Chapter Thirty-One

Thirty-one

T he leather-bound coffer lay on its side like a wounded creature. Shovel marks gouged the hinges and splintered the panels. The crude lock had been shattered as if by one blow of rage. Or one clean pistol shot. Prudence knew if she had any wits left about her, she would turn around and march straight back to England.

Something stopped her, though. Staring up at the tower, she took one step, then another, hypnotized by the paralyzing inevitability of that light. It profaned the darkness, scarred the beauty of the night, burned her hope to ashes. The main door was partly ajar. She slipped through the crack, holding her breath.

The signs of their lovemaking were scattered across the hall—the rumpled blankets, the dying embers on the grate, the flagon overturned in a puddle of ale. Those warm, rosy hours might have been a lifetime ago. Sebastian-cat was draped across the warm stones of the hearth. He lifted his head in drowsy curiosity.

Prudence's gaze traveled upward to the spill of light on the landing. It beckoned her forward, melted the stairs beneath her feet.

She stepped into the light, crumpling the pardon in her hand.

Sebastian sat with his hip propped against the windowsill, his back to her. He swung around as she stepped through the doorway. For an instant, the eerie reflection of another man shaded the planes of his face. Then it was gone, nothing more than a trick of the light.

He held out his hand with a mocking smile. River rock streamed through his fingers, crumbling to dust as it struck the floor. "Our future together, my dear."

Prudence steadied her voice with effort. "A future should be built on more than rocks…or gold."

"Spoken like a true optimist." He stood, wiping off his hands. "It all comes to the same end, doesn't it? As do we."

"Spoken like a true fatalist."

"Or a realist."

The torchlight brushed his tousled hair with gold. He walked toward her with lazy grace, his movements slowed but efficient. The laudanum, she thought. His gray eyes were as piercing as the light.

"That's right, dear," he said, seeming to read her mind. "I fear you miscalculated. Such a minute amount of laudanum only makes me tipsy. When we lived in Paris, my grandfather used to feed me opium as if it were candy."

She quailed before the knowledge of such decadence, such heartless corruption, and kept her eyes lowered, knowing her sympathy would only bait him.

He reached around her and pushed the door shut. "Where have you been, my Prudence? Were you off having tea with your fiancé?" He stood directly in front of her, his breath a whisper of warmth against her temple.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled. "I shouldn't have drugged you. It was wrong."

"Au contraire, ma chérie." His voice was musing, almost gentle. "It was brilliant. Have I ever told you how very much I admire your mind?" His hands twined through her hair, cupping her skull. She closed her eyes against the power restrained in his elegant fingers. "Even when you betrayed me to Tugbert, a tiny part of me stood back and cried, ‘Bravo! What a canny lass she is! What wit! What courage! She sees what must be done and she does it.'"

Her eyes flew open. She tried to twist out of his grasp, but his fingers tightened in her hair. "Stop making sport of me!"

He blinked in childish innocence. "I haven't the wit. You must remember I'm only an ignorant Highlander. I didn't even learn to read or write until I was almost twenty. And I've never learned to spell." He pressed his lips to her hair and whispered, "I find your brilliance exotic…and erotic." His tongue flicked across her ear, scorching her like a live flame. "The gold, Prudence. Where is it? Did you give it to MacKay? Or have you another swain in the wings? Prime Minister Pitt, perhaps? The governor general?"

She stared at his chest, her wit working sluggishly at best with his mouth so sweet against her hair, his thigh flexed so casually between her legs. He might still be harboring the idea that she had hidden the gold to spite him. What would he do to her when he discovered it was lost forever?

"Gold?" she said brightly. "What gold?"

Sebastian did not dignify that with an answer. His lips grazed the fluttering pulse at the hollow of her throat. She could not abide his fraudulent tenderness when she could feel the raw anger boiling through him, the relentless nudge of his knee between her thighs.

She shoved at his chest. "Oh, for God's sake, stop torturing me! I gave your precious gold to the poor children in Jamie's village. I was sick of you using me to further your greedy ambitions. I gave it away and I'm glad I did. I'd do it again if I had the chance."

She faced him, her chin tilted in defiance. Her nose betrayed her with a nervous sniff.

Sebastian went utterly still. A muffled snort escaped him, then another. She stepped forward in alarm, fearful his rage might be choking him. He waved her away as a raw whoop of laughter burst from his throat. He stumbled over to lean against the bedpost, clutching his stomach. Tears streamed down his cheeks.

She backed against the door. Had the laudanum unhinged him? She had read of such things. Perhaps the shock had been too great.

"How rich," he gasped. "How very fitting. All the spoils of years of highway robbery given to the needy. I'd be willing to bet you and MacKay had a good laugh over that one." He swiped a hand over his face. "It seems I'm back where I began. At Dunkirk. With nothing but the clothes on my back."

And me . She longed to say the words aloud. But if he started laughing again, she knew the tears stinging at the back of her eyes would spill over. Her fingers knotted. Paper crinkled. She stared down at her hand, remembering the pardon for the first time.

She crossed the tower and thrust the creamy sheaf against his chest. "Not just the clothes on your back. You have far more than that now. You have your freedom."

The last traces of mirth vanished from his face. He took the paper from her hand and gazed at the royal seal without unfolding it.

"My freedom?" He cocked a mocking eyebrow. "You mean your freedom, don't you, Duchess?"

A cry caught in her throat as he tore the pardon in two. "With the gold gone, I'm worth far more dead than alive. Surely you and your precious Killian have figured that out."

She backed away from him, knowing she did not want to be alone in the tower with this man. She wasn't even sure who he was.

He stalked her, his eyes sparkling. His smile would have shamed an angel. "You owe me thirty thousand pounds, darling."

"You can't be serious."

Her knees trembled with relief as he strode around her to the trunk. He pulled out an ink and quill and carried them to the windowsill. "What's your yearly pension?"

"Ten thousand pounds."

"Mathematics always suited me better than spelling." He scribbled on the back of the pardon, then held it up, grinning cheerfully. "In three years, you'll be free and clear of me. I'm sure MacKay will wait. He's proved to be a very patient man. If he lives that long."

She cocked her head. "You've gone quite insane, haven't you?"

"We musn't forget your other skills—bookkeeping, embroidery, dusting." He arched one eyebrow in a diabolical leer. "There might even be a hastier way of paying me off. Just how much do you think you're worth per night, my dear?"

He jotted down another figure. "So many choices. Should we make this per night or per event? No doubt you'll expect me to pay you back wages." He gave a beleaguered sigh. "I could be generous and throw in a few extra pounds for the first time. Most gentlemen would."

She circled him, her eyes wide, her mouth a circle of shock. She couldn't believe what she was hearing, could not comprehend the sheer audacity of the man. He was only too eager to reduce each tender moment they'd shared to pound notes and cold shillings.

He tucked the quill between his lips. "I'm not sure about this afternoon. Should I pay half for that?" He cast her a provocative look. "Or double?"

Heat flooded her cheeks. Her first instinct was to box his ears so hard he would suck the quill straight down his smug throat. A deeper intuition stopped her. Sebastian was furious. But the madder he got, the more cheerful he got. How many times had he been forced to swallow his anger? How many tantrums had his brutal father denied him in this very room? She might not be a faro player, but she knew how to call a man's bluff. She unclenched her fists and lifted her hands to the buttons of her bodice.

His smile faded. "What are you doing?"

She slipped a button from its loop, her eyebrows lifted in elegant surprise. "Isn't this how it's done in London? Surely a sophisticated man like you has frequented enough bawdy houses to know the routine."

Sebastian's ferocious good cheer vanished, dispelled by desperation and something dangerously near self-loathing. Prudence nudged off her slippers and propped her foot on a stool, hiking up her skirts to reveal one long leg. With graceful languor, she slid her garter down the silky contours of her calf and peeled off her stocking.

"Prudence." His voice was choked.

She bared her other leg without looking at him, then lifted her arms to draw her gown over her head. She wore no petticoat, only a silk chemise worn to transparency by too many washings in rough lye.

"Don't do this," he whispered hoarsely. "This isn't what I want."

Even as he said it, though, he was moving toward her like a spellbound man, beguiled by the dusky pout of her nipples against the silk, the delicate shading at the juncture of her thighs.

Sebastian wanted to weep. He wanted to fall to his knees at her feet and worship her. He wanted to beg her forgiveness for a myriad of sins, some his own, some his father's, some committed by other men over the centuries.

"No," he breathed even as he reached for her.

She stepped back from his touch. "How much am I worth tonight, Sebastian? A hundred pounds? A thousand?" She tossed her hair over her shoulders. His gaze wavered, drawn to the rippling motion. "I'll tell you how much I'm worth tonight—thirty thousand pounds. If you lay so much as one finger, one pretty eyelash on me, we're even. No debts. No regrets."

He gazed at her sideways for a long moment. "No regrets?"

She shook her head, her eyes luminous.

He came for her then, bearing her back against the wall with a guttural growl. Like the starving boy he'd once been, he devoured her with his mouth, his hands. She was the only one with the power to fill him, to nourish him, to take him to the place where the hunger pangs could not follow. Now all he wanted to do was fill her until she cried out with the wonder of it. He felt her thigh angle upward and caught her long, silky leg, wrapping it around his waist.

Prudence was not nearly as composed as she'd pretended to be. She was shaking, trembling with the same fever that possessed him.

He shoved up her chemise, crushing her breasts against his palms. He tore open his shirt and freed his straining arousal from his breeches, desperate to feel every inch of her skin against his own. He cupped one arm around her buttocks, lifting her, opening her. She was hot, so very hot. He remembered the long winters at Dunkirk when he'd thought he would never be warm again—when he couldn't remember what the sun felt like against his skin or how the summer smelled. Prudence's skin was the sun, her delicate scent the fragrance of endless summer.

He buried his face in her hair and drove himself into her. They sprawled against the wall in a tangle of hair, limbs, and pleasure. He took her with long, deep strokes, cradling her to him when she might have slammed against the wall. She clung to him like a child, arms and legs wrapping him in a cocoon of melting delight. He groaned, sliding dangerously near to a place where only his own selfish pleasure existed.

Bracing her weight with his own, he reached between them and gently touched her, marveling anew at the delicacy and grace of her femininity. Her shuddering response came fast and hard. He felt it to the very core of his being, felt his own release coming too quickly on its heels. Panic gripped him.

Prudence tightened her legs at the small of his back and softly moaned his name. It was like touching the trigger on a primed pistol. A rolling thunder of ecstasy shot through his loins and poured into her. He lowered his face to her throat, biting back tears, knowing he would have to let her go before she discovered just how low he would sink to make her stay.

Prudence awoke sprawled on her stomach in a tangle of blankets. She opened her eyes, then closed them again, content to nestle deeper into the heather pillow. Her hands balled into fists as she stretched. Sebastian-cat was curled at her feet. The bed beside her was cool and empty. She slid her hand over the faint indentation where Sebastian had slept, assuring herself it hadn't been a dream.

"Slept" was too generous a word. No one could accuse Sebastian Kerr of not getting his money's worth. She sat up, delighting in the faint throb of her muscles, the odd twinges in the nether regions of her body.

The door swung open. She hugged the blanket over her knees, fighting a sudden wave of shyness.

A wicker basket was draped over Sebastian's arm. She recognized it as the one she used to gather eggs. As he gave the bed the barest of glances, her heart faltered a beat.

She watched, perplexed, as he folded his only other shirt and tucked it inside the basket. "Sebastian-cat should be comfortable traveling in here," he said without looking at her. "You musn't risk him running away again. The wee fellow's luck might not hold this time."

She stared at the dusty spot where her trunk had sat only last night. A clean gown and her redingote were folded neatly over the stool. Suddenly she understood the fierce desperation of Sebastian's lovemaking, the agonized hunger of his touch. He intended never to touch her again. Never.

"I won't go."

He went on as if she hadn't spoken. "You can take the wagon to MacKay's. I'll send Jamie for it tomorrow. I've written this statement swearing our marriage was invalid and agreeing to a dissolution." He slipped the paper in the pocket of her redingote, ducking his head. "I wasn't sure if dissolution had two l' s or one."

"One," she whispered.

He reached for the cat, obviously intending to tuck him into the basket, but she snatched the puzzled animal to her breast and glared at Sebastian. "Is that what you're going to do to me? Fold me up and tuck me away?"

He ran a hand through his hair, finally meeting her gaze. His eyes were filled with such despair and quiet determination, she wished he hadn't. Sebastian-cat squirmed. His claws raked her arm, but she didn't feel it. Sebastian reached over and gently took him from her.

He set the cat in the basket. His hands stroked the animal's soft fur as he spoke, each word as precise and deliberate as a blade. "MacKay kept his word. I shall keep mine. I haven't much else, but I've still got my word. I want you to go back to England where you belong. Forget about me. I don't need you in my life. I don't want you in my life." Ignoring Sebastian-cat's piteous mew, he closed the lid and reached for the latch.

"You don't love me?"

Sebastian's hands faltered. How many times, he wondered, had this brave, sweet woman choked back that very question when faced with her father's absentminded fondness or Tricia's halfhearted affections? He hadn't the eloquence to make her understand how glorious and terrible love was. Brendan Kerr had loved his mother. He had abducted her for revenge, but had kept her for his own dark obsession. Sebastian still remembered his father's desperate pleas as he had begged the proud, broken girl for some scrap of love in return. It was the one thing she had the power to withhold from him. So he had used his fists to try to beat the words out of her.

Sebastian latched the basket, plastering on his most rakish smile. "No. I don't love you."

Prudence's face went white.

He shrugged. "I found your innocence intriguing. Had I married Tricia, you would have made a convenient mistress. I wouldn't have had to leave the house to seek my pleasures. And I've certainly found you a quite pleasant diversion in the past week. I'm sure you understand. Entertainments are scarce in this part of the country." He dragged a chair in front of the window and sat down, his back to her, desperate to escape her stricken gaze.

"You're lying," she said. "To me and to yourself. What are you so afraid of, Sebastian Kerr? Why are you hiding behind—"

"Don't." He cut her off coldly. "We made a bargain last night. No debts. No regrets. You swore."

He could hear her behind him, dressing with quick, angry movements. The basket creaked as she paused in the doorway. He felt her stillness and knew it was the last time she would ever swallow her pride for him.

"Did you ever think of making a real life together?" she asked, her voice husky. "A roaring fire? Babes playing around the hearth?"

"No," he lied. "Never."

When he turned around, the doorway was empty. Prudence was gone.

Sebastian propped his boots on the windowsill as the misty shadows of twilight painted the tower dark. He had left the chair only once during the day. A loaded pistol sat at his feet. He would have need of it when D'Artan's men discovered he had let Prudence go. He did not stir to light the torches, though the fire had dwindled to embers. A cool wind drifted through the window, caressing his face with mocking fingers. There was no need to close the window now. He had nothing left to fear from it. Neither the wind nor the heathered abyss beneath the window was his enemy. All he had to fear now was the silence.

He remembered the sunny day he had buried his father. The silence had been a chiming gift then, the cessation of cannon fire after a long and bloody war.

He stared into the gathering darkness. It was as if Prudence had taken all the sounds of the castle with her, leaving him deaf as well as blind. There was no bright tap of her slippers on the stairs, no whisky-soft ripple of laughter, no purring rumble from Sebastian-cat. He had sent her away, leaving himself to grope through the barren halls of Dunkirk without even the charred stench of her black buns to guide him.

Men don't cry .

An ugly bellow, a bright flash of pain, and a warm spurt of blood from his chin. Even at the age of five, Sebastian had known it to be a lie. He had come upon his father in the twilight that same day, kneeling in the fresh dirt of his mother's grave, his burly shoulders hunched, his florid face twisted with grief. Men don't cry .

Downstairs, a door crashed open. A jarring bump was followed by an emphatic curse.

Sebastian closed his eyes. Not now, Jamie. Please, dear God, not now . Jamie's grumbling cheerfulness might well be his undoing, like rubbing salt in the wound of a dying man.

Sebastian's prayer went unanswered.

Jamie thumped up the stairs, mumbling to himself. "Doesn't anyone know it's the bloody eighteenth century? You'd think we was livin' in the Dark Ages. Hasn't anyone in this dungeon ever heard of oil lamps? Candles? A man could get hisself killed…" His voice rose to a nasal whinny. "Sebastian? If ye've got Pru's clothes off, you'd best get 'em on 'cause I'm comin' up."

Sebastian buried his forehead in his hand, groaning. Why couldn't God be merciful and just let Jamie shoot him?

Jamie stumbled into the tower, throwing down a fat parcel in a rustling heap. "Christ's blood! I suppose ye were waitin' for me to come back and stoke the fire. Bloody slave, ye think I am." He stomped around, feeding the fire and lighting torches.

Sebastian flinched at the sudden blaze of light.

"Where's Pru?" Jamie's brow furrowed in alarm. "If ye've let her in the kitchen again, I'm marchin' straight back to the village."

Sebastian stood and opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He could not face the questions, the accusations, the recriminations he knew he would read on Jamie's face. He closed his mouth. How odd, he thought. For the first time in his life, he had been struck dumb. Had Prudence left him nothing?

"What is it?" Jamie asked. "Sebastian-cat got yer tongue?" He scooped up the parcel. "My seamstress lady friend said I was to deliver this to ye. I can't imagine why. Changin' clothes every day is a vain and sinful habit. Me mum always said so."

He tossed the parcel at him. Sebastian lifted his hands too late, and the package hit his chest. The fragile tissue split, spilling out yard upon yard of soft wool in alternating squares of green and black—the Kerr plaid in all of its brilliance and splendor. Sebastian stared numbly at the sea of tartan.

The edge of an ivory-colored card peeped out of the fleecy mound. He knelt, holding the card up to the light.

It was inscribed in a delicate script: Sebastian Kerr, Laird of Dunkirk, Always. Your Loving Prudence .

Jamie squinted over his shoulder. "What's it say? Ye know I don't read so good."

Sebastian rested his elbow on his knee, his eyes distant. "It says I'm a fool, Jamie. A complete and utter fool."