Taken and Seduced (20 page)

Adam frowned, even as he leaned down to kiss her. “Florrie? Did I hurt you?”

She shook her head, then said wryly, “I am having trouble breathing, though.”

He lifted himself off her body, and it was suddenly so sad. She was alone again. Rolling onto her side, she made room for him behind her. For so many nights he’d slept against her back, his hips intimately against hers. But she had no idea that the true intimacy of nudity changed everything. His erection was now cradled against her backside; the hand that had lain across her waist for so many nights now cupped her tender breast. The hair on his chest teased her back. And he was so very warm.

And she was so very angry.

A
dam had never felt such peace before. He lay with Florrie, after having shared the most intimate pleasure of his life. She had been open with her body and her joy, as he always knew she would be. But now she seemed…too quiet.

“Florrie? Is something wrong?”

Her pause was too long, and she only breathed the word, “Nay.”

“Tell me what you’re feeling.”

“Sated.”

He frowned, lifting up on his elbow to tuck her hair behind her ear. He could see her profile now, and she looked anything but happy. His talkative Florrie suddenly didn’t want to talk? The peaceful exhaustion that had comforted him was now gone.

“I know you were a virgin,” he said, “and if it was not all you expected, I wish you would talk to me about it.”

Suddenly she pushed away from him and sat
up. Reaching for her smock on the floor, she pulled it over her head before standing up to pace.

He did not know how to respond to her anger, so he tried the mild approach. “That is a new garment.”

She frowned, but did not look at him. “My sister gave it to me. She was appalled at the condition of my clothing.”

He sat up and reached to touch her, but she pulled away. Unease and dismay swept over him. Was she so very unhappy that she’d made love with him? He’d wanted to show her how much he cherished her, and instead he seemed to have driven her away from him.

“Could you put some clothing on?” she asked.

He pulled on his braies and breeches. He didn’t remain standing, for it would hurt him too deeply if she cringed away from him.

“Florrie—”

“Stop trying to appease me!” she cried, whirling to face him.

He’d never seen her angry like this, and he imagined that if she had felt it at other times in her life, she had always suppressed it to make everyone else feel happy.

“I thought this night would help heal you,” she continued, “would change everything between us, but I quickly realized that I do not have that power. Only you do, but you will not do anything to change.”

“Change how?” he asked tiredly.

“I am sick of your need for vengeance!”

He stiffened. “You mean justice.”

“You continue to tell yourself that, and though justice is part of it, the rest is simple, ugly vengeance.”

He shot to his feet. “Whatever you wish to call it, am I not justified?”

“Do you
want
to feel this way, forever angry and bitter, forever wanting
something
to make you feel right again? I’ve been trying to make you see that we create our own happiness, that we cannot control the world, only ourselves.”

“Florrie—”

“I have been trying to make you happy, so that you would forget this mission, not commit murder—and not get killed.”

“I thought you understood what I needed to do!”

“Understood? Aye, rationally, in my head, but in my heart—” Her eyes were full of hurt and confusion, and she briefly turned away from him as if fighting for control.

“You’ve been trying to make me happy,” he said slowly, thoughts rushing through his brain so quickly he almost couldn’t sort them. “Was that also the purpose of our lovemaking? Was it only your attempt to manipulate me?”

“Nay!” she cried, throwing her arms wide. “What we shared was special to me. I entrusted my body and soul to you!”

He winced. “How can you speak of trust?”

She blinked at him in confusion, and he watched some of the anger leave her eyes, only to be replaced by sadness.

“You are right,” she whispered, hugging herself. “I have been keeping the truth from you, but no more. It cannot be about me, or my father, but only about you, Adam. I had hoped you would change your mind, give up this mission on your own, but I can see now that after a lifetime of waiting, you could not. So here is the truth. I think I know what my father would kill for.”

He clenched his fists and his jaw, waiting, tense with the need to know.

“Did you believe that I knew?” she asked quietly.

“Nay, but I had hoped you might become aware of a clue, an event, that might be helpful to me. I wanted you to come to me freely.”

She gave a bitter smile. “And I wanted you to do the same for me. So it will be I who surrenders. Your strength has surpassed mine.”

“Just say it.” At last he would know what was so important that Martindale would kill an unarmed man—and his wife. He should be glad and relieved, but instead he felt sick inside.

“’Tis not easily said,” she began, pulling out the hard-backed chair to sit down.

Adam did the same on the edge of the bed.

“Several years ago, I was caring for my father when he was ill. Nights were the worst, when he did not want to be alone, yet he suffered through
terrible fevers. In his ragings, he kept saying that no one could know about the document, and he swore me to secrecy.”

A document?
Adam thought in surprise.

“I thought him delusional with illness, but at last, I came in one night to find him clutching a piece of parchment which must have been torn from a bound book. He would not be calm until I agreed to put it back in its hiding place in the false bottom of a coffer.” She stopped to bite her lip. “But I read it,” she admitted at last. “’Twas the parish record of my grandmother’s death, as well as the death of her unborn child. I could not understand why this was so important, until it dawned on me that my father’s birth date was two months later. So another woman—probably my grandfather’s concubine—had given birth to him, and his father claimed him as the legitimate heir.”

“But…why would they not lie about his birth date?” Adam asked in confusion.

“I thought of this at great length. The child must have been a newborn when he was introduced as the heir, and they were unable to claim him as two months older. My grandfather had much property scattered through England—I always thought it would have been easy for him to keep his wife secluded until she had the boy he so obviously wanted. And when that did not happen—it would be simple to cover the truth with money and intimidation to the few servants who knew. Even death,” she said, shuddering.

It was sad that a daughter should think her grandfather capable of such a thing. “And somehow your father discovered the secret of his birth.”

“I know not how. But the parish record was torn away, and I fear for the priest involved so many years ago.” She met Adam’s gaze. “’Tis the only secret I can think worth killing for. After all, if my father were ruled illegitimate, he would have lost the title and all the lands and wealth. My sisters’ chances at good marriages would have been gone.”

“And you said nothing after your discovery,” he said in a tight voice.

She stared at him. “If my father had never been the marquess, the title would have descended through my cousin Claudius’s branch of the family. And already he is my father’s heir. I thought that by giving my father no sons, God was returning the title to where it belonged, and everything would work out. Why would I speak up, when the only people to be harmed would be my sisters?”

Though Adam understood this, part of him was bewildered. He’d never imagined his Florrie could keep such a truth hidden. “Yet we do not know for certain that anyone else discovered this secret.”

She shook her head. “But I have never seen my father act as he had that night. He seemed…crazed, and it was not just the fever. That parch
ment obsessed him. He even said he could never destroy it, that he was haunted by the priest of the parish where the marchioness had died. My father said the priest would not allow him.”

“So that meant the priest was dead.”

She shrugged. “If you can trust my father’s word. He was…not making sense.”

“Do you think your father killed him?”

“Killed a priest?” she whispered.

He saw the fear and sadness in her expression. “How else would he have the parchment from the parish records?”

“Perhaps he simply stole it.”

He nodded, trying to imagine how his parents might be connected. Without Martindale’s confession, he would never know. And what were the odds of that, he thought with rising anger. And would the League even think this a good motivation for murder, if it could never be proved?

“Adam?” She said his name in a small voice.

“Aye?”

“You asked if I was trying to manipulate you through sex. Were you doing the same with me?”

“Nay, my feelings for you go deeper than that. But I am still angry. You were trying to change me so that I would not kill your father. I thought I’d won your loyalty more than that.”

“And at the same time you believed I was keeping something from you?” she asked sadly.

She was right. How could they even understand what there was between them emotionally,
when their families had been at war, and making the two of them a part of it?

Florrie could not seem to stop trembling. She’d told her father’s secret, and much as it gave Adam a motive, they could not connect it with certainty to his parents, except to imagine they’d somehow discovered her father’s illegitimacy.

Yet still she was holding back, hoping that something that she’d said or done could convince Adam to back away from this foolish plan to challenge her father. If Adam knew her father was too ill to fight him, he’d be thwarted from combat—but not through his own choices, his own change of heart. She wanted him to feel free of the past, not to live in bitterness. She still hoped he’d change.

It wasn’t normal for someone to be angry with her. She was too used to making people feel better. But this time she would stand her ground.

Suddenly, there was an urgent pounding on the door. Both Florrie and Adam shot to their feet, but neither was fully dressed. Before they could even respond, Christina burst through the door, her face wild with concern. She slid to a stop, and Florrie knew at once what they must look like, the bed rumpled, neither of them wearing their outer garments.

Christina’s expression changed to confusion and then outrage. Florrie winced.

“Christina—”

“I need to speak with you, Florrie,” Christina
said. She saw the gown in a heap on the floor, then picked it up with dismay. “Put this on quickly.”

Florrie turned to Adam, who had already pulled his shirt over his head. She gave him a helpless look and did as her sister asked. “Christina, can we not speak here?”

Christina shook her head and opened the door. When Adam stepped forward, Christina held up a hand and begrudgingly said, “I understand that it is your duty to protect her…and that you take it seriously. But I am her sister, and I wish to speak with her in privacy. We will not go far.”

Florrie saw Adam look at her, as if he wanted her to object. She couldn’t; this was her sister. “I will not be gone long,” she said softly.

Christina gave an exaggerated sigh. “We will be two doors down on the left. ’Tis an empty bedchamber.”

“You have my thanks for the information,” Adam said.

Florrie turned away. She knew Adam was truly concerned for her welfare. If only she could trust that it wasn’t about more than that.

After a short, hurried walk down the corridor, Christina opened another door and walked into a deserted bedchamber, gloomy because the shutters were closed. Florrie sighed, waiting for the inevitable scolding.

Christina took both her arms. “Oh, my goodness, Florrie, is it true?”

Florrie blinked in confusion. “Is what true?”

“Claudius was in London when Father received the news. He told me you had been kidnapped!”

Florrie gaped at her in shock.

Christina clasped her in a hard embrace. “Oh, my dear, and now to see that you’ve been…that he’s forced you to…satisfy him. Why, ’tis rape!”

“Nay, oh, Christina, do not think such a thing!” she cried, disengaging herself to step back. “Adam is the most gentle man I know.”

“So ’tis Adam, not Edmund.”

“He would never force me to do anything I didn’t want to!”

“He kidnapped you!”

“Oh, well, there is that. But he had a good reason!”

“A good reason for a kidnapping?” Christina demanded. “Now this you must explain.”

And Florrie didn’t know what she
could
explain. “He was only going to use me to convince Father to meet him in combat.”

“Father? Our father? Does he not know—”

“Nay, he does not! I did not tell him. I wanted him to change his mind without knowing the truth. ’Tis…a long, tragic story, but suffice it to say, he is demanding justice for a terrible crime.”

“And you’re going to let him kill our father.”

“Of course not! Even Adam does not plan such a thing. But an honorable combat cannot occur, and I desperately want him to realize that before we reach London.” She took her sister’s hands.
“Oh, Christina, he is such a good man, one who’s been treated badly throughout life. If he lets himself become bitter…’twill harm him in ways he cannot imagine.”

“You know this, because you never let yourself become bitter,” Christina slowly said.

“Bitterness kills a person’s spirit. I have always refused to live like that.”

Christina pursed her lips. “Another reason I always envied you,” she said dryly. Then her expression became worried. “But, Florrie, I was so shocked by what Claudius said, I may have reacted in a…confused way.”

Florrie stiffened. “What do you mean?”

“I hope I did not make Claudius suspicious about what I might know of you.”

“Oh,” Florrie breathed.

Christina suddenly gripped Florrie’s arm. “Hear you that?”

Florrie frowned, but in a moment’s silence, she heard what Christina was referring to. A man was calling Christina’s name.

Their gazes met in shared fear.

Florrie gasped, “Is that—?”

“Claudius!”

“Oh, he cannot see me, Christina!”

“Hide beneath the bed. I will try to stop him.”

Florrie nodded, only having time to squeeze her sister’s hand with gratitude. She dropped to her belly on the floor, then slid beneath the bed, disregarding her clean, new gown. She hoped the
shadows hid her, because she could still see the partially open door.

“Christina!”

She cringed at the arrogance and demand in her cousin Claudius’s voice.