How the Earl Entices Page 24

  She’d accused him of hinting about a future together, but this was no hint—despite the teasing behind it, it was a firm offer. The first that he’d dared to voice. The idea shocked him nearly as much as her, but he couldn’t imagine not having her with him now. No matter what fate threw their way.

  She trembled, her lips parting silently with worry and the fear that seemed to always linger in her. He understood it now, but he refused to let her fall prey to it any longer.

  He cupped her face between his hands and gazed deeply into her eyes, making certain there would be no misunderstanding on what he intended for them. “Once my name is cleared, I promise you that—”

  A loud smashing of glass and splintering of wood shattered the quiet morning, followed by the shouts and running strides of men rushing into the studio below.

  Christ. They’d been found.

  Grace’s eyes widened in terror. “Ross—”

  “Hide!” He grabbed her by the shoulders as the men came closer. “Go into the other room. I’ll keep them busy here.”

  She shook her head adamantly, grabbing for his arm. “I won’t leave you!”

  At that moment he knew—she loved him.

  And he loved her too much to let her be harmed because of him.

  He pushed her toward the door. “As soon as it’s safe, go to St James’s Street, to any of the clubs there. Ask for Kit. He’ll take care of you.”

  “But I don’t want—”

  His mouth swooped down to capture hers. She gasped beneath his desperation, but his kiss silenced her, making it clear that he’d brook no arguments about this. He said he would protect her, and that’s exactly what he was doing.

  “Go, now.”

  He pushed her into the room and closed the door after her, then turned to face the men who were storming upstairs.

  When the first soldier reached the top of the stairs, Ross swung, his fist catching the man in the chin and snapping his head aside as he stumbled back.

  Three more men came after, and he let fly punch after punch, ducking when the men fought back. He couldn’t win against them, not when he was so outnumbered, but he fought as hard as he could to distract them from finding Grace.

  A fist landed on his jaw, and he staggered back. Another struck in his stomach. He doubled over in pain. A slam to the middle of his back knocked him to his knees. But the kick to his already wounded ribs did him in, and he sank to the floor, this time unable to find the strength to stand back up.

  “Ross Carlisle, you’re under arrest.” The same officer he’d first punched when the soldiers rushed up the stairs jabbed his knee into the middle of his back to keep him pressed against the floor, then yanked his arms behind his back. Iron manacles clamped tightly around his wrists. “For treason.”

  Ross remained still as the men grabbed his arms and jerked him to his feet. A trickle of blood seeped from the cut at the corner of his mouth, and his side hurt like hell, the pain so fierce that each ragged breath came with an agonizing shudder. But he smiled grimly, pleased with himself, when he saw the damage he’d done to the three men.

  “And this one?” another soldier demanded from behind him.

  His stomach plummeting, Ross turned—

  Grace stood in the doorway. Behind her, one of the soldiers gripped her arms so hard to keep her from escaping that she winced. His teeth clenched in fury. If that man hurt her, he would kill the bastard.

  “Arrest her,” the captain ordered. “Same charge.”

  “She had nothing to do with this!” Ross protested quickly, desperate to save her. “She’s only a woman I tricked into helping me. Nothing more.”

  “Ross,” she whispered. For once, stunned by the confusion and surprise of the arrest, she was unable to hide behind pretense, and the shock and hurt showed on her face.

  Good. He needed to make the soldiers see that raw emotion and pain on her face, to convince them that she wasn’t part of his crimes.

  “She’s no one,” he told the men. Then he spat out the blood from his cut lip, but he couldn’t purge the awful taste from his mouth that he’d put her into danger.

  The hurt that flashed across her face nearly undid him. But he held her gaze fixed beneath his, praying she comprehended what he was doing, why he had to hurt her so brutally. Because he would do anything to protect her.

  “Go,” the captain ordered, shoving Ross toward the stairs. Then he called out over his shoulder, “Arrest her.”

  Ross glanced back as the men dragged him down the stairs and out to the waiting wagon in the alley. The last glimpse he had of her was of the soldier placing irons on her wrists.

  Chapter 24

  Her head falling back in exhaustion, Grace looked up from the cold floor where she sat shivering in the damp darkness as the sound of metal scraping on metal echoed off the stone walls of her prison cell.

  Two large men opened the door. Their faces were hidden in the dark shadows, the blackness of the prison so deep that not even the flickering glow cast by the lamp one of them carried managed to light their features.

  The men exchanged quiet words, then the man with the lamp hung it on a rusty iron hook jutting out from the stone wall and walked away. The other man remained.

  “What do you want?” she called out, letting the anger overcome her fear. “I’ve already answered enough questions to prove that I don’t know anything.” Then, just for spite, she raised her chin and added, “And I wouldn’t tell you even if I did!”

  “I would expect no less from a formidable woman like you.”

  Christopher.

  She jumped to her feet and hurried forward with a choked sob. She had no idea how long she’d been there, how many hours she’d suffered in the cold and filth—how badly beaten Ross had been when the soldiers took him away. “Where’s your brother?”

  “You’ve been released,” he told her, avoiding her question. “All the charges against you have been repealed. I’m taking you out of here.” His expression hardened as he took her chin in his fingers and turned her head to examine her. “And straight to a doctor to make certain you’re all right.”

  She pushed his hand away. She didn’t care about herself. “Where’s Ross?”

  He hesitated, glancing over his shoulder to gauge who might be near enough to overhear, then answered, his voice low, “Still in prison, awaiting trial in Parliament.”

  “But surely they realize that he’s innocent.” How had she ever doubted that? England should have been celebrating him as the hero he was. “He’s certain to have been questioned by now, shown them the papers, and explained what Wentworth did.”

  When Kit said nothing, she knew…The Court thought him just as guilty of treason as when they’d first leveled the charges against him. Her eyes stung with hot tears of fear and frustration. Nothing had changed. They’d traveled hundreds of miles and risked their lives, and he was still regarded as a traitor, when in truth he was the furthest thing from it.

  Unable to hide the concern that hardened his face, he answered grimly, “He will receive a fair trial, and it will all come out then.”

  She gave a bitter laugh. A fair trial in which he’d be found guilty, if only to save the crown’s pride. King George never admitted that he was wrong, even when he so very clearly was. “We have to help him. What can we do?”

  “We will help.” He shrugged out of his greatcoat and slipped it onto her small frame. “But first, I have to take you out of here.” He buttoned the coat and turned up the collar against her neck. “Ross’s orders.”

  He took her elbow and led her from the cell.

  “You’ve seen him?” She clutched at his arm, refusing to take another step until he told her. “How is he?”

  “He’ll be fine.”

  “You lie as badly as your brother,” she bit out in worry and frustration, but she allowed him to lead her on. She needed to escape this hellish place so that she could think clearly. She, more than anyone, knew the details of what Ross had done and why,
and it fell to her to find a way to help him.

  As Kit guided her down the prison’s underground aisles, he kept his eyes straight ahead and scanned through the darkness around them. His other hand stayed beneath his jacket, resting on what she knew was a pistol. As if he expected someone to jump out of the shadows at any moment.

  “How is he? At least tell me that much.” She sucked in a mouthful of dank prison air to steady herself, and immediately regretted it when the stench of the place filled her lungs and made her cough. “I saw how they beat him when they arrested him, and I need to know…Please.”

  His dark gaze flicked sideways at her, but he said nothing. When they reached the end of the aisle, where a set of stone stairs led up to the surface, he stopped and glanced into the darkness of a narrow corridor cutting perpendicular to the main aisle, as if contemplating…

  He tightened his grip on her arm and tugged her into the dark corridor. “This way.”

  He pulled her quickly along beside him, catching her when her feet tripped over the uneven stones. As the darkness engulfed them, lit only by a single dim lamp hanging high on a post halfway down the corridor, the air grew colder, even more musty and dank. The pungent scent of human excrement suffocated her, and she could barely make out any of the shapes around her in the black shadows.

  “There’ll be hell to pay for this,” he muttered. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Fresh fear tightened a knot in her throat. “What do you mean? Where are we—”

  “Here.”

  He stopped her in front of a small cell at the far end of the corridor, in what had to be the oldest part of the centuries-old prison. Rough-hewn limestone two feet thick formed short walls that shut out all traces of light and fresh air from the outside world. Thick iron bars rose from floor to ceiling, locking forgotten prisoners inside with the darkness. In the silence, she heard the steady drip of water trickling down the damp walls and puddling on the floor. Along the edge of the corridor, a rat scurried away into the darkness, and she bit back a startled scream.

  He looked grimly down at her, even as he tapped the barrel of his pistol against the iron bars. The metallic sound jarred down her spine with each ping. He called out softly, “Ross, you have a visitor.”

  “Ross?” Impossible. He couldn’t be here, not in this hell. He was a peer, for God’s sake!

  But one glance at Christopher’s bleak face told her the truth.

  A dark form moved forward from the blackness at the rear of the cell. The shadows were too thick for her to see him, but she knew. Because she felt it swell up inside her, felt it reach out through the darkness toward him—that same connection that had linked them together since the moment he forced his way into her cottage. Perhaps long before that, always with her but sleeping, waiting for him to come to her again after all those years. And it shattered her.

  “Grace.” Her name was a tortured whisper.

  A sob fell from her lips. She was unable to speak as the pain overwhelmed her.

  She pressed herself up against the bars and reached a hand into the darkness, desperate to touch him and prove that he was alive and unhurt. His hand slipped into hers, and she swallowed back a cry, refusing to let him know how terrified she was. She had to stay strong for him. He didn’t deserve her tears, even though her desolation burned so viciously in her chest that she could barely breathe.

  He reached between the bars to cup her face against his palm and stroked his thumb over her cheek to comfort her. But instead of providing warmth and strength, his touch pierced her. It was agony to be so close yet unable to wrap her arms around him, unable to protect him as she’d done since the night of the storm.

  Hell. They’d been thrust into hell.

  “You shouldn’t be here. Kit shouldn’t have brought you here.”

  “I had to see you,” she choked out in a whisper. If she spoke any louder, she would break down into tears. Squeezing her eyes shut, she shook her head. “Those soldiers—the way they hit you—”

  The warm softness of his lips touched hers between the bars. “I’m all right.” His shoulders sagged with palpable anguish. “But what I said about you at the carriage house, I never meant any of it. You mean the world to me, Grace.”

  “I know.” She reached up to stroke his cheek, her trembling fingers startled to find a prickle of beard. Just as he’d been when he first arrived at her cottage, as if she’d never shaved him. As if they’d never shared those wonderful moments together. “You were protecting me.”

  “Always.” His arms slipped through the bars to encircle her and pull her as close to him as possible. His body was warm and strong, even in this dank hell, but the bars were a hard and cold reminder between them of their situation.

  “Now it’s my turn to protect you.” Fierce resolve stiffened her spine. That same horrible feeling of helplessness that had driven her to flee all those years ago returned, but now it made her determined to stand and fight. “I’ll free you from here, I promise.”

  His arms tightened around her, as if he were afraid of being dragged away from her at that very moment. “You can’t.

  “I’ll explain everything to the authorities. They have to listen, and they’ll understand. I’ll make them.”

  He placed a somber kiss to her temple. “There’s no way to prove my innocence.”

  “But the papers—”

  “Are worthless.” His hands continued to stroke across her back, as if he was afraid that she would vanish into the shadows if he stopped touching her. “Without Wentworth’s private journal to prove that he was in Le Havre, they’re nothing but speculation. Circumstantial at best.”

  “But we have to try to—”

  He kissed her, silencing her. On that kiss, she tasted resignation, and grief shuddered violently through her. Dear God, she was losing him! Already she felt him melting away in her arms, like a ghost vanishing in the fog.

  “Your fight is over,” he whispered against her lips, lingering in the kiss as long as possible. “Let it go, love.”

  “I will not give up.” Her fear changed into anger, and she let it come, seeking solace in the burning that kept her heart from shattering completely into a thousand shards of glass. “We’re going to make them listen to you and prove that you’re not a traitor. I’ll go to the newspapers and make them publish those papers. The king and prime minister will have to listen to you then. There will be public outcry—”

  “I’ll accuse you of lying and deny every bit of it.” That quiet comment sliced into like a blade of ice. “Because if you do that, they’ll arrest you as my accomplice, and I will not allow you to put yourself in danger for me.”

  “Ross,” she whispered, stunned. He was giving up on proving his innocence, in order to protect her.

  “To endure what’s to come, I have to know that you’ll be safe,” he whispered, his mouth close to her ear. “Let me have that solace.”

  She wanted to scream! She wanted to rage against every peer sitting in the Lords, against Wentworth—even the king himself. Ross had risked everything for his country, only for them to turn their backs on him. And now he was asking her to do the same.

  But she wasn’t ready to surrender just yet.

  “You want to protect me? Then give me the future you want for us.” She choked as she repeated his words, “With me by your side.” She shut her eyes against the anguish that squeezed at her chest like a fist. “I want that, too, Ross. I was afraid to admit that earlier. I’ve been alone and afraid for so long…but I want a chance at happiness, with you.”

  He held her as close as he could. But already he felt a world away, slipping through her fingers even as she clutched him so desperately to her.

  The grief that swept over her was unbearable, and so much worse than when she lost David, because Ross was still here in her arms, warm and alive, so strong…the only man she’d ever loved. She simply couldn’t fathom it, that they could do this to him, that they could rob him of his life. It was a nigh
tmare. A horrible, surreal nightmare, one from which they could never wake up.

  As she stood encircled in his arms, her cheek resting on his chest, she fought to imprint upon her mind every detail of him. The soft but strong heartbeat against her cheek, the way his arms held around her so tightly, the hard planes of his chest, the strength of his arms…She forced herself to memorize how soft his silky hair was beneath her fingertips, how tender his lips as he kissed her temple, the deep timbre of his voice that wrapped itself around her like a warm blanket…even that masculine scent of him, of port and cigars, leather and bergamot. She deeply breathed him in. She had to, during this short time they had together, this last time—

  A single tear slipped down her cheek.

  “You were right. I should never have spoken of the future.” He buried his mouth in her hair near her ear and murmured in what was barely louder than a whisper, with emotion rasping his voice raw, “I couldn’t help myself. The possibility of having a life with you was simply too wonderful to ignore.” He inhaled sharply. “But that future is gone now. You have to live for Ethan, to give him the life he deserves. And you have to forget about me.”

  Never. He might as well ask her to stop breathing. “I won’t—”

  “You must.” His arms tightened around her, even as his words sought to push her away. “Kit will take care of you. He’ll make certain that you and Ethan are cared for, that you come to no harm.”

  The finality of that struck her so violently that she shuddered. The ribbon of connection that she’d felt pulling them together was fraying around her, snapping away one thread at a time. When it finally tore in two, leaving her once more without him…oh God, what would she do? How would she survive?

  She buried her face against his chest through the cold iron bars that pressed against her cheeks and forced herself to nod, unable to speak without breaking down completely, because he wanted her acquiescence. Because she would do anything he asked of her. Because she would do anything to make these last days bearable for him, no matter how much it destroyed her. Because she loved him.