LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘So I have a further proposition for you, my lord.’ The last two words were coated with a violent dislike. ‘I could slice your throat open here and now and no one would ever know what had happened to you, or...’ He stopped.

      El Vengador was a man who used theatrics to the full extent, Lucien thought and humoured him. ‘Or...’

      ‘Or as an earl you are well placed to offer us even more.’

      Lucien closed his eyes momentarily. This guerrilla leader was a dangerous adversary and a man who would not make an easy ally. He was also holding all the cards as far as Lucien’s life was concerned. Oh, granted, he knew that he might take a good handful of men with him if he were to fight his way out of here, but he was weak and he was also, to some extent, in debt to the man for his life.

      But there were things that were not being said. Lucien was sure of it. He looked the other man straight on.

      ‘Why me? Why not someone integrated into the fabric of English society, someone from here? It seems you have agents there already. Why not use them?’ Lucien’s eyes turned to the papers and the ring.

      ‘But we could not access the places you do, my lord. We could never hope to be within earshot of a king.’

      ‘Society and the monarch do not write the law. England has a democracy and a parliament to do that.’

      ‘And one of the Houses of Parliament consists of peers of the realm. Your name is included in that representation, is it not, Lord Ross?’

      Finally he was gathering the sense of this assignment. If he had not been titled, he would probably have been disposed of by now and this conversation was a warning of it.

      El Vengador held men in London, dangerous men, men with dreams of a Spanish free land in their hearts and the means to ensure it had the best chance of fruition.

      England and Spain might be on the same side of the fight against Napoleon, but each had their own reasons for victory and the milksop version of democracy held by the Spanish army and the splintered juntas was a very different one from that offered by the guerrilla leaders. ‘The little war’ was the translation, but Lucien had heard tales of the French being killed in their hundreds by the partisan bands roaming the rough and isolated passes of the northern countryside, and many of those deaths had not been a pretty sight.

      ‘The guerrilla movement might strike terror into the hearts of the French troops, but you also frighten much of the Spanish population with your forced conscription and looting.’ He refrained from adding savagery and barbarousness to the list. ‘What makes you think I would want to help you? I do not wish to be the person who facilitates the death of my countrymen should a battle be badly lost and you have all the personal details of each commanding officer.’

      A movement of the door had both of them turning. Alejandra came in. She had been asleep. He could see the remains of slumber in the flush on her cheeks and in the tangle of her hair.

      God. She slept fully clothed and with a knife as close as his. The silver of her dagger glimmered in the candlelight. He was surprised she had not sheathed it when she saw her father in the room.

      ‘I am not here to kill him, hija.’

      An explanation of intention that underlined her presence. Lucien frowned. Did she sleep near? To protect him? Her eyes did not meet his own as they took in the papers and his ring sitting on the table to one side of the bed, giving him the notion that she had known of her father’s quest. And of the danger.

      ‘You will take him to the boat in a week, Alejandra. No later.’

      ‘Very well.’ Her answer held the same edge of hardness as her father’s.

      ‘Find another to travel with you. Tomeu, perhaps?’

      She shook her head. ‘No. I shall take Adan. He has people to the west and good contacts.’

      ‘Then it is decided.’ El Vengador’s fingers drummed against his thigh as he stood. ‘I do not expect you to do this work for Spain without reward, Lord Ross. A sum of money shall be deposited into a bank of your choice as soon as any business between us is conducted and I am satisfied with the intelligence.’

      A fait accompli. Perhaps El Vengador was not used to having men turn down his offers of assistance. Still, he was in the lair of the tiger, so to speak, and it would be unwise to annoy him.

      ‘I will think carefully on what you have proposed.’

      A hand came forward, grasping his own in a surprisingly firm and warm way.

      ‘For freedom,’ the older man said as Lucien watched him. ‘And victory.’

      Then he was gone. Alejandra stood against the wall to the left of the window, one foot bent so that it rested against the peeling ochre. Ready to flee.

      ‘You knew about this?’ He gestured to the paper and the ring. ‘You knew what your father might ask?’

      ‘Or of what he might not,’ she returned and crossed the room to stand beside him, lifting The Times in her hands.

      ‘You look younger when you smile.’

      ‘It’s an old likeness.’

      This time she laughed and the sound filled the room like warm honey, low and smooth.

      ‘I think, Lord Lucien Howard, sixth Earl of Ross, that even my father could not kill you if he wanted to.’

      ‘I hope, Alejandra, only daughter of El Vengador, that you are right.’

      She placed the paper down with as much care as she had used to pick it up. No extra movements. No uncertain qualms. Death could have been in the room when she entered as easily as life and yet there was not one expression on her face that told him of either relief or disappointment.

      But she had come and her knife was sheathed now, back in the soft leather at her left ankle. Would she have fought her father for him? The thought knocked the breath from his lungs.

      ‘Thank you.’ He offered the words, no sentiment in them but truth, and by the look on her face he knew she understood exactly what such gratitude was for.

      She was gone as quietly as her father had left, one moment there and the next just the breeze of her going. He heard the door close with a scrape of the latch.

      * * *

      He dreamt of Linden Park, the Howard seat at Tunbridge Wells, with the sun on its windows and the banks of the River Teise lined with weeping willows, soft green in the coat of early spring. His father was there and his brother. The bridge had not collapsed yet and he had not had to try to save them as they turned over and over in the cold current, dragged down by heavy clothing, late rains and panic.

      His mind found other happier moments—his sister, Christine, and he as they had ridden across the surrounding valleys, as fast as the wind, the sound of starlings and wrens and the first gambolling lambs in the fields.

      He thought of Daniel Wylde, too, and of Francis St Cartmail, and them all as young boys constructing huts in the woods and hunting rabbits with his father’s guns. Gabriel Hughes had come sometime later, on horseback, less talkative than the others, but interesting. Gabe had taught Lucien the trick of holding one’s own counsel and understanding the hidden meaning of words that were not quite being said.

      And then Alejandra was there in his thoughts, her long hair down her back and her skin lustrous in candlelight, full lips red and eyes dark. In his dream she wore a thin and flowing nightgown, the shape of her lithe body seen easily through it. He felt himself harden as the breath in him tightened. She came against him like molten fire, acquiescent and searching, her mouth across his own as her head tipped up, taking all that he offered; sweet heat and an unhidden desire before she plunged a knife deep through the naked and exposed gap in his ribs.

      ‘Hell.’ He came awake in a second, panting, shocked, his member rock solid and ready, the stupidity in him reeling. For the first time in all the weeks

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