For Love of the Earl (10 page)

Lightning flashed in the windows, and Alec looked at Lady Cavanaugh.
 
She held up her hands and shook her head, sending her dark hair swinging.
 

"I've got it together now, Stryden.
 
I promise not to embarrass myself at the boom of thunder." Her bright golden eyes flashed in the darkness, and Alec felt moderately better about having kissed a woman who was not his wife.
 
After all, he had only kissed Lady Cavanaugh.
 
And how many times had he done that before?
 
Surely, by now the kisses were meaningless.
 
Hell, all kisses seemed to have become meaningless.
 
The only ones that mattered never happened and never appeared to might happen in the near future.
 

Bloody hell, there was that self-pity again.
 

Alec pulled open the first drawer of the desk with enough force to dislodge it from the desk.
 
Lady Cavanaugh didn't say a word about it but started sorting through the stacks of books on the various odd tables scattered through out the room.
 
The light from the furious storm cast enough of a glow to make their search easier.
 
They wouldn't risk a candle.
 
Someone may stumble upon the library and see the strip of light under the door.
 
Then where would they be?
 
Kissing again, probably, and Alec did not feel like kissing Lady Cavanaugh again all too soon.
 

"Do we know what the map may look like?" Lady Cavanaugh whispered.
 

"Not really.
 
There are some theories that it may be the Irish coastline that we're looking for.
 
But really, it's anybody's bet."
 

"I don't see someone like the MacDonald betraying England."
 

"Odds are he's not," Alec mumbled with his head under the desk, tapping the sides for hollow spots that might be hidden compartments.
 

"He's not?"
 

Alec pulled his head out from under the desk.
 

"We think he's being conned by the Campbells."
 

"Dirty bastards.
 
Why are they conning him?"
 

"They need his shipping business as a cover," Alec said, turning around to the cabinets below the looming windows.
 

"How are they using it as a cover?"
 

"The Campbells tell MacDonald that they can smuggle in fine French brandy if MacDonald will allow them the use of his docks, so the ships won't look suspicious.
 
MacDonald doesn't know that the Campbells are smuggling arms out of England on the ships, arms intended for Napoleon."
 

"And MacDonald is thinking he's just getting some good booze?"
 

Alec turned around and smiled sarcastically.
 

"Exactly."
 

"Treason seems a pretty high price to pay for a fine French stupor."
 

"Especially when it's unknown and unintended treason."
 

Thunder vibrated the windowpanes above Alec's bent head, but when the panes settled back into their places, he became aware of another sound.
 
Footsteps.
 
Coming down the hallway.
 
Lady Cavanaugh apparently heard it too because she was scurrying her way through the maze of odd tables to Alec.
 
He shut the cabinet he had been poking around in and turned just as Lady Cavanaugh reached him.
 
He lifted her up on the desk and stepped between her legs, bringing her softly against him.
 
She wrapped her legs around his waist and put her mouth to his throat.
 

Alec felt the bile rise in his throat, and he swallowed it down, savoring the sour taste it left as punishment.
 
Lady Cavanaugh was too big, too solid, too not Sarah.
 
She didn't fit right against him.
 
Her thick hair was full of static and crackled against his chin.
 
Alec closed his eyes and pictured someone else, someone smaller, lighter, blonder, to keep his stomach from emptying itself.
 

The footsteps stopped in front of the door.
 
Alec opened his eyes just as the knob of the door began to turn.
 
He bent his head into the crook of Lady Cavanaugh's neck but kept his eyes up toward the door.
 
The tinkling of feminine giggling came through the crack before one dark head popped through followed by the little blonde head of the young woman they had encountered before entering the library.
 
Alec heard the dark headed one's exclamation of surprise as if she were standing right next to him.
 
Her startled
Oh
sounded genuine as if she really didn't expect to find what she saw behind the door.
 

Alec groaned and buried his head in Lady Cavanaugh's shoulder.
 

This caused a twitter to ripple through both girls, and the door shut with a snap.
 

Alec jumped away from Lady Cavanaugh as if he had suddenly learned she carried the Bubonic plague.
 
Her expression was one of wry understanding.
 

"I'm sorry.
 
I just...love my wife," Alec said as the air rushed out of his chest.
 

Lady Cavanaugh nodded.
 

"I know.
 
So does the rest of the ton," she said as her mouth twisted into a smile that revealed her straight white teeth.
 

Alec took a step back and came up against the cabinets behind him.
 

"They do?"
 
His voice sounded horribly unsettled to his ears.
 

"Of course, they do.
 
It seems the only one who doesn't know is your wife.
 
And why is that?" Lady Cavanaugh tilted her head.
 
The lightning flashed across her face, highlighting her slightly squat nose and too rounded cheeks.
 

Alec perched himself on the cabinets.
 

"I can't make her laugh," he said.

Lady Cavanaugh tilted her head.
 

"I beg your pardon?
 
I don't see how your ability at humor is a problem here."

Alec shook his head.

"She seems to have an issue with me being an earl, but I don't understand what it means."
 

"Mmm.
 
She's an orphan, correct?"
 

"Yes."
 
Alec ran his fingers through his hair thinking it may relieve some of the ache that was suddenly beating the back of his forehead.
 

"Not everyone is comfortable in money and nobility.
 
Especially those who have never had it.
 
They may come to despise it."
 

Alec nodded.
 
"Sarah definitely despises it.
 
But I'm not sure it's the money she has a problem with.
 
I think it's just me."
 

"How do you figure?"
 

Alec laughed hesitantly.
 
"I don't think I'm what she wants."
 

"The Earl of Stryden is something a warm blooded woman doesn't want?"
 

"Not this woman."
 

Lady Cavanaugh slid off the desk and adjusted her skirts.
 
She came up to him and raised one hand to rest it against his cheek.
 
Thunder rattled the windowpanes as Alec looked into her startling golden eyes.
 
Lady Cavanaugh was tall for a woman.
 
Nearly six feet, and her eyes were level with his as he sat on the cabinet.
 

"I think you should check again, Alec."
 
She dropped her hand and made her way back through the maze of books.
 
"And in the meantime, I think it best that people believe your brother tried to ravish me tonight.
 
No one is going to believe that you tried."
 
She smiled softly, a world of empathy in the curve of her lips.
 

Alec nodded.
 

Lady Cavanaugh slipped through the doors as lightning lit up the room.
 

~

On a ship bound for France

April 1815

Sarah picked her head up from Alec's chest.

"That's really what you did with Lady Cavanaugh?"
 

"That's really what we did."
 

Sarah laid her head back down.
 

"How did she know?" she whispered.
 

"Mmm?" Alec murmured.
 

"How did she know that it wasn't you that was the problem?"

Alec stilled.

"What do you mean?"

Sarah did not answer right away.
 
Alec would have normally prodded her into talking with some childish remark, but there was something about the moment that made him refrain.
 
Something made him hold himself in check, and he felt the unwanted weight of self control.
 

Finally, Sarah spoke, shrugging her shoulders against his arm.

"I'm not sure how to say it.
 
To say how I felt that day.
 
There was a lot going on in my head.
 
It was not as if I was
only
marrying a person I had never met before, but I was also voluntarily joining a profession in which I could very well end up dead."

A small twinge of guilt tripped across his spine, but he did not say anything.
 
He waited for her to continue.

"It was all a bit much, and I will admit that perhaps I acted rather out of character."

Now Alec laughed.
 

"It was not out of character, love, but it certainly was rather impolite.
 
You yelled.
 
In God's church."

He felt her try to shake her head against his chest.

"It was not as if anyone in that church had never heard a woman yell before."

Alec had to agree with her on that, but-

"They may have heard yelling from a woman, but it was not expected of a lady."

He felt it the instant she withdrew at his words.
 
She didn't physically move away, but she did not need to.
 
He felt it in the way her breath paused ever so slightly, and she adjusted her head just the barest of spaces.
 
And he knew that he had said the wrong thing.
 
He should have known his attempts to make her laugh would fail once again.
 
It was not as if this situation were any different.
 
It did not matter if their lives were in peril as they bobbed in the English Channel aboard a vessel bound to take them to their doom.
 
She was still Sarah.
 
And Sarah disliked him.
 
Intensely.

But Alec would not give up.
 
He had made his father love him even when he had committed the ultimate sin.
 
He had made his father love him by making him laugh.
 
He knew he could do the same with Sarah.
 
He knew he could, because he must.
 
He could not imagine living the entirety of his life at odds with her.

He needed her goodness.
 
He needed her light.
 
He needed her tenacity.
 
He needed her.

"Sarah?" he asked, even though there was no one else in the room to whom he could be speaking.
 

She responded with a quiet, "Hmm?"

"What did you mean when you said it was not that I was the problem?"

Perhaps it was dangerous, or even foolish, to resurface such a delicate topic when he had so recently upset her, but there was something in the statement that did not sound quite right to him.
 
It settled uneasily on him as if Sarah spoke only half truths until she could figure out the whole lie.

Now she did move away from him, and he let her.
 
She took a deep breath, and he felt the exhale on his cheek.
 
He turned his head to look at her lying next to him, her lovely face so close to his on the pillow.

He wanted to kiss her.
 
He wanted to do more than kiss her.
 
He wanted...to not be here.
 
For certain, he wished to be with her, Sarah, but he wished it were somewhere else.
 
Anywhere else.
 
Somewhere warm and safe and...happy.

"Sarah?" he prompted.

"I don't know what it was, Alec," she nearly whispered, and Alec felt the prick of another half truth.

He doubted Sarah was lying to him, but he also knew that she was not speaking the entire truth to him.
 
It was as if she knew what it was that she meant, but she did not wish to tell him.
 
He wondered what it was and more importantly, why she felt she could not tell him.
 
He wanted her to tell him everything.
 
He had hoped that by confiding in her about his dependence on his father's voice as a little boy would help her to trust him.
 
To bring her closer to him.
 
But he could see his story, his sharing, had not had the desired effect.
 
She still closed herself off to him.
 
She stayed back and away, physically, emotionally and mentally.

"What was your favorite thing to do as a child?" he suddenly asked, not liking how it felt to feel Sarah drifting further away from him.
 
He wanted to change the subject.
 
He wanted to see if talking of nothing got her to speak about something.