The Scoundrel’s Seduction Page 6

  They stared at her. Smiling to herself but refusing to let it crack onto her lips, she looked down and tucked in to her food.

  She felt the heat of Hawk’s eyes on her, but she ignored how his gaze sensitized her skin, made it warm and achy, prickling with some sensation she couldn’t quite name. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation, and it made her crave something she shouldn’t crave at all but should fear and despise: Hawk’s touch. His strength resonating around her. His powerful arms clasping her, the erotic press of his large, hard body against her smaller one …

  Dieu. What was wrong with her?

  She forced her attention off these absurd notions and focused determinedly on her plate. She ate until her belly was pleasantly full; then she finished her coffee. It was made almost as well as the French made it—it was nothing like the typical awful sludge brewed by the English.

  Their silence was telling, and so was the coffee. Her theory must be correct. These were English spies who’d spent much time in France … spying and learning how to make proper coffee.

  What use would English spies have for the bits of information that resided in her head?

  Finally, she looked up from her plate, avoiding looking at Hawk but turning to Carter instead. The older man had taken up a sheet of newsprint and had begun to read. “Thank you for breakfast. I feel … better.”

  He glanced at her over the paper. “You’re welcome, my lady.”

  “You cook like a Frenchman.”

  He grinned. “I take that as a compliment.”

  “You should,” she told him.

  Again she felt Hawk’s eyes upon her, drawing her gaze. His presence—his gaze—was magnetic to her.

  As they stared at each other, a slow, delicious heat unfurled inside her, spreading outward and through her until it washed over her cheeks.

  His darkly handsome yet expressionless features made him even more compelling. She wanted to force that impassive mask aside and discover who he really was behind it.

  She stared steadily at him, the heat in her cheeks flaring as she realized he hadn’t stopped looking at her. Not once during the entire meal.

  Why?

  * * *

  Four days, and he’d heard nothing from Adams.

  Sam had been sleeping in the same room as Lady Dunthorpe for four days. He’d eaten every meal with her, spent leisure time in the salon with her. Each day, each hour—hell, each minute—was an eternity.

  Because … he’d ultimately come to accept the truth of it: He wanted her.

  He’d gone mad. There was no doubt about it.

  But it was there, it was a fact, and he didn’t know how to stop it. She had an allure he couldn’t ignore.

  He, Laurent, and Carter had practically drowned her in hospitality. On that first morning, before she’d come in to breakfast, Carter had reminded him that it was easier—and far more humane—to break people through kindness. Earn a person’s trust, and he or she will share everything with you.

  Sam had immediately agreed, seeing the wisdom in this. Despite a rocky beginning with her witnessing Sam killing her husband, they had endeavored to become Lady Dunthorpe’s friends, the people who ensured her comfort, who shared novels with her and played long games of charades with her in the evenings.

  She and Laurent had formed an immediate bond. Both were French by blood—Laurent was the son of an émigré father and an English mother, and she was an émigrée herself. Both had lived near Hampstead and they’d known some of the same people. They conversed easily, often long into the night as they sipped at glasses of red wine.

  And Sam watched them, jealous.

  Jealous of what, he wasn’t sure. Their easy camaraderie, he supposed. It wasn’t so easy for him. He wasn’t particularly friendly to anyone, but how could he be friendly to a woman he felt such conflicting emotions for?

  His attraction to her was an annoyance, a nuisance. He’d tried to brush it off, ignore it. But it was persistent, and it grew more demanding with every hour he spent in her presence, until it simmered in his veins and pushed under his skin, and he thought he might explode if he didn’t touch her.

  Today he was leaving the house. Finally taking a much-needed afternoon leave to see his family. He hadn’t met his new nephew yet, and he hadn’t seen Luke and his wife for a few months.

  Sam stood with Carter in the mews outside the back door of the town house, holding the reins of his saddled horse. He was ready to go, yet he hesitated.

  He gave Carter a hard look. “Watch her.”

  Carter quirked a gray-dusted brow. “Meaning?”

  “She hasn’t tried to escape since that first night, but that’s because she knows I will catch her. I watch her every move, and she knows it.”

  “As do Laurent and I.”

  “But you are less overt about it. She might believe you two have become lax.”

  Carter snorted. “She’d be wrong.”

  “Would she?”

  The other man frowned. “What are you saying, Hawk? That you don’t trust us to manage our charge?”

  Sam looked at the horse—a dappled gray. He was behaving like an ass, and Carter was right to frown at him. He’d worked with the man for years—and if they didn’t have complete trust in each other, one or both of them would have been dead by now.

  What was wrong with him? He was nervous about leaving Lady Dunthorpe with them … not because he didn’t trust them. Then why? He didn’t know.

  “No,” he told Carter softly. “I trust you. I just …” He shook his head, not completely understanding his own uneasiness.

  Carter clapped him on the shoulder. “We’ll keep her safe for you.”

  He blinked. And there it was … complete understanding in the other man’s eyes. Carter knew how attracted he was to her.

  Sam froze, unsure how he felt about that. Stupid and weak, for certain. Embarrassed, perhaps. Disappointed that he’d behaved in such an unprofessional manner that his colleague had seen his emotions written on his face.

  Relieved that there was no censure in Carter’s gaze.

  And because he needed to convince himself even more than he needed to convince Carter, he said, “She’s a witness who shouldn’t have been there. And probably a traitor. That’s all.”

  “Oh, that’s not all,” the other man said softly.

  Sam closed his eyes. “That’s all it can be.”

  Carter was silent for a moment, and then he squeezed Sam’s shoulder sympathetically. “She feels it for you, too, you know.”

  “Feels what?”

  “Oh, you know what. She fights it. She feels it’s wrong. She struggles with her attraction to the man who killed her husband because she feels she should struggle. But if it had been me or Laurent who’d killed the man … Hell, Hawk. She would already be in your bed.”

  Sam’s mouth went instantly dry as images of a naked Lady Dunthorpe in his bed assailed him. His body went tight all over.

  He clawed his way through the haze of lust, trying to locate Carter’s point.

  Sam had been so overly conscious of his own conflicting emotions, he hadn’t even begun to contemplate whether she reciprocated those feelings. But … God. Was she feeling this crazy attraction, too?

  “Are you sure?” he pushed out.

  Carter chuckled. “Aye. There’s no doubt about it. Laurent has seen it, too. In both of you.”

  Sam squeezed the bridge of his nose between two fingers. “I killed her husband. Nothing can come of it.”

  “And we’ll probably be ordered to kill her,” Carter said quietly.

  Sam dropped his hand. “What?”

  “Think about it.” Carter ticked off the points on his fingers as he spoke. “She saw too much. She heard the entirety of your conversation with Dunthorpe. She knows our names—our most common aliases, at least. She knows it was the British and not the French who killed Dunthorpe. She’s most likely a traitor herself. I think Adams delays in giving the order only because she’s a woman. He wis
hes to keep the peace among us because he knows how we feel about having the blood of innocents on our hands. So he’s digging for proof, for justification …”

  Sam cursed, low and harsh. “I made her a promise. I intend to keep it.”

  “It was a promise you never should have made, and you know it. First rule, Hawk: Maintain distance from your enemies. Becoming close with them should only ever be an illusion maintained to make them feel safe and at ease enough to share their secrets.”

  “You do believe she is our enemy, then?”

  Carter’s lips pressed into a flat line. Then he shook his head. “No. I don’t think so. Though I don’t think she’s completely loyal to the British …”

  “Not that we’ve ever done a thing to earn her loyalty.”

  “Not many would agree with that, you know. We made her a viscountess. That’s more than most Englishwomen have ever achieved.”

  Sam heaved a breath. His brother was the Duke of Trent, so he was inured to the nonsense of titles and what it all meant. Still, he knew that most of the world did not share his opinion that titles were more trouble than they were worth. And Carter’s point was valid.

  “In any case,” Carter added, “it doesn’t matter what you or I believe about her guilt or innocence. What matters is Adams’s take on it. And I have a feeling he’s going to pronounce her guilty.”

  Damn it.

  Neither Sam nor Carter had ever disobeyed a direct order from Adams. Loyalty to the Agency was integral to Sam’s life. The Agency was his sustenance. Without it, he’d be nothing.

  If that order came … what would he do?

  Chapter Five

  Sam had spent most of his childhood at Ironwood Park, the Duke of Trent’s seat in the Cotswolds, but his mother had brought him to London often, preferring the social landscape of Town to that of the country. When they were in residence in London, they’d lived in Trent House, a stately town house that abutted St. James’s Park.

  As a youth, Sam had never particularly liked Trent House; nor had he enjoyed going there. It was where the old duke spent most of his time, holed up in his study, a place the younger Sam had avoided like the plague. Sam had learned in infancy that as the illegitimate son of the duchess, his best approach to dealing with the Duke of Trent was to avoid him at all costs.

  He’d managed it very well, in fact. He’d hardly ever seen the man, and when he had, the duke had mostly ignored him.

  His younger brother, Luke, hadn’t been so lucky. Luke had been raised thinking he was the duke’s son, but had discovered last summer that he was illegitimate, too. The duke had known the truth all along, and while Sam had succeeded in avoiding the old man, Luke hadn’t, and he’d paid for it dearly. Time and again, the duke had beaten him to a pulp, and Luke had somehow managed not to reveal his suffering to anyone.

  Now the old Duke of Trent was dead, and the new duke was their brother—the one legitimate brother—who was between Sam and Luke in age. Trent was above reproach in all ways and had done his best to do right by all his siblings. Sam had always admired and respected the man for that.

  Still, there was a distance between him and his siblings. Part of it was due to the secrecy involved in his work for the Agency, but most of it had to do with his upbringing. He had been raised as the illegitimate one, and that separated him by necessity from his five siblings, who had always been accepted into society with open arms.

  The butler welcomed him politely when he knocked, and he entered a house that had completely changed since those days of his childhood, when he’d kept to dark corners and his attic bedchamber for fear of getting in the duke’s way. Now it was noisy and boisterous, full of laughter and happiness. Just stepping into the bright, airy entry hall infused Sam with a sense of well-being—one he sorely needed after the past few days.

  He might feel separated from his family, but he loved them all. They were his. And he missed them when he was apart from them for long stretches at a time.

  As he entered the corridor leading to the drawing room, Esme, whose rapt attention was on the sheet of paper she was reading and not on where she was going, descended the last stair and nearly ran him down. He grabbed her shoulders to steady her. “Whoa there, sister.”

  She glanced up at him and blushed furiously. “Oh! Sam! Oh! It’s so good to see you.”

  She rapidly folded the paper into a tiny square and tucked it into a pocket of her skirt. He wondered what that was. Correspondence from a gentleman?

  He narrowed his eyes as that thought roused all sorts of protective instincts within him. Esme was his only sister. She was twelve years younger than him, and he had a difficult time thinking of her as a woman. However, he knew she had recently turned twenty, so she was not too young to be engaging in romance.

  Still, due to the disaster of Esme’s first and only Season, her reputation was delicate, at best. The vultures of the ton circled her at all times, waiting for an opening so they could sink their sharp beaks into her. She was beautiful and innocent, with a large dowry, and her brother was a duke. Probably half of the male population of London had set its sights on her.

  Sam knew Trent took good care of her, but if anyone hurt her, they’d have to answer to Sam.

  He kissed her cheek and then, still holding her shoulders, he held her at arm’s length and looked her up and down. She was dark-haired, dark-eyed, and olive skinned. Sam had always thought that out of all his siblings, she looked most like him, although he was a great beast of a man, and she had always been quite feminine, in both body and spirit.

  “Was that a letter you were reading?”

  “Mm. Yes.” But she didn’t meet his eyes, and her flush deepened.

  “Was it from a gentleman, Esme?” he asked softly.

  Her eyes widened, and then she did look at him, aghast. “Sam! No! Of course it was not.” She shook free of him. “I promise you, it was not.”

  She seemed appropriately horrified, and that placated him. He turned his lips up into a smile. “Good. Now … where’s Trent?”

  But he already knew—the sounds of laughter and conversation coming from the drawing room traveled all the way down the corridor. Both he and Esme glanced in that direction, then at each other. She grinned at him. “They cannot wait to see you. And you need to meet little Lukas.”

  “Lukas Samson,” he corrected. Trent had named his son after both Sam and Luke.

  “Right,” she agreed. “Lukas Samson.”

  The butler had approached before they did and held the door to the drawing room open for them.

  Sam’s family crowded around him when he entered. His brothers shook his hand—first Trent, then Luke, Mark, and Theo. Trent’s wife, Sarah, hugged him, as did Luke’s wife, Emma. And then the adults all parted like the Red Sea so he could see little Lukas Samson.

  The child was bundled up in a basket on the floor. Sam crouched down and gazed into the serious blue eyes of his nephew.

  They stared at each other until Sarah laughed. “Oh dear. See? It’s just as I told you.”

  At Sam’s raised eyebrows, Trent explained, “He seems to possess a temperament much like yours.”

  “Having a child with Sam’s temperament isn’t a bad thing at all,” Luke said. “Daresay it’s far preferable to having another Luke.”

  “Definitely true,” Mark agreed, but there was laughter in his voice. “If he took after you,” he told Luke, “he’d be howling twenty-four hours a day. Though Sam is somewhat overserious.” He batted his eyelashes at Sarah. “Don’t you wish the lad had taken on my cheerful outlook upon life?”

  Sam looked down at the infant, and his siblings’ banter faded into the background. He gazed at the child’s wrinkled features, and Lukas Samson gazed back at him like a sober old man.

  An image barreled through him without warning. A vision of himself, much younger, cradling his own son in his arms right after the boy had been born. Sam had been hunched over in agony, his shoulders slumped in despair. His wife had died just min
utes before. And his tiny son—who’d been born too early, was laboring to breathe, his little chest working so hard … struggling … and there was nothing Sam could do for him. For either of them.

  The pain, deep in his chest, was so sharp he couldn’t breathe. He stared down at the baby, his vision blurring, feeling as broken as he had on the day his son and Charlotte had died.

  He’d always wanted children of his own. Even when he was a boy, he’d craved those moments when he was surrounded by his mother and his brothers and sister—his family—and he’d known he’d someday want a family of his own. He’d been thrilled when Charlotte had announced she was expecting, and watching her belly grow with his child had made him swell with pride and anticipation.

  But it wasn’t meant to be. Charlotte was taken from him. His son had lived for mere minutes after his birth before he’d been taken away, too.

  Sam could never risk that happening again. He couldn’t open his heart to a family like he had to Charlotte and to his unborn child. Because he couldn’t survive that kind of pain a second time.

  He heard the sounds of people around him. His siblings. Their wives. God. He had never lost his composure in front of them, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to start now.

  Still gazing down at his nephew, he patched the cracks in his heart and found his breath. He drew himself together, blinking away the sting in his eyes, forcing his focus to return to the here and now. He couldn’t dwell on the past. Doing so would get him nowhere—he’d learned that lesson long ago.

  Sam rose to his feet, turning to Trent and Sarah, who had slipped their arms around each other and were grinning at him. “He is …” So much like my own son, it hurts to look upon him … “Perfect,” he finished softly.

  Their smiles grew.

  “We think so,” Trent said loftily. He was a proud papa. Sam couldn’t blame him.

  Trent had once been nearly as somber and serious as Sam was. For very different reasons, of course. Trent had not gone to war, he had not lost two wives, and he had not seen what Sam had seen nor done what Sam had done—thank God. But from a young age, Trent had carried the burdens of the dukedom like heavy weights upon his shoulders. Now it was odd for Sam to see his solemn brother so … free. So open with his affection and his smiles. Sarah was responsible for that, and Sam was grateful.