Authors: Mia Marlowe
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Fantasy, #Historical Romance
Touch of Rogue (27 page)
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acob rolled over her and she welcomed his weight on her. Julianne loved the solid, comforting way he covered her completely. His hands found her fingers and laced his with them, stretching her arms out. His lips sealed her mouth, their breaths joined.
acob rolled over her and she welcomed his weight on her. Julianne loved the solid, comforting way he covered her completely. His hands found her fingers and laced his with them, stretching her arms out. His lips sealed her mouth, their breaths joined.
She was so wet and ready, he slid inside her in one slow thrust. Her insides expanded, greeting him with an involuntary squeeze.
He made a low noise of pleasure and her entire body sparked in empathy. She experienced the same shivering joy as when she’d taken him into her mouth. His bliss was hers. His need echoed in her bones. It was as if they were halves of the same whole, bonded with each other in all things. She didn’t doubt he felt her deep ache with the same intense throb.
The line between taking and giving blurred. They both did each at once. They stroked, they kissed, they moved together with carnal grace. With each lunge, they were greedy and generous, selfish and serving.
But she sensed there was something missing, something else he wanted.
She felt it in the driving rhythm, the quickening pace. He reached between them to stroke her tender spot. His shaft pulsed once, but his body tightened with the effort of resisting the inevitable. He was waiting for her.
Tight as she was wound, she still couldn’t seem to let go. She kissed him with fierceness, nipping his lips.
“Don’t wait for me, Jacob,” she pleaded. “I love you so.”
A strangled cry tore from his throat and his release pounded inside her. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes as she realized he’d been waiting to hear her admit she loved him. Why had she denied it so long?
His pulses pushed her over the edge and her whole body shuddered with him. They fairly glowed with their combined bliss. After a little while, or it might have been hours later—the way time expanded and contracted around them, Julianne couldn’t tell for certain—she stopped trembling and kissed his neck.
“I love you,” Julianne repeated, daring finally to believe the words that poured from her throat. Early in her life, she’d learned that love was pain. Love was loss. She knew better than to hazard her heart, but she couldn’t help herself. Come heartache, come ruin, she loved the man whose strong body still covered hers. “I love you, Jacob.”
“Careful, my heart.” He raised his head from the pillow and looked down at her, his soul shining in his eyes. “I’m going to hold you to that.”
Lady Cambourne didn’t return to Lord and Lady Kilmaine’s home that night. When she gave no sign of leaving, Fenwick finally sent the viscount’s coach back with word that the countess was staying to make sure Mr. Preston was fully recovered from his ill spell.
Fully recovered. Sounds like what the upper crust would call it,
Fenwick reasoned with a shrug.
Fenwick reasoned with a shrug.
Among his class, it was simply a good old game of “hide the sausage.” Still, he went to his bed happy for his employer and the countess. It was about bloody time they stopped dancing about the issue, quit fiddling around during the day, and simply tumbled into bed with each other by night like normal folk. When a body got right down to it, there wasn’t tuppence worth of difference between the wellborn and the salt of the earth when it came to the real stuff of life.
The next morning, Dr. Snowdon arrived quite early, rousting a yawning Fenwick from his bed. He rapped discreetly on Mr. Preston’s door and amazingly enough, his employer appeared almost immediately, looking more rested than Fenwick had ever seen him.
Without waiting for his shave or breakfast, Mr. Preston disappeared with Dr. Snowdon into the parlor to pore over the combined manuscripts that were stored in his safe. Before Fenwick could slip back to the kitchen to wheedle a cup of tea from Mrs. Trott, Lady Cambourne emerged from Mr. Preston’s chamber, with a decidedly rosy glow about her. After she prevailed on Fenwick to hail a hansom, she departed for Lord Kilmaine’s home without taking leave of Mr. Preston.
Probably been more than enough taking last night,
Fenwick thought with a wicked grin.
Fenwick thought with a wicked grin.
Then Fenwick made his way back to the kitchen to fetch a light breakfast for the quality folk in the parlor. And hopefully snag some for himself before his day started in earnest.
Mrs. Trott met him at the kitchen door.
“Have you seen that little rapscallion?” she demanded. “Wait till I get my hands on him. I’ll skin him proper, see if I don’t.”
“Who?” Fenwick asked, mildly alarmed for the rapscallion in question and heartily relieved he wasn’t the one who’d bunched Mrs. Trott’s knickers in a knot.
“Gilbert Stout, o’ course.” She twisted her apron in her gnarled hands. Fenwick had seen her this distraught only once before when her Christmas pudding, which she’d worked on for weeks, unaccountably failed to set. “The boy disappeared in the confusion last night after Mr. Preston took ill. I didn’t say anything at the time because I figured Gil would sneak back in after he had his fill of larkin’ about, but his pallet hasn’t been slept in. Where do you suppose he could be?”
“The lad’s at home on the streets. I have no idea where he’s got off to. He’ll come back when he’s hungry.” Fenwick sniffed the air, hoping to scent something in the oven, but not even the kettle was heating. “What’s a fellow got to do to get something to eat around here?”
Mrs. Trott snorted in disgust. “How can you think about your stomach at a time like this? The boy might be anywhere, getting into Lord knows what kind of trouble.”
Despite her words, she handed him a knife and a loaf of day old bread, for which he was properly grateful. Her stale baked goods were better than what came piping fresh from most cook’s ovens.
“There’s clotted cream in the cooler. But after you eat, you have to
do
something, Fenwick. Something terrible’s happened. I feel it in my bones.”
do
something, Fenwick. Something terrible’s happened. I feel it in my bones.”
When Mrs. Trott’s bones felt anything, there was no peace in the house till she was satisfied. Breakfast was a help yourself affair. Luncheon would undoubtedly be cold, and tea nonexistent. If Gil wasn’t found by the time supper came around, Fenwick figured the household would reach the “Root, hog, or die” stage.
Fenwick ate quickly and fixed a tray of sliced bread with a selection of preserves for Mr. Preston and his friend. Then he trudged up the back stairs to do the only thing he could do.
Tell Mr. Preston about Gil’s disappearance. And hope for the sake of all their bellies his employer could do something to settle Mrs. Trott’s bones.
The milk and egg man was still making his rounds in the back alleys of the elegant Mayfair street when Julianne arrived at the Kilmaines’ home. Only the cook, the butler, and the maid whose job it was to sweep the hearths were stirring.
Still, Julianne was not the first person to arrive on the viscount’s front doorstep that day.
“This message arrived for you shortly before dawn, milady,” the butler said as he offered her an envelope on an ornate salver. His stiffly correct carriage betrayed nothing of what he thought of such an unusually early morning caller.
She turned the envelope over. No distinctive crest marked the glob of sealing wax on the back, but the handwriting on the front seemed familiar. “Did the messenger stay to wait for a response?”
“No, madam. He said ...” The butler frowned and cleared his throat. “I ask your pardon, countess, but he said his master expected action, not a written response.”
“Indeed?” She arched a brow at the cheekiness of the sender. If this was another threat from her stepson, he would wait a long time for action from her. She wasn’t returning to Cornwall any time soon and would never marry his friend. He could cut off her allowance if he wished. It wouldn’t make a particle of difference.
She didn’t know what the future held for her and Jacob, but at the moment, it didn’t matter. She still basked in the rosy glow of their night of loving. They’d declared their hearts to each other. It was enough.
If he asked her to marry him again, this time she’d say yes. If he didn’t, she’d simply live with him in sin, devil take the hindermost. She didn’t care what the world thought of her any more so long as she had Jacob.
As far as Mrs. Osgood’s school, she could still keep her obligation to the children by selling all her jewelry and setting up a trust with a man of business to keep the girls safely funded. Lady Kilmaine could be counted upon to help as well, so she’d stopped fearing for her orphans. That plan left no safety cushion for her, but she was prepared to take each day as it came so long as Jacob was with her.
She was done with the daggers. Perhaps she would donate the two in Jacob’s safe to the British Museum as curiosities of a dark and distant time in their land’s history. No one would ever find the other four where she’d hidden them, so there was no danger of the entire set falling into the wrong hands.
Her way ahead was still murky, but one thing was clear. Jacob stood at the center of her future. Her heart hadn’t been this hopeful, this light since ... well, she couldn’t remember a happier time.
She wandered into the parlor, perched on the settee, and tore open the note.
It was a good thing she was sitting, because an object fell from the envelope that made all the blood drain from her face. Then she read the missive, and the joy she’d felt only moments ago had completely disappeared. She was still sitting there, her heart like stone, when Jacob arrived a half hour later.
“Oh, thank God,” he said when he saw her. “She’s here, George.”
Dr. Snowdon followed him into the parlor. “Clearly, I must have misconstrued the text when it indicated that the finder’s curse would fall on the one who’d been in contact with all six daggers. She seems fine.”
“No, she’s not.” Jacob took her by the shoulders and forced her to look at him. “What’s happened?”
She couldn’t bear to speak. She handed him the note, which Jacob read aloud.
“My dear Lady Cambourne—It has come to my attention that you are now in possession of all six daggers, but have, for some unaccountable reason, decided not to sell them. This is unacceptable. We had an agreement. But since you have altered your part of our bargain, I feel justified in altering mine.
“I hereby rescind my generous offer for the daggers in exchange for one which I feel certain you will be inclined to accept. You will deliver the set of daggers to me no later than December fifteenth and in return you will receive one Gilbert Stout, alive and unharmed.”
Jacob stopped reading and raked his hair with his hand in frustration. “So that’s what happened to him. Damn the little blighter. Why did he have to run off?”
“Gil is really gone? I’d hoped ...” Julianne’s belly turned a back flip. When Jacob nodded, the last chance that the letter was a wicked hoax died. “Read the rest.”
Jacob frowned down at the letter. “Enclosed you will find a talisman which I believe you will recognize. I expect you to wear it without respite and shall know if you do not. Failure to comply will greatly increase Master Stout’s discomfort in his confinement.
“Failure to deliver the daggers on time will result in his untimely demise. Any effort to discover his whereabouts and effect a rescue will lead to the same outcome, as will a misguided attempt to substitute the real blades with copies. The fools of the Ancient Order might be taken in by your look-alikes, but rest assured, Madam, I will not.
“You will receive further instruction as soon as you have retrieved the other four blades from their hiding place in Cornwall. I advise extreme caution in handling them. Wait at the Dowager House at Cambourne for my summons.”
“It’s unsigned,” Dr. Snowdon said, peering over Jacob’s shoulder. “Any idea who could have done this?”
“Sir Malcolm Ravenwood,” Julianne and Jacob said in unison. She knew it to be from him because of the faint scent of juniper wafting from the envelope. Since she doubted Jacob would have noticed another man’s favored fragrance, she assumed he simply had a good nose for skullduggery.
“What’s this talisman he mentions?” Jacob asked.
Julianne held out her hand. A circle of iron, heavily ornamented with Celtic gripping beasts, filled her palm. When Jacob reached toward it, she drew it back. “Don’t touch it. I already know all I need to about it without your using your gift.”
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