Winter Garden (11 page)

She glanced to his dimly outlined face, and he nodded once to the left.

And there it was. A faint glow of light in the distance, moving jaggedly through the far cluster of trees to the south of the main house, probably a good three hundred yards from where they stood on the baron's riding path.

Thomas left the trail and began to move toward it, his pace careful and slow as he assessed the brush, his body cautious, his gaze as intent as hers.

At closer observance she realized it had to be lanterns. Two of them, their dull yellow glow cutting into the surrounding darkness, with no voice to accompany them through the quiet, nighttime forest.

Then suddenly, just as quickly as they saw them, the lights disappeared—first one, then the other—into the blackness of night.

For a moment Madeleine was baffled. Those holding the lanterns weren't yet close enough to the house and
certainly not on any distinguishable trail. Why extinguish them in the middle of the forest? Unless they'd detected intruders, heard some sound she and Thomas were trying so carefully not to make. But she didn't think so. Then the memory of Desdemona's comment came to mind.

I've heard rumors of lights in the night and ghosts on Baron Rothebury's property.

It wasn't a rumor, nor were there ghosts. This is what Desdemona herself had seen. Madeleine was sure of it. But when? Under what circumstances? And why was an innocent young woman out in the forest at night?

Thomas continued to walk very slowly until they were nearly on the main house grounds. The lights had been to their immediate left as they stood there now, gazing out into the distant trees. He guided her to a large, round stump, and she sat upon it while he knelt beside her, waiting.

Nothing happened. No movement, no sound, and no more light as the minutes ticked by.

Finally, shivering from the crisp, cold air, surrounded by darkness as the moon dropped in the western night sky, they wordlessly returned to the cottage at nearly half past two in the morning.

F
or five nights in a row now, before they'd set out for the baron's estate, they'd played chess. The first night he'd let her win, and she knew it; but their subsequent games were played fairly on his part, and she'd very nearly beaten him. She was out of practice but she was very good. Her mind worked with careful evaluation and logical thought, which he supposed she'd learned and perfected during the years she'd served England in her profession.

Madeleine relaxed on the sofa, facing him as he sat in his chair, wearing her morning gown because Beth Barkley had taken her day gown to launder when she'd left earlier that evening. With only a dim lamp and bright firelight to illuminate the shiny strands of reddish-brown in her plaited hair and the tiny creases in her forehead, she concentrated on the chessboard between them. Thomas knew, as she probably did from simple obser
vance, that he had the most difficult time taking his eyes from her and her beautiful form. That made him smile to himself. Let her speculate on his appraisal of her, on the depth of his attraction. He would intensify their relationship soon, kissing her again tonight if luck was on his side.

“I keep thinking about those lantern lights, Thomas,” she tossed in from nowhere.

That's what he admired about her intelligence. She could concentrate on the game as she pieced together complications regarding work. She was thoroughly polished.

He moved his bishop forward to the left five squares, in line to take her queen. “Thinking again, Madeleine?”

“Haven't you been thinking about it?” she asked with only a trace of excitement to escape her steady tone. “Something very strange goes on in that house, and Desdemona Winsett knows more than she told me.”

He drew a full breath and nodded minutely. “Probably. Although it's not ghosts or any other nonsense.”

She lowered her eyes back to the chess pieces and moved a pawn to block his bishop. “He's smuggling.”

“Probably.”

“He is,” she stressed, “and although it might be a very organized operation, he's not very careful.”

“You deduced all this from lantern lights we saw for thirty seconds two nights ago?” he teased, capturing her pawn.

“And other things,” she replied, trying to hide her smile as she studied the board.

“Oh, yes, those other things,” he said with feigned remembrance. Then, “What other things?”

She shrugged but didn't look at him. “Intuition, for one.”

“I often work from intuition,” he admitted freely at once.

“So you agree with me.”

He shook his head. “Not exactly. Hard evidence is what we need. The problem with relying on intuition is that it changes one's focus without facts.”

Slowly she ran her fingers up and down her long braid as it draped over her shoulder and down her right breast. “Explain that to me.”

He paused for clarity of thought, watching her movements. “The baron probably is smuggling the opium for reasons unknown, likely for nothing more than monetary gain. But if we decide he's the smuggler based on intuition only and a few unusual happenings we've chanced to witness, we might be shifting our focus for nothing if it's not him—”

“It
is
him.”

Thomas smiled. The woman in her was clearly shining through. “I agree that we need to find out what Desdemona knows. Beyond that I think we should refrain from drawing any conclusions.”

“We also need to get into his house.”

“We will.”

“Soon.”

“We will,” he repeated.

Her brilliant blue, mischief-filled eyes shot up to meet his. Then with a triumphant grin that melted his heart, she moved her knight forward to capture his bishop. “Check.”

He looked at the board again. He was in trouble.

“I believe, Mr. Blackwood, that you are nearly de
feated,” she noted with radiant pleasure. “Is this the first time a woman in your presence has taken control and made you succumb?”

Her smooth intimation did not go unnoticed.

Thomas stretched out his booted legs, crossed one over the other, and leaned back in his chair to plainly regard her.

“How did you learn to speak English so well?”

A subtle widening of her eyes told him she was surprised by the question.

“Are you trying to change the subject because you're losing?” she asked softly, raising her arm to lay it comfortably along the back of the sofa.

“No, I never lose,” he answered wryly, his gaze locked with hers in candid arrogance. “I just think it's time to deepen our friendship.” He paused for effect, then murmured, “Don't you?”

She waited long enough before responding for him to know she was slightly puzzled by his meaning and unsure how to answer. Her expression never changed.

“A close friend taught me English at my request.”

“A close friend?”

She smiled and relaxed fully into the soft cushion; her lovely countenance filled with tender memories. “His name was Jacques Grenier, the disowned but wealthy son of a French count. He was also a magnificent poet, singer, and a brilliant man of the stage. He took special interest in me during my formative years and taught me…the ways of the world.”

“Disowned because he was an actor?”

“Precisely,” she replied with a tip of her head.

“He was your lover,” Thomas added levelly, his insides churning because he knew this already but was
suddenly irrationally jealous of it. What surprised him, though, was how much more he was affected by saying the words aloud.

Her perfectly groomed brows raised minutely, but she didn't try to hide anything. “Yes, he was my lover. I was fifteen and a virgin when he first bedded me, and I suppose he seduced me. We were together for almost six years, intimately for three of them, and in that time he was generous enough to teach me the English language. He was very well educated, and spoke it fluently.”

“Why did you desire so strongly to learn it?” he asked quietly, although he also knew this answer.

She assessed him, hesitating for either her own recollection of events, or perhaps with curiosity about his interest, unsure how much to reveal. After a moment, her expression grew serious.

“My father was English, Thomas, a captain in the British Royal Navy. He died of cholera in the West Indies when I was twelve. I only saw him four very brief times in the years before his death, but our days together were wonderful—my happiest childhood memories. He told me once that he had wanted to marry my mother when he found out she carried me, but she wouldn't dream of it. The woman has always been manipulative and selfish, and she despised everything he was—a British subject, soft-spoken and conservative, a decorated veteran, second-born son of a middle-class but well-respected family.”

Sighing, she folded her hands in her lap and turned to stare into the glow of the fire. “I'm not entirely certain, but I think he bedded her for only a short time while he was on duty and she traveled with the acting company somewhere near the Mediterranean coast. It
was apparently a fast and torrid affair. He said he had truly cared for her, but my mother denies it. She early became addicted to opium, and was never more than a mediocre actress, raising me as her servant girl, toting me along from one smelly, crowded theater to the next, ordering me to do her bidding, while caring little for me. She considered me one of the stiff, arrogant English, and indeed I was—half English—but she refused to let me claim my English heritage or even come to England as a child to meet my father's family.”

She paused, lost in memory. The fire crackled in the grate; the bitter wind and rain outside clamored with the force of winter, but she didn't appear to notice. Thomas didn't interrupt either, for fear that she'd cease her disclosure and change the subject. But after taking only a few seconds to collect her thoughts, she soberly continued.

“I was not informed of his death until well over one year after the event. I found a note from my father's family tucked into a side pocket of my mother's wardrobe that described his fate in detail. She, it seems, had forgotten to show it to me when it arrived because she was too self-centered to take the time. At the moment, Thomas, when Jacques read to me that crumpled letter informing me that my precious father had been dead for nearly two years while I waited each day with hope for his return, I decided that I would take my life, my future, into my hands. I was as much English as I was French. My mother was disgusted at the sight of me, so the French in me was of no consequence. It certainly didn't matter to her. She kept me only because she used me. My father had loved me and had wanted to raise me, therefore I would, from that moment
forward, consider myself to be his English child. I would learn his language as my own, and I did, studying it for years, with Jacques and then after him. It became my work, my goal. My only obstacle, and the reason I do not pass myself off as an Englishwoman today, is that I cannot lose my thick accent. I also know France and its people and culture so well that I'm invaluable to the British cause there. For the first time in my life I am useful for something truly worthwhile.” She let out a heavy breath and cocked her head. “Perhaps it is irrational, but in my heart it did, and still does, make sense to me. At thirteen, I decided that outwardly I am French, inwardly I am and will always be English.”

“And that's when you became involved with Grenier,” he finally interjected, wanting to keep her on track by returning to the point of his original question.

She nodded and looked back into his eyes. Hers were weary, but, as Madeleine always did, she remained regal in her beauty, poised even as she remembered a tumultuous time in her young life. Thomas fought the overpowering urge to rise to his feet and take her in his arms.

“Yes, I met him during a very boisterous musical production in Cannes. He played a singing traveling salesman, and I was his costumer. I dressed him for the part and eventually I began undressing him as well. But I did not become his lover so that he would teach me the language,” she clarified. “He was my willing tutor for almost two years before we became involved.”

“You were still a child.”

“Yes, and terribly naive.”

Thomas stirred and closed his hands together over his stomach. “Were you in love with him?” he asked in a lowered voice, heart thumping, trying not to betray his concern through his demeanor.

The clock on the mantel chimed ten, and she smiled again, eyes sparkling as she attempted to lighten the mood. “All these personal questions during one game of chess? I think you are trying to distract me because it's late and I'm finally beating you.”

“Your imagination is profoundly vivid, madam,” he replied with feigned shock.

She tipped her head back and laughed faintly, closing her arms across her middle so that she unknowingly lifted her breasts up, the full, golden curves pushing over the top of her gown.

Thomas's gaze naturally dropped to the sight and lingered. When he raised it back to her face, she was watching him intently.

The corners of her lips turned up shrewdly, and she leaned forward to intentionally offer him more—a spectacular view down her magnificent cleavage.

“It's your move, Thomas.”

His body went hard with those suggestive, silkily spoken words; perspiration beaded on his upper lip and across his neck. But he refused to let her know how just the thought of her affected him. For now.

He pushed his rook forward six squares to block her. “Answer my question.”

She chuckled again then dropped her voice to a soft purr. “What is love, Thomas? I cared for Jacques, but I was very young, and he was twenty-eight years my senior. We had little in common beyond the theater, good
poetry, and reading, speaking, and writing English. It would probably be more accurate to say we were there for each other at the time. Like most relationships, don't you think?”

He knew what she was implying, what she wanted from their relationship while she was in England, or at least what she thought she wanted. Fortunately for both of them he had no intention of ever being there for her for just the moment.

“Have you ever been in love, Madeleine?” he pressed, his voice caressing as his gaze penetrated hers. “I don't mean a passing, short-term love affair, or a strictly sexual love, but one that burns deep. One that is passionately real and immeasurably powerful.” He leaned toward her so that the length of the chessboard was the distance between them. “A love that captures your imagination and takes your breath away.”

The air between them thickened. He could sense that the question unsettled her, because her face flushed and she licked her parted lips as her smile faded.

Suddenly her eyes betrayed her wariness, and she dropped her lashes, reaching forward to caress the marble king at her fingertips. “Have you?” she asked in a tone barely heard.

Without the slightest hesitation, he whispered, “Yes.”

The seriousness and finality exposed in his very forthright answer caught her off guard, and she fidgeted. Their discussion had become deeply personal, and she wasn't sure how to acknowledge his admission. He'd made her nervous, although she was doing her best to hide it. She just didn't know how intimately he knew her and how easily he could read her.

After several seconds she asked, “With your wife?”

And at that moment Thomas knew that he had her. The lightness was gone from the conversation, and she wanted to know. The attraction had instantly intensified at her demand, and he could hardly contain his grin of jubilance.

Huskily he replied, “With someone I met years ago, Maddie.”

Very slowly she raised her eyes to his once more, and he immersed himself in those beautiful liquid pools of unsureness, the heat between them palpable, her breathing uneven as she tightened her grip on her king.

Then the corners of his lips turned up, his lids narrowed, and without so much as a glance to the board, he pushed his queen forward nine squares, confiscated her queen, then closed his palm over her knuckles.