The Wicked Widow Meets Her Match A Regency Rogues Novel (18 page)

“I will say that it does my heart good to know the doctor did not ruin you for love, though,” Mrs. Templeton added. “Mr. Templeton and I were afraid you wouldn’t be able to bear having a man so close again.”

“Yes, well, I suspect Mr. Clark does not feel the same for me,” Grace admitted reluctantly.

Mrs. Templeton sighed. “Than he is not the man for you. There is a whole world out there, my lady.”

But Grace did not want the whole world. She wanted Mr. Clark.

“If you do not pull your bloody head out of your ass, I will do it for you,” Niles threatened Langdon. “Give in, already. Before I suffer a second broken bone. Your cowardly ways are doing no one any good.”

They stood upon the
India Queen
’s deck as she made her way slowly up the Thames toward the dock. Darkness cloaked their arrival and the waterway was eerily silent. The Corinthians had boarded the ship at Weymouth and replaced the East India Company men with their own hired crew. “My head is not in my ass,” Langdon countered. “But my fist will be in your face if you do not leave off.”

Niles smiled widely, his teeth a brief flash of white in the inky night. “Sensitive subject?”

“Cowardly ways?” Langdon asked incredulously.

Niles shrugged off Langdon’s displeasure. “You heard me. And you know I am right. You cannot be the man you were before, but you’re afraid to move forward. Lady Grace represents a different future than you’d imagined. And that scares you.”

Langdon breathed in a draft of salty sea air. Niles was right. He clapped his friend on the back. “When did you become so wise?”

“Oh, I always have been,” Niles answered, gesturing to the docks as they came into view. “But my wisdom intimidated you.”

Langdon smiled. “Is that right?”

“Completely understandable, of course.”

The East India Company owned a line of docks along the Thames, just down from Clarence Street and the Mayberry district beyond. Langdon chuckled at his friend’s verbal jab as he considered the upcoming attack.

The Corinthians around the two men moved into place as the Company’s dock drew near.

“I might just hand you over to the Kingsmen myself,” Langdon threatened Niles while his friend pulled a knife from within his boot and tested the blade.

As the ship adjusted its speed in preparation to dock, Langdon suddenly felt very thankful for his friend. “Shall I ruin everything and say thank you for forcing me to see the fault in my thinking? And for nagging me until I did?” he asked Niles, unsheathing his knife and testing the weight of it.

Niles pretended to slit his own throat. “God, no. We are men, Stonecliffe. Save your pretty words for Lady Grace.”

“Very well,” Langdon replied, clapping his friend on the back once more.

The two watched as the crew rimming the perimeter of the ship began to throw the heavy lines out to men waiting on each side of the dock. What should have been impossible in fact began to take shape, the
India Queen
’s bulk reacting to the brute force of the men as they guided her safely in.

Niles returned his knife to the hidden pocket in his coat and offered his hand to Langdon. “Just in case you die a horrible death tonight, you should know working with you has not been the worst thing to happen in my life.”

“I thought we were dispensing with the pretty words,” Langdon said, taking Niles’s hand in his and shaking it.

“I like to keep you guessing, Stonecliffe,” his friend replied, then yanked his hand away and strode off toward the stern.

Langdon smiled at Niles’s uncharacteristically sentimental farewell as he scanned the shadowy wharf for any sign of additional men. Other than those assisting with the docking of the
India Queen
, no one appeared to be about.

“Are you prepared, sir?” one of a handful of agents aboard asked.

“The men are ready?” Langdon countered, continuing to look out into the dark night.

“And waiting, sir.”

“Then let us proceed.”

Langdon walked across the deck and waved for the men to move out of his way. “Wait for my signal,” he instructed them, then walked to where the men standing on the dock could see him.

“Long journey, eh?” one shouted by way of a greeting. He looked to be in his fifties, his face tanned and lined from too many hours in the salty sea air.

Langdon smiled in response, readying himself for action. “Too long.”

“Aye, the Company does not mind sending you halfway ’round the world, that’s for sure,” the man
said, offering Langdon a grin that revealed his six teeth. “My name is O’Donnell. Me and my men will get you started with the forward hull. Drop the gangplank.”

Langdon casually stretched, offering a large, lion-like yawn. “Do you know, I am too tired to go through the trouble of lowering the plank. I believe there is a better way.”

The man smiled a second time at Langdon and let out a bark of laughter. “Been drinking, have you? Do not blame you. In my sailing days the bottle’s the only thing that got me through.”

“Indeed I have,” Langdon said, reaching for the cask at his feet and lifting it so that O’Donnell could see. “The Company’s brandy is hard to resist.” He tossed the cask over the side of the ship and watched as it hit the water, then bobbed gently away.

O’Donnell’s friendly countenance turned hostile. His mouth dropped into a somber thin line and he widened his stance. “You’ll be paying for that out of your wages, of course. Now lower the plank before I lose my patience.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Mr. O’Donnell.”

Langdon raised his arm, the signal to his men. All at once, casks of brandy, reams of silk, and enough spices to make an insignificant country wealthy were flying from the men’s hands, over the side of the ship and into the deep waters of the Thames.

“Stop!” O’Donnell shouted as he reached into his coat pocket and produced a pistol. “That’s Company property!”

Langdon smiled down at him, as the man’s first shot narrowly missed. “You’re mistaken. This here
belongs to the Kingsmen. And we will do whatever we like with it.”

A second shot landed in the wooden railing near where Langdon’s hand rested.

A piercing whistle sounded and Langdon looked to where Niles stood at the stern. “Time to go,” his friend called, then gestured at the longboat that waited on the water.

Langdon turned back and saluted O’Donnell. “A pleasure doing business with you,” he shouted before signaling his men to abandon ship, making a run for the stern himself.

“I always did fancy myself a pirate,” Niles told Langdon as they reached the railing and prepared to jump.

“Why does that not surprise me?”

Langdon returned to Aylworth House from the wharf much calmer than when he’d left. Breaking Niles’s nose had felt good. Looting the ship even better. Telling Lady Grace of his feelings for her would be the best. But he wanted to compose himself first, to clear his mind and prepare for what would come next.

He’d decided to walk the library, the scent of old books pleasingly familiar and calming. One complete tour of the large room failed to prepare him. And so he ventured forth on a second.

A third trip around the room had him closing his eyes to see if he could navigate the enormous room blind. The tall French case clock in the entryway unknowingly
aided him when it chimed, announcing the two o’clock hour. The melodic tones allowed Langdon to orient himself in relation to the front of the house.

He was in the farthest, most northern corner of the room, nearing the end of his circuit, when a familiar feminine voice spoke behind him.

“I see you’ve come around to my favorite pastime.”

Langdon stopped walking at the sound of Grace’s voice and opened his eyes. “I’d no idea how useful pacing could be,” he replied, infusing his voice with a careless note. The sight of her took his breath away.

“Oh yes, quite useful,” Grace agreed, walking down the library carpet toward him, the golden light from the candlestick she carried softly illuminating her.

Her deep rose robe was tied at her waist with a satin ribbon, glimpses of the paler pink of her nightrail revealed as she walked. Her hair was loose, a thick mane of silk that fell past her shoulders, and she was barefoot, her small feet almost ghostly against the deep blue and gold of the carpet.

Botticelli? Yes, he thought, the Italian artist. Langdon had mastered the least amount of art knowledge he could, having never felt a particular affinity for the discipline. But something in Grace’s ethereal appearance certainly spoke to him.

Her eyes narrowed. “Are you well, Mr. Clark?”

“That depends.”

She held the candlestick aloft and studied him. “On what?”

Her clear concern shook him, even more than the pull of her curved, feminine body.

“On you.”

She took a slow step back, then another. “If I’ve done something wrong, please tell me what it is.”

“What could you possibly have done wrong?” Langdon asked.

“Please, Mr. Clark. Tell me what you mean,” she urged, taking a step toward him this time.

Langdon closed his eyes for a moment, afraid to begin. “I’ve been such a fool.”

Lady Grace set her candlestick on a nearby bookshelf. “In regards to what, Mr. Clark?”

“Not what, whom,” he gently corrected.

“May I assume you are speaking of me?” she asked, coming dangerously close to him.

“You may,” Langdon replied hesitantly. The room began to spin a bit. “I want you—need you. But I am afraid, Grace.”

She looked at him with surprise, then reached out and laid her palm on his coat, right over his heart. “I have been afraid as well. Terrified of my husband, of the men he worked for and the things I saw. But here you are. And here I am. I want you, too, Langdon. I need you. And I will not let fear keep me from you.”

Even through the layers of his coat, waistcoat, and linen shirt, her delicate hand branded his skin. He pulled in the intoxicating citrus and floral notes of her scent each time he drew a breath. Her face, so beautiful, so earnest, filled his vision. All he could feel, smell, hear, and see was Grace.

“I don’t know what comes next,” Langdon got out, his heart beating too loud in his ears. “I only can see right now. Right here, with you.”

Grace trailed her fingers from his chest up his throat
to his face to cradle his cheeks in her soft, warm hands. “That is all I need,” she whispered, then lifted on tiptoe and kissed him.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her against him. Lowering his head, he covered her mouth with his.

Grace succumbed to the urgent, hot seduction of his mouth, without a thought. She felt surrounded by him; his arms crushed her against the hard, heated length of his body and she wrapped hers around his neck in an attempt to get closer.

He tore his lips away, lifting his head just far enough to look down at her.

“I want you in my bed.” His voice was gravelly, smoky with passion.

Grace never thought to say no. Instead, she nodded mutely.

His eyes flared with heat and he caught her hand, grabbed the candlestick she’d set down, and tugged her after him, out of the library, to the stairway, and upstairs. The hallway was quiet, deserted, and they saw no one as they reached Langdon’s room.