The Perfect Stranger (34 page)

Nicholas gave him a cool look. “Spit it out. What are you after?”

But that wasn’t Morton Black’s way. “Couldn’t get work to save my life after the war—not until Mr. Reyne offered me a job. Do anything for Mr. Reyne I would, sir.” He looked Nicholas straight in the eye and said, “And Mr. Reyne would do anything for his wife, sir, and what his wife wants is her twin sister home, safe and sound.”

Nick gave him a long, assessing look, then came to a decision. “Good,” he said briskly. “In that case you can escort her home, with my blessing.”

Faith gasped. “What?”

He ignored her. “I was wondering how to achieve that. I would have sent Stevens with her, only he wants to visit his son’s grave at Vittoria. And I wouldn’t trust my wife’s safety to just anyone. But I know you. You lost that leg rescuing one of your fellows, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir, I did. Not that it did him much good, poor fellow. He died anyway, and I was left, a peg leg.”

“You look fit enough to me. Your arrival is extremely timely, Black.”

“Excuse me, but I think I have some say in this, and I’m not going anywhere! I’m staying with you!” declared Faith.

As if she hadn’t said anything at all, Morton Black said, “There’s a boat leaving tomorrow, sir. It’s a small cargo ship, transporting wine to England, but there are two small passenger cabins. We could obtain passage on it, I’m sure.”

Faith was furious. She pushed in between the two men who were disposing of her like a package and said, “Obtain as many passages as you like, Mr. Black, but I’m not going!”

Nicholas took her arm. “We will discuss this in private, madam.”

“Don’t madam me, Nicholas! We will not discuss it at all. I am not leaving, and that’s that!”

His lips compressed firmly, and he marched her in silence up to the bedchamber they’d been allotted.

“Now, madam, you knew this was coming, sooner or later. I would be grateful if you didn’t make a fuss about what you know is an inevitable parting and left with the quiet dignity I know you can assume.”

“Why is it inevitable?”

He made an awkward, impatient gesture. “You know I have a…a task before me.”

“Yes, you told me, and I’ve prepared myself for it.”

His brows snapped together. “What do you mean, I told you? I did not tell you anything!”

“No, I know it is some sort of deadly secret,” Faith assured him, “and I know that whatever it is will be terribly difficult for you. But I have learned so much in these past weeks, Nicholas. Surely you can see that I will be able to manage now.”

He stared at her, clearly at a loss.

She explained, ticking off each point on her fingers as she spoke, “I can now cook over a campfire—not well, but adequately; I have learned to catch fish and scale and gut them; Estrellita has taught me how to forage for wild greens and herbs; and whilst I was not able to stitch that cut in your foot, I am sure I could stitch a wound if I had to; and I can shoot.” She took his hands in hers. “Oh, Nicholas, I know when you married me I was a useless, helpless creature, but now I can truly be a good soldier’s wife. I won’t hold you up or demand your attention. I know this task you have to do is very difficult and of life-and-death importance, but I promise you, I won’t get in the way. Only please, Nicholas, do not send me away.”

Her words devastated Nick. She’d said much the same to him before, about all the things she’d learned, but he hadn’t taken it in. He hadn’t realized she was learning them for him, all those skills; training herself to be a good soldier’s wife. He turned away, rubbing a hand over his eyes, hardly able to stand the pain the knowledge caused him. To be a good soldier’s wife. What an irony.

“Do you have a headache?” she asked quickly.

He took her hand and kissed it. “No. Not this time.” Though it wouldn’t be long before it came again, and Nick had no idea of the state in which he would wake. The doctors had been unanimous—the periods of unconsciousness would increase, as would the disorientation and the loss of sensation in different parts of his body. He might even go insane—though they were not unanimous about that. What they all agreed on was that something was wrong in his head—something growing, perhaps—and that he would die slowly and in great pain.

And he was not going to put Faith through that.

He groped to think of a way he could save her dignity and get her away from him and safely back in England with her loving family.

“I’m sorry, my dear, but you have to leave. You cannot be with me when I do what I have come here to do.”

She opened her mouth to argue. He drew her toward him and said gently, “You have become a magnificent soldier’s wife. A man couldn’t ask for a better wife—soldier or not. You are not the problem here; I am. If you are with me, I will be distracted.” He gave her a wry look. “You distract me even when you try not to. The thing is, my love, you have become the most important person in the world to me.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry. I tried so hard n-not to get a-at-ttached.” Her voice wobbled on the last word. “But I couldn’t help it.”

He sighed and smoothed a golden curl back from her brow. “I know. I tried, too, but it was an impossible task, wasn’t it?”

“You? You got attached, too?” Her voice was a mixture of incredulity and hopefulness.

“I did, but I should not have let myself. I tried to hide it from you, tried to stop you from telling me how you felt…I thought if we didn’t say the words it would somehow keep it in bounds, manageable.” He gave her a rueful look, “But the words are only part of it, aren’t they? They are important, but actions convey truth as well. So whether we speak of love or not, the feelings are there. And that is the problem.”

“How can love be a problem?” she whispered.

“A soldier must devote his full attention to the task. Your presence would complicate things enormously.”

She asked in a voice that trembled, “You mean if I stayed, it would be more difficult for you to do your duty.”

“Much more difficult.”

A tear rolled down her cheek. “And there is nothing I can learn or do that will make it easier for you to do what you must do?”

He gathered the tear on the tip of his finger. “It is not a matter of skills; it is a matter of who you are. You are Faith, for whom I would do anything. Faith, who I love with all my heart and soul and body.”

“Nicholas!” The tears poured from her eyes, and she clung to him for a long time, unable to speak. Eventually she recovered her composure enough to respond. “I love you so much, too, my darling. And I do not think I can bear to part from you.”

He kissed her gently, with a restraint that told her as much as any words that he was already pulling back from her. “You can. And you must.”

She knew what he was saying. He loved her. So much that he feared he would neglect his duty for her. For Nicholas, who took his honor and duty very seriously, that would be a terrible thing.

She had to leave. Whatever this mission he had been sent on, it must be very important. He had been a soldier since he was sixteen, putting honor and duty to his country before all else. It would destroy him, destroy them both, if she stayed and prevented him from doing his duty.

Nicholas loved her. Was there ever such a bittersweet declaration?

Morton Black obtained the passages and returned with the information that the boat would leave soon after dawn, weather permitting. They had one last night together, and though they didn’t discuss it, Faith and Nicholas were agreed: their last precious moments would not be wasted in sleep.

She greeted him in bed wearing the nightgown Marthe had given her, the fine lawn with exquisite handmade lace, creamy with age and stitched with love.

Nicholas caressed her through it, the old lace abrading her skin deliciously. With shaking hands, as if it were their first time, he undid each tiny mother-of-pearl button, one by one by one, carefully and deliberately slow, until it was open to the waist. He kissed her breasts though the fabric, once, twice, then suckled her through the lace. Then he peeled the nightgown from her and made love to her with a concentration that threatened to shatter her heart, caressing her all over, as if he was learning her, learning each curve and hollow, laving each patch of skin, tasting her, storing up memories, saving her.

He tasted every part of her from her fingertips to her toes, and then he worked his way back up the inside of her thighs and tasted her there, where the damp vee of golden curls clustered, and she gasped and clutched his hair as sensation shivered through to her very bones. His tongue explored her delicately at first, then deeper and more demanding. And he suckled her there, where she had not known it possible, and before she knew it she was shattering in fierce, helpless ecstasy. And as she began to shatter, he surged up and in one movement, buried himself in her and took them both to paradise.

They lay in each other’s arms, stroking languidly, murmuring of this and that, small, inconsequential things.

And later Faith took her turn to make love to him, sitting astride him, tasting him as she’d never tasted him before, suckling him where she had not thought to do so before. And she was filled with deep female pride and love as she watched him buck and writhe in helpless pleasure beneath her, until he flipped them over and buried himself in her again, and she felt the hot spurt of his seed inside her.

“We might have a baby, Nicholas. Would you like that?”

“I would, my love. I’ve given Morton Black instructions to take to my solicitor. You and any babe will be well taken care of.”

“You don’t need to worry about me. I am an heiress.”

“How nice for you,” he murmured, uninterested. “If there is a babe, would you take it to show my mother? She would love to see it.”

“Of course I will, we will both go—we will all go when you return,” she amended. “And we’ll stay with her often. And she can stay with us.”

He kissed her again with such tenderness that Faith wanted to weep. But she was determined not to. She was going to make this night a happy one if it killed her. If Nicholas was going off to risk his life on some important mission, she would make sure he had only happy memories to take with him, not memories of a blotchy-faced wife with red eyes.

“Tell me about your mother,” she asked. “Will I like her?” She was more worried that Nicholas’s mother would not like her. What mother would welcome a chance-met, strange, convenient bride?

“My mother is a wonderful woman,” he began, and Faith’s heart sank. “She adored my father, even though he was a bully and seemed to show her no affection.” He thought for a moment and looked at her with sudden awareness. “Though perhaps in the bedchamber it was different. I had not realized—until you—the depth of intimacy…and love…possible.”

Faith smiled tremulously and rubbed her cheek against the hair on his chest. She had dreamed of it, had been promised it by her mother. Mama’s dying promise to all her daughters: sunshine and laughter and love and happiness. Nicholas had given her all that and more.

“They seemed happy enough, and she openly adored him. But then, a few years ago, my father had an accident. He loved to hunt, and he came off at a fence one day when his horse balked at the last minute. He broke his back.”

“I’m sorry,” she breathed.

He glanced at her. “I—he and I were never on good terms,” he admitted, “but his accident nearly killed my mother.”

“In what way? Did she fall, too?”

He caressed her back absently. “No, she didn’t ride. My father took more than six months to die. He died slowly and in great pain. Watching him suffer and die like that nearly killed my mother. She nursed him to the very end.”

Faith hugged him silently.

“She was a dark-haired beauty when Father fell. She was a white-haired old woman when he finally had the grace to die.” He was silent for a moment, then shuddered. “He should never have put her through that, never!”

“He could not help it,” she offered tentatively.

“He could. He could have taken something to end it quickly, spared her the sight of his suffering when she was helpless to alleviate it, except with laudanum. But he wouldn’t even take that. He was determined to draw out the whole filthy process as long as he could, damn him!” There was anguish as well as rage in his voice, and she knew it was not as simple as he was making out, that he had been deeply torn by his father’s decision.

“You had to watch him die, too,” she suggested.

“No, I didn’t! He loaded it all onto Mama’s frail shoulders. I didn’t even know he’d been hurt until I received the letter saying he was dead. It reached me a month to the day after he’d been buried. I wasn’t even there to help her with the funeral!”

She hugged him silently, knowing the hurt of being shut out from the family at such a time would have made the grief bite all the deeper, fester longer. “But your mother is well now?”

He sighed. “Yes, she is well.”

“I will visit her as soon as I get to England. She may not like me, but I want to tell her how much I love her son and how you are. She will want to know you are well.”

He looked at her with anguished eyes. “Yes, she will want to know I am well. And she will love you, Faith, have no doubts. She won’t be able to help herself.”

And then he made love to her again, silently and with a desperate edge, as if he was seeking oblivion in her, seeking forgetfulness. And Faith sought oblivion, too. Live in the moment, forget about the past, don’t worry about the future. The moment was all that counted, this moment, here in this bed in the inn in Bilbao with Nicholas, her husband, her miracle, the love of her life.

The door of Mac’s bedchamber creaked open. He feigned sleep, but his fingers stealthily secured the knife that was never far from reach.

“Tavish, you awake?”

He put the knife away and sat up. “Aye, lass. What do you want?”

Her face was wet with tears. “I have bad dreams again, Tavish. Can I stay here with you?”

He pulled back the covers. “Aye, lass.”

She faltered and stared. “You have no clothes, Tavish. I not come here to diddle with you.”

He sighed. “Just get into bed, will you, lass? I give you my word I’ll do nothing you don’t want.”