Angel In My Bed (28 page)

He grumbled obstinately, and she kissed his cheek. After closing the bedroom door, Victoria walked to the kitchen. Esma stood over a washboard in the sink, her long sleeves drawn up to her elbows and a mist of perspiration on her upper lip. Victoria grabbed a pad and lifted the pot of coffee from the stove.

“I want him to move to the manor house, so I can be closer to him, Esma.” She poured the steaming brew into a cup.

“He'll not be a burden, mum.” Esma worked one of Sir Henry's shirts over the washboard and dunked it in a bucket of water.

Victoria set the pot back on the low fire. Laughter in the yard pulled her to the window. Leaning against the countertop, she lifted aside the curtain.

Bethany and Nathanial were talking to the dray driver. Carrying a basket of eggs, Bethany wore a cloak but no hood covering her head. Sunlight captured the gold from her hair, and her smile was bright for the older man performing some sleight-of-hand for Nathanial. Victoria shifted her scrutiny to
the driver as he presented her son with a piece of candy that had magically appeared from behind Nathanial's ear.

“Who is the dray driver?” she asked Esma.

Esma peered through the window above the sink. “He and Mr. Gibson deliver goods from town. Always brings sweets for the boy.”

That was odd for a man who didn't look as if he had two shillings to his name. After Nathanial and Bethany returned to the stables, Victoria remembered that she was going to take him coffee. She walked to the mudroom and drew her cloak off the wall. She pulled it over her shoulders and returned to the kitchen to retrieve the coffee. Shielding the brew with the palm of her hand, she negotiated her way across the yard. Mr. Shelby and the man Mr. Rockwell had sent to watch over them were unloading buckets of coal.

The driver squatted behind the back wheel of the dray, and Victoria saw that he was scraping clumps of mud from the spokes with a large knife. She couldn't see his face. He'd wrapped heavy wool around his palms, but his scabbed fingers were still exposed to the elements. Yet there was no hint of vulnerability to those hands.

“I thought perhaps you might want something warm in your stomach,” she said.

At first, she didn't think he heard her. Then his head tilted and he was looking at her feet. Slowly he rose. His shoulders hunched, she saw that the knife remained in his hand. He turned his head, and she was suddenly looking into his eyes.

“Hello, daughter.”

Her heart slammed against her ribs. She would have dropped the cup if he had not found it in her grip and gently detached it from her palms. Her father had aged twenty years
from the time she had last seen him. His once-dashing features were gaunt behind a beard now feathered with gray, though his hazel eyes remained sharp. No one questioned his presence, which meant he'd been coming and going for some time. Who knew him after all, except she and David? Yet her father was also a chameleon, and somehow she knew this version of him was another masquerade.

“Smile, Maggie.” He nosed the steam rising from the cup. “We are being observed. If you give me away, Donally's son won't grow up. I am not working alone.”

The words were a promise. If something happened to him, someone somewhere would carry through on the promise. Today. Tomorrow.

Her father still held the knife in his hand; though his sleeve shielded the blade, it would take little effort to strike at the flesh of a person. “If you so much as harm a hair on my son's head, I swear I will kill you with my own hands.”

“Now, that's the spirit.” Her father drank from the cup, eyeing her over the rim. His knuckles bore evidence of a recent fight. “Nice boy, my grandson, despite his bastard of a father. You know why I am here, Maggie.”

At once, her son emerged from the stable where he had gone to find eggs with Bethany. “Mother?” He ran toward her.

Her breath caught, and she felt an overwhelming sensation of drowning. She could have screamed, but it had not occurred to her to do so. Anymore than it had occurred to her father that she would do just that and risk the lives of her family.

“Please…don't hurt him.”

“Mother.” Breathless from his obvious foraging in the stables, he stopped in front of her. Straw stuck out of his hair.
His eyes sparkled as he held two eggs out to her. “Bethany said if I wrap these in blankets, they'll hatch chicks.”

Victoria stepped between her father and her son. “I think Bethany was just teasing.”

“She said she's done it a hundred times and that I should keep the eggs in my room near the stove.”

“She's jesting, Nathan.” She set her palms on his arms and gave him a little push. “Now, go inside and have Esma make you lunch with those eggs.”

His expression growing mutinous, he looked past her to her father. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him as he crooked an elbow against the wagon.

“But why?” he asked. “I don't want to eat—”

“Just do as I say, Nathanial!” Her son was too young to hide his hurt, and she wanted to touch his cheek. “Now!”

He took his precious eggs and walked toward the cottage. When she finally faced her father, she knew a ferocity born of her past, the need to protect her family and the knowledge that she would fight.

“He's just a little boy, Father.”

“How very quaint.” Handing her the cup, he smiled. His teeth were still nearly perfect. “If I wanted to harm Nathanial, I could have long ago.”

Hearing her son's name spoken with such familiarity accomplished what nothing else had. A strange sort of calm settled over her. It kept her chin high. She watched as he hitched the gate on the dray and turned. She should have been afraid, as they faced each other. Father and daughter. He had molded her so perfectly into his shadow.

Perhaps he did not realize just how perfectly.

He blew into his hands to ward off the chill, his gaze catch
ing hers and perhaps the thoughts behind her eyes, as even the silence framed her memories of him. A visceral mixture of love and hate that had forever defined her image of herself.

His slow smile told her that he recognized her weakness. “Watching you these last months, I have decided you can have your little family, Maggie, unhindered by the burden you've carried for me all these years. No one need ever know the machinations of your devious little heart. I will forgive you your betrayal of me. I'll leave the country, and you'll never see me again.” He walked to the front of the dray, and climbed onto the bench. He retrieved the reins. “I want the locket, Maggie. My time is up here and now I must go.”

“It was you that night in the church after the storm.”

He did not deny it.

The dray lumbered in a turn as her father brought the horses around. She could do nothing to stop him from leaving, for catching him did not erase the danger to her son, or his purpose for finding her. She walked beside the slow-moving wagon.

“Did you shoot me?”

“Assuredly I did not,” he said as casually as if they were discussing the weather.

Then there
was
someone else.

David's man walked outside the stable and, thumbing his hat back on his head watched them. She lowered her voice. “Is Nellis working with you?”

“Nellis is a preening maggot who overplayed my patience and put his nose where it does not belong.” Pulling the floppy hat over his forehead, he smiled down at her. “Donally has settled that particular problem for me.”

Her hand went to her chest. “What do you mean?”

His eyes were laughing as if he were privy to some great
joke, as if the last laugh belonged solely to him. “He has great affection for you, daughter. He always has. Alas, he is walking the line of treason to save you.”

She came to a stop. Dizzy and disoriented. She stood on the drive, her mind a total blank as she struggled to think. Pressing her hand against her waist, she only knew if she took a single step from where she stood, her knees would fold.

She waited until the dray disappeared before turning to look at the trees and surrounding rooftops. Nothing moved. There was no flash of field glasses staring down at her. No hint of any sharpshooter ready to drill her through the heart.

She called to the man standing outside the stable. “Where is Mr. Rockwell?”

“I don't know, mum,” he replied as she approached.

“Take Bethany and go inside the cottage. If you leave my son alone, so help me, you will regret my wrath to your dying day. Do you understand?”

She darted past him into the stable. She didn't want her father to get too far a start, but it took precious minutes arguing with Mr. Shelby the entire time he saddled the horse.

The mud from the recent rain made following the heavy wagon tracks simple. Fifteen minutes later, she rode into the busy churchyard. With no thought as to what she should do, she searched for the dray and saw the man at the reins set the brake.

Victoria stared in disbelief as Mr. Gibson climbed out of the seat. She nudged the horse forward. “My lady.” His expression showed surprise as she rode up beside him.

“What happened to the man driving this wagon?”

“I met him a ways back. He said that you asked him to return to town for more supplies. He took my horse and went the way of the old drover's trail.”

Victoria twisted in the saddle and glared at the woods. The neglected trail went down the bluff to the river bridge. She had taken the same path when David found her in the cemetery. Her burst of vim died inside her almost at once. She would not find her father unless he wanted her to find him.

Turning her attention back to the churchyard, she sought out Mr. Rockwell. More than that, she wanted David—if only to know that he was safe. The sight that met her eyes stopped her. “Mr. Rockwell found the tunnel, mum,” Mr. Gibson said.

Men filled the churchyard, thirty or forty strong, standing in a line passing down buckets filled with dirt. “They have come to help, my lady.”

They were the same men and their sons who had walked away from their farms afraid of reprisal, now back with more numbers than before.

“But how did David get them here?” She said the words without realizing that she had spoken them aloud.

“I don't know. But they came, mum. They came for Lord Chadwick.”

V
ictoria arrived upstairs from the servants' entrance. Gripping the edge of her skirt, she hurried down the corridor to her chambers and slammed the door behind her. With a flick of her wrist, she snicked the key in the lock, spun on her heel, and walked through her private sitting room to her bedroom.

With little regard for her cloak, she threw it on the bed. It wasn't until she'd dropped on her knees in front of the night table that she felt her muscles drain of strength. She wanted to close her eyes and disappear. Tears grabbed at her throat. But she would not allow herself to cry.

After a moment, she rallied herself and pulled open the drawers in her night table. When she could not find the locket, she dumped the contents on her bed.

The locket wasn't there.

Victoria returned to her sitting room and emptied the contents of another drawer. In desperation, she made her way
through cabinets and articles of clothing. When she could find nothing else to tear apart, Victoria stepped back, saw the destruction, and gasped at what she had done. Her hair had loosened from its pins. Long dark strands fell over her shoulders. She shoved it off her face with hands that trembled, prepared to move the furniture and carpets. She stopped in her tracks.

David was standing in the doorway between her sitting room and bedroom. There was something restrained in his eyes as he met her horrified look, as if he had been watching her for some time. She did not know how he had gotten into her chambers.

Yet she felt relief. He was here and he was whole, and he filled her vision. She ran to him. He wrapped his arms around her and held her.

“You're shaking, Meg.”

It didn't matter that his clothes were damp or that his face scratched the tender under-curve of her cheek. She held him to her with all her strength. “He's here, David. He has been living beneath our very noses. He left by way of the old drover's trail.”

His head angled back. “Who, Meg? Your father?”

“He's been making deliveries to the cottage for Mr. Gibson. He stood close enough to Nathanial to touch him. He knows that he is our son. He knows everything. He knows—”

“Shh.” He brought her against him. “Where is Nathanial now?”

“He's at the cottage. I sent Blakely to be with him,” she said, trying to regain her equilibrium. She felt as she had when she was a little girl, before her mother had gone away. When a scrape or a bump was perfectly tolerable until her
mother had appeared and the tears she'd been able to hold back rushed to the surface.

“He wants the locket, David.” She pushed herself to arm's length, aware that his hands held her shoulders. “I must have dropped it behind the furniture, though I don't know where. I have to give him the locket. He said he would go away forever.”

“Why does he want the locket?” He looked at her hard. “How does he even know you still have it?”

Shaking her head, she heard herself falter. “I tried to take her image out of the locket. I should have thrown it away years ago, but I couldn't. I hid it away. When I made up my mind to fight him, I thought if I didn't have the locket…he would never have the treasure. But you brought it back to me.”

“He gave you something that he knew you would never throw away. Something so important that he would want it back after a decade. Why? What is the locket to him?”

“A long time ago, he told me it was the key to my mother's heart. That if I wore it long enough, it would lead me to her.”

“He is a bastard, Meg. You know that, don't you?”

She nodded slowly. “He is the only one who ever knew where the treasure was. I told you the truth when I said I didn't know.” Was David ashamed of her? she wondered.

She had no more secrets. David knew them all as intimately as he knew her body and her heart. If he turned her over to the authorities this time, there would be nothing left of her to salvage.

“After the treasury theft in India, the Circle began crumbling,” she explained. “Father seemed bent on doing things that drew attention to us. Everything was a game for him. He allowed you into the Circle. He must have known what would happen. And I did exactly what he wanted me to do. He al
ways knew I would be the one to betray him to the authorities all those years ago.”

He framed her face within his palms and forced her to look at him. “But you didn't know that, Meg.”

“Don't you see? He could not have planned the last ten years better. For who in the Circle of Nine remains to claim the treasure, but the one who created the scheme?”

He started to say something else, but she forestalled him. “There is someone else working with him, David. Someone other than Nellis is involved.”

“I know.”

She pushed away from him. “He promised Nathanial would not be hurt. He'll go away forever—”

“Meg…”

“We can finally be free. Do you understand?” She walked to the window and flung open the curtains. The glass framed a dome of sky. “I want to wake up and feel the sunlight on my soul and know that I am free of him. I have lived in fear for nine years that my father would find my son, but now if I give him the locket, our son can be free. My father will go away.” She dropped to her knees and began rifling through the drawer contents she'd dumped on the floor. “This can be over.”

David stood at the edge of the carpet, his heart torn in half, unable to move farther into the room, yet helpless not to go to her. He stepped over the scattered papers, buttons, pens, and knelt beside her. “You're not alone anymore, Meg.”

She sat back on her calves, her violet skirt spread around her, achingly beautiful. “Will you help me find the locket?”

A strand of her hair had fallen over her shoulder, and he brushed it off her face. A faint frown marred his mouth as he considered what she had yet to say. David angled his palm around her chin. “He gave you his word that he would not
harm Nathanial. But he did not give you his word that he would not harm you. I won't help you find the necklace.”

Meg pressed her lips together. Her fingers folded into her skirts. She struggled to her feet. “I don't need you to help me,” she said, sidestepping him. “I will search alone if I have to tear this place apart.”

David watched her walk to the door that separated this room from her bedroom. She stepped over the threshold and pulled shut the door. The sound of a key clicking in the lock followed.

David looked at the door behind him that led into the hallway. She had locked that door earlier. The key was not in the lock. He drew in his breath and, bracing his wrist across his thigh, swore before he rose to his feet. Did she even know she'd locked him in her sitting room?

He sat on the chair next to the window and removed the locket from his waistcoat pocket. He turned it over in his hands, studying the intricate lily flower design.

Something crashed to the floor in the other room. “Damn, damn, damn,” he heard the muffled feminine expletive.

Returning the locket to his pocket, he walked to the connecting door. “Meg?”

“Go away, David.” He could hear the scrape of furniture. “If you aren't going to help me do this, I'll do it alone.”

“You're not doing anything alone.”

There was a long pause. After a moment, he pressed an ear to the panel. He could feel her doing the same on the other side and knew she could feel him, too. “Just open the damn door, will you? I'll injure myself if you make me break down this door.”

After a moment, he heard the lock click and the door flung open. Meg looked past him to the other door before she
deigned to give him her attention. When she did, he saw that her eyes were wet. Leaning a palm against the frame, he spoke without touching her. “You know I love you,” he said.

“I love you, too,” she answered.

“You should not have had to face your father alone today.” This was his fault for allowing himself to get unfocused. For forgetting why he was here.

“I wasn't frightened for myself, David.”

He touched her face. “That is what frightens me.”

Tears clung to the rims of her lashes, and he took her into his arms. “Why?” Her voice was a whisper, but David heard the quiet mutiny framed by that one word.

“Because you
should
be afraid. Because I love you and I would not lose you again.”

“He knows where my mother is buried.” Her voice was muffled against his shoulder. She curled her fingers in the cloth of his shirt. “He has always known.”

David brushed the hair from her cheek. “Kinley's people went through Faraday's holdings before his trial looking for any shipments made during his tenure in India. Do you remember anything about your mother?”

She shook her head. “I know that she and my father were married in Brighton. My mother always talked about a chapel on the sea someplace.” Dabbing at her eyes, she studied him. “She loved the sea.”

“Anything else?”

Her smile wobbled a bit. “Are you interrogating me?”

“Do you trust me to know how to help you?” He spoke against her hair.

He felt the slight stiffening of her spine beneath his palm and felt her hand against his pocket. “Is this an issue of trust
between a husband and his wife?” she asked. “I recall that you asked me that same question before, David.”

That afternoon like a thousand days since, he regretted. He had destroyed her trust, and, carrying his son, she had walked out of his life. “I know what I said, Meg.”

Taking his face between her palms, she pressed her lips against his and, after she kissed him, looked deeply into his eyes. “Then do
you
trust me?” she asked.

“I trust you.”

“Will you give me back my locket?” Her voice sharpened slightly. “The one you must have forgotten you put in your pocket?”

Leaning one palm against the doorjamb at her back, he stopped her from reaching for his pocket. “Not in a thousand years, love.”

“You want this to end as much as I do. If my father is ready to flee, then whoever is working with him will flee as well. We have to catch them all.”

“I won't let you be bait.”

“Give me the necklace.” She nailed him with the tip of her finger. “This is my fight more than yours, Donally. I have to finish this for us.”

His eyes narrowed, and he was a second too late in intercepting her hand. She grasped the pocket in his waistcoat, wrapped the loose fabric in her hand, and pulled the cloth. He enfolded his palm around her wrist, and they stood rooted to the floor like two battling warriors.

“Let go, Meg.”

“I will not.”

He didn't want to hurt her, but neither would he relent.

She swore at him, but he was stronger and pulled her hand
from his pocket, securing both her wrists. He pinned them to the wall at her back. And knew a slow sweet hunger inside. Her eyes glittered with their own searing fire. “I am part of this fight, David. I will finish it with or without your permission.”

She was right, of course. Everything she'd said was correct, but he could not allow her sacrifice. If she stayed and helped him do this, he would have to turn her over in the end. He could not. Nor could he allow her father to get his hands on her.

“You're thinking like my husband, David.” The quiet intensity of her voice drew his focus back to her face. “You cannot.”

He could.

And he did.

“You are my wife.”

His mouth covering hers, he could think of her as nothing else. She did not twist away, and he kissed her deeply. The shocking hunger of his passion swept through his veins. It didn't matter that he'd made himself vulnerable and in doing so found her vulnerable, too. Her mouth opened over his, and he thrust his tongue inside. He fit her there as he did everywhere else, and she kissed him back with dizzying need. When he broke away, it was to carry her to bed.

“I think you are a witch,” he said against her lips, falling with her to the mattress, without minding that either of them had yet to divest themselves of clothes. “A sylph, nymph, my Lorelei, Meg.”

She unbuttoned his waistcoat and shirt, her hands needy and eager as he opened her bodice with an urgency that matched hers. He knew every inch of her limned beneath the thin cloth of her shift. She kissed him. “Then I am glad of it,
David.” Moving across his body to straddle his thighs, she slid the locket from his waistcoat pocket.

He snaked his hand upward and caught her wrist, entwining his fingers with hers, the locket pressing between their palms, as his other hand pulled her to his mouth and took the initiative from her. “No, Meg,” he rasped against her lips.

Then he drank her protests and finally her surrender in a possession that was total. The soft inflection of her breath humming in his blood, he bore her beneath him, in a rustle of fabric, holding to their kiss. His knee insinuated itself between her thighs and found the slit in her drawers. He loomed above her, unyielding muscle to her softness. She saw the banked fire in his eyes, felt it in the tension of his arms, and let the currents rise between them. His shirt spilling around her, he pushed himself into her. She drew in a breath of air, her body contracting around him in an intimate embrace.

Deep within his throat, he groaned. He withdrew, then rocked again. “I love you.” His voice a groan, he pulled back to look down at her, beautiful among the pillows, until his breath came in short rasps. Her half-closed eyes on his, she whimpered and slid her hands through his hair in a ragged cry, a sound that changed into pleasure against his mouth. Then neither one of them was thinking about the locket or anything outside this room. His mouth sheered across her temple to slant against her lips. Her limbs twined around his hips. Reality ceased to matter.

If only it could never matter again. He could not love her passionately enough. She wanted his kiss. So deeply that she grabbed his head and held him to her as he rocked against her again and again, his mouth on hers. Together they came hard in a shuddering climax, and he pushed inside her, drawing on her orgasm as long as he could.