Hero, Come Back (22 page)

H
arry had the funniest expression on his face, like a skater right after he landed hard on his rump on the ice—but Jessie felt no inclination to laugh.

She couldn’t allow Harry to influence her. He hadn’t indicated any desire to make an honest woman out of her—well, why should he? she’d been free with her affections without expectation of return—and now Lord Granville had arrived. He had arrived, and he was so much better than she remembered. He was handsome and polite, making no mention of their previous acquaintance. He didn’t stink, he didn’t smirk, he didn’t leer, he didn’t bully, and he hadn’t tried to kiss her. Yet. If she had to—and it appeared she had to—she could marry this man.

So she had to forget Harry and last night, and pretend an affection for Lord Granville and not shudder at his touch. Although with Harry looming over the top of them and glaring balefully, that could be difficult.

“
You’re
Lord Granville?” Harry peered at Lord Granville.

Although Harry hadn’t offered it, Lord Granville grasped his hand and pumped it, a smile wreathing his face. “Yes, Mr. Windberry, I am, and I’m so pleased to meet you. Lady Jessica has been telling me how you defended her from the other, nefarious suitors who have been so crudely courting her.”

“Did she?” Harry clipped off the words with a show of white teeth.

What did he mean by such rudeness? She couldn’t contain the leap of hope in her bosom. Was he… did he feel some affection for her?

Granville began, “I would ask you to sit and dine with us, but—”

“Thank you. I’d be delighted.” Harry snatched up a chair from another, unoccupied table and scooted it close. Seating himself, he crowded his knees between the table legs and snapped his fingers at the wide-eyed innkeeper. “I’ll be taking breakfast with Lord Granville and Lady Jessica.”

The innkeeper bowed and hurried off, and Jessie experienced a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Head forward, eyes fixed on Lord Granville, and mouth smiling savagely, Harry was the picture of aggression.

Lord Granville seemed oblivious. Casting Jessie a rueful glance, he indicated she should seat herself.

Harry noted and came halfway to his feet again. “That’s right! Ladies sit first! Always forget these niceties! Please, Lady Jessica, sit down.”

She sat. She pulled her napkin into her lap. She wondered what in heaven’s name had possessed Harry. He was behaving like a yeoman at the squire’s table, forgetting his manners, speaking too loudly.

Lord Granville considered the rose Harry held in his hand. “Beautiful flower.”

Harry looked down at it as if surprised to see it there. “Yes.” He looked about as if needing somewhere to put it, then seated himself again and stuffed the stem into his buttonhole. “So, Granville, where’s your country seat?”

Appalled at Harry’s insolence, she said, “You know very well it’s—”

Harry interrupted. “Let him answer.”

Lord Granville seated himself also, and chuckled indulgently. He really was a pleasant-looking man. He had a little too much facial hair for Jessie’s taste, but compared to Mr. Murray or Lord Jenour-Redmond, he was a wonderful suitor.

She sneaked a peek at Harry as the innkeeper set a filled plate before him. Compared to Harry…but she shouldn’t compare Lord Granville to Harry. She should never again look at Harry, or desire would overcome good sense and she’d beg him to love her as she loved him. She had too much pride to beg… didn’t she?

“My country seat is in Somerset,” Lord Granville said. “After Lady Jessica and I have wed, Windberry, perhaps you’ll do us the honor of paying us a visit?”

“No!” Jessie said. Both men looked at her. She essayed a weak smile and pushed the points of toast about her plate with her finger. “I mean… we’ll want to be alone, surely?” She cringed at Lord Granville’s astonished expression.

“But, my dear, I thought that, during your visit at Wildbriar Inn, you and Mr. Windberry had grown to be very close friends.”

Did she imagine it, or was there an edge to Lord Granville’s voice?

Beneath the table, Harry bumped her knee with his—on purpose.

So he had noted Lord Granville’s tone also. Oh, dear. Her impulsiveness had landed her in a terrible jam.

But the next moment, Lord Granville patted her hand. “Don’t worry, little bride, we’ll have our time alone.”

With a grim set to his shoulders, Harry looked out the window. “It looks as if the fog will be closing in soon. The inn is so isolated, I hate to think how long we could be trapped here. Perhaps we should see if we can catch a ride inland.”

How odd. From what she’d seen of Harry, very little frightened him, so why was he talking about the fog as if it brought evil in its wake? For all that she’d given her body and her heart into his keeping, she still knew very little about the man.

Heartily, Lord Granville said, “A little fog never hurt anyone, and if we have to stay here for a few extra days, well”—taking her hand, he kissed her fingers—“I can’t imagine better company with whom to be trapped.”

He really was a fine-looking fellow, with dimples he flashed on every suitable occasion and a charm that would make him easy to face across the breakfast table. She cast a glance at Harry. Harry wasn’t nearly as likable, or as easy to get along with, or as handsome. In fact, right now he was looking querulous.

He said, “I hate to imagine what the atmosphere is like here when the fog blankets everything and one can’t see his hand in front of his face.”

Lord Granville shoved his chair back as if he could no longer bear Harry’s timidity. “Lady Jessica, if you would give me a moment of your time?” He presented his hand.

Inwardly cringing, she placed hers in his keeping. Lord Granville had obviously had enough of Harry’s irritability.

Drawing her to the corridor outside the dining hall, he looked into her eyes and said, “Pardon me, my dear, for my cheek, but as your future husband I might suggest that you be a little cautious with this fellow Mr. Windberry. He is a very fine fellow”—Lord Granville glanced into the dining hall at Mr. Windberry—“in the height of elegance this morning. Yet he seems to suffer an overabundance of familiarity.”

“Yes. Yes, he does presume too much on a day’s acquaintance.” And a night’s. But she kept that thought firmly in her mind and did not allow it to pass her lips.

“Good. We understand each other. You’ll wait for me to escort you around the grounds.”

“As you wish.” She could be submissive when she tried.

“I’ll be down in a few minutes. I haven’t yet had a chance to unpack, and I wish to dress for the afternoon.” Lord Granville’s mouth took a scornful twist. “It takes time to achieve an elegance to match Mr. Windberry’s.”

“Yes.” Modestly she lowered her eyes, yet she couldn’t help but wonder if Mr. Windberry’s newly acquired style was for her. To court her. To make his intentions clear.

Did he indeed have good intentions toward her person? Had last night been more than she dared hope?

“You’re a good girl.” In a proprietary manner, Lord Granville kissed the air above her forehead and started away.

Recalled to decorum, Jessie rushed into speech. “Perhaps, if you didn’t bring your own valet, you could call on Mr. Windberry’s valet instead. Dehaan is an artist.”

Lord Granville halted in midstep. “Dehaan?”

What was wrong? Why did Lord Granville turn on her, nostrils flared, eyes narrowed? “Yes, Mr. Windberry is not always so cosmopolitan.” Oh, dear, that wasn’t the right thing to say, either.

A slow, broad smile stretched Lord Granville’s lips. “I shall certainly think about using Dehaan. Thank you, my dear. I most certainly shall.”

He left her standing in the corridor, staring after him. He was a very odd man.

Returning to the dining room, she found Harry eating his breakfast like a man taking his last meal. Glancing up at her, he said, “Good. You’re back. Come on.”

“Come on?”

Grasping her hand, he towed her, resisting, out the door.

“Where?”

“To your bedchamber.” He towed her out the door and up the stairs. He seemed unafraid they would meet Lord Granville. In fact, he looked forbidding and intent. “I want you to stay there until I come for you.”

“Why?”

Giving her a look that forcibly reminded her how little she knew of him, he said, “Because I tell you to.”

She didn’t care how forbidding he looked. “I do not do what you tell me to.”

If her defiance impressed him, he hid it well. “Where’s your key?”

“You will not—” Whirling her around, he pinned her, face first, against the wall. His hands groped her, but without passion. He did not take liberties with her body; he sought only her key, and that infuriated her even more. “Mr. Wind- berry, I seem to have given you the wrong impression. I chose you as a lover. I did not give you permission to command me in any way.”

He delved into her pocket and found the key. Palming it, he pushed her irrevocably toward her door, opened it, and forced her inside. Following her in, he shut the door behind them.

“Big, mean, stupid man!” Infuriated by his bullying, she punched his chest hard enough to make him gasp. “Tell me why you’re acting this way.”

“I only have time for one thing, and an explanation isn’t it.” He took her head in his hands. He kissed her.

As kisses went, it wasn’t his best. It was swift and direct. He opened her mouth to his and dominated her with the heat of his body and the thrust of his tongue. He kissed her cheeks, her eyelids, her neck. He acted as if…as if they might never kiss again, and for all that she was furious with him, she responded. How could she not? She loved the man, even if he was an mystery, even if he was arrogant, even if he treated her like a dithering idiot.

“Harry, please,” she whispered, “please, tell me what’s wrong.”

Instead he glanced out the window at the wavering fog. “Stay until I come to get you.”

“Get me? For what?”

“We’re leaving. Don’t pack anything”—his gaze swept her absolutely charming outfit without a fleck of interest—“just wear your traveling clothes. Before you open the door, be sure it’s me. If someone comes begging for your help, deny them. If someone shouts the inn is on fire, climb out the window, but not before you see the smoke and feel the flames.”

She stared at him, wondering if he’d run mad.

“Promise me.” His voice was deep and vibrant with demand.

But no. He was the sanest man she’d ever met. Later she’d demand explanations and make demands. For now…“I promise.”

He pressed the key into her hand. “Lock it behind me.”

She did.

“He went out. He went out.” Frank cleared the plates from the dining room and watched Mr. Windberry’s advance. “Toward your cottage. Toward your cottage.” He whispered the words under his breath, committing them to memory, trying to convince himself they were true.

Mr. Windberry leaned across the table at Frank, and his clear gaze looked different from Lord Granville’s—and yet, somehow the same in intent. “Lord Granville is not in his room. It’s imperative I speak to him. Do you know where he went?”

“He went out, sir.” The crockery rattled in Frank’s hands—a betrayal. A confession. “I believe he went out. Toward your cottage.” He spoke too quickly. He had not been bred for lying.

“My cottage?” Mr. Windberry looked out the window at the fog. He glanced up the stairway. “
My
cottage?”

“Yes, sir. Your cottage. He left…he left ten minutes ago.” There. Frank gasped with relief. He had said it all.

“Very well. Thank you.” Mr. Windberry moved purposefully toward the door.

Frank put his hand in his pocket, pulled out the guineas, and recognized them for what they were. They were damned coins, and he was damned with them.

Knife in hand, Harry strode stealthily toward his cottage, listening for footsteps muffled by the damp fog, wondering if the supposed Lord Granville was lurking in the fog, waiting to attack. For there could be no doubt; it was Harry he sought. This villain must have tracked Jessie through the betrothal announcement in the
Times
to his mother, and from there to the resort. He planned to take Harry’s fiancée captive and use her as bait, and neither Harry nor Jessie would survive such a scheme. Harry needed to get her out tonight.

Beneath the blackguard’s British accent, Harry heard the faint meter of the Russian tongue. Harry had had a piece of luck when the fake Lord Granville hadn’t recognized the real Lord Granville, and he’d thought he would be able to take the impostor unaware, find out who had sent him and why. But somehow Lord Granville must have discovered the truth. Why else would he have gone to Harry’s cottage?

Harry hurried a little faster.

Dehaan was famous in the intelligence community. Dehaan could fight with a knife and advise his attacker on his wardrobe at the same time. He had an uncanny ability to sense trouble, and although many a spy had tried to obtain his services, he was dedicated to Harry. Dehaan always took precautions to warn of intruders, but one thing always distracted Dehaan—romance. And what had Harry been indulging in? Romance.

Blast it. He should have known his habit of evasiveness would catch up with him eventually. If only he’d told Jessie the truth about himself sooner… He glanced back at the inn. Jessie would obey him, he felt sure. Last night he had placed on her the bonds of the flesh. She was his. He had made her his.

Harry’s lips curved bitterly. Had he imagined he could leave his past behind? Take up his life as before? Take a wife and live happily ever after? This proved that no matter what Harry did, he would be stalked. His past would always remain close at hand, waiting to pounce on all he held dear.

Yet for all his good sense, he didn’t know if he could let Jessie go. Not after what they’d shared. His conscience warred with his desire. He adored her as he had never adored a woman before. He had thought he would marry her, for with her sweet love she’d brought him a joy he had never experienced. Now he had to give it up? No. No, it wasn’t possible! He’d find a way to keep her.

Reaching the cottage, he circled the exterior. The windows were open, the curtains hung limp. Surely as the fog thickened, Dehaan would have shut them. This was a bad sign. A very bad sign. Harry had chosen this cottage because the ground fell away from the cottage, leaving the windows in the bedchamber high above the ground and relatively safe. Placing his knife in his teeth, Harry leaped up, caught the sill, and silently pulled himself up to peer inside.