‘No, my room. There’s a not-so-secret door and stair in the corner here.’ Guin tugged at his hand, impatient when he stooped to retrieve his coat. Trust Jared Hunt to leave no incriminating evidence behind him. He dropped it and pressed a kiss into the angle of her neck. Her fingers fumbled on the old oak panelling until she found the right angle to press, then the door opened and they climbed, cramped, bumping on the twisting stair, so narrow that Jared’s broad shoulders brushed the walls.

It opened into her bedchamber and Guin turned to see Jared at the stair door, framed by the old oak panelling as he pulled off his shirt.

‘You look like a returning knight storming his lady’s chamber after years away at the Crusades,’ she said, half laughing at her own fantasy, half deadly serious.

Jared tossed aside the shirt, heeled off his boots, his gaze steady on her as his hands went to his waistband. He was stripping himself naked for her, making himself as vulnerable as such a controlled, dangerous man surely never could.

Guin caught her breath at the sight of him revealed, aroused for her. For me. If he can trust, so can I. Her gown fell in silent folds at her feet, her slippers kicked off easily. Her corset defeated her but from the look in his eyes, it would not defeat him. Guin walked the six steps that brought her to the man who was to be her lover and reached up, pulling free the leather tie that held his queue of hair tight. It came loose under her raking fingers, shook out around his shoulders, the mane of a lion, kinked by the braid and silkily alive in her hands.

Jared smiled, slow and sensuous, and reached around her for the strings of her stays, deft even though he could not see what he was doing. ‘Sure?’ he murmured.

The question in that husky voice was reassuring, but he did not have to ask: she was quite certain about this. It had been a long time since Francis, and he had been an unsatisfactory lover – even with her complete inexperience she had known that – so this might be far from comfortable in the beginning, but she trusted Jared to care for her.

‘Quite sure.’ The words were muffled as her corset fell away and he whipped her chemise off over her head.

She was not certain what to expect next, but it was not to be held away from him, his palms cupping her shoulders, while he studied her face. ‘This can only be a temporary affaire, Guinevere. Of course, you already know that – you are a titled lady, I am a swordmaster. That is all it can ever be.’

‘I am not looking for a third husband, that is certain,’ Guin said, perhaps more crisply than she had intended. ‘But if I were, I am not sure that a foolish young woman of moderately respectable breeding who ruined herself with a rake, and was then fortunate enough to be rescued by an elderly viscount, is in any position to give herself airs. Especially about a man who, however mysterious he chooses to be about his upbringing, is clearly a gentleman by both breeding and nature.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Now, please can you forget all those very honourable scruples and just kiss me?’

‘I live to serve,’ Jared murmured, provoking her into parting her lips so that his mouth on hers caught her mid-retort. Then his tongue teased inside and she lost all track of what she had been about to say.

They were naked, skin to skin, feminine softness against hard male demand and she rubbed herself sinuously against the lean body, honed by disciplined exercise. Jared bent her back over his arm to kiss her breasts, his hair falling over her shoulders, another caress. He stooped, caught her up and carried her to the bed, followed her down, continued his open-mouthed exploration of her breasts until she arched up, clutching at his head, wanting him not to stop and yet wanting more. Wanting him.

Jared gave a parting tug at her right nipple with his lips and looked into her half-closed eyes. ‘It has been a long time.’ It was more a statement than a question.

‘Yes,’ Guin agreed, even as those long, clever fingers slid between her thighs, slipped between folds already wet for him. Her body already knew what pleasure he could give it and she pushed against his palm as one, then two fingers eased inside and she writhed against him, wanting it all.

Jared’s weight shifted over her, his lean hips between her thighs, his hair brushing her shoulders, the different texture of the dark curls on his chest setting up another exquisite friction against her sensitised nipples. They moved together instinctively, finding that perfect angle for penetration, his long, strong thrust matching the lift of her hips to take him, all of him.

Guin gasped, burying the sound against his shoulder. It was a long time and, although he was gentler, he was also larger than Francis had been. Jared held still as though he had felt that moment of shock, of resistance, then as she arched up against him, he withdrew slowly, almost completely, then drove in again. Slow and fast, slow and fast, until Guin was panting with need, shaking as the tension built and built, gasping out words that were more sounds than sense until Jared shifted the angle of his thrusts, his breathing suddenly irregular as he seemed to swell and grow inside her.

‘Now, Guinevere.’

An order, a plea… perhaps both, as she abruptly lost the ability to think at all and clung to him, sobbing as he moved sharply, pulling away, gasping out his own ecstasy against her mouth as he convulsed, spilling hot against her belly.

 

I ought to move. Under him was soft, hot woman, a tangle of hair in his mouth – both his and hers – the sensation of stickiness between their bodies, the scent of their coupling and sweat mingling with the drift of mown grass and roses through the window. Nothing dainty about good sex, Jared thought, utterly relaxed and contented.

He really should move. He could not recall the last time he had simply abandoned himself to the moment after lovemaking. It was far too dangerous an indulgence: a man was never more vulnerable than when he was naked, happy, boneless with pleasure.

Guinevere was awake, he could tell by her breathing, by the almost imperceptible drift of her fingers in his hair. She seemed to like the length of it. In fact she had seemed to enjoy the entire experience. Jared allowed himself a moment of masculine satisfaction about that, then turned his head so he could look at her. ‘Am I squashing you?’

‘I like it.’

Which meant he was. Reluctantly, provoking a grumble from Guinevere, Jared rolled onto his back, then summoned up the tatters of his self-control and got off the bed to investigate the dressing room.

When he got back with the water pitcher and a towel Guinevere was still sprawled across the rumpled sheets. She smiled drowsily at him and pulled herself into sitting position against the pillows. ‘Thank you.’

‘It is cold,’ he warned, dipping in the wash cloth and handing it to her.

‘Not for the water,’ she said, blushing a little as she took the cloth from him.

‘Thank you.’ He put aside the pitcher and got to his feet, began to search out his scattered clothing.

‘Where are you doing?’

‘Getting dressed.’ He pulled on his breeches and reached for his boots. ‘Then going down to the library to be found innocently studying the available reference books.’

‘Everyone knows where we are.’ Guinevere plumped up the pillows and curled against them, pulling a sheet over her in a manner that left far too many tantalising glimpses of body for a man attempting to do the right thing. ‘Come back to bed.’

Where had the shy, blushing widow gone? She had been enchanting, if fragile, but this woman was provocative and just a little demanding, which was piquant. ‘Your reputation is something else I should be guarding.’ And I am now worrying about shutting the stable door after the horse has well and truly bolted.

‘Please.’ There was that faint pink beneath the pale skin again, that hint of uncertainty. ‘Only to talk.’

Jared dropped his boots and went back to the bed, keeping his breeches on as a reminder to himself that this was just to talk. When he settled back against the pillows next to her Guinevere turned and burrowed down, her head on his shoulder, her arm over his chest. She made a contented little humming noise that stirred the hairs on his chest, made his nipples tighten. She noticed, sat up a little and reached out to touch.

‘Were you trained by the Spanish inquisition?’ Jared enquired, slapping his free hand over his chest like an outraged virgin before she enticed him into making love to her all over again.

Guinevere chuckled, but did not try and dislodge his hand. ‘I have been thinking.’

‘Yes?’ he said. Warily.

‘We should go and visit the Quentens, whatever we find in the Landed Gentry, not write to them. One can tell so much more by talking to people face to face.’

Jared could have sworn he controlled his reaction, but they were skin to skin, she could not avoid noticing any slight movement, any acceleration of his heart rate.

‘What is wrong?’ She sat up, the sheet pooling around her like water around a mermaid on her rock. ‘Why do you not want to go?’

‘I said nothing.’

‘I know you didn’t. You went very still and you do that when something is wrong.’

Damn it. ‘Do I?’ He had thought he had disciplined every possible tell out of his reactions.

‘Yes. It is something to do with your early life, isn’t it? You come from around here.’

‘How the devil did you know that?’ He sat up abruptly, all his prized control lost in a moment. He used the movement to stand, instinctively covering the reaction.

‘Very occasionally there is the faintest trace of Yorkshire in your voice. I hear it when you are speaking to Thomas or any of the staff here. You did not want to come up here, even though you had decided it was the best thing to do. You hid it deep, but I could tell.’

‘It appears I have become very easy to read.’ Which was a disaster when his entire livelihood depended on the exact opposite.

‘Not at all.’ Guinevere studied him, head to one side, her lower lip caught between her teeth for a second. ‘For some reason I seem able to sense your mood. Will you tell me what is wrong?’

Tell her? Tell her what he had never spoken of to a living soul, dig out the betrayal and the disillusion and the anger and reveal the vulnerable seventeen year old boy that he had been?

‘Yes,’ he said, startling himself. ‘I was born and lived the first seventeen years of my life between here and Whitby. I have an elder brother.’ William. ‘I loved and respected him and he betrayed me, lied about me and took my honour with that lie. My father believed him, not me, which I suppose is not surprising. He was the heir, the serious, sensible one.’ The cunning, scheming one, as it turned out. ‘I was wild, endlessly in trouble.’ And romantic and naive and in love with chivalry and swordplay, not with real life. ‘There was a… situation. Accusations were made that I denied. I left.’

‘The accusations were untrue.’ Guinevere made that a statement, trusting him without even knowing what he had been charged with. She gave a little nod, strangely decisive. ‘And you have never been back? Never contacted them?’

‘No. I suppose I should forgive them, it has been a long time.’ He did not hate any more and the betrayal had become a scar, not a wound, but the love had gone, the trust had gone. There was no respect and without those things, what was the point of family? Guinevere would not agree with that, he supposed, women usually valued reconciliation, whatever the provocation. Jared waited for the lecture.

‘Why should you?’ she demanded, startling him. ‘They betrayed you, the people who should have loved you. Did they look for you?’

But then Guinevere is not an ordinary woman… ‘I do not think so. My brother had everything to lose by admitting the truth, my father believed him. My mother had died the year before.’ It had been then, he had come to realise as he looked back, older and wiser, that things had begun to fall apart.

‘Would they know you now?’ Guinevere smiled and he found he was smiling back, even as he marvelled at the effect she had on him, the way she undermined every one of his defences. ‘I expect you have changed somewhat.’

‘I was a lanky, skinny boy with short hair,’ Jared said, looking back through the smudged mirror of time. ‘I probably had a vague expression – I was certainly always in trouble for day dreaming.’

‘You have changed. I do not think anyone could accuse you of being either skinny or dreamy. You seem to have the focus of a rat trap and the muscles of an athlete.’ She reached out and touched his upper arm fleetingly, one nail scratching the swell of his bicep. ‘But there is no reason to think we would encounter your family. I suppose your real name is not Hunt? No, I did not think it was.’

‘Jared is one of my names. As I told you, it is an old family tradition. My surname I adapted a trifle.’

‘And I suppose you will not tell me what your brother did?’

Jared shook his head, his hair falling to shield his face. No, that he found he could not do, even with Guinevere. The shock and the shame and the betrayal must have cut even deeper than he had realised. He could not speak of it, as though the dishonour had been his, not William’s. But then everyone but William and Bella thought it was and, apparently, a clear conscience was not much help under the circumstances.

‘It was a woman, I suppose,’ Guinevere said and this time he managed not to react. ‘I am not fishing, just guessing. What else would wound a romantic young man more than that? No, I do not expect an answer.’ She threw aside the sheet and slid from the bed, unashamedly naked, without a blush. ‘We have much to do. Look up the Willoughbys in the book, plan a surprise visit to the Quentens – I wonder what excuse I can come up with for just passing so much out of my way?’

‘Sightseeing,’ Jared suggested as he got off the bed and retrieved his boots. ‘It has been suggested to you as a way of taking your mind off your troubles. You have a desire to buy Whitby jet mourning jewellery, to see the abbey ruins, admire Robin Hood’s Bay. And suddenly it occurs to you to have a good look at a map and see how close you are to Lord Northam’s remaining family.’

Guinevere tied her garters, shimmied into her camisole and wrapped her stays around herself. ‘Please lace me up.’

Yes, she had most definitely been trained by the Inquisition. First she interrogated him, forcing him to confront feelings and memories he had firmly buried and now she was half-naked in front of him, the warm aroma of well-satisfied woman filling his senses, the enticing curves of her buttocks inches from his groin as she presented her back and the laces to him. Jared fought back the urge to toss her onto the bed and make love to her all over again, and whipped the laces through their holes, then tugged.

‘Ough! Faith is far less severe,’ she protested as he tied the bow.

‘She does not have a vested interest in the delectable cleavage that tight lacing puts on display.’ Jared spun Guinevere round and kissed the area in question before retreating to where his shirt lay crumpled on the floor. He pulled it on and decided that sometimes a strategic retreat was the better part of valour. He looked for his coat and his neckcloth and, more importantly, his sword belt, then realised all were down in the study. The unlocked study.

What kind of bloody bodyguard are you? he snarled at himself as he ran down the tightly twisting stair, the warm sensual glow of their lovemaking replaced by cold anger at himself. The rapier and belt were where he had left them propped against the desk, the neckcloth draped across the guard. The kind who gets run through with his own sword in the middle of lovemaking, that’s what.

The familiar weight of the weapon at his side restored some of his equilibrium, enough for him to tie his neckcloth with a steady hand. The faded red and gilt of the Landed Gentry binding was visible on a shelf close to the desk and he pulled it out and sat down to study it, focusing on the simple task to steady his anger. The edition dated back almost twenty years, Lord Northam’s bookplate inside was scuffed and faded. It must have been an old one from his library that he had brought up here to help populate the empty shelves.

Jared flicked through to Willoughby. There it was, confirming the headstone in the graveyard. Henry Fitzgordon Willoughby of Gordon Chase, Northumberland, married to Jane Arnold. Children Francis Arnold, born 1784 and Elizabeth, born 1777.

No other children, so the theoretical murderous land agent brother was ruled out, and there was no sign of a marriage for the vengeful Elizabeth. He needed the most recent edition to find out about that.

Jared closed the book with a thump, dislodging a faded pressed fern frond from between its pages, but he did not get up to replace it on the shelf. The room was quiet, the deep old chair made for comfortable contemplation and he settled back in it, although his contemplating was far from comfortable.

This was his first commission after leaving Cal’s household and he had committed what was probably the cardinal sin for a bodyguard: he had become emotionally entangled with his subject. He had emotions for Cal – he was his best friend and he loved him like a brother – but that was different. It made him fight the harder to guard his back, it had made him devoted to the Duke’s interests, but it had not clouded his judgement, blunted his professional edge.

If he made love to Guinevere again it would be in a locked room with shutters closed, a chest wedged against the door and a blade inches from his hand at all times. And she touches you and your brain turns to porridge, your reflexes migrate to your groin and you see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing but her. The house could burn down around your ears and you wouldn’t notice until it was too late.

Jared sat and contemplated the truth of that, just as Monsieur Favel his swordmaster had taught him to analyse his every error. So, he did not make love to her again. That simplifies matters, he thought grimly.

They would go and see what the Quentens could teach them, then find out what was happening with the new Lord Northam and, if necessary, go into Northumberland and see if they could track down the vengeful Willoughby sister. All he had to do until then was to stop the authorities arresting Theo Quenten for murder and keep Guinevere alive while staying out of her bed and avoiding his own family.

‘Such a simple plan, in fact,’ he said out loud.