Lady Rogue (35 page)

Furth looked between the two of them for a moment, then took a seat opposite. Rubbing his hands together, his gaze directed downward, he inhaled deeply. “I don’t know how to begin this,” he said, lifting his head to look at her again.

“Do whatever you please,” Kit replied sharply, trying to hide her nervousness in her temper.

“Very well.” He cleared his throat again. “Your mother, Anne, died of pneumonia. I did not harm her in any way. I couldn’t have. I was…very fond of her.” Christine squirmed, wanting to protest that she had heard all of this before, but the look in his eyes stopped her. Whatever it was he had to say, it was something that had been eating at him, perhaps as much as it had eaten at her father, and at her. “My first years of marriage to Constance were difficult,” he continued. “It was arranged by my father, and I knew little more about her than her name and the size of her dowry. When I met
your mother, she was betrothed to Stewart. And I was dumbstruck.”

“You go too far,” she burst out, standing. Alex climbed stiffly to his feet beside her, evidently to leave with her if she chose to do so.

“Christine,” the Duke of Furth pressed, “I do not mean to hurt you. But you need to know this. And I need to tell you. Finally. Stewart left England after Anne died because she finally at the last moment told him—confessed to him—that you were not his daughter.” He bowed his head. “You are mine.”

A rush of ice swept through Kit, freezing her down to the marrow of her bones. “No,” she whispered.

“Good God, Martin,” Alex growled angrily, “you might have done that with a little more finesse.”

“You knew?” she demanded, whipping around to face him. If he had lied about this, it was one lie too many.

He shook his head wearily. “I suspected that part of the tale was missing. I had no idea what, though.”

“You believe me, then,” Martin cut in, clenching his hands together, but making no move to close the distance between them.

“I don’t know why I should,” she stated, abruptly tired and hurt and wanting to go somewhere very quiet and think.

“Stewart was furious…understandably so, at the news. He thought, I suppose, that I had taken the last thing he had of Anne away from him. So he took you away from me.” Finally he took a step forward. “I looked for you for quite a long time. I tracked the two of you to Spain, then lost you somewhere in Italy. I would hear rumors and set out after you again, only to find no trace. And Caroline was growing into a spirited young lady, and I had other duties…” He looked down, then met her eyes squarely with his light green ones. “But I never gave up hope of finding you.”

“I—” Kit began, then stopped. It made sense. The different places they’d lived, her father’s hatred of everything English, and especially his brother, his plan
of dressing her as a boy to keep her safe. She looked up at Alex, to find him gazing at her, sympathy and compassion in his eyes. “I don’t know what to do,” she confessed.

“I’ll give you time, of course, to consider what I’ve said,” Furth offered, unexpectedly understanding. “I know it’s not an easy thing.” With a last hesitant look in her direction, he turned and left the cabin.

Christine stared after him for a long time. “Not an easy thing,” she muttered. “Not an easy thing.”

“Bit of an understatement, under the circumstances,” Alex commented, echoing her thoughts.

She turned to face him. “What am I going to do?” she asked, reaching a hand out. He took it in his own. “This is too much. It’s too much.”

“It’s piffle, compared to what you’ve been through,” he said flatly. “You’ll manage.”

“But he’ll want me about now, dutiful whatever it is I am to him, and I don’t want to live with him.”

“That’s simple,” he murmured, and touched her cheek with his fingers. “Live with me.”

“As Kit Riley? I don’t think—”

“As the Countess of Everton, Christine,” he interrupted.

“I can’t marry you,” she returned, wishing for nothing more than to be able to say yes. A storybook maiden would have been able to say yes, but she would never have a smuggler for a father—an uncle—and she would not be illegitimate or a spy.

“Why in God’s name not?” he snapped, obviously beyond exasperation.

She reached for an excuse, her mind and her heart tearing her in two directions. “You don’t mean it.”

“Haven’t I given you enough bloody proof that I mean it?” he countered. “If I haven’t, then by God, please tell me how I can prove to you how much I love you.” He brushed a strand of hair from her face. “You made me see how very lonely I was before you came into my life. I don’t ever want to be that way again. I don’t ever want to be without you.
Je t’aime, ma chère
,”
he murmured. “I love you. Say you’ll marry me.”

Christine was having difficulty breathing. “It almost sounds as though you mean it,” she whispered.

“I do mean it. Marry me.”

She took a step backward, and he followed her. “But I’m completely absurd,” she protested. “I don’t know how to do anything female, and—”

“Yes, you do,” he pointed out, wicked amusement touching his gaze.

She blushed. “Not anything proper,” she countered. “And I’ll never fit into society, Alex, you know I won’t.”

“Marry me,” he insisted, pursuing her as she continued to retreat. “The Countess of Everton may be as eccentric as she pleases.”

“But why do you want
me
,” she insisted desperately, “when you could have anyone? Barbara Sinclair would give a limb to wed you.”

He tilted his head at her. “Because I will die without you,” he said simply.

She stopped her retreat. Her heart was pounding so hard, she wondered that it didn’t burst through her chest. “No, you—”

“I want to see you in gowns and curls, and in those damned uncomfortable pointy-toed shoes,” he said. “I want to see you at Everton. I want you to teach me how you cheat at hazard. I want you to insult me in French. I want to see your smile and your eyes in my children’s faces.” His expression became more serious. “And I don’t ever want you to leave me again.”

“Alex,” she whispered.

He wouldn’t stop his assault. “I love you, Christine Brantley. Marry me. Please.
Mariez moi, s’il vous plait
.”

She shut her eyes, trying to shut out the images he was conjuring, but that only made them more vivid. He gently kissed her eyelids, and tears fell from beneath them. He kissed them, as well.

“Please say you’ll marry me, Kit, because you’re breaking my heart.”

She opened her eyes. “I can’t imagine myself any
where but with you,” she said. “I will marry you, Alexander Lawrence Bennett Cale.”

He smiled at her, his eyes lighting with relief and elation. “Thank God.”

T
he Earl of Everton was exhausted. He was also sore, battered, and bruised, had a hole in one shoulder, and atop everything else, he was afraid to fall asleep. It was not that demons haunted his nightmares, or that he worried his wounds were so severe he would expire in the night. Actually, he was terrified that when he awoke in the morning, he would discover that everything that had transpired over the last twenty-four hours had been a dream.

And so he lay awake, counting the chimes of the grandfather clock on the landing, and trying to decide whether it would be worth the effort to go fetch himself a glass of brandy, or whether he should actually be outside Gerald and Ivy’s, watching to make certain that Kit didn’t change her mind during the night about marrying him and attempt to flee again.

Martin had wanted her at Brantley House, but she had adamantly refused. With the speed at which her world was changing, Alex wasn’t surprised. The duke had apparently understood as well, for other than making her swear that she would still be in London in the morning—not all that safe an oath given that she would then consider being anywhere within the environs of the city to be keeping her word—he hadn’t pushed her over her choice of residence. Alex hadn’t either, though it had been supremely difficult to watch her climb into the
Downings’ carriage and disappear once more into the night.

The clock chimed four, and he sighed irritably. It didn’t help his ease that Prince George had left a missive indicating that he was expected to appear for an audience immediately upon his return to London. Fouché’s death would certainly help put him back in favor, but there was still the theft of Will Debner, the betrayal and death of Augustus Devlin, and his own outright lies to explain.

The handle of his chamber door turned. Alex tensed and narrowed his eyes as the door swung slowly open and a figure in coat and breeches slipped into the room. A short tail of blond hair, silver-blue in the fading moonlight, caught his gaze, and he relaxed. “How did you get in here?” he asked quietly.

Christine jumped, then shut the door and turned around. “Damnation, Everton, you nearly scared me witless. I thought you asleep.” She stepped forward, stopping beside the bed. “I climbed in through the library window. You’ll need to fix the latch.”

“I don’t think I will,” he returned, looking up at her. “Not until we’re married, at least. Not every man has his wife-to-be breaking into his home to speak to him in the middle of the night.”

With her fleeting grin, she climbed up onto the bed and swung her leg across his hips, straddling him. “Who said I was here to speak to you?” she queried boldly.

He chuckled, delighted. “I’m wounded, chit,” he said in mock protest.

Immediately she shifted off him. “Then I won’t disturb you,
monsieur le châtelain. Bon soir
.”

Alex reached up and grabbed her arm, yanking her back down over him. “You’re not going anywhere,” he informed her.

Christine leaned down and kissed him, slowly and possessively. “That’s better,” she murmured, straightening again.

She rocked back and forth across his hips, obviously experimenting. The familiar slow fire he always felt in her presence began burning hotter, and he grinned, half
closing his eyes. “
Baisez moi encore
,” he demanded softly. “Kiss me again.”

Kit kissed him again, running her tongue along his lips and his teeth, teasing his as he had teased her. Then she lifted her hands to her cravat and slowly untied it. With a slither of silk she pulled it free and cast it aside, letting it drift to the floor beside the bed. She raised herself up onto her knees so he could free his nightshirt, and she helped him pull it from his wounded shoulder and off over his head. He would have sat up, but she firmly pushed him back down flat. While he watched her, she settled down on him again, only her leggings and the thin blanket about his hips between them.

“Do you believe in fate?” she asked, tracing the outline of his bandages with her fingers.

He reached up and pulled the band from her hair, letting the wavy blond cascade flow loose through his fingers. “I didn’t used to.”

“And now?” Christine leaned down and touched the tip of her tongue to his flat nipple, then trailed across his chest to repeat the action with its twin.

Alex drew in a breath through his teeth, more than burning now. “If I hadn’t been trying to catch that frog,” he began slowly, watching as her coat, carefully folded first, followed the cravat to the floor, “and if I hadn’t fallen into that river at just the moment Stewart Brantley came by on his morning ride,” he continued as her waistcoat dropped off the side of the bed, “and if he hadn’t known how to swim and jumped in after me,” he added as the fine lawn shirt came off over her head, “then twenty years later, he would have had no excuse to bring you to me when you needed a place from which to spy on English lords.”

“And so?” she whispered, drawing the wrap from around her breasts and letting it slide to the floor.

“And so yes, I do believe in fate,” he told her.

She leaned over him, her hair falling in a curtain around her face, and covered his lips with her own. This time her exploration of his mouth was hungry and demanding, and he reveled in the fact that she wanted him
as badly as he wanted her. He slid his hands up to caress her full breasts, rolling her tender nipples between his thumb and forefinger, feeling them tighten in response, feeling her quick intake of breath and the way she arched toward him.

Christine lifted onto her knees again, letting him undo the fastenings of her breeches and help her pull them down her long legs. This time when she settled back on him, he moaned, and she smiled. “I believe in fate, as well,” she whispered.

“Before we get along any further,” Alex said, doing his damndest to keep from throwing her over and having at her, “I should like to mention that you’ve missed my surprise.”

She rocked back and forth across him again, rendering him painfully hard, and obviously loving the torture she was inflicting. “I don’t believe I’ve missed anything at all,” she countered with a sly grin, her face flushed and her breathing fast and shallow. “But what is your surprise,
mon amant
?”

“Look,” he gasped, gesturing behind his head. “Two pillows.”

Christine looked down at him, then threw back her head and gave a full-throated laugh. “So you do listen to me occasionally, after all, then,” she chuckled, and raised up just long enough to yank the blanket down past his knees.

“As long as you persuade me in this manner, I’ll always listen to you,” he promised.

“I like your surprise,” she continued, as she reached down to grasp his full, hard, manhood, positioned herself over him, and then slowly, excruciatingly slowly, sank down to sheathe him in her tight, hot flesh.

“And I love yours,” he groaned.

She laughed again, breathlessly, and placed her hands flat on his chest to begin lifting her hips up and down, faster and faster, again and again. “A shame we won’t be needing the pillows.” She moaned, flinging her head forward as he gripped her buttocks in his hands, holding her against him, thrusting upward with his hips to match
her rhythm. She cried out as she began to pulse, pulling him in deeper, and with a groan, he sped his own release to join her.

“I don’t like this,” Kit muttered to Everton as he lounged beside her in an anteroom outside the packed Brantley House ballroom, munching on a biscuit and looking as though he hadn’t a care in the world.

“I do,” he replied unsympathetically, and glanced up as a footman cracked open the door.

“It’ll be just a moment, my lord,” he said. At Alex’s nod, he shut the door again.

Another flock of bats took flight in Kit’s insides, banging about so energetically, it took an effort not to become ill. Actually, that wasn’t such a bad idea. It would get her out of what was coming, at any rate. “I’m going to be sick,” she announced.

Everton straightened and tossed his biscuit into the branches of a potted plant. “You are not, chit,” he stated. “And if you are, I’ll carry you out there anyway.”

“You’re an evil man,” she retorted. “You don’t even care that I don’t want to be here.”

“Of course I care. It’s best for you, though, and you know it.”

“I know what’s best for me, and it’s not wearing this gown and going out there in front of everyone, and telling them I’ve been lying to them all about who I am.”

“It’s a lovely gown, my dear,” he soothed. “The same emerald as your eyes.” He chuckled, then sobered when she glared at him. “I’m certain your father is spinning a wonderful tale. And even if he isn’t, once you’re presented as the Duke of Furth’s daughter, no one will dare gainsay you.”

She’d been against the plot from the moment Furth and Everton had cooked it up, but for once Alex had absolutely refused to listen to any of her objections, protests, and arguments. On the surface, of course, it did seem rather clever. Furth had called a grand ball to announce the return of his long-lost daughter, with the idea
that he would spend the evening confidentially informing a select group of his fellows that Christine had come to London in the guise of a youth in order to stop her uncle’s purported smuggling activities. In the course of looking for assistance she had found the Earl of Everton, and the two of them had fallen in love. Then, after Furth’s trusted friends had been given enough time to bandy the tale about the entire assemblage, she and Alex would appear, fashionably late, to be announced.

The tale did make her sound rather noble, and it kept Alex’s activities secret, but nothing could disguise the fact that she’d been lying to most of the London nobility since her arrival. She was more than uncomfortable with facing them about it. They might not know her true purpose for being there, but they knew they’d been made fools of. And if she’d learned one thing, it was that the
ton
didn’t like to look foolish.

“You should at least have let me wear my breeches,” she grumbled, tugging at her bodice and wishing it didn’t fit quite so snugly. “I feel so…exposed this way.”

“No more lies, Christine,” he said quietly. “We agreed on that.”

“I know, I know. But that was between you and me. They”—she gestured toward the ballroom—“don’t count.”

“Well, not entirely. But to preserve the reputation of Everton, past, present, and future, I want it to be known that I’m marrying a female, and not an ill-mannered boy.”

Kit was so nervous, her hands were shaking. “Alex—”

He stepped forward and put his hands on her bare shoulders, his touch warm and solid against her chilled skin. “You won’t be alone, Kit. I know you’re strong, and I know you can take care of yourself. But you
may
rely on me.” He very gently touched his lips to hers. “Just for once, let me take care of you.” He kissed her again. “Trust me.”

Kit followed his lips as he retreated, seeking Alex’s
mouth, and he chuckled as she kissed him back. “Are you certain there isn’t something else you’d rather do than engineer my public unveiling?” she suggested slyly, pushing him backward against the couch and fingering the buttons of his waistcoat.

“What a hoyden you are,” he murmured, encircling her waist with his arms.

The door opened again and Furth’s butler appeared. “His Grace believes it is time for your arrival,” Royce informed them, then stood aside to hold open the door.

Alex sighed and rested his forehead against Kit’s. “Be brave, my love,” he whispered. “Since you were ready to take a ball in the heart for me, this should be easy for you.” His eyes held hers for another moment, saying more than words could.

Kit sighed, then took his proffered arm. They entered the hallway and, preceded by Royce, walked up to the ballroom door. Everton squeezed her fingers encouragingly, then nodded at the butler.

Royce threw open the door, stepped through ahead of them, and came to attention at one side of the doorway. “My lords and ladies,” he intoned in a carrying voice, “the Earl of Everton and Lady Christine Brantley.”

Everyone turned to look. The rumble of voices and music faltered. No doubt most of them expected something out of the ordinary—a skinny boy in a gown, perhaps. From the cacophony of noise that erupted as she and Alex entered the room, though, they hadn’t been expecting
her
. Being recognized and appreciated as a female was still a very new sensation for her, and nervous though she was, it was rewarding.

“By God, she’s Lady Masquerade,” Philip Dunsmore uttered. He turned to guffaw at the Marquis of Hague, who looked as though he wanted to sink through the floor. “You were dancing with a boy, Hague!”

“She’s a blasted female. Anyone can see that,” Hague mumbled, grabbing frantically for a brandy.

Kit glanced at the assembled faces all looking back at her. Alex stood calmly at her side, obviously not caring a fig what anyone might think. Her gaze paused on Mer
cia Cralling, who stood staring, white-faced. Celeste Montgomery beside her giggled and whispered something to another friend. Abruptly Mercia shrieked, dropped her glass of punch, and fell to the floor in a dead faint.

“Oops,” Alex murmured unruffled. “You do have a certain effect on people, dear one.”

He touched her hand again, and they strolled across the floor toward the refreshment table to give the rest of the guests a chance to look her over. Kit’s legs felt wooden, but Everton’s arm was strong and unwavering, and she simply kept moving and held on for dear life.

“How dare she,” Lady Crasten muttered to a companion as they neared. “Pretending to be a boy to snare Everton out from under—”

“Lady Crasten.” Reg’s voice came from Kit’s other side, though she hadn’t heard him approach. “I know you’ve met, but I should like to formally introduce you to Lady Christine.”

Lady Crasten swirled about with a rustle of skirts, a beatific smile on her thin face. “Of course. Lady Christine,” she gushed, taking Kit’s free hand in both of her own, “I’m so pleased you’re safe.” She leaned closer as though speaking in confidence, though she didn’t bother lowering her voice. “I hope you’re not alarmed to know that I did suspect you, my dear.” Her smile widened. “I told Lisette that you were far too lovely for a boy, you know.”