good brandy. Is there more?”
She nodded before she stooped to pick up the larger pieces of glass, put them on the desk, and roll up the braided rug that held the puddle and glass shards. She needed a moment to collect her wits.
He placed her book on the desk beside her mother’s brooch and lifted the piece to inspect it. Emily held her breath and cursed herself for being so careless. Was he a thief as well as a spy? If she lost the brooch, too, she’d never be able to make the payment tomorrow. But he placed the brooch on top of the book and went to the cupboard to withdraw another bottle of brandy.
“French!” he exclaimed when he saw the seal. “Excellent! I’ve worked up the very devil of a thirst on this interminable ride. Lucky for me you’ve been hoarding.” He rubbed the layer of dust off the neck of the bottle and worked the cork free. That done, he took a long drink straight from the bottle. “Is your mother sleeping?”
“My mother is…in Scotland.” That much, at least, was the truth.
“Then we are alone?”
“No! M-my uncle is abed. He will come to check on me soon. He—”
The spy shook his head as he sat in her abandoned chair and made himself comfortable. “Between the soldiers and the brandy bottle, we’ve made enough noise to wake the dead. If there were someone to rescue you, they’d have come by now. We are quite alone here, are we not?”
She ignored his question, wishing like fury that she had someone to rescue her now. She had never anticipated such extraordinary circumstances before giving Simon and Mary Bart their own cottage, and Bridey, too. She turned away from him and went to the fire to rub her hands together and bring warmth back to her body.
When she glanced back, the dimple deepened in his cheek as he grinned. “Do I pass muster, Rose?” he asked. “No need to be embarrassed. ’Tis only natural. I took your measure earlier, as you dealt with the soldiers. ‘Very nice,’ I told myself. ‘When did I last hold a waist so small? When did I ever see eyes the color of elm leaves or hair as sleek and glossy as a blackbird’s wing?’”
A spy! A traitor! A murderer! She took another deep breath, bracing for trouble. This man was a different breed from the sort who long ago paid her court. He had none of the ridiculous effeminate ways so in vogue these days—no sacrifice of the strong in favor of the genteel. And he had stolen her wits in a matter of seconds.
His pistol lay across one knee, ready should he need it, and he watched her every move. Her knees were weak, and she perched on the edge of her desk for support. She dared not provoke him to use the pistol until she formed some plan of escape or a ruse to distract him long enough to seize her own pistol in the top drawer.
While he studied her, he bit into one of the apples from the bowl and took another swig from the bottle. Wayward thoughts passed through her mind that those lips would be intoxicating now, flavored with mingled fruit and brandy.
Perdition! How addled was she? She’d never suspected she could be so susceptible to a handsome face.
“You are blushing, Rose. What are you thinking?”
She cleared her throat and glanced away. Grasping at the first decent thought that came to her mind, she said, “I’m wondering why you are a traitor, sir.”
The spy’s smiled faded, and his dark eyes narrowed. “What is treason, Rose? Would that not depend upon which side of the conflict you are standing?”
“If I am wrong, please tell me how I’ve erred.”
“Is it treason to bring about change?”
“Yes, if it is at the expense of your king and country.”
“Nay, Rose. If it were, we’d still be living in mud huts, worshipping trees and rivers. Is it treason to act upon one’s conscience or to seek the betterment of yourself and your fellow man? To quote one of my countrymen, ‘If this be treason, then make the most of it.’”
She knew little of the issues that had sparked the conflict, only that it had made her efforts to survive more difficult—dodging the constant coastal patrols, coping with delays when Captain Reynard hadn’t been able to get through the lines. Paying higher taxes to cover the war expense. How often had she cursed the war for the inconvenience without once stopping to think what was at stake for others?
But the fire of conviction burned in this man’s dark eyes. He was a zealot—not a man paid for his loyalty and treasons. His passion was so obvious that she knew argument was a waste of time—the same as when Bridey got one of her fanciful notions about the fairies or leprechauns.
He took another swig from the bottle. “If you examine history, Rose, you will find that ‘traitor’ is nothing more than a word used to describe the losers of a particular struggle. Were the lords who forced King John to sign the Magna Carta named as traitors? Nay. Because they prevailed. Those who prevail—whether kings or insurgents—are named patriots, and those who lose the struggle—whether rulers or rebels—are branded traitors.
“I am acting according to my conscience.” He came to his feet, pushed the pistol into his waistband, retrieved the bottle and the apple, and paced in front of her. “A man must fight for what he believes in. How can that be treason?”
How, indeed? She could think of nothing but the fact that she’d never seen muscles move so hypnotically beneath snug broadcloth breeches, and how long it had been since she’d felt so utterly feminine.
Confused by the nature of her own thoughts, she knit her brow. “Should I want to keep any principles at all, I’d best not listen to a word you say. You have the devil’s own tongue.”
The man stopped his pacing to give her a long appraisal. He put his apple aside and pushed the cork back into the bottle. “Damn the luck! Damn the timing!” he muttered in a dark undertone.
“Sir?”
“I’ve been watching you, Rose—the provocative way you sit upon the desk, the tempting glimpses of your leg, your charming smile, and the sweet invitation of your laugh. You dazzle and devastate me with a single glance.”
Stopping in front of her, he blocked her escape from the desk by parting his legs slightly to enclose hers between them. He lifted her to her feet, sliding her against him and gathering her into his arms.
Her heartbeat quickened when she found herself pressed along his firm powerful lines. The sensation was delightful, heady—as if she’d been the one drinking French brandy straight from the bottle. She tilted her head back to look into his face. The heat in his dark eyes spoke clearly of his intentions.
She should never allow him to kiss her. Oh, but what would it matter if she did? If, just this once, she cast caution to the wind? If, for one instant, she could feel what she had forfeit when, six years ago, she’d stepped into her mother’s shoes to accept the responsibility of her sister and Oak Hill Farm.
Her gaze shifted to his full lips hovering above hers, and her stomach fluttered with anticipation. She’d never see this man again—if she lived out the night—and that knowledge made her reckless.
When he recognized her surrender, he smiled and began to lower his mouth to hers. She tried desperately to remain calm, but all her muddled brain would acknowledge was the hard length of his body and the strength of his arms. When his lips touched hers, soft and persuasive, she panicked and turned away, leaving his mouth to graze her cheek.
Cheek to cheek, his breath was heated and humid as his tongue traced the rim of her ear until he reached the lobe. There, he nibbled and tugged just enough to evoke a shudder of pleasure. Everything inside her tightened in anticipation.
“Afraid, sweet Rose?” he whispered. “Of me? Of where this could lead? Or of your own wanting?”
She couldn’t say. Was it not one and the same?
He lowered his head further to leave a path of soft insistent kisses from her earlobe to the well of her shoulder blade. The sensation was like nothing she’d felt before—intimate, urging, almost desperate. Heaven help her, she wanted more. He slipped his hand down her back, molding her against him. The hot, hard bulge pressing against her belly ignited an answering heat in hers. Naughty. Wicked. Exciting…
He asked a question, his voice a deep vibration that reached to her toes. Her very flesh tingled, sending shivers of delight through her. Her breasts ached and became exquisitely tender. She gasped as he drew her even closer, his large hands moving along her spine.
“Yes…,” she sighed, affirming her suspicion that this man’s arms would be heaven.
“Sweet Rose…” His voice was hoarse with desire as he lifted his head to speak as he brushed across her lips. “Are you the most courageous woman I know…or the most reckless?”
Reckless. Unconscionably reckless…
He nudged her robe open with his chin and lowered his mouth to the slope of one aching breast. She caught her breath and choked back another gasp when he captured one tingling crown with his lips and tugged gently. She tangled her fingers through his dark hair to hold him close. The sensation was so foreign, yet so completely delicious, that she wanted it to go on forever. She sighed. “Tell me your…name, sir, that I…may know who my dreams…”
“You mock me?” he growled.
She gave a soft, husky laugh at his pretended outrage.
The deep vibration of his voice against her skin sent shock waves along her spine. “By all that is holy…I must be mad! Were it any night but tonight, I’d sweep this desk clear and take you here and now.”
Emily fervently wished it were any other night. She’d have yielded him anything—everything—when he nibbled a greedy path back up her neck and cherished the tender flesh at the hollow of her throat before lifting his head.
He brushed tendrils of hair back from her cheeks with this thumbs. “Now that you’ve seen my face, my only safety—and yours—lies in the fact that you do not know who I am.”
She did not bother to deny his accusation. But betrayal had been the furthest thing from her mind. She caught her breath on a gasp as he slipped his hand up her bare thigh, exposed in the gap of her robe.
She struggled free of his arms and moved away, fighting to regain her composure and recall the true nature of this man.
Blood-red splotches on his shirt sleeve reminded her that this man had murdered someone this very night. She would be fortunate if she escaped with her life. She pushed him away to gather her robe more closely around her. This had to end before she forgot herself again. She was breathless when she spoke. “Your ten minutes are up, sir. If you are a man of your word, you will leave.”
He swept up his cape with a flourish, his dimple deepening as he studied her face. “I shall leave you unharmed, Rose, at least by me, with no more than your oath to keep my presence here secret.”
“You have it,” she vowed, trying to bring her rapidly beating heart under control. Though he could not know it, he was perfectly safe, because betraying him to the soldiers could mean discovery, ruin, and death on the gallows. For her.
She said nothing as he went to the window and lifted the sash. When he turned as he sat upon the sill before swinging himself out, he looked as if he might change his mind.
“Bloody damnation!” he sighed. “It’s going to be hell knowing who is living here at Oak Hill. Keep your oath, Rose, lest I come visit you again. If I do, we shall finish this. And more.”
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