Part 15 (1/2)

She needed to stop lying to everyone-and to herself. Alina looked down at her hands, unsurprised to see that she'd entwined her fingers together and that her knuckles had turned quite white. ”It doesn't matter. He's leaving England in a few days, for America. Because, you understand, he has burned too many bridges and his life is over and there's no place for me in what's left of it.”

And then she cried...and told these two warm and wonderful women who could have been her sisters everything that was in her heart.

THERE WAS NOTHING IN the world to compare with the English countryside. Justin had traveled through Europe, its towns, its cities. He'd seen grape vineyards and snow-topped mountains and lush plains planted with wheat and fed by wide blue rivers. He'd sipped tsipouro at a small cafe in Athens while looking out over the Aegean Sea, walked the same streets once trod by Julius Caesar and his legions, ridden in a dogsled toward the colorful spires of St. Basil's in Moscow, and visited the royal mounds of Gamla Uppsala in Sweden.

But nothing he had seen or experienced could take the place of the sight of his most neat and orderly England. The carefully manicured fields, the hedgerows and stone walls that divided them and yet at the same time bound them all together. The church spires always visible in the distance. The ruins, the manor houses, the quaint villages, the thatch-roofed farmhouses, the fat cows in the meadows, the rosy-cheeked children laughing on the village green. Even the rain; the rain was different in England.

It was time he was truthful, if only to himself.

This was his country. His home. It wasn't always right, its leaders not always wise, its fights not always fair or justified. There was poverty, there was greed. But there was also good. So very much good. England. Always to endure.

Justin reined in his mount at the crest of a hill overlooking Basingstoke, where Alina waited for him. He wondered what she'd thought when she'd caught her first glimpse of this, one of the premier estates in Hamps.h.i.+re, larger even than Ashurst Hall. She'd probably been impressed; G.o.d knows he'd been when he'd caught his first sight of it through the trees.

His own Hamps.h.i.+re estate was only half the size, but Justin believed its setting was equally fine, and that if anyone thought they required more than twenty bedrooms, then that person lived a life much different from his own.

Alina would never see his Hamps.h.i.+re estate, the one he'd carried a picture of in his heart for the past eight years. He couldn't allow himself to see her there, or even to imagine her there, especially if the Prince Regent found some way to confiscate the property that had been in the Wilde family since the fifteen hundreds. But she'd be fine with his town house, and with the much smaller estate near Malvern, in Worcesters.h.i.+re.

He'd never see her reaction to either of those places, either. He'd never watch, his pride in her absolute, as she charmed the ton with her wit and beauty, her wonderfully wise innocence. He'd never waltz with her in the candlelight, playfully hand her the reins as they drove through Hyde Park. Because he'd be a world away from her.

And it was all his fault.

Why, for only the second time in his life, had he acted without a single thought to the consequences?

His first thoughtless action had been to respond in anger when the surgeon in attendance had shouted out he turns early the day Robbie Farber's insane action had robbed him of his life and Justin of his country.

Why, having had eight long years to reflect on the danger of choosing his battles poorly, had he done what he'd done? What maggot had got into his brain so that he'd confronted the Prince Regent-for the love of G.o.d, threatened to strangle the miserable excuse for royalty where he stood?

But he already knew the answer. Alina. He'd acted in some misguided idea he was safeguarding her, and with no thought to himself.

No, that wasn't completely true. He'd also been angry-incensed!-that the Prince Regent had inadvertently shown him a future, and then taken it away by pairing him with the niece of the man he'd killed.

He could only hope that he'd put enough fear into the Prince Regent that he now regretted his insane plot that could include Alina's death at the hands of Inhaber Novak. Justin had seen the confusion in the man's eyes when he'd pushed at him; clearly he hadn't thought all the way through the thing, past the part where he would no longer be bothered with one Baron Justin Wilde. It was always those who had never killed, never seen a battlefield, never felt their own life in danger, who plotted most with the lives of others, blithely believing in that most terrible of axioms: the end justifies the means.

And yet. And yet.

And yet there was no way to erase what had been done. No way to change the past. No way to deal with this d.a.m.n Inhaber. No way to a.s.suage the Prince Regent. No way to remain in England.

No way to ever see Alina smiling up at him as he gently laid her down on the ancestral bed of the Wildes and, together, they set the course for their future. Love. Children. A lifetime together...

”Are you planning on spending the day here? I admit this aspect is one of my favorites, but I believe there's someone down there, waiting for you. G.o.d only knows why-you look like h.e.l.l. Tanner, I barely remember Justin from our salad days in London, so you be the judge. He looks like h.e.l.l, yes?”

Justin turned about in his saddle to see Lucas Paine walking his mount toward him, followed closely by- ”Tanner? What in b.l.o.o.d.y blazes are you doing here?”

”Hear that, Lucas? I told you that's what he'd say,” the Duke of Malvern said as the three men shook hands. ”Not so much as a single h.e.l.lo, just what in h.e.l.l am I doing here. You're becoming d.a.m.ned predictable, Justin. Although threatening the life of our future king? I wouldn't have won any wagers betting against that one as being too mad even for you.”

Justin looked at his smiling friend in complete amazement. ”How...?”

”How could I have known?” Tanner Blake removed his curly brimmed beaver to run a gloved hand through his dark blond hair. ”How could I not? It's all over Mayfair. That, and the fact that Prinny coerced fifty thousand pounds from you to secure that pardon you wanted so badly and labored so diligently to deserve-I seem to have been indiscreet there, telling all who would listen how well you'd served the Crown. Difficult as it is to fathom, as you're no longer the easiest fellow to get along with, it would seem that the sympathies of the ton are firmly with you, and our Prince Regent has taken to his bed, to be bled by his leeches and fretted over by his latest aged cherie amour.”

Justin's hands tightened so on the reins that the bay began to dance sideways in protest. Because, even though it was his life they were talking about, all he really wanted to know was how Alina was, was she all right, happy. Had she asked about him, cursed him; was she waiting for him. ”That...that doesn't seem possible.”

”It's London, Justin,” Lucas Paine said as the three headed their horses toward the estate house. ”Anything is possible, and the more absurd that anything is, the more possible it becomes. h.e.l.l, man, the populace tosses eggs at Prinny's coach when he dares to go abroad. You were only a little more...direct in your protest. But he's not yet forgiven, isn't that right, Tanner?”

”Far from it. Not since the Austrian government has lodged a formal protest with our government over the unprovoked murder of three of its citizens at the hands of one Baron Wilde. Oh, and there is supposedly a witness, although he keeps babbling about a giant more than he does about you. Would you happen to know anything about that, Justin?”

”They were sent to kill Alina,” Justin protested, and then shook his head. ”But you're right. I didn't have to dispatch them. I could just as easily have disabled them. I was...making a statement.” Mine. Do what you want to me, but this is what happens when you touch what is mine.

”You were making a mess more of mess,” Lucas Paine said with the certainty that his most recent guest wouldn't kill him on his own property, with his brother-in-law as witness. ”Although I don't blame you. They'd already made one failed attempt on her life while you were busier in London than Puss in Boots, frightening the p.i.s.s out of Prinny. Somebody had to pay for that.”

”I suppose so, Lucas,” Tanner agreed as they rode three abreast along the wide gravel drive toward the front doors. ”Then again, diplomacy has never been Justin's strong point. And we'd have to consider his cloak-and-dagger years for the Crown. War changes a man, G.o.d knows I know that. Perhaps he saw the elimination of those men as nothing more than expediency, reducing the number of the enemy, and nothing out of the ordinary for him. It's understandable.”

”All right, we'll give him the three men. But what about the colonel-in-chief, this Novak fellow who seems involved somehow?”

Justin sat forward in the saddle and looked across at the two men. He really needed to begin paying attention. ”Yes, what does he do about the Inhaber Novak? Pray do continue your discussion, and don't consider me in the slightest. Why, I might not even be here.”

Tanner grinned at him. ”Yes, I'd already noticed that your mind seems elsewhere. But good G.o.d, Justin, you should have heard us before you got here. I felt like an old biddy full of gossip and in a fever to tell somebody what I knew as I raced here from London, thanks to a letter from Charlotte telling me you'd been to Ashurst Hall, and another from Lucas here, telling me where you were heading. It's a good thing Lydia was already in residence, visiting her sister, or she would have missed all the fun, and we all know she's fond of you, Lord only knows why. By the way, the ladies are, however, all out of charity with you at the moment. As your friend, I thought I should warn you.”

They dismounted as three footmen hastened to take the reins of their horses. ”The ladies? If I were to count noses on these ladies,” Justin inquired carefully, thinking of Alina, ”how many noses would I be counting?” Other than Alina's. G.o.d, what a mess he'd made!

”Three. Oh, wait. Four?” Tanner laughed. ”Do we include your man Wigglesworth in that? It seems that some jokester in the Romany camp decided it would be great good fun to hide his usual clothing, so that he arrived here in his incognito-ness, as he kept indignantly informing anyone who was listening rather than simply being doubled over in laughter. The skirts, and most especially the bows in his wig, didn't help his case, let me tell you.”

Justin wanted to be where he wasn't, and he wasn't inside Basingstoke, hunting down Alina. But the game must be played. ”He has to be devastated, and a devastated Wigglesworth, gentlemen, can be worse than a toothache. I'm tempted to call back my horse and ride on. Where is he, Lucas?”

”One of the Gyp-pardon me. One of the Romany brought the clothing early this morning, all brushed and pressed and ghastly. It seems your man Brutus paid a small visit to the camp last night. I believe his powers of persuasion saved the day. At any rate, I imagine he's in your a.s.signed rooms, once more properly overdressed and breathlessly awaiting your arrival. Shall we get back to counting noses?”

Justin's head was spinning. He was in no shape to confront Alina. He looked as if he'd been dragged through one of the hedgerows backward. More importantly, he wasn't in control of himself. For the first time in too many years, he was worried that he had something to lose...and even more worried that he might already have lost it.

And Tanner knew it. Not Lucas, who couldn't know that he was on the very edge of tossing aside whatever sangfroid he'd always prided himself on possessing. But Tanner knew. He had to get away from them, regroup. Only then could he see Alina again.

It also wasn't lost on him that this singular woman he hadn't known existed until a few short days ago had the power to reduce him to a quivering ma.s.s of nerves and apprehension....

He looked at the open doors to the house and very deliberately shrugged his shoulders. ”I imagine I'll be able to work that out for myself when we meet for dinner. For now, I've barely slept in days. Would it be cowardly of me to postpone meeting the ladies until I've slept, had a bath and perhaps some food that doesn't move around on the plate of its own accord?”

”What do you say, Tanner?” the marquess asked in mock seriousness. ”Shall I agree to harbor this dastardly fugitive?”

”He did make a cake out of Prinny. There's that in his favor,” Tanner pointed out. ”Although I'd still like to hear more about this Novak fellow and why Justin's been racing about the countryside, gleefully dispatching his attendants. We can't seem to figure that one out, can we?”

”Oh, the devil with the both of you merry imbeciles,” Justin declared, climbing the front steps two at a time and striding into the entrance hall. ”I think I'd rather face your wives. But not until I've had some d.a.m.ned sleep. Wigglesworth! Show yourself, man, I'm in need of a bed!”

Justin Wilde had relied on himself for so many years. He'd operated in the shadows of life, shunning his friends, protecting them from the man he'd become. He'd turned to Rafe and Tanner and Lucas only because he had no choice; he'd needed a safe place for Alina. Not for himself, for her.

But somehow Alina had opened that door he'd so firmly shut the day he'd fled England and the hangman. Now the door seemed easier to open to others. Because of her. Because she took him on faith, took him on trust, and believed she saw something still good inside him long after he'd thought he'd traveled beyond caring what anyone thought of him.

The laughter of his old friend and his new friend followed Justin up the curving staircase and, strangely, his step felt lighter than it had done in days. Was there hope? Was there really a way out of this d.a.m.nable mess he'd help create?

And where the devil was Alina?

LET HIM COME TO YOU. That's what they'd told her. You were very brave, Lydia had said as she'd handed Alina a handkerchief when tears threatened yet again. You went to him. You bared your heart to him. He has his demons, yes. We all have demons of some sort. I know this won't be easy for you, as you're more like Nicole than could possibly be comfortable for you, but it's up to Justin now to realize that your love is greater than his fears for you. He's a much better man than he believes himself to be. I know, because he was enormously helpful to Tanner and me during a...a difficult time.

Nicole's advice had been equally as heartfelt, but more direct. No, no, we don't let him come to you. We make him come to you. And I'm less kind than my sister. Demons or no, he has behaved abominably. Of course he'll marry you. He compromised you. Even the Bad Baron is aware that there are rules a gentleman can break, and those he cannot.