and the haven of each other’s arms.
They lay there, tangled, unable to move, unwilling to part, even just an inch. Hearts thundering, skin damp, breathing labored, they clung and quietly, carefully, held tight.
The moment was too precious, too new, too revealing to risk shifting and ending it just yet.
Yet time ticked on and the night closed around them. Muscles relaxed; satiation slipped in and soothed them, reassured them. Eventually she sighed, and he reached down and drew the covers up and over them both, tucking her against his side-where she now slept, where she now belonged.
Where he needed her to be from now on.
One arm bent behind his head, he stared at the ceiling, the other arm holding her close. After a moment of comfortable silence, he ventured, “So…does that mean: Yes, you’ll marry me?”
He felt her lips curve against his chest. “Perhaps. My answer is still perhaps.”
He didn’t want to ask, but…“Why perhaps?”
“Because…I want something more.”
He didn’t ask what more she wanted-he knew.
Men-especially men like him…
Even now he had to quell a shudder at the thought of letting those words pass his lips. It was bad enough that he knew they were real. That his inner self, his heart-it seemed his very soul-had already accepted that reality.
Yet all he’d ever need to make him shy from saying those words was to remember how he’d felt earlier that day. When he’d heard she’d been taken, he’d felt…eviscerated. As if someone had reached into his chest and stolen his heart-literally. He’d felt empty there, hollow, as if he’d lost something so vital he’d never know warmth or happiness again.
The feeling had been profound, absolute, unshakable.
If anything could make him wary of love-of admitting it out aloud-it was that. He’d barely been able to function as he’d needed to, to take command as he’d had to, to get her back.
He’d been a soldier all his adult life. Never before had he felt vulnerable. Today, instead of the habitual invincibility essential to all good commanders, that sense of being protected by impenetrable armor even though one knew that wasn’t true, he’d felt…as if someone had carved a hole in his armor directly over his heart.
That vulnerable feeling hadn’t left him, not until he’d had her in his arms, not until he’d known that all danger to her had passed.
Even then…
She’d fallen asleep. He listened to the rhythm of her breathing, marveled at how soothing he found it. How reassuring the soft sound was, how he recognized it, knew it, at some level he couldn’t explain.
He was on the cusp of sleep himself when a stray truth wafted through his mind.
Today, she had been first and foremost in his thoughts-he hadn’t thought of the scroll holder and its safety. Hadn’t really thought of his mission per se.
For days-weeks-she’d been highest in his mind. She, her safety, and even more, her happiness.
He was a man of duty-he lived by that code, and always had.
Yet he put her above his duty-to his comrades, to his country, to his king. And he always would.
And that, he thought, as sleep dragged him down, said it all.
“We must strike tomorrow-we will get no other chance.” Akbar sat amid the ruins of the kitchen of the old mansion and looked at his second, then at the other two cultists who had been watching the road and had escaped with them.
“What about Uncle?” one of the pair asked. “Surely we should free him?”
“It was Uncle who led us to our terrible defeat.” Akbar flung out his arms. “How many comrades have we lost- has
After a moment, he folded his arms and went on, “We should remember that the Black Cobra demands absolute obedience-and our orders do not include rescuing Uncle. He deserves nothing but our master’s punishment, but that is not for us to deliver, not tomorrow-not while the major is still on this side of the water, yet to board his ship.”
His second nodded. “Our orders are clear. They always have been.”
Akbar nodded. “We must stop the major and retrieve the scroll holder he carries, whatever the cost.”
The other two nodded. “You are right. So how will we do this?”
They discussed, and discussed, until the truth became clear.
“We cannot do both,” his second stated. “We can stop the major, or get the scroll holder, but with only four of us…we cannot do both.”
Akbar hated to choose, but…he nodded. “If we kill the major and his woman, the Black Cobra will be pleased, and those waiting in England will have a better chance of retrieving the scroll holder.”
Seventeen
The sheer numbers of locals ensured no cultist would be likely to get close.
Gareth sent the baggage, then the others in twos and threes ahead. Their route lay straight down the street opposite the auberge, which led to the main quay, then to the left a short way, and out along one of the lesser wharves. Captain Lavalle’s ship was berthed midway along.
The skies were gray, but neither sleet, snow, rain, nor gales threatened. The streets were damp, if not dry, and the breeze was blowing offshore.
At the last, after much touching of cheeks, slapping of backs and shaking of hands, he and Emily took their leave of the Perrots, and emerged from the inn.
Smiling, nodding to those in the crowd they recognized, they walked briskly down the street, onto the quay, and
