The Marquess (45 page)

Michael picked up two of the black books and juggled them. “We
know where she was seen last. Put your energy to something more useful.”

Reardon sent Michael a look of gratitude as Gavin dropped
his coat and swung his attention to his brother, who now had two books and an
ink pot circling.

“Where?” he demanded with such force the ink pot
should have shattered.

Slipping the books and pot back to the desk one by one,
Michael eyed Gavin skeptically. “What do you intend to do if we tell you?”

“It’s a matter of what I intend to do if you
don’t.” The quiet fury of Gavin’s voice spoke louder than his
earlier bellows. “You know what to do with these books when I leave here.
I’ve a man following Winfrey. You two take care of the others. I’m
going after Dillian.”

Reardon still looked ready to launch another protest.
Michael averted the confrontation with a shrug. “Your messenger saw her
on the road to Arinmede late last evening.”

Cursing low and long, Gavin grabbed his hat and cloak and
swept out without so much as a by-your-leave to the men remaining behind.

Taking full advantage of his cousin-in-law’s extensive
stable, Gavin had his mount galloping full speed toward the roads of
Hertfordshire within the hour. He calculated Dillian had been gone well over
twenty-four hours now. Anything could happen in twenty-four hours. His heart
rode in his throat as he imagined what a gang of ruffians could do to a woman
in just a few short hours.

But she was alive. The messenger had seen her alive and
riding toward Arinmede. He thought he just might murder her when he found her.
Why in hell had she gone to Arinmede?

Knowing Dillian, any of a thousand and one answers came to
mind. He had no intention of fretting his brain to discover which one. He just
needed to see that she was safe, and then he would murder her.

Not until he reached the sight of the overgrown pines lining
the drive to his ruin of a home did Gavin think to wonder why he concerned
himself at all with the wayward brat. He could have stayed in London, caught
the thief and arsonist, and allowed Dillian to molder here until he had time to
come back and pin her hide to the wall. No wonder Michael and Reardon had
looked at him oddly. He was losing his mind.

Or some other more vital part of his anatomy, like his
heart. He would consider that later. Right now he must figure out how to trap
Dillian all over again, because he’d already figured out her main reason
for coming to Arinmede. She could hide in there forever, and no one would ever
find her. Except him.

The crumbling stable hardly seemed fit for his valiant
horse, but Gavin brushed the horse down, and gave him what oats he could find
before slipping back through the midnight darkness. He glanced over the house,
finding no lamp burning but the one Matilda kept in the servants’ hall.

Dillian was in there. She had to be. He didn’t stop to
decipher the various emotions rampaging through him. First, he would get his
hands on Dillian.

He must do this methodically or she would know he was here
and deliberately hide. He’d not find her for a week that way. No, he had
to think like Dillian. Where would she hide if she didn’t know her enemy
or when he would arrive?

Not downstairs. The servants might find her there. The
secret passage seemed a better bet. He just prayed she hadn’t found a
passage that he hadn’t discovered yet.

Gavin slipped up the back stairs and down the short hall to
the master bedroom and the nearest entrance to the passage. Without a candle
guiding his way, he could fall over her. He’d left candles aplenty in the
master chamber. Just remembering that night Dillian had given herself to him
made him ache in more places than the one easily aroused.

He’d been a cad, but she’d been more beautiful
than any woman he’d ever known. He wouldn’t allow anyone else to
hurt her, not even himself.

He found a candlestick in the holder just inside the
bedchamber door, along with the tinderbox. Trying to make no noise, he lit the
wick and cupped his hand around the flame until it steadied. Then holding it
high, he stepped into the chamber, aiming for the wardrobe and the hidden door.

Gavin didn’t have to go that far. He found Dillian
sleeping in the middle of his bed, her dark curls tumbled artlessly over her
face, her lavender gown in tatters, and one of his old coats clutched snugly
against her breasts.

He wanted to scream at her carelessness. Instead, the sight
destroyed some barrier inside him, leaving him wide open and vulnerable to this
impish sprite who had stolen his bed and his heart and, apparently, anything
resembling his mind.

All thoughts of murder dissipated as he approached the bed
and her eyes fluttered open.

“Gavin,” Dillian whispered. She could see the
elegant gleam of his white cravat against his bronzed skin, and she smiled
sleepily. “You only need an eye patch to make a lovely pirate.”

“I died a thousand deaths on the way out here,”
he informed her, sitting down to discard his shoes. “I think I ought to
make you suffer a few of them. Would you at least tell me truly what the hell
you’re doing here?”

She grimace in disgust. “I was stupid enough to let
someone abduct me. It was quite unpleasant, and I thought I might starve.”
She looked at him curiously as he stripped off his coat. “It seemed
rather odd that they took me on the road to Hertfordshire.”

“Or Bedford,” he reminded her. “Or York
for all that matters. Where is Anglesey?”

“Bedford,” she admitted sleepily, her caution
now diverted to another area. “What do you think you’re doing?”
she asked as he pulled off his shirt.

“Going to bed. I haven’t had a wink of sleep in
two days. Move over.”

She moved over. And when the Marquess of Effingham lay
sprawled, half-naked beside her, Dillian curled up next to the heat of him and
promptly returned to the soundest sleep she’d known in weeks.

In the early hours of dawn, she woke with her tattered dress
around her waist. She lay spoon fashion within the curve of Gavin’s long
body, with his big hand proprietarily resting on her nearly bare hip. She held
her breath, uncertain what to do, not wanting to wake him but not wanting to
let him think her wanton if he should wake.

She knew she should break away when he began caressing her,
but she couldn’t quite find it in herself to do so. His hand drifted
higher to cup the mound of her breast, and the muscles in her womb clenched
with desire.

“Gavin?” she whispered a trifle breathlessly.

“I want to love you properly,” he murmured, his
voice reflecting a hint of perplexity, “but I don’t know how to go
about it. If I let you up from here, you’ll run, and I may never have
another chance.”

Dillian turned on her back to discover Gavin’s scarred
face hovering over her. She’d never seen him uncertain. Gavin was a man
who rode out into the world with clear purpose and a course of action.

She traced the scar along his upper lip. “I need you,”
she whispered, disbelieving her own ears but knowing deep inside her that she
spoke the truth. “Hold me?”

He bent and kissed her nose, the corner of her mouth, and
her ear. “I’ll hold you forever, if I can. I warn you now.”

She ignored the warning. Words meant nothing. The heat of
his kiss meant everything.

She felt safe here. For the first time in her life,
she’d found a place where she belonged. Dillian wrapped her arms around his
neck and knew the security of his greater strength. She wouldn’t question
the wrongness of what she did, or the possible results. She just needed the
reassurance of his strong arms holding her, his hard body sheltering her, just
for the moment. Just until she knew what to do next.

Gavin’s tongue swirled inside her mouth, and every
ounce of her yearned for more. Dillian arched into him. He brushed aside her
gown and chemise to find purchase around her breast. She moaned in pure
pleasure when his fingers sought the aching crest.

“I want all of you,” Gavin said harshly, burying
his face against her throat and nibbling tender flesh. “I can’t
pretend I’m a gentleman any longer. I’ll not play the gallant,
Dillian. I mean to take you and keep you.”

She knew his words should alarm her, but his roaming hands
had aroused her to a plane beyond fear.

She still believed that minutes later when the remains of
her clothes disappeared over the side of the bed. Gavin still wore his tight
breeches, but his arousal strained so hard against the buttons that she
couldn’t bear letting him suffer longer. She couldn’t believe her
boldness when she reached to unfasten him, but she worked faster at his deep
groan of approval.

When, between them, they had the buttons undone, Gavin
murmured his ecstasies to her breasts as he pushed them together and devoted
his attention to each in turn. Dillian quivered in delight as he suckled and
stroked, then she nearly melted when he slid his hand down between her legs to
stroke her there.

She had no understanding of the hold this ungentlemanly
marquess had over her. A scarred beast, a military American, a man who scorned
all she knew and loved, he ought to send her fleeing into the countryside.
Instead, she opened her arms and heart and herself to him and took him inside
her.

He drove deep, possessing her as he never had before. She
tilted her hips to take him even deeper, and he held her there, not allowing
her to twist away when their rhythm grew more forceful. Waves of sensation
washed away all conscious thought. She rose to meet him as surely as the ocean
met the sand. When the breakers finally crashed against the shore, she cried
out at the rush of his seed.

Only then did she realize what his warning meant. He had
meant to claim her, and he had.

He’d planted his seed deep within her, where it could
take root and grow. She might leave this bed carrying his child. In this, he
had not protected her. Not this time.

“Where do you think you’re going?”
Breathless from running down the front stairs, Dillian grabbed the belt
she’d made of Gavin’s cravat to keep her loose boy’s breeches
from falling. She’d stolen one of his shirts from the wardrobe, and the
huge billowing sleeves apparently enhanced her ghostly image. The maid dusting
the front hall fainted dead away at the sight of her. Dillian didn’t
stop. She refused to let Gavin get away without her.

Even seeing her flying from the house didn’t keep the
dratted man from mounting his stallion. He scowled in disapproval as she
grabbed his reins.

“I left Michael with those damned journals,” he
explained. “It’s time I found out who most needs them destroyed.
You know how to hide yourself here. You should be safe until I return.”

Direct and to the point. He didn’t even raise an
eyebrow at her ungainly attire. Dillian thought she could love a man like that,
but right now she wanted to clobber him. “Those are
my
journals! I
have every right to know what’s in them. and I want to see the villain
thrown in the darkest dungeon we can find. You go nowhere without me, Gavin
Lawrence!”

He leaned over and pried her fingers loose of the reins. “I
risked your life the other day. I don’t intend risking it again.”

She tangled her fist more forcefully in the leather. “You
have stones for brains, Mr. Lawrence! You risked nothing then, and you risk
nothing now. I take full responsibility for my own actions. Let me go with you.”

“Dillian, if you don’t take your hands off those
reins now, I’ll pry them off, and you won’t like it if I do!”
he threatened, catching her wrist in a powerful grip.

“You may spew pebbles from that stony brain as you
will. Lord Effingham, but you won’t scare me. Take me up with you at
once, or I shall follow on my own.” She’d thought he’d know
that by now, but it seemed he needed reminding.

He glared, and before Dillian realized what he intended,
Gavin swung down from the horse and gathered her up in his arms, holding her so
close against him she feared to breathe.

“I’m not your father, Dillian,” he growled
against her ear. “I protect what is mine. Someone dared harm you. I will
teach them and anyone else with similar thoughts that they can’t get away
with that. Don’t stand in my way, Dillian.”

“I hate military men!” She tried screaming at
him, but the words emerged as a whimper. “Can’t you see that if you
must fight, I must fight beside you?”

She didn’t know where her anger had gone, but tears
threatened to take its place. He would ride off as her father had and never
return. She couldn’t allow it.

Her hot tears scorched through the cambric of Gavin’s
shirt. Her words confused him. No one had ever offered to fight beside him
before. He had just assumed it was his responsibility to defend those weaker
than himself. Michael had found ways of working around him. No one else had
ever tried.

“Dillian, I can do this better if I’m not
worrying about you,” he said, caressing her disheveled curls. Her tears
crumbled his defenses, but he couldn’t let her know that.

“You won’t come back,” she accused. “You
won’t! I want to go with you.”

Gavin recognized that feeling of desertion all too well.
He’d learned to overcome it, he’d thought. But he saw now that
he’d merely isolated himself from everyone so they couldn’t desert
him, so no one could hurt him again.

“Dillian, I’ll come back,” he promised,
lifting her teary face from his shirt. “This is my home, and I
won’t abandon it, or you. I’m asking you to trust me. Will you do
that?”

The shimmering tear drops in violet eyes nearly undid him.
She seemed so horribly vulnerable. At the same time he saw her intelligence,
knew her trust rested not on blind instinct but her experience and wisdom.

“Is Blanche safe?” she demanded.