The Secrets of a Scoundrel (8 page)

A footman marched out of the house as if on cue and quickly dried off the garden furniture nearby: a wrought-iron table-and-chairs set on a circle of flagstones under a giant, bare-branched oak.

The two of them continued shooting toward the hill, but once the furniture was dry, more servants brought out refreshments, which they placed on the table: hot mulled cider, a few slices of excellent firm cheese, and soft pumpkin bread, still warm from the oven and slathered with fresh butter.

Feeling like quite the king of all that he surveyed, Nick finished brushing up on his skills with the firearms and took his place across from the baroness at the little table to enjoy their late-morning snack.

The lady knew how to live, he’d give her that.

Afterwards, it was on to bladed weapons. Nick picked up a sword. He savored its well-balanced weight in his grasp, the pleasure of its slicing through the air as he whipped through a few speedy figure eights.

He lowered the weapon as a grizzled older man approached; Lady Burke introduced him as a local fencing master she had summoned to put Nick through his paces.

Nick shook hands with him, then switched to one of the blunted practice blades. As Lady Burke sat back and watched him brushing up his moves against the fencing master, Nick felt a little self-conscious under her scrutiny, as if he were some nervous adolescent trying to impress a girl.

With some additional effort, he blocked her out of his mind and focused on the fight. The fencing master was good; Nick was better. Moves drilled into him since boyhood had long since turned into reflexes. It all came back to him quickly. When they paused for a break, he took a swallow of the now-cold cider, his muscles burning, his chest heaving—yet this was the best he had felt in a long time.

He glanced over and saw and met Lady Burke’s gaze in wordless gratitude. She smiled knowingly. Then she called in the next expert to engage him, in fisticuffs this time.

After a rigorous hour with the blades, another forty-five minutes with the pugilist was all he had left in him, especially after the brutal trainer landed several blows around Nick’s solar plexus, where his Regent-saving gunshot wound had only just settled into a healed-over scar.

When the old injury grew sore, he took care to block his midsection better, but still, he didn’t see any point in pressing his luck unnecessarily. He appreciated the practice, but he wasn’t stupid. He finally called a halt.

At least now he was aware of the weakness so that he could guard against it when the fight was for real.

Lady Burke rose from the garden chair on which she had been sitting the whole time, watching patiently. She thanked, then dismissed the boxing trainer. Equally winded, the giant bald man bowed to her and to Nick, and took his leave.

Still panting and streaming with sweat, Nick collapsed into the wrought-iron chair beside her.

“Having fun?” she asked, eyeing him in amusement.

“Is that why we’re doing this? For fun? And here I was starting to wonder if you were trying to kill me.”

“Don’t be a baby. It’s good for you.”

He laughed in exhaustion, dabbing his face with a hand towel. “God, you
are
your father’s daughter.” He helped himself to another swig of the leftover cold cider.

She was watching him intently. “What was it like working with him?”

Nick looked at her in surprise. “Well . . . he was tough.”

“I know he was very hard on all of you.”

He shook his head and took another drink as his heartbeat finally slowed back to normal. “We were grateful for it. Felt like torture at the time, but later on, it saved our lives. Actually, a little bird told me that your father gave you some training, too.”

She smiled ruefully. “He wouldn’t let me join the Order like I wanted—”

“What?
You wanted to join?”

“So what if I did?” she challenged him.

“God,” was all he said.

She snorted. “Humph. Well, he wouldn’t budge on that, but at least he agreed to teach me a few basic skills.”

“Oh, really? Let’s see ’em.”

She sent him a dubious glance. “I don’t have to prove myself to you,” she drawled.

“Besides, if we’re headed into danger together, I want to know what you can do. Come. Show me.”

“Very well.” Taking his offered hand, she allowed him to pull her up fondly out of her chair.

Her touch, though brief, put his weary senses on high alert. She let go of his hand and went languidly to pick up one of the blunted practice swords, as well as a wooden knife for her left hand.

Nick followed, but he only took a sword. He had to give her
some
advantage, after all, just to make it reasonably fair. As they both got into position on the lawn, standing a few feet across from each other, Nick raised the wooden practice sword before his face in a formal salute.

She did the same. “Prepare to die, thou scurvy knave,” she taunted with a pleasant smile. “En garde,” she added. Then she attacked.

Nick defended himself in delight. She was quick and agile, and what was more, and he could see her sharp mind working as she skillfully parried his blows, feinting to the right and coming at him from the left.

“Not bad for a girl.”

“Fight back! You’re not even trying.”

“You’re a lady!”

“Oh, am I?” With that, she swiped her dainty foot behind his heel and tripped him.

Nick fell back with a merry yelp and landed on his elbows on the ground. He looked up at her for a second in shock, then immediately rebounded, vaulting acrobatically to his feet.

She arched a brow in aloof amusement. “A pretty move.”

“You haven’t seen anything yet.”

“Show me,” she taunted in a whisper, circling his blade with her own.

Nick let out a lusty laugh.

She lunged as if to run him through; he captured her extended arm, stepping back beside her; she brought her dagger neatly across her body to demonstrate how she still could’ve stabbed him in the eye.

“Well, well,” he murmured, laughing softly.

Then he tripped her in return, brushing her feet out from under her so that she went tumbling down in a whoosh of skirts and petticoats. She landed on her back, her chest heaving, both hands still clutching her sword and dagger.

Nick dropped to his knees astride her, plunging his practice blade into the soft turf by her head.

She tried holding him at bay as best she could, laying the wooden blade flat against his chest, but he ignored it, disarming her, and pinning her wrists to the ground.

“Damn you!” she said through breathless laughter, struggling against his hold to no avail, thrashing beneath him.

“Now, now. You’ll only make it worse for yourself if you fight me. This doesn’t have to hurt. Unless you want it to.”

She glared at him, but there was more than one type of frustration in her deep blue eyes.

Nick stared down into them, wanting with everything in him to make love to her. “Never play-fight against a trained assassin, my dear. And now for the coup de grace.”

“Ruthless,” she accused him, arching her neck as she tried in vain to sit up.

“Very. Lie back for me.” Leaning closer, closer, he bent his head until his lips hovered at her throat; he was panting more from lust than from exertion.

“Nicholas,” she warned, trying to sound stern and failing miserably, for her voice came out as a sensual whimper, full of unspoken, unacknowledged need.

He wanted with everything in him to fulfill it.

“There, there,” he whispered with a wicked smile as his lips grazed her throat. “Would you like me to deal you a little death, my lady?
Un petit mort?
”

Otherwise known as an orgasm.

She huffed and shook her head, her cheeks turning even redder. She refused to meet his gaze. “You are a demon.”

“But I’m your demon now. So what do you say? I have rethought my position on this thing. Now that I know you’re not demanding it of me, I think I’d be happy to pleasure you.”

“Thanks, but I’m rather busy at the moment,” she answered dryly.

Amusement danced in his eyes, but he couldn’t stop staring at her creamy chest. “Perhaps some other time, then?”

“You wish.”

“Guilty as charged.” Not wishing to scare her, he released her wrists and ventured a light caress on her cheekbone with his fingertips.

She looked up at him uncertainly at last.

“You are a remarkable woman, Virginia Burke,” he murmured. “Thank you for getting me out of that cage. I was dying in there. My soul was dying.”

“I know,” she whispered, reaching up to cup his cheek in return for a fleeting moment.

He throbbed at the softness of her touch. God, it had been so long, and she was not like any woman he had encountered before. He positively craved her.

But at just that moment, Nick heard something in the distance. He did not move from his position atop her but lifted his head and turned to stare keenly down the drive.

“What is it?” she asked, still seeming quite content to lie beneath him.

“Expecting someone?” he mumbled, narrowing his eyes as he stared toward the drive. “You’ve got visitors.”

“What?”

He quirked a brow at her. “Don’t tell me you’ve hired yet another expert to come and beat me up.”

She shook her head. “I’m not expecting anyone. Off with you before we’re seen.” She slapped at his thigh still straddling her hip.

Nick got up, immediately bending down to offer her a hand. She clasped his palm; he pulled her to her feet.

She brushed a leaf out of her hair and dusted the dirt off her dress as she went striding toward the carriage, which was presently pulling up in front of the house.

Nick gazed after her, privately marveling at the woman. Her walk was a thing of beauty to behold.

He blew out a quiet exhalation, trying to will his hunger for her into submission.

Then the carriage door banged open, and a young lad of about fifteen, with a shock of dark red hair, jumped out.

Nick arched a brow as the baroness stopped in her tracks. “Phillip!” she cried. “What on earth are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in school!”

“Sorry, Mum, I got suspended.”

“What?
”

“Mother—don’t explode—I can explain. It was all just a misunderstanding . . .”

Nick stared, wide-eyed.
Mother?

“Who’s that?” the boy suddenly demanded, glancing past Lady Burke at Nick. “Oh, perfect. Another one?” he cried.

“How dare you?
” his mother thundered, but Nick laughed aloud at the lad’s highly impertinent question.

Hearing him laugh, she sent him a wrathful glower over her shoulder: Nick quickly stifled his humor.

“Get inside,” she ordered her son. “I want answers, now, young man. Go!”

The boy glared at Nick as he slouched toward the front door, a mere puppy, but all bristling protectiveness toward his mama.

Nick stared after him, marveling with a pang of remembrance as the truth hit home.

The kid was Virgil’s grandson.

Chapter 6

T
he library was the room in their home long since designated for lectures and scoldings. As Gin marched her wayward son thence, her temples throbbed with agitation.

What’s he done now?
she wondered, though, to be sure, Phillip’s getting into trouble was nothing new. He had always been a handful, too smart for his own good and as stubborn as a donkey.

Taken off guard by his arrival, she had no idea what to do with him, considering that she and Nick were about to leave for London.

Most of all, she was furious at herself for nearly letting her child find her rolling around on the ground with a strange man. Some example! She felt like a terrible mother, and that only made everything worse. What was she thinking, allowing Nick to take such liberties, anyway?

She was in severe danger of losing all control of the situation—and before Phillip’s intrusion—just for a moment there, she had barely cared. Damn it, was she so willing to let her pet prisoner take the upper hand? Why?

Just because he happened to be everything she had ever dreamed of in a man?
Fool.
She shook her head at herself. God, where might their playful, heavy-breathing sport have led if her son’s carriage had not arrived when it did?

With a shudder, she vowed to pull back from this dangerous attraction between herself and a man she had just sprung from jail. Thankfully, her son’s unexpected arrival had brought her back rudely to her senses.

Closing the library door behind her, she took a deep breath and turned to fix her boy with a quelling stare. “Well?”

“Well, what, Mother?” he retorted, flinging himself down onto one of the thick leather couches. He crossed his long legs out before him and folded his arms over his chest, glaring at her in disapproval.

“What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I might ask the same of you. Who is th-that
person?”
He jabbed a finger toward the window. “Another new ‘gentleman friend’? Already? What happened to the last one? The yellow-haired idiot? What’s-his-name, Carr.”

“You’d better watch your mouth,” she warned, lowering herself to sit on the padded arm of the couch.

“I’m only trying to protect you, Mother.”

“Why did they send you home from school? What did you do? Come. Tell me at once.”

Phillip scowled and handed her a crisp piece of parchment that turned out to be an indignant letter from the headmaster. When she came to the end of it, she lowered her head with a groan.

Phillip shot to his feet. “You should be proud of me by all rights, not angry!”

“Proud? Fighting? Causing a ruckus? You did serious injury to another boy.”

“The class bully—and besides, he’s two years older than me. Ha!”

“Whoever he was, it says here you sprained his shoulder and beat him nigh senseless.”

“God made him senseless, and he’s lucky I didn’t break it,” he declared.

“Phillip, this is serious. It also says here you threatened a division master.”

“You mean Professor Marquis de Sade?”

She let out a stifled yelp at his words. “I don’t want my fifteen-year-old knowing about the Marquis de Sade!”

“I’m not a prude, Mother,” he informed her in a worldly tone, folding his arms across his chest.

“Oh, sorry!” she retorted, before gesturing to the letter. “So, what happened with this tutor?”

“He’s a pervert, for one thing.”

She shut her eyes and groaned under her breath. She knew the most expensive private boys’ schools had a certain reputation for creating a brutal environment, the better to prepare the lads of the upper class for their harsh futures in politics, war, and empire.

Unfortunately, there were sometimes men in control of the children who abused their privilege and enjoyed their places of authority a little too much.

Apparently, Professor Marquis de Sade had not counted on her son, known to his friends and his Mum as “the Red Terror.” And not just for the color of his hair.

“The maths don is an even bigger bully than the senior I thrashed,” he informed her. “I swear it entertains him, beating boys on their bare arses—”

“Phillip! God.”

“Well, it’s true. And he’s long since singled out the weakest little nancy in our class, Alastair Ponsonby, for his abuses. I got tired of hearing the pitiful creature crying each night after lights-out. So I asked him what the hell was wrong, Mother. And he told me.

“This senior, Dwight Cotler, was ruthlessly tormenting him. Cotler had thrown little Alastair’s math assignment in a mud puddle, and there wasn’t time for him do it over again, so that merely put him afoul of Professor Marquis de Sade, and likely due for another bare-arse beating in front of the class.

“So,” Phillip said with a shrug of feckless bravado, “I decided to stand up for him. Protect him. From them both. That’s what Grandpa Virgil would’ve wanted me to do. Defend the weak. Isn’t it?”

“Oh, Phillip.”

“When I saw Cotler starting in on Alastair as usual the next day at breakfast, let’s just say I got involved.”

Gin bit her lip, wondering how it was possible to love someone so much and, at the same time, want to throttle him.

“This letter says your ‘involvement’ included spraining Dwight Cotler’s arm and knocking him over the head with a food tray so hard that he was unconscious for a quarter hour.”

“Just long enough for me to get to maths lesson,” Phillip said, nodding. “Nobody dared tell on me until Cotler himself regained consciousness. That made things easier.”

“So, what happened with the teacher, then?”

“When he collected our assignments first thing and found that Alistair had nothing to turn in, he had the expected reaction. All I did, Mother—I swear it on my honor—was stand up and vouch for Alistair, why he didn’t have his assignment. That it wasn’t his fault. I told him what happened, but he didn’t even care!” Phillip exclaimed, shaking his head in wide-eyed innocence at the world’s unfairness. “That brute said there were no excuses. That if a boy couldn’t learn to make his way in school, he wouldn’t be able to make his way in life. Then he summoned Alistair to the front for his beating.

“I blocked the way, and said, ‘Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?’ He started taunting me, asking if I wanted to take Alistair’s beating in his place. I told him, try it. And when he picked up that blasted paddle, I grabbed it out of his hand and broke it over my knee.”

Gin stared at him.

Phillip shrugged, and conceded, “I might have raised the broken piece of the paddle at him. I don’t really remember—I was so furious. But I wouldn’t have hit him, Mother. You must know that. I’m not stupid.”

“Oh, Phillip.”

“I don’t care if they expel me, anyway!” he said vehemently. “In fact, I’d be glad. What’s the point of my going there, anyway? We both know where I should be going to school—up in Scotland.”

By which he meant the Order school at the Abbey above the dungeon where Nick had been locked up.

“Don’t you dare start that again,” she warned, staring at him for a moment in suspicion. He dropped back down onto the couch and crossed his ankles in leisurely fashion once more, a very rakehell in the making. “Is that what this is about?” she demanded. “Are you deliberately trying to get expelled? Because if that’s what you’re planning, you can forget about it, Phillip.”

“Mother!”

“You are not joining the Order. End of discussion.”

“Why not?” he cried, sitting up straight with a quicksilver motion. “I can do it! We both know that’s where I belong! It’s my right! It’s my heritage!”

“It’s never going to happen.”

“You think I don’t have what it takes? But I do! I just need training—”

“No.” She blocked out his protests and headed for the door. “I’ll write back to the headmaster and try to smooth things over. But you will be going back there once you’ve completed your suspension.”

“Ugh!” He dropped his head back and glared at the ceiling.

“In the meanwhile, you will be confined to the house, and you’re not to have any visitors. You’ll carry on with your studies here at home while I’m gone—”

“Gone? Where?”

“I’m leaving for Town in a few hours.”

“London?” He sat up eagerly. “Can I come with you?”

“No. I just told you. You’re staying here—out of trouble.” With a pointed glance, she pivoted and headed for the library door. “I’ll summon your old tutor from the village to come and look after you—”

“I’m not an infant, Mother!”

“No?” She paused, glancing at him. “Then prove it by staying on your best behavior while I’m gone. I don’t want to hear any bad reports from Mr. Blake.”

Phillip glowered at her. “You’re not going to be in control of my life forever, Mother.”

“Well, I am for now, so you might as well forget about it.”

“Why?” he cried. “Why can’t I have a dream?”

She stopped and paused, gazing at him. “The Order took my father from me. They’re not getting their hands on my son. You, my darling, are going to live a nice, long, happy life—”

“Boring! Dull as dishwater, Mother! Am I supposed to entertain myself when I grow up with a stream of lovers like you do?”

Gin gasped at his impudence. “How dare you?”

“Who’s this one? I demand to know who’ve you brought into our house
this
time.”

“You’re a child. It’s none of your affair!”

“Affairs. You’d be the expert on that,” he muttered.

“You watch your mouth, young man!” She hesitated, routed by his accusation, especially since there was a grain of truth to it. She did not want her son thinking ill of her, nor did she wish to be a bad example.

She glanced warily toward the window. “That man is not my lover. He was—” Her words broke off.

“What?”

Against her better judgment, she gave way. “He was a friend of your grandfather’s.”

Phillip gaped at her in stunned silence. “Are you serious? That’s an Order agent out there?”

He flew to the window to stare.

“Just leave him alone, Phillip. He’s helping me with a case.”

“Why? Is it an especially hard one? Oh, this is amazing!” Then he frowned. “But what happened to your idiot assistant?”

“Well, that’s the problem, sweeting. He’s disappeared.”

“Ran out on you? Eh, Mother, I told you that one was no good.”

The boy was more right than he knew.

Then she answered, “Lord Forrester is going to help me find him and get to the bottom of this.”

“Wait, Forrester?” he echoed, wide-eyed. “As in
the
Lord Forrester? The chap who took a bullet for the Regent?”

She nodded. “That’s him. You leave him alone,” she warned. “I mean it. Keep your distance. I don’t want you bothering him.”

And I don’t want him filling your head with grand tales of adventure about his missions.

She already had her hands full trying to rein in her headstrong son on that particular subject.

“But, Mother! Please! He knew Grandfather—and now he’s a guest in my house! Oh, I don’t believe this. Brilliant!”

“Oh, Phillip,” she murmured yet again in dismay.

“If you won’t let me join up, myself, at least let me talk to him. I can talk to him if I want to!” he added with a pugnacious frown that reminded her ever so much of Virgil.

“No, you can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I said so, and I’m your mother.”

“Tyrant lady! That’s no reason! I have rights!”

“He is a dangerous man!”

“Nonsense, Mother, he’s a bloody hero!”

Gin blinked, less worried by her son’s language than by the hero worship that suddenly shone from his youthful face.

“All of them are! It said so in the papers. That’s why the Regent gave them the medals at Westminster Abbey. I wonder if I could see one of his medals!” the boy suddenly added with a gasp of awe.

“Phillip, stay away from him. The man’s a trained assassin.”

“Really?” He whirled to face the window again, and whispered, “That’s fantastic.”

She shook her head, seeing that her attempt to scare Phillip away from Nick had only had the opposite effect. Maybe she
should
let him meet Nick, she thought. Then he might see the toll that sort of life took on a person. It might curb his enthusiasm. But, no. Why risk it?

“Lord Forrester and I will be leaving for London shortly to try to get some answers on a case. I’m going to send for Mr. Blake to come and mind you. I don’t need you getting into any further trouble. Now, behave,” she warned before pivoting and leaving him alone.

S
ulking a little, Phillip grumbled under his breath as his mother marched out of the library.

Tyrannical woman.

It was always awkward and disgusting to find her with one of her lovers, though he supposed that was only the way of the world.

Every boy in his class thought she was the most beautiful lady they had ever seen. Which only made him roll his eyes and feign gagging.
Try living with her,
he was fond of retorting.
She’s bossier than the Queen.

Thank God, it sounded like she had improved her tastes if she had finally found herself one of Grandpa Virgil’s warrior-heroes. Burning with curiosity, Phillip stared through the glass.

Out on the lawn, minding his own business, the big, muscular, black-clad man was practicing with throwing knives.

“Crikey,” Phillip whispered to himself as one blade after another whipped through the air to crowd into the target’s center ring. He stared in awe, shaking his head.

A real Order agent, right there on his very own lawn!

Suddenly, Phillip set his jaw in stubborn determination that he had inherited from his grandsire the spymaster—though, to be sure, it had not skipped a generation.

No matter what Mother said, he had a
right
to talk to Lord Forrester, man-to-man. His own father was nothing but an unsmiling portrait and a name bequeathed to him, along with properties and fortune.

Phillip gathered from the things his mother
didn’t
say that his father had been a bit of a dud.

Of course, few men could have lived up to the standard set by Grandpa Virgil.