“Y ou two are mad. And I’m not doing it again,” Peggy said, eyeing his hand, then turning away and striding out of the room.
Maximus lowered his hand, let out a sigh, and wondered how the devil his life had entirely changed in an hour. He took one look at his grandmother and was quite alarmed to see a merry glint in her gaze.
“Grandmama, you’re up to something,” he groaned.
“Of course I am, my dear, and that’s why you brought her to me. You’re up to something too.”
Maximus cleared his throat.
“Don’t worry, my dear. The darkness you’ve been in is dissipating now. You’ve done it.”
“Done what?” he demanded, even as he longed to race out into the hall and be in her presence again.
“Found the solution to your dilemma. Her.”
Maximus rolled his eyes. “Grandmama, I don’t believe such nonsense.”
“It doesn’t really matter,” she said with a shrug. Then she waved her hand at him, shooing him. “Now, go after her before she bolts down the hall and makes her escape. Such a one as her could, you know.”
She could. She was very fast. The chase had been quite a surprise. “Am I really to hold her prisoner?”
“Prisoner?” his grandmother exclaimed. “That’s one word for it. I do not think anyone could actually hold her. Not if she didn’t wish it. Now I shall arrange everything. Go make certain she doesn’t run off into the night. She’s waiting for you. I think… I think she wants to be caught, Maximus. I am so glad it is you.”
He refused to contemplate those words with any depth. His grandmother insisted on seeing soul mates and signs wherever she went. But surely, Peggy was not…
Maximus shook his head, turned on his heel, and raced out into the hall, half afraid he would have to deduce her whereabouts.
But she was waiting.
He was surprised. “You didn’t try to make for the hills?”
“Why should I?” She cocked her head to the side, raking her gaze down his body, lingering on his thighs. “You have excellent legs.”
“I’m glad you’ve noticed,” he said. “I think they are one of my best features.”
She snorted. “You think very well of yourself, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he said without apology as they lingered before an exceptionally large portrait of the first formidable Briarwood woman, who had caught the love of a king and secured a dukedom for her son. “All the Briarwoods do, though technically I’m a Newfield, as I am the eldest son of the Earl of Drexel.”
“Yes, this is the second time you’ve told me that. You must be very proud of that too.”
His lips twitched. “I am proud of a vast many things.”
“I suppose one would be when one has all of this,” she said, looking around in the dark, illuminated only by moonlight spilling in through the tall windows.
“Come along,” he said. “Time to show you your cruel prison.”
He strode down the hall. His room had a small room adjacent to it. It had a daybed. But he was no fool. He was never going to fall asleep with her in the same room as he. Not with the way his body had responded to her when he’d grabbed her as she’d bolted down the hall.
His body’s reaction had been primal, immediately insisting that he lay claim to her as ancient males did when finding a woman they wished to possess.
It had shocked him, the power of that.
Besides, if he didn’t tie her to the bed, she’d bolt out a window while he was sleeping, surely. And he wasn’t about to tie her up… Not like that.
It didn’t take very long for them to find themselves before his door. He twisted the handle, pushed it open, and said, “After you, my lady.”
“Don’t mock,” she said. “I would like to believe that you’re better than mocking.”
He cleared his throat. “Do forgive me. The entire family has a bent for theatricality and drama. If you would prefer me to be dull and rather obtuse, I can do that.”
“I would rather you were just silent altogether, if I’m going to bear the whole night,” she said as she strode in.
Following her, he declared, “Most ladies think I’m absolutely marvelous the whole night.”
She glanced back over her shoulder and rolled her eyes. “I don’t know which young ladies you have been with, sir, but I shall not massage your feelings. I shall be very happy to make it through this entire life without the company of a gentleman throughout the night.”
“Well, then we will have to be friends,” he said.
“Friends,” she laughed, turning quickly, causing the skirts of her gown to swirl and caress her limbs. “Someone like you and someone like me can never be friends. We can barely even be acquaintances. We shall have to simply be two people staring at each other across a battlefield, deciding whether or not to make war.”
Those words, just words, crashed over him and the echo of the battlefield descended upon him. The screams. The burning scents. The fear. The boys crying for their mothers. And the men facing off, determined to kill each other.
Her eyes shone then, as if she realized she had gone too far.
“No,” he managed.
“No?” she queried softly, licking her lower lip.
He crossed to her slowly, until his boot tips caressed her gown, and he whispered, for he loathed to talk of war, “I have been on a battlefield. I have seen blood and death and terror. I have seen the dance one does with death, desperate for another day. And you and I shall be nothing like that. There shall be no battlefield.”
She hesitated for a moment. “Forgive me. I suppose it was my turn to use drama and hyperbole.”
He nodded.
“A truce then?” she said softly.
“A truce is the beginning,” he agreed.
She bit her lower lip, tilted her head back, and contemplated his face. Her hand lifted, instinctively, it seemed, as if she might touch him, but then she pulled back. “That, of course, is how you got the eye patch. In battle.”
“Yes,” he said. “Did you think that I had done something ridiculous, like running after a lady, falling down, and jabbing my own eye out on a porcelain spaniel?” he teased, trying to sound as absurd as possible to drive the memories of war away.
“Well, one never knows with the upper classes,” she teased, as if she too sensed he wished to forget. “Thank you for fighting Napoleon,” she said softly.
“I’m glad that you realize Napoleon is a problem.”
She tsked. Then, much to his astonishment, she punched his shoulder lightly. “Don’t be rude,” she said. “I’m very well-read, but of course I understand what you mean.”
She studied him as her breath came in slow takes, and the short distance between them seemed to melt away in the intimacy of the moment. “I’m sorry that it happened to you, and I shouldn’t have made light of war. Now you can understand what I feel like when you can’t seem to see how distant your people are from mine.”
He drew in a long breath. “I—”
“You don’t really understand the stakes of why I’m here,” she cut in.
An ache formed in his chest. A very different one than any he’d ever experienced. Because he did want to understand. He wanted to save her. To rescue her from all the pain of the world she’d grown up in. The world that had made her choose such a dangerous occupation, when it was so clear how intelligent and beautiful she was. The world should be at her feet. She shouldn’t be trying to steal clocks as her only opportunity to escape from poverty.
“I suppose I don’t,” he agreed.
“Which is why your grandmother chastised you, and good for her.”
“She’s not afraid to tell us the truth or what we’re doing amiss.”
“Good,” Peggy said softly, her eyes lingering on his lips for a moment. But then she tore her gaze away and rather quickly headed to the fireplace.
“You’re going to try to steal another clock?” he asked.
She let out a laugh. She couldn’t stop herself.
And then she slipped the French clock from her pocket, which was quite awkward, and put it on the mantel next to the much plainer English-style timepiece.
“This is really a favorite of yours?” she asked.
“It really is,” he said, crossing to her, unable to stay away, though he should. “It was in Versailles. It saw many things happen in those hallowed halls.”
She snorted. “Why are the lives of the powerful and the rich considered to be so important, while the lives of everyday people are forgotten?”
He stared at her for a long moment. The room felt thick with their conversation, with the strangeness of their growing closeness… And how it felt as if he had known her in another life. How he felt right to take her in his arms, kiss her, and demand that she let him help her, even though they had just met.
Perhaps he felt right because of the way she made him feel. The last months, despite his family, despite his determination to wallow? They had been dark.
Peggy was a sharp bit of light, and it was pouring onto his soul.
“It’s a very good point, really,” he admitted. “But perhaps it’s because they make all the decisions.”
“They?” she echoed. “You mean people like you? If you’re going to be the earl, you’re going to make a great many decisions for people like me.”
“Perhaps you could try to make great decisions,” he ventured.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she retorted, twisting towards him and poking him in the chest. “I’m getting out of this country as soon as possible. Perhaps in America, I’ll have more say. But even ladies there don’t have that much power.”
He loved that she was so bold with him. She wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t deferential. She simply was.
“Ladies are in a particularly difficult position,” he said. “Please let us help you.”
“I don’t want your help. Help is like the act of a magician,” she said. “You always find out that it was just a cheap trick.”
“Peggy,” he whispered, “not everyone is like that.”
“Must be nice,” she whispered, “to think so.”
“Do you hate me so much?”
“What a waste of energy that would be! I don’t hate you. But you’re too charming. Charming men are trouble.”
“Charming?” he echoed, leaning down towards her, savoring her scent of soap.
She pursed her lips. “Charming men are—”
“Very pleasurable,” he put in.
She scowled at him. “None of that.”
He wanted to push. To go further down this road. But that would surely be a mistake. Or maybe… Maybe she needed a man to take her in his arms and show her what passion and protection could be. To show her that some men were entirely different.
Yes, he could change her entire world and never let her be hurt in the changing. But not yet.
He cleared his throat, trying to shove aside the desire that now seemed ever-present with her. “Well, then what shall we talk about if we’re not going to talk about men and women and the pleasures between them? We could talk about Shakespeare,” he said.
“I can’t stand Shakespeare.”
He let out a note of horror. “Don’t let Grandmama hear you say that. How can you hate Shakespeare?”
“Because my grandmother and my mother…”
“I hate to say this, but it does seem as if your entire life is based upon the dislikes and likes and happenings of your grandmother and your mother.”
She folded her arms under her breasts, pushing them up against the cut of her gown. “Cannot you say the same, my lord?” she challenged. “You seem to live your life according to the beliefs of your grandmother.”
He gave her a bow then—an elaborate one—with a twirling wrist and bowed head. “You make a great point,” he said. “Forgive me. We have been shaped in so many different ways, but it strikes me that we’re actually very similar.”
She tsked. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“No, no. Hear me out,” he said, focusing on one of her curls that had slipped free from its coil. Slowly, he took it between his thumb and forefinger, savoring its silkiness before he slipped it behind her ear. “Well, your life could have been mine.”
She batted his hand away, but her expression changed, and she lowered her arms to her sides. Intrigued. “My life never could have been yours, sir.”
Maximus dared then. Dared as only someone like he, a Briarwood, could do. He took her hand and pressed her palm to his. Two different hands. Two different lives. Pressed together.
Then he wound their fingers together, making their hands one.
“But if my grandmother had not escaped the East End, perhaps I would be like you. A thief struggling to make ends meet to survive.”
She contemplated their entwined hands. Then, slowly, something happened in the way that she looked at their hands. Her gaze darted back to his and she let out a gasp.
“What is it?” he asked, fighting the urge to pull her against his body.
“You would fit.”
Yes. He would. And she would fit against him. They were definitely a fit.
But that wasn’t what she meant. She meant something else entirely.
Her gaze wandered over his face, traced his shoulders, then went back to their hands. “It would take time, but I think you could actually survive. Most of the toffee-nosed people would be crushed within minutes.” She swallowed, lifting her luminous gaze to his. “But when I first spotted you, I saw it. It must be your grandmother’s blood. There’s a certain toughness to you, and I think if I gave you a cudgel, you could keep order and make certain you didn’t die in a back alley somewhere.”
He rubbed his thumb over the back of her palm, longing to take away all the darkness from her world. “That sounds quite grim.”
She leaned towards him and said, “It is grim. Wasn’t battle grim?”
“Yes, battle was grim. That was war. The East End is—”
She locked gazes with him, her body swaying forward with the intensity of her words. “If you don’t think there’s a battle happening every day in some back alley where I grew up, your grandmother has not taught you enough about the truth of your heritage.”
“Perhaps it’s been too many years,” he said softly, “since she lived that life. Perhaps we are drifting from it. Perhaps you can teach me, so I don’t make the mistakes that you seem to think I am making. We can help each other.”
Suddenly, she pulled back, her hand slipping from his. “I don’t believe that you will ever truly help people like me.”
“Why?” he rasped, feeling bereft, as if she had pulled away the light he so longed for.
“Because there’s nothing in it for you. And people don’t do things for nothing.”
“That’s not true,” he said.
She put her hands on her hips, then cocked her hips to the side, a stance a ton lady would never take. “Oh, tell me.”
“I’d like to see you happy,” he rushed. “That’s what Briarwoods do, you know. They make people happy.”
She stared at him, then her mouth dropped open and she started to laugh. “You want to make one person happy? That is a ridiculous thing to do with the amount of power and wealth that you have.”
“All right then,” he rushed. “What if I made a great many people happy with your help?”
“I don’t see how that is possible.”
“Well, that’s the thing about my grandmother and this family. When you get involved with us, there are suddenly possibilities you never imagined.”
She narrowed her eyes, as if she was familiar with such promises, which were actually lies in disguise. “Oh, yes? Like what?”
She was never going to believe his words. Words would never be enough with her. But he had to try.
“The moment I saw you, I knew one thing.”
“Oh, God,” she groaned, her earlier gentleness gone and her armor back in place. “You wanted to kiss me, is that it?”
“Yes,” he admitted, his voice low with the passion slowly stoking to life inside him.
“No,” she replied.
“No?” he queried, realizing that he was coming up against a hard wall with her.
“No, because you’ll make kissing and”—her gaze darted to the bed—“sport part of the deal to help me.”
He shook his head. “Never. I don’t do that. I never have, and I never will.”
She frowned. “Truly? I thought that’s what all gentlemen like you did.”
“Not us Briarwoods,” he rushed. “We’re not really interested in that kind of transactional exchange, you see. Maybe I was a bit wild in the past, but what I want from you is something entirely different.”
She stilled. “And what is it that you want from me?”
And then he knew. He knew exactly what she was here for. And it wasn’t a bloody clock.
“I want to feel alive again, Peggy. I want to feel fully and truly alive, like I did before, because something’s happened to me, and I can’t wake up.”
Her armor slipped away again. For an instant.
“Please, Peggy,” he growled. “Wake me up.”