Always a Temptress (31 page)

“Kate?” Bea’s voice sounded small and anxious.

Kate shook her head and opened her eyes. Bea needed a smile, so she gave her one. “I’m giving thanks,” she said. “I believe we’re finally getting the house back to ourselves.”

Her house that would suddenly seem empty. Oh, why had she insisted on making love? It was making everything so much worse.

With an impatient shake of her head, she stalked over to her desk. She had just addressed a note to Drake when the front door slammed and she heard raised voices that sounded suspiciously like Braxton and Chuffy.

“Give me some help with your master!” Kit bellowed.

Kate was up and running for the door. “Deuce take it,” she snapped, wishing she didn’t sound so frightened. “Now what?”

B
y the time she could talk to anyone about her discovery, two hours had passed, and Mike O’Roarke was back in Harry’s bedroom.

“What do you mean he fell off his horse?” Kate demanded of Kit. “Harry rides better than Grace.”

It was Harry who answered, his voice faint as Mike prodded his chest. “It’s nothing. Something spooked Beau.”

Kit snorted. “That horse went mad, right in the middle of Hyde Park. Knocked Harry against a tree.”

Kate took to rubbing her forehead. From the looks of Harry when he’d been carried him up the stairs, he was going to be confined to that room for a good few days. Which meant that she didn’t dare tell him about her discovery. If it turned out that the only copy left of
Virtue’s Grave
was locked in that priest hole, she was the only one left who knew how to find it. And Harry would climb back on that blasted horse and ride for Hampshire before he’d let her go.

Just the idea terrified her.

An hour later, Mike verified her conclusion. “He’s broken at least two ribs, besides undoing all my good work, and he has a concussion for himself. He’s to go nowhere for at least a week.”

Kate’s only option was to send for Drake, who arrived far too quickly.

“Explain,” he said when she walked into her Chinese salon to find him pacing.

“Which?” she said. “Harry’s continuing bad luck, or my inspiration?”

“I already found out about Harry. Someone inserted a large needle beneath his saddle, probably in the park. What about the verse?”

But Kate was distracted by the idea that someone had sabotaged Harry’s horse. “Why him?” she demanded, already headed for the door. “I’m the one they’re after!”

Drake caught her and redirected her to the couch. “And Harry is protecting you. Divide and conquer was old before the Romans. Now please. Tell me of the verse.”

She sat down, still distracted. What a good idea that she had decided to distance herself from Harry, she thought sourly. Otherwise she’d be frantic over his continuing danger. She would be preoccupied and panicky and plagued with a racing heart.

“Kate?”

She looked up, startled, to find her hand pressing against her racing heart. “Oh. Yes.” Quickly she explained about
Virtue’s Grave
. Drake listened without expression, his eyes focused on the fireplace until she’d finished.

“You’re sure this is where the verses have come from.”

She nodded. “I can’t believe I didn’t recognize them right away. The line was misspoken on the flask, you know. There it says, ‘Is not the fruit sweet, my first love?’ The real poem reads, ‘Is not the
first
fruit sweet, my love?’ I’d think it was a mistake, but the second quote is wrong, too. ‘Not all of me shall die’ is actually ‘Not a bit of me shall die.’ I can’t remember the reference.” She grinned. “Only the more suggestive couplets. The flask quote, by the way, is taken from one of my favorite couplets. ‘Is not the first fruit sweet, my love, when plucked by my own hand.’”

“And you think your uncle the bishop had been using it to come up with these signals.”

Kate shrugged. “Seems awfully coincidental otherwise. The book was in his childhood home, and I sincerely doubt many other people know about it.”

Drake sighed. “I’ll tell Diccan to look. You didn’t see it, obviously, in the things you went through.”

Kate shook her head. “Trust me. I would have remembered.”

“I don’t suppose it could still be at Moorhaven. If Diccan doesn’t find it with his father’s things…”

“Unless Glynis redecorated the priest hole, I’d say it’s a good chance.” Kate did her best to seem unaffected. “I get to attend my niece’s engagement weekend at Moorhaven Castle after all. Glynis will be so pleased.”

Drake reached for her hand. “We’ll do everything we can to protect you, Kate.”

She looked up with a smile. He couldn’t protect her from her own nightmares. “Don’t worry. I’ll manage. Just keep Harry out of it. He isn’t up to it right now.”

Drake squeezed her fingers. “We’ll do our best.” He’d just stood to leave when he smiled. “One bit of good news for you. Lady Riordan is safe.”

Kate’s head snapped up. “Where?”

He shook his head. “Safe. She thanks you with all her heart. We do, too.”

“How did you get her out without them knowing?”

He looked far less sanguine. “Someone took her place.”

Kate felt her heart slide into her shoes. She had a terrible feeling she knew who it was. Lady Riordan was buxom and blond. “Then we must be quick about recovering that book. Were any of the other wives there? The ones assumed dead?”

For a second, he looked off, his expression flat. “One. All perfectly legal. The administrator says that the Tudor rose they use comes from the family who first owned the house. It means nothing.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“No. But powerful people are involved in that place. We have to step carefully.”

Kate’s laugh was hollow. “How nice that they have a place to hide their inconvenient women. Cowards.”

In the end, Kate was glad she’d spent so much of her life dissembling. It helped protect her new secret from Harry, and mask her renewed fear at his injuries.

“You have fallen into some bad habits, Harry,” she said as she considered the fresh bruising on his scowling face. “Am I going to have to provide you a nanny?”

“I’ve been trying to tell these
women
to give me my pants back,” he snarled, his focus on Chuffy and Kit, who lounged by the window sharing Harry’s brandy.

“Be happy to,” Chuffy assured him. “Soon as you can stand up to put them on.”

Kate ended the argument by retrieving the pants from where they were slung over an Adam chair. “No, it’s back to being a man of leisure for you, my lad.”

At least Dr. O’Roarke prescribed beefsteaks to eat, although even they didn’t improve Harry’s mood. Undoubtedly, Kate thought, because he was still incarcerated in his own home, where he couldn’t avoid his wife.

How could she allow that to hurt so much? She was stronger than that. She had survived too much to let a fleeting bit of happiness bring her low. So she pretended she was unaffected, and chatted with Harry’s friends until Mudge returned with a meal.

How could he tolerate it, she wondered, being so close to Harry all the time and knowing that it was pointless? How could he torment himself like that, day after day, year after year, knowing how hopeless it was?

She couldn’t do it. She
wouldn’t
. And yet when Harry offered a reluctant invitation to dine, she accepted and spent the next hour torturing herself with his company.

The irony became unbearable when later she stopped by to make sure he was settled for the night. He caught hold of her hand, his expression regretful.

“You didn’t sign on to be my batman,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“I signed on to be your wife,” she answered, “which includes all manner of jobs.”

“You’re all right?”

She couldn’t help it: She looked into his eyes for some hidden meaning. But he seemed to be merely considerate. “A bit tired of starts and alarms,” she admitted, shrugging. “But that isn’t something I anticipate lasting overlong. Get some sleep.”

Still he seemed unable to let go of her hand. Again she held her breath, wondering if he would make a declaration. He made a declaration; just not the one she’d hoped for.

“I sold my commission today,” he said.

She blinked.
Here it comes
, she thought.
He’s about to tell me that as soon as he’s able, off to Istanbul he goes
. “What about Mudge? Isn’t he still in the army as well?”

Harry’s smile was gentle. “I’ve arranged for him to do whatever he wishes. He’s certainly earned it, don’t you think?”

She could see now the mistake she’d made. She had hoped that Harry had been so generous and devoted to her because he might be coming to love her. The truth was that he was just a generous man. She felt like weeping.

“I don’t think he belongs in the army,” she said instead.

“I agree with you. Men like Mudge don’t fare well among the troops.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “You know, of course.”

But did he know that he was the one Mudge loved?

“It’s why I brought him off the line. Mudge is a good lad. Not his fault he…”

“Loves a man.”

Harry cocked his head, his expression complacent. He didn’t know, then. Poor Mudge. Poor both of them, waiting for signs from Harry that would never come.

“Harry,” she said, looking down to where his square, callused hand held hers with such gentleness. “Drake thinks he’s found the poem. He’ll fill us in soon. You know what that means.”

She looked up, but he didn’t answer. His eyes were so vastly dark, she thought. So uncertain, which was unrecognizable on Harry.

She took a steadying breath. “I know you’re itching to get out on the road. The minute Drake has his evidence, you and I need to sit down and decide what
we’re
going to do.”

“What do you—?”

She shook her head. “Not now. We’re both exhausted. But I do want you to know that you really did set me free last night. The least I can do is the same for you.” Reclaiming her hand, she bent over and kissed him good night.

“Kate—”

But she couldn’t bear to turn around. She didn’t want him to see her tears.

Harry stared after Kate’s departing back, trying to understand what had just happened. Had she really told him to leave?

Unable to take his gaze off the connecting door, he thought back over the last few days. He remembered the delicious hours spent teaching Kate the wonders of her own body, and his own battered body ached with need. He wanted her again. He wanted her constantly. He wanted to help her remember the joys of lovemaking.

But he wasn’t just considering lovemaking. If he stayed, he would be resigning himself to his own prison. He would be tying himself to Kate, to Bea and family and Eastcourt and England until he forgot how to dream.

Just the thought sent his stomach lurching. He felt the weight of his future dragging him down, responsibilities settling like rocks in his chest. He’d carried those rocks for years, men he’d commanded, enemies he’d killed, lies he’d told, and letters he’d sent to grieving parents. He was so tired of carrying the burden of others.

But Kate would be so much worse. He thought of Lady Bea’s analogy about Kate. “Bone fine china.” A strong woman with surprising vulnerabilities. A woman just on the threshold of discovery. Did he want that responsibility, too? Bringing her step by step past the violence and neglect that had shaped her? Cushioning her inevitable hurts and protecting her from disappointments?

The weight of her was so different: sweeter, sharper, more deadly. She was the weight, not of simple duty, but of need. Of want. She had already begun to settle into his soul. If he let her bind him to her, he would never again be able to ignore her or forget her or put her down like a half-finished book. He would never be his own person again.

But did it have to be like that? Would he really be a prisoner? Couldn’t he find real purpose and freedom by her side? He couldn’t mistake the fact that Eastcourt was special. When he sat down to study the estate books, he could almost feel the vitality that infused the place. Kate hadn’t just recovered it. She had resurrected it and the people. Surely there was a way for him to make his own mark.

Construction. Additions. He could see a series of connected greenhouses in his head, open and airy and impervious to weather. He could see…

Dusty roads. Silence. Peace.

Kate.

She would certainly steal the silence. She had already shattered his peace. But what if he asked her to walk those lonely roads with him?

Why hadn’t he thought of it before? Would she want to go to India? Or Greece or Ceylon or, maybe one day, Japan, where he’d heard houses were made of paper? Would she give up the home she’d worked so hard to build just to gad about with him? He knew he should have already asked her. He should have answered her declaration of love with the question, “How much?”

She was right, he thought as he closed his eyes. They needed to sit down together and negotiate a future. Give her a couple more days, he thought, settling into sleep. Then he could begin his campaign to find the compromise that could sustain this marriage of two disparate people. He would seduce her, as surely as he had in bed, into dreaming of sailing ships and exotic lands.

Drake returned two days later. Kate made sure Harry was still in bed when he arrived. The last thing she needed was for Harry to find out what she was up to. He would try to follow, and he wasn’t physically ready for it yet.

“Breakfast?” she asked as Finney showed Drake in. “I was just about to sit down with Bea.”

His eye on Bea, Drake hesitated, his uncertainty easily telegraphed.

“Marcus,” Kate admonished. “If you can’t trust Bea, you might as well keep secrets from yourself.”

With a wry grin, Drake took his seat. Kate waited until he’d made inroads into his shirred eggs before speaking. “Diccan hasn’t found the book, has he?”

Drake poured cream into his tea. “He’s still looking. If his father had it, he hid it. Not quite the thing to share with one’s wife, especially if you’re a bishop.”

Kate smiled. “The bishop was ever protective of his reputation. Which makes me wonder why he picked that particular book to use as a code.”

Drake shrugged. “The rarity, I imagine. He could be fairly certain no one else had a copy but himself.”

“There
were
two other copies,” Kate reminded him.

“Which makes us more hopeful there is one left for you to retrieve.”

She looked down at the eggs and gammon she had automatically piled on her plate and realized that her appetite had fled. She was going to do what she’d once sworn never to do again: She was going to Moorhaven. Ah, how soon vows are forgotten.

“Well,” she said, setting her napkin on the table. “I’d better tell Bivens to pack. Isn’t it serendipitous that this is the exact weekend Elspeth is to have her party.”