Chapter Twenty

Twenty

T he pouch fell flat against Sebastian's palm. A chill swept over him. His gaze met Prudence's and held. She looked as if he had thrust a knife through her heart.

D'Artan rushed on. "Think of it. We would have both her silence and her cooperation. I could smuggle the two of you to Paris tonight. By day, she could be your devoted little wife. But by night, oh, by night…" His eyes rolled in twisted ecstasy. "You could take your revenge, not once, but each and every time the urge struck you."

Although the cold should have made it impossible, Sebastian's groin tightened. A succession of images flashed in his brain, as cold and mercilessly erotic as a Caracci engraving. But drawn over them with the delicate brushstrokes of a master were other images: Prudence squatting in the mud with his pistol, grinning like an imp; Prudence brushing the rain from his lashes; Prudence thrusting the gold spectacles at him, her eyes amethyst fire in the candlelight.

What did he read in her eyes now? Regret? Longing? Fear? He reached for her. His hand dug into her forearm, callused fingers snagging on the sheer fabric of her wrapper. Despair brushed him with cold wings. Like a confection of silk and cream, she symbolized everything he could never have. The man he could never be. Was this how his father had felt when faced with the ethereal temptation of his mother's beauty? Did he feel compelled to crush what he could never truly possess?

Without warning, tears spilled down Prudence's cheeks. He wanted to catch them on his tongue, to mingle them with the whisky-scented heat of his own mouth.

He groaned deep in his throat, shaking her roughly. "Damn you, lass. Save your tears for Tugbert or your other fancy beaux. They'll not work on me."

Yet even as he spoke, he pulled her into a fierce embrace, holding her face against his shoulder so she couldn't see his expression. He rocked her gently, pressing his mouth to the fragrant softness of her hair, remembering all the cold, lonely nights when he had hungered to hold her against him or hear the husky ripple of her laughter. This wasn't some brittle society belle or even the heartless bitch he wanted to believe she was. It was Prudence. She trembled, but she did not beg. Within him still lay the grudging admiration he had sheltered like a live coal in his heart. His stubborn, silly, brave Prudence.

Prudence couldn't remember the last time she had cried. But when she gazed into Sebastian's shadowed eyes, all the feelings she had fought to bury rose in a torrent, choking her with tears—her shame and sense of failure at her own betrayal, the need to make him understand how deeply he had hurt her by choosing Tricia's wealth over her love, the hollow emptiness of her life without him. But words abandoned her, and all she could do was snuffle like a child.

Sebastian tilted her tear-streaked face to his. Her eyes had gone misty, like fog-shrouded stars. Forgetting his grandfather, forgetting everything, he touched his lips to hers. Their mouths melded, their tongues entwining with an eloquence beyond words.

"Go on," D'Artan whispered, his voice demon-soft. "Take her back into the room. I can't blame you for wanting a taste before you buy. I'll stand guard. If she changes her mind about screaming, you can use this."

Sebastian slowly lifted his head to find D'Artan's handkerchief fluttering from the old man's fingers. Prudence stiffened in his embrace, but instead of stepping out of his arms, she pressed herself closer to him, her breasts warm and soft against the rigid muscles of his chest.

He searched her upturned face. A muscle twitched in his jaw. How dare she look at him with such trusting eyes? Didn't she know what kind of man he had become? What would she do if he dragged her toward the door? Would she scream? Struggle? And if she did neither, but let him work any dark wickedness he desired on her sweet young body, would he ever be able to live with himself again?

He pushed her away as if she'd scorched him, steeling himself with yet another image—Prudence walking away into a beautiful summer morning, leaving him in the stench and confinement of Tugbert's jail.

He turned on his grandfather, his expression as dangerous as a smoking pistol. D'Artan backed away without realizing it.

The old man had baited his trap with diabolical care, Sebastian mused. He weighed the pouch of gold in one hand, calculating how many hot scones it would buy. His stomach knotted at the thought.

He threw the pouch, refusing to look at Prudence. It struck D'Artan squarely in the chest. "If you're so bloody fond of her, why don't you take her to Paris? The two of you would make a charming pair."

Prudence sucked in a choked breath. As Sebastian strode away from them, her quiet words echoed down the narrow alley after him. "You've underplayed your hand, Viscount. Sebastian's affections don't come cheap."

Sebastian stopped, on the dangerous verge of striding back, pushing her into her room, and showing her until dawn just what his affections would cost her. D'Artan's henchmen rustled in the hedges. He started walking again, waiting for a pistol ball to smash between his shoulder blades. But from behind him came only the whisper of the falling snow.

As Sebastian disappeared into the snow-swept night, Prudence hugged herself. Her body was throbbing to miserable life. The wet wrapper clung to her thighs. She stared down at her numb feet as if they belonged to someone else.

D'Artan touched his finger to his lips. "Quiet, my dear, You mustn't awaken your aunt. I shouldn't want her to discover the extent of her fiancé's…shall we say…indiscretions. I should hate to see him hang for them."

Prudence fumbled behind her for the icy door handle. The cold burned her throat. "As much as you'd hate to hang for your own indiscretions , I'm sure."

"I'm delighted we understand each other." He bowed with flawless grace. "Sleep well, Your Grace."

He ambled off into the night as if he'd simply chosen the garden for a midnight stroll. Three dark shapes melted after him. Prudence shivered against the door, her only warmth the tingle of her skin where Sebastian had touched her.

Prudence stepped out of the bookshop and tucked her hands deep into her muff. Her reticule dangled against her hip. The cold wind whipped roses into her cheeks, but she was soon warmed by brisk exertion as her kid boots crunched the snow in long restless strides.

Free at last in the sprawling streets of Old Edinburgh! She and Laird MacKay had snuck out like children while Tricia napped, escaping both Tricia's herd of maids and D'Artan's dour shadow. Another moment trapped in the sticky fibers of the viscount's web, and Prudence believed she might have run screaming from the Campbells' town house.

The past week had been sheer misery. When she had pleaded a headache to avoid working in his laboratory, D'Artan had haunted her like a solicitous ghost. He had fetched her shawl when the parlor was chilly, dipped his finger in her tea to check its warmth, gifted her with a rare edition of Diderot's Encyclopedia and a foil-wrapped box of chocolates. She had accepted his tender graces, her teeth gritted behind her smile. Tricia and Lady Campbell had exchanged amused glances, never noticing that Prudence fed the chocolates to Boris and poured the tea into the drooping bay tree behind the settee. She had just traded the priceless Encyclopedia bound in Moroccan leather for a lurid novella only Devony could enjoy.

She gave a little hop to avoid two small boys chasing a careening ball from an alley. As she walked on to where she'd agreed to meet MacKay, she fought to keep from searching every face she saw for a trace of Sebastian. She lost. The pain of his abandonment cut a raw swath through her. Each time she lifted her eyes, she saw him turning his back on her, walking into the night, leaving her to D'Artan's grim machinations. But who was she to blame him? Hadn't she turned her back on him as well? The tenderness of his kiss on the snowy terrace haunted her dreams until she awoke shivering and crying, her night rail tangled around her legs.

She passed a withered old woman who hawked her steaming chestnuts in singsong rhythm. Warm laughter burst from a coffee room. The scent of roasting chocolate beans drifted to her nose. By fading daylight, the shopkeepers lit candles in windows that sparkled like walls of glass. She wistfully remembered a winter eve in London when she and her papa had walked hand in hand down Fleet Street, admiring the shining displays of goods they could not afford and were content without. Life had been much simpler then.

A passing lamplighter wrapped in a woolen muffler gave her a brisk nod. She hastened on. Darkness was closing in. From behind her, she heard the crunch of stealthy footfalls. She glanced back and saw the lamplighter, a sooty shadow against the deepening darkness.

She rounded a corner, relieved to see the sturdy figure of Laird MacKay standing in the halo of a street lamp. A rush of affection brightened her spirits. The rugged Highlander had been her salvation in the past week. He had called at the Campbell mansion faithfully each day, displacing the glowering viscount from her side. Prudence knew now why both D'Artan and Sebastian despised him. He had lost D'Artan's precious daughter and Sebastian's mother to Brendan Kerr. But since the night of the robbery, the canny laird had made no further mention of a man named Sebastian, although Prudence often glanced up to find his gaze locked on her in smoky appraisal.

MacKay did not hear her approach. He was staring at a scrap of paper tacked on the lamppost. She slipped up beside him.

Her heart lurched as she saw what had captivated him.

Someone had finally captured the Dreadful Scot Bandit Kirkpatrick—an artist of consummate skill. The mask still veiled the upper portion of his face, but the slanted curve of his jaw, the teasing brackets around his mouth, and the broad planes of his throat were all Sebastian.

Prudence reached out as if hypnotized and touched a fingertip to the sulky line of his mouth. MacKay drew in a breath, and she knew she had betrayed herself.

She snatched the notice from the post and shoved it into her reticule. "Silly authorities. They shouldn't clutter up such a lovely city with this refuse."

MacKay caught her wrist in a grip that was anything but infirm. "Have you seen him? Do you know where he is?"

She jerked away, refusing to meet his eyes. "I haven't the faintest idea who you're talking about."

A ripple of cream on the next post caught her eye. She started for it. MacKay fumbled at his sporran, and the rustle of paper froze her in her tracks.

She turned. MacKay stood with arm outstretched, a handful of bills crumpled in his fist. The wind caught one and sent it fluttering down the street.

His eyes were beseeching. "You can destroy that one if you want. But they're putting them up faster than I can tear them down. Somebody's turned traitor on him, lass, and I'd be willing to bet it's that wretched grandfather of his."

Prudence looked up and down the long street, and realized with despair that every post sported one of the uncanny likenesses.

Her voice rose on a note of hysteria. "Why should you want to help him? I know who you are. You kicked him out of Dunkirk before his father's body was even cold."

MacKay crossed the distance between them in two strides. His nostrils flared. "Tis a lie. When I took Dunkirk, the boy had fled and Brendan Kerr's black soul was already roasting in hell." He passed a hand over his eyes as if he could somehow erase the pain etched on his features. "I used to see the wee lad, poaching my land, skulking in the brush like a wild creature. But I could never get close to him. Do you know what it was like to see his mother's eyes peering out of that dirty, bruised face?"

"Yet you took his precious Dunkirk away from him."

MacKay's shoulders slumped. "I wouldn't have run the lad off when Kerr died. I'd have let him stay on. I'd have taken care of him. Fed him, clothed him, sent him to school. But he never gave me a chance to tell him that. He wanted nothing from me. Why, I couldn't even catch him!"

He bowed his head. There was something about this man, some indefinable kindness Prudence had sensed from the first moment they had met. It was almost as if they'd known each other before.

She gently touched his sleeve. Hope sparkled in her eyes. "Don't despair, Laird MacKay. Perhaps if we both try very hard, we can catch him together."

His gaze softened as he brushed a tear from her cheek with wizened fingers. "If he can resist you, lass, the lad's a bigger fool than his father."

He opened his arms to her. Prudence was so weary of secrets, and MacKay's shoulders, like her papa's, seemed strong enough to bear even the worst of them. As she lay her cheek against the scratchy softness of his plaid, the lamplighter tore a handbill off a post and melted back into the darkness, his broad shoulders braced against the bitter cold.

Tricia reclined like a queen among her feather pillows. As Prudence approached the bed, her aunt clawed through a gold-foil box and popped a chocolate in her mouth. Prudence wiped her palms on her skirt, wondering what occasion could have been so dire that her aunt would rise before noon.

Gauzy winter light sifted through the drapes, stoking to life the lush shades of a Gainsborough on the far wall. Pieces of correspondence were scattered across Tricia's satin counterpane.

"Good morning, dear. I trust you slept well." Tricia licked chocolate from her lips like a lazy cat.

Prudence hoped her spectacles hid her swollen eyes. "Like a babe," she lied.

"You retired rather late last night."

Prudence's wariness subsided. She was only to be scolded for her tardiness after all. "Laird MacKay took me to a coffeehouse. We began talking and lost track of the time."

Tricia arched an immaculately drawn eyebrow. "A bit scandalous for you to entertain a strange man in a public coffeehouse, don't you think?"

Prudence squelched an uncharitable thought about all the strange men Tricia had entertained in her bedchamber. "I'd say not. We are nearing the turn of the century, after all. Laird MacKay is both a pleasant companion and a gentleman."

"He must find you a pleasant companion as well." Smiling enigmatically, Tricia smoothed a creased scrap of paper on her knee. "I felt you should know, I have received two offers of marriage this morning."

Prudence's own smile was wan. "Two proposals before breakfast? Even for you, that's quite a coup."

"I have decided to accept one of them."

Prudence's smile faded. She had been waiting for this moment since Sebastian first disappeared. Tricia was ready to marry again and rid her household of her spinster niece. That was all right, Prudence assured herself. She would survive. She could afford a small house now, a few servants, books of her own. She would find contentment in living alone. And Laird MacKay had brought a daring and long-forgotten element back into her life—hope for the future. He was a wealthy man with an army of men at his disposal. With his help, perhaps she could find Sebastian and somehow make amends.

Tricia's words startled her back into the present. "I'd barely had time to peruse the first offer when your rugged laird came bursting in with such an ardent plea that I couldn't deny him an audience."

Prudence frowned. Laird MacKay had made no mention of such intentions the previous night. She hadn't even noticed him courting Tricia. "He seems a fine man," she said weakly. "It would be easy to grow quite fond of him."

"I'm relieved you feel that way. You see, Prudence, the proposals were not for my hand. They were for yours. And as your guardian, I feel it is long past time for you to wed. I will no longer tolerate your wavering. I insist you make a decision. Before the end of the week."

Prudence stared at her aunt, her mind stumbling over the question she was afraid to ask. "If Laird MacKay made the second offer, who made the first?"

Tricia blinked in wide-eyed innocence. "Haven't you guessed?" When Prudence mutely shook her head, Tricia popped another chocolate in her mouth. "Why, darling, the Viscount D'Artan, of course!"