Highland Awakening Page 8

  The chair was already pulled back from the desk, and he sat in it. He stared at the desk, swiping his fingertips over some of the random pages of parchment strewn on it. Her notebook wasn’t here.

  He tugged on the single desk drawer, but it didn’t budge. He leaned back to look down at it and found a tiny key wedged into the keyhole. He turned it and pulled the drawer open.

  There was her notebook, sitting atop another pile of papers. He drew it out and set it atop the desk, then slowly opened it to the first page. He frowned when he saw what was written there: The Dangerous Duke Takes a Bride by Jean Hayden.

  What? What dangerous duke? And who the hell was Jean Hayden?

  He turned the page.

  The Duke of Rockwell lived alone. He was a solitary man, with no family, no wife, and no friends to speak of. He did have a dog, a small creature, who, even though it was fed and cared for properly, looked upon the duke with a wary sort of fear in its eyes.

  That expression of fear wasn’t reserved for the dog. Just about everyone who associated with the duke gazed upon him with similar caution. He was imposing—extremely tall and muscular, with dark hair and eyes and a narrow face that gave him a harsh, hawkish look. He saw the world through cynical eyes, because throughout his life, he had not been given much reason to be optimistic—

  Cam flipped through the pages. They were covered—back and front—with writing. It was a story, he realized—the story of the Duke of Rockwell and one Miss Conners.

  And as it progressed, the story became…erotic.

  Heat crawled up the back of Cam’s neck as he read a passage about two-thirds of the way through.

  “I shouldn’t be here,” she murmured. “Please. Let me go.”

  His eyes were narrow slits, dark and forbidding. “Then why are you here, Miss Conners?”

  “I…” She couldn’t explain it—not out loud. How to explain this mad compulsion she had to see him? To touch him? To cover him—every inch of him—with her lips? With her tongue? She shuddered.

  She wanted him so badly, but it wasn’t right. None of this was right. She should not be alone with this man in this quiet, dark house.

  “You…? You what?” Rockwell asked.

  “I just…” She closed her eyes tight, then opened them, looking straight at him. She wasn’t coy. She wasn’t a tease. She’d always been forthright, and she wasn’t going to start to be someone else, not now, not with the Duke of Rochester pressing her body against the wall. “I just…wanted to see you again.”

  A wicked smile curved his lips. “Did you?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “You wanted more than just to see me, yes?”

  Her eyes flickered away and then back to him. She nodded.

  He reached up and curved his palm on her breast over her dress. She gasped.

  “This?” he asked, his voice smooth as brandy.

  “Yes,” she breathed.

  His lips pressed against hers.

  Cam turned to look at the bed, where Esme still slept, her deep breaths audible from across the room.

  Good God.

  He’d known she was a sensual creature, but this…This was unexpected. She behaved so innocently—and he knew she was innocent, inexperienced when it came to physical relations with men. But not so innocent, perhaps, in the deep inner workings of her mind and heart.

  Henry Whitworth didn’t know about these writings. No one knew about them. Which was why she kept this notebook hidden, why she used the false name of Jean Hayden. And why she’d fallen into a panic when Cam had snatched it away from her at the whorehouse.

  Lady Esme Hawkins was a clandestine writer of novels.

  Cam sat motionless for a long moment, then he closed the notebook and slipped it back into the desk drawer before locking it. He rose and walked over to the bed. Carefully, he sat on its edge. Tenderness sifted through him as he watched Esme, so peacefully resting. Even in sleep, she was such a bonny lass.

  A lock of hair had fallen over her mouth, and he reached up and gently tucked it away, his fingers sliding down the silky strand. Then, he couldn’t help it—he trailed his fingertips across her cheek, her skin soft and pliant and warm under his touch.

  Her eyelashes fluttered, and he pulled back, but not in time. Her eyes opened, and he watched as they focused to see him. With a small cry, she lurched up to a seated position.

  He wrapped his arm around her and clamped his hand over her mouth. If the duke caught him here it would either be wedding bells or pistols at dawn. “Shh,” he murmured. “It’s just me. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  She jerked out of his hold, but he could tell she no longer intended to scream bloody murder, so he let her go.

  “Why are you here?” she gasped, her eyes still wide with panic. “What are you doing here, Mr. McLeod?”

  He snorted. “I think we’re in an intimate enough position that you ought to be calling me by my given name.”

  “Why are you in my room, Mr. McLeod?” she asked, apparently not hearing him, as she scuttled farther away from him. Clutching the bedcover to her chest, she slid off the bed on the opposite side and stood facing him, looking not only appalled, but angry to boot.

  He blew out a breath. “My given name is Camden. Call me Cam.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him.

  “I…” He looked down, drawing circles on the sheet with his fingertips. “I came because…” Well, here was the moment. The moment he hadn’t wanted to come but had anyhow. As much as the urge was there, he wasn’t going to invent some farfetched story. He would tell her the damn truth, as much as it made him want to cringe to do so. “I came because I couldna stop thinking about you.”

  She stood still, studying him. Then she shook her head in exasperation. “You could have come at a more acceptable hour! I was fast asleep!”

  “Aye, that’s true. But…” He shook his head, then admitted, “Yesterday wasna a good day. And I wanted to see you to…” He looked down at the sheets again. “…to remind myself that there are bonny things in life, too.”

  Esme’s muscles relaxed just a tiny bit at his admission. His voice was raw as he said it, and he didn’t look at her. He was sharing a vulnerable moment with her…even though she was the one who should be feeling vulnerable right now.

  Because…good Lord, he was in her room! In her private bedchamber—a room that no one ever entered besides her and her maid. At—she took a quick glance at the clock—two o’clock in the morning.

  She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  He looked at her, and his eyes were dark in the dimness of the room, a deep blue-black, like the ocean in a storm.

  “I missed you today. I wanted to see you.”

  “You might have gone about it the usual way,” she said dryly. “Like…perhaps sending a letter? Or coming to call in the afternoon?”

  He gave a mirthless laugh. “You know enough of me by now, Esme, to understand that I dinna crave to be ‘usual,’ at least not to conform to society’s ways of behaving.”

  “Yes, well…Do you understand that you’ve snuck into the Duke of Trent’s house in the middle of the night?”

  “Aye, of course.”

  She shook her head. It took a certain kind of recklessness to do such a thing. “What do you want from me, then?”

  He smirked. “Everything.”

  She took a step backward, still clutching the counterpane to her chest. Then she braced herself to scream if he came at her.

  He didn’t. He remained seated calmly on the other side of the bed, his posture chasing away most of her fear. Most, but not all. “But for now…just to see you,” he said. “That’ll be enough.”

  “All right.” She paused, then shrugged. “You’ve seen me. Perhaps you should go.”

  “Probably,” he agreed. Then he narrowed his eyes at her, no doubt seeing the panic that still bubbled within her. “I’d never hurt you.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know that. I
hardly know you.”

  “You ken that much about me.”

  “Do I?” she whispered.

  “Aye, you do.”

  She waited, watching him warily.

  “I dinna wish to go,” he said quietly. “Not yet.”

  “You should, though. It’s dangerous for you to be here.”

  He looked down at his lap, then back up at her, very deliberately shaking his head. “I want to talk to you. I ken I disturbed your sleep, but…” He hesitated, and something dark passed over his expression, something raw. Grief and sadness and loneliness she recognized only because she’d experienced those things herself. “Will you…will you talk to me for a while?”

  Her gaze flickered to her desk, where her notebook lay in the drawer. It was closed, thank God. He hadn’t invaded her—

  “I saw your notebook.” Slowly he rose from the bed and faced her from across it.

  Esme’s gaze shot back to him. Panic froze her for a few seconds, and then every muscle in her body tightened, poised to flee. To grab her notebook and run until she was safe.

  Nothing about Camden McLeod was safe. Not to her mind, or her body, or her reputation…perhaps not even to her sanity.

  “I read part of it,” he continued.

  Esme didn’t move. Oh God. He’d read her notebook. He knew.

  Panic bubbled more furiously inside her, and then…it exploded. Into raw, pure anger. How dare he invade her privacy?

  And…oh Lord, he must be completely scandalized. Her face burned at the thought of some of the things he must have read.

  He tilted his head at her. “Did you think I’d judge you, Esme? Is that why you didna let me see it?”

  “It is no business of yours,” she gritted out.

  “Everything about you is my business,” he said softly, and an unwelcome frisson of awareness shot up her spine.

  Her lips tightened and she spoke through gritted teeth. “No. I didn’t give you leave to make everything about me your business.”

  “You’ve no control over what I make my business.” He gave a wry smile. “Neither, it seems, do I.”

  She looked down at her hands. Even in the dim light, she could see her knuckles had turned white, she was clutching the counterpane so tightly.

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked him, her voice throbbing with intensity. “Why are you invading my life? My room? My story?” Her mind? Her fantasies? She felt desperate, out of control when it came to this man. She looked up at him. “Why?”

  “ ’Tis a fair question,” he said softly. “I dinna wish to make you feel invaded…Unless it’s what you want.”

  She jolted at that.

  Because he was right. The way she was speaking to him was not how she should be speaking to a near stranger who’d just invaded her bedchamber. She should be screaming, crying out for help, for Trent to come in and get this horrible, frightening man away from her.

  But she didn’t shout out for her brother. Because she wanted Camden McLeod to be here. She wanted to be talking to him. She wanted to understand him.

  She wanted all of that, and more.

  She released the counterpane and returned it to the bed, where it belonged. Then she walked around the bed clad in only her nightgown, fully aware that no one except her maid had ever seen her in so few clothes, and stood before him, facing him head-on.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” she said softly.

  For the first time, he looked as confused and helpless as she felt. “I couldna help it,” he murmured. “I needed to see what you’d written in there.”

  “Tell me what you think of me now.” She looked him in the eye. “Now that you know what I write. The kinds of things I write about.”

  His lips curled. “I think I want you even more.”

  “Why? Because of the content of my story? Do you think that just because you know some of the things I have written that I’ll give my favors freely?”

  He blinked in surprise. “Nay.”

  She stared at him in disbelief.

  “Not because of what you write, Esme,” he said softly. “Because you do write.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, it canna be easy for a lass in your position. You need to be determined, ambitious, cautious…intelligent.”

  Those were all traits Cam himself seemed to possess—well, except for caution, clearly. “What would you think of me if I told you that three of my books have been published? That this is my fourth, and it’s due to my editor in three months’ time.”

  Surely he would be horrified to hear such a thing. Not only had she engaged in writing such scandalous content, but she had participated in the trade of publishing her books and selling them to the public. Most gentlemen would think she’d debased herself beneath the lowest of the low.

  “I’d say that’s an impressive feat for any writer.”

  She blinked at that, thrown off balance for a moment. Then she gathered her composure and held it tightly against her. “What would you say if I told you that I’ve lied to my family, friends, and acquaintances about my stories? That no one knows about them except my brother Sam?”

  “I’d say well done. And well done to Sam, who has evidently earned your confidence.”

  She laughed despite herself, her stiffness melting away like butter in sunlight. “You, sir, are truly unconventional.”

  He grinned. “So, it seems, are you.”

  She nodded. She’d always felt like an outsider in her family. She even looked different from the rest of the duke’s offspring—and it had only been recently that she’d learned why. She wasn’t the true daughter of the last Duke of Trent—she was the product of the duchess’s long-standing affair with Steven Lowell, a gypsy man from a traveling circus, of all crazy things.

  What would Camden McLeod say if she told him that? She smiled, deep inside. Unlike everyone else in the ton, he’d probably like her more for it. She loved his reaction to her writing…it was like a breath of fresh air, and so unlike how anyone else she knew would react.

  “So tell me, then,” she said, the last of her wariness fading away.

  “Tell you what?”

  “Why you’re here. You said yesterday wasn’t a good day. Tell me what happened.”

  Chapter 11

  Cam gave Esme a thoughtful look, trying to decide how much to tell her. Finally, he relaxed his expression. “ ’Tis a long story.”

  “Well, I have all night. Or the rest of it, in any case.”

  He nodded and held out his hand to her. “Sit with me?”

  She took his hand and he led her to the pair of armchairs near the fire. “You’re saying I’m unconventional, and that’s true,” he said after they’d both taken a seat. “But my work is also unconventional.”

  “My sister-in-law said you were in the army, but I know many of the regiments were disbanded after Waterloo. Is that what happened to you?”

  “Not exactly. Five officers and two enlisted men from the regiment of Gordon Highlanders were summoned to London and given the opportunity to leave the army and do something different. We all accepted.”

  “What was it?” she asked.

  He seemed to hesitate for a second, but then he said, “We formed a brotherhood called the Highland Knights.”

  She released a long breath. “Ah.”

  He raised his brows in surprise at her stiffening posture. “You’ve heard of the Knights?”

  “Yes. My brother Sam works with the Agency.”

  He nodded. “I am acquainted with your brother.”

  “From what I’ve gathered, the Highland Knights are an offshoot of Sam’s group.”

  “Aye, we are.” He tilted his head at her. “How much do you know of the Agency?”

  “Too much,” she said flatly.

  He nodded, understanding immediately. Sam Hawkins had been an elite assassin for the Agency for many years, but he was deeply incognito and very few knew the extent of the work he did for the country. Cl
early, Esme did, though.

  “The Knights have only been in service to the Crown since Waterloo. The work we’re involved in is much the same, though most of our assignments will be in Scotland and the north.”

  “Why are you in London, then?”

  “I dinna ken, exactly. We were in Manchester for a time, but since then we’ve been in London guarding Pinfield. He’s evidently been receiving death threats. We’ve been assigned to protect him and uncover the nature of the threat. Our superiors believe the danger might have originated in Scotland.”

  “I see.” She paused. “You’ve worked with Sam, then?”

  “He was with us through the beginning months. He introduced us to the work.”

  “Are you an assassin?” she breathed.

  “Nay. Though if my duty calls for it, I’ll do what must needs be done.”

  “So did what happened yesterday have something to do with your work?”

  “Aye, in a way. It was…it was one of the other Knights…George Fraser…”

  She leaned forward, reaching out to cover his hand that was resting on the arm of the chair. He was trembling, very subtly, and he wondered if she could feel it as she squeezed his hand gently.

  He was unused to being comforted. It was a singularly odd sensation. He liked it more than he’d expected to. Quite a bit more.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “He was killed.” He closed his eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. “He was my friend. My brother. He was murdered while I was here at your brother’s dinner party.”

  “Oh, Cam,” she murmured. “I am so sorry.”

  They sat in silence for a long moment. Cam kept his eyes closed and his body relaxed, even though it felt alive and awake in every possible way, his senses humming with awareness radiating out from their point of contact at his hand.

  “The worst part about it,” Cam said after a time, “is that we dinna ken who murdered him. And we dinna ken why. Fraser had no enemies.”

  “But the Highland Knights must,” Esme said.

  “Aye.” Again he was surprised at her perceptiveness. She was no insipid female. “Even as green as we are, it’s possible we’ve already acquired enemies.”