Highlander Undone (28 page)

The thought of her stricken face still turned Jack’s stomach with anguish. Later. He would think about that later. Right now he had to save Wheatcroft’s life.

“I don’t know, Cameron. What story could we possibly give out?”

“Anything you like. No one present is going to contradict you.” Jack shrugged. “Say that Sherville was shot by unknown assailants on his way to viewing his portrait. Ted Phyfe will undoubtedly substantiate that he intended to meet Sherville here for that purpose. And,” he added grimly, “there has already been one reported break-in in this house.”

“And Mrs. Hoodless?” Halvers asked. “What is her role to be? Are you willing to place her at the center of this?”

“No,” Jack bit out. “Mrs. Hoodless was not even here. She was in the house proper, quite separate from the studio, having had her purse returned to her by the Merritts’ dutiful butler, who saw that she had left it behind and hurried over with it lest she become anxious at its loss.”

Halvers considered Jack a moment. “It might work.”

“You have no choice.”

“All right, Cameron. You win,” Halvers said.

With the image of Addie’s bloodstained face and torn dress burning in his mind’s eye, Jack looked up. There was no victory in his gaze. Nothing but desolation.

“Do I?”

I
’ll see if the cap’n is receiving visitors, mum,” the little, fresh-scrubbed maid said, her eyes wide with curiosity. She bobbed a quick curtsey and scurried off, leaving Addie to wander around the small, untidy sitting room of Jack’s newly rented apartments.

Jack did not own much. There were several boxes of books, a few good pieces of furniture, and a rather exceptional Persian rug, but none of the stuff and nonsense most people carted after themselves.

She angled her head and read the titles on the spines of an open box of books. They represented several languages, including, she noted, Hindi. She picked up a slim volume. It was Edward FitzGerald’s translation of the Persian poet Omar Khayyam. Curiously, Addie leafed through the book. Her eyes widened. In several poems, Jack had scribbled notes in the margins, refuting Mr. FitzGerald’s word choice and substituting his own.

Some while later, Addie closed the book with an admiring sigh and set it down and glanced at the mantel clock. Twenty minutes had passed. Either the maid had gotten lost, or Jack—her heart thudded dully—did not want to see her and the maid was too cowardly to come tell Addie.

Well, he had to see her. She had not seen him since he had whisked her away from the scene of Sherville’s death, bundling her into a carriage and sending her off with Ted. After that there had been a few days when Ted—and the doctor he’d engaged—had insisted she lay abed.

She had expected to hear from Jack but each day passed without a word. Finally, yesterday, she’d sent a note to the Merritts, asking to see him. When he didn’t respond, she’d swallowed her pride and driven to the townhouse. Without any hint of the tragedy they’d shared reflected in his dignified mien, Wheatcroft had informed her that Lord and Lady Merritt were going abroad and were closing the townhouse. Jack had taken apartments elsewhere.

She hadn’t hesitated to secure his new address from Wheatcroft. She loved Jack. And the thought of the proud and hopeless expression he’d faced her with five days ago haunted her. She had been unfair. Worse, unwise.

She strode purposefully up the staircase to the first-floor rooms. They were empty. Taking a deep breath, she mounted the stairway again, making her way to the second floor and the bedchambers.

Quietly she opened the first door she came to and entered a small room with a four-poster bed occupying one end, and a writing table, chair, and settee on the other. Jack stood on the far side, backlit by a tall window, his fist braced above him, staring out at the wintry street below.

“Jack,” she said, shutting the door behind her.

He swung around and when he saw her he could not contain the joy that leapt to his face, the eagerness in his expression. And then, as spontaneously as it had appeared, the pleasure fled from his features, leaving only resignation in its stead.

“Addie.” He inclined his head and smiled politely. “I was just about to come down.”

“Were you?” She went to him, on gaining his side tilting her head and looking up at him.

His gaze traveled hungrily over her face. “You are . . . you are recovering?”

“Yes,” she hurried to assure him. “I am fine.”

“There have been no ill effects? Gerry assured me you were healing well, but there are other forms wounds take.”

“Gerry?”

One corner of his mouth lifted with dark wryness. “I expected any queries I made of Ted would be answered with an imprecation that I go to the devil.”

“Whyever for?” she asked, honestly mystified.

“My investigations put you in danger. I confronted Sherville earlier, setting him on edge.”

“No. Charles put me in danger. Is that why you haven’t called on me?” When he didn’t answer, she tried another tack. “And you? He struck you violently. Are you all right?”

“Of course. You forget. I am an old hand at bloodletting.”

The sound of his voice was bitter.

“I haven’t forgotten,” she said softly.

For a moment he stared at her and then, shaking himself from his absorption, cleared his throat. “We should go down.” He took her elbow to guide her to the door and the less intimate regions below stairs. She shook off his hand, unwilling to leave yet. Misreading her evasive movement as a reluctance to be touched, he dropped her arm, stricken.

She cast about, looking for some way to begin. “Wheatcroft . . . everything will go well for him, won’t it?”

“Ah.” He nodded. “Wheatcroft. Yes. Everything has been handled satisfactorily.”

“Good,” she murmured. “And what shall you do now? Go back to your regiment?”

“No,” he replied. “The wound I told you about renders me unfit for active duty. Can’t aim a gun anymore. Apparently there was some nerve damage to my hand. My grip will never be strong and there are tremors when I get tired.”

“Yes. I noticed.”

“You did?” he asked, surprised.

“Of course.” She smiled ruefully. “Vain creature that I am, I had imagined that I caused your hand to tremble.”

“Oh, God, Addie—” Hunger, so intense that it took her breath away, suffused his features, eclipsing all other emotions. Hunger and restraint. He’d always held himself in check for her. Always molded his will to her well-being.

She knew her course now. She reached out, no shyness slowing her movements, and spread her hands flat against his chest. His heart pounded beneath her palms. His heat spread through her fingertips, sent delicious tremors along her arms.

“What will you do?” she repeated quietly.

He covered her hands with his own, pressing them tightly to his chest, unconscious of his actions. “I don’t know. Halvers wants me to work at Whitehall. It’s all I know, Addie. The military. It’s what I am.”

“That’s not what I meant. What will you do now?”

He closed his eyes and when he spoke, she had to lean closer to hear his words. “What do you want me to do?”

“Love me.”

His mouth turned in a beautiful smile. “I do. I could not possibly love you more than I already do, Addie.” He stood firm, his eyes still shut, his hands still pressing hers to his chest.

She exhaled in relief.

His eyes opened and he shook his head, his mouth tender and remorseful. He’d misread her sigh. “How can I ask you to believe me? I promised you would not see any brutality from me, never again witness a violent act from me, and then not only do I cause you to be attacked but I smear your cheek with another man’s blood.”

“You were protecting me.”

“I was out of control. If you had not intervened, I would have killed him. I’ve never killed a man with my bare hands, Addie, but I was going to kill Sherville.”

His anguished gaze had grown remote. She could feel the distance he was building between them with each word.

“Jack,” she said urgently. “You
did
stop. You didn’t kill Sherville.”

He continued studying her face, as though committing each of her features to memory.

“Listen to me,” she insisted, frightened. “When I thought you might kill Sherville, I was terrified.” His small hiss of pain made her flinch. She hurried to explain. “But not of you.
For
you! I placed myself between you and Sherville with no fear for myself, no doubts. My only thought was that you mustn’t stand trial for Sherville’s death.”

She moved her hand higher on his chest, willing him to believe her.

“I couldn’t let that happen because I could not let you be taken from me. In that instance, I saw my life as it would be without you, without love, retreating once more into that barren, chill place I’d lived in for so long. I love you, Jack.”

He bowed his head. “Thank you.”

Her hand closed in a fist, braced in frustration against his broad chest. “Don’t thank me.
Marry me
.”

He stared at her, stunned. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do.” She bracketed his lean cheeks with her hands, trying to make him understand. “I married Charles because he was a soldier and soldiers are responsible and dutiful, everything my famous and infamous family is not.” He started to say something but she had to finish. “Please, let me go on.

“And when I discovered that Charles was none of these things, and worse, the antithesis of those values I assumed all soldiers held sacred, I felt betrayed. Betrayed not only by Charles, but by myself. How could I have misread his character so absolutely? Even after his death, I was afraid, afraid my heart was blind, indiscriminate, and untrustworthy.”

“Addie, please. I know I failed—”

“You did not. You never failed me,” she said fiercely. “You made me finally realize that my heart was never unsound; Charles was.”

He frowned. Gently, he cupped her shoulders. “What happened with Charles was not your fault.”

“I know that now. But it is my fault that I judged all soldiers by Charles’s example. That was unfair of me.”

“It was understandable.”

She touched his cheek. “It was unfair,” she insisted. “And I might have gone on, suspicious and mistrustful, afraid to live . . . to love . . . had not another soldier appeared in my life. One who perfectly embodied all those attributes I sought in Charles: honor, bravery, loyalty, and compassion. My God, Jack. How I love you.”

She pulled his head down to hers. Tenderly, she pressed her mouth to his. His hands closed tighter about her shoulders but aside from that single, involuntary movement, he was still. She wrapped her arms around his neck, relishing the heat of his hard male body seeping through her thin dimity bodice. She followed the seam of his firm lips with her tongue. Hungrily, his mouth opened beneath hers. And still, he made no move to tighten his light embrace. Disappointed, she drew back, searching his face for a reason. He stared back, hot-eyed and hungry, his breathing ragged, his heart pounding.

“Yes. Please,” he said. “Marry me. I swear you will never know one minute of fear at my hands.”

She understood then and understanding made her smile. “Do you think I don’t know?” she asked. “Do you think I didn’t recognize how you have always subjugated your desires to what you thought were mine? I did. I do. It’s been driving me mad.”

His breathing stopped and his dark brows dipped in consternation.

“Your self-control has caused me to question my desirability on more than one occasion,” she told him.

“Jesus,” he groaned.

“Don’t you want me, Jack?”

“Yes.” He laughed, a choked sound. “Yes.”

“Won’t you make love to me?”

In answer he bent and caught her behind the knees and swung her up high on his chest. She gasped as he strode to the bed but he did not stop. Nor did he pause as he lay her there or followed her down or kissed her mouth, her throat, her shoulders.

His passion was breathtaking, irrefutable, and concentrated. He peeled his coat off, stripped the shirt from his torso. His chest glistened with a feverish sheen, the muscles of his body rippling with animal elegance as he bent over her, braced himself above her on trembling arms, and hungrily nipped the point of her jaw. She arched into his caress, offering her neck, bowing her body.

Like a starving man, he feasted on her throat. Open mouthed he breathed in her fragrance, licked the sweet-salty taste of her aroused skin, smoothed his hands over her shoulders, found the heartbeat in her wrists and kissed those, too.

She twisted beneath him, her fingers playing over his back until finding ruined flesh. Her eyes, half lidded with passion, widened. He groaned at this intrusive reminder of what he was but she only played her fingers again across the ugly scar, her gaze full of love and ferocity.

“My soldier. My love,” she whispered, and those words, more than anything she had said or allowed, freed him of his last restraint.

He delved his tongue deep into the warm, slick interior of her mouth. Between them, her hands worked frantically to free herself of her suddenly hated clothing. And then he felt her soft breasts’ warm bounty cushion against his chest. He groaned.

He rolled onto his back, dragging her atop of him. Panting, she straddled him. Her bodice was open and her hair spilled in glorious waves about her bare breasts where pink and puckered nipples rose and fell with each agitated breath. Her skirts were rucked up about her waist, and her slender calves lay against his thighs. Her lips, swollen and voluptuous, parted. Between her thick black lashes her eyes were sensual pools of amber heat, lambent and erotic.

“I love you, Jack,” she said. And then added in a shaken voice, “I want you, Jack.”

He had never thought she could look like this, filled with love and a longing that matched his own. He could stand no more. He stroked her gently, down her slender flanks, over the column of her thighs and up. She panted, watching him, uncertain what to do.

He found the slick center between her legs. With one hand on her hip, holding her against the possession of his other, he played with her. Her eyelids fluttered shut and her head fell back as she moaned, her hips seeking the instinctive rhythm of lovemaking.

And then, suddenly, her eyes flew open. “No,” she said in a low, hoarse voice. “No.”

She lifted herself to her knees, away from his touch, and scooted back to sit on his thighs. Her hair streamed over her face and her fingers, made awkward by passion, pulled clumsily at his trousers’ front closure. There was a second of intense pleasure and frustration and then his trousers opened.