Emma Jensen - Entwined (30 page)

"Aye, well, they can wait, then. I've but one apology to spare a night."

Mariah was still blathering something about unique spirits as Isobel moved away. She had, over the past weeks, done her best to explain the honor of being labeled an Original. To Isobel, it sounded like calling an infant "engaging," which was, of course, merely a polite way of saying

"ugly."

She was not at all certain she wanted to be labeled either a unique spirit or an original one. She simply wished Society would tire of its Scottish novelty and ignore her. As far as she was concerned, the attention was no more than a nuisance, but Nathan was clearly becoming a bit tired of the gossip, especially that in print. Perhaps if she could diffuse Allenham's ire, they would be spared another mention in the papers and Nathan's public face might lose some of its stoniness.

He had not smiled when his brother remarked on the most recent cartoon. Isobel had tried to keep Nathan from learning about it. William, of course, had taken great pleasure in describing, in detail, the etched image of the haughty Marquess of Oriel's head poking out from a bagpipe.

Aye, she would have to apologize to Allenham, but the words stuck like dry oats in her throat.

"He is not worth the effort, you know."

Isobel blinked as Lord St. Wulfstan appeared at her elbow. She was too startled to be wary. "I beg your pardon?"

"Allenham. It won't do you any good to speak to him, you know, and from your expression, I daresay the effort might do you some serious damage."

"Eavesdropping is hardly a worthy trait, my lord," she snapped, wondering how someone with such a poor reputation in the ton could move so freely within it.

"Neither is ignorance, my lady," he shot back. "Why don't we dance? I have some things to say to you."

"Spare your breath. I've nothing to say to you."

His scarred brow rose, and he flashed his stunning smile at the same time, reminding Isobel of an ancient two-sided mask: good and evil together. It was not a soothing thought. "So they've gotten to you, have they? Pity. I cherished the hope you might be able to resist joining the mindless flock."

"A wolf looks the same to a lone sheep as to a hundred."

"Ah, the clever tongue. But has it never occurred to you that I might not be such a bad creature after all?"

Perhaps it had, but there was something in the depths of his eyes, something cool and secretive, that said more than his teasing words. "I haven't spent much time thinking on the matter, my lord. Nor do I plan to in the future. Now, if you will excuse me."

"Ah, yes. I am interrupting your encounter with Allenham." The cobalt eyes narrowed. "You really are a naive little thing, aren't you? It pains me to think of the things your husband is not teaching you."

Isobel nearly snarled at him. "You—"

"
I
am just the sort of tutor you need, Lady Oriel. You might be amazed by what you could learn from me."

"I'd sooner take loyalty lessons from Judas!" she spat, and watched as he smiled again, this time an eerie parody of his easy grin.

"Bold words, and reckless. Take care,
Albanach,
that you don't confuse righteousness with wisdom. You might end up regretting it." After bowing mockingly, he strutted off.

Isobel watched him go, unspoken curses left to simmer on her tongue.

She heartily regretted having talked to him at all. Besides being unpleasant, her encounters with St. Wulfstan made all the sense of fool's riddles. Proud as she might be of her own quick mind, she knew his was a game she simply did not comprehend.

He moved easily through the crowd until he was standing just behind Allenham. A moment later, the baron let out a startled yelp as his elaborate sling slipped from his shoulder. He flailed about with two perfectly good arms, but was not adept enough to keep a large flask from hitting the floor.

Isobel's eyes flashed from the now red-faced Allenham to the spot behind him. The viscount, perfectly visible a moment before, was nowhere to be seen. Warily, she scanned the crowd but caught not so much as a glimpse of him.

"One more bit of wisdom, my lady." St. Wulfstan was right beside her.

"Next time you think to ride that hell-horse through the Park, think again."

Nathan should have been stunned by the news. He should have been, but he was not. Instead, he was bone weary. "I had forgotten all about Henry Stone."

"We all had." Rotheroe's voice was harsh. "Damn it, Oriel, he was all but on my steps! He was shot within sight of my bloody house!"

Stone.
Nathan barely remembered him. The man had not been one of the Ten. He had been a very early member of the corps, but had been demoted into the ranks of lesser operatives a good two years before the Ten was formed. By the time they had sailed for the Peninsula, Stone had been long gone.

Now he had been shot in Hyde Park, within sight of Rotheroe's house and just as close to where Nathan had been riding with Isobel.

If what Rotheroe said was true, the matter was being expediently if not wisely hushed up by His Majesty's Army. The military's reputation was of great importance; it would hardly look good that members of its forces were being gunned down right in the midst of Hyde Park. Tomorrow, people would stroll past the hedge where Stone had been hidden, none the wiser for the blood that had been shed there. Only an old man whose hound had found the body would know, and Rotheroe, whose home had been quietly commandeered. Money would serve to silence the first; duty would silence the latter.

"Has Gerard spoken to you?" Nathan did not need to ask whether Matthew had been notified. There was no doubt of that.

"Gerard," Rotheroe replied wearily, "told me absolutely nothing. He just had Stone wrapped and sent away to the surgeon, then swore me to silence."

"Wait. Stone was alive?"

"As far as I know. He was still breathing. Please, Oriel, don't be as silent as Gerard. I need to know what is happening."

Nathan thought for a moment before replying. If Rotheroe was the one responsible, he would already know the situation. If not, he might be of some help. Either way, Nathan felt he had nothing to lose.

"Someone is going after the Ten," he said calmly, "one by one. Gerard called me back to Town."

"But Stone was not one of the Ten."

"No, but he was still privy to much of what we knew— and did." Once again, Nathan repeated the sad list. "Harlow, Witherspoon, Rievaulx, Dennison, Brooke. Three gone would merely be the carnage of war. Four could be a matter of very bad luck. Five..." He shrugged. "Someone knows who we are, Rotheroe, and has thus far done a very good job at cutting down our number."

If Nathan had expected a revelation, even so much as a careless word, he was disappointed. Rotheroe was silent. At last, he demanded, "Why didn't Gerard enlist my aid?" A moment later, he answered his own question with a sharp laugh. "Of course. Almeida. Since he believed I failed so badly there, he couldn't possibly trust me now."

"He trusted you enough to leave you on the Continent."

"Oh, to be sure. Sitting in a dark garrison in Lisbon with Montgomerie leaning over my shoulder, reading French missives of little importance."

The man was bitter, Nathan thought. Was it guilt—or anger at having been misjudged? "Where is Montgomerie now?" he asked.

"Calais, I assume, or—" Rotheroe drew in his breath, then released it with a grim chuckle. "You think it's me, don't you? Of course. I was at Almeida when the fort fell, away from my post and in the arms of a Portuguese whore. Congratulations, Oriel. You have now single-handedly won the war."

"Rotheroe..."

"No, none of the comradely denials, if you please. We are men of experience and action. Well, I have but one thing to say to you."

Nathan felt the man lean in, felt Rotheroe's good hand jab at his chest.

"And what is that?"

"You'll have to prove it, Oriel. And damned if you can!"

Then he was gone.

Prove it.
Nathan's chest felt hollow suddenly. Rotheroe. Always eager and solid, even when the disaster at Almeida had deprived him of the use of his right arm. There had never been any actual proof that he had been in a brothel; he had been in the wreckage when the last of the smoke had cleared. There had only been Dennison's babbled suggestions. And Dennison had saved his own sorry hide from the sudden French attack on the fort by fleeing himself.

Prove it.
Nathan silently and violently cursed his lost sight. He had no way of looking into Rotheroe's eyes, no way of knowing if the man even met his when he spoke. All he had was his suspicions, and the gut feeling that his conversation with Rotheroe had served him badly.

He had either just antagonized someone who already wanted him dead or lost a valuable ally.

CHAPTER 18

Isobel was asleep when he came to her that night. He had been so forbiddingly silent on the ride home that she had left him to his thoughts and gone alone to her bed. Now, drawn by the shifting of her mattress from an uneasy dream filled with thorns, she whispered, "Nathan?"

"Shh."
His mouth brushed over hers. Soothed by the kiss and by the gentle stroke of one hand through her hair, she closed her eyes again.

There was no urgency in his touch. His fingers traced tantalizing patterns over her skin, long strokes up her arm, teasing circles at her nape.

He took equal care with the kiss. It feathered from her parted lips to her cheek and upward to her brow. Warmed, lulled into boneless contentment, Isobel lazily twined her arms around his neck and turned fully into the hard length of his body.

He was all solid heat and gentle strength against her. He circled one arm under her shoulder, drawing her even closer, and she reveled in the play of his muscles against her ribs. He surrounded her, covered her, and she sighed with the wonder of it.

"Nathan," she murmured as he parted her legs, again as her body softened and opened to welcome the unhurried press of his erection.

He slipped his other arm beneath her then, holding them chest to chest as he moved slowly within her. Each stroke was measured, deliberate, touching every sensitive nerve along its path. When he lowered his cheek to hers and whispered vague, husky words, she answered with her own sighing breaths. For countless, wondrous minutes, all she heard were those soft whispers and the rhythmic brush of linen against linen. Then, as the first wave of her climax lapped at her senses, she heard nothing at all.

Later, when he rolled onto his side, taking her with him in a tangle of limbs and rumpled sheets, she recalled her dream. "There were only thorns in the garden."

Nathan shifted and rubbed his jaw against her hair.
"Hmm?"

"I was dreaming of the roses. Your grandmother's roses. They should be budding now, but in my dream they weren't. There were only thorns."

"It was a dream, sweetheart."

"Aye." she curved around him, sliding one leg between his. This time, the slow stroke of his hand along her back did not still her restless thoughts.

"We'll miss the buds."

"Is there an omen in that?"

He was humoring her, she knew, with his drowsy participation in a discussion that could not interest him. "Would you believe me if I were to say there was?"

She saw his eyes glitter in the moonlight, felt him come fully awake.

"No. But it might be an interesting tale."

"It might at that, if there were one. Nay, there's no omen, just the meanings of the buds."

"And they are?"

"Och,
you don't really want to hear this." She did not really want to tell it, regretting her hasty words.

"Try me."

"Very well. A yellow rosebud means 'Let us forget.' " She hoped he would do just that for her.

"I don't remember yellow roses in my garden." He prodded her shoulder when she did not respond. "Red. Tell me about red buds."

"A red rosebud signifies a heart inclined to love."

"Ah. And the white?"

"A heart without it."

He grunted and closed his eyes again. "The wonder of folklore. How empty was my life before it."

"Don't be rude," Isobel muttered, but tempered the words by rubbing her hand in a lazy circle over his heart. " 'Twas my dream."

Nathan said nothing, just held her close and berated himself for making too much of simple words. She had been repeating something older than either of them, older than his grandmother's roses. A legend. Folk wisdom.

She had not been speaking of either his heart or hers.

Unfortunate that he knew better.

Oh, his heart was indeed inclined to love. He had loved far too easily in the past, seldom wisely. But never completely, until now. Somewhere in the brief time he had known Isobel MacLeod—probably in the earliest days—he had given her his perhaps guarded, certainly battered, ever-hopeful heart. And, in uncharacteristic carelessness, he had not bothered to hold onto even a piece of it for his own protection.

Isobel had given him everything he had asked her to give: her freedom, strength, and silence. When she had learned how much he desired it, she had given him her body, and with it her inherent passion. He had never asked for her heart, perhaps because it would have shattered him to hear he could never have it.

Had he been stronger, smarter, he would have remained aloof, would have put an end to the curse that caused him to lose those things he cared for most. Of course it was too late for self-protection now.

He lowered the hand that curved around her waist to cover the soft swell of her belly. Even now, his child could be growing there. He imagined Isobel, round and rosy in pregnancy, her fire tempered to an inner glow. He moved his touch upward to cup one full breast, imagining a dark-headed infant suckling there.

Isobel mumbled something incoherent and moved against him, her nipple hardening as she turned fully into his hand. His own body responded, as it always did. He stroked the tight bud until her own hand lifted to cover his. " 'Tis lovely, that."

"Isobel."

"Hmm?
Ah, don't stop."