A Fine Passion (42 page)

Jack blinked. “So if he had lived, you would have been speaking with him tomorrow morning.”

Dalzeil nodded. “On that you could have safely staked your estate.”

“So he had to die tonight.”

“Indeed. That, I assume, is why he was summoned to the Gala.”

“A place in which he would have imagined he was safe.”

After a moment’s pause, Dalziel mumured, “I fear, like many others, he underestimated his master.”

There was a quality in Dalziel’s voice that made Jack shiver. Even Pringle blinked.

Dalziel shifted, and the sense of menace dissolved. He looked at Jack, then smiled, and turned for the door. “If I were you, Warnefleet, I’d retire to the country forthwith. After this latest act of heroism, you’re going to be at the top of the young ladies’ lists.” At the door, Dalziel looked back, smiled cynically, and saluted him. “And for once, their mothers will agree.”

Jack blinked, stared, then closed his eyes and groaned.

Clarice had heard someone arrive, then heard him leave, but it wasn’t Jack. She couldn’t summon enough interest to look out.

She’d finished her cup of tea and was starting to drum her fingers on the chair arm when she heard two sets of footsteps descending the stairs. A moment later the door opened. Pringle entered, Jack followed.

She rose and offered her hand.

Pringle came forward to take it. “Just a deep cut. Nothing that won’t mend soon enough, as long as he doesn’t aggravate the injury.”

That last was said with a quizzical look at Jack.

Who met it blankly.

She thanked the doctor. Jack shook hands with him, and Pringle left.

“Now”—Clarice hitched her evening cloak over her shoulders, and picked up her reticule—“it’s time we headed back to Benedict’s.” So she could share her thoughts, her emotions, with him.

To her surprise, Jack frowned; he made no move toward the door. “Rather a lot of people saw us together tonight. Again. After last night, and tonight, perhaps it would be better if I remain here. I probably won’t sleep all that well, and Gasthorpe’s an excellent nurse.”

She fixed her eyes on his, drew in a deep breath, and managed, just, to keep her temper, to keep her swelling emotions in check. “My dear Lord Warnefleet, please understand this—there is
no way on earth
I am letting you out of my sight. Not tonight, not for the foreseeable future. Furthermore”—she drew in another huge breath—“regardless of Gasthorpe’s efficiency, I
defy
him to be better able to nurse you than I, and as for you suffering from any difficulty sleeping, I’m quite sure I’ll be able to find
something
to distract you from the pain in your shoulder, to exhaust you enough for you to fall asleep.”

Her voice had gained, not in volume but emphasis; to her horror, it threatened to quaver. She had to draw in another breath and hold it for an instant before she could ask, pointedly, “Are you ready to leave now?”

Jack blinked, studied her, and realized she was almost quivering, that a species of fine tension was thrumming through her. That she was seriously, deeply upset. “Yes. Of course. If you’re sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

She may be sure, but he wasn’t, not at all sure just what she was so upset about. It could be simple reaction, even compounded reaction to the events of the last two evenings. In what he suspected was typical Clarice fashion, she might have been bottling it all up inside, trying to be her usual tower of strength for everyone else.

In the front hall, he slung his coat over his shoulders, called a farewell to Gasthorpe, then took Clarice’s arm and guided her outside. In the street, he helped her into the carriage, then joined her, easing back against the squabs, aware of her watching him closely.

“It’s only painful if I press on it, or lift my arm above the shoulder.”

The wound truly wasn’t bad, more a nuisance, and none of the rest of him was injured in any way. However, as they rattled around to Benedict’s, he did wonder what the rest of the night might have in store for him.

As they turned into Piccadilly, he recalled Dalziel’s visit and mentioned it; without being asked, he related all Dalziel had said.

They passed close by a street flare as the carriage turned a corner; in its glare, he saw she was frowning.

Suddenly, she looked up at him, her face clearing. “Royce.”

He frowned. “Royce who?”

Her frown returned. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I ever did know. But that’s Dalziel’s Christian name, the one he goes by—Royce.”

Jack considered; after a moment, he shook his head. “Tracing one of the nobility on the basis of one Christian name is simply too hard.”

But he made a mental note to tell the others. One day they’d learn the truth, the whole truth, about Dalziel. Now, however, he had another, more immediate, equally difficult member of the nobility to deal with.

By the time Clarice had succeeded in bullying him up to her sitting room—directly, with no detour via the secondary stairs—he’d decided how to deal with her.

Directly, as direct as she usually was. In the instant he’d seen their late adversary poised to hurl a knife into her heart, he’d had a revelation sharp enough to qualify as Cupid’s dart.

In contrast, the impact of the knife had been rather anticlimactic.

Life was too short not to reach for love, not to seize it. If she’d changed her mind and decided to remain in London…she’d simply have to change it back.

In the carriage, he’d recalled her advice to Alton. People giving such advice usually spoke from their own perspectives.

So be it. He’d thought showing her how much he loved her would be enough, but…perhaps not. And if not, then…unfortunately, it was one thing to show her, another entirely to tell her. To say the words aloud. Doing so might well qualify as the hardest task he’d ever faced, but he would do it.

He had to; he had no choice.

It was that, or risk losing her, and the latter wasn’t an option.

Closing the door, he walked to the fireplace while she shrugged off her cloak and set her reticule aside. In the carriage, he’d debated letting her speak first, letting her release whatever it was that was so clearly brewing inside her, but then he’d remembered how she could rant and rave; very likely she’d distract him. Best if he grasped the nettle and spoke first.

He swung to face her as she neared, and trapped her gaze with his. “Before we get distracted with anything else, there’s something I want to say.”

She blinked, surprised, but then he saw a certain wariness creep into her dark eyes, eyes whose expression he could now often read.

He drew breath, and spoke quickly. “The truth is…I love you to distraction, and will move heaven and earth, and anything between, to make you mine.”

She blinked, no doubt recalling what were almost exactly her own words, but now he’d taken the plunge, he found the rest came more easily.

“I know that your family—Alton, Roger, Nigel, and all the rest—need you, that that need is real in its way, but I need you more.” He held her gaze steadily, and dropped every shield he possessed, every veil he’d used through the years to hide behind, something at which he’d grown exceedingly adept. “I have a manor house that’s been empty for too long, a rose garden with a bench that hasn’t had a lady to sit on it, to look over the blooms and play with her children, not for decades.

“I know you care for your brothers, your wider family. I understand what they mean to you, perhaps even more because I’m an only child. Indeed, because I understand, there’s nothing I want more in life than to have a family of my own, with you. A quiverful of children—little girls just like you, imperious and haughty, who’ll order me around.” He lifted his shoulders in a half shrug. “And a few boys, too, perhaps more like me, to keep you and the girls occupied arranging our lives.”

He saw the tears slowly fill her eyes, but didn’t pause, didn’t dare stop to learn why she was crying.

“I suppose I should adhere to the usual prescription, but that hardly seems applicable to us.” He drew breath, and hurried on, “I want you in every imaginable way, but especially as my wife. I don’t want some meek and mild miss, some simpering ninny. I want
you
, just as you are, the you others don’t understand and are wary of, the you I’ve seen so clearly over the last weeks—that’s the you I appreciate and want and need.

“I want you as you are, by my side for better or for worse, in sickness and in health.” He managed a small smile. “We’ve already encountered much of the worst of each other, and weathered it, and experienced sickness”—he gestured toward his head—“too. But more than all else, it’s you I want, not some marquess’s daughter, not a well-dowered bride, but just you.”

Reaching out, he took her hands, shifted closer, looking down into her eyes, swimming in tears. “You know what I am. I’m not any kind of gentle man. Through the centuries, Warnefleets have always been warriors. Because of that, I don’t need any gentle lady as my wife, I need you as my warrior-queen. For me, only you will do. You’re the only lady I’ve ever even dreamed of having as my wife.”

He dragged in a breath. “However, just so we’re clear, although I’m wealthy and wellborn, as you are, I don’t want to live a fashionable life in town. I’ve estates scattered the length and breadth of the country, and I enjoy running them, making them work. Taking good care of them, and the people they support. That, to me, is my rightful place. A touch medieval, perhaps, but if the cap fits…and in that respect, my wife needs to be an experienced lady I can rely on to sort out the roster for the church flowers, among other things.”

Although her eyes had filled, they hadn’t overflowed, but glowed through the tears, magical in their luminosity.

Hope welled. He essayed a small smile. “Do you think you could make do with that? With my heart, my love, and that?”

Clarice’s heart felt so full she could barely speak. It wasn’t his proposal that slayed her, but the manner of it, his laying of his warrior’s heart at her feet.

When she swallowed, and didn’t immediately answer, because she couldn’t yet speak around the lump in her throat, his face hardened, just a fraction. “Will you marry me, Boadicea?”

She tried to smile through her tears, but it must have been a poor effort, because his expression changed to one of incipient panic.

“If you really wish it, I can manage the estates from town—we could live there for most of the year.” He dragged in a breath. “If that’s what you want, I’ll do even that—anything—”

Pulling her hands from his, she waved them to cut him off. “No, no, no!” The words came out in a tear-sodden mumble.

His face fell. Then he blinked. “No to what?”

She managed to drag in a big enough breath, managed a real smile, a radiant one. “
No don’t spoil it
.” She looked deep into his eyes, saw his sudden panic evaporate as he looked into hers. “That was the most perfect proposal I could ever have hoped to hear.” She let all she felt show in her eyes. “I love you, you dolt. I’ve loved you for weeks.”

He grinned, and reached for her; she let him draw her into his arms. Reaching up, she traced his cheek. “I hoped, truly hoped that you’d ask me to marry you. I’ve never wanted to marry anyone else, not the way I wanted to be your wife. I was going to go back to Avening with you, then do whatever it took to extract a proposal from you.”

She tilted her head. “And if I failed, I was prepared to be your mistress for however long you wanted me. I’d rather be your mistress than any other man’s wife.”

His grin took on a distinctly male edge. He bent to kiss her; she placed a hand on his chest and pushed back.

“No—wait. Let me finish. I said I was
going to
wait and go back to Avening with you.” She paused to draw in a huge breath. “But last night, and even more tonight when that man threw the knife and I thought I might die, and then you hit me, and I thought
you
might die, and then the knife struck you, and that was even
worse
.”

She searched his eyes, saw nothing but love in the gold and green. “I was going to speak to you tonight, now. I was going to tell you how much I love you, that it didn’t matter if you didn’t want to marry me, but I had to tell you, had to own to it”—she felt the tears come again and fill her eyes—“because life’s too short to turn aside from love.”

He looked at her for a moment, then bent and kissed her eyes closed, kissed away the tears that seeped beneath her lashes.

“We’re not going to turn aside from love—we’re going to embrace it.” His words slid into her mind, into her heart as his arms slid around her and held her safe, close. Secure. “We’re going to go home to Avening and fill the manor with children, and grow old watching over them and managing our estates.”

Her arms stole around him and she sank against him, sniffed delicately. “What about Percy? He’s sweet, but…”

“You’ll cut him to ribbons.” Jack smiled against her hair. “You can help me choose which of my other properties to make over to him. I think he’ll do well, once he’s trained and has something behind him.”

She nodded. “Something that’s his.”

She drew back, and he let her. He looked down at her face, marveled at all she’d said, at all they’d shared. “You do know that I would trade everything that’s mine in this life, just as long as that meant you were mine?”

Clarice reached up and framed his face, looked into his eyes. “Take me back to Avening.”

He smiled, not his charming smile but the sincere expression that was so much more potent. “That will be my pleasure.”

She smiled back, slowly, tauntingly. “Indeed. That, too.”

Reaching up, she wound her arms about his neck, and drew his head down to hers. “But for tonight…”

Tonight, all that was left of it, was theirs. Theirs to share in a private celebration, and more, to go further, to take their first joyous steps into their joint future, to laugh, to play, to pleasure, to share.

In the soft shadows of her bedroom, in the warm jumble of her bed, they loved, and embraced all that flowed from that, that grew and burgeoned and welled from that. Carried in each caress, in every sighing kiss, in each moan, each surrender, the glory swelled, poured through them, filled them.