Come the Night (The Dangerous Delameres - Book 1) (15 page)

“Blast it, Miss Silver, what in the name of—”

“Don’t, Tinker. It would not have been right. All the affection was on one side. In the end we would have been fretting and angry and hating each other.” There was an edge of desperation in her voice. “I
couldn’t
marry him, don’t you see?”

“Nay, that I do not see. Not in spite of all yer fine and clever roundaboutation.”

Silver’s fingers tightened on one of the clean but threadbare curtains. “Don’t, Tinker. Not now.”

“Then
when
? Oh, you’ve money in your pocket now, but how long will it last? There’s new equipment to be bought for the summer distilling, and that last bunch of seedlings yet to be paid for. This year we’ll have to take special precautions, lest that area of leaf-rot spread here as it did through Mitcham two seasons past. And now on top of all that, this band of blackguards comes trying to scare you away. How do you propose to deal with
that?”

She clenched her hands together. “We’ll manage. We have done well up until now,” she said fiercely.

“But there’s young master Bram to think of. And up until now you didn’t have that offspring of a stubborn donkey sniffing around, forever making life miserable for you.”

Silver gave Tinker a lopsided smile. “You’re mixing your metaphors again, my old friend. Now I
know
that you’re upset.”

“Bloody right, I’m upset! And I’ll mix medafers whenever I like — whatever
they
are. So don’t try an’ distract me, hear? Sir Charles Millbank was here last night, wasn’t he? Right before the magistrate and his men came. Don’t try to lie to me.”

Silver sighed. “I won’t. I hoped he would tire of these games and find more amiable prey.”

“Oh, it’s prey the man’s found. He’s had women from here to Southold. Why, right now he’s got—” Tinker stopped, mumbling irritably as he pulled out a kerchief to mop his dusty face.

“Right now he’s got what?”

“Never you bleedin’ mind. ‘Tain’t fit to speak of, not to a lady like yourself.”

So Millbank had set up a mistress, Silver thought. That being so, she was surprised he had any interest left in
her.

“What do you mean to do now?”

Silver shrugged. “I suppose I’ll go down and see to those new lavender beds by the north end. They’ll need to be hoed, I expect.”

“‘Tis not about
plants
that I was talking, girl!”

“No?”

“No, it’s Sir Bleeding Charles Millbank I was talking of, and don’t you try to dance yer way around it!”

“Sir Charles will grow tired of his games, Tinker. Until then I shall have to be more vigilant.”

“Vigilant and armed to the teeth! The man’s short a sheet, I don’t mind telling you.” Suddenly Tinker frowned. “I don’t suppose as how you’ve taken that highwayman into your head.”

“Highwayman?

“Aye, highwayman. I saw how you looked that night when you came back from the heath.
And
how you looked when you came back from town! So don’t go telling me you haven’t thought about him.”

“Dear Tinker, I wouldn’t try to convince you of anything because I could never succeed. You’ve stubbornness enough for ten men.”

“Which gives me half the stubbornness of
you,
miss,” came the gruff answer. “And if there was a more
obstropulous
female ever born, I have yet to meet her!”

“Come, let’s cry friends, Tinker. I’ve a free heart, tied neither to young Kenton nor to the dashing and dangerous Lord Blackwood. There, does that satisfy you?”

“Not by bleeding half, miss. For I can see by the sadness in your eyes that the blackguard’s already got to you. Aye, and don’t go trying to deny it.”

Silver felt a burning in her throat. Suddenly she had to talk to someone. “You’re right, Tinker, he was here last night. He — he came just after Sir Charles. And if he hadn’t come when he did…” She made a low, desperate sound.

“So that wretched excuse for English nobility
did
touch you! Why in the name of blessed heaven didn’t you tell me last night after Carlisle and his men left?”

“Because you’d only have taken your pistol and gone out after him. Then you’d be in Norwich gaol waiting to be hung.”

“Mayhap I would, but ‘twould be a mortal great pleasure to see that man dead first.”

“Hush, Tinker. He’s not worth your death!” Silver glared at her old servant. “I won’t have you swinging from the gallows over Millbank’s foul antics.”

The old man scrubbed at his grizzled face. “Reckon as how you’re right. Very well, ‘twill be no pistols at dawn.” He gave her a wicked grin. “But that’s not to say I might not fall into a good set of fisticuffs by moonlight. Now away with you. I’ll keep an eye on things tonight. Cromwell and this rifle will be all I need. Tomorrow we’ll see about getting help from some other town.”

Silver touched his shoulder lightly. “Be careful, my friend. Not that you would
ever
listen to anything I say.”

Tinker’s eyes took on their old twinkle. “Stubborn, am I? If so it’s only because I’ve grown worn out from delivering you and Bram from one scrape after another.”

“Don’t you think I know that, you dear man?”

Tinker made a gruff sound of protest, but his cheeks were pink with pleasure. “Aw, git on with you. Just trying to wrap me around your finger, that’s what you are.” He snorted. “Problem is, every time you manage to do just
that!”

~ ~ ~

Night covered the lawns of Waldon Hall when Luc Delamere looked up from pulling on his polished boots. “Why don’t you go rob some fine, upstanding pillar of Norfolk society and stop bothering me?”

“Because I gave that life up ages ago, Master Luc.” Jonas Ferguson, a lean Scotsman with keen eyes, stared at the highwayman who was the scourge of Norfolk. “Which you should bloody well know, seeing as how your father was the one what made me change my ways.”

A small furry head emerged from beneath the rumpled bedclothes. Two clever eyes peered up at Luc, who lifted the sleek ball of fur to his chest. He stroked his squeaking pet, then sighed. “And just look where it got you, Jonas. Now you’re accomplice to the country’s most notorious highwayman and you have a price on your own head to boot.” His eyes narrowed as he studied the black silk mask on the bed. “How long has it been?”

“Since … that night?” Jonas said the words stiffly, as if he had trouble speaking of it even now.

That night. When his life might as well have ended.
“Yes,
that night.”

“Four years, I reckon.”

“You’re wrong. It’s been five.” Luc stroked the ferret’s silky pelt, his jaw going hard. “Five years, three months, and twenty-one days.”

Luc settled his pet back on the coverlet and pushed to his feet. In grim silence he reached for his shirt.

Outside the windows the moon drifted cool and mocking behind a waterfall of silver clouds.

“I’ll tell you again, Master Luc.
Don’t go.”

“I’ve got to go. You of all people know that, Jonas. There’s too much at stake not to go.”

“Give it up, won’t you? Aye, give up this crazy life once and for all. Go back home to Swallow Hill where you belong, where all the Delameres belong. Where your people have been born and buried for six hundred years and more.”

Luc gave Jonas a sad smile. “I never realized you knew so much Delamere history, Jonas. But since you do, you’ll also recall that Delameres don’t cheat. They don’t lie. They don’t rob carriages or ride the heath by moonlight.” He slid the supple black shirt over broad shoulders, a shadow in a room filled with shadows. “They most certainly don’t turn traitor to their country.”

The old servant snorted. “Even if they was
made
to do it?”

“Not even then.” Luc’s lips hardened. “Even if their country did forget all about them. No, things like that just don’t happen to a Delamere.”

“But it happened to
you,”
Jonas said stoutly. “Aye, and Delamere blood runs blue through your veins. Nor was you doing anything to deserve it happening that way, Master Luc.”

The highwayman shrugged. “But it
did
happen, my friend. First Southold, then Rouen and Algiers. I can’t pretend that they didn’t. Nor can I forgive whoever was behind it.”

Luc caught up his cape from the scrolled mahogany bedpost. Muscles rippled across his back as the satin slid into place.

Luc’s eyes glinted, amber and catlike. He found his saddlebags and inspected the two pistols inside. “Did you know there was a Delamere at Agincourt? And another with Marlborough at the Battle of Blenheim in 1704?” The full lips curved in an uneven smile. “I can only wonder what they’d have to say about the heir to the dukedom of Devonham taking to the high toby. Probably the same thing my father would say — if he knew. Which he bloody well isn’t going to.”

“Tell
him, Luc. Andrew Delamere’s a good man. Damn it, he’d understand. What’s more, he’d find a way to help you.”

“No.”

Flat.

Cold. As if he’d been over the reasons a thousand times before. “I can’t go back there, Jonas. Not until I’ve tracked down the man who did this to me. Maybe not even
then.
If you can’t accept that, you’d better leave.” Luc slung his satchel over his shoulder and strode toward the door. “I won’t be back till morning.”

Jonas shifted from foot to foot, looking angry and worried at the same time. “You expect me to be here to sew you together when you come back full of lead?”

Luc shrugged. “I expect nothing.”

“And who is it to be tonight, then? Lord Carlisle? Lord Claydon? Or will it be Sir Charles Millbank this time?”

Luc paused. “Millbank? Robbing that bloated bore would be a pleasure, to be sure. But alas, tonight I must pay a visit to the good Mr. Abercrombie.”

“The jeweler what lives in Kingsdon Cross? Are you out of your mind, boy? Do you mean to take up common shop breaking now?”

Luc studied the tip of his foil, glistening like liquid silver in the moonlight. “I have my reasons. Besides, you err greatly, my friend. There is nothing at all
common
about the Lord of Blackwood, I assure you. And if you do not believe me, then any number of enchanting ladies will vouch for the fact.”

Jonas scowled. “Females, maybe, but not
ladies.
And it’s common all the same,” the old man muttered. “But if you’re set on being stubborn as a stoat, then so be it. I wash my hands o’ you, Master Luc. Give my kind regards to Mr. Abercrombie, I’m sure. Provided you don’t get take up by an officer o’ the law on the way,” Jonas added darkly.

“Not a chance of it, my dear friend. Blackwood is invincible, don’t you know? Impervious to bullet and sword alike. No one and no thing can harm the man.”

Jonas snorted.
“Common,
just like I said. Otta be back at home. Otta be back at Swallow Hill where you belong, you damned fool boy!” He glared at Luc, shaking his head.

But Luc was already on the stairs, and the last thing he wanted to think about right now was his past. He shut his mind to memories of graceful green lawns and the sun-dappled walls of Swallow Hill, the Delamere family’s grand sixteenth-century home in western Norfolk. He shut his mind to the Devonham title he had been reared to inherit.

Now he had to focus on hard, cruel reality in the shape of a rare ring — a ring of beaten silver with inlaid emeralds worked in the shape of a fantastic animal.

It was a ring Luc had not seen for over five years, but he was not likely to forget it. The ring had been the last thing he’d seen before he was knocked unconscious, gagged and tied, then delivered, still unconscious, to the stinking hell of an English prison hulk where he was left to die.

But fate had intervened. He’d finally escaped from the prison ship and been picked up by a cruising French frigate. There he’d been fed, healed, and given his freedom of the ship. In return he had given his service willingly.

Which made him a traitor to his country. In a matter of months the jaded aristocrat became a hardened seaman with a savage hunger for revenge against the man who had seen him delivered him to a slow, agonizing death in that stinking prison ship. Against the men who had seen to it that he stayed, even after he was sane enough and lucid enough to protest that he was entirely innocent.

No one had even listened to him.

But sanity, Luc had soon discovered, was a relative thing. Innocence, too, was soon lost amid the unspeakable cruelty of a prison hulk, crammed two hundred to a deck in stormy seas.

Hope had lasted even less.

Now Luc lived only for revenge upon the man who had destroyed his life. If luck was with him, he would find the name of that man tonight.

But first he had an errand to attend to.

From her bedroom window high under the thatched eaves, Silver watched darkness cover the hills. Somewhere over the trees a nightingale sang its first sad notes, while the moon climbed pale and proud over the rolling fields of lavender.

The boy is next.

It was up to Silver now. She pulled out her hastily sketched map of the route to the Green Man. One of the workers had told her how to find the seedy inn on the edge of the heath. He’d also told her it was just the sort of place where one could hire men for gold — and no questions asked.

Just the sort of place where four bullies could be hired to run an unarmed female, a boy and an old man off forty acres of lavender fields.

Silver glared down at her map. She’d go to the Green Man and find out who was trying to force her to leave. And then she’d simply deal with him.

All by herself. Her pistol should accomplish that nicely.

She didn’t need anyone
else’s
help.

Smugly, she slid the map onto a rosewood bookshelf by the window. As she reviewed her plans, she straightened a little silver-handled brush and a pair of celadon bowls filled with potpourri.

With a sigh she shrugged off her old linen shirt and stepped out of her threadbare breeches.

And then some instinct made her turn. She walked through a bar of moonlight, her body all silver and curves as she opened a drawer in the big oak armoire.

Her eyes were wistful as she pulled out a cloud-soft gown of white cambric.

It had been her mother’s. The neckline was ornamented with white embroidered roses and white ribbons clustered around the deeply gathered sleeves. Silver liked to wear the gown sometimes. It helped her to remember that she had once had a mother. That once she had been happy. That once there had been a family and teasing and mock arguments shared before a fire laden with teakettle and toasting bread.

She raised her arms, letting the wind kiss her skin while the fine scent of lavender and mint and bergamot drifted through the air.

Sighing, she sank onto her bed and drew the gown over her shoulders, then began to pull the pins from her hair. It fell about her shoulders, dense and dark except for the fine streak of white that ran back from her forehead.

Silver fingered the bright streak slowly. Once she had hated it, but now she wore it proudly. Now that white band stood for memories that she never wanted to forget, marking the day that she had learned of her father’s death.

If her memories failed, the streak of silver in her hair would always be there to remind her.

And she was glad of that.

She slid her brush through her hair, watching moonlight dance through the curtains, listening to the crickets hum in the lavender fields.

And as she did, she tried not to think about a shadow. About a legend. About a man whose name was uttered in whispers or not at all.

A man who might well be a murderer many times over.

She tried not to think about any of those things as she stared out the window, watching the curtains move slowly.

And then she saw him, real and no dream.

Dark shoulders. Black mask. Unyielding jaw.

The reflection filled her cheval glass. He stood by the window, tall and unmoving, one shadow too many in the silent room.

Silver caught back a sharp gasp. She spun about, her gown sliding off her shoulders.

Unnoticed, her brush clattered to the floor and pins scattered from the bed.

Her hand went to her breasts, tugging at fabric that suddenly seemed too sheer. At skin that suddenly seemed too hot — and yet far too cold.

“Sunbeam.” One word, it pierced straight to her soul. One name, it conjured up an eternity of hopes, an infinity of silly girlish dreams.

But Silver was no silly girl, not anymore.

She took a step back.
“You.”

“I tried to stay away. I couldn’t.”

Silver’s hand rose to her throat. “You … watched.”

It was no question. She’d felt his dark gaze upon her. Maybe some part of her had always known he was there.

And welcomed him.

Her cheeks flushed crimson. Her chin rose in an angry slant. “You — you were there. You watched. So you saw me—”

“Beautiful.” He whispered the word. She could almost feel it touch her, drifting against her naked shoulders, her unbound hair.

“No, I’m not. I’d know if—”

“Beautiful,” he said. “Beautiful beyond any dream. Beyond permission. You deny a man his very peace.”

Her eyes widened. She watched him cross the room to stand behind her. The mirror reflected every move, white against black, woman before man.

His fingers slid into her hair. “I wanted to watch. I wanted to be like the moonlight, touching you everywhere. Damn my black soul to hell for it.”

She barely heard his curse. Her heart was too busy stumbling over the other images his words invoked. “But why? In Kingsdon Cross you acted as if you wanted me gone.”

“So I did. But then I was drunk. And tonight, oh, tonight I’m only drunk with the sight of you, Sunbeam. And since I’m stone-cold sober I tell myself I’m strong enough to be here. To come close to you like this.” He laughed darkly. “But sober I’m a thousand times more dangerous, little one. Because tonight I’m just a man. A hardhearted criminal on the scent of soft and easy prey.”

“You — shouldn’t have come.”

“Of course I shouldn’t. But I wanted to come. And Blackwood never denies himself anything that he wants,” he added harshly.

Too harshly? To convince her or himself? Silver thought. “But it’s too dangerous.”

“So it is. You’d better take that pistol on the table and use it.”

Silver made an impatient sound. “Not dangerous for me, but for
you.
Millbank might have someone out there watching.”

The amber eyes went bottomless beneath the mask. “Little fool,” he whispered. “The danger is for
you,
don’t you understand? From me. From what I’m feeling — and all the things I’m thinking of doing. Doesn’t that frighten you?”

Silver felt her throat grow hot and hollow. “Yes.”

“And so I should frighten you.”

Her hand rose, a pale line of denial. “Not, not you. It’s the way you make me
feel
that frightens me. I don’t understand it, not any of it.” She swallowed, forcing out the words. “It’s all — very strange.”

The highwayman cursed. “How have you grown up without anyone teaching you that you can’t be honest? You have to be cold and hard and hide the important things away in your heart.”

“Did that happen to you?”

“It happens to everyone,” the man in black said harshly. “But not to you.” His hand trailed over an auburn curl. “Somehow you have escaped that hard tutelage.”

Silver swallowed, trying to clear her dizzy thoughts. “You’d — better go. Someone might come. They’ll catch you and—” She fought down a small, lost sound.

“Ah, Sunbeam, they’ll have a hard time catching me, that I assure you.”

Her hands clenched at her chest, which seemed weighted down by cold, heavy stones. “Don’t joke about it!” Her voice broke and she covered it with anger. “I hate it, do you hear? And I hate
you.”

“Of course,” he said slowly, his fingers moving through her hair, velvet over velvet. “Yes, I understand perfectly.”

“No, you don’t! You ride off at your ease and come back the same way. I don’t know who you are or anything about you! And all the while I can’t help thinking. Wondering. Worrying that they — that you—”

His arm went around her waist. His lips were in her hair. Silver shivered, assailed by emotions she’d never known before.

“No,” he said roughly. “They’ll never catch me. Have no fear of that. Murder me, perhaps, but never catch me,” he added, with a sardonic laugh.

“You think it’s all a joke?” Her throat tightened at the thought. “And what makes you think I’d care if they did catch you? I wouldn’t, you know! N-not even if they dragged you off in chains. Not even if they threw you into N-Norwich gaol.” She spun about. Her open hand struck his chest. “So go away. Go away and never come back!”

“If that’s what you want.” But he didn’t move.

“It
is.”
Her hand brushed crossly at her cheeks. “Just
leave
.”

He frowned down at her damp face.

“Go on! I’m
not
crying, you know!” She gave a defiant sniff. “This is
not
crying and these are not tears. I hate you, do you hear? You’re a common thief. A highway felon. A man with no scruples and n-no sense of honor.” The words tumbled out, ragged with pain. “You d-deserve to hang, just as they say!”

“All too true.”

“Don’t argue with me.”

The silver scar gleamed at Luc’s mouth. “I wouldn’t dream of it, Sunbeam.”

A shudder went through her. “Don’t agree with me either. I don’t want your charm or your promises or your smiles. And don’t joke.
Never
joke about death. It comes when you least expect it,” she said fiercely.

“You’re right. I’ll watch my words more carefully in the future.”

“You’ve got to go. It’s not safe here.”

“You’re right, it isn’t.”

“Then
go.
What if they followed you? What if they—”

“Soon.” His fingers searched her cheek and feathered over the full mouth he yearned to kiss. “Very soon…”

He tried not to look lower, where thin cambric hugged full, lush nipples.

He closed his eyes and drew in the delicate scent of lavender and roses, a scent uniquely her own. “You smell like a sweet, endless summer afternoon, Sunbeam. I can think of nothing else, damn it. All I see is your skin, your eyes. All I hear is your voice, low and breathless.” His fingers tightened in her hair. “Those things make me dream. And for a man like myself dreams are very dangerous things.”

He stared at their reflection in the cheval glass. His, hard and angry. Hers, pale and questioning.

And young. By all his oaths,
far
too young
.

He had never been so young or innocent, Luc thought grimly. Not even as a mewling infant of two days.

So what was he to do about her? About the dangerous way she made him feel right now?

“Come away with me.” The words shocked him as much as her.

Her eyes widened, green flecks amid shimmering gold. “Why?”

Luc smiled faintly. Not
where
or
when.
All she asked was why, this volatile, vulnerable girl-woman with eyes of green and gold. She sliced through every bit of trivia right to the very heart of things.

For her, motive was all that mattered. The meaning. The long, sharp probe right into his heart.

Oh, she was rare, this woman. And somehow he had to protect her.

Even from himself.

“Why?” He traced the heartbreaking arch of her lower lip, feeling his muscles harden fiercely at the contact. “Because it matters. Because
you
matter. And it’s been far too long since anyone mattered to me like this.”

“Not good enough, highwayman.” Her eyes shimmered, changeable as the sea that washed over the Norfolk coast.

“Damn it, woman, don’t you see your danger? Can’t you see what I
am?”

Danger jumped and pulsed around the man like marsh fire. It wrapped itself about the hard shoulders and danced in his amber eyes.

And Silver didn’t care.

She was lost. Maybe she’d been lost ever since that first moment when she’d stared deep into his eyes and fallen, body and soul, just as her old nanny had warned she would.

Don’t look into his eyes, my girl. One look into his eyes and you’ll be lost forever.

Maybe, just maybe, all those dark tales were true…