Swept Away By a Kiss (29 page)

The vicar grasped her hand and pulled her into the gig’s narrow seat. Steven jumped neatly up beside her, and Mr. Oakley clicked his tongue to set the horse into motion.

“Like Jerry, the vicar here is another soul dedicated to justice,” Steven said. “We are very grateful for his work.”

The cleric shook his head. “I fear I have become too old for this,” he said. “There were times when Margaret and Robert could call upon me and I would be ready for any escapade. Now I feel my decades every morning when I wake up. I do not know how much longer I can be of use to you, Steven. But my house will always be open for souls like young Jeremiah, putting himself in danger to do God’s work.”

Mr. Oakley’s words hung in the chill air. Valerie’s mind whirled with the memory of Lord Hannsley’s comment at Lady March’s salon about the countess’s radical political activities. Lord and Lady March were involved in Steven’s work, and apparently had been for quite some time.

“Lady Valerie, you did a fine service this evening,” the vicar said. “You kept your head and helped when needed. Few young ladies in your position would have been up to it.”

“Indeed, we accompany a brave noblesse home tonight, Vicar.”

He sounded sincere, but Valerie didn’t know how to think of his words. A jumble of confusion muddled her, and from where she pressed against him, shoulder to knee, she burned in mingled pleasure and agitation recalling their bodies so close the night before. But the bewildering proximity did not allow her space to think, only to feel. Now, though, she needed clarity, to put the pieces together and fully understand. The parts Mr. Flemming and Lord Hannsley played seemed infinitely more menacing.

The gig clattered up before the castle, and the vicar threw the reins to a groom. Steven grasped her fingers to assist her down onto the icy drive then released her. Heart hammering against her ribs, Valerie took a decisive breath and extended her hand again. With an odd light in his eyes, he accepted it and placed it upon his arm, then drew her toward the stairs to the house.

“Mr. Trap will bear a scar from his wound, won’t he?” She spoke to rein in her jumbled nerves.

“Most certainly.”

“How did you come by yours?” She must know. The duel with Hannsley, her dream, the image of Steven’s hard, scarred body in the firelight, all of it racketed about in her head, begging for explanation.

“When I was eighteen, I sought to assassinate a man,” he replied without hesitation. “I felt no qualm about it. My cause was just. He was guilty. To my ill fortune, he was also a master swordsman. Before I killed him, he wounded me.”

Valerie’s mouth was suddenly dry. They came to the foot of the stairs and she halted. Vaguely, she could hear the vicar still speaking with the groom behind them.

“I see,” she said, looking up. Her blood stilled. The answer to her question from the night before shone in his eyes. The crime he now spoke of had earned him the brand upon his arm. “This assassination,” she said slowly. “You had never before met with such a challenge?”

“I had never before tried to kill a man.” He seemed to shrug. “Suffice it to say, I did not make the same mistake again.”

“You are quite skilled with a sword now.” Valerie’s belly felt hollow, but she was a fool to be affected like this. She wanted the truth. She should be ready to discover anything, even that his work required him to assassinate other men. “Did you learn to fight well so you could kill more efficiently?”

“I learned to fight well so that I would not need to kill.”

“Because your cause no longer required it?”

“Because life is sacred.” He spoke to the snow-dusted marble beneath his boots. “A man may deserve to die, Valerie, but it is not my right to mete out the time or place of it.” He lifted his gaze to her. “It is testament to my youthful foolishness that I was obliged to murder a man in order to learn that. Fear and power, on the other hand, are astonishingly effective deterrents.”

“Your Jesuit preparation was real. Wasn’t it? You actually trained to become a priest.”

Steven laughed. The unexpected rustle of self-deprecating warmth sent Valerie’s heart galloping into her throat. He drew her up the steps toward the castle.

“I studied with the Jesuits for a time. But I swiftly discovered I am not suited to the clerical life, even the Society’s adventuresome variety.”

Forcing an outward calm she was far from feeling, Valerie struggled to suppress the memory winding its way through her body of his hands and mouth upon her. No, Steven Ashford clearly was not meant for celibacy. But, no doubt, he meant that as a Jesuit he would not be free to kill.

“Then, your conviction not to take another man’s life was short lived?” she ventured.

His mouth curved up at one edge. “No. That did not deter me from entering religious orders. My conviction upon that matter remains firm.”

Valerie drew her hand away from his arm, doubt again filling her. “But you killed Bebain.”

“He threatened my interests.”

“Oh, of course. He had control over your men.”

“He believed he did. Maximin and our crew knew otherwise.”

“Then, your ship—” Valerie’s voice snared in her throat. Steven’s jaw had grown taut.

“My ship,” he said slowly. “How did he mistreat her, then?”

Valerie’s memory of the
Blackhawk
under Bebain’s rule was clear as day: gleaming decks, bleached sails, perfectly coiled rope. The madman had treated the vessel like a treasured mistress.

Steven’s property had not been in any real danger from Bebain, nor his men, apparently. Valerie had.

Chapter 27

I
n the sudden silence, Maximin’s voice echoed through Valerie’s memory, his peculiar statement when he found them in the captain’s cabin. Looking at Bebain in the puddle of blood, the Haitian had commented that matters had not proceeded according to plan.

Valerie could not breathe. Steven hadn’t wanted to kill Bebain. He did it to protect her. To save her tarnished virtue, the virtue she had been so eager to give to a priest.

Shame and astonishing regret sliced through her. She parted her lips, but no words came forth. He grasped her hand and bent his head. His touch was warm and strong, his breath stirring the fur trim of her hood.

“Thank you, Valerie, once more. But I hope not again. There is great danger in this business. You must stay clear of it. And you mustn’t tell a soul.” His golden eyes entreated.

She held his gaze. “You can trust me.”

“I am certain of it.” He released her hand as the castle door opened. Light from the hall spilled onto the drive along with voices of laughter and song and the revelry of Christmas come.

Christmas dawned white and sparkling. Winter sun glinted off crisp snow, throwing into relief every dark, leafless branch, emerald bough, and wintering bird dotting the crystal landscape.

Valerie rested her chin upon her knees and sighed. Even in her impetuous childhood she had not passed such a restless Christmas Eve. The night had endured black and cold without, but Valerie burrowed under the bedcovers, warm in her cocoon but unable to sleep. Her thoughts alone heated her. More than ever, she ached for Steven, for his nearness, his confidences, his body, the touch of his lips upon hers. She had not been kissed in so long . . . at least not on her mouth.

She started guiltily.

She had been kissed on the mouth, very recently. Trying now to recall the sensation of Timothy’s embrace, all she could summon was the bliss of Steven’s strong grasp around her hand and his tawny gaze filled with a plea as he insisted she stay clear of danger.

Warmth curled through her. He was still anxious for her safety. His worry could be the very reason he held her off, so that she would not be in danger from his intrigues.

Even more wonderful than his concern, he trusted her. With his sanction, the vicar spoke freely of Lord and Lady March’s involvement, as though he assumed Steven had already taken her into his confidence. Valerie leaned her head back and her chin tilted aside, her gaze coming to rest upon the weathered Bible on the bedside table. Miss Brown’s visit to her bedchamber flickered into her mind.

Comprehension came fast and violent, like a kick to her belly.

“Dear Lord, not again,” she groaned, burying her face in linen-covered down and cursing her memories. Where Steven Ashford was concerned, none of them was sacred. All his new confidences, all she believed she had learned—his apparent honesty, compassionate honor—and still he continued to lie to her.

Valerie sat up, her gaze piercing the leather-clad book. She had already suspected the Bible was not what he said it was, an affectionate gift. Now she knew for certain it was something else entirely, sent with her across the ocean for some devious reason. Steven had enlisted his godmother to retrieve it for him, and Lady March had sent her companion to do it. It was probably the reason the countess had invited Valerie to Castlemarch.

The blood drained from Valerie’s cheeks.

He thought killing was wrong, yet he had murdered a man to assure her safety. The thrill that rushed through Valerie at thought of it horrified her. But his deceits tangled so thickly between the past and present, she didn’t know whether she could even trust what she had seen with her own eyes.

She pressed her palms to her face. She wanted to despise him, to continue mistrusting him. All the evidence argued that he told her the truth now, that the man he had pretended to be for the past sennight was the lie and the man he revealed to her last night, real. Despite that, and despite Vicar Oakley’s words, she wished she could shut her heart to him and his pretty falsehoods.

Bitterly cold now, Valerie climbed out of bed and went to the window, dragging her coverlet with her. Parting the drapery, she let her gaze stray to the fields beyond the gardens. In the shimmering dawn light, a horseman mounted the hill north of the lake, heading toward the village. The animal was the same gangly beast she had seen from the breakfast parlor the day after her arrival at Castlemarch, the horse Steven made her ride when he had seen her pain walking.

Perhaps he was on his way to see Jeremiah Trap at the vicarage. Or perhaps to meet another shadowy contact. She would never know. He would never tell her.

Valerie pressed her forehead against the frozen glass. Horse and rider reached the forest and disappeared into the dark trees. Her heart went with them.

He could so easily have told her the truth. Instead, he ordered her to stay out of his business. But Valerie wasn’t innocent either. She hadn’t said a word to him about Hannsley and Flemming’s conversation. She didn’t trust him yet. Steven had said he could trust her, but he was not giving her enough reason to do the same in return.

Sitting back and drawing her feet beneath her, she saw what she must do now. First, however, she needed more answers.

“My godson has not lived a simple life.”

The Countess of March rested in a cushioned window embrasure. The blue parlor looked out onto the estate’s rear grounds stretching down to graceful willows hanging like ancient sentinels over the frozen lake and the Greek folly at its far side.

Valerie sat beside the countess, holding a loose skein of wool. With long, ivory needles Lady March fashioned the yarn into a nightcap. In the gardens beyond the parlor’s frost-tinted windowpanes, children played in the snow, governesses and older siblings chasing them through white drifts. Ensconced somewhere inside the vast mansion, their parents relaxed after the morning’s gift opening and the lavish Christmas breakfast.

Valerie was not in the least bit relaxed. Seated far down the table from Steven during the meal, she had barely managed to swallow a bite. Stomach tight, afterward she went straight to her hostess and requested a private interview. Soon enough, everyone in the castle would venture into the woods in search of the Yule log. This was her chance. It didn’t even matter that as she left the dining room with Lady March, Steven’s gaze followed her.

The countess’s needles came to a halt.

“Why do you ask about him, my dear? Are the young ladies inventing stories about Steven, enshrouded as he is in mystery?”

“I have heard others speculating. I like to think my interest is more merited.”

The needles again clicked swiftly. “And why is that, my dear?” the countess asked in mild tones. Valerie’s brow lifted. Had godmother or godson taught the other to dissemble so masterfully? But she had an uncanny sense that Lady March’s kindness was no ruse.