Page 35 of A Scoundrel in the Making

“Many adults don’t know the difference,” he said.

“True,” she murmured. “This lad pursued me. I flirted—no woman in France would be taken seriously if she didn’t flirt with a young buck who pursued her—but I had no interest in him, of course. One night, I met with another agent. Victor followed me. I was such a fool,” she added bitterly. “I was so confident that no one suspected me that I didn’t take the proper precautions. Victor showed up and, at gunpoint, insisted my contact and I accompany him to Napoleon.”

“You stopped him, I assume?”

“I did.”

“You had to protect yourself, as well as your contact,” Reade said.

“A French woman with two small children.”

“Good God,” he muttered. “She would have been hanged.”

“And her children would have been put into an orphanage,” Abigail said. “Those places are littler better than prisons.”

“You had no choice.”

Abigail stared into the flames. “No choice but to shoot a boy fighting for France, just as I fought for England.”

“War is heartless,” Reade said. “It isn’t your fault, Abigail. You saved three people.”

“And sacrificed one.”

She shifted her gaze to his. “It is worse than that.”

“How?”

“I would do it again.”

* * *

Reade insisted that he sit by the fire until Abigail fell asleep. She hadn’t said it, but he would wager she suffered from nightmares. He’d divested himself of his coat, cravat and boots in anticipation of an uncomfortable night in the chair. He should have known that it wouldn’t be her cries that woke him, but the now too-familiar click of a secret passageway door opening. Curse all medieval castles to hell. Did every damn room in Caithis Castle have access from some sort of secret passageway?

Reade jumped to his feet and hurried around the opposite side of the bed from which he’d heard the sound. The canopied bed hid him from view of that side of the room. He pulled back the curtain and discerned Abigail’s form by the thin light that leaked from the hearth. She knelt on the bed.

“Remain quiet,” he whispered, and eased onto the bed.

The thick curtain fell closed behind them, leaving them in darkness. The secret door scraped on the floor as he ripped his shirt open. Buttons landed soundlessly on the blanket. His cuffs followed, then he sloughed off the shirt and shimmied out of his breeches. He pulled Abigail close. Her palms flattened on his chest.

Reade gritted his teeth against the exquisite warmth of her fingers on his flesh, and whispered in her ear, “This endless procession of would-be lovers is over.”

He heard her barely stifled laugh in the instant before he kissed her.

Abigail melted against him. He hadn’t imagined her response, after all, when he’d kissed her in the hallway. She wanted him.

She whimpered softly, and his cock rose from the half-hardened state it had been since their kiss. He yanked back the blankets, then lowered her onto the mattress and pulled the blankets over them as he covered her body with his. She released a sigh that sent the blood pounding through his ears. Concentrate on the intruder, he mentally ordered.

A ghastly thought struck. What if the intruder wasn’t a prospective lover, but someone who had guessed she was searching for the Honors? Hardly! Abigail had been at Caithis Castle less than twenty-four hours, and half a dozen men had already vied for her attention—even for her hand in marriage. No doubt, Chaluim thought he could sneak in and force himself upon her. Fury swept through Reade. He would beat the bastard to within an inch of his life.

At the creak of a floorboard, Abigail stiffened.

Reade pressed his mouth to her ear and whispered, “When he pulls back the curtain, I will play the angry lover. You stay in bed.”

She nodded.

Reade strained for sound of the intruder’s approach. Abigail slid the fingers of one hand into his hair. His heart thundered. She would drive him mad in the few seconds it took the intruder to reach the damn bed. The scrape of a boot on the wooden floor registered. Abigail shifted beneath him. Reade gritted his teeth against the desire to rock against her. He had no intention of his first climax with her to be on her belly in the instant before a rival discovered them in bed together. She shifted again, bumping his hardened cock. Reade sucked in a breath at the pleasure that streaked through him.

He tightened his hold on her and whispered, “For God’s sake, lie still.”