Once a Rake (Drake's Rakes) (14 page)

For now, all he could do was wait and plan. How to get out. How to get help. How to get that bastard Stricker. Ian had survived too much over the years to let one nonentity of a low-level secretary bring him down.

The question, though, was how the little snirp had gotten hold of the flask. The last time Ian had seen it, Marcus Drake had held it in his hand. The Rakes had gathered to consider the mystery of the thing, a seemingly innocuous trinket that had been more ferociously sought than Wellington’s battle plans. Drake had said that he was handing the flask over to Horse Guards, so the government could decipher its import.

How had it ended up in Stricker’s possession? Who in the government had intercepted the thing? Or, he thought, considering the only British aristocrats he chose to call friends, could one of the Rakes themselves have turned coat?

No. He would not accept it. He knew them too well. He trusted them, and trust was a hard thing to earn from Ian Ferguson.

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the flask he’d carried from the
Reliance.
This, then, was the crux of the matter. An enigma wrapped in a mystery. An easily overlooked item that, passed from one hand to another, seemed to signal action.

Absently he flicked open the back of the flask and held it so the faint light washed over the small portrait inside. Sarah was right. The woman in this painting was beautiful.

Blond, voluptuous, with the kind of blue eyes and coy smile that toppled men like trees. A perfidious enemy who had almost singlehandedly toppled the Rakes.

Ian had spent the last eleven days focusing on her face so that when he saw it again, he could stop it. He could put a bullet right between those laughing blue eyes and end the evil that crouched behind. Right after he wrung every secret from her he could.

The problem was, here in the dark and cold, it wasn’t the beautiful blond face of Madame Ferrar he kept seeing. He was plagued by the memory of a truer face, a less beautiful face. Quiet beauty drawn in simple strokes and painted in softer colors.

A casual acquaintance would not see Sarah Clarke’s beauty, because it required study. It
deserved
study. A chance-met person would see plain brown hair, a heart-shaped face and pleasingly rounded body. That person wouldn’t notice the warmth of the mossy green eyes, the sharp intelligence and compassion in their depths. He wouldn’t be permitted contact with that soft body to realize what a pillow of comfort it was.

He was mad. He knew it. The last thing he could afford right now was to be so drawn to any woman. He needed to heal. He needed to get away from this refuge before he was discovered. He needed to warn Wellington, clear his name, and keep his promises to his grandfather, including the one to marry Lady Ardeth Langstrom. Sarah Clarke needed to hold on to her estate until her husband returned.

It was then Ian knew that he was unredeemable. Because all he could think was that he hoped that husband never came home.

Chapter 7

It took Sarah all of two hours to finally escape the house again without being seen. The door to the cellars was right where George said it would be, tucked behind the bushes that masked a hollow in the steep hillside. Sarah couldn’t believe it all hadn’t simply slid down the undercliff any time this past decade.

Feeling unbearably stretched by the day she had already passed, Sarah found herself prey to nastily swinging emotions as she passed Boswell’s arbor, from unwarranted anticipation to perfectly excusable dread to all-too-familiar guilt. She kept wanting to look over her shoulder as she negotiated the door with an arm full of lanterns, nostrums, and food, as if expecting Boswell to catch her out in her anticipation of seeing Ian. Then, two feet into the tunnel, she walked right through invisible spiderweb. It was almost the last straw.

She was still making jerky swipes at her hair when she reached the main part of the cellars. “Four years I have lived in this house,” she muttered, stumbling on the uneven stone. “Four years, and I had no idea this was here. None. Boswell didn’t tell me. His mother didn’t tell me. Old
George
didn’t tell me.” She shuddered. “I hate spiders.”

Ian’s voice came out of the darkness. “My intrepid Sarah afraid of an arachnid?”

“Absolu…good heavens,” she exclaimed, finally realizing that the Stygian gloom wasn’t merely a contrast to the outside sun. “Did George not leave you a lamp?”

“Nothing but a ha’penny candle,” Ian said, sounding so forlorn Sarah almost smiled. “And that lasted no more than an hour.”

He was on his feet, Sarah realized, leaning against the stone wall. Odd, she thought, standing perfectly still, she didn’t need light to locate him. She didn’t even need his voice, which echoed around the cavern like a ricocheting bullet. She could
feel
him, a physical force. Heat, life, power. Sunlight against the eyes of a blind woman.

The sensation so distracted her that she almost missed the sound of a weapon being uncocked. “Is that a gun?” she demanded, peering into the impenetrable gloom.

She heard him shuffle. “George left me his pistol. We weren’t sure who’d be comin’ to visit, were we?”

“Well, I have brought no one with me but the odd spiderweb, so you may sit.”

She heard him ease himself onto the floor and made for that direction. Except for the pitifully small light thrown off from her lantern, it was black as pitch down here.

“Since you’re back I assume everything went well with the army?” he asked.

She felt guilty again. His question was offhand. His tone of voice was anything but. “Oh, yes. By now they are undoubtedly enjoying a wet down at the Three Tuns.”

Catching sight of a jumble of blankets on the floor, she set down her supplies. “I cannot believe George left you in the dark.”

“He said there were no lanterns down here.”

“He lied. If those bundles and barrels are what I think they are, he would make certain there is quite enough light down here. He just doesn’t like you.”

“I figured that. Right about the time he threatened to prevent future generations of Fergusons if I brought you to harm.” It sounded as if he smiled.

Pulling out her tinderbox and setting to work, Sarah smiled back. “George feels the need to protect me while Boswell is gone.”

“I see.” There was no mistaking that tone of voice either.

“No, you don’t. George is Boswell’s brother.” She tilted her head, amused. “We seem to be awash in by-blows in Dorset. Fortunately for George, no one minds.”

“Especially if he supplies them with brandy.”

She grinned. “You’re beginning to think like a Dorsetman, Colonel.”

“Ian.”

Light flared, and she set about lighting her lanterns. Leaving one on the floor, she lifted the other high enough to illuminate this section of the undercroft. Low-vaulted brick chambers bled damp from the walls. Well-packed dirt floors spread out in all directions. Sarah walked the corners to orient herself and counted at least a dozen lanterns hung from hooks driven into the brick.

She had walked far into the dark when she stumbled over something. Lowering her lamp, she highlighted the uneven floor. Her breath caught in her chest. Spilling out from behind a little outcropping were the remnants of supplies: more blankets, a pewter mug, and a plate. An untidy pile of cast-off stockings, as if someone had hidden down here in the darkness. Sarah felt the shock back up in her throat.

Oh,
she thought, her heart clogging with old, thick pain.
So this is where he was.

“Sarah?”

Briefly squeezing her eyes shut, she turned her back on the telling little cache and returned the way she’d come. Hanging her lantern from a hook, she stopped a moment to consider what else cluttered up the cellar. Packing crates shared space with a mountain of barrels, all tucked neatly beneath the arching supports.

“I should toss everything in a pile and burn it,” she muttered, hands on hips.

Ian grinned. “You might want to remember that these barrels are full of brandy.”

“Good thing for George,” she huffed, and began lighting more lanterns. “I would hate to risk the house.”

“Good thing for me too,” Ian admitted. “I’m not movin’ vera fast right now.”

“Oh, I don’t know. You were moving pretty quickly a while ago. I believe you cost George a year of his life.”

His chuckle was a bit mad. “Never underestimate the element of surprise, lass.”

She was grinning again, an odd effervescence building in her chest. “Well, you certainly surprised me. I cannot remember anyone taking George down.”

He huffed. “No sailor could stand up against a Highlander.”

Closing the last lantern, she blew out her spill and turned back. “If you shared that sentiment with George, it shouldn’t surprise you that you are currently making a bed of the floor.”

“Oh, it’s nae bother. I’ve slept on the ground before.”

“I imagine you have.” Retrieving her pail, she turned to Ian’s care. “I made up another poultice for your side,” she said, pulling out a covered bowl. “This infection worries me. How are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve been strapped to the end of a twelve-pounder.”

“But do you feel any better?” She took her first good look at him. “Good heavens, you’re wet. Did you bathe?”

He should have looked pitiful, sitting there in the corner on the little nest he’d made from his blankets. Sarah’s heart did clutch uselessly at the sight of his pale, drawn face. But his hair curled in damp disarray at his neck, which gave him a piratical look, especially with that scruff on his face. How could so ill a man look so virile?

His mouth was canted in a wry grin that took her breath. “George said he refused to allow me in his good clothes until I didn’t reek like last week’s fish. There seems to be a spring in that hollow before you reach the cellar.”

“Yes, so I found.” Her boots were soaked. “Well, here,” she said, rummaging for a towel. “Dry your hair.”

She wished the soft cotton shirt he wore had a neck cloth. As it was, once again she could see a glimpse of Ian’s chest, and that intriguing little notch at the base of his throat, which seemed to deepen as he raised his hand to rub at his head. For some reason, just the sight of it sent her pulse racing again. There was something so erotic about that little hollow, so intimate, as if it was made just to dip one’s tongue into.

She froze, mortified. Good heavens, where had that thought come from? Perhaps the low light was a godsend after all. She thought she was blushing to her toes.

Bending to work, she cleared her throat. “I will ask again. Are you feeling better?”

His smile was blinding, even on half power. “Now that I can see you.”

She huffed impatiently so he couldn’t see how his words affected her. “Well, at least your tongue is still well-hinged.”

Suddenly she was nervous. Shy, as if she had never cared for a man before, never seen a naked chest or touched bare skin. There was something about this man, though. That life force drew her to him, a primal power that both attracted and disturbed. That deadly half-smile that took the stuffing from a girl’s knees. She wanted so badly not to be so attracted to him. To feel nothing but a stranger’s concern.

If only he still smelled rank. But he didn’t. He smelled like lye soap and tobacco. If he could have been thin and unprepossessing like Stricker. Like, God help her, Boswell. But he wasn’t. Ian Ferguson was broad and hard and muscled. He was the size of a man who could cushion falls, who could ward off pain and provide protection.

He was everything she had never had the courage to wish for.

“Sarah?”

Ian’s voice startled her. His touch electrified her. He had reached out a hand to brush a strand of hair from her forehead. She felt as if she had caught lightning. Looking up, she realized that he was just as startled. His hand hovered an inch from her face.

She leaned back. “Uh, sorry. Woolgathering. I need to change that poultice, please. Can you lift…?”

Wordlessly, she gestured to his shirt. She almost shook her head, so furious was she to clear it. She needed to get this man out of here and reclaim the even tenor of her life. The stultifying boredom, loneliness, and drudgery of her life.

“All right?” Ian asked. He had gathered the linen in his hands and lifted it.

Giving a jerky nod, she bent to cut off the wrappings. “I wish the redness had receded a bit.”

Lifting the bandage away, she bent close and sniffed. Beneath the garlic, she caught the thick miasma of infection. The wound was weeping and, she thought, more swollen, which might mean that the garlic was drawing. It was difficult to tell in the uncertain light. There was no question that his skin was hotter. The fever pulsed off him. Picking up a knife, she once again slathered mashed garlic onto linen.

“Garlic again?” he demanded, still holding his shirt high. “Are you treating a gunshot or serving me up with tomatoes and sausage?”

She chuckled. “Garlic is wonderful for drawing infections. We’ll try it for two days. If the infection is no better, we might change. Bread and milk, clay. Honey.”

“I take it back. I’m to be on the menu for tea.”

“It will be hot this time,” she said, and felt him brace.

She pressed the pack against the wound. He hissed. She began wrapping, desperately trying to ignore the intimate proximity of his body. He didn’t notice. His eyes were closed against obvious pain.