The Rogue's Surrender (The Nelson's Tea Series Book 3) (23 page)

“Whose?”

“Let’s just say we both had to explain the bruises.”

“
Dios mio
, you were that evenly matched?”

“Aye.” He blotted the memory from his mind, purposefully shutting out images of the man he’d been then, a man capable of escaping Nelson’s frigates, and partnering with a duke’s son. When Percy’s father died in 1804, he’d taken the fifth duke’s place, becoming more of what he’d been, an enhanced version of himself. Not Garrick. Where was the man he’d been now?

He shook his head, accepting the empty shell he was, and gave a half-hearted shrug. “We were younger then, free to be foolish.”

Mercy left the lure of the hearth with an easy grace and drifted closer. She lifted his hand, turning it over and over again in her palm.

Heat radiated off her touch, branding him, forcing him to fight hard to maintain control.

“Tell me more about Percy. Constance is most assuredly happy. Isn’t she?”

Is that what Mercy wanted? Happiness? She wouldn’t find it with him.

“You, of all people, know there isn’t much I can tell.” He tapped her chin. She grabbed his other hand, capturing it within hers, threading her fingers through his. Her subtle, thoughtless action drove him wild. He swallowed the lump rising in his throat, struggling to keep from encircling her in his arms. “I
can
tell you about a game he stopped suddenly at a tavern in Cornwall.”

“A tavern?” She glanced down at their entwined fingers to keep him from seeing the smile curling up the corners of her delectable mouth. He saw it nonetheless. “I should have known.”

“The Walrus has much to offer a wayward pirate.” His fingers sensitized, his nerve-endings sparking to life.

“So it’s as I thought,” she said, quirking her brow. “You gamble away more than your life on occasion.”

His stomach hardened. “Life is a gamble.” He regretted the harshness of his tone as soon as he’d spoken.

She raised her face slowly. Light reflected off the moisture building in her eyes, and a rebellious tear threatened to spill down her cheek.

Pain constricted Garrick’s throat. Why was she torturing herself… him? Nothing could come from any feelings they fancied.

Mercy inhaled a stabilizing breath. “Life is also meant to be enjoyed, Garrick. When is the last time you can say you truly felt alive?”

The use of his first name was like a piercing blade opening a fissure in his soul. Did he dare admit the truth? That he’d never felt more alive than when he’d kissed this enchanting seductress in the heat of danger?

“On board the
Priory
.”

She stiffened before him. “You cannot make me believe that your ship is more important than what is happening between us.”

How quick she was to jump to conclusions. He glanced away, preferring Celeste’s portrait, a one-dimensional image to the tears coursing down Mercy’s high cheekbones. “The
Priory
is my life.”

“No, Garrick,” she said. “
This
…” She laid his hand over her heart. “Is life.”

Her heartbeat thudded beneath his palm as she slid his hand down to her breast.

Garrick jerked his
hand back as if he’d been scalded.

His one true sin had been giving in to lust. That weakness made him responsible for Esmeralda’s death.
Hounds’ blood, my days of ease and nights of pleasure are over.

His dalliance with Esmeralda had invited hellish circumstances into his life. In his youth, time, pleasure, money, and pilfering from his enemies had been unguarded distractions. The one good thing he’d ever done as an adult had been joining Nelson’s Tea.

A hollow ache of lost chances squeezed his gut like a carpenter’s vise. Sins of the flesh had robbed him of his handsome face. All the charm he’d used without fail to attract the opposite sex now danced before him with poetic justice. He’d taken women for granted, and now he frightened women with just one look.

His agony could have been easily avoided if he’d kept his mind on his mission. Aye, the revelation cut deep. He’d die before carrying such a burden again. And the only way he could prevent such an occurrence was to stay as far away from Mercy as he could get. But that was impossible without jeopardizing their mission.

His heart weighted heavy by regret, he finally felt secure enough to admit Mercy was the one person he wanted in his life. But that ship had sailed.

Eager to put as much space between them as he could, Garrick rose and paced to the window and pulled back the curtain to peer outside.

Mercy followed him. “Don’t shut me out.”

He stiffened, trying to ignore her movements as she walked nearer, but he was no longer immune to her sultry voice, her exotic body. He dropped the curtain and turned to ward her off.

The emotions crisscrossing her face, a mixture of sadness and sensual promise, nearly brought him to his knees. He grew as hard as stone then gritted his teeth to hold back the groan seeking release. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

She took his hand in hers. “Yes, I do.” She held the monstrous thing, large and rough, dwarfing her delicate fingers.

He swallowed hard as she placed his palm on her cheek. “We cannot be ruled by our pasts but only the time that stretches out before us.”

He attempted to pull his hand away but this time she held firm. He struggled to ignore the silky skin burning through his as he finally found his voice. “How can you be so optimistic when everyone you love is in danger?”

She leaned into his palm and kissed it gently, her lush lips sending spirals of sensual delight straight to his loins.

“Not everyone,” she said, peering at him with catlike pleasure. “You made me a promise, remember?”

He gulped. “A promise?”

“Eddie.” She drew closer. “My brother is safe, thanks to you.”

He shook his head. Clearly, she underestimated him because she’d failed to remember her parents were still in Spain and were possibly dead now because he’d left them there to die.

She stretched her hand to his cheek and he didn’t resist this time as she caressed his scarred face. “
I
am safe.”

He leaned into her hand, luxuriating in her touch. “Don’t you see? You aren’t safe… not yet.” She wouldn’t be safe until the man responsible for Holt and Murray’s deceit was locked up or dead.

“Can
you
not see, Garrick? All we have is this moment. None of us are guaranteed tomorrow. You must stop blaming yourself for things beyond your control.”

Garrick stared at Mercy as if Holt’s assassination attempts had stolen her good sense. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.” He pulled his hand away and stepped back.

“Yes, I do. I forgive you for kidnapping my brother, even though I have not seen him yet.”

“You will,” he assured her.

“Yes, I know.” Her full lips drew up like a bow. “I trust you.”

Her mouth parted slightly, so tempting, so lusciously beautiful and moist that he felt a stake of regret sink deeper into his heart. He’d longed to hear a woman talk to him like this, free and easy, sultry and sexy, and intimately close. Esmeralda had been very good at soothing his ego. Mercy’s sweetness was more than he could take. And yet, he craved more. He wanted to hear that Mercy believed he was a man of his word, that he was capable of saving her life.

She was a spy, properly trained to lure him in for the kill.
Sink and scuttle me, she is going to be the death of me.

He lowered his head, sensing she wouldn’t stop his advances, even though she should. Kissing her risked more than their souls. She was standing in her nightrail, closeted in the study with him in the middle of the night like a lover’s tryst. It was hardly reasonable… respectable. Constance and Percy depended on him.
Be the voice of reason.
But how could he when his lips quivered slightly with need and a passion he’d expected never to feel again.

She reached for him, wrapping her hands behind his neck to pull him closer. Ever so gently, he gave in. Inch by delicious inch, he moved closer, grazing his lips with hers, testing, probing, teasing, until her compliant body softened and her fingers dug into his shoulders.

She didn’t scream as so many others did when he was near. She didn’t claw out in a desperate attempt to escape as the women in his freakish nightmares always did. Instead, she pressed closer, the friction between them driving him wild.

He was going to go mad.

Losing himself in the moment, he sought a deeper kiss, embracing her tighter in his arms, slipping his tongue inside her mouth, demanding her acquiescence. A fierce mating ritual began as their tongues made love, doing what their bodies were forbidden to do. He exalted in the sensations coursing through him, her succulent taste, her rosewood scent, allowing the fire building inside him to ignite into one explosive sensation.

She moved her leg, raising it over his thigh, nearly upending his sanity. He groaned with raw urgency, sickened by the horrifying truth he wanted to take her — here — now, on the study floor.

No!
He broke away, struggling for breath. What was he doing? Was he so violently smitten that he’d take Percy’s cousin in the man’s own study?

Hounds’ blood, he’d lost his good sense… and control. Was he so loathsome a man that any women who welcomed his scarred face, his mouth, his touch, his hideous brand on her skin turned him into a smitten schoolboy?

Euphoria faded like a bucket of cold water dumped over his head, turning him ice-cold as he gazed down at Mercy’s bloodstained hands.

She started towards him. “Garrick.”

“No.” He flattened his palm between them. “This is wrong.”

“I will never reject you. You must know that by now.”

“I know that I am the biggest mistake you will ever make,
señorita
. Go now before it’s too late. Turn away from me and don’t look back.”

Her throat constricted. “Impossible.”

“But for the best.”

“You cannot presume—”

Boom. Boom. Boom.

They both started at the pounding from the foyer. Mercy closed the distance between them and grabbed hold of Garrick’s arm in momentary panic. “Who could be calling at this hour?”

“I don’t know.” Garrick immediately pulled her behind him. “Percy wouldn’t knock.”

“Do you think something is wrong?”

“I’m sure of it.” He tore her hands from his arms and moved to the study doors, intending to lock her inside.

“What are you doing?” She wasn’t going to give in easily. “Let me go with you.”

Boom. Boom. Boom.

“Dressed as you are? No.” The forceful knocks were not Nelson’s Tea’s code, a well-known pattern Percy or anyone associated with them would use to gain entrance into the duke’s townhouse. Something was terribly wrong.

The code… Nothing is predictable. Flexibility saves lives. Induce the enemy to come out.

Had Guildford’s men, or whoever had been assigned to kill Mercy come to take her by force, consequences be damned?

Garrick couldn’t take that chance. He raised his hand, palm out. “Stay here.” He moved toward the door then glanced back over his right shoulder. “Promise me. No matter what you hear, you will not leave this room until I tell you to.”

“I promise.” Her uncompromising smile once again reminded him of Adele.

Bloody hell.
Garrick closed the door behind him and pivoted toward the foyer.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Pirate and spies were excellent liars. They had to be in order to survive. He’d considered himself to be a perceptive man, now he wasn’t so sure. Delgado. Holt. Murray. Mercy. He’d been outmanned.

What next?

Jeffers, dressed in habitual black, like a wraith searching for wayward souls swept past the staircase and flipped Garrick a worried frown. “Prepare yourself, my lord.”

Garrick retrieved the knife hidden behind his back.

Jeffers’s mouth tightened into a grim line. Quick-footed and sure, he gave Garrick a consolatory nod then proceeded to open the door.

Before him, three people stood on the steps, Lord Simon Danbury, his wife, Gillian, the former Baroness Chauncey, and Percy, upheld in their arms.

Jeffers bowed his head in a maddening display of cordiality. “My Lords.”

“Ah, there’s a good man,” Simon said. “Do give us a hand, won’t you? Percy is a bit heavy.”

Jeffers moved agonizingly slow to do as Simon bade him.

Simon cleared his throat loudly. “I’m afraid Blendingham has imbibed more than advisable at the gaming tables.”

Gaming tables? Garrick’s anger mounted. Is that where Percy and Simon had spent their time while he’d been assigned governess duties?

“Dreadful judgment.” Gillian narrowed her rapt attention on Garrick. Suspense thickened the air. “One must not bet against the cards longer than necessary.”

At that particular moment, two passersby walked past the townhouse casting curious looks at the assemblage gathered outside Blendingham’s door.

An odd tension sucked life-giving air out of the room. What were Simon and Gillian up to? It would have been much easier to just walk into the townhouse.

They propped Percy on one side, buffering Percy’s wayward steps on the other. What the lookers-on couldn’t see were the haggard faces proclaiming what they couldn’t verbally say as they led the six-foot-tall popinjay across the threshold.

The deck splintered beneath his feet as Garrick finally understood events as they unfolded. Percy was hurt!

Talk of liquor and gambling fueled the minds of gossipmongers hoping to witness a scandal. The deliberate ruse they performed compounded the Duke of Blendingham’s reputation for frivolity, a matter well known to the
ton
.

“Quit standing there gawking as if you have nothing better to do,” Gillian snapped, berating Garrick for not moving fast enough.

He broke into action.

For the sake of spectacle, she clucked like a mother hen when he offered her aid. “What a gentleman you are, Lord Seaton. Thank you for offering your services.”

She withdrew her arm from Percy’s shoulder to ease the transition between them. Percy would have sunk to his knees, if not for Garrick’s quick thinking.

“Oh, dear,” she said, pushing her hands against the duke’s chest to brace him against Simon’s side.

Percy grumbled incoherently.

“Take His Grace’s hand.” Gillian’s blue-feathered hat fell askew, toppling backward. “We must hurry.”

Garrick silently obeyed, raising Percy’s arm and wrapping it around his shoulders. An ominous groan squeezed out of the duke. A quick glance down at Percy’s torso revealed blood saturating his side.

Rage surged through him. “Tell me he sent whoever did this to the devil.”

Simon and Gillian exchanged glances. Unlike Percy, they appeared unscathed, their clothes barely askew. What had happened?

“Yes.” Gillian’s voice had lost its luster. “Percy made sure of it. The danger is—”

“Come.” Jeffers scowled. “Make haste. The duke’s been on parade long enough.”

Garrick suddenly realized he still stood on the townhouse threshold, the door open behind him.

Color fled Gillian’s face. “Close the door.”

“F-Fortunate.” Percy’s head sagged. He inhaled a gruesome raspy sound. His body grew rigid as he struggled to straighten his legs and stand on his own, but overcome, he suddenly went limp as if the effort cost too much.

Garrick buttressed the duke’s height and weight, struggling only slightly to bow their heads and cross the threshold.

Inside the townhouse, Percy recovered momentarily, forcing a smile. “So good of you to catch me.”

Jeffers closed the door with a resounding thud, shutting out the sounds of approaching carriage wheels clattering up Hereford Street.

Jeffers’s speed took Garrick by surprise. “Quickly. Bring him to the study.”

The study?
Christ, Mercy is in there!

Delectable in her nightrail, the dutiful wench had stayed hidden just as he’d asked her to. If they entered the study and she was found there, would Jeffers cry foul? He’d seen Garrick leave the study.