What Angels Fear

Chapter 46

Kat closed her eyes, and smiled. The years of artifice and practiced calculation, of determinedly holding herself aloof, had slowly obliterated the memories. She’d forgotten what it could be like, forgotten the warm, inner glow of joy that could come from palms sliding over beloved, sweat-slicked skin. Forgotten, too, the stomach-clenching thrill of seeing familiar dark shoulders rise above her, the breath-catching delight of strong fingers capturing her hand to hold her a willing prisoner while soft lips went aroving. She’d forgotten that beyond mere physical sensation and release, far beyond it, lay rapture and a union so spiritual in essence as to reach the sublime.

The night around them lay quiet and dark, filled only with the ragged twining of their breath and the crackle of the fire on Kat’s bedroom hearth. Hands trembling, she clutched Sebastian’s tensing body to her, her legs tightening around his waist as she felt the shudders start to rip through him, heard him say her name in a tortured cry, felt his body pulsing so deep within her own.

Afterward, he smoothed her hair from the dampness of her forehead, nestled her into the curve of his arm as he eased himself down beside her and kissed her softly below her ear. His smile was tender in the night. But already his eyelids were fluttering closed. She felt the strain and worries of the long day drain out of him, felt his arms go limp around her, and knew he slept.

Sometimes, she’d learned, he had nightmares, memories of the war that could jerk him awake wide-eyed and sweating. But for now his sleep was undisturbed. Lying quietly beside him, she listened to him breathe, watched the play of firelight over the strong bones of his face. But when the emotions surging within her threatened to become overwhelming, she slipped away from him carefully so as not to wake him. Catching up a cashmere shawl from the back of a nearby chair, she went to stand looking out over the mist-shrouded parterres of the garden below.

She had never stopped loving him. She supposed that in some secret, unacknowledged corner of her heart she’d always known the truth. She knew now, too, that beneath all the throbbing anger and hurt of the last six years, Sebastian’s love for her still burned, a warm and beautiful thing. But the hardest part of all was facing the stark realization that she was never going to stop loving him, that this pain of loving him would go on and on, stretching into all the bleak and lonely years to come.

Letting the drapes settle back into place across the cold-frosted window, she turned again to the man who still lay gently sleeping in her bed. Her gaze roved over him, over the proud, aristocratic line of nose and jaw. For one weak moment she allowed herself to fall into a dangerous reverie, a seductive fantasy in which she imagined the future that could be theirs together if Sebastian were never to clear himself of this terrible crime of which he’d been accused; if rather than someday taking his place as the Earl of Hendon, he were to remain a fugitive forever.

But she stopped short of actually wishing it might be, although a sigh stretched her chest and tears she would never let fall stung her eyes. For it was because Kat loved Sebastian so much that she had driven him from her six years ago. And she knew well this man she loved. She knew that as long as there was breath within him, Sebastian would keep fighting to clear his name.

Or die trying.

The next morning, the sun was little more than a faint promise on a misty horizon when Sebastian returned to the Rose and Crown. He was in his room having breakfast when Tom came in, bringing with him the smells of London, of snow and coal smoke and the roasting meats sold by the sidewalk vendors. “Gor, it’s colder than a witch’s tit out there,” he said, stomping his feet and blowing on his stiff red hands before holding them out to Sebastian’s fire.

Sebastian looked up from buttering his toast. “Where are your gloves?”

“I give ’em to Paddy.”

“Paddy?”

“Aye. Paddy O’Neal. He’s a neighbor of that actor cove, Hugh Gordon. And get this: accordin’ to Paddy, Gordon pinched the ’ackney Paddy’d sent one o’ the neighborhood lads to fetch for ’im last Tuesday night. ’E even threatened to plant Paddy a facer when the old codger give him what for.”

Sebastian pushed back his chair and stood up. “Are you certain it was Tuesday night? This—er, old codger could have his days mixed up.”

“Not that old bugger. Every Tuesday for the past fifteen years, ’e’s been takin’ part in a Perpetual Devotion on Lower Weymouth Street. His slot is from nine to ten, and that’s where ’e was goin’ when Gordon pinched the carriage.”

Sebastian looked at the boy in surprise. “And how did you come to know about such things as Perpetual Devotions?”

A faint line of color touched the boy’s cheeks, but all he said was, “I knows.”

Sebastian let that pass. “So Gordon went out before nine?”

Tom nodded. That’s right. And get this—our Paddy even knows where the cove went—‘eard ’im giving orders to the jarvey.”

“And?”

“He told the ’ackney driver to take ’im to Westminster.”