Chapter 13
Marguerite closed her eyes and tried again to sleep, but how could she? Only one thought echoed in her tortured mind…tomorrow morning Walker would challenge Russell to a duel.
Tomorrow morning Walker would challenge Russell to a duel!
How could she go on if something happened to him? They’d been together for only a few days, but she couldn’t imagine life without him. No, no, she could not think any more that she might lose him!
Giving up on sleep, she threw aside the covers and climbed out of bed, deciding instead that she must find him. Talk to him. Plead with him! Surely there was another way besides a duel to bring Sir Russell Scott to justice—
“Walker…” Marguerite heard footsteps that she guessed at once were his the closer they came to her door, not leisurely but hastening toward her just as she ran to meet him. He had no sooner entered the room than she flung her arms around his neck and he lifted her from the floor, embracing her as fiercely as she embraced him.
Had it been only an hour since she’d seen him? It felt like days, weeks!
Dressed only in her chemise, she felt the warmth of his hands pressed into her back as he kissed her fiercely, too…as if he were thinking of what might happen in the morning. Then she felt him carrying her toward the bed, her lips clinging to his, her arms still wound around him.
She didn’t want him to ever let her go, but he did, to settle her upon the mattress. Not lying down, but sitting, her arms falling from around his neck while he knelt on the floor in front of her and clasped her hands. The curtains were drawn yet not tightly so afternoon sunlight filtered into the bedchamber, and Marguerite scanned every line, every nuance of Walker’s beloved face.
He stared at her, too, and bent his dark head to kiss her fingers and then once more met her eyes.
“A messenger brought news from Cornwall…” he began only to have Marguerite gasp, though he shook his head as if to reassure her. “No, no, good news from your brother-in-law, Donovan. The tinners were found and are safe and sound with their families. All is well there.”
Her relief so immense that she lowered her head for a moment, tears blurring her vision, Marguerite could only think then of why she’d jumped from the bed to find him. She looked up to see that Walker watched her silently, giving her time she guessed to take in such welcome news—though she was no longer thinking of Cornwall but of him. Only him!
“Walker, I beg you…find another way than a duel. Please find another way!” Tears spilled down her cheeks now, and he let go of her hands to reach up to brush the wetness tenderly away.
“There is no other way, Marguerite. We’ve no witnesses to verify our charge to a magistrate that my cousin paid those cutthroats to murder us.”
“But the constable in Gretna Green agreed as well that they had clearly attempted to do us grave harm. The one came at you from behind with a knife and you had to defend yourself, while the other…oh, God, if he hadn’t slipped on that soap—”
“No more!” Walker’s anguished demand silenced her, and he rose from his knees to pull her from the bed into his arms. She couldn’t see his face as he hugged her, holding her so tightly against his chest that she could hear his pounding heartbeat.
“Woman, I’ve thought almost every moment since I kicked in that door of what might have happened if you hadn’t fought him—fought for your life! Those men earned their just reward and Russell’s treachery will not go unpunished. By God, I swear it!”
Marguerite said nothing, could say nothing, even as Walker’s shirt against her cheek had grown wet from her tears.
He would not be swayed. She knew that now, just as she must face whatever the outcome in the morning. Yet now they were together for the precious hours they might have left to them…
Marguerite lifted her head and reached up her hands to touch his face, only to find his cheeks wet, too, beneath her trembling fingers.
His eyes, midnight black, stared into hers, his voice grown so hoarse that he spoke in no more than a whisper.
“Marguerite, whatever happens…know that I love you. Love you…”
He pressed his lips to hers before she could speak. Her hands fell from his face to clutch at his shirt as his kiss, so impassioned, yet so tender, echoed the words she had longed to hear.
Yes, they had these precious hours left to them…whatever might happen, and she would think of the morning no more. Only of this moment. Only of him.
She curled her fingers into the tear-dampened fabric of his shirt as if she could rend it from him, but she didn’t need to. She heard him groan. She felt him lift her from her feet and lay her upon the bed in the time it took for her to draw a breath.
Then she watched, spellbound, as he kicked off his boots, laid his pistol upon the side table, and stripped off his clothes as quickly as if he, too, wanted to tear them from his body.
Oh, his body. Bared to her now and so powerful, so magnificent in the muted sunlight that illuminated the room.
All hard muscles and lean masculine lines that she could but stare at while he joined her on the bed to straddle her. The ripping sound of her chemise from bodice to hem made her gasp.
“You’re so beautiful, Marguerite,” he breathed, his thighs pressing against her hips as he stared, too, at her naked body. “My wife, my love. So beautiful…”
Her gaze dropped to his thick shaft grown hard and heavy for her. She began to tremble again, flushing with heat from her swollen nipples to the apex of her thighs where she felt wet for him. Aching for him.
If he had meant to enter her then, swiftly, ravenously like the morning they’d wed, Marguerite gasped in surprise when instead he shifted his weight and parted her legs to kneel between them. Then he bent over her to kiss the base of her throat, her breastbone, and the rounded curves of her breasts until she sighed beneath him, his hands braced upon either side of her.
Only for a breathtaking moment did he tease her rigid nipples with his kisses, his tongue, nibbling at her, flicking at her…until she arched her back, moaning. Desperate to hold him closer, she reached up to tunnel her fingers in his hair to find only air.
He’d suddenly moved lower, dipping his tongue into her navel as the quivering between her legs grew more intense. His hands caressed her breasts now, his thumbs encircling her nipples while his tongue traced a fiery path down her lower abdomen to the woman’s hair at the heart of her thighs.
She was so lost to his touch, so aroused by his fingers easing open her slick inner lips to find what he sought. When he pressed his mouth to that quivering spot, dipping his tongue deep inside her, she cried out his name in shock.
Never before that moment had he kissed her so intimately, his tongue plying the nub that ached and throbbed now…the sensation so intense that she cried out again and lifted her hips to his mouth.
She felt him shove his hands beneath her to clutch her bottom, Marguerite bucking now though he held her fast and suckled her, his tongue thrusting in and out of her.
Her moaning seemed a deafening roar in her ears until she felt a scream welling in her throat. Only then did Walker rise up above her to plunge his turgid shaft into her and silence her with his kiss, his groans.
Marguerite went rigid beneath him, overcome by her blinding climax while he drove his hips against hers and shuddered, his hot seed spilling inside her.
When she had wrapped her legs tightly around his taut buttocks, she could not say, or when she had gripped his broad shoulders to hold him as closely against her.
All she knew when she opened her eyes moments later to find Walker collapsed upon her, his shaft still hard and deep inside her, was that she felt utterly claimed by him.
The scent of her sex upon her, upon him.
Their sweat-dampened bodies fused together.
Her last conscious thought as sweet satiation claimed Walker, whose breathing had grown slow and steady, and then her, too, “Whatever happens…know that I love you. Love you…”
***
“What of Marguerite, Walker? Does she know you’re going to call out Russell tonight instead of waiting until morning?”
“She still sleeps,” Walker said tightly to Jared, who followed after him down the hallway to the back of the town house. “You don’t have to go with me. It’s your turn to rest after all and you have Lindsay to think about, and Justin—”
“I’m your second, remember?”
Walker didn’t reply as Jared gave a sharp command to the footman at the door leading out to the carriage house to not let anyone enter until he and Walker returned, just as he’d directed Sims at the front door. Both young men had been provided with a loaded pistol and Jared had told them not to hesitate to shoot if they felt threatened.
Thankfully, Walker found himself encouraged that the footmen had seemed enlivened by a directive holding so much more interest than answering doors and carrying messages. He could not deny, either, that he was glad Jared had chosen to come with him as they made their way through the dark garden toward the stable.
He had no idea what he would find at the town house he’d shared with Russell. More of his cousin’s henchmen?
He’d decided the moment he had woken up with Marguerite sleeping so peacefully in his arms that he wouldn’t wait until sunrise to confront his cousin.
Why stay barricaded here waiting to see if Russell knew they had returned to London and was fool enough to bring danger to their doorstep? The man must sense by now that something was amiss with the riders he’d sent to Gretna Green, since they had not yet shown up with news of an evil mission accomplished.
Instead, Walker had quickly bathed and dressed and quietly left the room, not even allowing himself a last glance at Marguerite’s still form beneath the covers.
Damnation, he wanted this thing done and come to a conclusion, no matter that he prayed it wasn’t him that would not live to see another morning!
***
“Easy, Walker, easy…” Jared hissed as they dismounted from their horses and approached the door to the leased town house that appeared ablaze with light.
It wasn’t late, perhaps no more than nine o’clock, but the street with its fashionable houses was dark except for an occasional lantern, most of the windows dark as well. Everyone else had retired for the night, clearly, but not Russell. Was the bastard already celebrating his imagined inheritance even though his two hired cutthroats hadn’t returned yet to London?
That thought made Walker grit his teeth, hatred filling him—yes, hatred!—for the man who had engineered a plot that had nearly cost him his bride. In spite of Jared’s warning, he wanted to beat down the door and call out Russell to a duel with pistols right there on the street, the authorities be damned!
And it might come to that, too, the lanterns here and there offering more light than Hyde Park at this time of night in spite of the waning full moon.
Or any other out-of-doors location Russell might name in London, for Walker at least would grant him the choice of where they would face each other. But it would be tonight or by God, he would call upon the nearest constable in spite of having no proof to back up his charge.
Word against word, who would the authorities believe? Alexander Scott, the future Duke of Summerlin, or a baronet with enough motive to see himself hang?
A constable… Walker almost hesitated as the image of Marguerite’s face flashed in his mind’s eye, but no, the intensity of his enmity for what Russell had done compelled him to stay the course. He had all he could do not to pound upon the door. Instead he knocked firmly as Jared came up close behind him.
Almost at once the door was thrown open by a pair of bewigged and liveried footmen of matched height that Walker didn’t recognize from before, or perhaps it was because they were dressed so formally.
Silk stockings? Powdered wigs? Fancy red velvet coats? Was the bloody Prince Regent coming to call? He thought of Sims and the other footman at Jared’s town house in plainer livery, which made Walker believe then that Russell was indeed entertaining. Well, this was one assembly he couldn’t wait to disrupt.
“Walker Burke and Lord Dovercourt to see Sir Russell Scott at once!” Walker demanded, which made Jared utter a low curse.
A sideways glance told Walker that Jared held a pistol at the ready beneath his coat, just in case. It was all he could do not to draw his own pistols as Russell, dressed in formal evening attire, walked from the library into the foyer. If the baronet had been surprised at first to hear Walker’s voice, his expression nonetheless appeared carefully composed though Walker noted the stark displeasure in his gaze.
“Cousin, I’ve been wondering when you might return. Did you accomplish the business you set out to do?”
Walker opened his mouth to spew some of the animosity churning inside him when a burly, dark-haired man suddenly careened out of the library and fled down the hall.
“Jared, go after him! That’s the same man I told you was watching us on the street!”
Walker’s pistols drawn now as Jared lunged after his quarry, Walker wasn’t surprised to see that his cousin’s face had blanched white. Russell spun half around and jutted out an arm to try and stop Jared, but Jared tore right past him, knocking him down.
At once Russell tried to scramble to his feet, but Walker thrust a boot onto his chest and shoved him back to the marble floor.
“Strange how your man looks so similar to the one that tried to knife me in Gretna Green,” he grated, pointing his pistols at Russell’s chest. “Brothers, perhaps?”
Russell said nothing, but hatred shone in his eyes.
Yet he stiffened beneath the pressure of Walker’s boot holding him down when the clip-clop of horses’ hooves and the rumble of an approaching carriage sounded from the street. Out of the corner of his eye, Walker saw that the front door was still wide open, the liveried footmen staring from him to Russell and looking as if they wanted to flee, too.
“Ah, your father has arrived from Devonshire,” Russell said tightly, still glaring at Walker. “Will you have him see us like this or will you allow me at least to rise to my feet?”