The Return of the Prodigal (9 page)

What would the nuns say? That she should leave her
papa
’s home and Loringa’s dark ways, and rush back to them, take her vows, become a bride of Christ? No, they would not say that, not if they knew about Rian Becket. Perhaps they would turn her away as well, leaving her nowhere to go.

Believing herself an orphan had made her sad and lonely. But at least she’d had a roof over her head and food in her belly. If she could not return to the manor house, nor to the convent, and if she abandoned Rian Becket to find his own way home, then what was left for her?

And she’d never know, would she? About the mother who’d died, the life her father had left behind halfway across the world. She’d never be able to sift the truth from the lies, and would spend the rest of her life wondering…wondering.

“Lisette?” Rian wiped his index finger beneath her eye. “You’re crying again. I can remember Mariah, my brother Spencer’s wife, when she was carrying their second child. She often cried for no reason, and said it was because the baby turned her emotions upside down. Are you sure there’s no—”

“There is no baby!” Lisette told him, turning away from him. “There will be no baby, because you will not touch me again.” She strode to the pitcher and basin on the bureau under the window and poured some of the cooling water into the bowl, dipped her hands into it and then splashed water against her face. “There, I am clean again.”

“And dripping,” Rian pointed out, slipping off his shirt. “But I agree, Lisette. I’ve been stupid, unthinking. I won’t bother you again.”

“But you don’t bother—oh, you are so
maddening.
If I say thank you, then you will think I did not like what we—And if I protest, then I am the wanton who crawled into your bed while you were weak and unable to fight me away. There is no winning with you, Rian Becket!”

“Well,” Rian said, obviously to himself, “she isn’t crying anymore. I suppose there is that. Now what are you doing?”

Lisette had taken hold of the three-part screen and folded it up before carrying it over to reposition it between the tub and the bed. “I am giving you your privacy, Rian Becket. And now I am going to bed!”

H
E FELT LIKE A FOOL
.

Here he was, sitting naked in a too-small hip bath, with Lisette cowering in the bed, behind a too-small screen that would only protect her sensibilities if she squeezed up her eyes and hid her head beneath the pillows.

Lisette, whom he had made love to a dozen or more times. Lisette, who had nursed him during the worst of the summer months, when he had been fevered, had tossed off his covers, had been as naked and as vulnerable as a newborn babe.

Babe.

Yes, that had done it. Talk of a possible tangible result of their lovemaking had most certainly served to throw figurative cold water all over any chance he had of taking Lisette into his bed again.

Not that she wasn’t already in his bed.

Not that he wasn’t also going to be in that bed in a few minutes.

This could be interesting….

“Lisette?”

Her voice came to him from the bed, small, yet determined. “I don’t think I am speaking to you.”

Rian picked up the sea sponge and dripped rapidly cooling water down his bare back. “Not again, Lisette. Not that I want to see you in tears again, but anger isn’t much more appealing.”

“I do not
appeal
to you when I am in tears? Gentlemen are supposed to become all upset and make promises they won’t keep, just so that their lady will not cry. Don’t you know anything, Rian Becket?”

“Apparently not. And I’m still not certain why you were crying in the first place.”

“But I told you. Leaving France, going somewhere that I know nobody. Except you, and I will tell you, Rian Becket, you are sometimes not nice to know. I will only forgive you if you were to shoot the horse.”

“I’m not shooting the horse, Lisette. I’ve already sold her to the innkeeper for half of what we paid for her, a man who may allow his children to ride her, as he told me, or who may serve her up in tomorrow night’s stew. Tomorrow morning, we’ll hire another coach at the larger inn at the other end of the street.”

“Then I forgive you. A little bit. But I still don’t know where we are going.”

“We’re making our way to Ostend, as I’ve told you at least a half-dozen times. I haven’t changed my mind.”

“No! You have a head like a mule. But where do we land in England? Is it far from there to your home? Will we be traveling for weeks and weeks? We don’t have enough money to travel for weeks and weeks.”

Rian reached for the soap, realizing it was fruitless to even attempt to hold the sponge against his chest as he rubbed soap into the thing. Perhaps if he were to split the sponge with a knife and
insert
the soap into it, he could…“No, not for weeks and weeks. Two more long days, as you’ll refuse another ride up behind me. Or I suppose we could send a message to Becket Hall, and someone would come to Dover with the coach. Or even send the
Respite
for us, if you haven’t by then developed an equal loathing for sailing the Channel.”

“Ah! One of your many ships, yes? Because your family is wealthy?”

“One of two ships,” Rian clarified, “unless you were to count Chance’s
Spectre,
that he keeps in the harbor.”

“Again with a name I don’t know. And who is this Chance?”

Rian had lost the soap once more. “Damn. Who is Chance? My brother, Lisette. Lisette? If I promised to be very, very good, would you consider washing my back for me?”

“No, I don’t think so. I am speaking to you, but I am not at all in charity with you at the moment. You have two brothers?”

“Three,” he told her, belatedly realizing that he was speaking without thinking, having to concentrate his mind so much on capturing and then recapturing the slippery bar of soap. And he still had to wash his left arm, something he had been avoiding. Shoulder, arm, elbow…stump. Bloody ugly stump. “Jesus,” he muttered. Would he ever get used to this? “I…um, I have three brothers. And four sisters.”

“You are a very lucky man, Rian Becket. And you all live together in this Becket Hall? Are they still children, some of them?”

Rian gave it up as a bad job and stepped out of the tub, to drip all over the small rug beneath his feet as he reached for the towel folded over the back of the only chair in the room. “Fanny and Callie are still fairly young, but I doubt either one would thank you for thinking of them as children. The rest are grown. Lisette? I can’t dry my back.”

“There is a simple answer to that, Rian Becket. Put on your shirt and your back will dry.”

“When did you become so heartless?” he asked as he tugged on his fresh small clothes over his still damp skin. “I’m decent enough. Come dry my back. Please?”

“You whine like an infant,” she said, appearing around the screen to take the towel from him as he stood in front of her, covered, but far from what society would consider decently covered. “And your hair is dripping down your back. You should dry your hair first.”

He would have, but in hopes that she’d come help him, he had draped the smaller towel over his stump, and then held it tight against his body. Vanity, thy name is Rian Becket….

He felt the larger towel land on his head, and then Lisette began scrubbing it over his hair with both hands, and not gently. “Enough, Lisette,” he told her, stepping out from beneath her ministrations.

She began to laugh and he turned to look at her questioningly.

“You look so funny, Rian. Your hair is all here and there, standing up as if you have had a terrible fright. Sit down, I will brush it for you.”

Rian pushed his fingers through his hair, feeling silly, and did as she said, closing his eyes in real bliss as he felt the brush sliding through his wet hair. It had grown long since he’d been wounded, and he’s soon have to club it at his neck, which would be a grand feat, tying a bow with one hand.

If he allowed it, and he had done so often these past months, he could feel very, very sorry for himself.

“Here, let me do that,” he told her, reaching up to grab the brush from her hand. “I have to learn to do these things for myself.”

He stood up, walked over to the scarred dresser and peered into the cloudy mirror. It was, he realized, the first time he’d looked at himself, really looked at himself, since the day he’d been wounded.

He’d changed. His brothers and Jacko had always teased him, said he was too pretty, that he needed a few scars.

He might not have scars on his face, but that face had definitely changed. His cheeks seemed leaner in the candlelight, his chin more defined, his eyes sharper. And he’d developed a few lines around his mouth.
Hmm.
In truth, he thought the changes an improvement. Perhaps now his brothers wouldn’t persist in treating him like the younger brother he was.

But what a bastard of a way to grow up.

He was about to put down the brush when its silver back caught a bit of the candlelight. So, she’d hadn’t had room in the portmanteau for a change of clothing for him, but the brush had been allowed space? Turning to face Lisette, he asked, “Part of your childhood? A gift from your parents, perhaps?”

Lisette crossed to him quickly, reaching for the brush. “Yes, it was. Give it to me.”

“In a moment. It’s very pretty, Lisette. Right down to the monogram. L. M. B.” He smiled. “You know, it’s strange. All these months, and if someone were to ask, I could only say that you are Lisette. What do the other two letters stand for?”

This time when she reached for the brush, he let her have it. Obviously, it was a treasured possession, if she had refused to leave it behind when they’d escaped the manor house.

“I was also named for my mother. I am Lisette Marguerite,” she said, looking at him closely, as if he might react in some way.

“Pretty. How do you do, Lisette Marguerite,” he said, bowing. “And the rest?”

“Beatty,” she told him, replacing the brush in the portmanteau. “Lisette Marguerite Beatty.”

Rian stood very still. Beatty? The name was familiar to him. Why? Wait, now he remembered. The man Jack Eastwood had glimpsed in London a few years ago, one they’d supposed to be the true leader of the Red Men Gang that had been terrorizing the local smugglers—the man they all also felt sure must be their old enemy, Edmund Beales? That man had gone by the name of Beatty. Hadn’t he? Yes. Yes, he had. Nathaniel Beatty. He was sure of it.

No. It wasn’t possible. Please, God, don’t let it be possible.

“Your mother’s name was Marguerite,” he heard himself say, his voice sounding dull, hollow. “What was your father’s name?”

He saw a hint of panic in her eyes, but it was just as quickly gone. “So many questions, Rian Becket, and all while you stand there in the cool night air, looking very charming, except that you will catch your death of cold. Come over here, sit down, and I will push your trousers up over your feet for you.”

“I think I’d rather just climb into bed the way I am, thank you,” he told her, keeping the towel over his left arm as he walked to the right side of the bed. He had to remain calm, do nothing suspicious. He had to
think.
“We’ll leave the tub for tomorrow, and not ring for it to be removed. Lisette? I thought you were sleepy. Join me.”

“In a few moments. I should not rest well if I did not attempt to straighten up this mess. Your clothes are bad enough, without having them spend the night on this filthy floor. As it is, I shouldn’t wonder that we both will have fleas by the time we leave this terrible place.”

“Such a good little housekeeper, even in a hovel like this. I imagine they’ll miss your services at the manor house.”

“I am sure they will,” she said, shaking out his trousers and then draping them over the back of the chair, only to add his shirt to the pile, and his plain bottle green jacket, all courtesy of the
Comte,
all stolen by Lisette.

As she had stolen a generous supply of gold. As she had carefully mapped out the quickest way to the coast. As she had told him her sad story of the
Comte
’s lascivious plans for her that necessitated that she leave, that she take him away with her, because the man might have terrible plans for him, too.

At the time, his mind cloudy with fever, it had all seemed so logical.

And she had seemed truly frightened when she’d heard the
Comte
’s voice coming from the drawing room. Her hands had shaken so badly, she couldn’t insert the key into the lock. Her terror had been very real.

Was she an unwilling part of a larger plan? Had she been forced to do what she did, what she was doing now? And a very lowering thought—had she been forced to come to his bed?

Had she changed her mind, no longer wished to be a part of the plan, and this escape was real?

God, how he wished she were an innocent, caught up in something she didn’t understand.

Yet she’d been mightily perturbed when he had changed their route. And she’d had fresh mud on her half boots last night, had told him she had been outside,
patrolling.
Patrolling? Or had she been meeting someone, warning them of their changed route?

He had no choice but to assume she was not an innocent. That she was, and was still, a part of whatever was going on.

Beatty. Nathaniel Beatty. Lisette Marguerite Beatty.

His mistress? His
agent?

Not his wife, not his daughter. No man would send his wife or daughter to another man’s bed. Not even Edmund Beales.

But she carried the same name he’d carried in London….

And what was he in all of this? Rian himself? A pawn? Kidnapped from the battlefield? Those men had come at him, laughing, cajoling. Come toward him not to kill him—but to capture him? Ransom had seemed far-fetched, even when he hadn’t been able to think clearly, and the idea of nursing him to health so he could give the
Comte
an entry into English Society perhaps even more so.

And all of Lisette’s questions. Over and over again.
Where are we going, Rian Becket? Just tell me where we are going.

Hadn’t he been warned? Hadn’t they all been aware, for more than two years now, that Edmund Beales still lived? They even had hard evidence, in the form of some now thankfully dead French bastard names Jules, who had been to Edmund Beales what Jacko was to Rian’s adopted father. His second-in-command.

When Rian had gone to London with Spencer and Mariah they had been sure they’d not left alive anyone who had traveled with Jules, anyone able to run back to Edmund Beales and tell them that Geoffrey Baskin still lived.

Obviously, they’d been wrong.

But how? How did they know the name Becket? Did they know his adopted father now went by the name of Becket, that all of them were now Beckets? How could they know for certain that Geoffrey Baskin still lived? Did they actually know any of that? Or did they know just the name: Becket?

And more.

How did they know to come for him, to take him, to—damn it!—to put a woman in his bed, gain his confidence and then send her home with him.

And drug him. All those medicines. All those long, soft days where nothing mattered, when he didn’t care, didn’t ask questions. Every day, his body got stronger, while his mind had stayed weak. Cloudy, confused.

But not now, not anymore. No more medicines, no potions, no bloody drugs. Had Lisette really forgotten them, or did they need his mind clearer now, to be certain the unwitting dupe could find his way home?

Bringing Lisette into his father’s house, vouching for her. Letting her see them all, learn about them…sneak out at night to whomever followed them now, tell them how best to attack.

He was a fool, an idiot—a damn Trojan horse.

How could he have been so bloody stupid!

“Lisette, enough fussing. Come to bed. We’ll want to make an early start in the morning.”

She held up the button she’d located in the corner and then placed it on the bureau. “Oh, very well. Although I am no longer sleepy.”

She walked about the small room, blowing out the candles, one by one, the air filling with the smoke and slightly unpleasant odor of cheaply made candles.

He held up the covers for her as she slipped into the bed beside him. She lay down on her back, her arms folded over her breasts, and stared up at the dark ceiling, lit now only by the flickering reflected light from the fireplace grate.