The Rogue's Surrender (The Nelson's Tea Series Book 3) (18 page)

Was this why Seaton hid from the world? She couldn’t live without affection, joy. “Nothing is ever lost that cannot be found.”

His devilish grin cut through her. “Spoken like a true revolutionary.”

“I am no such thing.” She had not and
never
would support Napoleon.

“Believe what you will.” He removed his hand and her skin chilled where his warm fingers had been. “Keep a fish out of water and see how long it will live.”

The irony didn’t escape her. But his honesty revealed something she hadn’t quite understood until now. He blamed her for having Spanish blood flowing through her veins.

She reached out, desperate to make him understand that she was different.

He flinched.

“There are some things worth fighting for, my lord.” Her heart ached at the injustice he’d been shown.

His throat bobbed uncontrollably as he swallowed. “Every battle has its price. There will come a time when you have to pay. Are you prepared?”

Was she? She’d promised her parents to withstand anything in the name of all that was holy and just. She’d proven she could and would sacrifice herself, if need be. But could she forfeit her parents... Eddie? Had she already done so? Her hand fell away.

“Someone must win. Someone must… lose.” His blue eye darkened as he pointed to his face. “Are you prepared for the alternative? Sleeping in the bed you made?”

Mercy was. She had to be. She had no other choice.

The carriage jolted to a stop. Seaton shifted positions, grabbed his cane, and waited for the door to open.

She grabbed his hand and glanced down at his fingers as she held them in hers. “I’m prepared for whatever I have to face.” Her voice cracked with emotion as she raised her gaze to his. “As long… as long as you are with me.”

“Me?” He blinked and gave a slight shake of his head.

“You have kept me safe so far.” She drank him in, hoping her admission revealed how high she’d placed him in her esteem.

He stared down at their joined hands before removing his fingers from hers. “I don’t know what you’re planning in that pretty little head of yours,
señorita
, but once you are safely under Blendingham’s protection, I intend to return to Talland Bay.”

“But you cannot,” she said too quickly.

“Oh, but I can.” He tapped her chin. “Once you are delivered, my mission is over.”

“We are spies, my lord. Our mission is never over.”

Devil damn me,
if I haven’t been unmanned!

Garrick broke free from Mercy’s enchanting eyes and stared at her desirable lips, wanting more than anything for time to stop so he could taste her sweet ambrosia. Even dressed as a dirty cabin boy, she was more desirable than any woman he’d ever known and he despised himself for it. The
señorita
stood for everything he wrestled against: hope, love, family, and unacceptable surrender. And yet her movements ignited erotic sensations that shot straight to his groin obliterating his good sense.

Hounds’ blood, he was a damn fool for allowing his body to rebel against him. For giving Mercy the idea that he would ever accept defeat. She was important to Melville, to Nelson’s Tea. He had no business luring her into making a mistake she’d never recover from.

Here. Now. Closely confined in the carriage with her, he understood all too well the stamina needed to maintain the vow he’d made on board the
Priory
. It had been too long since he’d been with a woman, not that the thought hadn’t crossed his mind. He could have appeased his lust on a willing tavern wench eager for blunt. He hadn’t felt the need until now — until Mercy. The ogling stares, shock, and horror his once-handsome face generated in the opposite sex sickened him.

Not so with Mercy. She had never once made him feel anything other than a whole man. When she looked at him, she didn’t see a demon. She saw through his pain to the flesh and blood man. Her acceptance, her very close proximity calmed him, making him no longer feel like a monster but the carefree man he had once been.

I’ve got to stop this before it’s too late.

Mercy tilted her head, eager for a kiss. She wanted him. The plea was in her eyes. He felt it clean through his bones. And oh, how he desperately yearned for her intoxicating elixir.

He tore his gaze away from her to study the door to Blendingham’s townhouse.

“I am sorry.” She placed the hat, Angus Fitzhugh had loaned her, on her head.

“Why?” He wasn’t.

“For drawing you back into all of this when you’ve already suffered so much.”

He lifted his hand to touch a wayward tendril of hair escaping her hat then immediately retreated. “You didn’t draw me into this, Simon did.”

Miserable now, he reached for the door. The sooner he got out of the carriage, the better. He couldn’t bear another moment intimately confined with the Spanish hoyden. She had an uncanny way of completely unraveling the complexities of his mind. A feat even he hadn’t been able to master.

The door handle clicked, and he immediately looked down, withdrawing his hand as the door opened and light enveloped the carriage interior.

“I say.” He hailed the footman. “You were interminably slow.” He descended the carriage steps then completely in character, turned back and motioned with his hand. “Come along, my boy. His Grace is a very busy man.”

Another spurt of brilliance simmered within Mercy’s eyes. She adjusted the cocked hat on her head and stepped out of the conveyance, acting as if nothing was amiss between them.

“Do you s’pose ’e’ll welcome a lowly boy like me, m’lord?” she asked for the driver’s benefit.

“Come.” Devil damn him, he preferred her delectable temptations to this ludicrous transformation. “Mind your manners. You are destined to meet a great man.”

She narrowed her eyes, nodded, wiped her mouth on her sleeve, then hiked up the belt around her padded waist before tipping her head to gaze up at the unblemished architecture of Percy’s townhouse, awe transforming her face.

Careful. Do not give yourself away.

What he wouldn’t give to have her look at him the way her gaze caressed the townhouse architecture. Garrick cleared his throat. “His Grace has extraordinary tastes, as you shall see, but there is one thing he despises. He doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

She’d soon discover what it meant to serve one’s king covertly, at the cost of public ridicule. Blendingham’s townhouse, built with rusticated stonework and semi-circular window tops, decorative garlands, fabricated columns, and molded cornices painted a lovely picture of domesticity and importance to the
ton
— Percy’s critical goal.

Garrick motioned her forward. They ascended the steps and approached the double oak doors to thump the grotesque brass lion knocker three times. Behind him, the coachman boarded his hackney seat then clicked his tongue, signaling the horses to advance. A whip flicked and soon the
clip-clopping
of horses’ hooves could be heard moving down the thoroughfare.

The front door opened revealing an average-sized man.

“Jeffers.” Garrick gave the butler a nod before handing him his card.

Jeffers expressed a stony acceptance. “Lord Seaton.” His narrowing gaze traveled past him to the waif standing several steps behind him.

Garrick ignored the servant’s deepening frown. Jeffers was Percy’s eyes and ears, a devoted bloodhound, a rarely-breached sentinel guarding the front gates of their one and only refuge. Crucial to cultivating Percy’s identity, Jeffers protected those who inhabited his domain. No one passed through the doors or matched the man’s quick wit or poisonous tongue, if the situation warranted it… not even the duke himself.

Today however, Garrick had the distinct impression Jeffers disapproved of the way he’d arrived with Constance’s cousin. For it was clear, the man had keenly distinguished the difference between a boy and a young woman in disguise.

Garrick cleared his throat. “Inform His Grace that I have returned.”

“Yes, my lord.” Jeffers nodded woodenly. He opened the door wide then outstretched his hand. “Do come in.”

Garrick brushed past the man, resisting the urge to behave like a gentleman and invite Mercy across the threshold ahead of him. No one traversing Hereford Street could know Lady Mercedes Catalina Vasquez Claremont had arrived on a privateering vessel without sufficient clothing due a woman of her station and without a proper escort.

He’d saved her life. She carried information vital to saving Melville’s. The least he could do was ensure she didn’t become the flagship for scandal. He owed her that much, if not more. If not for Percy, Constance wouldn’t have survived Lord Burton’s scandalous accusations or the gossipmongers eager to devour Burton’s rumors that she’d been rescued from the sinking
Octavia
by pirates. One ill-timed word could force those accusations into the light once more.

He swallowed, the sensation constricting his dry throat. Mercy’s situation ironically mirrored Constance’s. Who would step in to salvage Mercy’s reputation if word got out she’d arrived on a pirate ship? He certainly wasn’t high enough in rank to squelch those stories, and he was too dangerous, too unpredictable by far to contemplate marriage.

He frowned. The very idea of Mercy marrying someone else filled him with a raw possessiveness that squeezed the air out of his lungs.

Disgusted that he’d allowed Mercy’s marital prospects to intrude on his thoughts, Garrick stepped across the threshold and onto the Italian marble floor, expecting her to follow him into the foyer. She did, never once betraying the ruse they’d concocted.

“Lawd, but ain’t this a sight, m’lord?”

Jeffers shut the front door with a solid thud. Out of sight of passersby, he moved forward and smiled amiably. “Follow me, please.”

He led them through double beveled-glass doors which led to a Chinese wall-papered parlor. “I shall inform the duke and duchess of your arrival. Do make yourselves at home, providing, you do not get anything dirty.”

When the doors closed behind Jeffers, leaving them alone again, Garrick walked across the Turkish carpet to the bow window facing the street. He drew back the heavy slate-colored drapes and cast a glance outside at the busy thoroughfare. “You are safe now,
señorita
.”

“Safe,” she whispered, her voice no longer laced with the horrible cockney accent. “I am unfamiliar with that word.”

He fought for the right thing to say. “I’m sure.”

She ignored him. Preferring to glance about the room like a young woman who’d never witnessed such opulence until her wavering stare fastened on the portrait above the lyre-motif fireplace. She moved to stand before it.

She inhaled thickly then stretched out her hand toward the picture of Constance’s mother, Lady Throckmorton. “This can only be
mi tia
.”

Garrick nodded. “It is.”

Percy had commissioned an artist to copy a similar likeness of the portrait the Duke of Throckmorton kept in his study as an anniversary gift. “I’m told she was a memorable woman.”

“The only memories I have of her come second hand.” Mercy wiped her cheek and turned abruptly away. Was she crying? “My aunt was the only subject my parents argued over. Her death… well, it was many months before my mother spoke to my father again.”

There was no need to explain. He understood perfectly. His parents argued frequently but, at the end of each day, reconciled their differences in each other’s arms. Had the sacrifice Lady Lydia Claremont made by marrying the
don
created a permanent fissure between the
don
and his wife where her sister was concerned? Were Mercy’s parents happily wed? Or had Lady Lydia sacrificed all to be Simon’s eyes and ears abroad?

“Mother blamed herself for my aunt’s death,” Mercy confided. “By taking sides, traveling to Spain to help circumvent war, she left my aunt shortly before my cousin Constance was born. If not for my mother’s alliance, Olivia would never have attempted to cross the Channel with Constance. My aunt’s death, the resulting war, and the sacrifices we’ve made have haunted us deeply.”

Garrick tightened his fists. Could they be more alike than he’d first supposed? Was she just as scarred as he was but less visibly?

Mercy moved about the room, never once glancing back at Lady Throckmorton’s image.

“Leather and sandalwood reminds me of my
Papá
.” She sniffed the air then stroked the back of Percy’s chair, notably glancing down at several papers on the side table with interest. “This is a peaceful room. I’d like to imagine my cousins using it frequently.”

“It has its merits.”
Devil damn me, is the hoyden investigating her own relatives?
If he’d learned one thing about Mercy, she didn’t do anything without reason. He began to work his way toward her, intent on stopping her. Her tactics seemed off-putting. Percy was his friend, after all.

She raised her eyes. The despair reflecting in the dark orbs rooted him to the spot. “
Capitán
. Do you think I will ever see my parents again?”

What could he say? She was savvy enough to see through lies. He cleared his throat. “Don’t misjudge the
don
. He’s more resourceful than most.”

Conflicting emotions roiled inside him. How long had he lain in Delgado’s cell wondering if he would ever see his family again?
My family wasn’t in danger then. Mercy’s is now.

He flexed his fingers, itching to reach out and pull her toward him, to comfort her the only way a man sheltering a woman from grief could. But he was a monster — a monster no one wanted — a beast to be gutted like a fish.

Garrick examined her sultry pout. When he looked into her eyes, he wanted, more than anything, to promise her the world. That he’d move heaven and earth to reunite her with her family. But the truth twisted his gut like poison. He couldn’t make any promises. Unless the
don
was exceptionally crafty and had safely escaped, it was likely her parents were buried in a shallow grave, if they’d been given that much consideration.

“Your father assured me he would see you again.” The lie tasted bitter in his mouth. Her father had known the odds were against him living to see another day.

His poor attempt to comfort her hovered in the air as the parlor doors creaked and swung inward.

Jeffers postured smugly. “His Grace, the Duke of Blendingham and Her Grace, the Duchess of Blendingham.”

~~~~

A petite woman entered the room, wearing a sheer wrap cascading over a primrose gown, the bodice crisscrossing her breast with a darker shade of ribbon and matching buttons. Constance was exquisite, her blond hair arranged above her head in an artful coil with cascading curls framing her face. She was escorted into the room by a gentleman, nearly a head taller than she, wearing a crisply-starched cravat, tied to perfection.

Constance’s gaze flitted over Mercy then settled on Garrick. She smiled, her face radiating a happiness Mercy had rarely known.

The duke, in turn, his buff-toned breeches extending below a robin’s egg banyan threaded with silver throughout also smiled at the earl’s son. The action made the black mole strategically placed near his upper lip bob like a buoy and stand out against the powder applied to his entire face. On his head, he sported a perfectly coiled white wig that gave him added height, not that any was needed. The man had to be over six feet tall.

He cut a striking figure, and she found it hard to believe the Duke of Blendingham was as much of a popinjay as he was rumored to be.