The following morning, Lucien didn’t feel like he’d gained the upper hand as planned.
At first, his strategy to seduce the seductress had seemed foolproof. As with any experiment, he’d intended to act with remote efficiency, to be tactical and in complete control.
In hindsight, however, he might have underestimated her allurement and how her responses to his every touch would affect him.
Merlin’s teeth!
His own plot had completely backfired.
He’d lain awake all night thinking of her: the shimmer of moonlight in her eyes, the warmth and softness of her skin beneath his lips, her sweet fragrance filling his every breath, the fit of her supple curves pressed back against him—and the way she stormed off in high dudgeon because of his refusal to kiss her.
The last thing he wanted was to vex her or make an enemy of the woman who possessed what belonged to him and potentially cause her to go into hiding.
But no, that wasn’t entirely true.
What he actually wanted was to stop wanting to kiss her again.
Unfortunately, he craved her in ways that he hadn’t experienced before. And he knew that if he’d given in, she would have had him wrapped around her finger . . . just like all the other men she’d duped.
He wasn’t going to let that happen.
What he was going to do, however, was go back to his original plan—to diligently scrutinize her and learn all he needed to know. He would have to maintain close proximity. But he would do so in a carefully detached manner that wouldn’t allow even a modicum of attraction to stand in the way of his main purpose.
Conveniently, the elder Parrish women invited his party to travel with theirs, and much to Meg’s consternation, Lucien had accepted.
Today, he promised them a tour down the Rhine. The open-air seclusion would suit his purposes perfectly. At least, that’s what he hoped.
However, the paddle steamer was only scheduled to run on Thursdays and Saturdays. This was Wednesday. Nevertheless, he quickly learned that, for the right price, the captain was willing to drive a private party down the Rhine on any other day of the week.
It was a boon, indeed, and fit perfectly into his plan. He didn’t even mind the cold shoulder Meg had been giving him all morning as she kept to her end of the boat. A wolf caught in a snare was bound to snarl, after all.
His own mood was little better. Not only hadn’t he slept a wink last night but he’d received an inauspicious missive when he left the hotel.
Standing at the rail, he read the correspondence and frowned. It was from the investigator he’d hired to look into the Parrish women. But it didn’t contain the report he’d expected. Apparently, weeks of heavy rains had made the roads impassable and put him behind schedule. In other words, he had no useful information.
Lucien curled the missive in his fist, wondering if Mr. Richards was looking into every possible option to overcome this obstacle. There had to be some roads that weren’t flooded. They were living in a modern age, after all. Surely man wasn’t still limited by the laws of precipitation.
Irritated, he smoothed the missive and stuffed it into his breast pocket.
“The aunts have sent me on an errand, Your Grace,” Meg said crisply, her posture stiff as she came up beside him, standing close enough that her damnably appealing scent teased his nostrils. “Scone?”
Upon her gloved hand rested a dainty handkerchief and, upon that, a golden black-currant scone.
His stomach growled. Though, he wasn’t certain if he wanted the pastry or the delectable woman in sprigged muslin. Then again, as an errant breeze took that moment to sweep the gauzy fabric against her form, outlining every curve and valley with mouthwatering precision, he knew the answer.
But he settled for the scone and inclined his head. “Is this an olive branch, then?”
“Hardly.” She sniffed, and there was an unmistakable flash of ire in the eyes shaded beneath the brim of her bonnet. But before she turned to walk away, she hesitated and gestured with the tip of her parasol toward the sky. “Were you growling at that cloud just now?”
“No. Merely a displeasing correspondence.”
“Ah. Well, just so you know, if it does rain, I fully intend to blame you for ruining our outing.”
The corner of his mouth twitched at her peevish response. “That is a cumulus cloud. Unless there is an atmospheric shift that causes it to grow vertically into a cumulonimbus, we’ll have a suitably dry tour of the river.”
Taking a bite of the scone, he glanced down the deck of the steamer where Pell was holding court beneath a striped awning with Maeve and Myrtle Parrish. Then his gaze returned to Meg, surprised by the flash of her dimples.
“Why are you smiling at me?” he asked, narrowing his eyes before he glanced at the half-eaten pastry in his hand. He swallowed thickly. “Is this poisoned?”
She pressed her lips together, considering. “Not this time. I’d prefer to make you suffer in other ways.”
“Then, why the smile just now?”
“No reason.” She shrugged and turned to face the water. “I just like hearing you talk.”
Damn. He hated when she said things like that. It made it difficult to remember she was his adversary.
She’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing, he reminded himself. He would not be fooled into believing otherwise. And yet . . .
There were moments when he’d caught himself thinking of her as more—as a woman who kept him guessing. Who challenged him at every turn. Who intrigued him beyond reason. And who was simply Meg.
But he couldn’t afford those thoughts. He needed to keep a distance between them. A separation. A necessary barrier. This was about his legacy, after all. It wasn’t a game. Not for him.
Without glancing his way, she remarked, “You haven’t taken another bite. Does that mean you suspect me of disguising my true purpose, the way you did last night when you pretended an interest in me?”
“I did calculate the likelihood of a sprinkling of arsenic. I’m sure there’s some rat poison on this boat you might have procured.”
She huffed and reached over to break off a piece. Around a mouthful, she said, “There. Satisfied?”
“Not necessarily. Such a small quantity of that poison would do little harm. Though, you likely know that already,” he said merely to goad her. And when she moved as if to steal the rest, he stuffed the scone into his mouth.
A moment later, after he swallowed, he offered quietly, “There was no pretense on my part last evening. But I refuse to be led by my baser impulses.”
She stared up at him for a moment, then issued a nod. Though, whether or not she was mollified or challenged by his confession remained to be seen.
Suspicious of her current objective, he frowned at the dainty lace-gloved hand on the rail beside his.
She lifted it to brush an errant tendril from her cheek, then set it back down, a fraction closer this time. “It must be difficult to be a man of reason when your family legacy demands faith in what cannot be quantified.”
“You have no idea,” he said darkly as her little finger slid against his as if by accident, before she moved seven-eighths of an inch away. But that did not stop the tingles left behind. “From the moment I was able to put thought to reason, I wanted to solve the riddle. To make sense of it.”
“I understand completely.” Her gaze followed the dubious lift of his brows. “No, it’s true. You’re not the only one who was brought up beneath a cloud of myth. I have been struggling to make sense of mine for a while now. You see, my family has a long history of love matches brought together by fate. Legend has it that we will know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, when we meet our soul’s counterpart. It has been the same for generations with grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles, even with my brother.”
He scoffed. “Fated love is a fanciful notion.”
“Is that so? Well, it is my understanding that you are searching for a collection of recipes that hold legendary powers. And yet you think my family myth is fanciful?”
“Point taken,” he conceded with a nod, albeit with extreme skepticism.
Noticing a wedge of sunlight fall just above her expertly fitted bodice, he realized her parasol was too insufficient to shield her pale skin in their current position. So he proffered his arm in a silent invitation to take a turn about the deck.
His intention was for her to be beneath the awning, which she was. He did not intend, however, for his awareness to shift to the supple warm curve of the side of her breast, the aimless back and forth stroke of her fingertips against his sleeve, and the escalation of his own pulse.
He swallowed. “And has the myth held true for you?”
“I’d thought so for a time, but . . .” She shook her head. “Perhaps I was too taken in by the stories my father would tell me and too eager for the rest of my life to begin.”
At another mention of her father—the same man who’d studied the Arthurian legends—Lucien considered her closely and came straight to the point. “Is he the man you are working for?”
“My father?”
“Aye,” he said. “You are far too clever and beautiful to have decided on this life you’re leading. And I cannot imagine a father approving of it, unless he is the man you’re working for.”
She looked away as if to study the pair of chaises longues tucked in the shadows beneath the overhang. “My father was a country gentleman. A simple man who valued his family above all else. He often told stories. His favorites were of King Arthur, but mine were the ones he told about my mother. It made me feel as if I knew her.”
Then both of her parents were gone, too, he thought.
“How old were you?” he asked, all the while knowing that it had nothing to do with his primary objective. But seeing her gaze turn distant, the blue of her eyes so somber that it created a peculiar stirring of panic inside him, he had to say something.
“Four,” she answered and left it at that, which he understood.
Even though there had been no one to tell stories of his mother after she died, he knew that some memories were better left alone. That was the reason he buried himself in his work.
“As for your other question,” she continued, “I’m not certain if my father would have approved of my choices. He would have wanted me to marry and build a family of my own.”
“Why didn’t you?”
She exhaled resignedly. “Two words—or a name, rather. Daniel Prescott.”
“Ah. So he is the man you’re working for.”
“Is that all you ever think about? No, don’t answer,” she said tightly, rolling her eyes. “He was the man I was going to marry. Until he . . . decided to marry someone else.”
She slipped her arm from his and went to the railing again.
Lucien followed, a keen sense of irritation abrading his skin where she was no longer touching him. He wondered if it would cease with her hand on his arm again. But even as the thought traveled through his mind, he dismissed it. The irritation was nothing more than the concentration of heat reacting to the starch in the linen.
He tugged on the cuff of his sleeve. “And you believed this Daniel Prescott was your soul’s counterpart?”
“I’d been certain of it,” she said. “I remember, when I was young, climbing the wishing tree in the garden—”
“After years of dendrology, I can assure you that there is no such genus classification as wishing tree.”
“And I can assure you that there are many throughout the world. Trees are mystical, after all. They outlive us by years, decades, generations. Who is to say what they are capable of?”
“Science,” he said dourly.
She expelled an exasperated sigh and waved her hand as if to shoo logic from the conversation. “Nevertheless, when I was younger, I put a coin in the cradle of the highest branch and whispered my heart’s fervent wish to have my future husband appear that very day. It just so happened that Daniel arrived as I was coming down. He teased me about how pretty girls weren’t supposed to be up in trees. So I challenged him and said that I could climb faster than he could.”
“And did you?”
She nodded, a wistful smile on her lips that bothered Lucien for some unfathomable reason. Absently, he scratched his arm.
“But then I fell,” she said. “In more ways than one, I suppose. My heart was irrevocably lost that day.”
Something niggled at the back of his mind, like a story that he’d heard once before. Unable to recall the origins, he brushed it aside and scratched again. He had more important things on his mind at the moment. Like where to find this Mr. Prescott.
“Until he married someone else,” Lucien prodded. “And traveled to . . .”
“Upper Canada, of all places,” she groused. Then she looked askance at him. “Why are you so interested?”
“Merely trying to understand why you decided to turn your hopes and dreams toward espionage.”
“Perhaps I’m simply a woman who wants to have one grand flirtation before she puts herself on the shelf and dedicates the rest of her life to spoiling her brother’s children.”
Her gaze met his, and there was something imploring, beseeching in those crystalline depths. Something that made him . . .
No. He shook his head and chuckled wryly. “You spin a fine yarn, ma petite louve. But I’m not fooled. You don’t believe in that romantic drivel any more than I do.”
“You seem quite sure about that.”
“I am, because men and women make their own decisions. There is no such thing as happenstance, coincidence, fate, wishes—”
“Legendary recipes with the power to imbue a knight with valiance and a maiden with steadfast love?”
Her challenging taunt stopped him. Facing her, he straightened his shoulders. “Perhaps not.”
She blinked, her face scrunched in confusion. “Wait just a moment. Are you saying that you don’t believe in your own legend?”
“Any sensible person would harbor doubt,” he said. “It reads like a storybook with the legendary powers attributed to recipes. One is the Recipe of the Beast. This is supposed to imbue the warrior knight with the frightening qualities of Glatisant, the barking beast. It is said that the warrior who eats this will have the cunning of a serpent, the strength of a lion, the patience of a leopard stalking his prey, and the speed of a rabbit. Another is the Recipe of the White Hart. Give this to your enemy, and it will cause his heart to falter, but a maiden who sups upon this will lose her heart forever,” he said and watched her study him with fascination. Her total absorption made his breath quicken, and he felt himself moving closer.
Then he straightened and cleared his throat, continuing. “The most dangerous of all is the Recipe of Veritas. While it is said to imbue the noble knight with honor and truth, it is also a tool to use against the enemy. For anyone who tastes it is forced to confess their deepest, most hidden secrets. Now, tell me, does this sound like something that could be factual?”
“I cannot answer that. But I was taught to always be open to chance, to wonderment, to the Fates stepping in when you least”—she stopped, seemingly out of breath, and she searched his gaze as if she were seeing him for the first time—“expect it.”
He didn’t like the way she was looking at him. It made his hands itch. Made him want to take her by the shoulders and pull her hard against him.
But she was the enemy. And he couldn’t allow his determination to be dampened or clouded in any way.
“All of it is nonsense. Ridiculous,” he hissed and turned toward the railing.
“Then, why all the fuss and bother? Why are you even chasing Lady Avalon in the first place?”
“Because that book is mine to protect.” Elbows on the railing, he closed his hands into fists. “It is my duty, my responsibility, to keep it safe, and that is what I intend to do.”
He refused to tell her the real reason or to open the raw wound that he’d been carrying with him all these years. Lady Avalon did not need to know what drove a man like him to obsession.
A frown pulled at the corners of her mouth. “Surely, there was a point in your life when your logical mind was open to the possibility that fables were true.”
Lucien looked off toward the water as the boat paddled by one of the many castle ruins situated high on the hills along the river.
The answer was yes. There had been two instances. The last had been on the day he’d found her lurking in the corridor. But he’d soon discovered the predatory surge that had traversed through his blood had nothing to do with the recipe.
The first had come the day his parents were murdered. Two men had stolen into the keep, driven by their beliefs in the legend so much so that they were willing to kill for it. He might have been killed as well, if not for his sister.
From that moment on, Lucien had spent every day trying to unearth the proof that would make sense of it. He would never stop until he found it. And he would never let anyone or anything—like an unwanted attraction—stand in his way.
“I want you to know,” he said, his voice hard and distant even to his own ears, “there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do to claim what belongs to me.”
She surprised him by briefly covering his hand with hers. “I would expect nothing less. We are alike in that regard, Lucien. Once a person finally realizes what they truly want, they should do whatever it takes to have the life they desire.”
“Good. Then, we understand each other.”
* * *
As Meg stood at the starboard rail, she wasn’t certain that she understood at all.
Something wholly unexpected had just happened.
During the heated defense of her own legend, she’d felt something stirring inside of her. And as she heard herself speak of believing in chance, fate and wonderment, that something had struck like an earthquake, sudden and startling, cracking her open in soul-deep fissures.
It was like eons of hardened clay and sand had been excavated in a thunderous jolt, revealing the burial chamber where her heart lay. This discovery left her exposed and vulnerable. But what surprised her most of all was that the entombed heart was still beating. True, it was raw and tender after Daniel’s betrayal. But it was also filled with new hope.
In that moment she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that everything had changed.
At least, for her.
Standing beside Lucien, she wondered what it would take to convince him that there was more than a book between them. Though, considering his profile was as stony and obstinate as the castle ruins jutting from the hilltops along the river’s edge, she knew that changing his mind was going to be a hard-fought battle.
But she could be just as stubborn and dogged in her own pursuits when it mattered. And this definitely mattered. She was sure of it.
“Is there a reason you are staring so intently at me?” he asked, his glower so forbidding she was shocked when fish didn’t rise from the river and flop onto the deck in surrender.
Twirling her parasol, she smiled up at him. “Just waiting for the arsenic to take effect and deciding what to do with your corpse.”
His mouth twitched. “Come to any conclusions?”
“Not yet. But in the meantime, would you care for another scone? I do hate waiting.”
She was rewarded with a flash of that solitary dimple and took that as a good sign. A very good sign, indeed.