Linda Needham (19 page)

Charles shut away the images of Hollie in another man’s bed, watching her face for memories of the man she said she loved. But the woman only blinked at him, catching her lower lip in that way she did when she was upset.

“You do have relations with him, Hollie?” he asked, his heart beginning to pound with an absurdity, a flicker of hope that the bastard had never touched her.

“No, Charles, I don’t.”

“You—don’t?” He wasn’t sure she had clearly understood his question, the full weight of it, or the exact meaning. “Do you mean to say, Hollie, that your husband has never taken you to bed?”

She shook her head, and all that golden hair, glanced up at the ceiling, then to her folded hands, and then at him. “Never once, Charles.”

Holy hell.

She gave a long, almost growling sigh, snatched up the hairbrush from the washstand, and began brushing forcefully through her curls.

Never once.

He didn’t know what to make of this startling news, what it meant to both of them in the long run, let alone in the short. Only that he wanted to shout and celebrate with her in some entirely pagan way. With water from the nearest spring and thick cream and Hollie’s naked, moonlit body.

“Good Christ, Hollie, is Adam MacGillnock completely mad?”

“I don’t think so.” She seemed wistful and worried, as though she were mulling something over.

“Is he incapable?”

But that suggestion only wrinkled her brow. “He’s just a very busy man.”

“Busy?” He hadn’t meant to shout, but he must have because her eyes widened. “Too busy to take his wife to bed? To pleasure her? What the devil kind of marriage do you have, Hollie?”

She shook her head.

“Certainly not a very convenient one, Charles, as I’m discovering the hard way. More of a business relationship, I suppose.”

“You suppose? Didn’t you talk about it while you were falling madly in love with each other?”

“At times like these I think I even regret the marriage altogether.”

“Times like what?”

“Like this particular time, Charles.” She spread her hands to him, and he realized she was wearing a different nightgown from before. Not flannel. Transparent in the moonlight, with small buttons that reached to the hem.

Or else his imagination had gotten sharper with his rioting desire for her, because he was sure that he saw a shadowy triangle through the light folds of the fabric there at the joining of her legs, knew it would be dark blond, scented for him, for his mouth and his exploration.

“The confusing times, Charles. When I think I must have married in haste.”

“To a man too busy to make love with you.”

“That and so much more, Charles.”

“He’s a fool—and I’ll tell him so one day.”

“What would you tell him? That he is a neglectful husband?”

“That he ought to have done right by you when he had the chance.”

“As you would have done?”

“As I want to do.”

She lifted her eyes. “Regularly, Charles?”

“I’d have a hell of a time keeping my hands to myself.”

“You’d take my nightgown from me?”

“In good time.”

“Not right away?”

“Not until you were aching for me.”

Hollie
was
aching for him, deeply. Nearly fainting. “How would you know?”

“I’d see it in your eyes.” He lifted her chin with the end of his finger. “And here on your neck—the blush of passion. It would lie like a fever across your bosom.” He lifted aside the collar.

“And here, Hollie, on your breasts.” She closed her eyes, her dangerous imagination coursing where he wasn’t yet touching, where she wanted his hands, his mouth. “But I’d have started at your toes, Hollie.”

“Oh, Charles.” She opened her eyes.

“And I’d have taken my time.”

“And I would be aching long before you got to my buttons.”

“Christ, Hollie!” Like a raging storm, he swept her up into his fury, enfolded her in his strong arms, and took her into himself, spreading her knees slightly with his until she was almost straddling his thigh and indelicately pressing
against him where her ache was the keenest. She formed herself against him until his rigid erection was cradled wonderfully against her belly, the only place she could ever have him.

He breathed roughly and trembled as he held her, hip to hip, his erection standing stiffly and so fine. It had a pulse like the beating of her heart, and a deep connection to the answering part of her.

But he finally controlled this marvelous passion of his once again, controlled his breathing.

“This is deeply wrong of me, Hollie,” he whispered next to her ear.

“No regrets, Charles,” she said quietly. “Only that I envy the woman who will someday be your wife.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, then smiled wanly. “As I envy your captain, my dear, to the end of my days.”

And then he left her, aching for him, wishing she didn’t care, certain that she always would.

H
ollie soon became dreadfully adept at rifling Charles’s mail and stealing a look at Sidmouth’s letters. It was a simple thing to slip out of the conservatory before supper and have a quick spy in the library or in his office. Charles spent far more time in the fields than he did at his accounts. And when he was there, Bavidge was too, taking dictation and writing letters, running in circles for the earl. It seemed an old and efficient routine.

Sometimes the letters were lying exposed on the blotter, right beneath Charles’s fingers. So since reading upside down and sideways was like breathing to her, she often did her spying in the open, while Charles was looking up at her, setting her pulse on fire with his dark gaze and
his rumbling questions, making her want to weep.

But still there was nothing but Liverpool’s political posturing, rarely anything at all about Peterloo, as though the matter was nothing to the Prime Minister but an inconsequentially bothersome episode that would soon die away.

The Handbook of Song Birds
was coming along nicely, not that it mattered in the least. There was no customer called the Dunsmere Avian Society, no deadline. The etchings had been left in the shop years ago by a customer who had never come back to pick up the project, so they served as a simple cover to keep her press operating.

Now another page of birds was ready to be printed, and Charles was nowhere to be found. The conservatory had become a center of activity; the Stanhope seemed to draw everyone. Even Mrs. Riley wanted to know if Hollie would print the Stirling family recipes for her.

Charles had started out merely watching her, standing around as she used the devil’s tail and removing it when she was finished. But the man was as curious about the press as was his son, and from the first page of the
Song Birds
he began to involve himself in the mechanics of the press. From inking the plates and loading the paper to running the bed and the platen.

And she couldn’t think of a single reason to dissuade him from offering his considerable strength in the process.

Charles Stirling was an unrhymed poem. He was huge and handsome, had shoulders built for labor, was broadly muscled, thickly sinewed, and wildly passionate. He was a joy to watch, his sleeves rolled to his elbows, the brawny muscles of his forearms straining.

But this afternoon she was alone in the conservatory, and her favorite pressman had locked away the blasted handle somewhere, leaving her unable to continue without him.

She hurried off to Charles’s library, but the room was empty and echoing, and she remembered that he was off on his estate rounds today. She was about to turn and leave when she noticed a tempting stack of letters lying open on his desk.

This spying business roiled her stomach, spun it sideways. But her cause was just, she kept telling herself. And the vision of her father lying mortally wounded with all the other victims on St. Peter’s Fields steadied her considerably.

With her eyes always on the door, she leafed through the stack of envelopes, looking for the Privy Council marks. But the bulk of them were from Charles’s lawyers and land agents, a mining lease holder, and a horse breeder in Yorkshire.

There were two from Sidmouth at the bottom—probably more of his babbling. She watched the door and opened the first: a meeting announcement.

The second letter froze her feet to the floor.

“The Blasphemous and Seditious Libels Act.” Dear God. Exactly what she’d been expecting, what she’d been praying would never come. Her breathing caught on her ribs as the words scrambled and blinked into view. “Stronger punishments, including banishment, for publications judged to be blasphemous or seditious.” Judged by whom?

And what could possibly be stronger punishment than spending long years in prison or transportation across the world or the gallows?

A chill crept up her spine as she quickly scanned the rest of the pages. Five other acts of suppression were to be proposed to Parliament in November.

“A prohibition against public meetings of more than fifty people without the consent of a sheriff or magistrate.” When did they ever consent to anything more than a market fair? And that only because it lined their greedy pockets.

She had to let the others know so that they could be on their guard. Or march on Westminster. Or hide out in their cellars.

She needed to get a note to William Prentice that Captain Spindleshanks would be making an appearance at his next meeting of reformers.

A door slammed somewhere in the house, a startling reminder that she had been living in the belly of the beast, snuggling up to him, dreaming of his kiss, yearning for the touch of his hand.

And now footfalls in the corridor, moving in
exorably closer to the library. A stride as dear and familiar as her father’s had been.

Charles was too close for her to return the letter to its envelope, let alone to its place at the bottom of the stack. She popped them both into the huge pocket of her apron, raking her mind for a legitimate reason for being in his library.

Reading, of course!

She grabbed a book from the nearest shelf, then threw herself into a lounging position on the settee, wrapped one arm across the book on her chest, and nestled her head in the crook of the other, then pretended to snooze, wondering which title she’d chosen.

She hoped that Charles wouldn’t ask what she thought of it so far; prayed most of all that Sidmouth’s letter wasn’t sticking out of her pocket like a beacon.

The door opened, and Charles’s long strides stopped abruptly. She steadied her breathing—a difficult task, given the thudding of her heart and the way her pulse was shooshing around in her veins.

His stride lengthened, and then he stopped just above her. And though he didn’t put a hand on her, she felt caressed and kissed. The best of her daydreams come to life.

All that sensual heat left her for a brief instant, like the sun slipping behind a cloud, only to return even hotter, closer, a moment later.

So close that she could feel his minty breath
against her cheek and then at her ear when he whispered so softly that she could barely hear, “Fancy my great luck at finding a beautiful nymph sleeping in my library.”

Beautiful! Hollie’s heart went wild, spreading a crimson blush like a wildfire above the top of her gown, leaving her no choice but to yawn and stretch and flutter her eyes open, feigning surprise.

“Charles! What are you doing here? What time is it?”

He was sitting on the ottoman, elbows braced on his knees, his grin at a wry angle.

“Ah, my nymph is awake.”

She adored his smile and tried not to dwell on the heady pleasure of his touch.

“Your nymph, Charles?” Hollie harrumphed and sat up, swinging her legs to the edge of the settee while she clutched the book against her lap, not daring to look at the title. “Your nymph came in to find the devil’s tail.”

“And did you find it?”

“You weren’t here, were you?”

“Inspecting my new inn out on the post road. And so you stayed on to read?”

“I thought I’d wait. But I guess I fell asleep.”

“The book was that exciting, was it?”

Hollie read the title for the first time and cringed.

Hints to Gentlemen of Landed Property
, by N. Kent.

How would she explain that one? Head on, perhaps. She perched it in front of him, resting it on her palm. “Have you read Mr. Kent’s manual?”

His mood darkened abruptly. He stood and went to a cabinet. “I haven’t.”

The change in him unsettled her. Something about the book? Or her questioning his estate management? She fanned quickly through it and frowned.

“The pages haven’t been cut yet, Charles. I guess no one could have read it.”

“I guess not.” He shut the cabinet door, then laid the press handle for the Stanhope against the desk. His manner was sternly foreign to her and frightening for its inward turning. A sadness shading his eyes made her heart ache for him.

“
Hints to Gentlemen of Landed Property
,” she said with a shrug, trying to fix whatever it was she’d broken. “From what I’ve seen of Everingham, Charles, you could write your own book on the subject of gentlemen and landed property.”

His shoulders relaxed as though he’d been holding his breath, waiting for a powerful judgment that would fell him. His frown became the sardonically confident smile that made her pulse rise and surge.

“I think I prefer your book of song birds, madam.” Her handsome earl hefted the handle of the Stanhope onto his shoulder, caught her around the waist, and drew her out the door of
the library, unaware of the stolen letter tucked away in her apron pocket.

Unaware that she’d be leaving him in the next few days.

And that her heart would be breaking.

D
eception had been so very uncomplicated back when Hollie was committing it against the corrupt vipers who ran the Home Office from Whitehall. Now the guilty weight of it settled like a shroud against her days and stole into her dreams.

It whispered to her in Charles’s dark baritone and danced through her heart in Chip’s laughter.

The false wife, played to Charles’s careful husbanding. The false mother, stealing the innocent love of a child.

As father and son grew closer, they drew her into their circle, tempted her to dreams of a better life. Home and hearth and all the precious things denied a radical reformer with a price on her head.

And still she practiced her treachery against Charles, who was a better man than she could ever have imagined. And she practiced wilfully, because there was far more at stake than simple happiness. Her father to avenge and a truth to expose.

If the Home Office’s answer to the tragedy on St. Peter’s Fields was not only to blame the victims, but to crush the life out of any future chance of even discussing the problems that led to the debacle, then her choices were few.

Her chance of being caught increased with her daring, but time was flying past. The Home Office would be proposing its heinous acts of suppression as soon as Parliament reconvened in November. She had time enough to print a warning blast revealing its secret strategies. And the best place to warn her fellow radicals was at Prentice’s meeting coming up in a few days.

Captain Spindleshanks was going to have to come out of hiding and take a stand for liberty.

And then what?

She shoved the question from her mind, because the answer would make her weep. She went back to inking the seditious plate that she’d composed in secret in the shadows of her gabled home, hoping that Charles would stay busy with his estate manager and that Chip would find Mrs. Riley’s cakes too delicious to miss a chance to lick the spoon.

The process of printing was as much an intricate dance as ever.

The paper.

The tympan.

The easy slide of the bed.

The perfect fit of her fingers around the Stanhope’s handle, the precise pressure.

Paper meeting ink, her indelible self, the words of her heart, the risk, the need, the end of the journey and the beginning.

Then the precious dance in reverse.

Until she pulled the paper from the plate and spoke her sedition to the world.

“Hollie! Guess what, Hollie! Hollie!” Chip’s voice sailed in from the garden and then his skidding footfalls across the flags as he hit the conservatory door and threw himself in from the afternoon sun.

“Hollie!” His face was lit with his brilliant smile until he caught his foot on the sill and tumbled toe over tail across the floor.

“Chip!” Hollie dropped everything and met him as he landed, then pulled him into her arms, expecting to find scrapes and whimpering.

But he bounced up out of her lap and stood grinning, his dark hair wild and littered with bits of straw.

“I rode Briscoe all by myself, Hollie!”

Great heaven, the stables! Those tiny stalls and
the huge beasts and her fearless little Chip. “You’ve been in the stables again, Chip?”

“And the paddock.”

Doubtless alone. “You could have been hurt.”

“I held on to the saddle and kept my seat really good.”

“Does Carlson know you were there? Did anyone help you?”

He nodded vigorously.

“Oh, yes, Hollie.”

“I did.”

Charles! He was standing in the doorway, the stern magistrate, and now a fiercely protective father. At least she’d have that happiness to keep her warm—that Charles had found his son.

“And guess what, Hollie! Papa said he’d let me help take care of Briscoe’s baby horse.”

Hollie’s heart melted at Charles’s smile. “That’s a very important job, Chip.”

“And guess what else, Hollie! Papa says the baby horse will be mine when he grows up.”

“If you learn to take care of him, son.”

Son. Tears clogged her throat.

“I’ll learn really good, Papa. I promise. Isn’t it great, Hollie!”

“Your papa is a remarkable man, Chip.” And she would miss him as she would miss her heart.

Because she had just printed off the last of her sedition on her Stanhope.

Dear God, the broadside! It had fallen when
she ran to help Chip, and now it was…somewhere.

She turned to see that it was stuck under the leg of a chair—just as Charles stooped to pick up the page.

God, no!

He righted it in silence and studied the page. Top to bottom, taking it all in so that he could rage at her.

SIX ACTS OF SUPPRESSION!

She wanted to run, to close her eyes so that she wouldn’t see him realize how blatantly she’d betrayed him. But not looking at him was like trying not to watch some horror unfolding in front of her eyes.

He took an eternity, and she held her breath, prayed that he would send Chip away before he shackled her again and sent her to prison.

He turned slowly, frowning slightly. And then, as though he didn’t care at all that she’d stolen Sidmouth’s letter from his desk and replaced it right under his nose, that she’d created a scathing broadside from it, that she would broadcast the information to the populace before Parliament could enact a single measure, Charles set the page on the bed of the press and looked directly at her.

“Do you ride, Hollie?”

She couldn’t hear, couldn’t understand a word for the roaring in her ears, for the intimate familiarity in his smile.

You’ve betrayed me, Hollie.
Is that what he said?

You’re under arrest, Hollie.

I loved you, Hollie.

“What’s that, Charles?” she asked finally, only to have Chip grab her hand and pull her a few steps toward the garden door.

“We came here to see if you wanted to come with us, Hollie. I want to show you how good I can ride.”

Charles was wearing a most peculiar smile, relaxed and sensual and entirely unthreatening. He tilted his head. “Do you ride, madam?”

“I—well, I have ridden some, Charles, but—”

“Oh, then come, Hollie!” Chip was pulling harder on her hand, hopping in his delight. “You must! Mrs. Riley even made us a dinner basket.”

And Charles was the picture of Sunday afternoon charm.

“Please come,” he said, offering his hand with the tenderest smile she’d ever seen, nodding to the press and her broadside. “There’s time for this later.”

This! Her heart shuddered. He knew what she’d done, and he was going to mete out his terrible punishment after sharing a country ride and a dinner basket.

She had no choice but to agree.

The fields and forests of the late October after
noon whispered of golds and scattered greens. The sky was a cloudless blue, and the breezes that caught in her hair and her skirt were unseasonably warm.

She waited for Charles’s hinted accusations as they tracked the margins of his estate, Hollie riding sidesaddle, Chip on a stubby little pony, and Charles mounted like a crusading warrior on Briscoe.

But no threats came, or condemnation, or any hint at all of seething anger or shock or anything but genuine contentment. No sign of the wrath she expected, though Charles Stirling was a man of action and wore his moods and his nature openly.

And today his mood was newly tender, almost courting, if her heart was any judge.

Nor did his accusations come when they had dinner together in the dining room or when Chip fell fast asleep in her arms in the library under his father’s watchful gaze or even when the boy was in bed and he was looking down at his son.

She could barely catch her breath when Charles slipped his hand around hers and said in a whisper, “Thank you, Hollie.”

Not “You’re a thief and a liar, Hollie Finch.”

Not “How could you betray me like that?”

Or even “Why?”

Only “Thank you for my son.”

“Oh, Charles.” Such a simple confession. Tears welled up in her eyes, spilled over. Her heart
hammered at the stunning contact with his hand, at the magnitude of her deception, and the softness in his eyes.

“He was yours all along.”

“But you made me stop and see him.” His hand was a trembling caress, and his voice a little shaky. “And I think that I’ve seen all too much of you.”

“Me?” Her spying had finally come to swamp her.
Oh, but not just now, Charles, not here in Chip’s room, where he will hear me weeping.

“Christ, Hollie, how I—Bloody hell!” But he didn’t char the air with his wrath as she feared.

He merely blew out a huge breath, took hold of her hand, and led her out into the hall. He stopped twice in midstride, both times about to speak, only to continue on his journey.

This was it. He was taking her to his dungeon. He had every right: she’d stolen Sidmouth’s letter, then had reproduced it nearly word for word. And he’d waited all day to bring down the full force of his rage upon her until they were out of Chip’s hearing and the boy was filled up with a joyful afternoon and her own heart was filled with yearning for what might have been.

She trailed along behind him like a calf to slaughter. The guilt was overwhelming, because no excuse in the world would serve.

His terrifying mood seemed to break wide open at the bottom of the back stairs, when he fi
nally caught both of her hands and then her arms and then forced her up against the wall.

“Do you know why I’ve brought you down those stairs, Hollie?” There wasn’t a spot on her face where his gaze didn’t alight, leaving her to imagine the scope of his anger.

“I do know, Charles, and I’m so sorry for it.” Sorry for so many things.

“You’re sorry, Hollie?” That only seemed to make him more thunderous. “Good lord, madam, I don’t need that kind of temptation from you.”

“Temptation?”

Charles was near to exploding with madness for the woman and her disarming magic, had just saved her from a sound ravishing at his own hands, and here she was telling him that she was sorry for his chivalry.

Though just now she looked thoroughly terrified at the prospect, her back stiff against the wall, her eyes wide and blinking. It was long past time for honesty. For telling her that he burned for her, for her mouth and the sleekness of her skin, that every moment he spent with her was a trial of restraint that he was rapidly losing.

And all this heady sweetness so very few inches from him, quickening his heart as well as his flesh.

“Hollie, I can’t have you saying things like that.”

“But I need to, Charles.” She looked woeful
and ready to weep, touched his mouth with her peach-fragrant fingers. “Because I do care, whatever you think of me.”

He caught her hand and kept it, laced his fingers through hers. “Hollie, I think you’re the most remarkable woman I’ve ever met.”

She bit at her rosy lip again and tilted her head as though he was speaking in a foreign tongue. “You do?”

“In case you didn’t realize, Hollie, I brought you downstairs just now to keep you safely away from my bedchamber and my bed.” Though he hardly needed a bed; these stairs would do.

“You did what?” Her lovely cheeks went pale; he’d never seen her eyes so wide, so green.

“Bloody hell, woman—every thought I have in my head right now involves making love to you until dawn.”

“You want to make love to me?” Fat tears gathered in her eyes, a great puddle of them. “Oh, my. Oh, Charles, why are you doing this?”

He’d halfway hoped she would be shocked enough to run to the gatehouse and lock the door behind her. And the other half of him wanted just this. The softness of her blush, the unsteady rise and fall of her breasts, so close he could cup them.

Her eyes were wide and wonderful, and he wanted to speak the rest of his mind, but he couldn’t. Shouldn’t.

He caught a handful of her hair, soft wisps of curling sunshine, reminding him of wheatfields and buttercups. “Do you know what your smile does to me, Hollie?”

“No.” It was a little sound. She shook her head, loosening the tears so they streamed down her cheeks.

“It makes me think of honeybees.”

Her mouth glistened as she opened it in a breathy little O, a lush, compelling sound. “Bees?”

“And honey fresh from a hive.” He was hotly roused and desperately wanting what he couldn’t have. “And the soft petals of a foxglove. Warm places, Hollie, and tight places, subtleties and sunlight. You. The taste of your mouth.”

He wanted
all
of her. Damn the husband and his trial!

“My smile does this to you, Charles?” She was breathing in sharp little gasps, her brows still winged in worry. “Just my smile?”

He wanted to carry her up the stairs and make love with her until the dawn came through the windows.

But he had to end it now, before it was too late. “Hollie, I’m sorry.”

“Please, Charles, no. Don’t be.” Her eyes were watery as she pulled slightly away from him, stunning him when she put her fingers to his mouth, as if to stop him from speaking the words
that would separate them. “It’s me. I’m to blame.”

He knew he was doomed to the hottest part of hell for taking advantage of the moment, for questing where he shouldn’t. For tasting her when she wasn’t his.

For this kiss would leave him suffering for her when it ended and only wanting more, wishing for miracles that didn’t belong to him. That never would.

Hollie had been expecting prison and worse—but she’d found only his bewildering confession and his warm fingers slipping through her hair. Hardly the actions of the man who had caught her stealing from him.

He so carefully cradled the back of her head with one hand, was so intently looking at her mouth as he tilted her chin with the other.

Then she was tugging at his lapels, shamelessly balancing herself on her toes because his breath was close and sweet and so disorienting. And he was taking the better part of forever bending down to her mouth. This was the last and the only chance she would have before she left; a moment of magic that would have to last a lifetime.

It wasn’t wise to steal from a man like Charles Stirling, not a kiss or a letter, and fatal to give away his secrets, especially when she would some day have to face him and his dark disappointment across a courtroom.