Chapter Fourteen

Fourteen

D ead silence hung over the ballroom. The apparition on the steps might have sauntered straight out of one of the handbills nailed on trees all over Northumberland. From buckled shoes to belted plaid, the Highland costume was complete. Sebastian's tartan socks clung to slender calves. The wood-grained butt of a pistol protruded from the scarlet sash.

A low murmur rippled through the crowd, then Squire Blake's voice boomed out as he picked his daughter up off the floor. "What a splendid costume! I wish I'd thought of it myself."

The murmur deepened. Jamie began to clap. Squire Blake joined in, bouncing Devony's wig askew. Like lemmings, the other guests followed suit until the room rumbled with the thunder of applause. As Sebastian's gaze found him, Jamie ducked behind a nude statue of his cherubic namesake.

Sebastian shot through the crowd, neatly and with one purpose. He stopped on the step below Prudence and caught her wrist in a bruising grip.

"Are you asking me to dance, sir?" Her voice brushed him like velvety wings, yet her soothing tone had the opposite effect on Sebastian. He glanced over his shoulder, noting the curious gazes fixed on them. He did not dare speak, so he contented himself with jerking her into his arms.

Her feet left the floor as he swept her from the steps in a dizzying circle. The orchestra limped through a handful of false notes before soaring on the joyous chords of a waltz.

Candlelight deepened Prudence's hair to burgundy wine. The sausage curls Jamie had wrung from her stubborn locks flowed down her back with a life of their own. Sebastian's own black silk mask caressed cheeks as fine as alabaster. An excited whisper arose from those nearest them and sped around the ballroom as the crowd realized Lord Kerr's partner was not only undeniably female, but very attractive.

More than one pair of eyes slid to Tricia. Her thoughtful frown quickly shifted to a dazzling smile. Sir Arlo fingered his chin, his own eyes narrowed with puzzlement as he watched the graceful pair circle around the room.

Even through the folds of tartan, Prudence could feel the biting warmth of Sebastian's fingers splayed against the small of her back. He held her dangerously close, pressing against her, and the cold pistol in her waistband dug into her belly.

His breath was hot and angry against her ear. "Didn't Tricia teach you proper etiquette? You should never tuck a loaded pistol into your drawers."

She smiled sweetly. "They're not my drawers."

They were only three turns from the terrace doors when a tug on Prudence's plaid brought them up short. Sir Arlo stood behind them. His genial smile sent prickles of warning down Prudence's spine.

As Sebastian murmured an excuse, his steely gaze promised her retribution. Then he was gone without a backward glance, moving deftly through the crowd, smiling charmingly as he plucked a glass from a maid's tray.

Sir Arlo fingered the tartan. "Amazing reproduction. So very authentic."

Prudence gathered the plaid tighter around her. "I've always had a hand with a needle. A tuck here, a tuck there."

Arlo pulled an incongruous quizzing-glass from the folds of his toga and studied the brooch at her shoulder. "Utterly fascinating. Such a delicate filigree. It's French, you know. I would have sworn there was only one like it in all of England."

Flirtation did not come naturally to Prudence, but she felt compelled to try. She disengaged the tartan from his fingers, smiling brightly. "Imagination, Sir Arlo. You simply have to use your imagination."

His keen gaze did not ease her fears. "Oh, I am, Prudence. I am."

The shrill coo of Devony's laughter broke the awkward silence between them. Prudence glanced over to see Sebastian's head tilted near to Devony's, his graceful fingers draped over her bare shoulder. Tricia swept toward him with yet another guest in tow.

Prudence could no longer bear Arlo's inquisitive scrutiny of her face. She should never have let Jamie talk her into this madness. The entire charade had been a fool's game. And she was the fool.

She touched her fingertips to her temple. "My head is pounding. I must beg you to excuse me."

She slipped through a cluster of chattering, linen-draped Muses, praying she could make it across the ballroom and out the doors before she was stopped. Still, she could no more keep her eyes from seeking a last glimpse of Sebastian's elegant form than she could have halted her breathing. The sight of him jerked her to a waiting stillness.

His stance was rigid, his brows lowered in a forbidding line. But the sulky cast of his mouth warned her that his anger with her was a mere shadow of what touched him now. It amazed her that no one around him was aware of his turmoil. A trill of laughter rose and fell. The harpist plucked a melody comforting in its funereal blandness. Tricia clung to Sebastian's arm. And Prudence knew enough about gunpowder to sense that if someone struck a flint near him, he would implode, leaving only a pile of smoldering ash on the marble tiles.

She inched nearer.

"…and Viscount," Tricia was saying, "this is my soon-to-be husband, Sebastian Kerr. Perhaps you can return for the wedding Saturday."

An urbane, French-accented voice prickled the tiny hairs at the nape of Prudence's neck. "I had no inkling you were engaged, my dear. What a delightful surprise."

"The night seems to be rife with them," Sebastian said.

Prudence peered over Sebastian's shoulder and realized she had been wrong. Someone else was aware of Sebastian's seething emotions. Either she was a poor judge of character, or the viscount's murky eyes fairly glistened with suppressed glee.

The old man's thin lips pursed in a bemused smirk as he gestured to the ballroom with a flutter of his elegant fingers. "I was traveling in the neighborhood upon my return from London. I should never have intruded had I known the countess was entertaining." He indicated his impeccable breeches and frock coat. "I fear I am not suitably attired for such a fete."

"A pity," Sebastian said. "You would have made an admirable Cerberus."

Tricia tapped her ruby lips. "Was he one of Zeus's sons?"

Prudence spoke up without thinking. "Cerberus was the three-headed dog who guarded the gates of Hades. Whenever anyone entered Hades, he would fawn upon them, but if anyone tried to leave, he would devour them…" Her voice trailed off as she was suddenly aware of everyone's eyes upon her. Sebastian's angry gaze was tinged with reluctant pride.

Tricia dismissed her with a chiding cluck. "Oh, pooh! Who wants to be costumed as a dog? We have Boris for that. Did you know, Sebastian, that I met Viscount D'Artan during my stay in Paris? That was before those horridly rude peasants confiscated his estate. I was still wed to Pierre at the time."

"Raynaud," Prudence corrected her aunt absently. Only Tricia, she mused, would equate the volatile revolution in France to bad manners.

The viscount's eyes were still fixed on her, and their tarnished gray depths disquieted Prudence. He found her hand among the folds of tartan and lifted it. His lips were surprisingly warm, but she suppressed a shiver.

"My niece, Miss Prudence Walker," Tricia said as an afterthought.

The viscount stared at her as if mesmerized. "Charmed. I had the pleasure of attending one of your father's exhibitions in London once. The man was a genius."

"I thought so." Prudence withdrew her hand, fighting the urge to wipe it on her kilt.

"I was intrigued by his work with fulminics," the viscount went on. "Having once had a laboratory in Varennes, I fancy myself as something of a chemist."

Tricia looped an arm through his. "That dreadful rabble forced the poor viscount to flee his own country. They burned all of his holdings."

"How unfortunate," Prudence murmured.

He shrugged. "C'est la vie . Your countrymen have been more than kind to me. I have just returned from London after accepting a post in the House of Commons. I should love to call on you next week to discuss your father's work."

"If you've been traveling," Sebastian said coldly, "we shouldn't wish to detain you."

The viscount gave Prudence an elegant bow before meeting Sebastian's eyes. "I trust we shall meet again. Very soon."

"Tell me, Viscount," Tricia said, jealously capturing his attention again, "is it true they serve no tea in those dreadful prisons of yours? I shudder to think of what Marie and Louis must be suffering. They are such a delightful pair. Pierre took me to visit them once." She began to draw him away. "Or was it Raoul?"

The viscount's reply was a silken murmur as they melted into the crowd. Prudence turned to Sebastian. Her question died on her lips as his icy gaze raked her from brooch to stockings.

"I believe you owe me a dance, Miss Walker. And an explanation."

Before she could protest, he swept her into his arms once more.

Prudence could feel every shift of his muscles as he spun her in an ever widening circle. His gray eyes had gone from smoldering ash to molten steel. She had never dreamed a man could look so attractive and so given to murder at the same time. She threw back her head, fighting to catch her breath as the gowned figures blurred to milky fog. She could no longer tell which gods were real and which were marble. They all had the same sly expression, like gloating Heras waiting for an omnipotent Zeus to cast her from Mt. Olympus.

Prudence's toes only grazed the floor as Sebastian danced her out the doors and onto the flagstoned terrace.

She stumbled when he abruptly released her, then his roar shattered the night. "Och, lass, ha'e ye no' a wee brain in yer puir, daft head?"

She blinked up at him. "Pardon me?"

"I said Och, lass, ha'e ye no' a wee—'" He turned his back on her, flexing his hands on the stone balustrade in an obvious struggle to regain some control of his temper and restore his command of the English language.

After the blazing light of the ballroom, the terrace enveloped them in cool darkness. The music and laughter seemed only a brittle echo. The fountain at the bottom of the stairs tinkled a melody of its own.

After a minute Prudence spoke, her voice musing. "It has suddenly occurred to me, Sebastian, that I've never seen you truly angry."

He swung around. "They don't call me Dreadful," he said, backing her up with each word, "because I'm a clever whist partner."

Her back hit the opposite balustrade. She swallowed hard. "Perhaps it's your skill at faro—"

She gasped as he jerked the pistol out of her waistband, then threw up her arms, forgetting it wasn't loaded.

He checked the weapon with brisk competence. "Contrary to what the good sheriff may have told you, I'm not given to murdering unarmed women." He shot her a look from beneath his lashes. "However strong the temptation."

She lowered her arms, feeling like an idiot. He handed the pistol back. "It completes your ensemble quite nicely."

She turned around and laid the gun on the balustrade, desperate to escape his accusing gaze. She had miscalculated. Sebastian was not angry. He was furious.

"I'd like to know one thing, Miss Walker." He grasped the balustrade on either side of her, effectively barring any attempt at escape. He did not touch her. "Are you threatening me?"

She forced a light shrug, remembering Jamie's advice. Duplicity and half-truths did not come naturally to her. "That would be unwise, would it not?"

"Not if you thought you were safe with me."

She gathered her courage and turned to face him. "Am I safe with you, Sebastian?"

Warmth emanated from his lean body. She could sense the fury that tensed his muscles abating into something softer and far more dangerous. The night breeze stirred her hair, untwining the scent of jasmine from the loose strands.

Sebastian's nostrils flared. He drew one finger down the lacy jabot at her throat. "You fill out my plaid quite nicely."

His silky tone mesmerized her, and his compliment took on a new bite as he lowered his head. The heat of their breath mingled before his mouth touched hers. His tongue traced the outline of her lips, then dipped inward with a tantalizing stroke. Her fingers clutched his coat as the steady, lingering pressure of his mouth on hers paralyzed her.

His lips traveled across her cheek to her ear, each kiss a separate entity, as rough and tender as his gruff whisper. "In the Highlands, when a woman wears a man's plaid, it means only one thing. She belongs to him."

His mouth closed over hers with a fresh heat. His teeth scraped her lips as his tongue sought out the honeyed mysteries of her mouth. Wrapping an arm low around her back, he pulled her against him, rubbing his chest to hers. He groaned at the feel of her soft, unfettered breasts. Too late, Prudence remembered he knew all the secrets of her attire.

When his hand slipped beneath the plaid and between the buttons of his own shirt, there were no corset or stays to separate his seeking fingers from the buoyant curve of her breast. He caught the aching bud of her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, teasing it with a skill that drew a whimper from deep in her throat.

Her legs threatened to fold, but with a dangerous dip, Sebastian was there, his palm a searing heat against the scandalously bare skin behind her knee. His hand began a maddening ascent up her thigh, pushing the kilt ahead of it, then sliding beneath. Her pulse thundered a warning as she recognized for the first time the wisdom of stockings and garters, chemises and petticoats. Sebastian's fingers stroked the sensitive, trembling flesh of her inner thigh, moving inexorably toward the worn trews tucked between her legs.

With a frightening shock, Prudence realized she wanted him to touch her there. What sort of wanton had she become? But her shame melted in the bracing warmth of his kiss. Her hands cupped his strong neck, feeling his convulsive swallow as his fingers continued their hungry quest.

His palm cupped her, rubbing blindly against the softness beneath the trews. She threw back her head, stifling a gasp as his thumb brushed her in a deliberate caress, setting off a quaking explosion. She could feel her body opening like a flower, slickening with the dew of an aching emptiness she'd never dared acknowledge. She entwined her body to his, looping her arms around his neck, pressing her lips to the delectable throb of the pulse in his throat.

Suddenly, his hand stilled against her. Sebastian caught her hair and forced her to look at him. Her vision gone misty with need, she smiled tremulously at him.

A black fury darkened his eyes. Her smile vanished. What had she done to anger him so? Icy needles of shame pricked her. Her wanton behavior must have disgusted him. How could she have been such a fool? She lowered her eyes, thankful for his mask as the heat of a blush stained her cheeks.

Growling, he sank his teeth into her swollen lower lip. She shuddered against him, expecting pain but finding only pleasure. Something in his grip had changed; it was now as implacable and relentless as the dark passion that rose between them. His arm slid lower down her back, his hand curving around her rump, as his mouth plundered hers with punishing heat. His knees slipped between hers, parting her legs and lifting her to the balustrade in one smooth, balletic move. He dragged her against him, wrapping his arms around her as his palm was replaced by a greedier hardness rubbing against the soft folds of tartan between her legs.

She strained away from him as a fear deeper than that of discovery and stronger than the fragile strands of new desire beat frantically in her belly. She turned her face away. "Sebastian, please, don't…I can't…"

He caught her chin between two biting fingers and tilted her head back. The scattered light cast harsh planes across his features. His lashes swept down, but not before she caught a glimpse of the hungry Highland beast sleeping beneath his thin veneer of manners. An unreasoning terror swept her.

She shoved against his chest, near to swooning in the fear that he might shove the trews aside and ravish her right there on the terrace. How dare she condemn him for taking what she had unwittingly offered? Self-contempt for her own shameful surrender only enflamed her panic.

"Let me go!"

He caught her flailing wrists in one of his broad hands. The look in his eyes stunned her. It was pain, pain that haunted the hollows of his cheeks and deepened the grooves around his beautiful mouth. Pain of such a quiet intensity that a matching ache opened deep in her own heart. Her hands crumpled into loose fists and were still.

"What have you decided?" he asked. His voice was surprisingly cool and detached. "Are you safe with me?" She inclined her head. The mask absorbed the first of her tears. His warm breath touched her ear. "Don't start the music, Prudence, unless you're willing to dance."

The light spilling from the terrace door dimmed. "Sebastian? Are you out there?" Tricia called hesitantly.

He freed Prudence and moved to stand a few feet away. The imprint of his fingers clung to her wrists like icy bracelets. She slid off the stone railing and smoothed the kilt with trembling fingers. They had been in shadow, but she had no way of knowing how long Tricia had been standing there.

Sebastian stared down into the sunken garden with eyes gone as dark as the night. "I'm here, love. What is it?"

Tricia's skirt swept the flagstones as she pranced to him. Her hand curled around his forearm. "Can you come in, dear? The guests are growing bored."

"Of course." His lips brushed her temple, but his gaze passed beyond her to Prudence. "Anything for you."

They walked back to the door, then paused there, bathed in a golden pool of light. Sebastian leaned forward with deliberate grace and planted a tender kiss on Tricia's lips. Prudence's hands tightened on the balustrade. As they started into the ballroom, Tricia looked back, acknowledging her niece's presence on the terrace for the first time. Prudence wondered if it was triumph or suspicion sparkling in her aunt's eyes.

She tucked the pistol in her sash and trailed after them, knowing she could ill afford to burst into sobs as she longed to do. She caught her lower lip between her teeth. Her mouth felt bruised and swollen. She prayed the signs of Sebastian's passionate lovemaking were not as obvious to others as they felt to her.

She slipped through the crowd and out of the ballroom, her head pounding in earnest. The carved gilt doors closed behind her, dulling the music to a low pulse.

The steady throb in her skull sharpened to piercing pain as Jamie popped out from a curtained alcove, wielding his arrow like a demonic cherub. "Congratulations, girl. Well done indeed. I'd say ye got his attention."

She kept walking. "I certainly did. He despises me."

Jamie's face fell, then he brightened. "Don't take it to heart, lass. Me mum and da hated each other fer years. And look how dandy I turned out." She continued on toward the stairs, and he called after her, "There's a man outside in a fancy coach askin' after the daughter of Livingston Walker. Might that be ye?"

Prudence stopped. Her shoulders slumped. Not now, she thought. Not tonight. Her pride was in tatters. She couldn't bear to discuss silver compounds and saltpeter with some rabid inventor. At the moment, she didn't care if they all blew themselves up, the mysterious French viscount along with them.

She turned back to Jamie and straightened her shoulders. "Tell him I'm not here. Tell him I emigrated to Pomerania. Tell him I died."

Jamie scratched his head with the arrow. "Ye want me to make him go away?"

"Yes, Jamie," she said with weary patience. "As far away as possible."

She missed his gleeful grin as he notched the arrow in his bow and bounded out the door.

Prudence pulled off the mask as she climbed the stairs. She rubbed the scrap of silk against her cheek, hearing again Sebastian's husky whisper of warning.

Don't start the music, Prudence, unless you're willing to dance .

The music from the ballroom floated up the steps, the haunting melody of a song begun too late. As Prudence crumpled the silk in her fist, her delicate features hardened into a mask of their own.

Sebastian stood in the darkness at the library window, listening to the muted spray of gravel as the last of the revelers' coaches departed Lindentree. His nostrils twitched as he drank in the rich, fallow aroma of the meadow beyond the window. Like an animal scenting freedom, he longed to step through the open window, to escape the man he had been, the man he would become. But there was no escaping the man he was; Brendan Kerr's blood coursed through his veins like poison. He closed his eyes against the mocking wink of the fireflies, feeling again the frantic tattoo of Prudence's fists against his chest.

He had only meant to teach her a lesson, to show her he was no affable Arlo Tugbert to dally with. What would be the harm of a stolen kiss? What cost a few lazy caresses? But the cost had been higher than he had anticipated.

His eyes flew open. He dug his fingers into the window casement, remembering the warmth of her silly, wistful smile, the loving caress of her hands against his throat. The painful honesty of her love had unleashed a wild tide of desire in him, a spiraling agony of want that bordered on madness.

He had frightened her. When he had looked at her and found her pupils dilated with fear, her hands shoving him away, he had felt himself receding, curling into that quiet, still place where he had once gone to escape his father's shattering bellow, and the repeated thud of fists against his mother's flesh.

Let me go , Prudence had pleaded. Sebastian shook his head to rid it of the haunting echo.

His father had not let his mother go. He had not let her go when she shoved him away, not when she begged, and not when she screamed. It was only when she stepped up to the window of Dunkirk's tower, her body thick with their second child, that Brendan Kerr had been forced to let her go. He had tried to hold on, had hurled himself across the tower, grabbing frantically for her skirts. But the child in her belly had given her courage. She'd spread her arms and stepped into the sun, disappearing forever into the heathered abyss below Dunkirk.

Sebastian could still see the peace on her face in that moment, as the sun slanted across her golden hair. He had hugged his knees in the corner of the tower, tears coursing down his cheeks, and hated his mother for flying to freedom and leaving him behind.

Sebastian groaned and ruffled his hair. He could ill afford to probe old wounds. He had more pressing concerns, such as why D'Artan had returned early from London.

He couldn't believe the crafty old man had dared come to Lindentree. Now that he had learned of Sebastian's plan to marry, they both knew their next rendezvous would be their last. D'Artan might sulk for a while, but Sebastian prayed his appointment to the House would absorb most of the blow. D'Artan would have his own pension, his own entrance into London society. He wouldn't need his grandson anymore—not for money and not for secrets. He could work on liberating France and blowing up England all by himself.

Sebastian hoped their parting could be an amicable one. He suspected D'Artan was fond of him in his own stilted way.

Sebastian's only concern now was Prudence. His jaw tightened as he remembered the predatory look on his grandfather's face when he had seen her. The old man knew she was the girl in the crofter's hut. Sebastian reminded himself that, in two days' time, he would be powerful enough to protect her. As the penniless niece of a scatterbrained countess, she was vulnerable to D'Artan's machinations. But when he was master of Lindentree, he would ensure a disappearance or untimely accident involving his niece would not go unnoticed by the King.

Sighing, Sebastian latched the window. The knowledge that he would be able to protect Prudence did not give him the peace he sought. He climbed the stairs with a heavy tread. Since he had come to Lindentree his sleep had been mercifully free of nightmares, but he feared tonight might be different. Pausing outside Prudence's chamber, he touched the burnished oak door, as if he might somehow reach through the cool wood to the gentle warmth of her embrace.

Would he ever trust himself not to push open her door, lay his mouth across hers to muffle her protests, and bury himself in her tender, young body? His hand clenched into a fist and he hastened down the darkened corridor.

As he rounded the corner into the blessed privacy of the west wing, he saw that his door was cracked open. The soft glow from a single candle fluttered in the corridor. He cursed under his breath, in no mood to fend off Tricia's cloying advances.

He pushed open the door, and his jaw dropped at the sight before him. It was not Tricia, but Prudence who sat in his chair.

She hefted the crystal decanter braced between her legs. "Good evening, Mr. Dreadful. Would you care for a spot of brandy?"