“No. Ever since I realized the truth, I have struggled to understand what lay behind his actions. He was in debt and needed money. That was the extent of his ambition. He didn’t care about the outcome of the war or the men he was sending to certain death by revealing our military plans…” Jack briefly stopped talking and stared down at the pristine linen cloth. “He didn’t care about you and me—the men who’d kept him alive over that mountain range just so he could betray us.”
“Perhaps Captain Fury was the mastermind behind David?” Marcus suggested. “It would make sense.”
Jack finished his port in one last swallow. “Mayhap we’ll find out soon.”
“We will or die trying.”
“That’s cheerful, my friend. And as we both have too much to live for to allow that to happen, I predict Fury will soon be no more.” Jack stood. “Good night, Marcus. I know you don’t trust me yet—how could you? But I swear on my honor that I will do everything in my power to ensure that we lay this matter to rest once and for all.”
“Good night, Jack.”
He waited a few moments before rising from the table himself. After checking with the butler that Amelia wasn’t still downstairs he went up to their bedchamber and knocked gently on her door.
“Come in.”
She was curled up in a chair beside the fire reading a book, her hair down over her shoulders and her spectacles on her nose. Marcus paused to appreciate the picture she made before advancing slowly toward her and falling to his knees.
“I stayed to drink some port with Jack.”
She put down her book. “I knew you would. It’s part of that mysterious male bonding ritual isn’t it?”
He leaned in and untied the sash of her robe. “I think we understand each other quite well now.” With a sigh, he buried his face in her lap and felt her fingers come to rest in his hair. “I’m glad I didn’t kill him.”
“I didn’t think you would.”
“There was a moment, when I first heard him speak, when I forgot everything but making him hurt as much as he had hurt me.”
“Which is perfectly understandable.”
He turned his head so that he could look up at her. “To behave like an animal in the entrance hall of a ducal mansion?”
“You were quite impressive, actually.”
“Bloodthirsty wench.” He rose onto his knees and pushed her robe off her shoulders to expose the thin muslin of her shift. “You have spent too many of your days with an army.”
“Maybe.” She sighed as he brushed his mouth over the swell of her nipple. “I did see quite a lot of fights around the campfire. I think the women were the worst—all that screeching.”
“Just like all females.”
“I don’t screech or fight.”
He sucked her nipple into his mouth and drew strongly on her until her hand caressed his neck and she was urging him on. He rucked up her shift and fitted the palm of his hand to her sex.
“I think I can make you scream.” Shifting his grip, he picked her up and rose to his feet, placing her neatly in the center of the bed. He came down over her and joined his mouth to hers in an endless kiss full of promises. When he came up for air, her hands were already attempting to release him from his well-fitted coat.
He helped her undress him without thought to the damage to his garb or where it ended up. Thank God he was neither a dandy nor had a valet to complain about such things. When he was naked, he carefully removed her shift and lowered his head to kiss her breasts. One thing his captivity had taught him was to savor every good thing, and every glorious sensation that came to him because it might be his last. If he was lucky, he and Amelia would have years together to share their bliss, but there was still the matter of Captain Fury to attend to.
“I think I can make you screech if I take my time. And maybe even beg?”
He smiled down at her and received a challenging smile in return. Her chestnut-colored hair was spread out over the pillow and her eyes were already softening with desire.
“We shall see, won’t we, Marcus?”
His smile deepened. “Yes, Amelia my darling, we shall.”
“How long do you expect it will take Captain Fury to ascertain where you are staying?” Marcus asked Jack as they strolled through the leafy park on their way to the Duke of Diable Delamere’s house.
They had gotten into the habit of calling in at the duke’s residence every day. Marcus suspected the duke would rather they kept away from his duchess, but it certainly enlivened their existence and made sure the duke was as eager as Marcus was to solve the matter once and for all.
“Captain Fury probably already knows. I suspect he has spies in all the best houses, and we aren’t exactly making any effort to hide ourselves.”
“It’s a shame Captain Fury didn’t work full time for the government. We could have done with a man of his caliber in charge of reconnoitering and reconnaissance during the war.”
“You mean spying.” Jack winked at him. “Not that we British would ever indulge in anything so underhand.”
“My first set of captors told me I would be tried as a spy.” Marcus’s faint smile disappeared. “At some point, I was transferred into other hands. I was sick with fever and have no recollection as to how I ended up where I did.”
“You were not in a military camp or prison?”
“No.” Marcus frowned. “I was in a small village high up in the mountains. They used me for hard labor and kept me chained at night in an underground cellar. Not that I thought much about escaping. I had no idea who I was for quite a while.” He sighed. “I remember something, and then it is gone, and then it turns up in my nightmares. I haven’t told Amelia half of it.”
Jack nodded. “I am the same with Carys. She knows enough to understand what I went through, but the details are best left unshared.”
“There were three women in the house.” Marcus kept walking and looking straight ahead. “Sometimes they amused themselves by… using me. I didn’t fight them very much.” He swallowed hard. “I craved being touched so badly. I want to tell Amelia,” Marcus confessed. “But I am afraid she won’t understand.”
“That you were so desperate to be touched that you let them bed you? I doubt she will care.” Jack’s melodious Welsh voice softened even more. “She doesn’t lack for sense.”
“She is the most practical woman I have ever met, Jack. Nothing defeats her. She says it is because she traveled with the army for so long, but I suspect it is within her very nature.”
“Ah, that’s right. Her first husband was also in the military, wasn’t he?” Jack paused on the curb to watch for a gap in the traffic. “She and I both abandoned our aristocratic families to follow the drum. How can I not understand how hard that transition must have been for her? It was difficult for me and I’d at least been to school and become well inured to hardship.”
Marcus frowned as a hackney cab slowed right in front of them. “Jack—”
Before he could say another word, the hackney stopped and a man opened the door, a pistol in his hand pointed right at Jack’s heart.
“Lord Jack Llewellyn? If you would be so good as to accompany me, please? Captain Fury wishes to speak to you.”
Marcus closed his hand around Jack’s upper arm. “If he goes, I am coming, too. I have my pistol primed and ready to fire in my pocket if you wish to argue about the matter and draw attention to us.”
The man glanced down at Marcus’s coat and then shrugged. “Both of you come, then. The good captain thought that might be the way of it.”
He stepped back inside the carriage and, after a quick shared look of resignation, Marcus and Jack followed him inside. There was another bearded man sitting opposite them who offered them two grubby silk handkerchiefs.
“Gentleman, if you would be so good as to cover your eyes?”
“So that you can knock us out or shoot us?” Jack demanded.
“Neither of those things will happen if your promise to sit quiet and behave yourselves like Christians.”
Marcus sighed. “I do hope you are telling the truth. The last thing I need is another blow to my head.”
“Don’t I know it, sir.”
Marcus paused as he took the silk handkerchief. “Do I know you?”
“No, sir.”
“Yet you seem vaguely familiar.” Marcus allowed his mind to drift for a second. “We were on a ship together.”
“Now, don’t you go remembering that right now, sir. It was a right mix up. I left you there under the shade of a tree while I went to steal a cart and horses, and blow me, but you didn’t disappear on me! Got me in all sorts of trouble with the guvnor.”
“I’ll wager I did.”
The other man gestured with his pistol. “Now, just put that blindfold on, sir, and be quiet.”
Marcus did as he was told as yet another piece of the mystery surrounding his unorthodox arrival in England fell into place. He sat back against the seat and felt the solid comfort of Jack’s shoulder beside him. Whatever happened now was in the lap of the gods.
“When did Jack say he and Marcus would return?”
Amelia looked up from reading the paper to where Carys was pacing the carpet. Carys was a beautiful fair-haired woman whose fragile looks belied her strong and courageous personality. Amelia had come to like her very much in the days since she and Jack had joined them at Stortford House.
“They should have returned by now,” Carys replied in her soft Welsh accent. “I am starting to worry.”
“But we knew Captain Fury would be after them. The duke has men stationed everywhere to report back if they are taken. If that is the case, I’m sure we will hear directly.”
“You are remarkably calm about all this, Amelia. I don’t know how you manage it.”
Just as Amelia went to answer, the butler entered the room and bowed. “My lady? There is a gentleman who wishes to speak to you on a matter of urgency.”
“Did he give his name?”
“No, my lady, which is why I didn’t bring him up to the drawing room.” The butler sniffed. “He
did
say he came from the Duke of Diable Delamere, so I didn’t wish to send him away without consulting with you first, ma’am.”
Amelia gathered her skirts. “I shall come and see him directly.”
“And I will come with you,” Carys declared.
Amelia followed the butler down the stairs and into the front hall where a man dressed in the livery of the Duke of Diable Delamere awaited them. He bowed as she approached him.
“My lady, I come from the duke. He has news for you and wishes you to join him in Grosvenor Square.”
“We shall leave with you directly.” Amelia turned to the butler. “Would you ask my maid to fetch my blue pelisse and bonnet, please, and bring them to me?”
Within minutes, they were walking out into the street. A footman stood to attention beside a grand black carriage, the door already open. He helped both of them get in, and then closed the door, leaving them in the darkness of the interior.
Amelia peered through the window at the rain-washed streets and frowned as the carriage swung westward.
“This isn’t the best route to Grosvenor Square.”
Beside her Carys went still and grabbed for the handle of the door. “We’re locked in.”
“Dear Lord, have we allowed ourselves to be kidnapped?” Amelia exclaimed.
Carys met her gaze and sighed. “I do believe that we have.”
After what seemed like an interminable journey through the streets of London, the hackney slowed and Marcus braced his hand on the carriage wall. One of the men had relieved him of his pistol and checked his pockets for other weapons, removing his favorite knife. Jack had been treated in a similar manner.
“All right, me fine gentlemen. Time to get out. Don’t try anything silly. We have you surrounded.”
Marcus hated being blindfolded. It reminded him far too much of his recent captivity. He stumbled as he alighted, and someone grabbed his elbow, hauling him back upright.
“Easy now, me lord.”
The smell of rotting fish and the tang of river water filled his nose as he was pushed inside a low doorway, his head almost grazing the stone lintel. Beneath his booted feet, the floorboards creaked as he was taken up a flight of stairs.
“Here you are, Captain. The gentlemen. As ordered.”
“I suppose I should be glad you didn’t leave them under a tree and lose them again.” Marcus would recognize that drawling voice anywhere. “Sit them down, and then you may leave to guard the door and inquire as to that other matter.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Marcus tensed as his blindfold was removed to reveal the dark-cloaked and hatted figure of Captain Fury. He wore a mask over the upper half of his face in a parody of a highwayman.
“Gentleman, so good of you to come and see me.”
Jack started to rise. “You complete bastard, Fury—”
The captain held up his hand. He had a large black signet ring on his middle finger that looked vaguely familiar. Marcus stared hard at it. “Please sit down, Jack. We have a lot to discuss.”
Jack didn’t comply. “There are two of us now. You’ll be dead before you can call for help.”
Captain Fury chuckled. “You don’t think I’d ensure your obedience before letting you see me like this? I have certain
guarantees
that you will behave yourselves like gentleman.”
Marcus leaned forward. “Because of you, I’ve learned to live like a savage. Believe me, I have no compunction about killing you in an ungentlemanly like manner.”
“I do hope you will restrain yourself, my lord. I would hate to have to dispose of that admirable new wife of yours.” The captain turned to Jack. “Or destroy the fragile peace you have established with your estranged wife.” His voice strengthened. “Sit down.”
Marcus and Jack sat.
“That’s better.” Captain Fury consulted his pocket watch. “If all has gone as planned, your wives will have been collected and will be on their way to us.”
“If you harm a hair on her head…” Marcus almost snarled.
“Now why would I do that? Everyone needs an… incentive to continue to do business with me. If people insist on falling in love and creating these
partnerships,
then they are inherently weak and make themselves vulnerable.”
“My wife would not stand by and expect me to perjure myself working for you simply to keep her alive.”