Authors: Lightning
He nodded his head. “I don’t understand why it means so much to you—enough that you would agree to bed someone who obviously … repels you, though it pains me sorely to admit that rather unflattering fact.”
Lauren felt the tears that had been gathering behind her eyes, and held there only by the most enormous effort, begin to break through the control. Dear Lord, what a mess she had made of everything. “I’m sorry …”
“I see you don’t disagree with my assessment,” he said dryly, his hand going up to wipe away a tear that had worked its way free. “I’ve never had a woman in tears at the thought of bedding me before. The idea is usually quite agreeable.”
Lauren couldn’t speak. She had no idea what he was thinking, or even saying, now.
“Sit down, Lauren,” he said, and there was a strange note in his voice. If she didn’t know better, she would think it kindness. Startled, she sat.
“It’s bloody wounding to think you might be the supreme sacrifice for another man,” he said musingly. “You know, I’ve always disliked men like Ridgely, who always had everything handed to them, even charm.” He grinned disarmingly. “I’ve had to work at mine, and now I find it wanting.” There was something other than mockery in his words, a curious kind of surprise.
Lauren could only watch him, wondering at his mood.
“Tell me,” he suddenly wheedled, “why you’re ready to sell something that so clearly belongs to someone else? Why is Ridgely so important to you?”
His dark eyes bored into her now, and Lauren grew more and more puzzled at his strange attitude, although a seed of hope was sprouting somewhere inside—she didn’t know why.
“Why do you want to know?” she asked.
“Because I think you owe me at least that much,” he said. “This was your wager, not mine. I thought to win more than a cold body.”
“You won’t—”
“Go back on the bargain? Perhaps not if you tell me what I want to know. Mysteries interest me. You evidently love Ridgely, but you don’t expect to marry him. You care desperately about returning his estate, but you won’t share it. You care enough that you are willing to … God forbid … be my mistress. Yet I obviously hold not the slightest attraction for you.” His expression was watchful, and Lauren thought she caught just a glimmer of amusement in his eyes, but then it was gone, and they were as dark and ominous as ever.
She was caught in his gaze. “I … wronged him.”
“And does he know about this wrong?”
“No.”
“And you can’t tell him?”
“I’ve … wanted to.”
“So you seek to right it by selling yourself. How do you think he’ll feel about that?”
“He’ll never know.”
He looked at her without expression. “I know men like Ridgely,” he said. “He would prefer to lose everything rather than accept what you’ve tried to gain for him today.” His lips suddenly curled up in a wry smile. “I, on the other hand, would be flattered. Are you really quite sure you wouldn’t prefer me?”
Lauren met his gaze steadily. “I made a bargain.”
“And you will keep it, regardless of the pain to yourself,” he said dryly. “However, I believe I will decline. I have never taken an unwilling woman. I don’t intend to start with you. I will, however, uphold my end. I’ll sell the estate.”
It was Lauren’s turn to question. “But … why?”
“It was an amusing afternoon, Miss Bradley. Not as stimulating, perhaps, as I’d hoped, but interesting. And to tell you the truth, I’m tired of the country life. I obviously was not born to be lord of the manor.” Again there was a strange current in his voice, but Lauren couldn’t decipher it.
His voice suddenly gentled. “I’ll take you home before Sir Giles dispatches a search party.” His hand went to her lips. “I envy Cabot. I really didn’t think love existed until today.”
Lauren couldn’t take her eyes from his face. She tried to understand his words. He was freeing her.
“But one word of advice, Lauren,” he said. “Tell Ridgely whatever there is to tell. I don’t want my sudden … weakness to be in vain.”
Lauren impulsively leaned up and kissed him quickly on the cheek. “You
are
very nice,” she said with a break in her voice.
“If there is one thing I’m not, Miss Bradley,” he said after a moment’s pause, “it is nice. It’s been a most … intriguing afternoon. I consider the entertainment fair return.”
“You underestimate yourself, Mr. Redding.”
“No,” he said abruptly. “I’ll take you home now and tell my solicitor to contact Lord Ridgely.”
Adrian rode his borrowed bay through the London streets, impatient to reach Sir Giles’s residence. Socrates was sitting in front of him, and Adrian sensed he knew they were going to see Lauren. The monkey had been impossible the last two days, and Adrian knew why. He could certainly sympathize.
He was returning early, his anticipation at a high pitch. Sometime during the past days, he’d decided not to complete the purchase of the ship. He kept remembering Lauren’s face as he’d discussed it, the despair on it. He kept thinking how much he missed her, how long he would be away from her …six months, a year … perhaps longer if he was taken again.
And suddenly his obsession with Ridgely dulled. He would find another way. It might take longer. But if he invested wisely … After all, there were signs Redding was rapidly tiring of his possession.
What mattered now was Lauren. After the past week of intense loneliness and longing, he knew Ridgely would mean nothing without her. He had lain awake, heat suffusing through him as he thought of the barn, of the way she’d ridden with him through the dripping forest, the gentleness with which she’d nursed him. He thought of the humor in her eyes, the wistfulness, the challenge. And he knew whatever problem lay between them could be solved.
He stopped at a goldsmith’s shop off a side street, one recommended by the officer which had accompanied him on the trial run, and found what he was seeking: an antique ring with a small but perfect emerald. As he left, his eyes were drawn to a man and woman who were leaving an inn, a well-known trysting place, across the cobbled road. The two were headed toward a closed coach, and Adrian immediately recognized one of them—Redding. Accompanying him was a heavily veiled woman. He smiled grimly, remembering his unsatisfactory conversation with the owner of Ridgely the other night, and the way Redding had danced with Lauren. He couldn’t tell much about the woman with him now, her side was to him, and a cloak and hood all but covered her.
He shrugged. Redding was a well-known rake. Well, he, too, had been a womanizer once. He had even used the same inn on occasion.
Adrian quickly mounted, the ring in his coat. He would talk to Lauren this afternoon.
But Lauren wasn’t at the town house, and both Lisa and Quigley said only that she was “out,” and they weren’t sure where she was.
Adrian immediately assumed she had gone shopping. Her clothing was still very limited. “I’ll wait for her,” he said, and was mildly surprised by quickly exchanged glances between Quigley and Lisa.
“Why don’t you get some rest and come back for supper with us tonight?” Lisa offered.
At that moment they heard the sound of a carriage stopping in front of the town house, and Adrian felt a wave of warmth roll over him. Socrates at his side, Adrian reached the door before Quigley, and threw it open, finding Rhys Redding handing Lauren down from his phaeton.
It was not the same carriage, nor was Lauren wearing the cloak and veil he’d seen earlier, but he knew it was she who had been with Redding earlier. He saw the guilt in her blanched face.
He stood in the doorway trying to comprehend. The implications were clear enough. And suddenly he wanted to kill both of them. He closed his eyes, hoping that the vision would be gone when he opened them, but it wasn’t.
Lauren was standing at the side of the phaeton, her hair slightly mussed, as if hastily pinned, a red color staining her cheeks that had been white a second ago. And Rhys Redding’s face was as inscrutable as it usually was.
“Adrian,” Lauren whispered just as Socrates made a run for her, holding out his arms to be picked up. But Lauren didn’t see the monkey. She saw only Adrian’s face.
Anger seized Adrian. Anger and a sense of betrayal that dwarfed any other emotion he’d ever had.
“Did you find the Lion’s Head as comfortable as I have?” he asked, every word loaded with soft menace.
He saw her tremble, her lips compress into a tight line so unlike her. “How … ?”
“I saw you, love. Or are you
his
love now?”
“Adrian …”
His eyes swept her with contempt. Contempt and fury and even something close to hate. Or perhaps self-hate. He didn’t know how he could have been such a deluded idiot. He’d known deep in his bones that she had disabled his ship, but he’d thought—wanted to think—there was good reason for it.
There could be no reason for this.
“Why?” Even to him, his voice sounded strangled. Strangled and anguished. “Why … ?”
“First the
Specter
, and now Redding. Is it Ridgely? Do you want that too? Bloody hell, why … ?”
Rhys Redding stepped closer, as if to protect her, and Adrian, his senses now maddened, aimed his fist, catching the other man’s chin with his balled right knuckles. Rhys spun against the phaeton, falling to his knees. Adrian’s other hand went up and seized the front of Rhys’s clothes, hitting him again, sending the gambler to the ground. Socrates clung to Lauren, chattering in dismay.
“Adrian … don’t … please …” Lauren’s face was even whiter than before, her great hazel eyes glittering with tears, looking impossibly brilliant in the paleness of her skin.
“What a bloody fool I’ve been,” Adrian said. “One betrayal wasn’t enough. Damn you, Lauren. Damn you to hell. I
loved
you, God help me.”
He swung around just as Redding was getting to his feet again and punched him one more time, sending him back to the ground. Adrian then grabbed a protesting, howling Socrates, mounted his borrowed bay, and rode away without a backward glance.
Adrian bought the English ship that afternoon and announced his intentions to sail immediately.
He didn’t give a damn if the interior of the vessel wasn’t completely finished. The ship’s engines were working, and there was sufficient coal aboard because of the test run. He would have what remained to be done completed in Nassau.
It would be damned difficult to get a crew together, but he would manage. There were always sailors around, and his own crew should be waiting for him in the Bahamas.
At least the sea was honest, its dangers known. He would sail tomorrow on the late tide. The whole bloody damn Union fleet could be out there for all he cared.
Adrian knew about the
Specter.
He had known all this time and said nothing. He had known, and he’d said, “I loved you,” not “I love you.”
Lauren felt as if her heart had been jerked out of her body and torn apart in front of her. The anguish of his words echoed in her mind.
One betrayal wasn’t
enough.
Damn you, Lauren. Damn you to hell.
She started to sway, and Rhys, who now managed to stand, barely caught her, lifting her in his arms and looking at Lisa helplessly.
“Bring her inside,” the older woman said, her face a mixture of emotions.
Rhys followed her up the stairs to the room where Lauren was staying and placed her on the bed. He stood there uncertainly, rubbing his jaw. If nothing else, Adrian Cabot certainly possessed a powerful right hook.
“You may leave now, Mr. Redding,” Lisa Tatterly said censoriously. “I think you’ve done quite enough today.”
Rhys looked at Lauren. Her hair had tumbled down from the pins she’d used earlier, and her face was strained and white.
He looked at Lisa Tatterly, who had drawn up to as imposing a figure as she could, and said, “It isn’t what you and Ridgely thought. Nothing … of any questionable nature occurred, I assure you.”
Lisa’s face cleared slightly at the sincerity in his voice, but her questioning eyes went from Rhys Redding to her young guest.
“She was trying to help him,” Rhys said. “Trying to convince me to sell him back the estate. And she’s accomplished that.”
“You’re going to … ?”
“Yes,” Rhys said.
“Even now?” The question came as she studied his black eye and the blood dripping from his mouth.
“Even now, Mrs. Tatterly, if he will listen.”
But Lauren knew he wouldn’t. Unlike the other two in the room, she knew the extent of the disaster. There had never been trust between her and Adrian. She had killed his dream once, and then she had destroyed his faith in her completely. How could he trust her again? Adrian, who had made such a point of honesty. Adrian, who had somehow forgiven her first transgression, but could never forgive this one. “Please leave me alone,” she whispered brokenly.
“I’ll be near if you need anything, dear,” Lisa said.
Rhys didn’t say anything at all as he left. His mind was preoccupied with other thoughts, with the few cryptic words he’d heard. He, like so many others in London, had heard that Lauren had helped Adrian escape from U.S. authorities. It had been one of the things that had so fascinated him about her. He couldn’t imagine a woman doing that, risking so much, and accepting nothing in return. He wondered over the words he’d heard Adrian say. He had mentioned his ship. One
betrayal was not enough.
He remembered Lauren’s words at the inn: “I’ve wronged him.” And because of that, she had been willing to do anything to help him. It soured Rhys that he had to place himself in the “anything” category.