The Reckless Bride (54 page)

But now he was there, beyond that moment, still living, more hale and whole than he’d expected to be.

Emotions raced through him, feeding a roiling cauldron of feelings. He couldn’t tell which was strongest—triumph and jubilation, remembrance and sorrow for those who’d passed, a tingling, scintillating sense of expectation, satisfaction, content, soaring joy, and immense relief.

He felt them all, a giddy whirl where one rose high, then fell back to be supplanted by the next. Like a rudderless ship on a storm-tossed ocean, he pitched and swung.

Then he glanced at Loretta, seated alongside him, and his inner sea calmed.

She felt his gaze, turned to meet it. And smiled.

He returned the gesture, felt his heart swell. Beneath the table, he found her hand, closed his around it, felt the gentle pressure of her fingers on his.

And knew.

Love was the strongest emotion of them all.

Even as she turned to answer some query, he felt his smile grow silly, besotted.

Didn’t care.

The Black Cobra was his past.

Loretta was his future.

And more—she was the reason he was there.

All the battles in his past, all the recent trials and tests, the hurdles of their adventure, he now saw with new eyes. He’d never previously viewed such events as having a higher purpose, not in terms of his life, but now he knew—they’d brought him there.

His past had brought him to the here and now, to this particular moment in time.

The moment when all became crystal clear, and his life took on a new direction, a deeper meaning.

Loretta held his hand, felt the strength of it enfolding hers, and rejoiced. She could barely contain her delight, her joy, her profound relief. She didn’t want to think about that moment in the inn’s parlor, a moment when fate had stared her in the face and asked her to choose. His life over another’s.

She still felt stunned by her utter lack of hesitation.

Still felt stunned by what she knew it meant.

If it hadn’t been for the ladies around her, for the way they, too, so transparently felt for their men, she’d be shaken, unsure, worried by herself.

Killing—even if she hadn’t, she’d intended to and knew it—wasn’t to be taken lightly.

But all she’d felt—the emotion that even now had her firmly in its grip—was so powerful it couldn’t be denied. Not then.

Not now. Not ever again.

Sliding out of the conversation, she glanced at Rafe. Found his gaze on her, and met it.

Let her smile say all she couldn’t yet say in words.

Then she briefly leaned his way, pressed her cheek to his shoulder. “Later,” she murmured.

And returned to the world—to the celebration of success, the triumph of good and right that encompassed and embraced all about that long board.

Later proved to be hours away, but eventually the long and often harrowing day caught up with everyone.

Their carriages were called and the Cynsters and Chillingworths left, taking Del and Deliah with them. All the others remained and, Loretta had learned, everyone was expected to stay and celebrate Christmas, now only three days away. As anyone glancing at the heavy sky could tell, there was more snow on the way. As she climbed the stairs with the other ladies, she was composing a note to her family; she was perfectly sure they’d be satisfied knowing that she was safe, and that she was spending the festive season in such august company.

Smiling, still giddy, she, Emily Ensworth, Linnet Trevission, and Minerva parted from the others at the top of the stairs. The ducal apartments lay at the end of a long wing. Closer to the stairs lay the bedchambers assigned to the three of them who’d arrived unexpectedly with their respective men.

Loretta paused outside her door, smiled at Minerva. “I can’t thank you enough for this gown.” She spread the skirts of the magenta silk evening gown Minerva had lent her. “And all the other things, too.”

“Nonsense.” Minerva patted her arm. “It takes a certain fortitude to travel without luggage, and you’ve stood up to the rigors so wonderfully well the least I can do is assist you now.”

Linnet laughed. “You should take her at her word,” she advised Loretta, “if only to keep me company. I, too, own nothing I have on—only Emily and Deliah managed to arrive with gowns and actual luggage.”

The sound of male voices on the stairs had Minerva glancing back over her shoulder. “Indeed, but now it’s time we were all abed. Or,” she amended, a decided twinkle in her eye, “at least in our rooms. We all, after all, have our private celebrations to attend to. Good night, ladies.”

With a wave, she picked up her skirts and hurried down the corridor.

The three newcomers to the household watched the Duchess of Wolverstone reach her door and whisk through it.

“I’ve a suspicion we should take her advice to heart,” Linnet said.

Emily nodded. “Indeed. She probably qualifies as an expert.” She smiled brightly at Loretta. “Good night.”

“I was about to say sleep well, but perhaps you can do that later.” With a grin and a salute, Linnet headed after Emily.

Loretta opened her door, slowly stepped inside, and heard two doors down the corridor shut. Smiling, grinning, she shut her own door, and wondered.

Where, how—what should she do?

She’d barely formed the thought when the door opened again, and Rafe looked in. Seeing her standing dithering at the foot of the bed, he came in and shut the door.

A lamp had been left burning on a table between two windows and a fire was leaping in the grate. Between the two sources, there was light enough to see—to see that, as Rafe crossed the floor to her, his gaze, his attention, his entire being, was focused on her.

Her lungs seized even before he halted directly before her, before he raised his hands and framed her face.

Mouth dry, she moistened her lips, waited for him to bend his head and kiss her.

Instead, his gaze searched her face. Drank in every feature, then he looked deep into her eyes. “I need to tell you
something—something I had absolutely no intention of telling you, not now, not ever. I never intended to let the words past my lips, not because I don’t want you to hear them, to know them, but because of how they make me feel.

“But today everything changed.” Rafe dragged in a breath, held her gaze, let it hold him. “Today … I thought, for one moment in that parlor, that I would die without telling you these words. Without letting you hear them, letting you know them. Without giving you the truth—that you are the most important thing in the world to me, and that I cannot live without you. That I would not want to live without you. If you had died in that parlor, I would have died, too—nothing is more certain. But even that … those aren’t the words. The words I need to say.

“The words I can no longer not say. I can’t hold them inside me any longer. They’re too powerful. To me, they’re too real, and too insistent. Too much now a defining part of me.” He held her blue eyes, those lovely periwinkle blue eyes, and simply said, “I love you. I love you, Loretta Michelmarsh, and I want you to be my wife, to have and to hold, to defend and protect, from now until the end of my life. I want you by my side, now and forever. I want to spend my days near you, and my nights beside you. I do not want us ever to be apart.”

“I want the same thing.” Loretta raised one hand to cradle the back of his. “I didn’t know, not until that same moment in the parlor, that I could feel like this—that I did feel like this. That the emotion that was already a part of me was so powerful, so complete. I didn’t know it could wipe away fear, that it could bolster courage to such a degree—that it could make me do what I did, and leave me knowing I would do the same again, in an instant, if that was what was needed to keep you safe. To keep you with me. But even then I didn’t know, not until we reached here, that this is how love is supposed to feel. That this, all we feel, you and me together, for never doubt that we’re together in this, is the glory and the wonder that others speak of, that others strive for—and it’s already ours.”

His lips curved. “Ours if we wish to seize it.” He bent his head.

“I do.” She stated it fiercely, tugged him nearer.

“As do I.”

Their lips met, and love rose up. Not simply passion, not mere desire, but something so much finer.

They knew the difference, felt it, tasted it, knew it in their hearts.

Sensed it in their souls.

This was joy, the ultimate pleasure, a delight that knew no bounds.

This was meant to be. Was how they were meant to be. Together in passion, in adventure, in joy. In reckless abandon and flagrant wonder.

In love.

Soft touches melded with murmurs, whispers of silk slid across heated skin.

Fingers touched, caressed, lingered.

Pleasure welled.

And love took them, joined them, raised them high on her passionate sea, and welded them anew, let desire and need and hunger collide and light the spark of her bounty.

Let ecstasy explode like a nova upon them, in them, over them.

Let bliss pour, at the last, through them. And fill the void.

Then love laid a gentle hand upon them, in benediction, in grace, and left them sleeping, tangled and slumped, sated and wracked, amid the billows of the bed.

At peace at last, truly home at last, together in each other’s arms.

December 24, 1822
Elveden Grange

O
n Christmas Eve, with the hint of snow in the air, all those involved in the capture of the Black Cobra gathered at Elveden Grange for a celebration, not of the end of the fiend’s reign, but of life, love, and the future.

Of the passing of one year and the promise of the next.

The party was swelled not just by the Cynsters but by all those who’d joined them at Somersham Place for their customary Christmas Celebration. Minerva had ordered the rarely used ballroom opened; she and the small army of ladies staying at the Grange had spent the intervening two days flinging themselves with joyous abandon into the task of creating the perfect setting for their yuletide celebration.

Their children had helped, running here, running there, fetching and carrying, contributing in myriad ways both to the event and even more to the atmosphere. Even the infants had been brought down by their nurses to see and to be enthralled. To share in the event and be touched by the uplifting, invigorating spirit that seemed to flow and swirl like fairy dust through the house.

While the ladies had been engaged and their families absorbed, the men had taken care of business. Royce, backed by Devil and Christian, had notified the authorities in London of the known crimes and capture of the Black Cobra, of the involvement and subsequent murders in England of Roderick Ferrar and his half brother Daniel Thurgood, thus setting in motion the Black Cobra’s trial.

On the day of her capture, Kilworth had remained outside the Laughing Trout Inn. He’d waited until Royce had come out and confirmed his half sister’s involvement; from a distance he’d watched her led out and driven away. He’d taken on the duty of notifying his father of the fact, and of exactly who had been responsible for Shrewton’s legitimate son’s and his illegitimate son’s murders.

After some discussion, Royce had written to Shrewton informing him of his illegitmate daughter’s arrest as the Black Cobra, and of her pending trial. He’d included the information that she was being held in the Bury St. Edmunds jail in case Shrewton wished to visit her.

None of them imagined he would.

That done, the assembled gentlemen had wandered into the ballroom to view their ladies’ efforts—and had promptly been conscripted and dispatched to the farther reaches of the surrounding woods to fetch boughs of fir and holly of the right size and conformation to garland the many doors, windows, and fireplaces in the house’s reception rooms. They were also instructed to return with any mistletoe they might find, an order much more to their taste.

For two days a joyous bustle had filled the house. By the time Royce and Minerva quit the open double doors of the ballroom and turned to mingle with their assembled guests, all lingering vestiges of the Black Cobra’s dark malice had been swept away.

Dodging a streaming line of laughing children—it was just after five o’clock; in view of the distance the Cynsters and their guests would have to travel home, and the light dusting of fresh snow that had appeared overnight and
the everpresent promise of more to come, Minerva had decreed an early start to the festivities and had stipulated that all children, both at the Grange and at the Place, were also included in her invitation-cum-summons—Royce glanced at his wife, cynically if resignedly inquired, “Did you plan this from the start?” When she glanced his way, gray eyes widening in question, he clarified, “Is this why you invited all the Bastion Club wives plus their families to stay? So we could have”—he gestured about them—“this?”

Minerva blinked at him. “Well, of course.” Her lips curved. Claiming his arm, she stepped close to avoid a throng of young Cynsters, Pevenseys and Gascoignes. “You’re the one who’s known for planning to the last degree. It was obvious that, if all went well, the adventure would end here, at this time, and that everyone involved would be in need of”—she mimicked his gesture—“this.”

“Ah—I see.” He did. While he had, indeed, planned to the last degree all that was physically, militarily, and politically possible to ensure the mission’s success, he hadn’t thought of, let alone planned for, the emotional requirements, although he now saw, understood, and acknowledged the need.

Glancing over the assembled throng, from the corner of his eye he saw Minerva’s smile deepen. He turned to meet her eyes.

“Yes, I know.” She held his gaze for a moment, then stretched up and fleetingly touched her lips to his. “But that’s why I’m here—it’s one of the many reasons you need me.”

Stepping back, drawing her arm from his, she pressed his hand. “Now go and circulate, and I’ll do the same.”

Royce smiled and let her go.

She started into the crowd, but then glanced back and called, “I meant to warn you. Once we all sit and you finish welcoming everyone, there are a number of announcements—Devil will follow you and make them.”