The Fall into Ruin, page 7
Swallowing back his pride, his questions, his honour, he spoke to her back. “You have my word.”
Just as he’d hoped, she paused but didn’t look back. “Be more specific.”
He stepped closer, his front almost flush with her back. “You have my word that I won’t tell your father about this mess you’ve gotten yourself into. But I want the whole truth, Rose. All of it.”
Her chin drooped low but then she nodded. “After breakfast tomorrow, tell my father you would like to take a ride. Ask for a horse to be readied but no groom.”
“There is no chance he’d agree to that. I don’t know my way about. Tell me now.”
She chuckled softly. “He’ll agree. He’ll probably hope you fall and break your neck. Be prepared for a feisty mount.”
*
Rose had seen dozens of men in their shirtsleeves, some even naked to the waist. So why did the sight of Anthony Germaine’s forearms give her pause? She’d practically just lain there waiting for him to ravish her, her gaze transfixed on the patch of thick hair where he’d not fastened his shirt up to his throat.
Despite her antics with smuggling, her faux bravado and her best friend being on the wrong side of the law, Rose was still a good girl. And almost a spinster. She approached her twentieth birthday but felt about a hundred years old right then, on that path, in the wind and cold.
She lifted the cloak’s hood to cover her hair and wrapped the wool tighter around her body as she hurried from the darkness of the trees, confident Michael and the men would be long gone to safety if Smith did decide to land a shore party. With every breath, she was aware of Anthony behind her. Aware of his thousands of questions and doubts. She had the same doubts, a thousand more questions than he did. Why did he have to follow her? Why couldn’t he be on his way back to London? At the top of the list of what-ifs was how it was all going to end. Anyone who had ever done anything illegal must have had the same thoughts about their death or retirement.
Either she was going to die on the beach like so many had before her—generations of Clairmonts had given their lives for this land; Hell’s Gate wasn’t a name pulled from a Viking hat centuries before—or Rose was going to have to give up adventure and retire.
When she’d been all of thirteen, left at the estate rather than embarrass her family with her ungainly ‘puppy fat’, she’d been treated differently by the staff, taken under their wing and raised as their own children were. She and Michael, a stable lad, had become fast friends and easy-going comrades, helping with the smuggling trade to pass the dreary days. Her father never came to the estate for regular visits and always sent word of his arrival so the servants could be ready for him. Like he was a king or a god. It made it easy for Rose to suggest using his barns for the illegal goods and his horse and carts to transport it all. The Clairmont crest would never be questioned or denied passage. Her ideas had been welcome, as had she.
Hell’s Gate had a long, sturdy jetty jutting out into a bay that led to the Channel. Appropriating a sloop had been a challenge but they’d prevailed. She’d only really ever known success, and a real life, for as long as she had called herself a bandit but it was beginning to get dangerous. She didn’t want to give in to Mr Smith but she didn’t want to give it all up either. The men couldn’t give it up. They relied on the profits to keep their families fed and their houses standing. Her father was a very lazy landowner preferring to instead pour resources and money into the farming lands further north, bordering Scotland. If the tenants here had to wait for him to patch holes in rooves or fix roads, they would have to move away or risk perishing.
Rose kept the records in the ledgers of wool produced and lambs slaughtered. Well, she doctored the records in those ledgers exceptionally well. Her father didn’t ask or acknowledge what she did for the estate. He cared that little about any of it. As long as funds were available to draw on for new dinner suits and gowns for her mother, he didn’t care at all.
Coming to the edge of the gardens, Rose stopped to douse the lantern and hide it behind a dense shrub, the moon providing more light now that it was at a better angle over the castle. An involuntary shiver shook her but she firmed her chin and straightened her spine. Once the matter of Mr Smith had been taken care of, then she could worry for her own future. She’d half-lied when she’d said Anthony wouldn’t have to marry her. For the life of her, she couldn’t figure a way out unless she threatened to reveal her part in the smuggling to the ton. She would have to blackmail her father into giving Germaine a job. And then she would disappear. She could travel to France with one of the shipments and just fade into oblivion. At least her father and brothers would be rid of the family blight. Rose knew she would never be a treasured bride. She wasn’t even suitable for the son of a pirate.
Anthony had been knighted by the king; he deserved a biddable minor daughter, not a hellion like her with a mind of her own.
Without so much as a glance over her shoulder, Rose started towards the house, sure that Anthony could make his way to his own room from there since he’d managed to follow her so far in the dark. She’d only made it a few yards when she felt his heavy grip on her elbow again. She was quite prepared when she was swung back towards him but the wind blew hard and she overbalanced, raising both hands to steady herself.
“What are you doing?” Rose hissed, unsure whether to slap his cheek or curl her fingers into his chest where her palms had landed. She’d known their conversation wasn’t over, known he would have only more questions now after what had happened on the beach. He wasn’t the type of man content with waiting until the morning.
“Someone is watching us,” Anthony murmured. Right next to her ear.
Rose gulped. “Impossible. All were abed before I set out. I have done this before.”
Strong arms wrapped around her as Anthony shuffled his feet, turning her so she now faced the house over his shoulder. “Second window up, fourth in from the left.”
She cursed when her eyes landed on the window in question, a clear silhouette outlined behind the glass. “Damn it, I can’t tell who it is.”
Anthony shuffled her around again, his head tilted to try to catch her gaze. “They could have seen you leaving as well. We’ll need a credible story, Rose.”
“We need to keep moving. Perhaps they haven’t actually seen us.” It was a statement born of desperation and she knew it as well as he. If Anthony had seen her crossing the garden, then whoever it was watching now would have as well.
His grip around her waist relaxed but then Anthony’s hands were on her face and he was looking at her with an odd expression.
“What are you doing?”
His eyes flashed beneath the moonlight as he whispered, “Buying us a credible story.” And then he lowered his head and pressed his lips to hers.
Shock registered first but instead of pushing him away, Rose did curl her fingers into his shirt to pull him closer. Where her face and lips had been cold, warmth blossomed and wended its way along her nerves until she felt almost as though she could float away. When she sighed and leaned into him, he deepened the kiss, his tongue flitting across her lips until she opened to him. He stole her very breath along with her sanity in that moment. Tentatively she explored him the way he was her and with a groan his hands dropped from her face to her back where he squeezed her closer still.
The spell was broken when Rose realised she couldn’t actually feel Anthony touching her. God, how she wanted to feel his palms against her back and his stomach against hers. Despite his almost lanky appearance, he was like granite against her breasts and she wanted to feel more. But the blasted suit wouldn’t allow it. She tore her mouth from his and tried to step away. This is not how she had imagined her first kiss with her maybe husband. There were too many lies. Too many barriers.
He wouldn’t let her leave the circle of his arms. “Either slap me or stay where you are, Rose. If you intend to storm off, you need to make it believable.”
How could he be unaffected by that kiss? How could he still form more than one thought in his head? She sure as hell couldn’t. His breath came evenly, his face and eyes unreadable. She knew she was flushed, her insides felt like they were on the outside and she couldn’t have stormed anywhere until she regained her normal breath.
He spoke again before she could decide on her next move. “The person watching will think us lovers having a secret rendezvous and if anyone asks, that is exactly what we were doing.”
Finally, she raised her gaze to his. “But I’ll be ruined and then you will definitely have to marry me.”
“Better ruined than arrested for smuggling. You can say anything you wish, like perhaps you wanted to test my mettle and kissed me.”
“But you kissed me.”
His lips curved into a full smile as he looked back down at her. “You very definitely kissed me back, Rose.” He put his hand against her cheek again. “You should blush just like that when questioned about this.”
How could she not? She was on fire. Gone was her worry over Michael and the men, although they knew how to take care of themselves. Gone was her worry over Anthony helping them or Mr Smith making his deadly move. Her only emotions were hot and bothered. How did he remain so calm? Unless he truly was unmoved? She was but an untried girl, and he was a man of London. Of course she hadn’t affected him in any way. Even now she was openly displaying her virginity on her sleeve by playing the ninny over one little kiss.
Rose pushed him away and turned on her heel, back to the house, back to her room, away from him, away from his knowing smirk and his flashing eyes.
*
Why he’d taunted her, Anthony didn’t know. Why the bloody hell had he thought it a good idea to kiss her? Before that second in time, she had been a conundrum to his reasoning mind. A puzzle to solve or to save, whichever he decided after putting the pieces together. But standing there, with their discovery together in the middle of the night imminent, no other escape plan had come to mind. She’d bitten down on her bottom lip, her hands warm against his chest where he’d become a little breathless. He’d wanted to bite that lip for her, soothe the Cupid’s bow with his tongue and more. So much more.
He was fairly sure she had been telling the truth when she’d said this Michael person wasn’t her lover. The way she’d melted into his embrace and sighed and made little noises in the back of her throat told him she’d never been kissed quite like that before. As he followed her across the dewy grass, he wanted to do it again.
But he couldn’t, or rather, shouldn’t. Their goose was well and truly cooked now though. He only hoped their audience was a family member or a bed hopper themselves, unable to spread gossip without accounting for their own whereabouts. If it was Lord Clairmont, Anthony was probably as good as dead once he returned to his room.
“Rose?” he called after her fleeing form. “Please let me escort you to your room.”
“No, thank you,” she returned over her shoulder.
“What if that was your father watching us? I cannot let you face him alone.”
“I have faced my father alone my entire life. Trust me when I say you would not be helping the matter by being outside my bedroom door if he did come to chastise me.”
He certainly couldn’t argue with that logic but as they approached the house, he didn’t yet want to say goodnight to Rose Clairmont. Tomorrow was going to bring all sorts of new trouble for the both of them and he didn’t want to rush headlong into it. He wanted to kiss her again. And then again. He caught her elbow once more, a little gentler this time when he tugged on her arm to turn her back. “Please, Rose. Let me walk you to your room.”
She inhaled slowly, the action making her chest rise and her back straighten, but then she shook her head. “You have no reason to be in the family wing after midnight. My brothers would kill you and I would have a hard time explaining it all without my father truly thinking me a harlot of the worst kind. I’d be banished to the Americas or a Scottish convent.”
“How will I know you have made it safely to your room?” He couldn’t in good conscience just let the matter rest.
Rose huffed and pointed up the side of the castle above their heads. “My bedroom is just up there. If you wait here a few moments, I’ll wave my candle so you know I have arrived. I always lock my door and won’t be opening it to my father, my brothers or anyone else this night. Will that satisfy you?”
“Not nearly,” he replied, still craning his neck to see where she had pointed. It was too dark in the shadow of the old stones and the ivy rustling back and forth made it almost impossible to train his eyes on anything in particular.
But it didn’t matter because Rose darted through a door he hadn’t even noticed and was gone. He probably could have chased her but what was the point? He stepped back until he could better see the castle wall and waited. Just as he was about to give up and go after her, a light flared and then brightened. True to her word, the candle flickered in a circular motion before the glass.
All Anthony could think was that she had come up with the solution very quickly for a girl thinking on her feet. Or was it how she communicated with her Michael? A series of lights and motions and they could signal each other from a short distance. He turned and surveyed the darkness behind the castle but the moon was now obscured by cloud and no answering flash of light was to be seen by him.
After several long breaths, he slipped through the door Rose had used and made his way towards the front of the house to try to find his way back to his room, but not sleep. How could he after discovering his intended bride was almost a pirate. He hated pirates. Hated everything they stood for. Hated everything they didn’t stand for as well.
Her father was in charge of the men who investigated petty crimes all over London and here was his daughter up to her armpits in danger and illicit goods right under his very roof. Anthony knew he had promised Rose he wouldn’t say anything to the earl about it but for a moment he wondered what blackmail might taste like. The Earl of Clairmont had already accused him of it once. He could threaten to leak the details of Rose’s midnight dealings to the gossip rags of the ton if the man didn’t give him a position.
Or he could go one better and take down ‘Mr Smith’ or Mrs Smith as Anthony knew her. Perhaps he could capture the notorious outlaw and drag her back to the city in chains? He would be seen as a hero and awarded a position with the Runners. It certainly couldn’t hurt his credibility. If only he could prove that even though he was his father’s son, he wasn’t his father. He wasn’t anything like Captain Richard Germaine.
For just one heart’s beat in time, he thought about the kiss he’d shared with Rose. He thought about the help she needed to take down Smith. He almost wished he was the man she wanted him to be. If he was a pirate, he could have thrown her over his shoulder and carried her away from harm, from her family, from the ton, and no one would have dared to stop him.
Why couldn’t Rose need a true hero rather than an outlaw? He shook his head, the walls around him beginning to look familiar as he made his way slowly. He would never be that man. He abided by the law and had to believe in a justice system for those who broke it. His every belief rested on the side of right and good.
So why did he suddenly feel as though good was never going to get him anywhere?
Chapter Eight
The following morning was the first in months where Anthony’s head didn’t thump like the devil’s drums and his stomach wasn’t full of stale liquor or empty because he’d retched it all up in the early hours. His butler back at home should have cut him off rather than let him drown his sorrows to avoid thinking about the woman he’d ruined, the enemy he’d made in her father, their situation, for three of the longest months of his life.
Last night he’d lain in the huge bed, sober—the curtains open to the drifting clouds and howling wind—and had thought of Rose. All right, he’d also thought about getting drunk but he’d finished the one bottle he’d been given already.
So instead, he’d passed the sleepless hours wondering what kind of figure she possessed beneath whatever it was she wore under her gown to make her appear ungainly. He wondered why she had been left to her own devices for so many years, getting away with only God knew what besides the smuggling. He also wondered when he would have the chance to kiss her again. Though those thoughts would not lead him anywhere safe, secure or sane.
He’d set out for the house party devising a way to get out of marrying Rose so Clairmont wouldn’t see the need to stick a knife in his back so as not to have pirate spawn as a son-in-law. It followed him everywhere, his sire’s reputation. But now his plans would have to change. He and Rose and their future would have to step back in line to the danger looming on the horizon. Literally. Smith was not someone who could go on as she had been. What was her game though? She couldn’t return to London anytime soon and her clubs and brothels had been closed down, the thugs running them disbanded or arrested. Why hang about and cause more trouble rather than making a run for it and settling somewhere new?
Never mind that as soon as Anthony had been old enough, he’d been sent to London for a ‘proper education’. Unlike his half-sister Daniella. She had been kept aboard their father’s ship until she was already well and truly damaged by piracy. Anthony had spent three quarters of his life in London but it didn’t matter a bit.
As he eyed the earl over the breakfast table, smiling back when Clairmont only glared, he considered what kind of life Rose was going to have if she survived the month or even the week. It had to be freeing for her to be left alone without proper chaperone or family but it must also be lonely. Anthony knew all about lonely. He’d spent most of his life at school. He’d had nowhere to go in the holiday seasons so he’d stayed put even when all the other boys returned to their families and their gifts and their warmth. The few friends he had sometimes invited him home but when their fathers discovered who he was, where he’d come from, the invitations were rescinded immediately. He’d gotten used to it fairly quickly.
