candlestick remained on the side table; Madeline picked it up and sighed. “Dalziel’s going to be disappointed, isn’t he?”
Gervase steered her to the right. “I fear so. If they’d caught our villain, word would have reached here before us. I don’t know how he got off that beach…perhaps he didn’t, not safely.”
Madeline studied his face in the flickering candlelight. “But you don’t believe that.”
His lips quirked self-deprecatingly. He met her gaze. “It’s the logical, most likely explanation, yet…no. I think he managed to slip past us somehow. He’s made a career of that-of slipping through Dalziel’s nets.”
“I can imagine that goes down well.”
He grunted. “Indeed.”
They strolled slowly along, then he said, “You called Dalziel fixated, and to some extent he is, but just like the rest of us, now the war is over he must have a life waiting for him, one he has to return to.”
“You think after this he’ll give up-resign?”
“Christian said some weeks ago that he thought Dalziel was ‘tidying up.’ This villain-our last traitor-is almost certainly the last item on Dalziel’s list. If after everything else is settled that item remains unresolved, then yes, I think Dalziel will lay the list aside, walk away and get on with his life.”
She considered, then murmured, “For one of his ilk, that will require considerable resolution.”
He nodded. “Now you’ve met him, do you think he hasn’t it in him to close the door and leave the past behind?”
She thought, then conceded, “No, but it won’t be easy.”
Gervase guided her toward the door at the end of the wing. “Agreed, but ultimately he’ll have little choice. He’s not a career soldier, like all of us were. He doesn’t hold any commission. He was never in the Guards or any other regiment. Quite how he got to where he is, how he came to fill the position, we’ve never learned. But when he leaves it, he’ll leave Whitehall altogether-he’ll leave it all behind.”
“As you all did-but it’s followed you, hasn’t it?”
He grimaced. “True, but when Dalziel walks away, I suspect that truly will be the end.” He paused before the door, captured her gaze. “We’ve come close to this villain twice. The instant Dalziel appears, or as in the previous case, was about to appear, our villain drops everything, kills anyone who knows his identity, and vanishes. That’s why I think he escaped us on the beach-because he saw Dalziel and did something so desperate none of us can even guess what. You saw him, one of the smugglers saw him. He was there-but then he saw Dalziel, and he wasn’t there any longer.”
“I imagine most villains would run from Dalziel. Whoever he is.”
Gervase nodded. “That’s why I think we won’t see him again, and why it’s unlikely Dalziel will get another chance to lay hands on him. He was here, in the district, to pick up his thirty pieces of silver, but by their nature and by his leaving them so long in France it’s clear he doesn’t need the money. Now he knows Dalziel knows of his lost cargo, he won’t risk coming back to get it. No matter the attraction, it’s no longer worth the risk. And that-taking possession of his thirty pieces of silver-was the last act in our villain’s game. The war’s over-there are no more moves to be made.”
She frowned. “So Dalziel himself represents some special threat to this villain?”
He opened the door. “For whatever reason, for this man, Dalziel himself is the ultimate risk-the ultimate threat.”
He ushered her into the room, closed the door, watched as, pensive, she walked to a chest of drawers and set the candlestick upon it. Stirring, he followed her. She turned as he reached her. Raising both hands, he framed her face, looked into her lovely eyes. “But now that’s over for us, for all those here. The danger’s passed-Ben’s safe, Edmond’s safe…” He held her gaze. “Above all, you’re safe.”
She looked into his eyes, her own clear and unshielded, then she smiled, closed her hands in his jacket and tugged him nearer. “And you.”
He lowered his head and kissed her-she lifted her face and kissed him back, generous, welcoming, infinitely giving.
Releasing her face, he reached for her, closed his arms around her and drew her flush against him. Angled his head, deepened the kiss.
And gave them both what they wanted.
Simply let loose the pent-up passion, the inevitable reaction to those fraught moments on the beach. Suppressed until now, passion became desire, and desire transmuted to need; it swirled up and through him, and flowed into her, welling, swelling, seeking release.
His unqualified surrender let her do the same, let her gift him with her passion, her desire and her need, in response, in reply.
For long moments, nothing else mattered but that simple communion, that long-drawn-out kiss, that recognition, that savoring, that elemental understanding.
They needed this. For much the same reasons, they had to have this-this moment, this time, this reassurance.
This knowing. A primitive acknowledgment that they’d both survived, that both were there, whole and unharmed, triumphant and victorious.
That underneath all, regardless of all, each meant the world to the other.
Need welled, burgeoned, filled them.
Their lips parted; they caught their breaths, lips burning, lids lifting, eyes meeting from only inches apart, and suddenly, desperately, they needed it all.
Had to share all they were. Had to seize all, each heated second, each heartbeat, each touch, each burning caress.
Clothes shed, peeled from damp flesh, then let fall unheeded to the floor to scatter and heap as they would. Getting their wet boots off left them both laughing, an insane moment of indescribable relief before their gazes clashed, and hunger, both familiar and different, somehow edged with something finer, keener, some deeper shade of meaning, flared anew.
Took hold and drove them.
Into each other’s arms.
Into heated nakedness where the only thing that mattered was to feel hot skin against skin, to grasp and caress, to touch, to worship-to possess.
To want.
Beyond words, beyond description.
Gasping, nearly blind, they tumbled onto clean sheets, onto a thick mattress that cushioned and cradled, amid pillows that tumbled around them.
She spread her thighs, clasped his flanks; he rose over her, reached between them and cupped, caressed, and she cried out.
Shifting, he bent his head, captured her lips, took her mouth, then with one powerful thrust joined with her.
Whirled them into the familiar dance.
Familiar, yet different.
Acceptance, a knowing; closeness, a giving. The moments spun out, spiraled, stretched.
Together they strove, together they gloried.
They reached the familiar peak and clung…until ecstasy shattered them, fractured them, fused them-left them floating, drifting as one, exquisite satiation flowing through their veins, the slowing thunder of their pulses a soothing rhythm in their ears.
With love, simple and pure, a shining magnificence filling both their hearts.
Dawn broke; about them, the castle awoke. Slumped amid the tangled covers of his bed, they slept on.
The sun was slanting in through the windows when Gervase awoke.
Even before he opened his eyes, even before his mind engaged, he knew. At some primal level he recognized, not just the warm body lying half over him, her breast pressed to his chest, his arm cradling her, her long legs tangled with his, but what had changed.
What had lent their familiar landscape that gilded edge.
