Everything I Ever Wanted (39 page)

"For want of better lines myself."

"You offered them in jest."

"I offered them as a warning."

"A warning?"

"Of my intent to marry you."

India's heart hammered against her rib cage. She could not quite catch her breath or a coherent thought.

"India?"

She shook her head quickly and covered her mouth with her hand as her small, nervous laugh ended in an abrupt hiccup. "Oh."

South frowned. "Are you unwell? Shall I get you a glass of water?"

India managed to draw in a ragged breath. Smelling salts were more in order, she thought. Or burnt feathers. "No," she said. "I am fine."

"You do not seem fine." He pressed her gently onto her back and swept her hair from where it had fallen over her shoulders. "Is it because you cannot imagine yourself married to me?"

"Oh, no," India said softly. "It is because I can."

"Then?"

She searched his face as he bent closer.' "Then nothing. You mustn't speak of it again. I do love you, you know." Her smile was a shade rueful. "There, I have said it. You have accomplished what you set out to do, and made me say the words."

"No, India. You are wrong. I did not speak of marriage to force your admission."

"Then why speak of it at all?"

"Because I do love you, and it seems the very essence of what is right and natural that marriage should follow."

"You are mistaken, m'lord."

One of South's dark brows lifted in a perfect arch. "Do you hear yourself, India? You mean to put a distance between is where none has to exist."

"I will not argue with you on this count. Apply to your friends and family if you wish to entertain debate. They will give sufficient evidence as to the foolishness of a marriage between us." She felt South draw a breath and prepare to resume making his point. "No, m'lord. I am adamant. You told me once that I cannot make you love me. Do you remember? It was"

South put a finger to his lips, cutting her off. "Of course 1 remember," he said. "And I know what construction you put on my words, but that does not mean you were right. There was part of that sentence that was left unsaid. You cannot make me love you, India, because I already do ."

India fell silent as South's huskily voiced words echoed in her head. "I wish it did not matter so much," she said finally, softly. "But I find that it does. I do want to be loved by you."

South's response was simple. "You are."

She believed him. Even as comforting warmth unfolded inside her, India was compelled to say again, "It does not mean we should marry."

"It means exactly that, but I appreciate you have reservations."

"They are not reservations. They are firmly held convictions."

He shrugged as if the difference were of no account."The special license will be there when your convictions are not."

The warmth turned to tingling. The sensation was not without a certain amount of alarm. "You mean for me to snap at that bit of bait," she said. "Well, I will not."

Shrugging, South fell onto his back and pulled the blankets up to his chest. "Good night, India."

India murmured something unintelligible under her breath as she turned on her side. She plumped the pillow with her fists until it raised her head at just the right angle; then she brought her knees toward her chest. "Good night."

South's breathing quickly became steady and even. India's did not. She stole a glimpse of his profile through the fan of her lashes. He seemed supremely unaware of her regard, or at least indifferent to it. Wondering if South was truly sleeping, India edged closer. Her knees bumped his hip, and she waited to see if he would stir. He didn't.

She sighed. It was borne home to her that she did not possess South's well of patience. Forgoing the dubious comfort of the pillow, India sought out the curve of South's shoulder instead. She lay one hand on his chest, near the open collar of his nightshirt, and finally surrendered to the inevitable. "What special license?"

"The one I applied for and received when I went back to London."

India gave a start, which brought her head up. The light but insistent pressure of South's hand at the back of her neck brought it down to his shoulder again. "You did not properly know me then," she said. "Why would you do such a thing?"

"Because of Elizabeth and North." He felt India's confusion as a near-palpable thing. "Their marriage was arranged under the most trying circumstances," he told her."I cannot say more than that. When I saw them at West's after the funeral, I was of the opinion that they were miserable together. I had reason to regret even the small role I played in helping to bring about the marriage. Then, a day later, Elizabeth was gone."

"Gone? What do you mean?"

"She left North. At first he would have had us believe that she had gone to her father's estate at Rosemont. We knew better. It is the personal matter I spoke of, the one that kept me overlong in London. I could not leave without knowing where she was or that she was safe."

"Of course you could not. She is your friend. And North is like a brother. You did exactly the right thing."

He tipped his head to the side and laid his mouth against India's brow, kissing her lightly. "You might wish I had not," he said. "It was being witness to North's distress that prompted me to acquire the license. It can make little sense to you, but it was then I understood how swift and unpredictable were affairs of the heart. He loves her, you see. And I do not think she could have been so miserable at West's if she had not loved him. When I left, North had gone to her at Stonewickam. That is where his grandfather resides and where Elizabeth fled. He will have brought her back to London by now."

"You seem very certain. Perhaps she will not return with him."

"She will. North is our soldier and he knows something about winning a campaign."

Recalling the Compass Club charter, India smiled to herself. " For we are soldier, sailor, tinker, spy . Is that it?"

He nodded.

"And what do sailors know?"

"They know that having a special license at the ready is as important as a lifeboat when a man goes overboard."

When India lifted her head this time, he did not try to stop her. She studied his shadowed features, the glint of silver in his eyes, the faint upward tilt of the corners of his mouth. "Is that you, Matthew? Have you gone overboard?"

"Heart over bucket."

She smiled. "Then I suppose I shall have to save you."

South opened his arms and gave himself up to her sweet rescue.

It was the creak of floorboards below stairs that woke India. She bolted upright and prepared to vault out of the bed. A hand on her shoulder stayed her.

"I heard it also," South said quietly. "I will see what it is, and you will remain here."

India recognized that South was not offering a suggestion. With some reluctance she folded herself back under the covers.

Gratified that there would be no argument, South slipped soundlessly out of bed. He found his trousers on the floor and stepped into them, then tucked the long tails of his nightshirt haphazardly into the waistband. From the bottom of the armoire he removed a pistol and checked the priming. Satisfied that it would fire, he carefully hefted it in his right hand. Turning, his bare toes nudged India's nightgown. He picked it up and tossed it to her. He did not have to tell her what to do with it. She was pulling it over her head before it had properly settled in her hands.

"It is probably nothing," he said.

India's head came through the opening, and she stared pointedly at the pistol in his hand.

"In the event that it is." South gave her a swift, roguish smile and left the room. He had little doubt that she would not remain long in bed when he was out of it. At the top of the stairs, he stopped and cocked his head to one side, listening for the same sounds that had disturbed him earlier. India had woken when she heard the floorboards creak, but South had been alert to noises earlier than that. His first thought when he heard the rush of wind through the door was that Darrow had returned. He put it out of his mind when there was no announcement of the same. Darrow would not have had any reason for stealth. He knew such a manner would have raised South's suspicions, not quieted them.

South's tread on the stairs was light but not without sound. He tried to time each step so that it accompanied the intermittent gusts of wind that buffeted the cottage. His hand remained steady on the banister, easing the distribution of his weight.

"You may as well announce yourself with a cry from crow's nest," West said dryly. "Land ho! Avast, ye maties! Or whatever it is one cries from the mainmast."

South stopped in his tracks, one foot on a step, the other hovering above the next. "Bloody hell, West. I might have shot you."

West regarded the pistol in South's hand, unconcerned. "Not if you were aiming."

"If that is evidence of your wit, pray do not strain yourself."

West shrugged. It was an awkward gesture given the fact that he was laid out on the settee as if it were a stiff hammock, his head propped at one end, his feet at the other. He sat up slowly, stretching as South finished his descent. West reached for the oil lamp on the end table and turned up the wick, "I apologize for waking you. Not at all what I meant to do. I thought I could come in from the cold and get a few hours' sleep before daybreak."

"You didn't stop on your way here?"

"No. I came straightaway from London."

Both of South's brows rose. He ran a hand through his hair and managed to suppress a yawn that would have cracked his jaw if he had given in to it. "Then I take it you are not here to look after your recent inheritance. That business cannot have been so urgent."

"No. I may go there later. Have you been to the estate?"

"I rode past it yesterday morning." Had it been so recent? It seemed days ago that he had taken Griffin out across the snow-covered fields. It was inevitable that his meandering journey would take him past the Westphal keep. The duke's holdings were vast, and the cottage at Ambermede sat on one small corner of the property. "Your brother is in residence, I believe."

Save for a softly issued grunt, West showed no interest. "Unless it is your intention to shoot me still," he told South, "you might put down the pistol."

South looked down at his hand. The pistol was indeed leveled in West's direction. Grinning but unapologetic, he set it on the table beside the oil lamp and pulled up a stool. "Is it Elizabeth?" he asked.

West shook his head. "No. She is back in London with North. I have not seen them yet, but East says they are indecently happy."

"That is good, then."

"It may be, yes."

South smiled faintly. Trust West to be suspicious of romantic entanglements. South had always supposed it was part and parcel of growing up a bastard, but now he wondered if that was strictly true. West had always held something of himself back. In his own way he was as insular as India. "Why have you come, West? If it is not that you mean to wrest all of the Westphal keep from your brother, then what is it?"

West pointed to where he had placed his satchel against the opposite wall. Beside the leather bag were two canvas cylinders, each some thirty inches long. They were tied with brown string in the middle to keep them from unrolling. "There," he said. "I came across them in the course of some work I am doing for the colonel. When I showed them to him, he sent me here to you."

South shifted on his stool to get a better look. "What are they? Maps?"

"No. You need to see them for yourself." South started to rise, but West leaned forward and laid one hand across his forearm. "I will get them." He rose from the settee and crossed the room. "Miss Parr is sleeping?" he asked.

She was probably at the top of the stairs listening to their exchange, South thought, but it would be ungallant of him to admit as much. "If we have not awakened her." That reply at least did not reveal that she had been in his bed. Belatedly South realized that West should not have known whom he brought to the cottage. "Did the colonel tell you it was Miss Parr I had here, or did I make some misstep?"

"It was the colonel. Offered quite reluctantly, I assure you. I had no notion of it. You can be a deep one, South." West bent and picked up both cylinders, one in each hand, and carried them back to where South was sitting. "I did not know what to make of these. The colonel thought you might." He placed one in South's open palm but did not release it. He glanced once in the direction of the stairs, then back to his friend. "Perhaps it is better that you heard me come in. I think it would have been more difficult in the morning."

"Because of Miss Parr's presence, you mean." When West nodded, South's eyes shifted toward the stairs again. If she was there, she was being astonishingly quiet. Had she guessed what West was handing him? South thought it unlikely. She could not know the shape and texture and weight of the thing in his hand. He did, though, and his fingers trembled.

South took the canvas from West and laid it crosswise on his lap. He plucked at the string, inadvertently tightened the knot, and ended up sliding it off one end of the cylinder. He started to unroll it, vaguely aware that West had taken a step backward.