Twice Tempted (18 page)

He was stunned when his father came up and hugged him hard. “Don’t be absurd. If we didn’t take chances we would do ourselves and our country no good.”

Alex hugged his father back and thought how frail he felt. “I know. I just wish you weren’t involved.”

His father smiled. “Actually, I believe I might enjoy this. Diplomacy can be deadly dull. And those are two very fetching young ladies.”

Alex let loose a bark of laughter. “Wait ’til I tell mother.”

“Pish. Your mother knows that I appreciate a pretty girl. She also knows what a fool I would be to risk her good opinion.”

Alex rubbed at smoke-irritated eyes and thought how stretched Fiona must feel. “Chuffy should be back soon. I believe it’s time to roust my good friend Marcus Drake from his comfortable bed. It serves him right.”

“Don’t you have something else to do first?”

It actually took Alex a moment to remember. “Oh, damn. I do.” He rubbed his eyes again. “I don’t suppose you’d rather tell our guest that she gave tea to the same notorious assassin who slit a man’s throat in her back garden.”

“Not actually, no.”

“It’s all right,” Alex heard behind him. “Your guest already knows.”

Chapter 11

J
umping to his feet, Alex whipped around to see a Fiona he had never seen before standing in the doorway. Like with the signs of his father’s deteriorating health, not everyone would have realized how strained Fiona was right now. She stood quietly in another soft black gown, her hair as tidy as her person, her expression calm, her hands quiet, her spine straight as steel. She looked taller somehow, stronger, more certain. And yet, he could almost feel the tension radiating off her body. He could sense the fragile edge of control she straddled.

And he had to take what little peace of mind she had left. Hurrying over to her, he held out his hands. She literally flinched, as if his touch would burn her. Instinctively he knew. It wasn’t that she was afraid of receiving his comfort, but of revealing her own distress. The minute he touched her fingers, he would know for sure the cost of this night on an already emotionally bruised and exhausted woman.

So he stepped back and motioned her to a chair. As she neared, his father stood and approached. “I hope everyone here has made you welcome, Lady Fiona,” he said, his diplomat face on.

She smiled, and most people would have been delighted. “Everyone has been lovely, Sir Joseph. Thank you. I am sorry we had to intrude like this.”

Sir Joseph took her hands without her permission. “You are always welcome, my dear.”

She startled, her eyes up, her back rigid. “Thank you, sir.”

“I believe you two have some talking to do,” Sir Joseph said with a final squeeze before letting Fiona go. “And as my son has been reminding me far too often for my own
amour propre
, I need to catch up on my sleep.”

Alex waited until he saw Soames meet Sir Joseph at the stairs with a night candle before turning back to Fiona. “My apologies. I just wanted to make sure he had help upstairs.”

She looked back the way she’d come. “He is not well.”

A statement, not a question. Alex shook his head. “His heart. He simply will not admit his weakness and slow down.”

“Then we should not be here.”

“Nonsense,” Alex said, wishing she would sit. “I’m having a brandy. Can I offer you something?”

She wiped at her eyes with the heels of her hands. “Do you know, I believe you can. Just don’t tell the parents of my students.”

“Oh, I think they’d understand.”

As he poured the two tots, he watched her. She looked completely pulled. Unutterably tired, as if tonight had taken the stuffings right out of her. Lennie had said that he’d seen Fiona scrubbing at her hands like Lady Macbeth trying to get the congealed blood from between her fingers, burning her nightdress rather than even try to clean it. And yet, she exuded such strength. Such implacable purpose. She had been impossibly gentle with her sister, and yet, when she had turned to Alex from the stair, she’d looked like an outraged queen. Iron-willed and diamond-hard. A warrior ready for battle.

Could he be wrong, though? Could her control be no more than pretense? The camouflage donned by a splintered soul?

Whatever the truth, her indomitable will humbled him. After all, what had he suffered in comparison? He had lost a wife he’d no longer loved. He was being threatened by that wife’s weaknesses. He had never gone hungry, been cold, been alone in the world except for a sister who was more child than friend. He had never really been responsible for another human being. Not the way Fiona had.

No. The way Fiona
was
.

The walls she had built around her were formidable; he thought it was the only way she’d survived. But suddenly, he couldn’t bear the idea that behind their solid height, she stood alone.

He wanted so badly to wrap her in his arms and cushion her against any injury, any slight, any threat. He wanted to soften the edges of life for her and ease the furrows between her eyebrows. He wanted her never to have to worry again, even though he didn’t have the right.

The best he could do now was hand off her glass.

“We need to talk, Fee. Won’t you sit?”

For a moment she held her glass, peering into the liquid as if it were a mirror. He wished she would settle in the chair. Maybe what he had to say would impact her less. Instead, she lifted the glass and downed half its contents in one convulsive swallow.

“Is this about Madame Fermont?” she asked, not facing him.

He wasted a look to the shuddering fire, as if it held his answers. “Not Madame Fermont. Madame Ferrar.”

His gut cramped. They had been so close. They could have caught her. They could have kept her from doing this to Fiona.

There was nothing to do but tell her the truth. As calmly as he could, Alex shared what he could about the Rakes and Minette Ferrar. “We have run across her several times,” he said. “She is ruthless, crafty, vicious, and relentless. And, as you can tell by her visit the other day, she’s rather like a cat who likes to play with her victims.”

Fiona wandered over to the windows, the brandy snifter tucked against her chest as he’d seen her clutch that pillow, her gaze out into the darkness. “But why would she bother with us?”

Alex briefly closed his eyes against the sudden memories of a damp, cold room, Ian’s battered face, the smiling Minette. This he wanted to tell her least of all. “She…er, met up with your brother Ian a little while ago. She was unsuccessful.”

Fiona’s expression was flat, once again too calm. “You mean she wasn’t able to murder him? Like that man in our garden?”

Alex knew he didn’t have to answer. She already knew. The color had leached from her face. “Ian is fine,” he assured her. “I thought we had Minette locked away. It is evident I was wrong. After I leave you, I’m going to find out why.”

It was her turn to close her eyes. When she opened them, she sat in a whoosh, as if her legs had given out. Alex stepped up, but she held him off with an upraised hand. “So what were we?” she asked. “Revenge?”

“I don’t know.”

She raised her eyes to him, and he fought to remain where he was. She was horrified, but he didn’t think she was astonished. He wondered if any evil in the world could surprise her anymore.

“Why didn’t she kill us?”

He sat down in the matching chair. “I don’t know that, either. Maybe to draw out Ian so she can have another try at him.”

“But you won’t let her.”

Her eyes. So blue, so deep. So defiant. Alex smiled. “Is that a question or a command?”

“Both, I think.”

“No,” he said. “We won’t. We will protect you and Mairead until we know for certain we’ve captured or killed the woman, and then we’ll reunite you with your brother and Sarah.”

She shuddered again, briefly closing her eyes. “Who was he? The man who…who died? Does anyone know?”

This might hurt worst of all. “His name was Crusher. He was an ex-boxer I hired to watch over you and Mairead.”

She lifted accusing eyes. “So you knew this…Ferrar woman was after us?”

“No!” He shoved a hand through his hair. “I just saw two women alone and wanted to protect you. That’s all.”

She dragged her free hand down her skirt, as if to scrape something away. “It isn’t all. That man is dead. He’s dead…horribly.”

“Believe me,” Alex told her. “I know. Which is why you must promise you will let us protect you. Minette Ferrar is no ordinary criminal. She is relentless. And the only way we’re going to catch her is to work together. At all times.”

Fiona looked into the darkness outside the window again, as if it were instinctive when making a decision. “We cannot go back to the school.”

“You cannot.”

“We cannot travel on.”

“Not until this is decided.”

She was nodding, as if any of this made sense. “I wonder…”

“What?”

Her laugh was abrupt, her crystal blue eyes dark. “Whether I will ever live a normal life. So far, it has been…decidedly un…un…”

Her voice faltered to a halt. She bent her head, rubbed at her eyes with shaking fingers. Alex knew she was fighting for control. His own throat ached with her unshed tears. “It’s all right to cry,” he said, leaning close enough to hear the quick rasp of her breath.

“No,” she grated. “It is not. I don’t have…the luxury.”

He brushed a strand of hair back from her forehead. “But you just saw a man murdered. You might have died yourself. And you’ve just lost your house. Your school. You have a right to a moment of weakness.”

That got her head up and her eyes open. “Mairead and I have seen dead men before,” she said baldly, the steel back in her spine. “We have almost died a dozen times. The only way to keep it from actually happening is for me to always be on my guard.”

Her voice suddenly sounded as ancient as death; her eyes, those luminous sky-blue eyes, looked even older. He had walked battlefields, and yet he couldn’t imagine his own eyes looking as bleak. As lonely. As relentless.

“There is a difference now, though, Fiona,” he said. “This time you’re not alone.”

Even in the dimness he saw the truth skim across her eyes. She had been told that before, and by him. She had believed it, and it had turned out to be a lie.

No wonder she couldn’t bear to be held, he thought. Hate and disdain were easy to fight against. But how did you survive the awful temptation of friendship?

It wasn’t right. She should never again have to stand alone, afraid to accept the comfort of another human. He wouldn’t allow it.

In that moment he deliberately ignored the fact that he was asking her to trust him again. To trust the man who had deserted not only her, but her brother.

Cupping her chin in his hand, he lifted her face to him. “You are the strongest woman I know, Fiona Ferguson. But from now on, I vow to you, you will not be alone. Not to deal with Mairead or Ian or schoolchildren or that surly bastard you call a grandfather. I will be there.”

He almost said it, almost committed the fatal error of offering to be her lover. Her helpmeet. He almost committed himself to a mystery, when the lesson was still so new from his last foray into that perilous morass. When he more than anyone knew that she would be making a bigger mistake than he if she said yes.

She didn’t answer, just gazed up at him, her eyes wide and bright in the dimness, her skin pale as a dream, her lush hair a conflagration, even in the dark. He couldn’t bear it a minute longer. Plucking her glass from her suddenly limp fingers, he set both down on the table and returned to her. And then, winding his fingers through her hair, he held her still for his kiss.

He tasted the salt on her lips. He smelled the faint trace of smoke in her hair. He savored the satin of that hair and the velvet of her skin. He saw her eyes close and her lips open, and he feasted.

At first, she stilled, as if surprised. Her breaths came more quickly, and Alex could feel the thrum of her pulse at her throat. He sank into the lush pillow of her mouth and felt himself losing his way. He deepened the kiss, plundering the silken depths of her mouth, sparring with her, his control fraying more with every sleek slide of her tongue against his. He tightened his hold, pulling her to her feet and wrapping his arms around her, pulling her flush against his body, crushing those luscious breasts against his chest, savoring the plush comfort of her body. He was hard as stone, aching so badly he couldn’t catch his breath. He swore his body was on fire. It had never happened like this before. Not ever. Not even with her.

He had meant to comfort. He was about to consume. And yet, if there had been no interruption, he wasn’t at all certain he would have stopped.

Fortunately for him, the very distinct sounds of arrival echoed from the entry hall. He pulled back, gasping. Desperate to return to her arms, starving for the taste of her on his tongue. Her eyes were closed. She held perfectly still, her head bent, her chest rising and falling quickly. Alex knew he was shaking worse than she.

“I believe…Lady Bea is here,” Fiona murmured. “I should…”

She made a vague motion and opened her eyes. Alex thought he could easily drown in their depths, dark as night, deep as secrecy. He fought an irrational urge to grab her hand and run with her. He didn’t care where. Somewhere they could be alone.

“If you would greet her,” he managed, turning away. “I’ll be along in a minute.”

She didn’t move, not for the longest time. Alex held his breath, his control all but eroded.
Go
, he thought, desperate.
Go before I ruin everything.

She left, her steps measured, her gown swishing gently around her legs. And for the longest time after Fiona left, Alex stood where he was, his hands splayed on his father’s desk, his head down, his body screaming in protest, his brain offering up fantasies of his body entwined with Fiona Ferguson’s.

It was so wrong. It was the breaking of every oath of honor he had ever taken. But if Lady Bea hadn’t arrived just then, he wasn’t sure he would have let Fiona walk away from him.

Fiona Ferguson Hawes.
Lady
Fiona Ferguson Hawes. A woman who deserved better than a quick tumble. A granddaughter of a marquess, no matter how she’d spent her earlier years.