Chapter Six
“Half-brother,” Grant corrected. “But all imbecile.”
“And you’re still a bastard,” Cornelius retorted, although somewhat feebly. His eyes were already closing.
“Please stay in bed this time,” Grant said.
“I don’t like to miss … the fun,” Cornelius murmured, drifting away.
Grant raised his eyes to Kate. “You should go back before you’re accused of a secret tryst.”
“So should you.”
“In a few minutes. Go.”
She didn’t argue. He should, she supposed, be more offended by her trespassing in the private part of the house. Perhaps that was why she went without a fuss, pausing at the door to say only, “You have to explain now.”
He didn’t dispute that either, merely gave a distracted smile before turning his attention back to the sick man. His brother. No wonder he’d helped him escape.
*
Although it wasn’t quite dark as Kate walked back to the hotel alone, she found herself glancing constantly to right and left, peering into shadows and listening intently to every distant footfall. Some were not so distant. Quick, light footsteps followed her the whole way, stopped when she pretended to look in the hat shop window, and began again when she moved on. And big, rough looking men seemed to skulk in doorways close to the hotel, making her heart hammer. She carried her reticule in front of her, with one hand inside it, her fingers closed about the handle of her little pistol. There would be no Grant to rush to her aid this evening.
But at least Sparrow, the hotel doorman, stood at his post outside, apparently unbothered by the lurking men. As he held the door for her, she cast a quick glance up the street in the hope of seeing who followed her. There was no one threatening t, just two young bucks weaving down a side street toward the seamier part of town, and a child running up the high street in the opposite direction. And a man with a wooden leg vanishing around the corner. She wondered if it were Jackie.
With relief, Kate entered the hotel with a world of thanks to Sparrow, still glad she’d refused all offers of escort. She didn’t like to give in, either to her own fears or to people’s infamy. She’d been the first to leave the vicarage, while the money in the bowl was being counted, but rather to her surprise, several gentlemen had offered to escort her. Kate doubted it was with their wives’ blessing. She’d departed, determinedly alone, after a brief exchange with the curate.
“May I call on you tomorrow?” he’d asked as he walked with her across the hall to the front door.
“Of course. Or…perhaps you ride, Mr. Grant?”
“I do,” he said with a hint of ruefulness. “But I’m afraid I keep no horses.”
A curate’s salary would hardly stretch to that, not if he had no other source of income. “Fortunately,” she said, “two of mine arrived at the livery stables this morning. One is rather large for me, but he’d appreciate the exercise. I can meet you at the stables at seven tomorrow.”
“Very well.”
She offered him her hand. “Thank you for an entertaining evening,” she drawled.
“If it was, you made it so.” He took her hand, bowing over it punctiliously.
“That is a good line. Be sure to use it to all your guests. Good night, Mr. Grant.”
Although she hadn’t stayed to see, she was sure he’d been smiling as she walked away from him. The memory made her smile now. Perhaps because the evening had convinced her of one thing, the curate was no French spy.
*
Jeremiah Tugg, whom both Kate and Grant would probably have recognized as the knife-wielding ruffian who’d attacked her—even with his hat pulled low over his forehead—slid onto the tavern bench beside his colleagues. He lifted his mug of ale.
“Well?” he growled.
They’d been lying low in the tavern, where no one ever asked any questions, and making occasional individual forays for information.
“We can’t get to her,” Snoddie said gloomily. “There’s always people around. Some handy, burly looking coves keeping watch. Seems to me she’s hired some protection. Then there’s that posh bloke with the fists.” He touched his still bruised eye in memory. “He quite often skulks in that coffee house across the road from the hotel.”
Tugg grunted. “Then we need to get into the hotel.”
“Can’t,” said young Barrow. “They wouldn’t let us in the back door, never mind the front. The back door leads straight through the kitchen. We’d be seen and stopped. And the ground floor windows are all locked. I suppose we could rough up the boy at the desk and make him tell us where her room is, but we still need to get past the doorman.”
“We could take him together,” Snoddie offered.
“Wouldn’t that be discreet,” Tugg mocked savagely. “This was meant to be a quick job, made to look like a robbery-gone-wrong, after which we vanish and no one links it to the gov’nor. It should look random, not that we’ve taken a lot of trouble to go after her! What about this posh cove, the one with the fists?”
“You want to take him on again?” Barrow asked in dismay. His arm was still in a sling and all but useless. Besides, it probably hurt like hell.
Tugg knew he was going to have to be cunning. “Maybe we can get someone else to take him on. Damn town is full of watchmen and soldiers. We just need to give them a reason to go after him. Then when he’s out of the way, we’ll find a moment to do the job. Who the devil is he?”
Snoddie and Barrow looked at each other, then at Leman and Tugg. Snoddie shrugged. “Just some nob.”
“He’s the vicar,” Leman rumbled. He was a man of few words.
“Vicar?” Tugg said in disgust. “You mean we got seen off by a bloody vicar?”
Leman nodded and took a draft of ale.
“No one,” Tugg said forcefully. “No one mentions this back in London.”
“How do you know he’s a vicar?” Barrow asked.
Leman cast him a blank look. “Followed him.”
“All very well,” Tugg uttered, “but how do we get soldiers or the watch to arrest the bleeding vicar?”
Leman stirred again, no doubt easing his twisted ankle. “French prisoner.”
“What?” Tugg and everyone else scowled at him in incomprehension. “The cove that jumped into the sea?”
“He went to the vicar’s place. The vicar’s hiding him.”
Tugg’s mouth fell open.
Barrow said, “How do you know that?”
“Because he followed the vicar,” Tugg answered impatiently, and to Leman himself. “Why the bleeding hell didn’t you tell us this before?”
Leman shrugged. “Wasn’t interested in him. I was waiting for the girl to turn up. Which she did tonight, along with a load of other nobs. Couldn’t get near her, though, for all the other coves following her about”
Tugg grinned. “Well thank the good Lord you came along, my friend. Now, how should we get word to the military gents along the road?”
*
Kate’s confidence in the curate’s innocence lasted until the morning, when her pleasure in her upcoming assignation made her doubt everything. He could be meeting her to silence her one way or another.
In her heart, she couldn’t really credit that, but neither did she trust her desire to believe in him. Men let her down all the time. It was only ever a matter of degree. A clergyman of murky origin who actually seemed to do his job was no different.
Still, it was with an air of suppressed excitement that she donned the blue riding habit and its matching, jaunty little hat. Then she let Little, still yawning and in her night gown, go back to bed. Kate hid the little pistol inside the pocket she’d hand sewn into the habit, and left the room.
A maid polishing the brasses on the front door, let her out of the hotel and she walked the short distance to the stables. The market was being set up in the square, the traders calling cheerfully to each other and exchanging friendly insults. It was, Kate thought, a charming little town, and in a beautiful location at the seaside, surrounded on the other sides by rugged hills, rolling farmlands, and scattered lakes.
Peter, her young groom, greeted her at the stables with a grin and a tug of his cap. “Snow’s all ready for you, m’lady.”
“Excellent. Can you saddle Gladiator, too? A friend is joining me.”
While she waited, she petted Snow, who was delighted to see her again, snuffling at her neck and nudging her for sugar treats. Kate stroked his nose and watched the yard gate. Her breath caught when Grant walked in, dressed in buff breaches and a dark coat. Had she really thought he wouldn’t come?
This was ridiculous. He was the only man she accorded any trust at all. He was the only man she’d wished to trust in years. And yet he was the only one she wasn’t sure of. She couldn’t snap her fingers and have him running in the hope of a place in her bed.
“Good morning!” she greeted him. “I’m surprised to see you up and abroad after last night’s debauchery.”
“I assure you I was asleep before midnight.”
“And your patient?” she asked more quietly as he halted before her, reaching out to stroke Snow’s nose. She let her own caressing hand drop to her side.
“I think the fever’s abated. He’ll mend.”
“Good. Ah, here is Gladiator,” she murmured as the groom led the stallion out of the stable, duly saddled and ready for riding. “Gladiator, this is Mr. Grant. He is a clergyman, so you must be on your best behavior.”
“Goodness, he’s a magnificent creature,” Grant said with a hint of awe.
Gladiator nudged Snow aside and snorted into Kate’s hat. Laughing, she reached up to stroke him, standing on tiptoe to kiss his nose.
“He’s a bit restless, sir,” Peter warned. “Likes his own way. Just be firm.”
“I’m sure we’ll reach an understanding,” Grant murmured, running his hand over the animal’s powerful neck.
Peter adjusted the stirrups, then left Grant and Gladiator to get to know each other, while he boosted Kate into the saddle.
“Do you want me with you, my lady?” he murmured, casting a quick glance at Grant.
“Oh no, he’s a clergyman and utterly respectable,” she drawled, loudly enough for Grant to hear. Until she said it, she hadn’t even been sure whether to take Peter or not. She just hoped she was right to trust her instincts.
If Grant heard her, he gave no sign, merely hauled himself nimbly into Gladiator’s saddle. The horse snorted loudly, tossing his head and dancing. Grant shortened the reins in one hand, soothing him with the other and murmuring words she couldn’t hear.
Gladiator snorted again, but condescended to trot forward to join Kate and Snow. It was a promising start, although Gladiator would want his head immediately for a hard gallop. She knew Grant would have trouble keeping him in line until they were free of the town.
“You manage him well,” Kate allowed as they trotted together along the road.
“I should hope so. Do you really ride him yourself?”
“Occasionally. But mostly I keep him with me just because I love him.” Annoyed with herself, she added, “And for the use of lovers, of course.”
“Of course. I’m honored to be counted as such.”
She eyed him challengingly. “You’ve never touched me, Mr. Grant.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he murmured. “I think I do, a little.”
It wasn’t the kind of touching she meant, but she laughed anyway.
As the town buildings thinned and vanished into open country, Grant led the way off the main road along a track that opened into gently sloping land crossed with a stream. Smiling, Kate tapped Snow with her heels and gave him his head. She hoped that if Gladiator was going to throw Grant, he’d do it quickly, before he gathered speed.
In no time, Grant streaked past her. She was almost disappointed until she realized that Gladiator wasn’t actually the one in control. As she galloped in their wake, she saw that Grant was, in fact, a superb rider, knowing instinctively how to make his mount both happy and responsive. They leapt the stream together, then slowed by mutual agreement, exhilarated and breathless.
“You are an excellent horseman!” she approved.
“I should be. I was a cavalryman for several years.”
“At last,” she exclaimed. “The mystery of Mr. Grant revealed.”
His smile was slightly twisted. “There is no mystery. My father bought me a commission, since it was what I wanted, and bade me become a general before he died. I rose to be a captain with a field promotion to Brigade Major before I gave it up and studied for the Church instead.”
“Why?” Studying him with curiosity, she recognized the bodily toughness of a seasoned soldier. More nebulously, she also acknowledged the sort of serene, almost unworldly grace of a group of monks she’d once met. It was a contradictory and yet heady mix. “Were you wounded?”
“Body and soul,” he said flippantly. Then, with a quick glance at her. “Yes, I was wounded, but that’s not the reason I resigned my commission. I resigned because I lived.”
“I don’t understand.”
He drew in his breath. “There was an ambush. Well, many ambushes. I commanded the escort of several important people—and guns—to Lord Wellington. The French harassed us constantly. I won’t sicken you with the whole story. Suffice it to say I completed my task but lost half my men. And my superiors wanted to give me awards, promote me.” He gave a quick, almost savage smile. “It seems I could give the difficult orders. I just couldn’t live with myself afterward. I’d had enough of death. I wanted to do something more positive than kill. And anyway, I made a promise to God.”
“Do you regret it?”
He shook his head.
“You mean you actually like all these people depending on you?”
A smile flashed through his eyes. “Actually, yes. I liked that in the war, too, only there, my decisions didn’t always count.”
“When Mr. Hoag comes back they might not count here either.”
“At least he won’t shoot me. Or force me to put people in unnecessary danger.”
“Mrs. Hoag, however, is altogether more formidable.”
“I’ll wear plate armor under my shirt.”
Kate smiled, holding his gaze. “And Cornelius?”
“Ah. A different kind of tale. A love story. He followed an actress to France, in the teeth of our father’s fury. Don’t ask me how. There are always ways.”
Kate blinked. “Did he want to marry her?”
“Lord, no, though he told my father he’d do so—to annoy him mainly. In fact, she ditched him within a month of his reaching France. Or he might have abandoned her. It’s not always easy to tell from his ramblings. In any case, they parted, and he was trying to come home when his ship was caught up in some naval skirmish. The crew were forced to fight the British. He was captured by Alban, who presumably interfered in the battle for his own ends. Cornelius couldn’t reveal his identity for fear of his fellow prisoners. Besides, he couldn’t let the scandal touch my father if they discovered who he was.”
“Who exactly is your father?” she asked. “I don’t believe I know any Grants.”
“Grant isn’t his name.” He shifted uncomfortably on his horse. “He’s the Earl of Boulton.”
The blood drained from her face. “Boulton? You’re Lord Boulton’s son?”
“On the wrong side of the blanket,” he said disparagingly. “Why? Are you wondering if you now need to consider my offer of marriage seriously? Don’t worry, I’m still a penniless curate of dubious origins.”
“And yet you offered anyway,” she blurted. “Did you know I would turn you down?”
“Yes, but I haven’t given up hope.”
“Why?” she demanded. “I’d make an impossible curate’s wife.”
His smile, warm and dazzling, thrilled her to her toes. “Because I can’t imagine any greater happiness.”
She was in danger of slipping under his spell again, of losing reality. Dragging herself back up, she said tartly, “I don’t make people happy, and we’re straying from the point which is that you are Lord Boulton’s son.”
“And my eldest half-brother, Viscount Vernon, was your lover.”
For a moment, she couldn’t speak. Unaccustomed shame seemed to curl through her body from her toes. And yet everyone knew. Why should he be any different? He couldn’t know that the night she was discovered with Vernon was the only time she’d ever been in his house, that even then it had been trickery. She’d actually been on her way out, in high dudgeon, when Dickie, Crowmore’s heir, and several men of business had arrived looking for her to break the news of her widowhood.
Kate lifted her chin.
“So what?” she challenged. “Did you think to indulge in a little sibling rivalry over me? I can’t imagine Vernon envying you marriage with his leftovers.”
“Stop it,” he commanded fiercely.
She laughed. “Why? I won’t hold you to the marriage. By now I’m sure half the town believes I have my claws in you already. But you know, I don’t believe Vernon’s the jealous sort.”
“Stop talking about yourself that way.”
“What way?” she drawled. “I know exactly what I am and what I’ve done.” And the real, crying shame, the physical pain clawing at her stomach came from the confused knowledge that the only man they could really associate her with was Grant’s brother. She could never now have Tristram Grant.
She didn’t know if she’d misjudged him or he’d misjudged her, but his relationship to Vernon had just ruined everything. Whatever everything was. Possibility, friendship, sweetness…
“I know what Vernon’s done,” he said unexpectedly, his voice not quite steady. “And trust me, I could knock his teeth down his throat for it.”
She forced another laugh, while part of her wondered, wildly, what the devil was going on with him. “You can’t possibly know what he has done or hasn’t done,” she scoffed. “Master Curate, I am not a wronged woman. The world knows me for an adulteress, a walking scandal, the shame of two families—”
She got no further, for without warning, he leaned across the space between them and fastened his lips to hers.
Shock held her frozen. But his mouth wasn’t cold. Hot and firm, it clung to hers, moving on her parted lips in fierce yet tender exploration. The two horses walked together contentedly, all but bumping against each other as they made their way toward the woods.
He may be a curate, she thought from nowhere, but he’s no stranger to women…
Of course he wasn’t. He’d been a soldier, a handsome one, and no doubt a very dashing one. Women must have fallen at his feet. And his kiss melted her bones. Skillful and yet overtly passionate, it aroused and tempted her tingling body. And when his tongue slid along her lower lip and inside her mouth, she gave in and kissed him back.
With a groan, he sank his mouth deeper. One hand on her cheek, the other hot on her shoulder, he kissed her as if he’d never stop, while the horses walked on.
His face was warm and rough under her trembling fingertips. No one had ever kissed her like this, made her feel like this.
“You kiss most sinfully,” she whispered against his lips. “For a clergyman.”
“So do you,” he said huskily, “for a clergyman’s wife.”
Laughter caught in her throat as he straightened in the saddle and halted Gladiator before dismounting. Snow stopped, too, without any instruction from her. They were on the edge of the forest.
Kate’s heart beat like a drum as Grant tied Gladiator’s reins loosely around a tree branch and then walked over to her, holding up his arms in clear invitation.
“Why do you want to marry me?” She meant it to be light, mocking, but it came out as a broken whisper.
“Because I love you.”
“You don’t know me.” Anguished tears trembled in her eyes and she had to glare at him to prevent them falling.
“But I do.” His hands closed on her waist and she couldn’t object as he lifted her down from the saddle. She stood so close to his strong, hard body that its heat enflamed her. He cupped her face between his hands. “The very first time I saw you, in the Assembly Rooms, so bravely challenging their petty disapproval, I knew. You were the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. You always will be.”
“Beauty is skin deep,” she managed. “I’m not a good woman, Tristram, you know I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. I know that in my bones.” He bent his head, his lips hovering over hers.
“No, you’re justifying lust. There’s no need.” Her heart thundered, but this at last was right. And she had nothing to lose. She would only be catching up with her reputation. With him, it would be so different, so sweet, so … necessary. “You can just take me,” she whispered. “You always could.”
“I want you to love me first.”
She was fascinated by the texture of his lips, so firm and sculpted and tempting. She swallowed. “I’m incapable of love. Everyone knows that.”
“I don’t,” he said, and kissed her again with slow, deliberate sensuality.
Of their own volition, her arms crept up around his neck, and when he fitted his body close against hers, her mouth opened wide. She stumbled backward as shocking desire flooded her, and Snow, snorting, stepped delicately out of the way.
Grant left her mouth with apparent reluctance. Taking the reins from her careless hand, he walked Snow to the same tree as Gladiator and tied the reins.
He faced Kate, his clouded eyes devouring her. “Come here,” he said huskily.
She stayed where she was. “I don’t love you.”
“Your kisses say otherwise. Come here.”
“My lips are befuddled. So is my brain. They’ve never encountered anyone quite like you before.”
He began to walk toward her, presumably because she stood rooted to the same spot he’d left her. In panic, she didn’t know whether to fall into his arms or ward him off. He looked so predatory, so desirable. And she’d already offered herself to him.
He took her in his arms and without warning, lifted her right off the ground, sinking with her onto the soft spongy earth.
“If I loved you now,” he whispered, dragging his open mouth across her throat and kissing the pulse which beat there so rapidly. “If I took off all your clothes and loved you now, would you love me back?”
“My body knows what to do,” she said, deliberately brazen.
He lifted his head, stroking her hair and sweeping off her half loose hat as he went. “And yet men always disappoint you.”
“Not in matters of physical pleasure,” she drawled, quite untruthfully. But she needed the cloak of wicked Kate for this encounter, for she’d no idea what to do.
He tilted his head to one side. “And yet I surprise you. I make you surprise yourself.”
She widened her eyes deliberately. “You’re a clergyman.”
It was an act she’d perfected over the years, one that kept things light and amusing and self-mocking. No one had ever seen through it, even in the early days. But Grant’s eyes seemed to pierce hers, seeing everything. Please not everything.
“Who hurt you?” he whispered. “Who hurt you first? Your husband?”
“No. It was me.” She tried to sit up, but he moved his body half over hers, catching her hands and holding them above her head.
“You? How.”
She tried to laugh, to make little of it, and it wasn’t a bad effort. “Crowmore was my punishment. Because I loved another man, a younger son, a penniless soldier who wanted to marry me. And I wouldn’t hold out for him. I gave in and married my family’s choice.”
“He was older than you.”
“Crowmore? Only by about forty years or so.”
“Was he not kind to his young bride?”
She tugged furiously at her hands. “I won’t talk about this. Let me go.”
“Then he wasn’t kind.”
“Kind? Crowmore? I had to hide the maidservants from him for common humanity. Let me go, Mr. Grant, or I’ll ram my knee where you least want it.”
Strategically, he shifted position and held her legs down with one of his own. His eyes, full of outrage and a pity she couldn’t bear, told her he’d guessed the rest. The humiliation and physical abuse that had come so close to breaking her. “Could your family do nothing for you?” he asked gently.
“They could call me a liar and send me back to him.” She had to close her eyes for a moment, to fight the resurgent sense of betrayal, the final knowledge that whatever Crowmore did to her, she was alone. “I developed my own strategies of escape. I lived my own life apart from him and became a discreet scandal so that he would stay away. Even before Crowmore died, the world knew me for an adulteress. Don’t you?”
“I know you never loved anyone. Except the young soldier you didn’t marry.”
“Trust me that is the one blessing in this whole business. That and the fact that Crowmore is dead. And people expect me to mourn him?” She laughed, a brittle, inhuman sound that should have sent him scurrying away from her.
Instead, he smoothed her hair and kissed her forehead, reminding her she lay pinned beneath his heavy thigh. And in spite of all he’d made her think about, even talk about, she was undeniably aroused.
“I think there’s more,” he said softly. “Or at least less. You flirt, you tease and provoke better than anyone I’ve ever encountered. But you don’t kiss like a woman with vast experience of love.”
Her heart beat hard beneath his. Confounded, she had no idea what to say.
“Is that a criticism?” she managed at last.
“God no. I love your kisses. I’d die for your kisses.” As if to prove it, he took another. Her mouth trembled beneath his, responding from pure instinct. She tried to speak, and he drew back, just a little.
I’ve only ever kissed two men in my life. One was David Keith whom I gave up for Crowmore when I was little more than a child. The other is you. She couldn’t say the words. They would break what was left of her protective shell.
A frown flickered across his face as his eyes searched hers. “Rumor lied, didn’t it?” he said softly. “There were no lovers.”
She closed her eyes against the intolerable intrusion, before she remembered she never hid. She opened them again. “I am a most accomplished flirt,” she drawled. “And it seems men like to lie about their conquests. It turned out I liked to be wicked. Apart from anything else, it provided a wonderful excuse to live apart from my husband.”
He swallowed, and this time the words had to be wrung out of him. “And Vernon?”
She dragged her gaze free at last. “You have no right to ask me that. It reflects well on neither of us, but he never touched me.”
“Poor Kate,” he whispered unexpectedly, and kissed her cheeks and her lips. “My poor Kate.”
She wrenched her mouth free. “Don’t pity me, damn you. You’re the only one who deserves that if you believe in poor Kate.”
“I believe in the sweet, trusting girl beneath your hard shell, and in the strong, brave woman you’ve become. You have compassion and kindness and love. I’ve seen them.”
“No, you haven’t,” Kate disputed, more rattled by this than anything else.
Grant smiled. “Yes, I have,” he said and kissed her stunned mouth so tenderly that she forgot what he’d made her confess.
This strange intimacy with him was at once frightening, soothing, and thrilling. His caresses awakened some powerful need, even as her heart quailed, and a warm bubble of safety seemed to form around them.
“I’m far beneath you in birth and wealth,” he said, raising his head from a particularly blistering kiss that left her breathless. “But you’ll let me court you?”
“Apparently,” she managed. “Although I’m not sure it’s an entirely proper courtship.”
“Well, I’m looking forward to a thoroughly improper marriage.” He paused. As of recognizing the ambiguity of his words. “But a faithful one.”
“I’m not a faithful woman.”
“I’ll make you so.”
“You’re very sure of yourself.”
“I’m sure of you. If you love me.”
“If,” she reminded him. “If. And even if, I won’t marry you. I won’t marry anyone.” And because she couldn’t help it, she kissed him, long and hard, before finally pushing him off and jumping to her feet. “Now, Master Curate, I insist on going home before we are discovered!”
It seemed indescribably funny to be standing together by the horses, picking grass and earth off each other and trying to re-pin her hair under her fashionable little hat while laughter kept bubbling up inside her. But somehow, they managed it before one last, lingering kiss. Then he lifted her into the saddle and they began the ride back to Blackhaven.
For some reason, her heart was singing.