Authors: Gaelen Foley
“How did you manage to escape your captors?”
“I finally killed one of them when he came to look in on me. I took his weapon and fought my way out. I killed every one of them,” he said grimly, “except Bardou. He had already left to hunt down Patrick Kelley.”
They were both silent for a long moment.
“Oh,
She touched his face in wordless empathy. He pressed his cheek into her hand, but could not bring himself to meet her gaze.
Abruptly, without warning, more words came tumbling out of him in a rush, devoid of his usual silver-tongued eloquence. “I never even wanted to go to the war! I should’ve been a doctor. I wanted to use the gifts God gave me to heal people, not to kill them, but my first loyalty was to my brother. Always my brother. I gave away my future for him. I damned myself for him because he was the only friend I ever really had, and now he won’t even acknowledge me. I can’t bear for him to take you away from me, as well. You don’t understand how alone I am. If you don’t love me—” He cut his words off and lowered his head hating himself. He felt himself crumbling, finally, unable to avoid or ignore for one second longer the view down into his shattered soul.
He cast about inwardly for his Machiavellian control, but it was nowhere to be found. By God, if she had agreed to wed Damien, so be it. He fought himself, teetering on the edge of despair.
Don’t cry in front of her. Don’t cry in front of Alice. For God’s sake, for once in your life, don’t be a little fucking weakling—
But when she lifted his chin with a gentle touch, there were tears of anguish burning in his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he choked out, startled. “I’m sorry I’m weak. I’m sorry I’m a failure. I’m sorry I’m not as good as—”
“Don’t. Don’t you dare say it,” she warned him, tears rising in her eyes, as well. She shook her head fiercely. “It is not true, not
one
word of it.”
Lucien stared pleadingly at her. “I know he came here today. I know he asked for your hand. What did you say,
“What do you think I said?” she asked with a look of gentle reproach.
He shook his head. “I just don’t know.”
“Lucien.” She curled her fingers around his trembling hands on her lap, gazing intensely at him. “Your brother is a good man, but he’s not you. I said no. I could never love anyone but you, and I told him so.”
“You did?” he choked out, staring at her, overwhelmed by the youthful sincerity in her blue eyes.
At her simple nod, a shudder racked him and slowly he lowered his head all the way to her lap. He clung to her, unworthy as he was, and then he broke down. He covered her beautiful, artist’s hands in kisses and hot, stinging tears. “Save me,” he whispered. “My beloved, my beautiful friend. You’re the only thing that’s ever really gone right in my life.”
She held him in her embrace for a long moment, nuzzling his ear as she bent over his back and stroked him lovingly. “Lucien, my warlock, my enchanter, you
are
a healer. You’ve healed me.”
He lifted his shattered gaze and stared at her, lost. “Now let me heal you,” she whispered.
He closed his eyes in silent desperation. Gently caressing his face, she kissed his eyelids and his cheeks.
“I love you,” she murmured again and again. He held very still, drawing the words in deeply to the innermost recesses of his being. When her silken lips grazed his coaxingly, he claimed her mouth in a kiss full trembling urgency.
Her arms went around him; her warm, wet mouth opened hungrily to welcome him. He stroked her tongue with his own and cupped her breast through her gown, then tore his lips away from hers after a moment, his heart pounding wildly, his eyes glittering with fevered desire.
“I need you.”
“Yes,” she said, her voice faint and breathless as she reached down and stroked his hardness. “I’m yours, Lucien. Yours to take. Take my love. Take me.”
With a groan of soul-deep gratitude, he kissed her again and rose to his feet, lifting her in his arms. He carried her over to the sturdy mahogany table and laid her on it, pushing the silver tea service off to the side.
“God, I’ve missed you,” he breathed, slipping her skirts up over her thighs. “Your body, your laughter, your smile. You don’t know how much I need you.”
“Lucien, hurry,” she wimpered, arching hungrily against him, plucking at his falls. Her eyes were hazy with longing, oceans of love to quench the fires of his damnation.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered helplessly, moved. When he stroked her core, she was already hot and wet.
She freed him from his trousers with trembling hands, then let out a soft moan of satisfaction as he pressed deep inside her, taking her there on the table with frantic, jittery urgency, both of them still fully clothed. Gripping her creamy-smooth buttocks, he cradled her body from the hard surface of the table, kissing her throat while she writhed under him. He nuzzled his way down her chest and sucked on her swollen nipples until she let out a sharp cry of pleasure, wrapping her legs around his hips.
“Oh! You drive me mad,” she panted.
“Shh,” he murmured with a possessive smile, laying his finger over her lips as her sounds of sensual delight grew louder. She licked the finger with which he had tried to silence her, then sucked it. He watched her in lust, taking her more forcefully. Turning her head to the side, she bit her lip to stifle her moans, but her body arched desperately under him as his hips plunged between her silken thighs. “Lucien—”
“Yes, angel.
Now.
”
She went rigid, her face etched with need. Lucien could not hold back a second longer. He clenched his jaw to keep from crying out with release as his expert control dissolved. Each burst of his climax seemed to come slamming out from the depths of his being, until he collapsed on her in panting, mindless bliss.
He remained inside of her, staring at her as she held him, stroking his hair. The quiet within him was profound. Everything suddenly seemed so clear.
“I love you,” he whispered at length.
She slid him a roguish glance, her voice sated and scratchy as a cat’s purr. “You certainly do.” But then her gaze sobered. Rolling onto her side, she leaned on her elbow and studied him deeply. “This man, Bardou,” she said in cool-nerved calm. “Can you beat him?”
“If I have your love, I feel I can do anything,” he whispered.
“Then go with my blessing and kill this man, Lucien. He deserves to die for what he’s done to you. I would kill him myself if it were in my power, but the task is yours. End this,” she commanded, staring at him like some fierce, young queen, righteous fury blazing in the indigo depths of her eyes. “Do it for our future. Our children. Do it and come home to me.”
The angelic intensity in her eyes sent chills down his spine, as though she had just endowed him with divine protection, supernatural power. He gazed at her in awe. “I love you more than life itself. I am yours, Alice.”
She cupped his cheek and drew him to her once more, kissing him with trembling passion. “Let’s finish our task, then. I’ll complete that drawing for you and we shall drag this monster out of the shadows.”
He lifted her hand to his lips. “Thank you,” he whispered, holding her gaze meaningfully.
She gave him a smile full of womanly courage, then they both hastened to put themselves back into more respectable order. Lucien tucked in his shirt, feeling like a new man, then, in amusement, used his monogrammed handkerchief to polish away the charming imprint of her bottom left behind on the shiny mahogany table.
Unaware of his discreet tidying up,
Lucien wanted nothing but to curl up in bed with her for the rest of the day, but he went and stood beside her, playing with her hair and answering her questions to the best of his ability as she quizzed him on more details of Bardou’s face.
He was taken aback by the likeness that began to emerge on the page.
“That’s very close. The eyes are a little too close together, and you can make the jaw a bit more rounded. Also, he has an oily quality to his skin. Is there any way that you can bring that out?”
But she just sat there, staring down at the picture, not responding.
Lucien glanced at her and suddenly noticed that she had turned quite pale. “
“Lucien—I know this man.”
“What?”
She looked up at him with panic in her eyes. “This is Karl von Dannecker, Caro’s new beau. I’m sure it’s him, but he’s not French—isn’t he Prussian? Lucien, he is going to be here any minute!”
had never before seen Lucien turn quite that shade of sickly pale.
“He’s been here? In this house?” he clipped out. “While you were here? And Harry?”
“He’s spent the past few nights here with Caro.”
He let out the foulest curse under his breath that she had ever heard, pivoted away from her, and was already marching toward the door.
“Lucien!”
“Get the baby ready; get your coat on. You’re leaving. I’m sending you to where you’ll be safe. Fetch Caro as well. She’ll have to leave with you. Tell the servants to move to the back of the house and stay down. I don’t want anybody making a sound, do you understand? Marc! Kyle!” he bellowed down the hallway, then turned back to her, his expression black with ire. “Do you know what time he’s coming?”
She glanced at the mantel clock. “In ten minutes. She expects him at four,” she stammered. “She is supposed to go away with him somewhere for the weekend.”
Lucien cursed under his breath and started to walk away again.
“What are you going to do?”
“Arrest him. Kill him, with any luck,” he added, glancing toward the front door.
“I belong by your side. Let me help.”
“Hell, no. I’ll try to avoid bloodshed here in your house, but the courts will hang him either way. You!” Lucien called to the startled Mr. Hattersley, who had hurried out at the sound of all the yelling. “Have the carriage made ready for Miss Montague. Marc,” he said as the young man strode into the room. “Bardou’s on his way here. He’s tracked me through Lady Glenwood. We’re going to ambush him when he walks in the door. I want Alice and Harry and the baroness out of here. Take them to Knight House and tell Damien they have to be protected. I’m entrusting them to him. You will help him.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Talbert!”
“Here, sir!”
“Can you play a butler?”
“Most assuredly, my lord,” the slight-framed young showman answered with a grin.
“Good. We need Bardou to step into the entrance hall where we can trap him rather than letting him run away.”
“I understand perfectly. I’ll go find a uniform.”
“Kyle!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Make sure our horses are well out of sight when Bardou drives up to the house. If he gets away somehow, we’ll need to be ready to ride in a trice.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Jenkins, O’Shea, check your weapons. You’ll cover me when I attack him. I suppose we ought to take him alive in case he’s got accomplices at large in the city.