Sweet Treason (Entangled Ignite) (23 page)

Chapter Twenty

After the fetid smell of Newgate, Ryan breathed deeply of the night air rushing by as he an Emily set a punishing pace for Sussex. Could he be dreaming? Had Emily Nevins actually planned and executed an escape from Newgate Prison? Saved him from the hangman’s noose?

Fearing they’d be pursued, he rode at her back. The king’s men would have to go through him before he’d let Emily suffer so much as another scratch.

Killing Jennings bothered him little. He knew what the man was, what he was capable of doing, and he’d noted a faint bruise across Emily’s left temple and a glimpse of a cut through her hair. Worse, he’d seen her fear, though she hid it well. He would hear that story before Emily left his sight again. He suspected killing Jennings once wouldn’t be enough.

They rode through the night passing coaches and villages until a red dawn broke to their left. He shivered in the chill morning air and rode up beside Emily. “The horses need a rest, Emmy. We’ve ridden them hard.”

He led the way through the trees to a stream, dismounted, and lifted her down. She smiled at him and looked around. “Have we been here before?”

He laughed. “Somewhere very similar, I think. And I believe I asked a very similar question then—what the hell do you think you’re doing? My God, Emmy, you could have been killed.”

“Your arrest. It was my fault.” She started to turn away.

He held her fast. “How?”

“Sir Edmund overheard Mr. Barker asking me to pass a message to you in the library at Miss Robert’s musicale.”

“That was not your fault. It was just bad luck that Jennings was lurking nearby. But your attachment happened before Brock and Audrey’s At Home. Had Jennings blackmailed you by then?”

She sighed. “Not until that very night. He heard us talking in the alcove. He overheard everything—your name, Devaux and Lucy. Even Bridey. He promised if I married him he would not denounce any of you.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “And you hatched this plan to save me. You’d have surrendered yourself for the lot of us. Did it not occur to you that, had Jennings lived tonight, he’d have turned you over for using him to free me?”

She shook her head. “He wanted my inheritance. He would not have rid himself of me until after he had his hands on that. Then none of us would be safe. But I couldn’t let you hang, Ryan.”

Her face was turned up to his, and her beautiful eyes sparkled with unshed tears. He gathered her into his arms, and she was warm and pliant against him. He could feel her fatigue and despair. “Why? Why did you risk so much?”

“You were only….”

“Fighting for what I believe in?”

She nodded, and the threatening tears rolled slowly down her cheeks. He cupped her face and brushed them away with his thumbs. “What do
you
believe in, Emmy?”

“I don’t know anymore. I thought I did, but then you came along…”

He lowered his head and spoke against her lips. “In a few days, you will have all you’ve fought so long and hard for. You deserve the world. I wish I could give it to you.” He was a little surprised when she lifted on her toes to deepen the contact.

Her kiss was both affirming and heartbreaking

A beginning and an end.

And he’d humbly take that touching token home with him to dust off during the long, lonely years ahead.

…

The sun had long set by the time Simon took the reins to their horses as they dismounted. “Mary’s been in a dither since your letter arrived, Miss Emily. We done all you said, and the rest is in God’s hands. Only time will tell.”

“Thank you, Simon. We can ask no more than that,” she murmured. She headed across the darkened lawns to the house, Ryan at her side.

“I think the time has come for you to tell me your plan, Emmy.”

Not yet. She couldn’t face the disgust in his eyes when he knew everything she’d done to keep her family together…the smuggling. He would think her the worst sort of hypocrite. She glanced at the lowering sky. Black clouds scudded across the dark horizon, and the first cold drops of rain slapped the earth. Relief and regret mingled as she realized if her plan succeeded, Ryan would be gone within a few hours. She would never see him again. Oh, but he’d be alive and safe!

“Emmy?”

“Not yet, Ryan. There is still too much that could go wrong.”

“I cannot let you risk so much. I will go to Larkspur.”

“Does Samuel know? About you?”

Ryan shook his head. “I think he suspects, but he has the good sense not to ask. He will take me in. Loan me a horse and enough money to find passage—”

“The ports will be watched. And there’s no need to drag Samuel into this.”

He took her hand as they walked. “This isn’t your problem, Emmy. When the king’s men come—and they will—tell them I killed Jennings and held you hostage. Devaux will vouch for you.”

She hadn’t thought beyond saving him from the gallows. Her fate, good or bad, had been the least of her concerns. But it was somehow comforting to know that he had thought of her future and had eased her way.

They reached the kitchen door and Mary hurried to give her a hug. “Oh! I was that afraid something’d gone wrong. Thank the heavens you’re here.”

“Is everything ready, Mary?”

“I done like you said, miss.”

She smiled and patted Mary’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

Ryan followed her into her father’s library. A single candle flickered on the desk, casting eerie shadows. She went to the cupboard and removed a bottle of brandy and two crystal glasses while Ryan bent to stoke the fire. She smiled and raised an eyebrow. He laughed and nodded.

She poured two glasses and held hers up in a salute. “Can it be barely a month and a half since you came through my window?”

He took the glass and raised it to her. “It seems like yesterday.”

“I think we’ve lived a lifetime since then.” She gulped hers and took a deep breath. It was time.

“Ah, something is coming. I recognize the signs. When you need fortification, you become a bit reckless.”

She laughed, the brandy relaxing her and the knowledge that he’d soon be gone lending her a devil-may-care mood. “Perhaps it is a good thing you are leaving if I’ve become so easy to read.”

“I’ve always known you, Emmy. I think I knew you before I met you.”

“Indeed?” She took a deep breath, turned, and tripped the spring on the bookcase, pivoting the heavy panel outward. “Did you know this?”

Ryan stepped forward and glanced into the little room. Mary had dusted, freshened the linens on the little bed, and cleaned away the remaining debris and any sign of Phillipe Reynard’s presence. She’d even had the foresight to bring a change of clothes for Ryan from her father’s wardrobe.

“My accommodations until you can think what to do with me? Is this Oak Hill’s version of a priest’s hole?”

“I know full well what to do with you, and priests had nothing to do with this room.”

He grinned as he shrugged out of his cloak and tossed it across the bed. He went to the washbasin, stripped Jennings’s shirt away, and splashed water over his face and chest. “I gather I’ll be safe here until I can find a way out of England?”

“Tonight, Ryan.” She glanced at the little clock on the shelf that held her mother’s jewelry box. Ten o’clock. “Likely within the hour.”

His expression sobered. “So soon? How?”

And still she couldn’t bring herself to say the words that would bring his contempt. Instead she asked a question of her own—one that had haunted her for days. A lump formed in her throat. “On those warm summer nights when you are sitting on your veranda, the scent of jasmine in the air, will you think of me, Ryan?”

He gave a strangled sound and closed the distance between them, pulling her roughly, desperately, into his arms. “Every day. Every night. I’ll
never
stop thinking of you, Emmy.”

When he fixed her with that slow, scorching gaze, she melted, and her heart skipped a beat. She grew weak with the memory of where such a look could lead. Heat spread downward in a warm wave, awakening that part of her only he had known. He pushed her cloak off her shoulders and bent his head press his lips to her throat.

Ah, such sweetness! She raised her arms to circle his neck when he lifted her and swept the bed clear before he lay her down, then slid his hand up the inside of her leg, pushing her velvet skirts back at the same time.

She knew there would be nothing sweet or tender in this coupling, just a desperate urgency that needed sating.

A bitter and fierce farewell.

She writhed as he found her core, stroking her until she was gasping and spent. But he was not done with her. He moved over her, pushing into her, hard, thick, insistent. Her passion built again, this time to the rhythm of his racing heartbeat, carrying her to impossible heights. He slipped his fingers through her hair and kissed her deeply as he drove into her. She knew he was claiming her, branding her for all time.

For the last time.

He brought her to another pinnacle then took her over the brink with his own pleasure. She was unaware that she was crying until she tasted the salt of her tears from his tongue. There was no further solace he could offer her. Nothing left to say.

Silently, reverently, he put her to rights and stood to change into her father’s clothes. When he was done, he loosened the cord of the leather pouch Bridey had brought him and reached in to withdraw something in his hand. He lifted her hand, palm up, and placed a hard, smooth object there.

She looked down into her palm and found her mother’s baroque pearl brooch.

Her breath caught, and her throat constricted. She curled her fingers to clasp it tightly and closed her eyes. She’d never let it go again. How precious. How infinitely sweet. This single memento meant more to her than all of her possessions. Ryan could only have seen it once—the night he’d first come through her window. How had he found it and reclaimed it for her? When?

And how could he have known how much it would mean to her?

I’ve always known you, Emmy. I think I knew you before I met you.

This was a token of all Emily held dear—of Oak Hill, her family, of who she was. And now, of Ryan, too. She held it to her heart. She’d thought it was the land that she loved. Her mother and sister who needed her. That it was her duty, her obligation, to preserve those things and keep them safe, no matter the cost. But her mother was gone, and Lucy would have Devaux. All the things she’d held to so tightly suddenly had no meaning. Only this small remembrance and the man who’d redeemed it. All she’d ever need of the past she now held in the palm of her hand.

“Emmy?”

She started breathing again and looked at him as she pinned the brooch on the rumpled green velvet over her heart. “I thought my future was clear, Ryan. That I wanted nothing more than a quiet life at Oak Hill. Now…none of it seems important. Lucy will be safe. Devaux will stand by her and protect her. Oak Hill will continue as before. My tenants will go on as always.” She sighed and swept a fall of hair from her eyes. “And I…I will…have everything I’ve lived and fought for. I’ll have kept my promise to my mother. And, oddly, I….”

The bookcase swung open, and Mary stood there, wringing her hands. “Oh, miss! The Frenchman’s in the cove, and the soldiers are coming down the lane!”

Everything evaporated but her need to get Ryan to the shore. “You and Simon stay here, Mary. Keep them talking, if you can. You have seen nothing. Do you understand?”

“Aye, miss. Deaf and dumb, we are.”

Ryan pulled his cloak on and raised the cowl. “You will tell them that I held a knife to her throat and took her hostage?”

Mary nodded. “Aye, sir. She’ll be safe, I vow it.”

“Emmy?”

She took a deep breath, and swept up her own cloak from the floor. She’d run out of time and now she would have to face the consequences of her misspent life.

…

He thought they’d leave the tiny room, but she hugged Mary tightly and closed the secret panel. She seized the handle of the lantern and went to open the door of what he’d thought was a closet. Instead, a tendril of cold air curled around his ankles, and the flame in the candle holder on the table guttered and died. He could swear he caught a whiff of salt air.

She took several steps downward into the black abyss before she turned back. “Hurry, Ryan, and close the door. A draft will give the room away.”

He stepped across the threshold and closed the door with a sense of finality that pierced his heart. He’d never be with Emmy again. Never make love in a secret room. Never watch her in the throes of passion, her cheeks flushed and glowing with passion, her lips slightly parted in a deep sigh.

She descended another twenty steps until they were on hard ground that sloped slightly downward, and held the lantern high to light the way ahead of them. They were in a tunnel, braced with posts and cross timbers.

He kept one hand on her shoulder to steady her on the rough surface of the dirt floor. “What is this?”

“The remnants of a signal station.” she whispered. “Hush, we are near the end.”

He heard the sound of waves, the beating of rain against foliage and something else he couldn’t quite identify. Emily stopped, placed the lantern on the ground, and lowered the wick to extinguish the flame.

She swept an arm across an opening to clear trailing vines and bushes out of their way and raised her hood. Trusting, he followed suit and stepped into the night behind her.

A small sheltered cove lay below and, near the shore, a schooner with black sails. The glow of a small signal fire was being extinguished by a steady rain. As they descended the steep path to the rocky shore, his mind sorted through the possibilities. A skiff was beached nearby, and a short man in black rushed forward.

“Anglaise! Mon Dieu! I worry I am too late! That something is wrong!”

“Thank you for coming, Captain Reynard. I did not know if you would.”

“For you, Anglaise, I come when you crook your finger, eh? What do you require of me? Anything, Anglaise.”

Ryan was beginning to understand. He stepped forward and swept his cowl back. But Emmy? A smuggler? Surely not.