Linda Needham (14 page)

Yet she’d spoken only a few dozen words to him.

And coward that she was, she’d waited until he had gallantly offered to help McHugh with the more unruly guests before scurrying to her room like a rat and locking the door safely behind her.

It might have been wiser to go back to the hall and sleep in her regular bedchamber, instead of up here in the maid’s corridor. It was just easier, quicker, to head off any problem guests if she stayed at Badger’s Run during the tournaments.

Problem guests like Colonel Huddleswell.

At last the stairs had gone quiet, the long case clock on the landing just now striking twelve.

Married!

“Good night, wife.”

“Jared!” Kate would have screamed but she’d sensed him there at the foot of her bed in the instant before he’d spoken. “What the devil are you doing here?”

He was an enormously tall silhouette between her and the window, and then a deep pressure against the mattress as he sat down beside her.

“My room is a good seventy feet from here and up two flights of stairs.” She could just see his eyes, glints of moonlight.

“What are you blathering about? I know where your room is. How did you get in here? I very carefully locked the door.”

“Then you’ve just learned something new about me, my dear; no lock can hold me.”

“You’re a lock pick!”

“When I need to be, and tonight”—she thought she heard his boot drop to the floor—“I needed to be.”

“To get into my room.”

“As I said, because my room is at least seventy feet from you. Possibly a hundred.”

That was definitely a boot! “And Mrs. Driscoll’s room is just across the hall. What are you doing here?”

“I’m sleeping beside my bride.” She felt the full weight of him against the mattress, and then his head hit the pillow beside her.

“You’re doing nothing of the sort.” Kate shoved at his shoulder and scooted to the end of the bed. “You promised.”

“So did you, my dear. You promised me a foot and I’m taking it.” He tugged at the blanket.

“Are you mad? What foot?”

“According to your rule, I need to stay a foot away from you, so I’m taking you at your word.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“The truth is all in the details, Kate. Now lie down. It’s past time to sleep. Those bloody fish start biting before dawn, you know.”

She couldn’t have this, couldn’t have Jared’s huge, magnificent body throwing off his heat all night. She’d never get a moment’s sleep for fear that he would try to gather her into his embrace.

For fear that he wouldn’t.

“Please go back to your own bed.”

“This
is
my bed.”

“It’s
mine
.”

“Proving my point. Now stop chattering and go to sleep. I’ve promised not to touch you and I won’t.” The bed seemed to settle with his huge sigh.

He was fully clothed, the devil, his arms tucked under his head, his breathing leveling out so quickly she was sure he’d suddenly dropped off to sleep.

“Jared?”

“Shhhh.” He patted the bed beside him. “To sleep now, wife.”

Wife. And this huge man lying so casually in her bed was her lawful husband.

And lawfully he had every right to do anything he pleased with her, or to her, short of murder.

But the lout was just lying there, as subtle as a thunderstorm, as encompassing, courting her in his own overwhelming way.

Protecting her, even from himself.

Her husband.

She suddenly realized with a flooding warmth that there couldn’t possibly be a safer place in the world for her to sleep tonight than right here beside him.

“Do you snore, husband?”

“I’m sure you’ll tell me in the morning.”

Kate caught herself smiling as she settled in beside him, as she felt him measure off exactly one foot.

A far greater distance than she’d imagined it to be. Lonely and cold.

She slept deeply beside him all through the night, waking to the gray light of dawn and an empty room.

And the curious, half-empty feeling that he’d been only a phantom.

J
ared gladly kept his distance from the fishing tournament for the next two days, perfectly satisfied to have Colonel Huddleswell’s luck take a bad turn, but bloody impatient to begin his marriage to his astounding wife.

Though he tried to resist, he had found himself following Kate like a lovesick pup, this woman in perpetual motion.

With a quicksilver mind, endless patience and a fiery, focused temper when she sensed injustice.

Silky, soft hands that could gentle a weeping child or stir him to passion with as much skill as when she baited fishhooks or chopped cordwood. And those compelling, sky-blue eyes that missed nothing and embraced everything, everyone.

Including him, in the most provocative ways and when he least expected it.

By the time Badger’s Run finally emptied of its hordes of irritating guests, Jared had somehow managed to survive three long, sleepless nights lying but one duly agreed upon foot from his wife.

Never touched her.

Never kissed her.

Burned.

But in that quiet, peaceable time between the darkness and just before dawn he’d not only learned everything about the cultivation and maintenance of a profitable chalkstream, but that his wife was remarkable.

Had courage enough for an entire regiment. Could make him laugh at himself. Would fight like a tigress for the things she loved.

And that wresting back control of his estate from her after these long months away wasn’t going to be simple.

This was the calm before the storm.

Fortunately, he had already set the impeccably efficient Pembridge on the trail of suitable situations for his wife’s orphans, and had heard excellent news from his man of affairs this morning.

“They’re not
my
children, dammit.”

The impudent old rascal. Though he didn’t know what the devil he’d do without Pembridge, who had save him from many a gaff, saved Drew and Ross as many times.

Yes, it was all going amazingly well. And now, at long last, the library at Badger’s Run belonged to him again.

No, this wasn’t Badger’s Run, this was his private hunting lodge, reclaimed through his wife’s efforts and welcoming as it had never been before. Though the housekeeping staff had been dashing madly around with clean linens and feather dusters, mops and brooms, Jared lounged in a library chair at the large writing table, rereading Drew’s recent message.

The clown.

Not half as interesting as the prime minister’s message that had arrived the night before.

“All seven of them?” Jared said to the absent prime minister, giving the message a toss and grabbing a clean piece of paper from the stack. “Blast it all, I’ve got larger fish to fry at the moment.”

“I thought you’d given up fishing, Colonel.”

Jared looked up from the blank page to find Kate standing at the library door, a brimming tea tray in her hands, her hair piled loosely atop her head, and that stunning smile teasing at her lips.

He stood as she entered, his heart giving an unruly kick to his pulse. “I thought I was alone.”

She paused beside the table. “Then I’ll leave your tea and won’t bother you further.”

He caught her hand as she reached for the teapot. “Please, Kate, bother me.”

Her eyes followed his as he lifted her hand to his mouth and left a kiss on her palm.

“Oh, Jared.” Her sigh riffled against his forehead.

There now,
that
was courting.

Damned rousing.

“Amazing as it may seem, I had just been sitting here thinking how desperately I needed you to come bother me, to distract me with this sweet scent of yours—and, well, here you are.” Jared bent toward her ear. “Making all my wishes come true.”

“That wasn’t my inten—oh, Jared, you, it’s…!”

He touched his lips to that scented place below her ear, tasted her softness, reveled in the lightness of the breath she took, in the plain fact that she grabbed hold of his sleeve and hung on.

“Actually, Jared…oh, my!” She giggled softly when he caught her earlobe between his teeth and tugged
lightly. “But I’ve…I’ve invited…” Now she was tilting her head, exposing her throat fully to his mouth.

“You’ve invited…who?”
Privacy.
Lordy, he wanted long, private moments with his bride. “Because I want you alone, Kate. And to be finished with all this courting business.”

“Yes…” She sighed with a little mewling. “But I’ve invited—”

An indelicate throat cleared in the doorway. “Your pardon, my lady.”

Kate’s eyes widened at him. “Janie!”

Janie?

Kate jumped backward out of his arms then hurried to the door, straightening her skirts with an unsubtle yank. “I’m so glad you’re here. And the others too. Come in.”

Others?

“Sure, just as you asked, my lady.” The trembling maid sidled into the library, her disapproving gaze locking onto Jared’s face.

The others entered from behind her, at least a dozen staff members, lining up in front of the shelves of books as though they assumed they were about to be shot and had accepted their fates.

“Thank you all for coming.” Kate had recovered entirely, her hair tidy again, save for a strand at the back of her neck that he so recently had wrapped round his finger. “And thank you for another successful tournament. Our guests left Badger’s Run very happy, with plans to return.”

The hell they would.

She applauded the staff and they shuffled and
blushed and nodded their adoration at her. “You’re most welcome, Lady Hawkesly.”

She raised her shoulders and took in a deep breath. “And now I have a very important announcement to make.”

She glanced back at him, shyly, a conspiracy between them, and then he suspected what she was about to say.

“You’ll notice that Colonel Huddleswell is the only guest that hasn’t left Badger’s Run.”

The staff’s virulent silence was answer enough, a wall of hostility directed at him, the rumors of his indiscretion already passed between them.

“The truth is that this man was never a guest here, and his name is not Colonel Huddleswell.”

Now the staff gasped and muttered, glancing between each other as though planning to rush him in defense of their lady’s honor.

Kate silenced them with a gesture. “This man is actually Lord Hawkesly—your employer and my…husband.”

A leaden silence thudded into the room, hung in the air like a sulfurous cloud, lasting for what seemed like minutes of horror and shock and indignation.

Kate nodded Jared forward to stand beside her. “Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Lord Hawkesly.”

No one spoke, only stared until Jared was about to break the silence when his wife continued.

“And to answer your question as to why we didn’t announce that he had arrived home: We couldn’t just then.”

“Why ever not, my lady?” Janie asked, staring at him, her words cracking as she spoke.

“Because Lord Hawkesly is…um…” She looked up at him as though demanding that he go along with whatever explanation she offered. “He’s a spy.”

Bloody hell! How did she know? And why the devil would she announce such a thing to a room full of strangers?

Everyone gasped. Janie’s eyes widened. “A spy, sir? What kind?”

Kate turned to Jared, looking relieved, innocently pleased with herself and her blithe explanation, when she’d just hit a bull’s-eye.

“Which is the reason I couldn’t let on to you who he was. What kind of spy did you say you are, Jared?” She blinked up at him, leaving his mouth dry as dust and his thoughts scrambled.

“I’m…not.”

“Not?” She shot a near lethal frown at him.

“Not really a sp—” but he couldn’t bring himself to say that in front of the staff. Couldn’t contradict Kate’s explanation for his not identifying himself from the start.

Bloody hell.

“Yes, Jared?”

“I suppose I am at liberty to say that, although I am retired as of…today, I shall always be willing to give my life in service to our queen and to our country and to all it stands for.”

The lot of them sighed at him, cocked their heads as if suddenly seeing him through an entirely different lens. Smiles erupted, nods of approval. Waves of applause.

Pride in their lord.

“I thought as much, my lord.”

“How exciting!”

“Welcome home, sir.”

Kate raised her hand again. “He was here during the tournament to keep an eye on one of our guests. Please, no speculation as to who it was. The matter has ended safely.”

Jared grabbed her hand and pulled her against his side. “May I speak with you alone, wife?”

“Of course.” She turned back to the staff. “Thank you all for your patience and loyalty.”

The staff left the library a changed mob, no longer seeking his blood, but beaming back at him as they closed the door.

Kate was beaming at him too. “I’m sure they believed us, Jared.”

“That I’m a spy?” He sat back on the edge of the table and studied the woman. “What the devil were you thinking?”

“What other kind of person would mask their identity and have their wife go along with it?”

Jared opened his mouth to explain her foolishness, but a sharp knock sounded at the door.

“’Scuse me, my lord, my lady.” It sounded like the boy from the stables.

His wife threw open the door and pulled the boy into the library. “Come in, Corey.”

“Yes, m’lady. A message come for…um, for his lordship.” Corey was peering at Jared as though seeing him for the first time. “For you, my lord.”

Jared met the boy at the door and took the message.

Another from Drew. Making him wonder if it
wouldn’t be more efficient if he just packed up his wife and took her back to London. “I’m obliged, lad.”

“Yessir. There’s a fellow waiting for an answer from you. Mrs. Driscoll’s givin’ him supper.”

“All right. Give me thirty minutes.” It must be urgent if Drew needed an immediate reply. The boy sped away as Jared opened the envelope.

“You need a full-time messenger.”

“Indeed.”

Kate loved the rumble of his voice and the dark curl of his hair, admired the planes of his face as he concentrated on the paper in his hand.

“Damned strange, Drew,” he said as he dropped the message among the other papers on the table. He pulled out the chair and sat, looking determined.

Feeling suddenly quite married to the man, Kate poured him a cup of tea and set it on the table. “I don’t really know what your business is, Jared. Besides shipping, that is.”

He cast her a wry, sideways glance, then slipped a blank piece of paper in front of him. “My commercial interests are varied.”

Stubborn, arrogant man. “And they are…?”

“The usual.” He wrote a few words and then took up the message again and studied it.

Deciding it was time that she learned as much as she could about his business, Kate poured herself a cup of tea and pulled up a chair near his table.

“By ‘the usual,’ husband, you mean the opium trade, and the transport of stolen antiquities, slavery, rum, gun running…”

He looked up with another of his crooked, to-swoon-
for smiles, utterly devilish, as though she’d struck the perfect note with him. “You might say that.”

“You’re a slaver?” She sat straight up, horrified. “I don’t believe it. You can’t be! It’s illegal. It’s reprehensible! If you are, then this is the end of us.”

He looked her square in the eye, wearing the inscrutable expression that she was beginning to distrust and adore in the same breath, then took a handful of her blouse and pulled her the last inch toward him, his mouth nearly touching hers, the graze of his fingers hot between her breasts.

“Do you really think that badly of me?”

“I still have no idea what to think of you. I don’t know you, remember?” Except that he smelled of paper and woodsmoke and shaving soap. And his hair had a charming mussiness about it. “
Are
you in the opium trade?”

“No.” His whole expression changed, serious and straightforward as he lightly touched his mouth to hers. “Nor do I transport stolen antiquities”—another kiss—“or smuggle slaves, or rum, or guns….”

Good. Good. Very good! Honorable and delicious. Then she pulled away and studied him. “So, husband, are you a Tory or a Whig?”

He grinned and leaned back against the chair, clearly amused. “Neither.”

“A party of your own devising?”

He laughed. “If only that were possible.” Inscrutable again, he grabbed the pen and started writing.

Feeling wildly brave and more and more a part of his life, Kate picked up the nearest message and read as far as the first line. “Who’s ‘V’?”

“Our mad queen.”

She hadn’t expected that answer. “You mean ‘V’ is Victoria?”

“One in the same. And as usual, she carefully asks my opinion, but in the end she’ll ignore my advice.”

“You advise the queen?”

“No, my dear, Albert advises her. The rest of us merely flap our wings.”

Albert, the prince? And who exactly were “the rest of us”? Just who was this man she’d married? “But you do sometimes advise the queen?”

“I do my best.”

An advisor to the queen? What exactly was a shipping magnate doing advising the queen? He’d looked like a Barbary pirate when she married him, but what was he really?