Kate Moore (11 page)

He followed an instant later, but she reached the concealing darkness of the wood a few steps before him, and in her black riding habit she had the advantage this time. He stopped at the edge of the wood to listen for her breathing, the snap of a twig, or the brush of her skirts against the undergrowth. There was nothing. Then he heard the crackle of dry leaves from further along the edge of the wood. It could not be Meg. So Jacob would make a move against him here. The thought, which ordinarily would quicken his senses, caused him a sudden painful constriction of the heart as he pictured Meg standing alone and frightened in the dark or Meg in the hands of the two brothers.

Why had she run from him here? At the obvious answer to that question he felt a surge of anger, more at himself for alarming Meg than at her for endangering herself once again. But the anger cleared his mind. He eased his way into the wood, feeling for low-hanging branches. The trees were tangled with vines, perfect for his purpose. When he found a likely branch, he bent it low against the natural curve like a bow tautly strung. Removing his cravat, he tied it around the branch. His scheme was simple enough but took several minutes to accomplish as he paused often to listen for sounds of the other two people in the wood.

The last step of his preparation was to secure the bent branch with a long vine. He turned in the general direction he believed Meg to have taken and paused to listen again. No sound. When at last his enemy moved behind him, he released the bent branch sending it flying upward with his cravat fluttering palely.

Three things happened then in such rapid succession as to seem simultaneous. A shot whistled by overhead; Meg gasped; and his would-be assailant came crashing forward. Under cover of the other sounds, Drew made straight for Meg and caught her. She did not struggle in his arms, but once he released her, clung to his hand so that he had no difficulty in running with her along the edge of the wood back to the village.

All lights were out and the streets quiet in the village as they made their way through the shadows. When they reached their quarters, he paused in the deeper darkness of the lower room to get his bearings. They were both panting from their exertions, but they heard quite clearly the grunts and squeals of Esau and a female companion somewhere in the darkness. As soon as his eyes adjusted to the gloom, Drew made out the stairway and led Meg quietly up it. At their door he scooped her up in his arms, pushed the door open with his shoulder, strode in, and dropped her on the bed. He closed the door, shoved the table across it, and sank down beside her. She immediately scooted away from him toward the wall, and his one thought was to hold onto his anger.

Her thief was angry, Margaret knew, and she suspected he was silent from his effort to control that anger. Without speaking herself, she followed his lead, lying down on her side, facing away from him. She had been angry, too, when he had stood teasing her, ignoring her words, ignoring the danger that threatened. But her anger had yielded to even greater fear when she realized Jacob had followed them and dizzying relief when, after the gunshot, Drew had found her in the woods.

Sleep would be sensible and would allow her to escape the turmoil of her feelings, but the narrow old bed was treacherous, and no sooner had she settled herself than the sagging bed pulled her toward its center so that her shoulders pressed against his back, her hips against his hips. She waited for him to speak, but he said nothing. She struggled against gravity for a few minutes then gave up and lay still. Sleep would come, she told herself, though every part of her felt thoroughly chilled except the two places where her body touched his.

How long she lay, her senses focused on the places where their bodies touched, she could not say, but in time, conceding to herself that sleep was unlikely, she began to think what she must do now that Drew had provoked Jacob into acting against them. She had no doubt that they would find him bowing and smiling in the morning, nor any doubt that he would try again to murder them.

Drew’s own words at Senhor Fregata’s came back to her. Jacob would not attempt anything until he was sure of the location of the papers. She, Margaret, had been too shy of touching Drew to search his person thoroughly, but Jacob, who had searched their room without restraint, must now believe that the papers were on Drew’s person. This then was perhaps her last opportunity to recover the earl’s papers, to save the man beside her from the Viper.

If she could get the papers from her thief, then she would have something to bargain with, and she knew what she would bargain for—the truth, nothing less than the truth.

10

M
ARGARET LISTENED CLOSELY
to his breathing for several long moments, assuring herself that he slept. Then she turned toward him, moving with what she hoped would be taken for the restlessness of a troubled sleep should she rouse him. When she had managed at last to turn fully over so that she lay facing his back, she rested her forehead against him and reached over his side with her left hand.

His own arm lay across his chest so she felt first the lower half of the silk waistcoat up to the ribs and then with more difficulty reached over the arm to feel the beat of his heart. She could find nothing, and so, nerving herself yet again, she traced with her fingertips the lower edge of his waistcoat for a place where she could slip her hand between its silk and the cambric of his shirt. Just as she tentatively pushed her fingertips up over the waistband of his breeches, he woke and rolled over toward her, forcing her onto her back and pinning her down with his own weight.

They were both breathing harshly again, and Margaret could not speak. His face was just inches from hers, though hidden by darkness. He lifted himself above her, his arms extended, but his legs remained tangled with hers and his heart beat fast against the hand she had thrown up to hold him off.

“You are angry, I know,” she said, “but I had to try for the earl’s papers again.”

“Angry? You think this is anger?” he asked. He took a long shaky breath. “And what do I do when I’m angry, Meg?” He said her name in a rough way that sent a shiver through her. She shook her head mutely.

She thought about the current of sensation that had jolted her in the second his lips had been pressed against the side of her face. It had been her first kiss, but the exact impression of it was tantalizingly out of reach, for she had not then been attending, her heart pounding with fear. If he kissed her again, she would know more, could think more. But a kiss from him now would be something quite different, she reasoned, something compelling, urgent, in proportion to the way his body strained away from hers.

“Talk, Meg,” he whispered, in a voice composed as much of a plea as a command.

“What about?” she whispered back, wanting all at once to touch his face, yet not wanting to remove her hand from his heart and the curious rhythm she felt there. Unbidden, his name came to mind, with a curious longing to say it.

“Your season,” he said. “Lady Loosetongue and Lord Leadfeet.”

“There’s not much to tell,” she began. “I didn’t take.”

“Did you want to?” he asked. “Did you dream of a brilliant season with dozens of beaux?” As he spoke, she felt his heartbeat grow steady against her hand.

“I did not question it,” she acknowledged, as much to herself as to him. “My mother thinks a brilliant season is every girl’s desire and due. Perhaps I expected too much.”

“So you were disappointed when you did not become Miss Reigning Beauty in a fortnight?” His voice had the warm, teasing quality she particularly liked.

“Oh, no. I never expected anything of that sort. I merely expected people to like me,” she confessed, finding it easy to admit to him in the dark.

“A natural enough desire,” he said. “Why was that too much to expect?” He lowered himself to her side, settling her against him, his left arm under her head, his right hand resting lightly on her arm.

“Because, you see, I didn’t really notice people, not as I would have at home. I couldn’t think what to say to anyone. They were all so elegant and assured, and I always had something to think of besides the person I was with.”

“Go on,” he prompted.

“You don’t really wish to hear.”

His hand stroked her arm lightly, and she shivered an all-over shiver. “Talk, Meg,” he said.

“Well, first it was whether my dresses were right, and then it was my hair. And then it was so many things I could not remember what to do with them all—my fan, my eyes, my shoulders, my steps. Mother would signal me from across the room if I forgot something, and so it seemed safer to say nothing, do nothing. Of course, I soon had no partners, and when no one came to my ball . . .”

“No one?”

“No one but my cousins and a few of my mother’s particular friends. That’s when my mother decided we must do something dramatic, and so she accosted Mr. Brummell, at Almack’s.”

“With disastrous results, I imagine,” Drew said dryly.

“Oh, yes. Mr. Brummell all but said that my mother should advertise me, like some piece of inferior goods.”

“And, no doubt, Lady Loosetongue, having no wit of her own, was glad to repeat the Beau’s wit at your expense.” Her thief sounded angry. “Shall I teach you to see them, Meg, and to laugh at them too?”

“Yes,” she said, and so he did, mimicking the lords and ladies who had so intimidated her, and unveiling the follies hidden by glittering jewels and shining silks.

***

In the morning it did not appear that they were destined to reach Amarante after all. Esau proved difficult to rouse in spite of the severity of the measures Jacob used against him. And when at last the big man staggered out into the daylight, he refused to do anything until he had seen the local
bruxa
, or witch, for a potion and an
oracao
to cure his head. Then it was discovered that one of their horses had wandered off from the field where he had been pastured. When found, the beast was lame. The brothers quarreled at once over who should have the remaining horse. Drew’s intervention sent Jacob forth to scout neighboring farms to bargain for another mount. Esau was to complete the packing of their donkey and preparation of the other animals.

In the sudden quiet after so much drama, the villagers returned to their common occupations, and Drew seized Margaret’s hand, proposing a picnic. He did not allow her astonished protests to deter him a moment but pulled her after him into the
tasca
where they procured a basket well-laden with bread and oranges and other delectables. Then they crossed the sunny field that the night before had held so much danger, passed through the little wood, now full of cheerful birds, and on up a hilly path, bordered with thyme and rosemary, lavender and rockrose. On an outcropping of granite commanding a view of the road to Amarante, they settled themselves and began to feast on the contents of the basket provided by the tavern keeper’s wife.

Her thief half-lay, half-leaned, his back against a boulder. Margaret felt his amused gaze on her as she tore off a hunk of bread or speared an olive or managed a drink from the wine bottle. She kept busy at these small tasks, only occasionally, as a weak conversational gambit, inquiring if he wished for another slice of cheese or drink of wine. He had removed all the airs of dandyism with his jacket, waistcoat, and cravat, and had rolled up the sleeves of a fresh shirt, which bloused loosely around him. Every now and then a puff of breeze blew the sheer fabric against his torso, so that Margaret alternated between a desire to look at him that made her blush and a fear of doing so that made her stare at her hands twisting the folds of her skirt.

“Did no London beau ever lead you down a dark path at Vauxhall, Meg?” he asked.

“No,” said Margaret, surprised by the question into looking up and then unable to look away. His golden head was bent, his gaze directed at a stalk of lavender which he rolled between his palms, loosening the tiny purple blossoms and releasing their fragrance.

“No one ever kissed you? No neighboring swain?” He cupped the delicate purple buds in one hand and tossed the stalk away.

She hesitated to answer, so near were they to talking about events between them the night before. She would be at a distinct disadvantage in such a talk, for she had not yet had time to understand his actions or her own feelings.

“No,” she whispered.

He pulled her hands free of the folds of her skirt and poured the fragrant buds into them. His sun-warmed touch seemed to awaken all her slumbering senses. “Then my kiss was your first?”

“Does it count?” she asked, speaking the question uppermost in her mind. She raised her cupped hands to her face to catch the scent of lavender.

“Count? Are you going to collect them then, Meg?” He laughed and raised his bright, warm gaze to hers.

“No,” she protested at once, “I meant . . . I meant did you do it for the reasons that another man might have?”

“And what would those reasons be?” Now he looked away, and she heard the note of caution in his voice.

“Surely you would know better than I,” she faltered, “or perhaps you were only teasing?”

“No, not teasing.” He paused and seemed to consider his answer. “Finding a pretty girl in my arms, a girl whose honesty and courage I admire, I took the sort of liberty Lord Leadfeet would no doubt have taken had you given him a chance.”

“But you did not do it again when you could have,” she said, speaking her thought as it came to mind and wishing it unsaid at once.

“It would not then have been a matter of mere kisses.”

“Oh,” she exclaimed, and jumped up, unbearably drawn to him, knowing she had come too close, had allowed herself to linger where his person could act like some newly discovered force, drawing her closer still. She strode to the edge of the rock and stood looking out over the valley, seeing nothing.

Margaret had been warned against the charms of Wicked Men almost as regularly as she had been told to stand up straight or to refrain from speaking before her mother’s maids. But her mother’s admonitions and obliquely told stories of ruined girls had never touched her imagination. The rake who might seduce a girl like herself existed, as far as she knew, only in her mother’s mind. And though Margaret understood, in an abstract sort of way, that a woman’s body must somehow be involved in her seduction, she had thought till now that the body’s role was a minor one, a sort of epilogue to the play. Thus she was appalled at the intensity of her desire to touch and be touched by her companion.

Not that she thought him a thief and a traitor any longer, it was just that she did not know precisely what to think of him. And even if he were the most eligible bachelor of the
ton
, her feelings at this moment were anything but proper.

“Meg?” came his voice behind her. Though she wished to hide her confusion from him, she could not help but turn. As she did so, a movement on the slope above them caught her eye, and she saw Esau step behind a clump of pines. Something in her expression must have alerted Drew.

“Which of our companions is spying on us now, Meg?” he asked with no discernible change in tone though she could sense a wary tautness in his body.

When she replied, he relaxed again. “No need to fear then, for Esau is the blind brother.”

“Blind brother?” she asked, very much puzzled.

“Yes, blind. He sees with his stomach and his loins, thus he does not question appearances. Let him spy. He will see only what he expects to see—a man, his picnic, and his mistress.”

“What would your mistress, a man’s mistress, be doing at this moment?” she asked, surprised at her own daring.

“Complaining,” he said repressively. Her question caught him off guard. He knew she did not quite recognize his incipient desire for her, and he meant to keep her from discovering it. At least that had been his intention. He had teased her merely to relieve the awkwardness she betrayed in his presence today. Unfortunately his teasing seemed to encourage her innate frankness. “You are the least complaining female I know, Meg,” he finished, hoping to avoid any further talk of the duties of a mistress.

She made a gesture with her hands as if brushing his compliment away. “I mean, what sort of . . . attentions would you be expecting from a mistress, for Esau must expect to see . . . intimacies.”

The word was no more than a whisper as her courage apparently failed her, but it reached him just as the capricious breeze brushed his shirt against his skin, and suddenly the desire to feel her touch overmastered him. He tipped back his head.

“Come sit on me, Meg,” he invited, giving in to the promptings of that desire. He was behaving like a boy testing his daring. How close to the edge could one go? He repeated his invitation, watching her face.

She came forward slowly as if drawn against her will, hesitated once at his side, and then, gathering her skirts about her, lowered herself gracefully to his lap.

“Bravely done,” he whispered, not entirely trusting his voice. He put his hands to her waist and gently pulled her to him. If a tremor shook him, he doubted she noticed, for her gaze was lowered and she was once more twisting the folds of her skirt in her hands.

He pushed her chin up. “Come, Meg, you sat upon your father’s lap as a girl.”

“Yes,” she said, “to hear stories from him, but . . .”

“But?”

“But this is not at all the same.” After this confession she hung her head again.

“Shall I tell you a story then, just for a few minutes until our spy goes away?” He pulled her hands free of her skirts and brushed the sweet, clinging buds from her heated palms.

“Yes, please,” she said. Her frank gray gaze was troubled, but the thousand messages of his senses to his brain made him incapable of distracting her now.

“Kiss me first, Meg,” he suggested, saying what he wanted to rather than what he ought, taking that step closer to the edge, just as he always had as a boy. Pulling her hands forward until they touched the rock behind his shoulders, he forced her nearer to him. He breathed in lavender and thyme and hot pine and the headiest fragrance of all—warm, sweet skin, and his promise to himself to leave her innocent and heart-whole hung in the balance.

It was not at all what Margaret expected. She had thought that seducers were active, pressing their attentions on their passive, subdued victims. But his lying there, giving the control to her, was a powerful form of temptation. All the fleeting impulses to look at or to touch him that she had suppressed, had been able to suppress because each had been a single moment of temptation now conspired against her as she looked her fill.

All lights favored him, she decided, and thought the word for his shining looks was
beauty
, however unconventional an epithet for a man. But more than the beauty of him what tempted her was the unguardedness of his countenance at this moment, as if, though his eyes were closed, his heart was quite open to her. She would kiss him. Caution, a faint voice like her mother’s, told her to kiss his brow, his eyes, his cheek, but never the firm, finely drawn mouth. But she thought if she once touched his lips, she might ask him for any truth.