The Earl's Bargain (Historical Regency Romance) (26 page)

"How can I distract them?"

"Certainly not with feminine wiles," he
muttered. "Not dressed like that."

"I know! Pretending to be a boy, I'll say
I'm looking for my Papa, who had business at the castle. I'll say I
was playing with the baby kittens, and I fear he must have left
me."

"How do you know there are baby
kittens?"

"I don't." She smiled. "But they don't,
either."

"There's one major problem," he said
hesitantly.

"What, pray tell?"

"Your. . .your breasts." He coughed.

She looked down at her chest. If one looked
closely, two smooth humps the size of small apples could be seen.
"You do have a point there."

"More like two," he mumbled. "Sorry, I
couldn't help myself."

She glared at him. "I suppose it's back to
the silver closet. There were many rags in that room I could use to
flatten my bosom by binding it."

To his consternation, his heart raced as
they went down the same flight of stairs they had just climbed.

In the silver closet, Louisa took the
longest rags, presented her back to Harry, shed her boy's shirt,
and asked him to wrap several layers of rags tightly around her
chest, tying them in the back.

It was bloody difficult not to think about
her breasts, and the devil take it, he could not repress the desire
to see them, to feel them. But, of course, he must.

When they were finished, it was back to the
second floor. He stood near the servants' stairs while Louisa stole
through the main corridor where she was supposed to distract the
footmen.

Just around the corner from the two liveried
servants at the other end of the hall, Harry waited and worried for
the next ten minutes. It was with relief he heard Louisa's
child-like voice speaking with the sentries.

With that as a distraction, Harry dropped to
his belly and crawled like a snake, slithering into the first
chamber. Fortunately it was the lady's study, which was a good
thing, since there was no lady of the castle. He got to his feet
and walked across the room, then dove to the floor again to crawl a
few more feet down the hall to the dining room. Louisa's voice
carried as she talked to the footmen, whom Harry felt would not be
as likely to notice a dot on the ground as they would to notice a
brute of man like himself strolling down the hall.

All was well, and he got
safely to the red dining room, breathing a sigh of relief. He
remembered the housekeeper calling it the
rose
room. The room's candles were no
longer lit, but the room was not in total darkness because its
large windows gave out onto the lantern-lit castle yard
below.

He looked up reverently at the portrait of
his mother, a lump in his throat. God, but it looked so much like
her he could almost smell her lavender water and hear the soft
whisper of her loving voice. He stood for a moment gazing at her
elegance. The darkness of her hair contrasted against her smooth,
milky flesh and ivory silken gown. It was as if her serene presence
filled the room, lifting away his fears.

Then he scooted a chair over to the
fireplace so he could stand on it to lift down the gilded frame of
his mother's painting. It was deuced heavy, but he managed to hold
on to it until it stood on the floor. Then he set about removing
the canvas from the frame.

Just then the room became filled with bright
candlelight.

He turned to see a dozen or so footmen, some
bearing candelabra, others, swords. They flanked Tremaine, who had
a sadistic grin on his face.

And Louisa was there, too, a gag over her
mouth, a knife held to her throat.

Harry had stood in the face of danger any
number of times but had never before experienced a fear as numbing
as that which now gripped him at the sight of Louisa with a rapier
poised to slit her lovely throat. He suppressed his first instinct,
which was to hurl his fist into the man holding the knife to
Louisa. Louisa's safety had to be his first concern.

His gaze flicked to her. She stood proudly,
even regally, at the side of the towering sentry. No one save
Harry, who had come to know her so thoroughly, would ever detect
the worry on her sweet face.

"It seems I have outsmarted, you, Wycliff,"
Tremaine said. "Tell me, where did you hide all afternoon?"

Harry, the tip of a sword nipping at his
chest, refused to answer.

"Never matter," Tremaine said with a wave of
a bejeweled hand. "We have known you were here all day, but as I
knew this room was your destination, we waited."

"I beg that you remove the rapier from the
lad's throat," Harry said, watching Louisa as his fear mounted.

Tremaine threw back his head and laughed
heartily. "Come now, Wycliff, surely you don't take me for an
idiot. I know your traveling companion is none other than Godwin
Phillips' lovely young widow."

Harry's pulse accelerated and his mouth
dropped open. "Whatever makes you think such a thing?" Harry asked,
trying to sound incredulous. Anything to throw them off Louisa's
scent.

"I have spies in Falwell
who inform me of the activities of
Mr. and
Mrs. Smith
, but it was not until you spoke
of Godwin Phillips' widow yesterday that I actually knew."
Tremaine's eyes were faraway. "I know the signs of a man deeply in
love."

Harry realized in a flash of a second the
truth in the words of the demented man. Harry knew he was, indeed,
in love with Louisa.

And he had to get her out of here.

"Let us go now, Tremaine, and you'll have
your fifty thousand pounds -- as well as my gentleman's pledge to
never reveal your vileness. I only beg that you'll allow me to have
my mother's portrait copied."

A ruthless look came over Tremaine's face.
"I am sorry I will not be able to oblige you. You see, Mrs.
Phillips knows too much about me and my activities. I told that
fool husband of hers not to tell his wife anything, but I see he
did not keep his word, which should not come as a surprise to
me."

"He told her nothing," Harry countered. "Let
her go. Your fight is with me, not her."

"Actually, my fight is now
with both of you, though I don't think fight is the right word."
Tremaine stood back and stroked his beard, glancing first at Harry
then at Louisa. "You see, fight implies two somewhat equal sides,
some reciprocation. But you and Mrs. Phillips will not be at
liberty to strike back." He looked at the dozen huge footmen. "I
have not decided quite how I am going to get rid of the pair of
you. It's most difficult to dispose of an earl, even if the good
people of Falwell think of you merely as
Mr. Smith
."

"Please," Harry said, "let her go."

"I cannot do that. What I think I can do,
however is lock you both away in the turret until I decide what to
do with you."

Tremaine began to stroll from the room, then
turned back. "Take heart, Wycliff, ever the one to encourage love,
I shall let you and Mrs. Phillips die together."

* * *

At least there was a window in the turret
room they were locked within, Louisa thought encouragingly. Of
course, it was barred as securely as the bar slotting across the
heavily timbered door.

Harry had used every bit of strength he
possessed to try to dislodge the bars on the windows. Not that it
would have done much good. The drop from the turret window had to
be more than a hundred feet.

With the aid of moonlight, Louisa could see
Harry, sitting on the stone floor. Unused to rough homespun, he had
removed the shirt. She could no more remove her eyes from his
magnificent body than she cold cease to draw breath. Her gaze
trailed from his solid shoulders, down the taut muscles of his
manly chest to his narrow waist, where a trail of dark hair
disappeared beneath the rope-tied waist of the blacksmith's former
pants.

She swallowed hard. "Harry?"

"No more Lord Wycliff?" he asked in a
teasing voice.

"No more Lord Wycliff," she said with a
sigh. "I have decided to forgive you for the life which you
formerly led."

"That is welcome news indeed." He did not
sound sincere. "Why, pray tell, do I warrant such approval?"

Her words came fast and with urgency.
"Because we're going to die, and I can't go to my death without
telling you how close I've become to you and how much I've come to
care about you. That's why." She swallowed hard, thankful that
Harry could not witness her humiliation.

He crossed the small room in two strides,
fell to one knee in front of her and took her hand. "My dearest
Louisa, I shall die a most happy man."

Then he drew her into his
arms and held her close for a very long while. She could scarcely
believe that he continued to whisper
my
dearest love
and
my
angel
into her ear as he lay a trail of
kisses from her ear down to the top of her breast. Could he truly
love her as she loved him? "Blast it all, Louisa, will you allow me
to remove that ridiculous binding?"

She cradled his face in both her hands and
solemnly nodded. After he had unwound the rags and tossed them to
the cold stone floor, he took her hands and kissed them. "I am not
worthy of your affection. That's why I've behaved so abominably to
you at times. You're far too good for me."

She stroked the strong planes of his cheek
with one hand. "Don't say that, dearest Harry. I am glad that if we
have to die, we will do so together for I don't believe I could
live without you."

"I think I've known since that day I first
saw you that my life would be rather meaningless without you."

She came to him with both arms open, and
their lips met in a hungry, wet kiss. She loved the feel of him,
the taste of him, the smell. . .everything about Harry Blassingame,
the Seventh Earl of Wycliff. Even if he was an aristocrat.

"I love you with all my villainous heart, my
dearest love," he whispered, burying his face into her neck.

She moved closer and kissed him lightly on
his mouth. "We will be together for eternity, my love."

He kissed her quickly then straightened.
"Damn it all, Louisa, love, I don't want to die. Not now that I
have you. Don't you see, we've got to live. I want to marry you. I
want you to bear my children." He reached over and kissed her
tenderly. "I want to grow old with a beautiful bluestocking at my
side."

"Oh, my dearest Harry, that's the nicest
thing anyone has ever said to me."

"I wanted to say it before now, but I didn't
think you could stand me."

"What about when I called
you
dearest Harry
when you regained consciousness after your
illness?"

"I thought it was an angel who had spoken,"
he said teasingly. "I didn't think we'd suit because you are so
fine and I'm so wicked."

"You are not wicked."

"Never mind discussions of the past. It's
the future that's important now."

"But you've already examined every way you
could think of to get out of here, and you pronounced the turret
impossible to escape from."

He raised a finger to his chin and drummed.
"There must be a way."

"Do you think Lord Tremaine meant it when he
said he'd let us die here? Think you he plans to starve us to
death?"

"We shall have to see."

* * *

Not just because they were starved from not
having had dinner the night before, Louisa and Harry were delighted
that a heavily armed pair of menservants opened the door to the
turret prison the following morning, dropped off two bowls of
porridge and a slab of stale bread, then closed and locked the
door.

They ate greedily, even though the porridge
was cold and the bread hard.

"So we are not to be starved to death,"
Harry said when they finished. "That is good."

"That will give you more
time to devise a plan of escape. I dare not try for my plan to get
us
in
here proved
to be quite disastrous."

"I will think on it," he said with
authority.

Louisa leaned against the wall of their tiny
room and watched her beloved Harry as he thought. She had come to
love everything about him.

Finally, he said he had a plan but that it
would be difficult. "Do you suppose they mean to feed us only once
a day?"

She shrugged.

He came toward her and set his hands on her
shoulder, kissing her gently. "It may take some time."

No more meals were served that day.

"I will assume that we will receive the meal
-- I will call it that for lack of a better word -- each morning at
about the same time. Do you agree?" Harry asked.

"I suppose so."

"What time would you say they came yesterday
morning?"

"I have no idea," she answered. "It was
still dark."

He nodded.

Harry stayed awake. He could not allow
himself to go to sleep. He lay beside her, drunk with contentment
and vowing to get out of here so he could live a long life with his
dearest love.

When it was half past four in the morning by
his watch, he left Louisa's side and attempted to climb the stone
wall, but he succeeded in nothing but awakening Louisa.

"Ah, it's good that you're awake," he said.
"I'm afraid I shall have to put my weight on your back."

She shot him a puzzled look. "You have to
what?"

"Come here, my love."

"Now, if you will," he said when she crossed
the floor, "put yourself in a dog position so I can climb on your
back. I'll try to put weight on it but for a second."

She obliged him.

He looked up, then used her back rather as a
springboard. One foot on her back, the other propelling his
movement upward. He leaped in the air, grabbed for the long disused
lantern suspended from the ceiling and caught hold of it on his
first try. "Thank you, madam. Your services are no longer needed."
God, but his hands stung from holding the forged iron.