What Price Love?

23

Still blind and effectively dumb, Pris stumbled along what she assumed was a corridor at the top of a long flight of narrow stairs. Behind and to her side, Wallace paced, steering her, one hand wrapped about her arm.

“Here we are.”

He halted her, reached across her to open a door, then pushed her through it.

She staggered over the threshold; instantly, the acrid smell she’d been aware of from the moment she’d been bundled into the building intensified. Sweat, men, and a peculiar mustiness. Starved of air, she thought she might swoon. Swaying, she held her breath, and fought the blackness back. This was not the time for sensitivity. She was going to need every ounce of wit, strength, and courage she could muster to escape what ever Wallace had planned.

She felt him tug at the knots securing the silk covering her face. An instant later, the folds loosened, then fell. While Wallace unraveled the long band, drawing it free, she licked her dry lips, then blinked and looked around.

At first glance, she thought she’d been mistaken in her impressions and Wallace had brought her up the back stairs of some mansion; the room looked like an opulently furnished bedchamber, with a large tester bed complete with red velvet hangings and crimson satin coverlet, with bloodred, embossed wallpaper on the walls. Then she blinked again, and her focus sharpened.

The velvet was thin, cheap, the satin tawdry and stained. The bed appeared solid enough, but was old and much scarred. The linen covering the pillows was worn and yellowed, the lace edgings spotted and torn.

All her impressions coalesced into one picture.

Wallace freed her hands.

She spun around, but he stood squarely between her and the door. “Where is this?”

Her voice, at least, was restored, her tone firm and sure.

Wallace was watching her closely. “This establishment is popularly known as Mrs. Miller’s Sanctuary.”

She arched a brow, openly suspicious.

Wallace smiled. “Indeed. Mrs. Miller is an abbess, and this is a sanctuary not for the girls who serve here, but for the gentlemen who visit to indulge their taste for females in various-shall we say esoteric?-ways. For instance, one of the specialties of the house is the deflowering of gently reared virgins. A surprising number fall on hard times, and find themselves here, selling their wares. You, of course, are hardly a pauper, but”-he shrugged-“you are here.”

Pris quelled a shiver. She wasn’t a virgin, but she couldn’t see how that was going to help her. Stepping back, she folded her arms and glanced again at her surroundings. No door but the one beyond Wallace; no window at all.

Dillon would come after her; Rus, too. She knew it in her heart, felt it in her soul. She had to keep safe until they reached her.

She looked at Wallace. “Why here? Why this? As a means of revenging yourself on Dillon and Rus, surely it lacks a certain something? Directness comes to mind.”

Wallace’s almost-smile chilled. “Au contraire, my dear. I flatter myself that the revenge I’ve planned will strike your fiancé and your brother where it will hurt the most-and they’ll be helpless to protect themselves, or you.” He shifted, viewing her, letting his gaze rove over her, not lasciviously but in cold calculation, with no more emotion than if he were assessing a side of beef.

“Consider, if you will”-his eyes rose to trap hers; his were pale, leached of recognizable feeling-“how much your fiancé has now invested in you. His love.” Wallace softly snorted in derision. “His pride, too, the fool. Regardless, you’ve come to mean a great deal to him. As for your brother-he’s not just your brother, he’s your twin. More, you’re his twin sister-his feelings for you have to run deep, have to be a part of how he sees himself. As with Caxton, you’re a part of your brother.”

Wallace’s expression grew gloating. “What do you think it will do to them to know that because of their actions against me, they’ll have brought about your ruination? More, your defilement?”

Pris stared at him and tried to block out his words. There was no point thinking about the pain that would cause Dillon and Rus; if she did, it would paralyze her…perhaps what Wallace was counting on?

Then again, she’d seen no indication that he saw her as anything other than an exceptionally beautiful but otherwise typical young lady. One who would swoon and collapse, rather than fight.

Wallace continued, his voice his smooth drawl; he was in control and knew it. “What I’ve planned for you, my dear, will be an excellent revenge on both Caxton and your brother. It will damage beyond bearing something they hold dear, in a way neither will ever be able to put right. It will haunt them all their days-they’ll carry the guilt to their graves.”

His eyes gleamed; he seemed to taste, to savor, the malice in his words. “Even with the backing of their powerful connections, they’ll be helpless to repair what I’ve arranged to break.” His gaze, cold and hard, fixed on her; his lips curved. “You.”

She inwardly shook, but forced herself to ignore the room about her, to lift her chin defiantly. “What have you planned?”

He seemed amenable to explaining himself, and at some length. The longer he stood speaking with her…

With a wave, he indicated their surroundings. “As I mentioned, this establishment caters to a certain class of gentlemen. Those with money, and thus status. I’ve arranged for you to be the evening’s entertainment for four young and exceedingly difficult to please bloods. Mrs. Miller was quite happy to help-she likes to keep her customers satisfied. And they’ll be excellently well satisfied with the sport you’ll provide them. All four, you see, are aristocrats, vicious young sods partial to the worst of perversions. They’ll have seen you gracing tonnish dance floors, and will have lusted after your body from afar. All will have dreamed of having that luscious body to do with as they please…to night, those dreams are going to come true.”

His smile took on an edge; his eyes glittered. “Do fight them-they’ll enjoy raping you all the more.”

He turned and went to the door; pausing with his hand on the latch, he looked back. “If you survive the night, I’ll make sure Caxton and your brother know where to find you. My only regret is that I dare not dally to witness their soul-tearing grief, but I’m sure you-and they-will understand.”

A coldly triumphant glint in his eye, he swept her a mocking bow. “I’ll bid you a good evening, Lady Priscilla.”

Pris watched him leave; she was trying so hard not to imagine what he’d planned, her mind wouldn’t function-she couldn’t find any words, any more questions to delay him.

The latch clicked shut, and broke the spell. She dragged in a breath, and started toward the door-only to pull up, and step back as the door swung inward again.

Revealing one, then three more gentlemen. As Wallace had warned, they were of her class, with the telltale planes of cheeks, nose, and chin, the heavy-lidded eyes that immediately fixed on her, that roved freely over her figure as she backed; their every stalking movement screamed their self-confidence, their belief that they could seize and have what ever they wished.

All four were expensively but rakishly dressed. Their faces already bore the stamp of dissipation, along with lascivious sneers.

Their expressions openly and lecherously cruel, openly expectant, they moved into the room. She backed until her legs hit the end of the bed. She searched their faces and found no hope there; they’d been drinking but were very far from drunk. Then she looked into their eyes, and saw malice and a species of hate staring back at her.

She knew, then, that they fully intended the next hours to be worse than her worst nightmare.

The hackney driver hauled back on his reins; the carriage slowed.

Dillon was out of the door and on the cobbles before the horses came to a stamping halt. Rus tumbled out behind him.

The street was empty. “Which house?” Dillon looked up at the driver.

With his whip, the driver pointed to a narrow building on the opposite side of the street. “That’s Betsy Miller’s.”

Dillon raced for the door, Rus on his heels.

The black carriage that had followed them from Mayfair passed; it pulled up a little way along. Dillon didn’t spare it a glance. Reaching the door, he pounded on the panels.

Pleading wasn’t going to work. Neither was screaming; as she watched them eyeing her, smiling with anticipation, Pris sensed that they’d like that, that sobbing and crying would only spur them on.

She’d backed as far as she could; there was nowhere she could run. No better place to stand; at least she had space to either side and some support at her back.

They’d closed the door; now they doffed their coats, tossing them onto a rickety chair in a corner. Two of them started to roll up their sleeves.

“Well, now, Lady Priscilla.”

The lout she instinctively knew was the leader-the dominant one, the one most important to distract-approached, weight balanced, ready to catch her should she try to bolt.

Years of wrestling with her brothers came back to her. She shifted her weight, her mind racing, assessing.

Four-at least two too many. But…

“Lovely Lady Priscilla,” the leader sneered.

The others spread out, flanking him-and her. But it was the leader she watched.

He continued, his well-bred accent purring, “With that lovely mouth, and those luscious breasts, and those long, long legs, and that sweet little arse…my how you’re going to entertain us to night.”

His voice changed over the last sentence, giving her a second’s warning.

She braced as he and one other lunged and grabbed her arms; laughing at her attempts to resist, they effortlessly hoisted her up and back onto the bed.

Pris fought like a heathen, kicking and hitting-overconfident, they hadn’t bothered to secure her limbs. The thin coverlet on which they held her down, the reek that came off it, engulfing her like a cloud, acted like a potion; a strength she hadn’t known she possessed flooded her.

They cursed, exerted their strength. She bit one hand, kicked out on the other side-and felt the toe of her shoe sink into her target.

The leader howled, cupped himself, then collapsed. Her struggles shoved him off the bed; he landed with a thump.

The unexpected event transfixed the others for an instant. Pris took aim, and drove her fist up under the aristocratic nose of her second attacker.

He hadn’t seen the blow coming; he took the full brunt, shrieked in pain as blood spurted. He clapped his hand to his face, but immediately pulled it away, stared in horror at his bloodied palm, then his face blanched and his eyes rolled back. He fell-across Pris, pinning her as she struggled to lever up onto her elbows.

The remaining two snarled. Aggression was suddenly thick in the air.

Pris could taste it, feel it choking her as the other two seized her arms-this time holding them down as they clambered up on their knees on the bed, using their weight to subdue her.

She threshed, but they were aided by the body of their insensate comrade. They trapped her arms, trapped her legs, leaning on her to immobilize her before they pushed their unconscious friend away and fell on her.

She gasped, and struggled for all she was worth-shut her ears to their swearing, their lewd promises of what they intended to do-but she was losing the battle, losing her air as they leaned heavily on her, grabbing her legs through her rucked gown, forcing them apart-

Something crashed.

They didn’t hear. They pressed her more cruelly into the bed, their leering faces close-

Then they were gone. Flying through the air.

Pris turned her head in time to see one hit the wall. A similar thump from the opposite side of the room suggested the other had met a like fate.

She blinked, dragged much-needed air into her lungs, struggled up to her elbows, and managed to focus. On Rus, pummeling one of her attackers. She looked the other way, and found Dillon efficiently thrashing the other one.

Wriggling up, hauling her skirts out of the way, she got to her knees, and peered over the edge of the bed. The leader, still sobbing and wheezing, was writhing on the floor. She considered getting down and kicking him again. First, she clambered over to the other side and looked down. The one who’d fainted lay lifeless, still unconscious.

A condition now attained by the other two. Rus straightened as the man he’d been ministering to slid down the wall.

Pris glanced at Dillon; he’d already turned from his crumpled victim, his attention locked on her. His gaze raced over her. “Are you all right?”

She looked at him, saw the raw emotion in his face, in his eyes, and found she couldn’t speak. She nodded.

Then he was there, relief sweeping through him as he swept her into his arms and crushed her to him.

She hugged him back, equally wildly, equally unrestrained. “You got here in time.”

Not at any time had she doubted he would.

“I thought we wouldn’t…” He mumbled the words against her hair.

She heard the fear, nay, terror, in them. “But you did.” She hugged him again, then held out a hand to Rus, grabbed his fingers when they slid into hers. “You both got here in time.”

Rus returned her squeeze, then released her hand and stepped back to look down at the unconscious man by the bed.

A heavy sigh filled the room.

It came from the door.

Rus looked, and froze. Without shifting from his position facing the bed, shielding Pris kneeling on it, Dillon turned his head.

Pris, her arms still wrapped around him, peeked around his arm, ignoring his surreptitious attempts to ease her away.

“It is so difficult to find intelligent help these days.” Wallace stood in the doorway, his gaze burning with hatred, a pistol in one hand. “It appears, Lady Priscilla, that my revenge is to be commendably direct after all.”

Smoothly, he raised the pistol-and leveled it at Dillon.

Dillon let Pris go. He turned.

Rus launched himself across the room.

“No!” Pris flung herself at Dillon.

The pistol discharged.

Bearing Dillon down, Pris heard a familiar whirr whizz past her ear as the pistol’s report exploded through the room, loud as a cannon in the enclosed space. Dillon fell over the writhing man on the ground and hit the floor; in a tangle of arms, legs, bodies, and skirts, she landed on top of him.

Dillon caught her, lifted her-and saw Rus, hands locked on a second pistol, wrestling with Abercrombie-Wallace in the doorway. He swore, wedged Pris behind him, and fought to untangle his feet from the legs of the groaning man pinned beneath him.

He scrambled upright; over Rus’s shoulder, Abercrombie-Wallace saw him.

Wallace let go of the pistol, shoving it with all his might at Rus, rocking Rus back on his heels. Wallace stepped back into the corridor; recovering his balance, Rus lunged at him.

Reaching to the side, Wallace hauled a large, shrieking female across and threw her at Rus.

The female and Rus went down, blocking the doorway.

Rus swore volubly. Dillon reached him as he pushed the woman from him and struggled to his feet.

Rus went to leap over the woman and race after Wallace.

Dillon caught his arm. “No.”

The woman stopped shrieking. The clatter of Wallace’s footsteps descending the stairs faded, then they heard a door slam.

Dillon exhaled, and released Rus’s arm. “He’s made his choice. Let him flee into the arms of his just reward.”

Rus met his eyes, lowered his voice. “Those gentlemen in the black carriage?”

Dillon nodded. “Not that they’re gentlemen, not by any stretch of the word.”

Pris heard; she didn’t understand, but she’d question them later. Now…now she felt shaky, so relieved to see them both hale and whole, to know she needn’t fear the four “gentlemen” littering the floor.

Rising unsteadily to her knees, she put up a hand to push back the curls that had jarred loose to tumble about her face. She tucked them back; her hand brushed her ear-pain stabbed. Wincing, she felt dampness on her fingers. She looked at her hand.

At the blood streaking it.

Realized what that oddly familiar whirr had been.

She glanced up; both Dillon and Rus were helping the woman, wheezing, complaining, and protesting her innocence, to her feet. Quickly, Pris scrambled to hers, simultaneously fluffing her curls over her nicked ear. She surreptitiously wiped her hand on the crimson coverlet; at least the blood wouldn’t show.

Suggesting she retreat to her parlor for a restorative, Dillon pushed the large woman out and closed the door.

Rus had already turned to survey their assorted victims. He nudged the one he’d rendered senseless with the toe of his shoe. “What should we do with these?”

A short discussion ensued. Eventually, instead of beating the four to a pulp, Rus’s favored option, one with which Pris felt a certain amount of sympathy, they begged supplies from the madam, tied hands and hobbled legs, secured gags in place, and then, with all four roused if groggy, bullied them down the stairs and out into the street. There, they found the hackney Dillon and Rus had commandeered waiting, along with the one that had brought Pris to the brothel.

Joe tapped his cap. “Didn’t seem right, once I thought on it. I came to see if there was anything I could do.”

Pris smiled at him. “Thank you. If you could take these four scoundrels-they’ll give you no trouble-and follow us?”

The black carriage had vanished. In procession, the two hackneys rattled back to Mayfair.

After their first stop, with the thrill of exacting a most suitable revenge glowing in her veins, Pris leaned against Dillon as the hackney swayed on its way to their next port of call.

She looked up at his face, caught his eyes, smiled. “You’re rather good at designing devilish plans.”

He looked into her eyes, then raised a hand and, gently, reverently, traced the side of her face. “When the spirit moves me.”

His voice was low, a caress, a prayer. He glanced across the carriage to where Rus was studiously watching the passing façades, then bent his head, and kissed her.

Not a kiss of passion, but of thankfulness, of gratitude, of relief. She responded with the same emotions, her fingers clenching in his lapel, holding him to her.

The carriage slowed. Dillon lifted his head and looked out. “Next one.”

Their vengeance was thorough, and shockingly apt. Dillon had recognized all four “gentlemen.” They’d known who Pris was, had recognized her; they’d knowingly and with intent set out to ruin Lady Priscilla Dalloway, an earl’s daughter. As the evening lengthened, Dillon, Pris, and Rus did the rounds of the major balls and parties, delivering each of the four, coatless, trussed, and sniveling, whence they’d come.

They delivered them to their mothers.

Four senior ladies of the ton had their evenings interrupted, disrupted, by having their errant sons thrust on their knees before them-in public. They had to sit and listen as their son’s crimes were explained to them-in public, before their friends and acquaintances-by the much lionized and lauded, acknowledged ruler of the sport of kings, by his affianced wife, the fabulously beautiful earl’s daughter who, kidnapped from her engagement ball and abandoned in a brothel, their vicious and dissolute sons had attempted to ruin rather than help, and by her brother, Viscount Rushworth, one of the most eligible young peers about town.

In one respect, their revenge was a reckless gamble, but all who witnessed the four spectacles were aghast. All righteously ranged themselves behind Pris in defense of gently bred ladies far and wide.

Each “gentleman,” left to his mother’s and the ton’s mercy, found none.

It was late when they returned to Berkeley Square.

Buoyed by euphoria over having faced a terror and comprehensively triumphed, they walked into Horatia’s front hall-straight into bedlam.

They’d left so precipitously no one had known where any of them had gone. Their reappearance, all a trifle less than their usual immaculate selves, brought on a spate of scoldings, along with wide-eyed demands to be told what had gone on.

Their tale, when everyone consented to sit and let them tell it, was the wonder of the night. In the hackney, they’d agreed to hold nothing back; the color and pace gave credence to their adventure, and in this case, there was no one they needed to protect.

The Honorable Hayden Abercrombie-Wallace no longer had any place in the ton. As he described their exit from the brothel onto a street with only two hackneys waiting, Dillon wasn’t sure Wallace would still be among the living.

Everyone was predictably horrified, fired with indignation and righteous zeal, yet also glad to have been there to hear the tale, to have, however vicariously, shared in the downfall of the gentleman who had come worryingly close to holding the racing world to ransom.

Dillon, Rus, and Pris were hailed as heroes again; those who didn’t know the full story of the substitution switch begged enlightenment from those who did. Barnaby, delighted even though he was miffed to have missed the action, left to take the word to Bow Street.

Meanwhile, Horatia’s ball, which had been on the point of breaking up in confusion, took on new life. The musicians played softly in their alcove while the guests sat, talked, and marveled for what was left of the night.

Dillon glanced at Pris. She had a bright smile fixed on her face; beneath it, she was wilting. He was perfectly certain she wasn’t truly listening to the grande dame bending her ear.

The instant the lady moved on, he touched Pris’s arm, then closed his hand around hers as she turned his way. “Let’s go home.”

To Flick’s house, where he could deal with the roiling, seething, unsettling emotions surging through him. He wasn’t entirely sure what they were, or how to ease them. Terror, fear, and relief had burgeoned, but then washed through him and subsided, leaving whatever this was behind. Exposed. Undeniable.

He’d hidden his emotions from everyone, even her, until now. Looking into her eyes as she searched his face, he let her see, and simply said, “I’ve had enough.”

She hesitated for only a heartbeat, then nodded. “I’ll tell Rus and Eugenia.”

Dillon waited by the door. When she returned to his side, they found Horatia, who in the circumstances allowed them to slip quietly away. Taking Pris’s hand, Dillon led her out of the ballroom, away from the glad furor of their victory, out into the cool of the night.

Jake, their driver, had elected to wait. He took them up and drove them the short distance to Half Moon Street. Dillon insisted on tipping him generously, even though Jake protested that the excitement had been gratuity enough; they parted with good wishes all around.

Dillon used his key to the front door. The house lay silent, sunk in peace; the servants had retired, and all the other above-stairs occupants were still at Horatia’s. Quiet content wrapped about them as in the dark they climbed the stairs; reassurance that all was well had laid calming hands on him by the time they reached Pris’s chamber and went in.

Pris crossed to the dressing table and set down her reticule; shrugging off her cloak, she let it fall over the stool. Dillon lit the candelabra on the dresser, shrugged out of his coat and waistcoat, then crossed to the hearth, where a fire was burning low. Crouching, he stirred it to life.

With a sigh, she turned, sank onto the stool, and watched him. Watched the flames rise, leap, and light his face.

She’d eagerly lent her aid with his plan to disgrace her four attackers; she’d stood beside him while they’d told Horatia’s guests their tale. Now, however, she felt not just outwardly bedraggled, with her crumpled gown, her disarranged curls, and the bruises on her wrists, but rough and rather ragged inside, as if her very emotions had been abraded.

As for Dillon…she hadn’t recognized or understood that look in his eyes, but she’d sensed, from the moment they’d taken stock in the brothel chamber, that he’d slammed a door on his reactions and had ruthlessly contained them through the following hours…none knew better than she that such control had its limits.

He reached for a log and laid it on the flames. She watched, savoring the play of muscles beneath the fine linen of his shirt, content that he was there, soothed by his presence. He was the only person she could have imagined being alone with in that moment. He’d spent most of the recent nights with her, in this room; she would have missed him had he not been there.

Soon he had a lovely fire blazing in the hearth, throwing light and welcome heat into the room. He rose, and stood staring down at the flames. She rose, too, and went to stand beside him.

His hand found hers; she twined her fingers with his.

After a moment, he shifted, and drew her into his arms.

She went readily, eagerly, lifting her face as he bent his head. His lips covered hers; she parted them, and welcomed him in.

Not the smooth, sophisticated, charming him but that other him, the passionate man that lurked behind the social mask. She tasted him, the untamed, not entirely safe, thrilling, exciting, wickedly sinful him.

She drew him to her. With her lips, with her body, she tempted and taunted, lured him with a wild and wicked promise of her own, offered her own passion, her heart and soul, in return for his.

The kiss turned greedy; her head started to spin.

One arm tightened, possessive and steely, about her waist. His other hand rose, pushing aside her loosened curls to frame her face-

Pain stabbed, sharp, intense; she jerked, winced, before she remembered…

“What is it?” He’d lifted his head on the instant. He looked at his fingers, then pushed back her curls. “My God, you’re bleeding!”

Pris fleetingly closed her eyes. Damn! “It’s just a little nick.” Opening her eyes, she tried to push back, but the arm about her waist gave not an inch.

“A nick? When…”

Dillon realized. He saw the faint powder burns around the ragged tear in the rim of her shell-like ear, the perfect alabaster curve desecrated beyond repair. She wouldn’t die, the wound would heal, but that perfect curve would never be perfect again.

Remembered terror, he discovered, could be worse than the original fear. Could be deeper, broader, courtesy of time and the ability to think, to imagine, to fully comprehend what might have been.

An icy rage filled him, fueled by that stark terror. He blinked, and all he saw was the black well of despair that had so nearly claimed her-and him.

“You got this when you tried to save me.” His voice was even-too even-his tone deathly cold.

Her head rose; his hand fell from her face as she angled her chin at him. “I didn’t just try-I saved you. You were just standing there, letting him shoot at you!”

Everything male in him rose up and roared, “Damn it! That’s not the point!”

She didn’t so much as flinch. Instead, she leaned nearer and face-to-face clearly enunciated, “It is to me. You were about to get shot-what did you expect me to do? Sit safely shielded behind you and wring my hands?”

“Yes!” He forced his hands from her; it was that or shake her. “That’s precisely what you should have done.”

She pulled back and stared at him. “Don’t be daft.”

“Daft?” He clutched his hair and swung away from her. “Damn it, Pris, you were nearly raped. Would have been raped if Rus and I hadn’t got there in time-and all because of me. Because of my wonderful plan to trap Mr. X, to protect us, to…to do what duty suggested.”

Unyielding before the hearth, Pris frowned at him. “Yes, I know. But you did get there in time.” She watched him pace before her, read the agitation in every wild and violent movement. What was this?

He shook his head. His face was set. “Yes, but…none of that was important. I thought it was, and at one level it is, but not at the level that matters most. You are important, and you-and what we have, you and I-all of that I put at risk.” He halted, met her eyes, his gaze dark, turbulent, a little wild. “Bad enough. That’s something I’ll have to live with-something I’ll never do again. Never risk again. But”-his hands fisted at his sides-“then you-you risked yourself! Trying to save me! Don’t you ever do such a foolish thing again!”

She returned his furious glare, opened her mouth-

“Don’t think I’m not grateful, but…” He dragged in a breath, spoke through clenched teeth. “You are going to promise me you’ll never, ever, put yourself at risk again, not for anything. You promised me you never would-”

“Not unless you were with me! You were! That was the point-I had to save you.”

“I don’t care! You are going to promise me you’ll never, ever, regardless of anything, risk yourself in any way what ever again!”

She narrowed her eyes on his. She let a telling moment tick by. “And if I won’t?”

His nostrils flared, his chest swelled; his entire body went rigid. “If you won’t, then I’ll just have to make sure you never again have the chance…”

She listened, amazed, as he described in inventive detail just how he would restrict her freedom, hem her in and restrict her ability to ever put herself in the way of any risk-no matter how infinitesimal.

How he would make it totally impossible for her to be her.

If it had been anyone but him, she would have screamed her defiance. Instead, she watched him pace, rant, and rave-watched his sophisticated carapace crack and shatter and fall away, leaving him exposed, vulnerable…

Blocking out his words, she concentrated on what he was really saying.

What emotion was riding him, driving him.

You are my life. You mean too much to me.

She saw, understood, and waited.

Eventually, he realized she wasn’t reacting. He stopped and looked at her. Frowned. “What?”

She couldn’t tell him what she’d seen in him, how it only made her love him more. She met his gaze, and quietly said, “Do you remember, when I asked how much you would surrender…for me, for my love? Do you recall what you replied?”

He studied her for a long moment. His lips thinned. “‘How much do you want.’”

She nodded. “You’ll also recall I didn’t reply.” He stiffened; before he could speak she continued, “This”-she waved between them-“is part of the answer.”

Stepping away from the fire so the flickering light reached his eyes, she held his gaze. “What I want from you in return for my hand is a partnership. A partnership of equals, each with our own strengths, our own weaknesses, maybe, and also our own wills and needs and wants.”

Her gaze locked with his, she tilted her head. “We’re alike in many ways-you understand how I feel. However you feel about me, I feel the same about you. So no, I won’t sit meekly by when your life is at risk, any more than you would if mine were. I will always claim the right to act, to choose my path.” She let her lips curve. “Just as I chose you-not just now, but in the summer house by the lake. That first time wasn’t because of the register, although I allowed you to think so. That time, as with all subsequent times, was simply for you. Just you. You were all and everything I’d ever wanted, ever dreamed could be, so I gave and took, all those nights ago.”

Drawing breath, she spread her hands; speaking truth at this level, this directly, was harder than she’d thought. “And what we have now-you, me, and what’s between us-that’s created by both of us, and if I lose you, I lose that, too. You can’t expect me not to act to protect you, just as you would me. We’re wild, we take risks, but we protect what’s important to us-that’s how we are, how we’ll always be.

“I can’t change, any more than you can. The price of my love is that you accept me as I am, not as you-or at least some part of you-might prefer me to be. My price is that you acknowledge what you know to be the truth-that I won’t be your possession, yours to rule, that I’m as wild and reckless as you, that what ever danger you court, I’ll be there, by your side, that what ever comes in the future to threaten us we’ll meet it together, defend us together.”

She paused. There was no sound in the room bar the crackling of the fire. She continued to hold his gaze, too dark for her to read, and slowly raised her hand-offered it to him. “I’m willing to accept you as you are-exactly as you are, all you are.” His fingers closed, tight, about hers. She smiled. “I can’t ask if you’ll pay the price for my love when you already have it…but will you do the same for me? Will you accept me as me?”

For a long moment, he didn’t answer, then he closed his eyes and sighed. “Not willingly.” He opened his eyes; a flame lit the darkness. “But I’ll do it. I’ll do anything for you.”

Dillon stared into her emerald eyes, and wondered where his violence and the terror behind it had gone. He could only marvel at her ability to cut through to the heart of him, to the soul of his needs, and soothe him. “To night…” He grimaced. “Just now-”

She came into his arms. “To night’s behind us, past-and we have more than enough to deal with tomorrow.” She held his gaze for a moment, then laid her hand on his cheek. “Let it go.”

She was right. They were here, together, safe and free. Their future, joint and shared, beckoned. Their partnership for life.

He couldn’t argue, didn’t want to.

And she knew.

She took his hand and led him to her bed, and he let her. Let her take him in her arms, into her body, and lead him to paradise. To the wild and reckless place that together they could journey to, to the world that was wholly theirs, one of shared pleasures and joys created and embellished by one powerful, undeniable, irresistible force, their shared love.

They gave themselves up and it took them. Lifted them high, filled them with glory, fractured and claimed them, then, like warmed husks tossed on the wind, left them to drift slowly back to earth, to the soft sheets of her bed, to the warmth of each other’s arms.

He settled her beside him, within the circle of his arms, felt the power drift like a benedictory hand over them.

She nuzzled his chest, then sighed.

Eyes closed, his arms around her, he murmured, just loud enough for her to hear, “Regardless, I’m not letting you near a pistol again.”

She chuckled, then softly humphed.

He smiled, and slept.

Late the next morning, Dillon stretched beneath the covers, then glanced at Pris, slumped, sated, beside him.

He hadn’t left before dawn; he much preferred waking up beside her-he might as well start as he meant to go on.

“You should go,” she mumbled, prodding his side.

The prods were weak; he grinned and remained where he was. From where he lay, all the world seemed rosy…except for one thing.

He glanced at the tumbled jumble of black curls poking above the covers. “This wedding of ours…does it really have to be so large? So involved?”

She stirred; one eye opened and regarded him, then she raised a brow.

“What I mean…” He sighed, shifted to face her, and confessed, “I’d much rather get a special license, do the deed, and whisk you away, back to Newmarket, so we can make a start on setting up our home together.” He raised his brows back. “What do you think?”

The truth was he was feeling rather desperate, especially after the previous evening. Especially after all he’d felt, all he’d realized. Being married to Pris, getting her married to him, was his most urgent priority.

She studied his eyes, then smiled, raised a hand, and patted his cheek. “I think that’s a pleasant dream, but it is a dream.”

He managed not to frown, but disgruntlement wasn’t far away. “So you really want a huge wedding?” He wouldn’t have thought it of her-she was normally as impatient, if not more so, than he.

“Heavens, no! But they do.”

He frowned then, but she shook her head at him. “You can’t disappoint them, and, in truth, they’re doing it for you.”

“But…” He wheedled, he whined, he tried every argument he could think of, but, finally, he realized she was right; he didn’t have it in him to disappoint Flick, Eugenia, Horatia, and all the rest. Especially not after all they’d done to help him.

He pulled a face at her, then inspiration struck. “Perhaps if you ‘persuaded’ me?”

She grinned, and did. She put her heart and soul into addling his brain sufficiently for him to smile and accept the inevitable.

A monstrous big wedding, complete with all the associated tortures.

In the blissful end, a quiet voice whispered that it was a small price to pay for this much love.

They were married in the church at Newmarket. The event, held just after the end of the racing season, was hailed as the highlight of the social year.

The other members of the Dalloway family and a host of connections traveled from Ireland to be present; still others journeyed from all over england to witness the nuptials of the Earl of Kentland’s eldest daughter. The Cynsters and various other Caxton connections thronged the town; the gathering outside the church when the bride and groom emerged from the chapel was immense, swelled by hordes of local residents eager to see their hero wed.

Smiling proudly, Dillon refused to let go of Pris’s hand as they stopped here and there on their way to the waiting carriage; they’d already weathered a veritable storm of rice. There were many among the crowd they owed a word, a greeting, an acknowledgment, but finally they reached the carriage, and amid rousing cheers, rolled away to the wedding breakfast.

Demon and Flick had insisted on holding the celebration at their home. By the time Dillon and Pris stepped out on the lawn beyond the drawing room, the wide expanse was already dotted with guests.

Dillon’s two closest friends, Gerrard Debbington and Charlie Morwellan, had stood as his groomsmen. Gerrard was waiting just beyond the terrace with his wife, Jacqueline; Dillon and Pris joined them. As Gerrard and Jacqueline had wed only a few months before, the four had much in common.

“I’m still struggling to keep all the names and connections straight,” Jacqueline confessed. “And the clan only keeps growing!”

Pris laughed. “And in more ways than one.” She met Jacqueline’s bright eyes; Jacqueline had whispered that she was increasing, something anyone seeing her beatific smile would surely guess.

Charlie came up as Gerrard and Jacqueline moved on. “Two down. I’m the last man left standing.”

Dillon clapped him on the shoulder. “Your time will come.”

Pris listened as Dillon and Charlie ribbed each other; when she and Dillon were about to venture on, she murmured, “Just remember-there’s no escape.”

Charlie stared at her. She smiled, patted his arm, and let a chuckling Dillon lead her away.

There were so many guests to speak with that her head was soon reeling, but it was a giddy, pleasurable feeling, one she embraced. While she hadn’t specifically wished for it, she was now glad she’d listened to older and wiser heads, agreed to the large wedding, and persuaded Dillon to do the same. There was something so special in having everyone there to share the day; she would never forget these moments for as long as she lived-and that felt very right.

Barnaby was waiting amid the crowd. He apologized for broaching the subject before saying, “Stokes told me they pulled Abercrombie-Wallace’s body from the Thames a week ago.”

She frowned. “He drowned?”

Barnaby hesitated, but at a nod from Dillon said, “No. His throat was cut…eventually. From what Stokes said, Wallace’s death wasn’t peaceful.”

All three of them exchanged glances, then, as one, closed the door on the past and turned their minds to thoughts more in keeping with the day.

Dillon was conscious of a heightened sensitivity, an awareness of people and their interactions, that he couldn’t recall possessing before. He sensed a connectedness, warm and assured, intangible yet so powerful he felt he could almost touch it, as they chatted to devil and Honoria, to Demon and Flick, to Gabriel and Alathea, and the other Cynster couples who had been a constant in his life over the last decade.

He felt the touch of that intangible force even more personally when he embraced his father, then watched the General beam at Pris, when he was the recipient of backslaps and warm handshakes from Rus and the earl, and when Pris laughed and wildly hugged them both.

He felt it when he saw Rus and Adelaide share a secret smile.

Pris’s brother Albert, and her younger brother and sisters, were all present, Albert interested in all around him-in the stud and the town and Dillon’s work-while the younger crew ran wild beneath the shade trees, laughing and playing with Nicholas and Prue and the small army of other children present. Dillon saw Pris, Flick, and a host of other ladies smile fondly, not just at their own siblings or offspring, but at others, too.

Inclusive, all-embracing.

As he strolled arm in arm with Pris through the throng, all in some way part of his extended family, he felt the strands of that familiar, warm and pleasurable power twining and sliding like ribbons linking them all.

Husband to wife, parent to child, sibling to sibling, twin to twin, between lovers, between uncles and aunts and nieces and nephews, the strands of that power reached and touched, linked and held, connected and supported.

Love.

It was in the air in so many guises, it was impossible not to feel it.

Dillon felt, saw, acknowledged, accepted, and let the power flow through him.

He glanced at Pris, on his arm, then looked around with eyes fully open. Soon, he hoped, another strand of love-the one that linked father to child-would find him. They moved through the crowd, and he drank in all he saw, and felt his heart swell with anticipation.

The majority of males, most of whom were married, congregated to one side of the lawn. Leaving Pris with the ladies sitting under the trees, Dillon joined the gentlemen, inwardly smiling at their glib comments, their habitual grumbling giving voice to their reluctance over attending such emotion-laden events.

He now had a deeper understanding of that reluctance. In this arena, it was exceedingly difficult not to wear their hearts on their sleeves, not to openly acknowledge that power that claimed them all so thoroughly. And that always left them feeling exposed and vulnerable, a reality they never appreciated acknowledging, even if for only a short time.

Regardless, they would always attend as commanded by their mothers, their wives, their daughters or sisters.

Because, as he now understood, when all was considered and weighed in the balance, feeling vulnerable and exposed was a very small price to pay…for this much love.