Page 57

“Even so I long—day and night—to return home and see the day of my return.”

T he gates of Atholl House stood open. The flicker of candlelight could be seen in nearly every window, defying the early hour. Someone had kept the lamps burning—waiting, perhaps, or unwilling to declare the night over until all of them had returned.

Had he arrived before Charity, then? Peregrine dismounted stiffly, his coat half-burned, boots blackened with soot, and the fire’s heat still soaked into the seams of his clothes. Beside him, Hodges grunted as he slid off his own horse, looking more ash than man.

Hodges took their horses and headed around to the side, leaving him at the front door, which opened even before Peregrine reached the steps. Charity’s footman gave him a look of relief, stepping back without question. “Welcome back, my lord. ”

How strange, that Atholl House felt more like home than his own home did. He didn’t belong here, not to the house or the name.

Pritchard, standing in the front hall, gave him a thorough raking over, and he answered the question in Peregrine’s eyes. “Her Grace is on the terrace.”

The butler led him through the morning room, where Peregrine could see her on the other side of the door.

She was sitting on a bench, watching the smoke across the Thames, Sir Nathaniel Thorne standing a step behind and to her right like a sentry.

And both turned, startled, when Pritchard opened the garden door to the outside.

“ Perry! ” Charity gasped, getting to her feet.

He must look like utter hell. His coat was scorched and stank of smoke and turpentine.

A gentleman should have never shown up this disheveled and dirty, bringing such chaos to a fine house.

He should have gone back to his house. But it had been utterly unthinkable that his steps would bring him anywhere else. He had to return to her, first.

The relief that she was here was so great, his ears rang with it.

And so he didn’t hear the words that were spoken at first, as he simply drank in the fact that Charity was alive and safe.

Not until both she and Sir Nathaniel pressed closer to him, touching his shoulders as if he were unsteady on his feet.

Maybe he was. But the sensation passed quickly, and he recalled the question sitting on his tongue. “Did you…?”

“We found Lady Normanby, alive,” Sir Nathaniel confirmed. “Bellrose has been taken to Whitehall. The man who kidnapped the duchess was also there, waiting to ambush us. He was killed.”

Then the biggest threat to both of their lives had also been stopped.

That was an unexpected blessing he hadn’t counted on receiving.

Peregrine closed his eyes in silent gratitude to Roland Percy for sending his brother to London.

“You tracked down Selina. And you kept Charity safe. I owe you and Percy a lot. Perhaps more than I can repay.”

Sir Nathaniel’s face was a study, looking at him as if he wasn’t quite certain his words were genuine.

But grudging respect was stamped on his features, even as he brushed off Peregrine’s words.

“Roland would tell you the same as I would. Blood isn’t what makes family.

We count the duchess as one of ours in the only way that matters, and protecting her is only proper. ”

“Thank you for waiting with me. You should get some sleep now,” Charity told the man, touching his arm in thanks.

Thorne nodded, stepping around them to return inside.

And then she reached up, brushing through the soot along Peregrine’s jaw.

Her fingers were like ice; she had been sitting outside without a shawl for some time. “You came back to me.”

“There was never an alternative,” Peregrine murmured, wanting to take her hands in his to warm them. But he didn’t dare touch her right now, especially in sight of her servants. “You’re cold. Let’s get you inside.”

Charity took his hand anyway, pulling him along the hallway to her rooms, shutting the door behind them. “Your servants will talk,” he said reprovingly.

“No. Not if they value their positions, they won’t. Pritchard has had a word with everyone, so we can help protect the marchioness. We put her in the adjoining room.” Charity reached for the buttons on his coat, undoing them and tossing his singed clothing to one side.

Something about Charity’s tone warned Peregrine that Selina had suffered in her captivity. “How bad was it?”

She shook her head, tears forming at the corners of her lids as she unbuttoned the waistcoat next. “She wouldn’t speak of it, not even to me. And she wouldn’t let us call the physician. But I know that at the least, Bellrose beat her, bruising her cheek and more. Miller wrapped her ribs. ”

Peregrine clenched his fists. “I will kill that swine.”

“You may have to form a line behind Thorne,” Charity said wryly. “He was upset enough to truss the man like a boar for slaughter. The driver had trouble getting the knots undone enough to tie him to the horse.”

Her hands reached for his cravat next, and Peregrine had only the fleetest thought that he should stop her.

But he let her unwind the cloth. “Sparkles,” he breathed, suddenly needing to touch her with a ferocity that overwhelmed reason.

“If I can’t wash this soot off my hands, I am going to ruin another one of your dresses. ”

Charity’s smile turned impish, and she left him to walk to the basin and its towels, dampening one.

But she made him hold still instead, while she wiped his face, the sooty part of his hair, and his hands for him.

It was a curious torture, this tactile cosseting, and soon he was burning nearly as surely as if he had been caught in the fire itself.

When she finished with his hands, stroking every finger, Peregrine snapped.

Dropping the cloth on the floor, he snatched Charity close, backing her towards her bed.

“You are a wicked tease,” he informed her, breathless with it.

“And if you don’t mean to make yourself mine, you had better say so now—because I don’t think I will have the strength to let you go once I start down this road. ”

“I am already yours,” she told him, lifting her face to his, and he kissed her with a barely restrained tenderness until his desire to claim her completely overtook his control.

He had no idea how long they slept, but it had been long and deep enough that he woke disoriented, confused by the warmth and smell of Charity beside him.

She was sprawled just as carelessly as before, this time her arm flung over his stomach, and a corner of his mouth lifted tenderly as he let his hand stroke down the length of her spine.

She shivered a bit, and curled tighter against him, but did not wake.

Dim light peered through the curtains, and his stomach informed him it had been hours and hours since his last meal.

But he ignored it. Not only did he not want to disturb Charity, it had been far too long since he had a moment’s peace to really think about the future.

A luxury he hadn’t had much chance to indulge.

But with the Maker and Chandros dead, they finally had a little room to breathe. He was no longer on the back foot, doing what was necessary to survive.

Perhaps the threat against Charity could be lifted. He would have to talk with Red Hand to see what might be done. And until then, he could build up his house. Create a stronghold against future physical threats. A safe place, both for him, and also for Charity.

And maybe also for Edmunds, who had to be kept alive.

The old Fitzroy butler might be the only person left who knew—really knew—everything Marian had done.

They might need his knowledge; it might be the only proof that remained of her vile deeds.

But Peregrine did not relish telling Charity that he was giving protection to the man who had carried out her kidnapping.

At least they did not have to worry about the yoke of the Order.

Doubtless, it was in shambles, and the people who were left posed no threat to them.

Pembroke—well, that man likely knew a losing battle when he saw one.

Between a lack of allies and the threat posed by the Crown, he would either join their cause, or he would quietly vanish.

Hopefully the treatment Selina had endured did not break her spirit and Charity was correct, that her staff would protect the woman’s reputation.

The marchioness had a fierce will. But it would damage her standing considerably if word got out that Bellrose had held her for the better part of a week, however unfair that would be.

Peregrine had been soul-sick and twisting less than two weeks ago. But being indentured to the Queen no longer filled him with the grim worry that it had before. Or… perhaps that was Charity who had changed that.

She was the other person who had a tether yet on his life, but somewhere along the way, he had accepted her hand on it, because it meant she was tethered to him, too. And unlike his mother, he trusted her—absolutely, in a way he had never believed he would trust someone again.

Charity would have responsibilities to the Queen, and if he was close to the duchess, he could protect her. And Queen Charlotte was as interested in stopping his mother now as he was. So he could bide his time, as Selina had suggested, especially while his interests and the Queen’s aligned.

If nothing else, he had learned how limited Charlotte’s power was.

She was bound to the throne, unable to act directly, hampered by the fact that information moved slowly, when her enemies moved with speed.

She needed them—him, and Charity, and the others, too.

And he suspected he would need the Crown’s resources for finding his mother and dealing with her once and for all.

And when he had, he would be able to break that leash to the queen. One way or the other. To finally be free—at least, of everyone except the one person he wanted to be bound to forever.

But Peregrine could sense dark crossroads that lay ahead and was afraid. Chandros’s gaze held his, in his mind’s eye, taunting him. Reminding him that no matter how much he wanted to be a better man, his mother would make it too easy to step a foot wrong, off the precipice, into darkness.

“What troubles you?” Charity murmured against his side, and he startled. “You went very tense. ”

“Thoughts of my mother,” he told her, turning onto his side so he could press his lips to the crown of her head. “I am sorry; I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You don’t have to try to stop her alone. Not any longer.” Charity lifted her blue eyes towards him, and he found himself lost in the colour of the delicate striations.

His fingers itched again to paint, to try to capture that shade. That expression meant just for him.

And for that he was… more grateful than he knew how to express. Because a month ago, the idea of trying to sever himself from this nightmare of his mother’s had been crushing him. And that had been even before he had really known what odds to reckon against.

He let his fingers smooth over the wrinkle in her brow and into the glorious golden mass of her hair above her ear, speaking his fear aloud. “Just because we have defeated Chandros does not mean we are safe. She will do what she can to make sure that even if she loses, we will, too.”

His mother would do her best to seize a smaller victory from the jaws of her defeat. To ruin him, if she could not have him.

Charity let her palm flatten over the healing gash in his side. “No. She may leave wounds, but they will heal. The only way she can really harm us is if we lose hope. She has no power strong enough to unmake us otherwise.”

“There’s one other way she can harm us,” he said softly, trying to give voice to the notion that had been building in his head since Hodges’s shocking speech to him.

“I will probably be scouring her from my soul the rest of my life. And sometimes I still hear her words, feel her impulses. My mother ingrained it into my very being that leverage was the only way to ensure loyalty. Secrets that you hold over another are the only way to be safe ,” he said bitterly, thinking of Grenville’s death, and how it had bound and gagged him .

She waited for him to find what he wanted to say, no judgement on her face, only patient understanding.

“I took a ledger from Goldbourne’s office, and I kept it.

It possesses all the information we needed to find the exchequer bills.

And it holds all the information, still, that I could use to threaten the Crown if they turn against me.

Proof that they have covered it up. I should give it over, I know it.

It is the right thing to do, and I want to break this pattern.

Her hold on me. I don’t want to be what she tried to make me anymore. ”

“You’re afraid that if you give it up, you will have nothing left to protect yourself with,” she told him gently. “It is a very human thing, to defend oneself with anything at hand. Your mother won’t be the first or the last to arm herself with secrets and blackmail.

“But,” she continued, “it isn’t true that you have nothing. You guarded yourself—both of us—from the Queen and from our enemies without that ledger. With your wits, and with our friends.”

“You don’t think I would be foolish? To give this away?”

“The real danger in keeping it is the temptation to use that knowledge as a weapon, but that is something I have never seen you do. I understand your impulse to protect yourself, and I trust you. Still, others would not say the same. So in the end, Perry—I think it would be a brave thing, to give the ledger up. Trust in yourself that you don’t need it. But I will stand with you, either way.”

How had he existed before this? He wasn’t sure he had ever been living a life at all, unless one counted years of emptiness and self-loathing. Flipping Charity onto her back, he trapped her beneath him, letting his weight rest on his elbows as hovered over her.

He loved her. Even if the word never left his throat, there was no pretending he did not know this feeling for exactly what it was. He loved her in every mood of hers—but especially when he could shatter her poised, untouchable calm.

So he didn’t try to articulate the feeling. Peregrine leaned in without warning, letting his lips brush the delicate curve of her ear, breath warm and maddeningly deliberate. Charity shrieked, half a laugh and half outrage, and he lost himself in that feeling a little while longer.