My Notorious Gentleman (13 page)

“Never got a chance, Miss, as I’d already propositioned
him.
He’s got such big, strong hands . . . Did you notice? You know what they say about that.”

“I’m sure I have no idea on this earth what you might mean.” She stared at her disreputable pupil, wondering if a broken heart over his gorgeous former fiancé would drive the blackguard into Marianne’s arms—and her bed.

It was all too unspeakable.

“
Which do you prefer, love, the couch or the floor?
” With a shiver of remembered lust at his kisses in that darkened room at Lievedon House, Grace could still hear the echo of his husky whisper in her memory, could still feel the sensual heat of his big, powerful body against hers.

Indeed, being a strictly virtuous woman, she did not care to count how many times that guilty scene had played out in the theatre of her mind ever since she had made the ruffian’s acquaintance—no matter how she tried to banish it. Once she had thought of it right in the middle of church! What was happening to her?

Then she became aware of Marianne regarding her in sardonic amusement, one hand on her hip.

Grace slowly looked over at her.

Worldly and scarred by her experiences as she was, Marianne’s dark eyes danced.

“What?” Grace muttered in chagrin, lowering her head.

“So, you’s a flesh-and-blood woman after all.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You fancy ’im,” she teased.

“No, I don’t! Don’t be absurd! I pity him! I tolerate him . . .” She tried again when Marianne tilted her head and arched a brow. “Oh, very well, he drives me mad. But not in the way that you think! Oh, promise me you’ll stay away from him,” Grace pleaded, “for your own sake! I’m sure he’ll only hurt you. He’s a hardened, bitter warrior. A killer and a spy. Bloodshed is second nature to him, and he doesn’t care about anyone but himself!”

“If you say so, Miss.”

“I only say it for your own good!”

“Oh, right, right, o’ course.” Marianne nodded, but still looked amused as she picked up her first book. “Don’t you worry, Miss. It ain’t like with me and George-boy. After all you done for me, I’ll keep me distance. That one’s all yours.”

Chapter 11

S
till furious, Trevor cantered his horse back to the Grange, his brooding stare fixed on the dusty road ahead.

Devil take her, who did that Kenwood woman think she was, taking him to task like an errant schoolboy—twice in one day? How dare she say such things to him? He barely even knew her!

But by the time he arrived at the farmhouse and flung himself down off his sweat-flecked horse, he was beginning to wonder—gallingly—if she might not have a point.

He swore under his breath and shook his head to himself with her words still ringing in his ears.

“
You can’t begin your new life here until you’ve made peace with the old one.
”

What she said made sense, as much as he hated to hear it. But it wasn’t Laura he most needed to try to forgive.

With a wordless grumble under his breath, he gave up fighting the task he had known in his bones that he’d need to do sooner or later. Letting out a disgusted sigh, he unlocked his weathered front door, then stepped inside and marched straight up to his chamber to pack a few things for his trip to Scotland before he changed his mind.

He had no choice.

It’d be a cold day in hell before he ever told her so, but Grace was right. It seemed he’d have no peace here at his new home or anywhere else until this thing was settled. Like it or not, the time had come to go and face Nick.

“D
aughter!” The reverend’s voice came from his study later that evening. “I would speak with you!”

Grace had just come in from watering her garden and called back, “I’ll be right there!” She put her watering can away and wiped her hands on her apron as she headed for her father’s study.

It was not uncommon for him to ask her to listen to a section of his sermon for the coming Sunday, to see if it flowed. That was what she had expected when she stepped into his office and found him sitting at his desk, pen in hand, his spectacles perched on his nose.

He looked up. “Ah, there you are. Sit down. Close the door, please, won’t you?”

She did, then took her seat on the other side of his desk. “Sermon giving you trouble?”

He furrowed his brow with a thoughtful expression, but did not quite answer the question. “Yes, I wanted to talk to you about . . . the quality of mercy.”

She nodded attentively and folded her hands in her lap, wondering which passages of Scripture he would be using for the coming Sunday.

“We must never forget how important it is to forgive others their faults. That is the one thing God requires of us if we wish to be forgiven our own. Likewise, we must take care to ward off falling into pride and wounding charity by judging others we meet on our road. We must never forget what our Lord told the Pharisees was the most important of all the Commandments—to love God, and our neighbor as ourselves.”

He fell silent while she considered his message with a shrug. “It’s a little dull,” she said with a tactful but adoring smile. “Aren’t you going to start this week with one of your funny stories?”

He frowned in surprise.

“Daughter, weren’t you listening?” he asked with an arch look.

She furrowed her brow. “Yes. Why? Am I missing something?”

“Grace,” he murmured, his tone chiding, but his gaze still fond. “Surely you have learned by now how important it is to make strangers feel welcome in our community.”

“Of course—” she started, but then her eyebrows shot upward.

She started forward in her chair as understanding dawned. Her jaw dropped.

“This isn’t your Sunday sermon?” she exclaimed.

“Afraid not, my dear. I must say,” he offered delicately, looking troubled, “I don’t like what I’ve been hearing about your behavior toward our new neighbor at the Grange.”

Grace stared at him in shock.

Her
behavior
?

Oh, no,
she suddenly thought. Had Papa found out about the kiss?

But he couldn’t have!

Only Lord Trevor and she knew about that, and besides, if he had heard about it somehow, he wouldn’t be this calm.

Then what else had she done?

Her thoughts swept over a summary of her recent activities. It only took a few seconds to confirm that she had done absolutely nothing wrong of late. In fact, she was quite offended at the mere suggestion.

Indeed, impeccably behaved as she was every day of her blasted life, her being called to the carpet like this was unprecedented.

“What seems to be the problem? What have you heard—who’s been talking about me?” she demanded half in outrage.

He closed his eyes and shook his head serenely. “It does not signify—”

“Oh, yes, it does! If somebody’s talking about me around here behind my back—”

“Very well,” he relented, then arched a brow at her. “I hear you have been very hard on Lord Trevor. Unforgiving and unkind. Even a little judgmental.”

Her jaw dropped for a long moment. “Oh, have you, indeed? And who says so? That barbarian himself?”

He regarded her in surprise. “No, of course not. I thought you got on well with him the other night when he came here, and at the Lievedon Ball. You danced with him, as I recall.”

She floundered. “That was before I knew he was a wicked, wicked man—and now we’re stuck with him! He’s rude, he’s arrogant and ornery. And—he’s dangerous!”

Her father laughed.

“Papa!”

“My dearest, we must try to be a bit more understanding.” He studied her. “I’ve never seen you have trouble with a newcomer before. Come, nobody’s perfect. We are all sinners, aren’t we?”

Her jaw dropped as he gazed at her, refusing to soften his frank accusation. She threw up her hands. “Has everyone gone mad?”

“Just try to remember that love is our duty, first and foremost.”

“Oh, I see! That’s what you’d have me do?” she retorted, folding her arms across her chest. “
Love
a libertine like Lord Trevor Montgomery? And are you speaking as my pastor or my father? Because that is perfectly daft advice for an intelligent man to give his maiden daughter about a former spy!”

“I suppose you are referring to the fact that he is a handsome bachelor, and you are an attractive young lady.”

She scoffed, her cheeks coloring.

“Obviously, these factors do not escape my notice,” Papa said wryly. “But that doesn’t really matter, I’m afraid. He is a human being like any other. I daresay the poor fellow’s already been through more than his share of hell on earth. He came here for peace. He has served his country with honor, and I don’t want to hear about you making an outcast of him in the village. If you turn the people against him, I’ll be holding you responsible. Honestly, Grace, this is most unlike you.”

“Papa, I’ve done nothing of the kind! I’m not turning anyone against him! Whoever told you such a thing is lying! Who have you been talking to? I demand to know—for I assure you, nobody out there knows anything about it!”

He shrugged, relenting. “I went down to the pub today to have a bite to eat and spoke to Marianne.”

“Marianne?” Grace shot up out of her chair, paced toward the window and back, then stopped before his desk again, trembling with fury, her hand propped on her waist. “Indeed! And did she mention how he all but propositioned her today?”

She didn’t wait for the gentle pastor’s answer, bringing her fist down angrily on the edge of his desk. “That man has got to be taught that there are
limits
and boundaries to what he can get away with around here. This isn’t Venice, or Paris, or even St. James’s for that matter! He can’t descend on Thistleton like Attila the Hun and start terrorizing the neighbors, Father!”

She always went from “Papa” to “Father” when she was angry.

“He scared the stuffing out of the Nelcott boys, then made a beeline for the pub, where he tried to lead poor Marianne astray. He is
so
full of himself! What about pride? That’s the top deadly sin, as I recall, to say nothing of wrath, murder, lust—”

“Grace!” her father finally interrupted.

“What?”

To her confusion, her father smiled mysteriously. “I see Marianne didn’t tell you the substance of their conversation before you arrived for her reading lesson.”

“No. I have eyes. I could see for myself—”

“You should not jump to conclusions,” he chided, wagging a finger at her in amusement.

She glared at him. “What are you talking about?”

He leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers as he smiled at her. “According to Marianne, the whole time Lord Trevor was sitting in the pub with her, he was asking questions about
you.
”

Chapter 12

I
t took Trevor three days to reach the remote corner of Scotland where the Order’s headquarters lay tucked amid the wild, windswept hills.

He knew he was close when, riding through the forest, he cantered his horse around the bend, and was nearly attacked by a group of rain-tousled, mud-flecked boys, all about fourteen years old.

Though they gave him a startle, he laughed as he realized they were Order youths out on a survival-training stint.

Ah, yes, he remembered those days well.

Like a wild clan of small, young, wiry barbarians, they bristled around him with their handmade weapons. One lad was instantly identifiable as the leader, of course. Slightly older than the others, with an air about him as if he had been born simply knowing what to do, he signaled his “men” with gestures and hard looks and was instantly obeyed.

It was Rotherstone all over again, Trevor thought in amusement as he slowed his horse with a wave of nostalgia and raised his hands until the lads saw he was not a planned part of the training exercise, nor was he a threat.

Having surrounded his horse, they quickly stood down; the young leader clipped out their apologies on the group’s behalf. Trevor assured them—in German, just to challenge their language skills—that it was of no consequence.

At this, along with his nonchalant reaction to their ambush, they realized he was an agent returning on some business. Then they were in awe, peppering him with excited questions. Though amused, Trevor did not linger, staying only long enough on the road to offer the ragtag band of young heroes-in-training a few words of encouragement to lift them from the misery of their trek, for he remembered all too well how those adventures used to go.

Of course, the freedom of such independence was delicious to a boy that age, and true, these field exercises had their moments of high adventure, especially when you ran into another group and had to defend your territory. But on the whole, these field exercises involved being lost, hungry, tired, on edge from the obstacle course of dangers and “surprises” the military teachers had planned, all while your body ached from sleeping on the cold, damp ground. The boys had to make their own weapons, catch and cook their own food, and build their own shelters.

Obviously, the ordeal was hardly meant to be a holiday. These excursions were meant to toughen the boys up and unify them as a team.

If they didn’t kill each other once the food supply ran low, they might just end up as the sort of cohesive unit the Order wanted, able to think and move as one.

Like Beau and Trevor and Nick . . . though he seemed to be the only one who remembered that these days.

He rode on, stopping at the ancient cemetery for the Order’s fallen knights. There he paid his respects at Virgil’s grave. This done, he finally arrived at the bustling center square, where various venerable school buildings were arranged across from the great stone Abbey.

Here the life of the Order of Saint Michael the Archangel carried on as it had since the time of the Crusades. He went straight to the administrator’s office, and, after a bit of stilted but polite conversation, he received permission to visit Baron Forrester in his cell.

He bowed to his superiors, then took leave of them and headed there at once.

Soon, a heavily armed guard was leading him down into the dank, dim, stone undercroft beneath the Abbey. The man took a torch off the wall.

From there, they went down endless cobwebbed stairs hewn into the stone, then marched through the ancient catacombs.

As the guard showed him into a dark tunnel that stretched even deeper into the mountain, Trevor paused uneasily. This was a place he had certainly never visited before; indeed, he had not known it existed.

“He’s down here?” he murmured to the guard a few strides ahead of him.

The man merely gave him a wry glance over his shoulder.

Trevor scowled to find he was starting to feel a bit sorry for Nick. It was not a sentiment he desired to indulge. The bastard deserved it. Nick had done this to himself. It should have given Trevor satisfaction to see that at least this dungeon was worse than the cellar in which Nick had locked
him
when he had served his time as his “life insurance policy.”

At any rate, it surely took this severe a punishment to make even a small dent in Nick’s impervious bravado.

They passed a few empty cells, then the guard stopped and banged his truncheon on the rusty bars. “Visitor!”

When Trevor stepped into view, Nick and he stared at each other in shock—Trevor, to see his proud, fearless friend in such a place, Nick, to see him there at all.

“Thirty minutes,” said the guard.

“Leave us,” Trevor ordered.

When the guard had marched off, Trevor and Nick looked at each other warily through the bars.

“Damn,” Trevor breathed, taking it all in.

Nick’s dungeon cell was only the size of a horse’s box stall, maybe ten by ten, one wall sealed with iron bars, the other three of stone.

There was a stool and a small, battered table opposite a sturdy cot. There Trevor spotted the extra blanket and pillow Carissa had been thoughtful enough to send. He saw that the Beauchamps had also sent Nick a supply of extra candles, books, and writing paper to occupy his devious mind, and a tin of candy.

Scanning Nick’s dismal accommodations in awkward silence, Trevor felt unexpectedly depressed.

It was a shock to see his brother warrior in prison though maybe it shouldn’t have been. The Order was careful about the mix of boys it built into a team. They always wanted a useful blend of skills and personalities. Thus, some fifteen years ago, they had teamed the smooth-talking charmer, Beau, with the steady, logical Trevor.

And then there was Nick.

The bankrupt Baron Forrester’s son and heir had wound up with them because nobody else could stand him. Nick was moody and proud, stormy and relentless, prone to sarcasm, difficult and hard. A loner by nature, he was quick to fight and good enough at it that even back then, the older boys had feared him.

He had become fiercely protective of Beau and Trevor once they had befriended him, yet there had always remained an untamed part of Nick that neither of them could reach.

He was a law unto himself, and that was the main reason that Nick could be a pain in the arse to work with. He saw the world differently than everybody else did. His unpredictability was an advantage in their line of work, but it meant his personal life was usually a mess. He had never met a dare he wouldn’t take or, as the rebel of the Order, a rule he wouldn’t bend.

On second thought, maybe it wasn’t surprising at all that he should end up here, Trevor mused as he leaned against the bars. Still, seeing the reality of his fierce, wild friend in a cage, he shook his head, his anger draining away to something sadder. “It might’ve been me who suffered for your madness, but I never wanted this for you.”

“Eh, it’s not so bad,” he drawled. “They let me out for an hour a day. Two hours next month if I’m a good boy.” He shrugged and glanced around his cell. “They’ve given me some codes to work on for them. Keep me out of trouble.”

Trevor did his best to smile.

“Ah, come on, don’t look like that,” Nick chided. “It would’ve been the gallows for me if I hadn’t had the good fortune to take that bullet for the Regent. In the grand scheme of things, I consider myself lucky.”

Trevor finally managed to conceal his dismay. “How is that bullet wound, anyway?”

“Fine, all healed up. Yours?”

Trevor shrugged. Two spies exchanging pleasantries. “Fine. Had good care quick after it happened,” he conceded, for when he had got shot in the back in Spain, it was Nick who had pulled him to safety and saved his life.

That was what had started all the trouble. Seeing Trevor shot, very nearly killed, was what had made Nick snap after all his years of service.

No one was allowed to quit the Order.

Nick had known that as well as anyone, but he had tried.

“And the knee?” the caged agent inquired rather more gingerly.

Trevor arched a brow at him, considering it was Nick who had kicked it out on him in one of their many brawls when he had tried to escape the cellar where the blackguard had made a prisoner of him.

Nick had known that the only way he’d be allowed to leave the Order was if he had leverage in the form of a hostage, namely Trevor, still convalescing from the bullet in the back.

“Well, I’m no longer limping,” he replied politely.

“There, you see? I could’ve kicked it sideways, and you’d have limped for life. I came in straight on purpose, I’ll have you know.”

“You’re practically a saint,” Trevor drawled.

Nick let out a low, devilish laugh. “I got your note in the package from Carissa, by the by. As you can see, I decided to take your advice to rot in hell. Cozy, isn’t it?” He glanced around at his cell.

“Hmm.” Trevor nodded. “Not as hot as I’d imagined.”

Nick shook his head. “I definitely did not expect to see you here.”

Trevor shrugged and looked away. “Believe me, I’m as surprised as you.”

Nick fell silent, looking around anywhere but at him. He folded his arms across his chest and studied the flagstone at his feet. “I heard about Laura. Trevor, that was never supposed to happen. I really am sorry. You know I never liked her, but for you to end up jilted. Hell, man. If there’s anything I can do to help you make it right, I could explain to her that it was my fault you disappeared. I’ll write her a letter, apologize—”

“Don’t bother,” he cut him off. Then he let out a weary sigh. “You and Beau were right about her. I guess I’m better off.”

Nick raised his eyebrows.

“But fair warning, if you say, ‘I told you so,’ I’ll throttle you—”

“Wouldn’t dare,” he said ruefully.

“Still.” Trevor gave him a hard look. “If we didn’t go back so far, I’d want your blood. But . . . I suppose it’s water under the bridge by now. We’re both alive, and that is something, after all we’ve been through. And so I accept your apology,” he said.

Nick reached through the bars and offered his hand.

Trevor shook his firmly.

“Thank you,” Nick forced out.

Somewhat abashed, Trevor glanced past his friend self-consciously as their handshake ended. “What’s that on the wall?” He nodded at the charts and unfurled parchments that Nick had hung up on the stone wall of his cell. Trevor squinted in the torchlight, trying to make it out. “Maps? Of where?”

Nick looked at them, then cast him a roguish smile. “America.”

“What? Are you planning a trip to the Colonies when you get out?”

“Not a trip,” he murmured in a confidential tone. “I’m thinking of staking a claim there, west of the Alleghenies.”

Trevor looked at him in shock. “Leave England? For the frontier? Nick, the bloody wilderness?”

“Why not. I figure the only company I’m fit for anymore is that of wild beasts and savages. I’ll fit right in,” he said with an easy, hell-raiser’s smile.

“And your title?” Trevor asked in astonishment.

“Who gives a damn? The Crown can take it back for all I care. My father left me bankrupt. The old manor house is falling down, and God knows after this”—he glanced around at his cell—“the name of Forrester is permanently blighted.”

“That’s not true! The rest of the world has no idea where you are. You know the Order always keeps its business private.”

“But I know, don’t I?” he replied.

Trevor did not know what to say. He did not doubt that behind his stubborn pride, Nick was deeply ashamed of his momentary loss of faith in the cause. “Prison terms, aristocratic titles. The Iroquois and the Cherokee aren’t going to care about such things. Mayhap I shall become an Indian trader. Make a mountain of gold off beaver pelts and timber.”

“You’ve completely lost your mind.”

“Long ago, my friend. Long ago,” Nick answered with a low laugh.

Trevor shook his head, unsure if Nick was serious about his plan or if fantasies of ultimate freedom in the wilderness were just his means of coping with his current incarceration. “You honestly mean to become an American?” He kept his voice down so the guard wouldn’t hear. “Never mind they’ll lynch you when they hear your accent? You do realize Englishmen are not exactly popular right now on the streets of Boston and Philadelphia? We did burn down their capital.”

“So I’ll speak French. The Yanks won’t bother me. I think I’m beginning to understand those people. Liberty and all that. One gains a keener understanding of the notion when one’s locked up in a cage.”

“Or a cellar,” Trevor agreed in a crisp tone, but they looked at each other, and both began to laugh.

“Nick, Nick, Nicholas,” Trevor chided with a sigh, much as their old handler, Virgil, used to say to his problem agent.

Nick shrugged. “I’ve had enough of the world’s corruption. I just want to be left alone, and the frontier beyond those mountains seems the right place to do it.”

“The right place to get eaten by a bear,” he corrected him, but Nick merely grinned.

“You don’t have to come and visit me in my log cabin if you’re afraid of the bears, dear lad. But never mind all that. Tell me of the world outside these walls. What’s been going on with you?”

Trevor leaned against the bars. “Well, you may be interested to learn that I’ve bought a farm . . .”

Nick listened intently as Trevor told him all about the Grange. When he saw how hungry his friend was for any news of the outside world, he took pity on him and soon proceeded to regale him with the tale of how he had first encountered Grace Kenwood, kissing the wrong woman in a dark room at the Lievedon Ball.

“She’s going to drive me madder than Drake.”

“No one could ever be madder than Drake,” Nick replied. “A pastor’s daughter. She sounds perfect for you.”

“That’s what Beau said, too. I don’t know . . .” He frowned. “We quarreled before I left. I’m fairly sure she hates me at the moment.”

“You’d better not muck this up for yourself. Go back to Thimbleton and charm her. Don’t end up alone like me.”

At that moment, they heard the guard returning to fetch him. It seemed their time was up. Both friends glanced toward the stony tunnel. The guard had not yet appeared, but they could hear his heavy footfalls approaching.