Page 49

She sighed. “I wish I could say I could not believe it of him. But he has been … pressed for funds of late.”

And not the type to take up an honest trade. They both knew that.

“Worse than that,” Hew said, guiding the horse down the wide lane that led to Newport. “He’s been asking about the Black Hound’s business. Who is taking up what parts of his interests. And he’s been seen in the company of known associates.”

The little man Hew had seen in the street the other day, for example. A chat with Evans, out of Anne’s sight, had confirmed him as Morys, one of the Black Hound’s henchmen. He’d taken part in the kidnapping of Anne and the ladies, which was how Evans knew him.

Her brother was trying to insinuate himself with the associates of a criminal who had been feared throughout south Wales, but Sutton didn’t have the stones or the steel to be a businessman in the vein of the Black Hound. He’d get himself jailed or killed.

And Anne would suffer for it.

Hew braced himself for the changes in the town, the missing West Gate, the torn-down Market House.

That strange sense of disassociation, that he belonged here, was of this place, and yet no longer knew it.

He’d often accompanied his father to town to bring his mother to market, to take a pint at the Bull Inn with the other burghers, to listen as Sir Lambert weighed in on local affairs, his name as a knight and gentleman holding just as much weight as a Kemeys or Jones or Herbert, almost as much as Morgan’s.

Hew knew these landmarks like he knew his own face: the House of Refuge, an institution for the poor, built by the Earl of Pembroke centuries ago, with the Pembroke arms in stone above the door.

The half-timbered house where Charles II had stayed prior to the Restoration.

The old Cross House with its great granite cross in the front yard, the purpose of which was long forgotten and much speculated about.

It wasn’t a lovely town, or a large and sophisticated one. But Hew heard its heartbeat, a song of possibilities. He could make a home here. A future. One holding a wife and a family and a place in town affairs as great as his father’d once held.

If he didn’t end again in prison.

If Anne would consent to be that wife. He wanted none other.

He passed the Fleur de Lys, where he’d learned, with a few discreet inquiries, that most of the tax-free goods trading through Newport were stored, at the direction of one Rafael Darch.

“If you know something, Anne, please tell me.” He tried to keep his voice gentle, confiding. Reassure her she could trust him. “I want to keep your brother out of trouble, if I can.”

She pinched folds of fabric over her knees, a nervous gesture he found endearing. But the look she cast him was anxious and full of despair. “I would if I knew. But Daron no longer confides in me. He?—”

Her voice hitched, and she stopped. A rush of heat flooded Hew, so many emotions he couldn’t untangle them, but it felt like the same heat that goaded him into battle, to fight for what was right, to stop an attack.

Anyone who hurt Anne was his enemy, and he would blow them to smithereens given the first opportunity.

Even her brother. That made him a beast, and one more reason he wasn’t worthy of her.

Damn it, he had to try . He couldn’t just stand back and hand her over to another man, even if that were what she wanted.

“I will protect you,” he said, his voice rough as the road beneath their wheels. “I will do what it takes. Trust me, Anne.”

She turned those large blue eyes on him with a considering gaze. She did not trust him, not yet.

But she didn’t deny him, either.

“Daron wants me to marry your brother because he has some agreement with Calvin,” she blurted. “He believes he cannot manipulate you.”

“That much is true. But you do not want to marry Calvin.”

“No.” She turned to face ahead, watching the homes and shops as they passed. She craned her neck to look into the pie shop and waved at the woman in the window, an older woman dressed in black with streaks of silver in her hair.

What do you want, Anne ?

He couldn’t force out the words. Because he was a coward. Because he didn’t want to hear that she might want something, or someone, other than him.

What would it take to win this woman?

He’d only needed to see her blossoming at St. Sefin’s, see her command the party at Greenfield, see her walking through the garden of his home to know he wanted this woman by his side always, to learn from and discover for the rest of his natural life.

But he wasn’t the future she had planned or wanted for herself. He wasn’t the man she had dreamed of, he was certain.

So how could he, in good conscience, do his best to woo and win her when she deserved so much more than he could offer?

“This is marvelous,” Anne said, and she meant it.

She stood and peered into the narrow channel lined with cement and half-full with water reflecting the slate-blue clouds, much the shade of Hew’s eyes. He stepped next to her, slipping a hand around her waist, his fingers digging gently into her side as he urged her away from the edge.

“It is marvelous, until you fall in.”

His worry coaxed a smile of delight to her lips. His hand on her waist sent a giddy rush of air through her body, lifting her like a leaf. She wanted to curl toward him and press every inch of her body against his.

Hello, New Anne .

Old Anne warned her it wasn’t proper. Even if they were alone for the moment, standing on the grassy verge of the canal with the woods of the Welsh hills all around them.

The Crumlin arm of the Monmouthshire Canal was a busy thoroughfare channeling iron from the mountains to the Newport docks.

A boat would come through soon, and even if Hew were not recognized on the spot, a man of his description and a woman of hers would quickly be identified if gossip circulated about a couple caught in an embrace on the Cefn Flight.

But if he were her betrothed in truth …

“Marvelous,” she said again, turning to regard the locks carved into the hills, framed with timber and lined with stonework, a staircase for a giant. “The timber gates let the water drain out, lowering the boat to the next level, then the next.”

“And the weirs and reservoirs hold water in reserve in case adjustments must be made.”

He fell into step beside her as she climbed the sandy trail to peer into the higher lock.

The fit of the stones, the mechanism of the gate, everything about the engineering fascinated her.

He didn’t clamber ahead and then wait impatiently for her to catch up, Anne observed.

He paced at her side, inviting her to use his arm for balance.

She did. It was good reason to touch him, and she liked touching him.

“How does one know how to make it all fit together? I wouldn’t know where to begin with designing such a project.”

“Referencing similar projects, if possible. In this case I think Dadford had to make guesses. It’s a matter of trial and error, building, testing, revising the plan if one must. It’s remarkable, how it all works together, though there are ways it can be improved.”

“And you can see them. You know what they are. What to do.”

He looked into her face, and his gaze held, tracing every feature. His look was bold, and her heartbeat quickened.

“It’s simple mechanics, at heart. Judging how much volume you need, knowing how water moves. And having good builders, which I think Dadford did. This masonry is sound and will last for centuries.”

“You know engineering and artillery,” Anne said. She liked that he didn’t condescend to her. He didn’t dismiss her interest because she was a female. He spoke to her as a companion, an equal.

She felt, when he looked in her face, that he saw her. Not the image of Anne she projected, and not the image he wanted to see. He was listening to what she told him, and he saw beneath her to the skin, to her confused and keening heart.

She turned toward the saddlebags he’d placed on a grassy patch of ground, marking the spot for their picnic. She was not certain she wanted to be studied so carefully. Was not certain she could bear for the proud and silly and longing parts of her to be seen.

“Why do you dislike when people call you the hero of Acre?” she asked once he had opened the saddlebags and she had laid out their picnic.

“Because I didn’t act alone,” he said at once. He opened a bottle of Canary wine with a quick, capable twist, and Anne’s gaze snagged on the size and strength of those hands. Her skin lit with a glow where those hands had touched her.

“It wasn’t even my idea, what we did.” He fortunately did not notice her sudden distraction, how she had forgotten how to unpack a basket.

“Commodore Smith and his crew captured the half dozen French boats bringing Napoleon his guns. Antoine de Phélippeaux designed the fortifications and taught me what to do. Farhi, the Jewish vizier to the Pasha Jezzar, he found us the materials and the men to help. I made sure the artillery was fit for use and helped to mount it. If I was a hero, we all were.”

His lips tightened, and his eyes flared as if with a sudden blow of emotion. “Antoine more than any, and he died for his pains. The plague, after he survived everything else.”

“And you were put in prison?” Anne asked softly. She handed him one of Mrs. Harries’s pies, watching his every fleeting expression. She wanted to desperately to know this man. To understand him. “Did the French capture you?”

“No. My commander charged me with insubordination because I took my orders from Farhi and Antoine to go around him. He wanted a pitched battle, British might for British glory. He thought subterfuge was the coward’s way.

Even though we saved countless lives, especially among the residents of Acre.

When the French overran Jaffa, it was slaughter. It was … women and children?—”