A License to Wed: Rebellious Brides (13 page)

The door clicked open behind her, and Will entered carrying their supper. “I’ve brought us something to eat.” He placed the food on a table. “Chats fried in butter,
moules,
and lobster. Figs and Chaumontel pears. The island is known for them.” He halted when he turned around to face her and caught sight of her expression. “What is it?”

She licked her dry lips. “Sparrow. Your…friend.” She held out the calling card in a limp hand. “Is this his?”

He came over to examine it. “Yes, that’s Ham’s.” He looked up, watching her carefully. “What is it? What has upset you?”

“It can’t be.” Her knees went weak as the horror of it sank in. He caught her in strong solid arms before she could fall and helped her to a seat before the hearth.

“Tell me why you are distressed.” He knelt before her, keeping a comforting hand over hers, which were clutched together in her lap.

“He is missing.” She fought the tears that burned her eyes. “You fear for his safety.”

“Yes, before he vanished, he sent a message indicating he’d made an important discovery.”

“You think Duret killed him before he could reveal this discovery.” She whispered the words because to say them aloud made it all the more terrible to contemplate.

“I could be wrong. I’ve found no connection between Gerard Duret and Hamilton Sparrow.”

“Yes, you have.” She swallowed hard around the lump in her throat. “Me.”

He pushed to his feet in a slow deliberate motion, the withdrawal of his warmth leaving her hands cold and desolate. “You said you didn’t know Ham.”

“I do not know him by that name, but I am acquainted with him.”

“How do you know him?” He stared down at her with his fists set against his hips. “Through Duret?”

She blinked up at him, confused. “No, through my husband. They were great friends. But I know him only as Moineau.”

“Moineau.” Comprehension washed over his face. “Like the songbird in French.”

“Translated into English, it means ‘sparrow.’ ”

They said that last word together. “Sparrow. I should have made the connection sooner.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “So you do know Ham Sparrow.”

She nodded. “He found me after my release. He was the one to inform me that Susanna was alive.”

Pale faced, he sank into the seat opposite her. “What else did he say?”

“That Susanna had been taken at birth by someone at the highest levels of government. Duret later told me that he was the one who had taken her.” She held his gaze. “Moineau promised to find my child.”

He exhaled. “You fear the possibility that Duret learned of this and…ah…eliminated Sparrow.”

“I could not bear it.” Her voice shook. “If he died trying to help me—”

He was out of his chair and kneeling before her before she realized he’d moved. “No.” The words were firm. “You are not at fault.”

“How can you say that?” Panic rose in her voice. “He agreed to help me and now he is missing.”

“I can say that with all certainty because I know Ham is in a dangerous line of work. If he were to meet an unfortunate end, it is a risk he took that has nothing to do with you.”

“What line of work?”

“He was…is…an intelligence operative.”

“How can you possibly know that?” But even as she asked, she already knew the answer.

“I am in a position to know because Hamilton Sparrow, the man you know as Moineau, undertook clandestine assignments for the Crown and reported to me.”

She stared at him. “Moineau works for the Crown and reports to you.”

He dipped his chin. “Yes.”

“But he’s French.”

“His grandmother was, but otherwise he is as English as you or I.”

“What are you saying? That he’s only pretending to be working for the French?”

“Yes, and he’s most effective. Ham has managed to infiltrate the upper reaches of the police ministry.”

Her smoky gray eyes darkened. “So you are highly placed in the Home Office.” It wasn’t a question. “How long have you been engaged in…this kind of enterprise?”

“For many years.”

“Even when you visited us at Langtry?”

“Yes.”

She stared into the cold hearth. Slashes of red deepened across the high angle of her cheekbones, but it wasn’t until she spoke that he realized just how angry she was. “You have lied about everything. Has there ever been a time you haven’t been dishonest with me?”

“I have never denied working for the Home Office. But I also could not share the entire truth. Discretion is obviously key to my work.”

Her head swung away from the hearth to pin him with a glare. “You have lied by omission.” She spat out the words. “You have never shared your true self with me. Not even that night when you bedded me.”

His chest squeezed. “I shared all of me with you that night, and I am truly sorry that you never realized it.” He had loved her with everything in him and she had thrown it all back at him.

“You left me the very next day.” The accusation rang out through the chamber. “Abandoned me as though what occurred between us meant nothing.”

“It meant the world.” His voice was hoarse with emotion. “You are the one who left your baseborn lover to marry your French nobleman. You obviously chose a man who wasn’t beneath your touch.”

Her eyes widened. “You cannot possibly believe that to be true.”

He silently cursed himself for letting the frank words escape his mouth. “I was correct to fear you would be inconstant.”

“Inconstant? Me?” She jumped to her feet, her eyes blazing. “I’ve been in love with you for more than half my life.”

“You were a young girl smitten with an older man, who happened to be the bastard son of an earl. At your tender age, a young man at university would have seemed a very glamorous thing.” He stood stiff-spined, with his arms clasped hard behind his back. “You couldn’t know what it portended for your future to marry someone born on the wrong side of the blanket.”

She gave a huff of mirthless laughter. “I’d fooled myself into believing you cared about me. I see now that you were just putting me off so as not to bruise my feelings.”

“You knew nothing of the world beyond your father’s house,” he interjected. “There were many doors in society that would have been closed to you had you wed me.”

“I never had a care for what the ton thought.” She exhaled a tremulous breath. “And then—after our night together—you insisted we wed because you felt you’d ruined me, not because of any depth of feeling on your part.”

His mouth dropped open. “Is that what you truly believe?”

“What else was I to surmise?” Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “You left and I was alone.”

“It was never my intention to abandon you.”

“Then why did you depart for Town the very next morning?”

“Because—” He bit back the words, unwilling to admit how foolish he’d been. He couldn’t tell her he’d ridden to Town to secure a special license so he could take her to wife immediately, without having to wait for the banns to be read.

“And I thought you’d ignored my letters—”

“I swear on my honor that I never received any letters,” he interrupted. “As soon as I reached London, I was sent on an urgent assignment, one I could not refuse.”

Surprise lit her face. “An assignment? Your father said you were on a coin-collecting endeavor.”

“My numismatic pursuits provide excellent cover for my work. The truth is that I was in Brussels for several weeks attending to matters related to the Home Office. I returned to Langtry as soon as the mission was completed only to find you had already married.”

She paled, one hand going to her chest. “You came back for me?”

“Yes, but it was too late.” He took a fortifying inhale before continuing. “In the end, I suppose it was just as well.”

She exhaled a shaky breath, her expression grim. “You came back.” She said the words more to herself than to him.

“You were gone by then, married to a gentleman more suitable to your station.” He stared into the empty fireplace, embarrassed at the idea of her knowing he’d pined for her. “As for me, I soon realized it would have been ill-advised for a man in my line of work to take a wife.”

She looked stricken, her face completely drained of color. “I didn’t know.”

“I presume you cared for Laurent.” He wanted to hear it from her lips—the brutal confirmation that she’d loved another when he’d only ever loved her. “You are not the sort to marry a man solely for his title.”

She nodded. “He was a good man.”

Pain tore through his chest. She’d loved her husband.

Biting her lower lip, she studied him. “Do you regret not having a family? Do you never imagine yourself married with a child?”

“Never. I have no place in my life for those things.” He’d convinced himself of that long ago, but now the words tasted bitter on his tongue. “Matters between us turned out as they should.”

She sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “I suppose you’re right.”

And yet he still wanted—needed—to know why she had written to him before her marriage. “What was in the letters, Elle? I assumed you wrote to tell me of your impending nuptials.” Hope surged in him. Had she changed her mind about refusing him? Perhaps she’d wanted to marry him after all. “Was there more?”

She didn’t answer at first. Then she shook her head, looking at him with dazed eyes. “No, nothing that matters now.”

His gut clenched. “Are you certain?”

She hesitated and then nodded again. “Yes.”

He turned toward the food tray, anxious to stave off the hollow ache in his gut. “We should eat. Our supper is getting cold.”

She chewed on the lobster, which she normally found delicious, without really tasting it. Will’s question kept rolling through her mind.
What was in the letters, Elle?
She wanted to tell him the truth, that she’d revealed she was with child and urged him to return to Langtry as soon as possible so they could marry.

She didn’t doubt that he’d never received the letters. Had she not been so young, desperate, and naive, she would have realized back then that Will was far too honorable to abandon the woman who carried his child. Even if he didn’t love her.

“Is there something wrong with your food?”

She looked down at the half-eaten crustacean in her plate. “No. I just have much on my mind.” She slid a piece of the lobster into her mouth, chewing slowly, and licked her fingers. He followed the motion, his eyes flaring, riveted by the movements.

Averting his gaze, he cleared his throat. “You are thinking of your daughter.”

Our daughter.
“Yes.” She kept her voice even. “Have you had many occasions to see her?”

“Not many.” He smiled softly. “But she makes her presence known when I do see her.”

She leaned forward. “How so?”

“She is very engaging, bright, and amusing. Cosmo and Mari are completely entranced by her.” He finished his ale in one final long swallow. “I never thought of your brother as the paternal sort, but clearly I was mistaken.”

She hesitated. “Perhaps you also would take to being a father, should that come to pass.”

“No.” He gave a resolute shake of his head. “I will never be a father.”

“One never knows,” she said with forced lightness despite the choking sensation in her chest. “You have only to look at Cosmo. He is not Susanna’s blood father.”

His expression grew more serious. “You don’t have to fear that she will suffer the lack of a blood father. He loves her as much as any father could love a child.”

As much as you could love her?
She gazed into the unlit hearth. If she told him the truth about his daughter now, he would insist on wedding her, even if it was the last thing he wanted.
I know now that there is no place in my life for a wife or a family.
She couldn’t bear the idea of her and their child being an obligation he didn’t want.

And yet, he had a right to know about his child even if he did find the news distressing. She focused on her plate and took a bite of fried potatoes. She was too exhausted, and her thoughts too frayed, to determine the correct course of action.

She was honor bound to tell Will the truth, but it was all more than she could cope with at the moment. For now, she would concentrate on reaching home and reuniting with her child. And then she would decide how to tell Will what he needed to know, that he already had a family—whether he wanted one or not.

He surprised her after supper with a bath. She watched with delighted surprise as the servants dragged in the wooden hip bath and filled it with buckets of steaming water. They left two full buckets by the tub before leaving them alone again.

“It will be such a relief to wash the dust from the road,” she said, pulling the pins from her upswept hair and shaking the honey-colored strands loose.

His blood moved faster at the sight. And the image in his mind of her long limbs and pert breasts wet and glistening with soap and water was almost too much to bear. “I’ll wait in the corridor until you’ve had your bath,” he said, eager for escape.

She frowned. “You said yourself that we should keep to our chamber so as not to be noticed.”

He felt himself flush. “I can hardly remain in your company while you bathe.”

One of her arched brows rose, and an expression of amusement marked her patrician features. “You’re blushing.”

“Nonsense.” He turned away and went to the window, cursing inwardly at his fair coloring for giving him away. “I am merely trying to be gentlemanly.”

“I’ll be quick about it,” she said in a resolute voice that suggested she’d come to a decision. “You can remain as you are, with your back to me.”

Appalled by the thought, he faced her. “You expect me to remain here while you disrobe and bathe?” He’d never survive it.

She tilted her head with a small smile. “It is not as though you haven’t seen it before.”

“Yes it is,” he objected. “You retained your chemise and stockings when I searched your clothing.” He immediately regretted voicing his concerns out loud because visions of her in the transparent chemise with those garters made him lightheaded.

“No, before that. At the pond.”

“Just so. That night when we were…ah…together, it was dark and you did not disrobe completely.”

“Don’t be so stuffy.” She advanced and gave her back to him, holding her hair up with both hands. “I will need some assistance with these buttons.”

The scent of flowers and warm skin floated over him. “Being a gentleman is hardly the same as being stuffy.” He swallowed hard, battling the urge to put his lips at the nape of her long, graceful neck. How was it that after days on the road, she still smelled of violets instead of the stink and filth that surely clung to him?

He fumbled his way through the buttons—tiny and far too many—trying not to touch her through her dress or to feel the heat of her skin. He then made quick work of her stays, unlacing them before she bothered to ask. “There. All done.”

“My thanks.” She gave a pert smile and gestured with one hand while holding her dress up with the other. “Now turn around and don’t look until I say so.”

He spun around and almost hit the window in his haste. He removed his spectacles and cleaned them. Replacing them on his nose, he tried to focus on the scene below him rather than the imagined one behind him. The rustling of clothes was quickly followed by a small splash and then an audible moan of pleasure.

“Oh, this is heavenly,” she practically crooned. “I never thought I’d be clean again.”

He tried not to think about the fact that she was now wet, naked, and—good Lord—moaning, just a few feet from where he stood. She splashed around a little more, and it didn’t take much imagination to picture her running soapy hands down each leg, over each breast, down between the apex…

He scrubbed the erotic image from his mind and peered hard outside. But it was late and, unfortunately, the empty street offered few distractions. After a few more minutes of listening to slapping water and satisfied sighs, she spoke.

“I’m going to need your assistance.”

“Oh?” He was afraid to ask.

“I’ve washed my hair and I need some help rinsing it. This hip bath is so small that if I do it myself, I’m likely to spill all over the floor.”

He removed his spectacles again and swiped a frustrated hand down his face.

“Will?” she ventured when he didn’t answer.

“Oh, very well,” he said, piqued.

“I am ready,” she said in a quiet voice from behind him.

He inhaled what air he could into his constricted lungs and turned around. And all the air whooshed out of him again. She sat in the shallow hip bath with her knees tucked into her chest, and her arms wrapped tightly around them, and her chin resting on her knees. There were long expanses of smooth pale skin, and long lithe limbs, but at least she’d managed to cover her most private of bits. He shook himself from his stupor and placed his spectacles by the bedside before going to her. He picked up the bucket in a brisk manner, anxious to get this torture over and done with.

“Well, then?” he asked abruptly. “Ready?”

She nodded from her huddled position. He poured a steady stream of water over her shampooed hair.

“You’ll need to use your hands to help get the soap out,” she offered unhelpfully.

He swallowed a curse and gave himself over to the task, pouring the water with his right hand while raking his fingers through her wet, soapy strands with the other. He massaged her scalp, occasionally brushing her bare smooth shoulders. His prick gave up the battle to behave, growing warm and heavy between his legs. He focused on his task while trying to ignore his rising body temperature and general discomfort. “Elle?”