Lady of Seduction (30 page)

She would just have to make sure of it. No matter what she had to do.

I
save you, you save me, has become a terrible habit of ours,” Grant said. He watched Caroline as she leaned over a pot of
water set to boil on the fire. She looked so achingly beautiful, her hair loose down her back in a river of dark waves and
curls, her slender body in the thin shirt outlined by the flames.

Beautiful, strong—and yet so fragile.

She smiled at him over her shoulder. “It’s better than the alternative, I think.”

“Better than you safely at home and me with my just fate?”

“Better than me dead in a brawl and you dead in a field. Better for us to be here in this gamekeeper’s cottage, together.”
She came to him and leaned over his chair with her hands braced on the wooden arms. “I was frightened there for a moment.”

“Just deserts,
gaolach,
” he said. “I’ve been frightened for many moments ever since you washed up half-dead on my beach.”

“You see? I save you, you save me—it works well for
us.” She took his face gently in her hands and stared down at him with wide eyes.

Grant could look into her eyes forever, could drown in them and be happy for such a demise. How had he come to this? He had
lived his life only for himself for so long and had thought it the only way to exist.

Now he cared more for another person than he ever had for himself. No one but Caroline had ever slid behind his careful defenses
like that. No bullet could be more frightening. He had to steel his heart again toward those soft eyes and concentrate only
on his immediate goal—get her to Dublin, deliver her to her family, and see to his own business.

But that resolve was hard to keep when she kissed him gently on the lips. “Just don’t scare me like that again,” she whispered.
“Please.”

“I’ll try not to.”

“Not good enough.”

Grant reached up to touch her cheek. Their days outdoors had tinged her skin pale gold with the sun, and the freckles across
her nose stood out in amber relief. Loose, soft tendrils of her brown hair curled around her face.

She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, and her eyes were full of questions as she looked at him. But he could
promise her nothing. Not yet, and maybe never.

He traced the curve of her lower lip, the tiny dimple in her chin, and felt her gasp. “I’m afraid it has to be good enough,
Caro my dear. It’s all I have right now.”

She studied his face carefully for a long, silent moment. “You do drive me mad, Grant Dunmore.”

“Believe me, Caroline Blacknall, the feeling is entirely mutual.”

She spun away from him to take the water off the fire. As it cooled, she set about tearing up a pile of old sheets she found
in a cupboard.

“I’m sorry no one was home at Hakley Hall,” she said.

“I’m not. This old cottage suits me well. I think I’ve become so accustomed to rougher accommodations that I wouldn’t know
how to behave in a fine house.” Especially a fine house where they were bound to ask questions.

Caroline laughed. “I wager you would remember soon enough. But I was hoping they could give us news of what is happening in
Dublin.”

“I’m sure it’s quiet enough. We’re near enough now that we would have heard word if there was a rebellion in full force.”

“I worry about my family,” Caroline said. “Even before I left, there was unrest and strife. Press gangs roving the docks,
riots, British ships trapped in ports because there aren’t enough men to sail them. Even with the war with France the troops
in their barracks have been increased. If they’re preparing for an uprising…”

“With luck, they know nothing of it yet.”

“That’s not likely, is it? They always have their informers.” She turned back to him and stripped off his torn shirt to examine
the makeshift bandage. “And the United Irish leaders are not always the most discreet, are they?”

“Perhaps they learned from their mistakes in ninety-eight.”

“Do you think so?” She unwound the bandage and carefully examined the scratch the bullet left behind. She squinted a bit,
still somewhat nearsighted without her long-lost spectacles. “Someone knew enough to shoot at
you.
”

“I thought we agreed it must be an errant poacher,” Grant said. He gritted his teeth as she prodded at the reddened wound.
“I doubt it was some English Orangeman hiding in the woods, just waiting for an Irishman to happen by.”

“But we don’t really know who it was, or what they were waiting for. It could have been anyone. It could have been…”

“Captain LaPlace?”

Caroline grimly shook her head. She rubbed a cake of harsh lye soap she also found in the cupboard over the wet cloth and
pressed it to his shoulder.

“Damn it, Caroline!” he shouted. It stung like the devil. “Are you trying to kill me yourself?”

“With lye soap and hot water? I may be only a quiet scholar, but I’m sure I could come up with a more efficient way to kill
you than this.” She washed the wound gently, with her other hand pressed to his shoulder to hold him still. “And I don’t know
that the man I saw in town was LaPlace. I was tired. I probably imagined it.”

“Whoever it was, we need to get to Dublin quickly. And then you should go stay with your sister until things are quiet again.”

She glanced at him from under her lashes. Her gentle ministrations didn’t falter, but he thought she pressed a bit harder
than necessary with the cloth. “Why is that? Kildare was a dangerous place in ninety-eight, and there are still plenty of
people there with secret Green tendencies,” she said.

“And many of the rebels who escaped there have taken refuge in Dublin’s crowded streets. The two factions have been living
cheek by jowl all these years. It’s a powder keg just waiting for a stray spark.”

“So Dublin is their planned center?” Caroline asked.

“I don’t know yet. That’s why I have to get there fast.”

“To meet with—who?”

“That’s not important,” Grant said. Caroline knew a lot now, more than she should. But she didn’t yet know who he was really
working with, and she didn’t need to know. She probably wouldn’t believe it anyway. “What’s important is that you not stay
in the city any longer than necessary. You need to be well away before anything happens. I would tell you to take a ship to
England, but I know you wouldn’t do that. The next best thing is your family’s protection.”

“If Dublin does rise, the surrounding counties are sure to follow. Kildare, Wicklow, Wexford, Queen’s—there’s more than enough
discontent there still.” She probed at his wound. “I don’t think it needs stitches.”

“You should stay with your sister. If there’s a fight, you’d be safe with her.”

She looked at him, her eyes sharp. “With Anna? Is she mixed up in all this?”

“How should I know? Your sister is hardly likely to confide in me of all people. But she and her husband have influence with
their people. Adair Court is its own little kingdom. No one would dare attack it, not the rebels
or
the army.”

Caroline nodded. She dabbed a sticky concoction of honey on his shoulder and wound a clean bandage around it before she answered.
“You are eager to see me away.”

He reached out and caught her around the waist. He drew her between his legs and held on to her. “I only want you to be safe.
I’ve put you through enough already.”

She laid her hands gently on his shoulders and smiled down at him. “I’ve brought it all on myself, Grant. You
didn’t ask me to come to Muirin Inish, I went of my own free will. And I wouldn’t have wanted to miss this journey.”

He gave a humorless laugh. “You enjoy being caught in brawls and shot at, do you?”

She laughed, too. “Maybe
enjoy
is not the right word. But it’s been terribly exciting, and I would have missed out on it all if I’d stayed at home. Maybe
I’ll write a novel about it one day.”

“I would definitely read it if you did.”

She gently smoothed his hair back from his face, twining her fingers in the wind-tangled strands. “And I’ve learned so much.
About Ireland, the
real
Ireland, not just the one in my history books. And about myself, and about…”

“About what?”

“You, of course. You are entirely unexpected, Grant. Every time I think I know more about you, you change.”

“That is my goal, Caroline. To keep you baffled.”

“You’re doing an astounding job with that.”

He leaned toward her and kissed a long lock of hair that lay over her shoulder. “Could you bring
The Chronicle
to me from my bag, my dear?”

She gave a puzzled frown, but she nodded. “Of course.” She fetched the volume from its place at the bottom of the bag and
placed it carefully in his hands.

Grant drew back the wrappings and stared down at its soft, green cover. The dragon’s emerald eye glittered in the firelight
as if it was alive. How obsessed he had been with this book for so long. How it had driven him, first to possess it and control
its secrets, to use it to prove his place in the world. Then he had tried to hide those secrets away. It had almost destroyed
him.

But it had never really been his.

He handed it to Caroline, pressing it into her hand and closing her fingers around it.

“It’s yours now,” he said. “You must keep it safe.”

Her brow furrowed as she stared down at the book. “I don’t understand. You want me to look after it until things are quiet?
Of course I will, but…”

“No. I mean it is yours entirely now. Study it, write about it, lock it away, whatever you like,” he said. “But I know you’ll
keep the secret of the dragon, for your sister and her children.”

“Grant, no.” Her gaze lifted from the book to meet his. Her brown eyes glittered with unshed tears, like dark stars. “I can’t
keep it. It belongs to you.”

He shook his head. “It never belonged to me. You are its true guardian. Will you look after it now?”

She nodded silently. “I will always keep it safe. One day I will give it to Lina, and I will teach her to do the same. I promise.”

“Then it’s done.” Grant slumped back in his chair. His shoulder throbbed under the clean bandages, and he felt very tired.
The Chronicle
had been his treasure, his curse for so long, and now it was gone. Caroline was really its true guardian, and she would be
a far better one than he ever was.

Now he just had to persuade her to take the book—and stay far away from the trouble that was coming to their land.

Caroline carefully tucked the blankets around Grant where he lay on the straw mattress up on the cottage’s sleeping
platform. His eyes were closed, his face grayish with pain, but he didn’t seem to be asleep. His shoulders were tense under
the bedclothes, his hands curled into fists. She wished she had some feverfew, which her mother used to mix into wine to help
her patients sleep. But even though the deserted cottage was comfortable enough, it lacked such provisions.

She lay down beside him and stared up at the darkened ceiling beams. She also ached with tiredness, but her mind raced too
fast to let sleep in.

Grant had given her
The Chronicle.
The book he had coveted and hidden and protected for so long—he had placed it into her hands forever.

She had told him he was a puzzle, that whenever she thought she knew him he changed on her. He had revealed one more facet
of his soul. Who was the real Grant? What did he truly desire and really work for?

Giving her the book seemed to show the old, selfish Grant was truly no more. He had learned from the hard lessons of his youth
and sought a new path. But what was that path, and how could she be a part of it?

How could they set the past aside once and for all?

She felt his hand touch hers, the soft brush of his fingers over hers. “You need to sleep,” he said.

She turned her head on the pillow to look at him. His eyes were still shut, the skin taut over his cheekbones as if he held
back all the pain. “So do you. I was not the one who got shot today.”

“I’ll sleep later, once we reach Dublin.”