Lord of Fire (32 page)

“Don’t look!”

“You’re good,” he said, thoroughly impressed.

“I’m not finished,” she muttered, pulling the sketch pad up close to her body, careful not to smudge the drawing.

A smile danced on his lips. He knew he was smitten, but even when she was cross, he found her adorable. Gently, he tilted her chin upward with his fingertips and searched her eyes. “Look here, you. If we left for
Scotland on Saturday after my guests have gone, we could be married by Wednesday.”

Her eyes widened. “
Scotland!”

“Aye,
Gretna Green.”

“Elope?” She pulled away from his light touch and gave him a look of revulsion.

“Of course,” he replied, instantly uncertain again.

Changing like the English weather,
Alice turned prim. She pointed at the chair he had abandoned. “Go back over there and sit down,” she ordered him with a quelling look.

He knitted his eyebrows in defiance but did as he was told. “You are going to be a terrifying old dragon lady when you’re elderly.”

“And you will be a randy old goat.”

“I know a special license is more fashionable, but the bishop will never grant me one,” he muttered. “He thinks I am the Antichrist.”

“What about the traditional way? Announcing the banns?” she asked loftily. “Or does that lack flair for you?”

He shook his head with a smirk. “It’s for peasants.” In truth, he shuddered at the thought of having his name publicly proclaimed throughout the parish for three weeks in a row. Claude Bardou might already be looking for him.

“I see.”
Alice sat back with a sigh, rested her cheek on her fist, and studied him. “I suppose there are worse fates than a
Gretna wedding. Which brings me to my next question.”

“Yes?”

She sat up, rested her elbows on her bent knees, and clasped her hands loosely. Looking at the ground, her cheeks turning bright pink, she spoke slowly. “What if . . . a baby came along?”

He stared at her, taken aback. The bachelor in him went mentally running off, screaming bloody murder, hollering at him to get out while he could, but an odd, slight smile struck him out of nowhere. He studied her, mystified. “Devil take me, but I don’t think that’d be half bad. Do you?”

When tears rushed into her eyes, he realized his question had struck a nerve, but something told him that they were tears of joy.

“Would you like that,
Alice? A few wee ones underfoot?”

She let out a shaky, incoherent sob of a laugh and covered her lips with her hand.

“Of course you would,” he whispered as understanding dawned. “You lost practically your entire family. That’s what you want more than anything, isn’t it? A family of your own?”

She half burst out crying. He went back over to her, unable to stay away. He knelt down by her chair and took her into his arms, closing his eyes. “You are so precious to me,” he whispered.

She pulled back, quickly brushing her few tears away. “I know you like your parties. I wasn’t sure if you wanted anything to do with children—”

He stopped her worried words with a light kiss, then brushed the tip of her nose with his own. “Don’t you know I have to be wherever you are? If you’re with our children, then that’s where I’ll be, too. Besides—” He glanced hesitantly into her eyes. “—I know how it feels to have a father who treats you like you don’t exist. I would never do that to my own child.” He paused and shook his head. “God help me, I don’t believe I’m saying this.”

“Do you mean it?”

“From the bottom of my heart.” He stroked her arm. “I’ll give you a baby every year if that would make you happy. We can start now. Where are you in your cycle?”

“Lucien!”

“Don’t be embarrassed. You can tell me. I almost became a physician instead of a soldier, you know. So?”

“Oh, it’s, um, coming in a day or two.”

“That’s a shame,” he said with an intimate smile. “It’s not the right time for you to conceive.”

“I’m so happy you feel the same way I do.”

He lifted her hand and kissed it.

“But, Lucien, there’s only one problem.”

“What’s that, darling? Give it to me. I’ll fix it,” he murmured. “We’re almost there.”

She looked deeply into his eyes. “Would you really allow your children to be exposed to the things that go on in the Grotto?”

His confident smile faded.

“Lucien, I will not settle for a husband who is half a stranger to me. Here is my counterproposal. Do three things for me and I will marry you without a qualm. First, tell me what is going on around here. I feel that you’re in some kind of trouble, or perhaps even engaged in some kind of crime.”

“You think I’m a criminal?” he nearly shouted, sweeping to his feet.

“Well?”

“
Alice!”

“Lucien, you have men with rifles posted all over the property! No honest man has need of so many guards—”

“God damn it!” Thirty-one years of bucking convention and thumbing his nose at conformity kicked in as he swept to his feet and stared at her defensively, flabbergasted by her meddling demands. “How dare you?” he said in lordly anger. “Do I look like I need you to run my life for me?”

She flinched, and her gaze fell. “I’m trying to help you.”

“Help me? You’re trying to get me under the cat’s paw, but it’s never going to work. If you can’t accept me as I am, then maybe we are wasting our time.”

“Ugh, you exasperating—! You say you are all alone, but you won’t come out of your hiding place to be with me as you easily could, if you would try!”

“The guards are there because I have enemies. That doesn’t make me a criminal.”

“
Violent
enemies?”

He scoffed. “Do you think I spend all that time training in my studio because I enjoy it?”

“Are you in danger, Lucien?”

He heaved a sigh, relenting with a twinge of guilt when he saw how she had paled.

“Can’t your family help you? Damien or Hawkscliffe—”

“Never fear,
Alice, I can look after myself—and you. My family has nothing to do with this. Please, go on with the rest of your demands. I can barely wait to hear them.”

She blinked rapidly, regaining her composure. “I want you to make tomorrow night the last gathering in the Grotto, then disband the group. I don’t want those awful people in our children’s lives if . . . we are together. And finally, I want you to have a talk with Damien to clear the air between the two of you. I know your estrangement from him breaks your heart.”

“That is all very sweet—but, no.”

She threw her sketch pad aside and shot to her feet, folding her arms across her chest with a cold glare. “What if I were to put my foot down? What if I were to say I will not lie with you or marry you until you close down the Grotto and swear never to have those horrid people back to

Revell Court

?”

There was a long silence as he absorbed her ultimatum. “I would say that was a trick worthy of Caro. The Alice Montague I love is not the kind of woman who uses her body to get what she wants.”

Her eyes widened with surprise.

“What?” he asked insolently.

“Y-you just said you love me.”

“And?”

She just stared at him, her lips slightly parted, but she did not say the words back. “Isn’t it a bit too soon to say that?” she asked faintly instead.

A vulnerable little piece of him died at her answer. Hurt flickered in his eyes as he gazed at her. “I suppose it is.” He gave her a hard look and turned away to hide his humiliated look, going to collect the clothes she had taken off of him. He tossed his white shirt over his left shoulder and stalked past her to the door. Maybe she didn’t love him—undoubtedly, he did not deserve it—but when she watched him walk by, a startled expression lingering on her face, he knew full well that she desired him. At least he had that—as usual. He slammed the door behind him as he left.

 

Damn that woman!

Sophia Voznesensky was part she-wolf,
Rollo thought. She had tracked him relentlessly all the way from
London, though he had taken the most circuitous, winding course to the West Country that he could devise. After having been tracked like a fox for two days, Rollo Greene counted himself fortunate to stay one village ahead of her as he fled under churning, marble-gray skies. His fingers were red and raw, poking through his gloves as he refilled his canteen with fresh water at the local well, then went into the tavern and bought a draught of gin to warm his belly and steady his nerves. He lingered as long as he dared before heaving his poor, bruised arse back up into the creaking saddle. Urging his horse back out onto the main coaching road, he glanced nervously over his shoulder and thanked God that the tall, sloe-eyed Valkyrie was not in sight, gusting down the road after him on her leggy gray horse.

As he urged his mount into a canter, he shook his head to himself in disgust, remembering how his eyes had nearly popped out of his head when he had first feasted his gaze on Sophia’s voluptuous figure. It had been several days before he had noticed the cold, dead look in her eyes. He had considered letting her catch up to him and trying to persuade her to defy Bardou with him, but she feared her French lover too much to dare try. This left Rollo no choice but to run for his life from the woman. Still, it was better than running from Bardou himself.

By now, he supposed Sophia must have guessed where he was fleeing to—

Revell Court

. He had quickly realized he would never reach his superiors in time with word of Bardou’s terrible plan, but he knew he had to do something. He did not want to see women and children blown to bits in the midst of the annual fire festival. In desperation, he had decided to turn to Lucien Knight. Rollo had received a note from Lucien a few days ago asking for a meeting; no doubt Lucien already knew that something was afoot. Rollo had intended to ignore the summons, but had changed his mind upon learning of the wanton destruction that Bardou had in store.

Now Lucien was his only hope. He was the only one who would listen to a ne’er-do-well like Rollo Greene. And he was the only one with the skill to stop Bardou from wreaking havoc on the city on Guy Fawkes Night. Rollo only prayed that he would reach Lucien before that Russian angel of death caught up to him.

Throwing himself upon divine providence, he spurred his tiring horse on faster.

 

That night, Lucien sat in his bedchamber, staring out the bank of windows at the dark horizon and the starry firmament, brooding with a mix of hurt and self-directed anger over the way he had groveled to
Alice this afternoon. He had been blind to how she had taken control of their relationship over the past few days. Their whole liaison had been his whim, for his own pleasure, but now the seducer had been categorically seduced.
Did she enjoy having him on his knees?
he wondered, taking a rather bitter drink of his brandy. Emotionally, he was in her hands now, and it scared the hell out of him.

If only she had said she loved him, he thought achingly, rubbing his chest where the denial still felt vaguely like a hole there. Ah, but his little artist with her painful honesty would rather suffer the truth to wound him than soothe his feelings with a lie. He respected that about her. Yet—perhaps wishfully—he could not help feeling that she
did
care for him. He sat there warring with himself in silence until, in the next moment, he decided abruptly to find out.