At the tender of twelve, he had left home to attend the Order’s school in Scotland, and over time, he had drifted away from his family. He had been through things that they could not begin to relate to, and that was probably for the best. But he felt like a stranger among them.
Nick and Beau and the others had become his true family, but lately, he felt as though he’d somehow lost them, too—Beau to his beautiful new marriage, Nick to the betrayal that had embittered Trevor so.
At last, minding the clock, he went over to the stable and hired the boys there to transfer the contents of the tack room into the back of a utilitarian wagon that the stable had for hire.
Warning them to be careful with his things, he went back up to his apartment to wash up and dress for the evening. But upon opening the door, he froze at the threshold, startled to find a visitor sitting on his couch.
She was alone, her face concealed by a lace veil draped over her bonnet. She pushed it back and rose when he stepped into the room, closing the door warily behind him.
Laura.
“What are you doing here?” he forced out.
“I had to see you.” She took a step toward him.
“Does your fiancé know where you are?”
“Of course not. I had to speak to you. Alone.”
“Well,” he said, moving past her, “I’m busy.”
“Oh, Trevor,” she said wearily, as he turned his back on her. “You really have terrible timing, you know.”
“So it’s my fault you ruined our plans?”
“I thought you were dead! What did you want me to do?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Mourn a little?” he suggested. He could feel his mood blackening. “Why don’t you go before this turns any more unpleasant? There’s no point in doing this to ourselves or each other. Just go.” He nodded toward the door, but she stared imploringly at him.
“I know you’re angry, and you have every right to be, Trevor. But you must know I never meant to hurt you.” She ventured closer while he stood there bristling.
“What do you want, Laura?” he asked wearily.
“I know you still care for me, or you wouldn’t be so angry. At the very least, you still desire me.”
“Who doesn’t?” he muttered, flicking a glance over her flawless body.
Holding him in a siren’s stare that had mesmerized many, she stepped closer. “Maybe it’s not too late for us.”
Startled, he lifted his wary gaze to meet hers.
“If you still want to be together,” she whispered, “we can. I’d cry off with Hector if you asked me to.”
He looked at her in astonishment, but when she reached for him, he jerked his arm away and shook his head. “Right. And when he calls me out for it, and I kill him in a duel, will you be able to live with that? Then again, you probably could. What could be more gratifying to your pride than two worthy suitors killing each other over you? At least it answers one question for me. You don’t love that poor bastard any more than you did me.”
“How do you know how I feel?” she bit back, her cobalt eyes narrowing. “You never asked. You never wanted to know,” she accused him. “You couldn’t be bothered with knowing me as a person. You only cared how it enhanced your own reputation to have me on your arm.”
“Oh, you want to have this discussion at last? Our first honest talk, darling? Very well. All you ever cared about, Laura, was your own pleasure. Our arrangement suited you well, so don’t complain to me about my absence. I know perfectly well what you got out of it.”
“And what was that?” she cried, her porcelain face flushed with outrage.
“You could do as you pleased while I was gone!” he nearly shouted. “Flirting and toying with as many fools as you fancied. And if any of them ever got too close, you had only to warn them that I’d tear them limb from limb when I got back if they touched you. You had the best of both worlds—the freedom to entertain yourself with other lovers and the protection of a future husband in case any of them ever got out of control.”
“An absent future husband, my lord. What good were you to me on the other side of the Continent when I needed you in my bed?”
He stared at her in icy amusement, a bit surprised by her frankness, but refusing to the rise to the bait. She was only trying to shock him. “Get out.”
“Ah, what’s wrong? Are only men allowed to admit to feelings of desire? You were always such a prude. The perfect gentleman!” she mocked him. “Why wouldn’t you ever take what I offered you? You were afraid of me, weren’t you? Afraid of what I made you feel.”
He folded his arms across his chest and smiled patiently at her efforts to goad him, remembering the times she had begged him to make love to her. “No. That’s not it.”
“What then?” she demanded. She never could understand his resistance, but it wasn’t virtue that had stopped him. It was mere survival instinct.
Passionate and gorgeous as she was, he had refused to let her drag him into marriage before he was ready, and marriage would have been the only possible result.
He did not understand himself anymore, why he had not made a firm decision one way or the other about her long ago. Probably because the wrongness of their match, so obvious to his heart, had not made any sense to his head.
Everyone wanted her. She was his for the asking. He had only to find a ring and set the date.
But he didn’t love her. He couldn’t. Honesty, clarity, finally came at last, now that the Order’s work no longer took up the whole of his attention. Beautiful as she was, she was all wrong for him. He saw that now—and maybe he should be thanking God that Nick had “ruined” this for him.
Laura glared at him as though she could read his answer on his face. She shook her head in disgust. “God, I always knew I should’ve gone for Beauchamp.”
Except that Beau saw through you from the start
.
He told me you’d make me miserable.
Would that I had listened.
But Trevor held back from making these hurtful comments aloud. He shook his head. “Leave, Laura. Go back to your dragoon. He’ll make you a countess. You know I can’t offer you that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must get dressed for the evening. I’m expected shortly at the Rotherstones’. There’s the door.” He gestured toward it. “You can show yourself out.”
She eyed him distrustfully but sauntered toward the door, gripping her little fringed reticule with both gloved hands. “Think about my offer, Trevor. Together, we could have Society at our feet.”
“We both know you can have that without me.”
She reached for the doorknob. “You’ll change your mind. You’re angry now. I understand that. But don’t take too long. Hector grows more ardent every day. I’ll marry him if I have to, but you’re the one I want.”
“Funny, it was Beauchamp you wanted a moment ago.”
Her eyes flickered in frustration as she started to open the door, but then, as if she couldn’t help herself, she paused. “Who was that tall, plain, dully dressed woman you were dancing with the other night at the Lievedon Ball?”
Trevor lifted his eyebrows. “I’m sorry, I don’t recall anyone of that description.”
“I heard you looked quite enchanted by her when you were dancing before I arrived. Someone said they even saw you laugh,” she said with a smirk.
“Did they, indeed?”
“You don’t have to be embarrassed, Trevor. I’m sure you were only being kind. You always were the most charitable fellow, taking pity on the poor, lonely wallflowers, who never get asked to dance.”
Her cruelty toward Grace brought out an edge of cruelty in him. He warned her with a stare. “She’s not a wallflower, and I wasn’t being charitable.”
“Oh, defensive. I see,” she said with a tight smile. “You like this plain woman, then? How droll!”
“Not really,” he replied. “Few can equal your beauty, of course, but the lady you are referring to has a number of traits you lack, I’m afraid.”
“Is that so?”
“Integrity, for example. Loyalty. Generosity. And a little something I like to call a soul.”
“I see,” she ground out, her crystalline smile in place. “And who is this paragon, exactly?”
Trevor shrugged. “The mother of my future children, possibly.”
Her jaw dropped. “
What?
”
“Good-bye, Laura. Be a dear and close the door behind you when you go, won’t you? And give my best to your fiancé.”
Rage flickered in her eyes as it apparently sank in that she no longer had any power over him. That there really was someone in the world who could resist her will. Someone she could not control.
That, Trevor saw in a sudden inner flood of revelation, was why she had waited for him so long. Biding her time like a bloody spider waiting to capture her fly.
It was all a game to her—one she now saw she had lost.
She shot him a withering look, then stepped out and slammed the door behind her. Trevor went and locked it.
As he leaned against the door, still rather routed, his heart pounded at the wreck he had nearly made of his own life with that harpy.
Aye . . . maybe bastard Nick deserved his thanks.
He noticed that he felt lighter already, as though someone had lifted a great anvil of responsibility off his back. Crushing duty, gone. It was easier to breathe.
As for his brash remark about marrying Grace Kenwood, he had only said that to infuriate Laura, but now that he’d spoken the words aloud, it didn’t sound half-bad.
At least she wasn’t the type who would try using everything from her body to her tears to control him.
He pondered a match with Grace for a moment, then shuddered, appalled at himself. God, he must be daft. How could he even think such a thing so soon after that narrow escape? What guarantee would he have that any attempt at love with Grace would end any better than this disaster?
True, Grace was a very different woman than Laura—and the memory of her sweet, innocent kiss still haunted him—but once bitten . . .
With a wordless growl of frustration, Trevor stalked to his bedchamber to get dressed for the night ahead. As he peeled off his shirt and threw it angrily aside, he insisted to himself that buying the farm had nothing to do with Grace or any other blasted female.
The Grange was something, finally, that he had done for himself. Not just to indulge his architectural hobby but to give himself a refuge, where he could escape the world with all its demands and be left alone to heal.Tomorrow morning, first light, he’d be heading back there. Indeed, he could hardly wait to get the hell out of London and start his new life as a solitary hermit in the middle of nowhere, forgotten by the world.
It sounded blissful.
First, however, he would have to get through this hellish dinner party with the five lovesick couples. Trevor lowered his head and sighed.
It was sure to be excruciating.
P
eaceful
.
Grace’s favorite time of day was the first hour of the morning, before the hustle and bustle of everyday life began in earnest.
The new day ahead was still pristine.
One full hour of tranquility before whatever minor madness of the day struck. There in her window seat, however briefly, all was well with the world.
Mrs. Flynn was making breakfast; the air was ripe with the delicious smells of baking muffins and frying bacon. Papa was out taking his constitutional. Every day, the pastor marched down to the village first thing to fetch the morning paper.
As for Grace, she had just finished her daily Bible reading and was sipping her first cup of tea while her cat purred nearby, his paws tucked under his furry chest, the tip of his tail silently tapping in a contentment that she shared.
She gazed happily out the bay window at the shimmering trees cloaked by morning mist, filled with an odd satisfaction at knowing that Lord Trevor had returned to the Grange. His nearby presence pleased her. It was as if she could feel him over there.
Of course, she had no plans to invade his privacy.
He had practically sneaked back into Thistleton in the middle of the night, probably to avoid the whole town’s notice. After Calpurnia’s welcome, Grace could hardly blame him.
But she had heard his carriage rumbling up the country road, for she had been sleeping lightly ever since she’d met the man. Once the noise had awakened her, and she had confirmed his arrival by the carriage lanterns heading toward the Grange, she could hardly fall back asleep.
Still, she did not intend to bother him. He had been through a lot. He needed to rest, and if they were to be friends, he would come to her when he was ready. Until then, she was content to leave him alone.
Unfortunately, unbeknownst to Grace, the Nelcott twins did not share her sentiments.
S
mall, urgent whispers emanated from behind a fallen log at the tree line of the Grange.
“Giant.”
“Ogre.”
“Giant!”
“Ogre! Maybe a troll. Hard to say.”
“Don’t really matter, does it? The point is, ’e’s taken over our castle. We got to get ’im out!”
“How?” Kenny demanded.
“I don’t know yet,” Denny grumbled. Older than his twin by forty minutes, he was usually the leader. “We need a closer look. C’mon.”
The nine-year-olds sneaked off to investigate the forbidding stranger who had had the audacity to buy the Grange and had thereby ousted them from the place that had long been
their
playground, their sanctuary from the world.
Of course, they were not supposed to be anywhere near the old farmhouse, for some of the ancient outbuildings were in danger of falling down at any moment, to say nothing of the old barn with the ghost of the ruined dairymaid who had hanged herself a hundred years ago.
Ah, but rules were for other boys and girls, not the Nelcott twins, as far as they were concerned. Their father was gone, and they were not about to let anyone else tell them what to do, except occasionally their Sunday school teacher, Miss Grace. But only because she gave them cinnamon-raisin biscuits and never raised her voice to them and also when Denny had busted his knee open once, she had never told a soul how he had cried like his baby sister at the blood.
The boys sneaked off through the meadow, picking their way through the tall grass with admirable stealth.
Approaching the old farmhouse, they listened but did not hear anything, so they sneaked in through the usual window, opening the rusted latch and lowering themselves into the scullery. Climbing down past the great sinks, they tiptoed out of the kitchen, then down the hallway, avoiding those familiar floorboards that squeaked.
Before long, they found the invader, the giant/ogre/troll-man asleep on the ratty old sofa in the ancient drawing room.
Huddled in the doorway, the brothers exchanged a determined glance. Being twins, they scarcely needed to speak aloud to understand what each other intended. Kenny pointed; Denny nodded.
Then they both crept into the drawing room, neither making a sound. Kenny sneaked over to examine the boxes and cases of books that the big man had unloaded from his wagon when he had arrived. He had sneaked in during the night, but the twins, of course, had seen him. They knew almost everything that went on in the village.
Silently, Kenny opened the boxes and searched the giant’s haversack, half-hoping to find something to eat.
Denny, meanwhile, decided to make a closer study of the invader himself.
He had heard what everyone was saying, how this man had been a hero in the war, but the skeptical boy had his doubts. The new owner of the Grange did not look all that heroic to him, sprawled out on the sofa, fast asleep and lightly snoring.
Denny had half a mind to do something annoying, like get a blade of grass and tickle his nose with it to see what he would do.
Still, this did not look like a man a smart lad should cross.
Even sleeping, the ex-spy did not look very relaxed. He was grinding his teeth, his stubbled, square jaw flexing. His closed eyelids twitched restlessly, and the hand resting across his stomach was clenched in a fist even as he slept.
Then Kenny interrupted his scrutiny of the stranger with a “Psst!” summoning his twin over. Denny withdrew silently from his position beside the sleeping giant.
When he reached his brother’s side and peered down into the long, black leather case that his twin had opened, the boys exchanged a wide-eyed look.
The black case held a collection of sleek, shiny guns and wonderfully wicked knives, the likes of which the boys had never seen before.
Denny, fascinated, reached to pick one up, but Kenny smacked his hand and gave him an impatient glare.
“What?” Denny whispered. “I can if I want to!”
“Too dangerous! We better get out of here.”
“Don’t worry, he’s sleeping.”
“What if he wakes up?”
T
revor only wished he could.
Instead, he was having the most aggravating sort of dream, devoid of logic and full of frustration. In this case, he was reliving the Rotherstones’ dinner party from the other night, except that in his dream, everything was off, distorted, like the time years ago when Nick had made him try the opium.
The Rotherstones’ scarlet dining room was spinning slowly, and his friends’ faces, voices, everything, looked wavy and bizarre.
In the dream, he was sitting with his friends and their beautiful, bejeweled wives around the dinner table. All of them were laughing and talking, eating their fill and drinking the wine, but for some reason, Trevor had been skipped over.
Nobody even seemed to notice. His plate was empty, his cup was dry, and every time he tried to signal one of the liveried footmen, the servants stoically ignored him.
And so, then, he tried to serve himself, reaching for the fine platter of roasted goose, but just as he nearly got his hands on it—or any other course he reached for—it was whisked away and given to somebody else.
Disappointment threatened to turn to anger. He was hungry!
When he protested or asked for some food, his voice wouldn’t work. He lifted his cup to clear his throat with a drink, but it was empty, too. Thirsty and starving in the midst of this feast, every moment at the table had made him angrier.
This was utterly unfair. How was it that none of his so-called friends could even be bothered to notice how he had been denied the portion he deserved? Everyone else had theirs, but not even Beauchamp could be bothered to care.
They were all too busy fawning on their darling wives, too pleased with their good fortune to notice their friend drowning in despair. He was as forgotten here as he’d been in Nick’s cellar, being held hostage. In his dream, he had half a mind to leave the table with a curse and storm out of the room.
But then, at last, filtering through the veil of sleep, he became aware of a presence in the room.
Whispers somewhere close . . .
Someone’s here.
In an instant, his warrior instincts went on full alert, and years of living under constant threat of death snapped him into battle mode.
Pulling himself up swiftly from the depths of sleep, just a few seconds later, his eyes flicked open.
His hand reached reflexively for his weapon.
His first groggy thought, of course, was that one of the enemies he had made over years of countless missions must have already tracked him down.
Thank you, Prinny.
He sat up and scanned the room, but the intruder had already fled down the hallway. He could hear the footsteps but couldn’t see him.
Still blinking the sleep from his eyes, he leaped to his feet and bounded off in immediate pursuit, leaping over the pile of boxes and flinging out into the corridor.
He caught only the briefest glimpse of a moving shadow. “Who’s there?” he bellowed, but then he heard a sound from his left and looked over.
More than one.
He heard the bang of a door coming from the direction of the entrance hall, while off to his left, a rusty creak hinted at the second intruder slipping out of a ground-floor window. He went after the one who had left by the front door. By God, if it was some leftover Promethean—!
He did not want to have to kill an intruder the first day in his new home. But if it came down to it, he would. Indeed, he wouldn’t think twice.
Racing through the entrance hall, he stepped out of the doorway, his heart pounding, and suddenly his eyes narrowed as his gaze homed in on a small, fleeing boy.
He blinked.
What the hell?
A child?
Understanding dawned. A local.
His reaction changed instantaneously from wrath to indignation. “Get back here, you brat!” he bellowed. “What are you doing in my house? I want an explanation—and your name! Who are your parents?”
He sheathed his knife and went striding after the young miscreant. The boy looked over his shoulder and ran for his life.
Good.
Trevor glowered. “You better not have stolen something from me, you little thief! I’ll find out who you are. There will be consequences!”
All of a sudden, something hard struck him in the back. He cursed and spun around and spotted the rock that had hit him, still rolling on the ground.
In utter shock, he raised his gaze from it to the second small person, identical to the first, who had obviously thrown it.
The boy had another at the ready. “Leave my brother alone!” the little ruffian shouted.
Trevor stared at him for a second, then laughed in disbelief.
“What are you doing on my property?” he demanded. “Are you trying to get yourselves killed?”
Instead of answering him, the second one also turned and fled.
Still groggy and not at all amused at this rude awakening by a pair of meddling peasant urchins, he waved them off with a grumble to himself, fairly sure that at least now he’d put the fear of God in them.
But just as he turned around to go back inside, a child’s wild, frightened shout rang out from the direction of the rushing river, followed by a loud splash.
Oh, what now?
Trevor stopped and turned, frowning.
Two seconds later came the scream.
“
Help!
”
Cursing under his breath, he sprinted toward the river, which was swollen and fast, thanks to the strange weather of this cold summer. When he saw the old log that had been set up as a footbridge, he understood in a glance what had happened. The fleeing boy, careless with haste, had taken a tumble while trying to get across.
Several feet below the log amid the rushing current, Trevor spotted the boy’s head amid the fast, swirling current.
“Bloody hell,” he whispered, as the little head disappeared under the water in a section white with foam and churning eddies. Instantly descending the steep, muddy bank, he slid past the leaning trees to the rocks below. He waded into the river until it was up to his waist.
Then he dove in and swam.
S
till ensconced in her window nook, Grace was finishing her last sip of tea when, all of a sudden, she spotted a small, familiar figure running full tilt up the drive.
She furrowed her brow and looked again. One of the Nelcott twins? It was impossible to say which, but the twins were never seen singly. Her expression darkened.
I hope nothing’s happened.
Quickly setting her empty teacup aside, she rose and hurried to the front door in concern.
“Miss Grace! Miss Grace! Help!”
As soon as she opened the door, she saw the panicked look on the boy’s face. Grace promptly forgot that she was not yet dressed for the day, still wearing her dressing gown over her night rail, with slippers on her feet and her hair loose and long, flowing over her shoulders. She stepped outside as the boy flung himself toward her.
She gripped his small shoulders to steady him though she still wasn’t totally sure which one he was. “What’s wrong? Take a breath and tell me what happened.”
“He caught us—he caught Denny! He’s gonna murder ’im!”
“Who?” she exclaimed.
Kenny grabbed her hand and began pulling her a few steps down the drive. “Come on, you have to stop him! You got to help me save my brother!”
“From what?”
“From the ogre! He’s got guns, Miss!”
“Who’s got guns? What are you talking about? What ogre?”
“At the Grange!”
Her eyebrows shot up. Then she planted her feet to halt the boy’s dragging her. “Kenny,” she said darkly, having realized it was the slightly less barbaric twin she had in her grasp. “
What
did you two do?”
He blanched. “No time to explain! Come on, he’s got my brother!”
“Kenny.”
“Denny and me went to the Grange to spy on him—”
“Oh—!” She bit back a word unsuitable for children’s ears. Lud, first Calpurnia, now the twins. “Listen to me.” She took the boy’s arm sternly. “You mustn’t go bothering our new neighbor. He just came back from the war, Kenny. Don’t you think he wants some peace and quiet?”