Shadow of the War Machine (The Secret Order) (18 page)

Finally, several hours later, we boarded the carriage and found the door to our compartment. Will pulled the gilded handle and opened the dark wood-paneled door. The red velvet seats were thick and lovely, and the heavy curtains had been pulled back with a braid that had tiny golden tassels on the ends. I took a seat by the window and touched the polished brass arms of the lamp attached to the wall.

I had lived my youth in a house less fine than this. Will closed the curtains over the small window in the compartment door and sat across from me. “I hope this train ride is much less eventful than the last one,” he said.

I let out a deep breath of relief. “Have we ever done anything so ordinary?”

“We shared a piece of tart once,” Will said. The train jolted beneath us, then chugged forward into a comfortable and steady rhythm. I watched as the countryside passed by, sleepy French villages, woods, and farmland. I smiled softly to myself as I remembered how sticky the tart had been, and how Will had shoved half of it into his mouth at once. It seemed so long ago, and yet I could almost taste the forbidden treat.

However, now was not the time for gathering wool, even wool so fine as that. “What will we do once we reach Paris?” I asked. “We have no place to stay.”

“We can stay at a boardinghouse or a hotel.” Will reached across the compartment and placed a hand on my knee. My heart almost leapt out of my chest. I stared at his hand, so intimate. He withdrew it and gave me a glance, one of warmth and promise. I felt heat flushing through my cheeks. I had been trying to avoid intimacies as much as possible, trying to behave in a way that would protect my reputation. Now in the secure comfort of the cabin, I felt too tempted.

“A hotel will cost so much. This compartment was expensive.” I folded my hands in my lap and looked down at them. “And it would be scandalous as well as dangerous. It is bad enough we’re traveling alone together.”

“That can’t be helped.” His soft brown eyes darkened, and I felt a terrifying thrill settle into my middle and dance around there until I lost my breath. “What do you propose we do?”

“I don’t know, but we can’t afford two rooms. You’ve already done too much. I shouldn’t be in your debt this way. It is too generous.” I met his eyes, and he actually chuckled softly to himself. I couldn’t hear it so much as see the soft shaking in his chest.

“Do you know how good it feels for me to have money to spend?” He leaned back against the seat and crossed his arms.

“But you were saving that money for your future—”

“No,” he interrupted. “I was saving it for us. If we use it now or we use it later, it doesn’t matter.”

“But it does matter. If we can’t make it back to London for the Oath, you’ll lose your position at the Foundry. Then what? It’s too much to ask,” I protested. “It is highly unlikely I’ll survive this little holiday with my reputation intact. I can’t ask you to tie yourself to a ruined woman and lose your position all at once.”

Will didn’t say anything, for a moment that felt uncomfortably long. He tilted his head, looking closely at me. I didn’t want to meet his eyes. I couldn’t see a way to escape
this adventure unharmed, and it was unfair, because we had done nothing untoward.

He reached for me and tipped my chin up with a feather-like touch of his fingers. No man should have such eyes.

“As I recall, you never did ask. I offered.” His voice sounded melodic and soft, the way it did when he used to work with his horses. “I want to do this for you. For us. I know you will never be free until we find your grandfather and stop the murderer who has him.” He drew himself forward and cupped my cheek in his warm palm. I rested for a moment in the shelter of his touch. “I love you, Meg. If I can help you, I will. It is a gift freely given.”

If I’d been starving, those words could have given me sustenance for a thousand years. If I’d felt alone, his words could have called armies to battle by my side. His words filled my heart, and at the same time terrified me because they meant so much.

I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat. “I don’t doubt you. I only wonder if one day you will find that the cost is too much. I’m not free to marry for years yet, and thanks to me, you’ve nearly died several times. At what point does love become a hindrance instead of a blessing?” I sighed. “I can’t
help but wonder if one day you might meet a docile young lass up in Scotland without so many complications.”

He tilted his head so I couldn’t escape those eyes, soft and calm, deep like night and just as still. “Like a murderer attempting to kill her?” he asked.

“That.”

He took a slow breath then dropped his gaze for the briefest of moments. With his head bowed, he looked as if he were in prayer. When he met my eyes again, there was something else there, truth and fear. “What makes you think I haven’t had more promising prospects?” His voice dropped a tone.

I felt my heart stop.

I sat up straight, breaking his touch. He watched me, his expression still, but I knew him too well. His shoulders had stiffened, and he was bracing himself for my reaction.

My heart, when it chose to beat again, raced in panic. “Why haven’t you mentioned this in your letters?”

“Because I’ve turned all the prospects down.”

Turned them down. I felt drunk off the rush of relief, but then disbelief clouded my mind. I knew what Will meant to me. I knew what he had done for me. I also painfully knew every single time I had ever disappointed him, or taken him for granted, or turned away from all he
was willing to give. I hated those moments. I hated that they existed. I hated that they made me feel I would never deserve the man who sat across from me. I wanted to feel I’d earned his love, and that I had more to give him than my own affections.

But I had nothing to give other than an uncertain life. He deserved happiness, not this madness. Not my rebellious passions. He deserved a woman who was worthy of his steadfast generosity, someone sweet and kind and good. I couldn’t cling to him if I harmed him by doing so. If he wished for another, I had to be strong enough to let him find his own way.

“If you held affection for another, it’s only right for you to consider her well. I’m only passingly fair, and I’m often trouble. I know there have been times I haven’t done right by you.”

Will crossed his arms, and his left eyebrow rose in that way it did when I was being either stubborn or difficult. “Haven’t done right by me? You risked your reputation to seek me out in Rathford’s stable when your reputation was all you had to survive. Then you treated me as if I were a person and not some dog rolling in manure, the way the rest of the servants in that house did. You were the first person
ever
to do something kind for me.”

He remained steadfast and immovable in his conviction. “You forced me out of that bloody house and dragged me along into your schemes, where you relied on me, as if I had a keen mind, as if I were necessary. You had the audacity to turn down my proposal so you could do and be something great, something beyond my imagining, and then you continued to love and value me, even though I only work at the Foundry.”

“You’re brilliant at—”

“I’m not finished.” His voice rose. “You risked your life to save not only mine but hundreds of my clansmen, my brothers. And lastly, but it’s hardly the least of your apparent shortcomings, you’ve turned down the proposition of a blooming earl. A man you admire and respect. He’s wealthy, he’s nearly your intellectual equal, and he’s handsome. Hell, if I were you, I’d marry him, and I can’t stand the bastard!”

My heart felt so full, and free. I felt a hot tear slip over my cheek, and I let out an unladylike snort as I tried to compose myself. Will’s expression softened, and he shook his head as if we had shared a witty confidence.

“What am I going to do with you?” he asked, his smile warming his deep eyes.

I didn’t know, but I was so glad he was with me now. I couldn’t help but tease him a little.

“So you had many a fair prospect in Scotland?” I touched my face with my handkerchief. The cloth felt like sand against my too sensitive skin.

“You are responsible for a river of broken hearts,” he quipped, before reaching over and brushing my other cheek with the backs of his knuckles.

Damn but I loved this man. “Was Fiona at the inn horribly disappointed?” I asked. I had heard about the barmaid’s ample portions of, well, portions.

“She cried for a month.” Will’s tension had drained out of him, but now I could feel another specter in the air, the memory of someone lost. I couldn’t forget the young man who had initially teased me about Fiona’s impressive bosom. Will looked down at his hands, then closed them and opened them as if he could feel something slipping through his fingers.

“You miss Duncan, don’t you?” If only I had pieced things together sooner. We could have saved him. I still felt the sting of guilt that I hadn’t been able to stop his murder. “I’m sorry.”

Will met my eyes, and I could see the reflection of Duncan in them. As a young boy, Will had watched his father die, and
then we both had had to watch his very best friend die, his blood flowing through my hands.

I never wanted to see death like that again. What I felt couldn’t ever match the pain I could see in Will. I wished I could take the rest of it from him and bear it with my guilt, so Will could be left with only the love he had felt for his friend and brother.

“Duncan told me once to tie whatever bonds I could to you and never let go, because a woman of passion is a glory to behold.” Will nodded his head, a slight movement I nearly didn’t catch. “I have never met a woman as brave and bold as you. I told you once you were like a bird and I was like a stone. If that is true, then you make this stone look to the sky and know what it is to soar above the heavens. No docile and lovely lass in Scotland will ever make me feel the way I do for you.”

I felt a tightness in my chest, a terrible and wonderful aching I never wanted to relieve. “If I am a bird and you are a stone, then you are my rock, the safe shelter I can return to again and again when my wings can no longer carry me. I love you, Will.”

I could feel the air, thick and heavy around us, as he leaned closer to me, heated promise in his gaze. My longing for his
touch became visceral, a hunger that threatened to consume me in fire. “And you will always return?” he asked.

“Yes. Always. Will you wait for me?” I whispered as he leaned even closer, stealing the distance between us.

“I’m a patient man,” he murmured. “And stubborn,” he added.

“Me too.”

He pulled me into his arms, and his lips met mine with a hunger I couldn’t tame. He kissed me with passion that could have burned through the cold of winter and set the world on fire. We fell together onto our knees on the floor of the little compartment. It was a private world for only the two of us, and the pleasure of a forbidden kiss. I pressed my body to his, wanting to be closer, knowing I could never be close enough as he took the air that I breathed and filled me with such wonder that I became the bird, and I soared, carrying him with me as I went.

A rhythmic tapping brought me to my senses.

Rap, rap, rap . . .
“Tickets, please.”

I gasped as I pushed myself onto the seat, my skirts in a jumble around my legs. I batted them down and swiftly brushed my hair back away from my face before straightening my shawl. I placed my hands primly in my lap and stared out the window.

My heart fluttered in my ears as I heard the compartment door slide open. “Tickets?” the conductor asked in French. Will produced them from his coat pocket. Will’s waistcoat had been pulled askew, and his hair was wild from where I had tousled it in the back. His lips were full and glistening, and his hand shook as he handed the conductor the tickets.

The conductor cleared his throat, and I felt my face catch on fire. “Thank you, madame and monsieur,” he said, this time in English. “Enjoy your stay here in France.”

The man tipped his hat before giving us a wink and shutting the compartment door.

“Madame?” I still had enough decency to be affronted.

Will’s eyes shone, bright and wicked. “He thinks we’re married.”

Dear heavens. If Will was in such a disheveled state, we had really crossed all bounds of propriety. “Or he thinks we’re not.” I must have looked like a trollop, with my hair flying away and my dress rumpled. “No wonder France has such a terrible reputation. He’s practically condoning our indiscretion.”

Will laughed. “Is that such a terrible thing?”

“Yes,” I immediately protested. Then I gave him a wicked grin. “And no.”

“You would have made a horrible countess.” Will kissed his fingertip and touched it to my lip.

“I know.” I leaned back against the seat. “Perhaps I am like my grandfather. I simply can’t believe his past was so colorful.”

“Describing your grandfather’s rumored love life as ‘colorful’ is like describing a stained-glass window as ‘a bit of glass.’ ” Will crossed his arms.

“It can’t be as bad as that in truth. People love good gossip. I have a hard time believing my grandfather would behave so recklessly. At the time he went into hiding, he was fairly well along in years. What could a letter have said that would send him to Paris?” I asked. “And what does a necklace have to do with it? It doesn’t make sense. He was so happily married to my grandmother.”

Will steepled his fingers and placed them to his lips. “How can you know that for certain?” Will asked, choosing his words very carefully. “Things aren’t always what they seem.”

“I know,” I snapped, perhaps more harshly than I should have. His words stung only because they matched my own thoughts too closely. I softened my tone. It wasn’t Will I was angry with. “I know my Papa. He was a good and honest man.”

“I’m not doubting that.” Will pulled the necklace out of
his pocket. He watched it turn in the air. “It is as if we have several pieces gathered together, but they are all for different puzzles. You should keep this.” He handed the necklace to me.

I looked at the large black stone and the chain. I couldn’t bring myself to put it around my neck, not if it had once belonged to a woman in an unseemly arrangement with my grandfather. Instead I tucked it into the pocket I had sewn into the seam of my skirts.