The Return of the Prodigal (10 page)

“Good night, Rian Becket,” she said without inflection. “Sleep well.”

“I don’t think so, Lisette,” he said, turning onto his side, to look at her profile, backlit by the fire. “Shall we talk about Becket Hall?”

Her arms still crossed, she shrugged, as if it did not matter to her what he wished to discuss. “If it makes you happy.”

“It’s not me I’m trying to make happy, Lisette. You have questions about my home. I thought I’d try to answer some of them.”

“Very well,” she said, pushing herself up against the pillows. “You have three brothers and four sisters. But you do not have parents, correct? Your
maman
has been dead these twenty years or more.”

“And I don’t remember my father at all,” Spencer told her, pushing himself up against his own pillows. “I suppose he died when I was very young. I remember my mother, as I was all of nine years old when she died.”

“That must have been very difficult for you.”

Rian nodded in the near darkness. “It was difficult for a lot of us. We were at Mass. I remember my mother holding her Rosary and giving me one of her warning looks, because I was weary of kneeling and had begun to look around, had even pulled my birthday present, a knife, out of my pocket and begun playing with it. She was just warning me to behave when…when this loud sound came.”

“God, scolding you for not paying attention to the Mass?”

Rian smiled. “No, not God. I neglected to mention that my mother and I lived on an island in the Caribbean. An island attacked more than once by pirates.”

Lisette sat up very straight, her eyes wide. “Pirates! But they’re only in books, surely.”

“More and more, yes. But this was a long time ago, remember. I’m six and twenty now, Lisette. In any event, we were under attack from the water. But we were in the church, certainly safe in God’s house. Until the roof was hit, and collapsed on top of us.”

“Oh, no, Rian,” Lisette said, placing her hand on his bare stomach. “Were there many people in this church?”

“Enough. Mostly women and children.” Rian wanted to get past this part of his story quickly, because the memories still hurt. “Because we’d had some small warning, most of the children had been placed beneath the pews, or the mothers had covered them with their bodies. So it was the children, mostly, who survived. At least for a while, they survived.”

He paused, remembering what had come later, the final day on his new island home. The massacre engineered by Edmund Beales. By Nathaniel Beatty. The carnage, the deaths. The small, sail-wrapped bodies being slipped, one by one, into the sea as the survivors sailed to safety. No, he wouldn’t tell her that part.

“You survived,” Lisette said when he was silent for long moments. “Your
maman,
she saved you. She is in Heaven, Rian Becket, sitting at the Lord’s right hand.”

Rian smiled. “Thank you, Lisette, that’s a very kind thing to say. We were lucky, in a way, the survivors. There was a man, a very good man, who gathered us up, took us home with him. We were, he said, to consider ourselves his children, consider him our father. That man still lives. You’ll meet him when we get to Becket Hall.”

Lisette was staring at her fingers, weaved together in her lap. “And this man is Becket? And that’s why you are Becket?”

“Very good, Lisette. Yes, we’re all Beckets, brought to England as children, given a new life. All eight of us. Seven of us taken under Ainsley’s wing, Callie his own child. He gave us all a home, he gave us a name, and he kept us safe. I owe him everything, Lisette. My life, if he asked for it.”

“This makes me so happy, Rian, and yet so sad. It’s a sad story.”

“It’s a true story, Lisette,” he told her, watching her profile, unable to garner much from her expression. “My sister Fanny was also in the church that day, and lost her mother as well, although she was much younger, and doesn’t remember her mother very well at all.”

“And this Court? This Chance?”

“No, they weren’t in the church that day. They’d already been living on Ainsley’s island for some time. And, after Fanny and I and a few others, there was Spencer. My brother Spence. Ainsley, well, he was very good at picking up strays, giving them a home. My sister Morgan, as well. We ran the island like young savages, I suppose. But we were safe, happy.”

For a time. For a time, they’d been happy. Safe. Before Hell had come at them in the shape of Ainsley’s privateering partner, and the world had turned upside down once more.

“This Morgan, she is one of the four sisters, yes? And Callie, and Fanny. But there is one other?”

“Elly. She was the last to join us. She’s married now, but still lives at Becket Hall. So you see, Lisette, you have nothing to fear in coming with me to Becket Hall.”

“No, I suppose not. I will be just one more
stray
this Saint Ainsley allows into his home.”

“That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose,” Rian answered, smiling once more. “Now, tell me what else you feel you need to know.”

“I don’t know. I suppose I am nervous now, having to meet all of these people. Is it a big house, this Becket Hall?”

Rian closed his eyes, picturing his home in his minds’ eye. “Huge, actually. All weathered stone and windows too large to face the Channel winds the way they do. But Papa Ainsley wanted to be able to see the sea he swore never to sail again.” He stopped, realized he’d probably said too much. “There is also a small village nearby. Becket Village. I suppose we could have chosen another name, but this name is simple, sufficient. Just as we are self-sufficient. We came to Becket Hall from the island together, and we stay together, captain and crew.”

“A family,” Lisette said, nodding her head. “That is, I think, very nice. And Becket Hall faces the Channel. I remember some names from my lessons with my
papa.
Folkestone? Hythe? Hastings? They are all on the south coast, yes? Or Margate, is it? This place called Ipswich? All such harsh names on the tongue, unlike our Boulogne-sur-Mer, or Le Havre, or even Cherbourg. Calais. These roll off the tongue. I speak English because of my father, but French is so much more…melodic.”

She pushed, but so prettily. No wonder he had been fooled for so long. “None of those, Lisette. We’re very much to ourselves, along the southern coast. The back end of beyond, some would say. You’ll see soon enough.”

“Yes, I suppose I will. And I will thank this Ainsley Becket for saving you that terrible day. Thank you for telling me about your family, Rian. I am much less nervous now.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Good night.”

The right side of Rian’s mouth lifted in a smile. “Good night? That’s it, Lisette? A kiss on the cheek, and good night? We’re having an adventure here, aren’t we? Braving dangers together, fleeing from a bad, bad man. Sharing the same bed. Surely a good story, such as the novels the wives sneaked into the convent, would end better than this.”

Lisette rolled her eyes, sighed. “You only remember what I wish you would forget. Very well, Rian, since you have told me about your
maman,
I will tell you about mine. It is only fair.”

“It also wasn’t what I had in mind,” he told her, grinning at her. “But all right, Lisette. Tell me about your
maman.
”

She pulled one of the pillows from behind her, to hug it tight to her chest. “She was beautiful. The most beautiful woman in the entire world, with the face of an angel. Her laughter was like the ringing of small bells. She could dance, and sing, and draw pretty pictures. She smelled like flowers when she held me, and danced barefoot on the sweet spring grass with me, and told me fanciful stories about handsome princes and fairy castles. And she loved me. She loved me very much, Rian Becket. I…I dream about her all the time, and then she is still with me. I close my eyes, and I can see her. Like now.”

Rian sat very still, unwilling to disturb Lisette as she closed her eyes, smiled like a child being offered a treat.

She put down the pillow at last, sighed as she looked at him. “I’m never lonely when I think of her. Never alone.”

“And your father, Lisette?”

She lowered her gaze. “He loved her, too. He loved us both, very much.”

“Neither of them would be too pleased with me, then, would they?” Rian commented, feeling ashamed of himself, of what he’d done, the liberties he’d taken with this beloved child of dead parents. No matter what she was now, what circumstances had brought her to this point, no matter who she worked for, she had once been a beloved child. “I’m sorry, Lisette. Some mistakes can’t be fixed.”

“You mean—” she waved her hand in the general direction of the bed, of the two of them sharing that bed “—this? This was my choice, Rian Becket, my decision.”

“Was it, Lisette? Your decision?”

She pulled the coverlet higher against her breasts. “You did not force me at gunpoint, Rian Becket.”

He nodded his agreement. “No, I didn’t. In fact, I can’t really remember you coming to my bed. Just you…being there. It felt good. To be able to reach out, touch someone. Hold someone, be held. To feel alive. You probably saved me, Lisette. But at what price to yourself?”

She looked at him, her eyes wide. “You don’t remember? What don’t you remember? That I came to you a virgin? Is that what you’re asking me?”

“No, no,” he said quickly. “I remember that. What I’m trying to say, Lisette, is that for whatever reason you came to me, the result is that we will marry when we reach Becket Hall. I owe that to you. And to your parents.”

She said nothing. She didn’t even blink, but just stared at him. How would she answer him? How far was this woman prepared to go, to insinuate herself to him, to his family? How deeply did her treachery run? And why?
Why?

“You are a very nice man, Rian Becket. I will think about your kind proposal.
Bonne nuit.
”

And then, as Rian watched, amazed, she plopped the pillow back behind her, turned on her side, away from him, giving him every indication that she was planning to go to sleep.

The hell she was! She was in his bed, where he wanted her to be. He was aware now that she wasn’t as pure and innocent as he could have hoped. But, somehow, that made her all that much more exciting to him. Besides, may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb…

He turned on his side, shaking off the small towel that was still wrapped around the stump of his left forearm, and eased his lips against the soft skin of her neck. “But I’m not sleepy, Lisette.”

“I am so sorry for you. There is still the laudanum.”

“No, not that. You’re the drug I need, Lisette,” he breathed against her ear. “What if we were to be discovered, hmm? What if this is to be our last night together? I want you, Lisette. I want to feel you beneath me.”

“Rian, don’t. Please…”

He pushed the tip of his tongue into her ear, moved it in a small circle, then trailed it down the side of her throat, blew his warm breath against her skin. Calculated seduction. And very enjoyable.

“I want to be inside you, my sweet Lisette. I want to watch as the center of your lovely blue eyes go black with passion, as you hold on to my shoulders, as you whisper my name in wonderment, as the waves take us, smash us, again and again, against the rocks….”

She abruptly turned to him, so that he fell back against the pillows, found himself looking up at her, at the curtain of living gold hair that fell front, almost touching his shoulders. “You are an evil man. Evil, evil,
evil.
”

And then she kissed him.

His arms came up to encircle her, hold her in place as he ground his mouth against hers, eased his tongue into her moist sweetness, and they began the duel that was their association with each other. Hot, fierce, tangling, fighting, a sensual battle that beat the world from their door, took them into their own world, where he was whole, where, hopefully, she was not alone…

She was all heat and passion, and he didn’t have time to think about the loss of his hand, because when he touched her, he could swear he still had two hands. His senses felt her, even if five of his fingers could not.

When he held her, there was no yesterday, no tomorrow. No thoughts of deceit, of treachery. No beginning, no end.

Just Lisette. Just her body, warm and yielding beneath his.

Just her soft moans, her delighted gasps, her daring touches in response to his own as their clothing melted away.

Tomorrow, he would think. Tomorrow, he would question.

Tonight, he would hold his Lisette. He would kiss her, again and again and again. He would touch her, stroke her, feel her flower beneath him.

Make her want him…make her trust him…make her question what she was doing, why she was doing it.

He eased her onto her back, leaning over her, balancing himself on the stump of his left forearm, not even considering that she might see it, might be disgusted by it. Not his Lisette. Not now, when she looked up at him, moved below him, dared him to take her to new heights.

He bent his head, kissed her breasts; first one, then the other. Drew his tongue between the soft mounds while looking into her face, watching as her eyelids closed slightly, her expression increasingly soft, dreamy.

Moving himself lower, he continued to kiss her. Her soft belly. He pushed his tongue into her navel, let her feel the slight roughness of it as he pushed at her, as she moaned quietly, as if he had touched her in a way that set off small pulses of sensation lower in her body.

And then he neared his goal, even as Lisette’s body stilled, stiffened. More kisses, soft words of encouragement, all meant to relax her, to make her trust him, trust in the unknown.

Oh, God.

He fastened his mouth on her, suckled at her sweetness, gloried in the way she opened her thighs to him, allowed him every intimacy.

He took her high, higher. Took her over, so that she cried out his name, grabbed wildly at his hair, attempted to pull him back up to her.

But he wasn’t done. No, not yet.

Again. He needed to take her there again. To the top of the wave, its very crest, and then send her dashing down toward the shore. To him, her safe harbor.