Lord of Fire (34 page)

“
Gretna Green?” she whispered at length in the dark.

“
Gretna Green,” he assured her with a firm nod.

“Oh, Lucien, will it really be all right?”

With a sleepy smile, he leaned near and kissed her brow. “My darling, it will be wonderful.”

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

They slept entwined in each other’s arms and woke up late to a jewel-toned autumn morning that shimmered with promise. Though late-morning sun lit the chamber brightly and there was much to be done, they tarried in bed, playing and savoring the warmth of their newfound love.

“I want us to go to Mr. Whitby’s today and tell him our good news,”
Alice declared, lacing her fingers through Lucien’s. “He’ll be so happy. He knew all along.”

“What? No, he didn’t,” Lucien scoffed, still tousled and sleepy-eyed.

“Oh, yes he did! Do you remember when you went out to fix the shutter on his house? He told me then that you were in love with me.”

“What?” he cried.

She laughed and snuggled against him. “He did, I vow!”

“How did he know?”

She shrugged, gazing at him with sparkling eyes. “Don’t ask me. You said he was wise.”

“Blazes! I shall have to have a word with that meddling old nuisance. I thought I did a good job of hiding it.”

“You fooled me,” she answered roguishly, rubbing her foot up and down over his shin under the sheets, savoring the crisp, lightly haired texture of his bare legs.

He grabbed her with a playful growl and pulled her onto him. She sat up astride him, her hands planted on his shoulders.

“Well, well. Look at little Miss Goody Two-Shoes,” he said, leering at her body, then rested his head back on his pillow with a grin. “Take me.”

She gave him a flat look and poked him in the chest. “What time can we go see Mr. Whitby?”

“I have a lot to do today. . . .”

“Lucien!” She bent down, wrapping her arms around his neck. “You
have
to indulge my every whim today, or I shall think you the most scandalous cad.”

“I’ll show you scandalous,” he whispered, rolling her over onto her back. She let out a peal of laughter as he eased atop her. “Scandalous,” he murmured, “begins innocently enough. . . . Like this.” Lifting his eyebrow, he lowered his head and kissed the valley between her breasts.

“Lucien, I’m sore enough as it is!” She grabbed his ear and pulled him up like a naughty schoolboy.

“Ow! Let go of me, you harridan!” he said, laughing.

She smiled at him.

He kissed her nose, then pulled back and glanced ruefully at her. “It’s just as well, I suppose. This is going to be a hectic day.” He climbed out of the bed with a sigh and walked over to his pile of cast-off clothes.

Alice
jarred herself out of staring absently at his sleek, nude body. “Do you mean you’ll be busy getting ready for the party?”

He nodded as he stepped into his snug black trousers and pulled them up.

“Will this be the last one?” she asked.

“I hope so.” Pulling his shirt on over his head, he came back to her, leaned down, and kissed her lips, cupping her face in his hand. For a moment, he just gazed at her with a soft smile. She stared lovingly at him.

“I will never, for as long as I live, forget last night and how beautiful you were,” he murmured.

She quivered at his tender words. He kissed her knuckles, reluctantly letting her hand trail from his grasp as he moved away from the bed. She held the hand he had kissed vaguely to her heart, a dreamy smile on her face as she watched him swagger over to the door. He opened it, then turned back to her.

“Get some rest,” he advised. “You’re going to have to get used to staying up late.” He sent her a scoundrelly wink and slipped out of the room, pulling the door shut behind him.

Still blushing from his wicked innuendo,
Alice sighed and fell back onto her bed, giddy with bliss. She hugged her pillow in sheer, teeming love and thanked God for the new day, the sunlight, the seasons, the world, and him. From this bright beginning, however, her day went steadily downhill.

She could feel the tension in the air mounting as the afternoon progressed. Five times Lucien said he only had one more thing to do before they could go to Mr. Whitby’s. His tasks ate up more and more of the day, so that she was left alone when she was most vulnerable, most in need of reassurance from the man she had given her innocence to the previous night.

She ate a light lunch alone in her chamber, packed her things to leave for
Gretna Green in the morning, took a nap, and found, when she woke up, that he was still at work. Angry now,
Alice marched downstairs and tersely asked Mr. Godfrey if he knew where His Lordship could be found. Readily enough, the butler replied that Lucien was in his studio. Scowling at the reminder that he kept his fighting skills so sharply honed because he had “violent enemies,”
Alice put on the shapeless woolen cloak that she had borrowed from one of the servant girls after her pelisse had been ruined in the mud and rain. With the first trickle of his horrid guests already beginning to arrive, she turned her back on them and stalked down the drive and past the stables to his studio.

Her gaze swept the lowering, gray skies.
Don’t you dare rain,
she advised the clouds.
I will not have muddy roads keeping those dreadful people here an hour longer than necessary, nor slowing our drive to
Gretna tomorrow.

When she reached the studio, she pulled open the door and stopped in surprise to find the room filled with his black-coated guards, the five lads who practiced with him, and most of the footmen. Lucien was standing at the front of the room, giving them their instructions for the night in a voice that rang with command.

“The second person you are to look for is a Russian—” He stopped abruptly as his sharp gaze homed in on
Alice, standing uncertainly in the doorway. “What is it, my dear?” His eyes flashed with impatient warning, as if to say,
Not now
.

She hesitated. “I am going to Mr. Whitby’s,” she said with a meaningful look of reproach, feeling self-conscious in front of all the big, burly men.

“Very good, my dear. Give him my regards.” He gave her a smile full of dutiful charm and waited for her to leave.

She glared at him, pivoted, and walked out. This was intolerable!

Why could his servants know what was really going on, when she, who was about to become the lady of the house, was not privy to his secrets? Why could those five waggish youths know? How could he trust them more than her? And why had Lucien looked at her like she was nothing but an annoyance? A wave of confusion tinged with panic hit her. Now that he had had her, was he brushing her off?

Ach, what a vexing day! She knew she was allowing her insecurities to torment her. She felt lonely and moody and unwanted, and her head was throbbing. Perhaps the imminent arrival of her woman’s courses was making her overly sensitive, she thought. She just wanted him to hold her.

Disgusted with her own churlish vacillations, she started off on the long walk to Mr. Whitby’s cottage. The mere thought of the dear old man comforted her. He would surely be glad for a visitor. The walk helped to clear her head a bit. She had no interest whatsoever in the gathering festivities behind her at

When she knocked on Mr. Whitby’s door some time later, Mrs. Malone, the housekeeper, welcomed her in. The old man was seated, as before, by the crackling fireplace in the parlor, his spectacles perched on his high-bridged nose as he read from one of the ponderous tomes that Lucien had brought him.

“Miss Montague, what a delightful treat,” he exclaimed as she strode over to him and bent to kiss his cheek. He glanced hopefully behind her. “Where is your shadow?”

“He did not come today,” she said with a glum smile, taking off her gloves, her displeasure written plainly in her face. “His Lordship is having another party. I have hardly seen him all day.”

“Oh, dear,” the old man said in dismay.

“You see why I called on you. I sorely wanted the company of a civilized gentleman.” She laid her cloak over the back of the sofa and sat down on the ottoman by him, took his gnarled hands in hers, and squeezed them gently. “Mr. Whitby, I have such news for you!”

“What is it, child?”

She felt her cheeks flood with bright color. “You were right—Lucien proposed.”

His lined face lit up with delight, chasing her own uncertainties away with his joy. “When?”

“Yesterday! We leave tomorrow for
Gretna Green.”

She visited for half an hour, talking excitedly about her future life as Lady Lucien Knight. She plucked as much gossip as she could out of the old man, as well, about the members of the ducal family she was about to join. She was desperate for them to like her, though she was only the daughter of a baron.

“My dear child, you have nothing to fear,” he assured her with a chuckle. “They will welcome you with open arms.”

Noting his flagging strength after a while,
Alice gave him a hug farewell, bundled up again in her cloak and gloves, and took her leave, hurrying back through the woods to

Coming back through the garden, she brushed past the musk rose bushes and strode into the house, her cloak billowing out behind her, her face shadowed in the depths of its hood. A footman intercepted her when she came in through the door at the back of the house. At her request, he showed her up to her room by the servants’ stairs, thus avoiding the debauchees who were once more flocking in through the front entrance.

“Please tell Lord Lucien I am back and I wish to see him,” she ordered the footman as she swept into her room, plucking off her gloves.

“Er, I am . . . very sorry, ma’am. His Lordship has already gone down to the Grotto and gave specific orders that he was not to be disturbed. Unless it’s an emergency?”

“It’s not an emergency,” she sighed, rolling her eyes. “Never mind.”

“Begging your pardon, ma’am, he also requested that you remain in your quarters for the duration of the evening.”

“Oh, did he?” She turned to the servant, folding her arms over her chest. “Devil take him, I have no desire to see that spectacle again,” she muttered under breath, then addressed the servant. “I would like something to eat, please. Could you bring me a headache powder, as well?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the servant said, bowing with a look of relief.

She nodded his dismissal. She knew the sort of headache that accompanied her monthly visit from “the French lady.” As usual, it came right on schedule. She stifled a quiet sigh of disappointment and drifted over to the window, where she stood looking down at the drunken revelers toppling out of their carriages into the firelit courtyard, just as they had done last week when she had first arrived at this strange place.

The flames atop the iron torch stand reached high into the night, dancing across her ghostly reflection in the window.

Several hours had passed, and the proceedings in the Grotto were well under way. Lucien stood in his observation room behind the dragon’s eyes, broodingly looking down upon the crowd. He was determined to learn once and for all where Claude Bardou was and what he was doing, and for that, he needed the fat little American, Rollo Greene.