Nicholas sat back, hauling Malviver upright. “It might be worth it,” he spat. Then he released him, dropping him back on the hard floor. “Watch him, Tony,” he ordered, and, rising, he turned to Ghislaine. “You don’t want me to kill him, do you?” he said softly. “I give him his life, as a wedding present to you. But you’ll have to promise to marry me.”
She smiled then, a pale, lost smile. And her eyes fluttered closed, and she slumped to the floor in a gentle, graceful slide.
“Wouldn’t have thought a proposal would make her faint,” Tony drawled, but Nicholas was already by her side, pulling her limp body into his arms.
“She didn’t faint, damn it,” he said grimly. “She’s taken the poison herself.”
Her eyes opened for a moment, and she managed a weak smile. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t think you’d get here in time.”
He pulled her body against him, howling in rage. “Get a doctor, damn it!” he thundered. “She’s dying!”
Ellen appeared in the doorway, her face white with shock. “What’s happened? Gilly…?” The words were cut off as Malviver leaped for her, a burly arm around her white throat. Nicholas couldn’t, wouldn’t move from his spot on the floor where he cradled Ghislaine’s limp body.
“And now, messieurs, I think I will choose this moment to depart,” Malviver said in a rasping voice. “This one can serve as a hostage. I will release her in Paris, and perhaps she’ll find her own way back to England. Assuming we aren’t at war by then.”
“Let her go, you bastard,” Tony said, his voice shaking with suppressed rage.
Ellen’s eyes were wide with shock as she stood pressed against the Frenchman. “Tony?” she whispered beseechingly.
It was over so quickly. With an inhuman roar the indolent, Honorable Sir Antony Wilton-Greening leaped for Malviver, ripping him away from Ellen. She fell against the door, watching with a bloodthirsty fascination as Tony grappled with Malviver, rolling on the floor, one evil-looking knife between the two of them.
And then Tony rose, his huge height towering over Malviver’s limp body. He looked down at the man, and spat, then held out his arms to Ellen.
She ran to him, clinging tightly for a moment, then turned to look at Nicholas.
He was still kneeling on the floor, uncaring of Malviver’s fate, and his hands were tight on Ghislaine’s shoulders. “Don’t you dare die, Ghislaine!” he shouted. “You can’t die. You can’t leave me. I love you, damn it. If you die, I’ll kill you. For God’s sake, don’t die!”
Ghislaine was so cold, so weary. It seemed as if once more she’d find that dark, safe place, deep inside, where no one could reach her. That empty place that had once held her hopes, her dreams, her innocence. Her heart.
But it was no longer empty. It was full to overflowing, bursting with love and hope and a thousand possibilities. There was no place to escape from the insistent voice that was threatening, cajoling, dragging her back.
I love you,
the voice said, a voice that had never said those words before.
Come back to me.
And she had no choice.
She opened her eyes, very carefully. Her eyelids ached. Every part of her body ached. She remembered being sick, horribly sick, for endless hours, worse even than seasickness. She remembered the hands, holding her, walking her up and down, never letting her rest. She remembered the voice.
There was a dim gray light coming in the window, but whether it was dawn or dusk she had no idea. She lay on a bed, and the cover was heavy on her body, painfully so. She turned her head, to see Nicholas, a stubble of beard on his beautiful, dissolute face, his hair long and tangled. Somehow it seemed more streaked with gray than when she’d first encountered him. Had she done that to him?
He looked exhausted. She wanted to touch him. Using all her strength she lifted her hand to brash it lightly against his rough cheek. His eyes flew open, and he was staring at her in wonder.
“So you decided to live after all,” he said, his voice not much more than a croak, ruining the cynical effect of his words.
Her mouth felt dry, horrible; her head pounded; and her skin hurt. She found she could smile. “I believe you told me you’d kill me if I didn’t,” she whispered.
He cursed then, pulling her into his arms, holding her tightly, so tightly that she could feel the trembling in his body, a trembling that matched her own. “And so I would. You’ll marry me as well.”
She lay very still in his arms. “I don’t blame you anymore, Nicholas,” she said. “I no longer have any need for revenge.”
“But I do. I’m going to marry you, woman, and keep you with me for the rest of your life. I’ll make your life a living hell, chained to the last of the mad Blackthornes. If that’s not revenge I don’t know what is.”
She found she could smile against the wrinkled whiteness of his shirt. “Didn’t you tell me something else last night?”
“I told you a great many things last night, most of which you wouldn’t have heard. If you’re by any chance referring to what I said to you before you passed out from the poison, that was two days ago.”
She pushed away from him. “Two days? I’ve been sick that long?”
“You’ve been hovering between life and death, damn it. It’s about time you made up your mind.”
“What about Malviver? Are we safe here?” she asked anxiously.
“Your friend Malviver is no longer among the living.”
“Oh, no,” she said, searching his face for the bleakness she expected to see. Instead he looked both exhausted and curiously Joyous. “Did you kill him?”
“You seem troubled by his demise, considering you were doing your best to poison him,” he pointed out.
“But I didn’t want you to kill him,” she said. “You have too much blood on your hands.”
“As a matter of fact, Tony did the honors. Your friend Malviver made the very dire mistake of thinking he could use Ellen as a hostage. It was very tidy. I’m quite respectful of Sir Antony’s talent. I didn’t know he had it in him.”
“But how will we get out of France?”
“As fast as we can. Do you think you’re up to riding in a carriage?”
“Oh, God,” she moaned. “It seems I’ve spent half my life in a carriage.”
“Don’t worry, my love. Once we return to England we can stay put. Tony’s promised to speak for me, and he’s such a respectable gentleman I have no doubt my name will be cleared. At least in the matter of the late Mr. Hargrove. If you wish, we can live a comfortable enough life.” He seemed almost diffident, and she knew the sudden, shocking truth. The dear man was actually afraid that she wouldn’t want him.
She reached up and stroked his stubbled skin. “What else did you say when I collapsed?” she whispered. “Besides threatening to beat me?”
Her fierce demon lover actually looked abashed. “It doesn’t bear repeating.”
“It does if you expect me to marry you. I love you too much to let you throw your life away on me.”
“My life isn’t worth anything.”
“It is to me.”
He stared at her in mute frustration. “All right, I love you, damn it,” he snapped. “Does that satisfy you?”
She considered it. “It’s a start. But you’ll definitely need more practice. You haven’t learned the proper intonation. You need—” He silenced her, efficiently and swiftly, his mouth covering hers.
When he lifted his head they were both breathless. “I love you,” he said again, this time a little more softly.
She smiled up at him. “Much better,” she whispered. “I accept.”
The smell of fresh wood mixed with the rich scent of herbal tea. Ghislaine sat at the well-scrubbed table and inhaled the aroma, looking about her with simple pleasure. Charbon lay at her feet, sleeping soundly.
It was autumn in Scotland, and the ruined hunting lodge of the mad Blackthornes was slowly being put in good heart once more. She’d insisted on the kitchen first. Nicholas had held out for the bedroom, but she’d been firm. They could sleep and make love anywhere, and had proven that to their own mutual satisfaction. Cooking was more of a challenge.
The new roof was complete, the west wing almost closed in, and if the laborers thought it odd that Blackthorne worked side by side with them in the brisk autumn air, they ascribed it to the oddities of the gentry. They were even more taken aback when Tony and Ellen visited for a week in August, and the honorable Sir Antony Wilton-Greening had carted lumber and bricks, but Ghislaine decided it was all for the best. She’d suffered through some of the worst the revolution in France had to offer. She could manage to glean the best too, and she was determined to be very democratic. Nicholas was too self-absorbed to care one way or the other.
She spooned honey into her tea and thought about the upcoming winter. The house would be snug by then. She would cook, and Nicholas would continue with his plans to make the place self-sufficient. Sheep, he’d decided, and longhaired cattle, and his enthusiasm was boyish and heartbreakingly wonderful.
“What are you doing,
ma mie
?”
She looked up. He stood in the doorway, his rough shirt open to the waist, his shoulders broader from the hard labor, his skin tanned by the weather. She loved him so much, from the top of his gray-streaked black hair to his work-roughened hands that were so deftly erotic.
“Having tea.”
He strolled into the room, sniffing. “Looks lethal to me,” he murmured, picking up her cup. “You haven’t decided to poison anyone, have you?”
“Not at the moment,” she replied in a tranquil voice. “Just stay on my good side.”
“I wouldn’t think of doing otherwise. I just wondered what you were doing, drinking tea instead of your beloved coffee? You can’t be turning English on me?”
“Not likely.”
“And I don’t believe I’ve seen you sitting still in the middle of the day before,” he added, a frown creasing his face. “Are you feeling all right? I’ve always said you have the weakest stomach imaginable.”
“I’m feeling fine. I have something to tell you.”
The wariness darkened his midnight-blue eyes, and she knew she shouldn’t tease him. She couldn’t resist.
“Tell me what?”
“You’re no longer going to have the romantic cachet of considering yourself the last of the mad Blackthornes.”
He simply stared at her for a moment, before her meaning sank in. “You’re going to have a baby?”
“By late spring. Not long after Ellen gives birth, I expect.” She tried to control her sudden knot of anxiety. He was staring at her, his face absolutely expressionless with shock.
And then he reached down and hauled her into his arms, holding her so tightly she thought her bones might break. He was shaking, she was shaking, and all she could do was cling to him, as close as he was holding her.
He lifted his head, reaching down and catching her chin, tilting it up to his face, and there was a wicked gleam in his suspiciously bright eyes. “Does this mean you’re going to have morning sickness for nine months?”
“Most likely,” she said, smiling up at him.
“Bloody hell,” he said cheerfully.
And then he kissed her, hard. And they both began to laugh.
The End
I’ve been writing since the dawn of time. A child prodigy, I made my first professional sale to Jack and Jill Magazine at the age of 7, for which I received $25 (admittedly my father worked for the publisher). Since then I’ve written gothics, regencies, romantic suspense, historical romance, series romance -- anything with sex and violence, love and redemption. I misbehave frequently, but somehow have managed to amass lots of glittering prizes, like NYT, PW and USA Today bestseller status, Lifetime Achievement Award from the Romance Writers of America, and a decent smattering of Romantic times and RITA awards.
I live on a lake in Northern Vermont with my incredibly fabulous husband. My two children have flown the coop, but the three cats do their best to keep us from being lonely.
In my spare time I quilt and play around with wearable art, and the rest of the time I write write write. Apparently women of a certain age get a rush of creativity, and I’m currently enjoying it. Too many stories to write, not enough hours in the day.