How to Beguile a Beauty (26 page)

“All of which brings us back to your cousin. He's already rid of Thomas. Jasmine is the only remaining
loose end, the only one that could identify him. Save us, but he can't know we've been so brilliant. After all, if you called in Bow Street or anyone else, you'd be sending them after a red-haired one-eyed man with a patch. Not the best of disguises, but certainly effective.”

They were on the estate now, Flanagan completely out of sight on the nearly moonless night.

Tanner's horse lifted his head, sniffing the air, and then whinnying softly.

“Over there,” Justin said, pointing into the trees. “That's the fellow's mare, isn't it? He's on foot now.”

“We can't stumble over him out here in the dark,” Tanner said. “He'll take his time approaching, picking his place of entry.”

“I'll give you odds on the doors to your study. I know that's where I plan to continue my own search in the morning. Another hidey-hole, this one much more cleverly concealed. So you're simply going to let him walk in?”

Tanner urged his mount ahead on the road, heading for the front gates rather than to ride through the trees to reach the rear of the house and gardens, and his study. He turned and grinned at his friend in the darkness. “Should we pour him a brandy, do you think?”

They left their horses tied to tree branches halfway up the drive, and traveled the rest of the way on foot, pistols at the ready in case Flanagan didn't behave as Justin thought he would. But there was little chance the man would be so bold as to try one of Thomas's keys on the front doors of Malvern.

“You put Roswell on the front doors?” Tanner said in amazement as he watched the aged butler step out from the shadows, an equally aged blunderbuss in his hands.

“He insisted, and I thought this was the safest place for him. Don't shoot, man, it's your duke.”

Roswell lowered his weapon and bowed, as if greeting his master this way were an everyday occurrence. “Your Grace. May I be some humble service?”

“No, thank—yes, Roswell, if you don't mind stationing yourself at the foot of the stairs. There may be some…commotion shortly, and I would ask that you keep the ladies from coming downstairs.”

“Sans this nasty thing, I believe,” Justin said, deftly removing the blunderbuss from the butler's hands as they entered the foyer.

“I can't believe I'm doing this,” Tanner said as they made their way down the hall after refusing Roswell's offer of candles to light their way. “Lydia's upstairs, and I've just all but invited a murderer into the house.”

“Having second thoughts, are you?”

“Second thoughts, third thoughts. But if we don't get him now, I'd never sleep easily, wondering if and when he'd show up here again. Lydia understands that.”

Then he held up his hand, pointing to his right, and the corridor that led to a second door to the study, one closer to the servant stairs.

Justin nodded and headed off. Tanner counted to ten, and then proceeded to the main door to what was supposed to be the duke's inner sanctum. He eased the door open, relieved to see that no fire burned in the grate,
and that the only faint light in the large chamber came from the few stars in the sky outside the French doors.

But he was confident, having chosen his battlefield, and familiar with the placement of every chair, every table shrouded in darkness. He slipped into the room, staying low, having already decided that he would move to his left, and position himself in the far corner, behind a marble pedestal supporting a bust of Socrates.

He felt rather than saw Justin enter from the other side of the chamber, but even with his eyes accustomed to the darkness, he couldn't see which way his friend had gone.

It would be a devil of a thing if they ended up with Flanagan in between them, neither able to fire without fear of hitting the other one. The things you didn't think of until it was too late to change anything…

He tensed at the sound of someone moving across the slate terrace, a heel strike that couldn't be mistaken for anything else. Moments later came the sound of a key turning in the lock, and Brice Flanagan was inside the room with them.

Light a candle, light a candle
, Tanner chanted inside his head. Then the man would be illuminated and it would be easy for him and Justin to step out, pistols leveled, and take the man.

But Flanagan didn't move to light a candle. He stood very still for the space of several heartbeats, and then turned toward Tanner, heading straight for the bookcases that lined the side wall.

Sliding his pistol into his waistband, Flanagan used
both hands to locate the wooden pillars that divided each expanse of books into separate sections, and then ran one hand up the third pillar, pressing on the wooden rosette that marked the fourth row of shelves.

Immediately, a small section of the shelf next to the rosette slid backwards, into the wall, and Flanagan reached into the opening with the confident air of a man who has found exactly what he'd been looking for.

Except that he hadn't.

Tanner watched the man's increasingly desperate patting and probing at the opening. Flanagan went up on tiptoe, as if to see into the dark void, now using both hands to continue his search.

“Nothing there, I'm afraid,” Justin said just as Tanner was coming out from his own hiding place, as with the man's two hands occupied, there could have been no better time to take him. “I was as hopeful as you, earlier, when I discovered it. But, alas, no pretty diamonds I'm sure you were told were there. You murdered Thomas Harburton for nothing.”

Flanagan had whirled about to locate the source of the taunting voice, already reaching into his waistband for his pistol as he stepped away from the bookcases.

Tanner could have shot the man. Or, as Justin seemed anxious to do, talked him to death. But Tanner wasn't an adventurous or even slightly flamboyant sort.

He merely silently stepped up behind Brice Flanagan and brought the butt of his pistol down on the back of
the fellow's head, and then watched, dispassionately, as the bastard pitched unconscious to the floor.

Lydia, he was sure, would have approved.

L
YDIA FELT
T
ANNER
take her hand in his as they stood outside the family mausoleum, watching as Thomas Harburton's body was carried to its last rest.

Justin had been kind enough to have taken charge of Jasmine, both in the family chapel and on the sad walk to the mausoleum, the girl leaning heavily against him, the picture of sorrow, and yet stunningly beautiful in her hastily sewn mourning black.

They'd been a sad, subdued party since Thomas's death. Jasmine had kept very much to her rooms, although she'd managed to eat everything Tanner had ordered sent up to her.

And then, this morning, just before the services, she'd startled them all with the announcement that she had decided she would very much like to go to Wales, and her late mother's sister, where she could “mourn my poor father and do penance for my own sins of the flesh. I am no better than any of those unfortunate women my aunt cares for.”

Even as she sang along with the few hymns and followed in her prayer book, Lydia thought about
Jasmine's new role, the one of penitent…and the more she thought about it, the more she felt uneasy. Would she never be able to forget how easily Jasmine lied? Was she being petty, still miffed about a sugared bun?

She didn't like to think that of herself, but it had been that question that had kept her silent for two long days.

As they walked back to the house in the warm sunshine of a beautiful day, Tanner whispered in her ear. “I've missed you. Would it be selfish of me to ask you if you'd join me for a tramp through the hills this afternoon? I feel a need to clear my head, and that always seems easier to do up there.”

Lydia was immediately put in mind of their last time together on a hillside overlooking Malvern. “I think I'd like that, yes,” she said quietly. “Shall I wear my new boots?”

His smile was her answer.

Two hours later, the vicar still lingering over the obligatory funeral meal following the interment and fully engaged in a theological discussion with Justin, who Lydia believed to be deliberately baiting the man with his cunning questions about what form eternal damnation might take, she and Tanner were walking through the gardens, on their way to a path he knew well.

“Jasmine was to leave the key to your study beneath a rock down here, at the end of the gardens,” she told him, thoughts of everything the girl had told her never far from her mind, unfortunately. “How might things have gone differently, I wonder, if she had done so before you and she left for London.”

“I don't know. I suppose that's one of the questions I could ask Flanagan when I visit the gaol tomorrow. The Squire took me aside at the services, to tell me that Flanagan has been demanding to speak with me ever since he woke up, but the Squire thought I should first be allowed to bury my cousin before having to deal with his murderer.”

They had moved into the shade of the trees overhanging the path that climbed slowly, but steadily. “Do you think he'll tell you where he hid the jewels?”

“In exchange for his neck? Perhaps. And I'd like to know why he didn't just take them and leave the area.”

“The Malvern Pride,” Lydia said as he took her hand and helped her across a section of the path crisscrossed with tree roots. “Justin believes he made your cousin tell him where it was, and then killed him.”

“For not sharing it with him, yes. A falling out of thieves, almost inevitable, I suppose.”

Lydia looked at him, seeing the pain in his eyes. “Tell me more about Malvern,” she said, trying to divert him. “What is it like here in winter?”

He smiled, and her heart leapt.

“What is it like here in winter?” he repeated as they walked the gently meandering path that made their ascent almost unnoticeable. “Like a…like a carpet of white. The sun is low, and shines through the bare branches of the trees…and the streams sparkle in the sunlight, running clear, and icy-cold. The deer come closer. If we wake early enough, we can lie in bed and watch them feed.”

He slipped an arm around her shoulders. “And if there's enough snow, I'll have the sleigh harnessed. I'll tuck you up with blankets, with a hot brick at your feet, and when the moon is full, and the night sky dancing with stars, I'll show you a wonderland that will bring tears to your eyes.”

Lydia turned in his embrace, loving him so much. “It all sounds so beautiful.”

“Not as beautiful as you. Malvern is where we'll live, and where we'll raise our children. But you are my world. I want these past days behind us, and damn the Malvern Pride and the rest of the jewels, damn all of it. I spoke with the vicar, Lydia. He's agreed to marry us on Friday, if you'll still have me.”

“But your cousin…and Jasmine…”

“Thomas is dead, so he won't care, and I've decided to send Jasmine to her aunt, as she seems to want. I need you, Lydia, for more than stolen moments like this. I need you as my wife.”

She melted against him—how could she not?—and his arms went fully around her as he took her mouth with his, a hint of desperation transferring itself to her, so that she clung to him tightly.

She was slightly breathless when he let her go, only to take her hand and grin at her. “Come on, darling. I've something to show you. Let's try out those pretty new boots.”

Lifting her skirts, the better to keep up with him, she ran with him along the path until he pulled her into a thicket of bushes and wildflowers. “What's
this?” she asked, looking at the small shelter nearly hidden in the greenery.

“A hunting blind,” he told her. “But not today. Mind your head.”

As he held back the greenery, she bent low and stepped inside, to see that someone had laid fresh blankets on the ground. She sat down, because it was impossible to really stand, and waited for him to join her.

“You did this?” she asked him, patting the blankets as she looked around her, smiled at the way small sunbeams found their way through the leafy covering, making lacy patterns everywhere. The air was redolent with the smells of wildflowers and rich, warm earth.

It was all so rustic. So very…elemental.

“Guilty as charged, yes,” he said, his grin boyish, and so endearing. “I came up here before dawn. And, God help me, I spent the entirety of poor Thomas's service thinking about how I could ask you to come up here with me. Am I being selfish? Because if you—”

Lydia threw herself against him, holding his face in her hands as she kissed him, cutting off whatever else he might say. How she'd missed him these past two nights. How she'd lain awake hour after hour, longing for his touch.

There was no shyness now, no need for him to hold himself back for fear of frightening her. She told him that in the way her hands moved over him, pushing his jacket from his shoulders, fumbling with the buttons that held his trousers shut. There was only this hunger, this urgency…

“Oh God, oh, sweet Christ…” He bit down on her earlobe as she pressed her hand against him, eager to feel his arousal, glorying in his swiftly indrawn breath as she freed him, closed her hand around him.

She knew the center of her pleasure now, and wanted him to feel what she had felt. She wanted, needed, to give, as he had given to her.

“Tell me how,” she said, her breathing quick and labored as a sweet, tugging tension began to blossom between her thighs. “How do I love you?”

“You don't have to…like that,” he all but moaned as she slid her cupped hand up and down the soft skin that felt like velvet over the steel of his arousal. “Oh, yes, sweetness. Just like…that.”

He rested his head against her chest as he stroked her nipples through the thin muslin of her gown, his touch isolating her sensations, making her doubly aware of how his touch affected her. The tug, the slight pinch of his thumbs and forefingers. She cried out with the intense, concentrated pleasure that set off small, anticipatory explosions between her legs.

She squirmed against him, her body refusing to be still, and he somehow managed to raise her gown until the thin muslin was bunched around her hips. He fingered her still throbbing flesh through the fine lawn of her undergarment, her teeth clenching as she willed the barrier gone, all barriers gone.

Her urgency transferred itself to her hand and she stroked his fullness faster, each pump of her hand more frantic somehow, until they collapsed together on the
blankets, a fever of desire and
wanting
urging her on, dark thoughts coming to her…and seeming so right.

What he had done for her…she would do for him.

As her lips closed around him, as she tentatively ran her tongue over the silk of him, Tanner said her name in a way that told her that there was no world outside this secret bower for either of them. They needed only each other, all that they could give, all that they could take. There was no right, no wrong, no lingering worries…not for now, not for this moment. There was nothing in the world except the two of them, lost in the loving.

He rolled her onto her back, kneeling above her as she raised her hips and he rid her of the last barrier between them. Her thighs fell open of their own accord, a wordless invitation he took up immediately, sinking into her in one long stroke, and then holding her close, kissing her deeply, hungrily.

“Lift your legs, my darling Lydia. Wrap yourself around me. Take me in…take me in…”

She did as he said, wrapping her legs high around him, the move bringing more of him inside her, pressing their bodies close together, so that each time he withdrew, each time he filled her again, the tension between her legs grew tenfold, until she was begging him for the release that eluded her.

Until he began to move faster. Faster. She hung on tightly, certain now she would soon die from the intensity of her pleasure. “Tanner…please.
Please,
if you love me…”

It began at the very center of her. She closed her eyes tightly, simply grateful for the longed-for release of tension. But like waves hitting against the shore, the onslaught of feeling was relentless, wave after wave crashing against her, touching every part of her. Again, and again, and again, explosions of the purest delight following hard upon each other as her body throbbed against Tanner's, pulling him in, convulsing around him as he cried out in his own climax.

He collapsed against her, his breathing ragged, and she pressed frantic kisses everywhere she could touch him until, finally, reluctantly, her limbs relaxed, her heart slowed its mad pace, and she could simply hold him, a sweet lethargy overtaking her.

“We…we're getting rather good at this,” he said after a long, comfortable silence, and Lydia found herself smiling, even as tears that had escaped her ran into her ears, tickling them. “We may find a bed boring.”

“I don't think so,” she told him as he levered himself onto his back, sliding one hand between them, to pick up hers, bring it to his lips. “I think I'm lying on more than a few stones the blankets didn't quite cushion.”

“And you didn't mention that until now?”

“I didn't
care
until now,” she told him as he sat up, drawing her up with him. “Do we have to go back? Couldn't we just have Roswell bring us food and fresh clothing, and stay here forever? Or at least until the first snowfall?”

“I wish we could,” he said, and she heard the sin
cerity in his voice. And, sadly, she knew that the world was back again, and the problems they'd left behind them at Malvern.

“Mr. Flanagan is in gaol, Tanner. I'm sure he can be made to tell you where he hid the jewelry he took. And the Malvern Pride may be missing, but it hasn't been stolen. We'll find it, eventually. Justin's rather enjoying himself, looking for it.”

“And Jasmine? Can I really send her off to her aunt? She just lost her father, Lydia. She may say she wants to go, but it seems wrong to me, somehow.”

“Because you'd be happy to see her gone?”

He turned to her as he slid one arm into his jacket. “Yes. That's exactly why. She's without father or dowry or—”

“Virginity,” Lydia said, finishing his sentence, as she was sure he didn't want to do. And then she said what she didn't want to say. “It would only be for a year, Tanner, until her mourning period is over. You could give her a dowry, and we could take her to London. She's quite beautiful, and she can be quite charming. And with the Duke of Malvern sponsoring her?”

“Only a year,” he repeated as he exited the hunting blind and turned to assist Lydia. “You don't even like her, and you'd agree to her living with us for the next year?”

Lydia went up on tiptoe, and could then see the roofs of Malvern. “It's a rather large house. Justin will be leaving us soon. She could help us hunt for the Malvern Pride.”

“Perhaps a month or two with her aunt?” Tanner
said. “While we travel to Ashurst for your sister's wedding, and then perhaps go on a tour of the Lake District or some such thing? She wasn't entirely blameless in all of this, you know, much as I think it was her innocence that betrayed her.”

Lydia had her reservations about Jasmine's
innocence
, but Tanner was the duke, and he had obligations. She wouldn't make things difficult for him. “I think I'd like to see the Lake District with—”

Tanner's head whipped around, in the direction of the sound of a shot. “That came from Malvern,” he said, taking her hand.

A second shot was fired, just as loud, just as startling.

“Pistol shots. Almost like a signal. It might be Justin, trying to summon me. Something's wrong. Lydia, you stay here. Go back inside the blind. No one will find you there. I'll come back for you once I know what's happening.”

“No.”

Tanner had already taken three steps away from her, obviously believing she would do as he said. Now he turned to look at her in some shock. “Lydia, please.”