Chapter Four

It seemed to take Jocelyn forever to wend her way through the lonely castle hallways, then up a steep staircase to reach the east tower. The sounds of revelry in the west wing grew faint; the piping notes of a flageolet echoed poignantly in the dark. When she had first received Adam’s note a few hours earlier, she’d thought the notion of a midnight summons sounded romantic and adventurous.

Who would have guessed her proper suitor capable of such a passionate gesture?

Or that he’d make her venture such a long way to reach their rendezvous. Lord, she must have traveled a mile across the interior courtyards of the castle before beginning the strenuous climb up this stone staircase.

It went without saying that if a proposition to tryst in the tower had come from any of the other young men at the party, she wouldn’t have been the least bit tempted to accept. No one had ever tendered her such a wicked offer before.

Which was what made his invitation to meet in secret all the more irresistible. To judge by his spidery handwriting, he was as nervous about an illicit encounter as she was. But Adam was both a brave officer and an honorable man, and he’d hinted that he intended to ask for her hand at the house party. Had she not been convinced that a marriage proposal was in the offing, she would have flung his invitation in his face. Though privately, Jocelyn was a little pleased that he was showing this reckless streak. Never once had she guessed that such a lively spark smoldered beneath his endearing predictability.

And he’d asked her to wear a mask to protect her from being identified on the way here, bless his upbringing as a gentleman. At least he’d chosen a spot where they were unlikely to be discovered by a wandering houseguest.

A very secluded spot.

A little too secluded for their first rendezvous.

But they were going to be married. It made a difference, she assured herself. All was well that ended well.

Suddenly she stood before the tall arched doorway of the tower. Anxiety had begun to diminish her sense of anticipation. What if she and Adam were caught? They’d be forced to rush into their marriage, and she would not be able to have the fairy-tale wedding of which she’d dreamed. It might not be the end of her life, but it certainly would be an embarrassment. She’d never done anything like this in her life.

Before she could change her mind about proceeding with the rendezvous, the door swung open and she found herself gazing into the room. Her first impression was of a dark-clad figure standing against a backdrop of even darker shadows. Scant moonlight filtered through the single leaded window.

“Be careful,” warned a baritone voice that sounded familiar and yet strangely more masculine than Adam’s—except on the infrequent occasions when he gave his impression of Wellington as a party favor.

She lifted her hand self-consciously to her mask. It was surprising to discover how attractive Adam appeared in the dark. The shadowy backdrop made him appear manly and a bit menacing, in an oddly appealing way. “It’s as black as—”

An iron grip closed around her wrist and drew her effortlessly into the room. The door shut behind her with a heavy thud that reverberated in the silence. She half-stumbled, then felt herself steadied by that firm grasp again.

“This was a hell of a place to meet,” he remarked drily, his mouth against her cheek. “There isn’t even a bed to—”

“A bed?” she whispered.

His voice. It sounded, well, heavens above, no wonder his voice was so unexpectedly deep and muffled, he was wearing not only a mask but a handsome black hooded cloak that swathed him from head to mid-calf. And he must be wearing a new pair of boots that boosted his height. She had to admit she was secretly delighted by his daring getup. Adam didn’t seem at all himself. Had the costume brought out his masculinity? His masterful side? A side that she had not dreamed existed?

She would never have guessed a disguise could make such a difference.

His big intrusive body walked her backward against the wall. She drew a deep breath as he demanded, “Am I going to have to take you prisoner? Or do you surrender yourself to me without a struggle?”

She giggled in disbelief. “What?”

“Do you want to pretend you’re my hostage?” he asked in an amused whisper. “I didn’t have enough notice to make preparations for your captivity.” He turned his head as if assessing the dark. “I suppose there might be a tapestry tassel I could use to subdue you.”

His voice. A shiver ran through her. Oh, dear God. When had Adam sounded so thrillingly wicked?

“Subdue? Your hostage?”

“It might be uncomfortable on this cold stone floor, but I can lay my cloak beneath you,” he said gallantly, as if he’d participated in dozens of trysts before. “Would you like me to tie you by the wrists or by the ankles?”

His voice. Her throat closed. She wondered if this was the start of a swoon. Tie her…by the wrists or the ankles? She could not have heard him correctly. He had not asked such a question.

“Or both?” he offered rather politely. “Bondage is one of my favorite games, but I’m all for pleasing you.”

“You did not just say you intend to bind me with a tassel,” she said in a low-pitched voice.

“A tisket. A tassel. What does it matter? Just as long as we don’t leave telltale marks on that lovely flesh. We don’t want anyone at the party to guess what we were playing.”

“Who are you?” she whispered, the words raw in her throat.

“You’re not allowed to know my identity,” he answered in a stage whisper. “Isn’t that what you wanted? To be taken by a stranger?”

She shook her head, shivering again. She could not decide whether her befuddlement stemmed from shock or from the fact that his gloved fingers had set off in a wandering foray down her cheek to her shoulders, only to dip in the valley of her breasts and wickedly circle her nipple. A wave of faintness swept over her.

The hooks and eyes of her gown, which had taken the house maid a dedicated quarter-hour to fasten, sprang open as if by a wizard’s touch. A breath of cold air mingled with the whispering touch of warm leather to caress her skin.

Half-naked, she thought. A man in masquerade had just loosened her gown and stroked her breasts. And her body had responded. Her nipples tightened into tingling points. Her voice unsteady, she said, “This game has gone too far.”

“Then I’ll play whatever game pleases you,” he replied, his firm mouth stealing down her mouth to the tops of her breasts. “Do you want me to hold you up, or hold you down? I could have chosen a place better suited to passion, by the way. What made you want to meet me in the tower?”

That voice. It did not belong to Adam, muffled or not. Nor did the knowing touch that teased her breasts before sliding down her belly to the moist hollow below where she only touched herself when—

“You aren’t Adam,” she said; her bones seemed to dissolve the instant she spoke the words, even though somewhere deep inside she’d known it from the moment he’d taken her into his arms. No disguise could change a man from a gentleman to a devil.

He hesitated, irony vibrating in his low velvet voice. “And you’re clearly not Lily Cranleigh, although I don’t think I’ll hold that against you.”

“Lily?” she echoed faintly.

“I’m flattered, actually, that you went to all this trouble to arrange a tryst. But if you desired me, angel, there wasn’t any need for deception. I would have most likely come out of curiosity. Or to satisfy yours.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she whispered.

“Unless intrigue is the element that excites you,” he added.

His eyes glinted as if to mock her through the slits of his mask. A gasp rose in her throat. The next thing she knew he was bending her backward, over his sinewy forearm in a position of subjugation. The steel-hard muscles of his thighs tightened and locked her to him. He angled his body closer until she felt his shaft thicken against her belly.

His hard mouth descended on hers in a deep, devastating kiss that would have silenced her had she been capable of putting two words together in a coherent sentence. Indeed, she was submerged in too many sensations to wage a defense. She wanted…wanted whatever his hands and mouth were doing. Gentle. Ruthless. Irresistible. A stranger and yet someone strangely known to her in the midnight shadows. He kissed her throat, her shoulders, then slid his mouth lower to suckle the tips of her breasts.

Oh, the pleasure. The sinful yet sweet pain that speared her belly and aroused a physical craving she ached to satisfy. She felt moisture seep from between her legs, warm, shameful, slick.

Somewhere in her mind she insisted he stop, but the plea was never voiced; she couldn’t decide if she was submitting to his skill or was too stunned to mount a resistance.

There was little doubt that he knew how to take advantage of her indecision. His hard mouth swept back up her breasts to her throat, then to her lips for a kiss that arrested her thoughts. Not Adam. Not Adam, she told herself as he drew her down onto the floor—or had her bones collapsed? She only knew she was falling.

What in heaven’s name was he doing? No, it wasn’t a heavenly thing at all. It was earthly and burning-all-over wicked. Perhaps it would be better not to ask herself what he had in mind—his motives were flagrantly obvious even to one of her unimpeachable past.

“Come apart for me,” he whispered. He blew his warm breath on her wet aching nipples and laid his cheek against her breast. “Give me everything you have.”

Something inside her wanted to obey him. Some incautious part of her wanted to blame her breathless disequilibrium on the darkness that engulfed them. But even the darkness did not allow her to continue pretending that the strong body molded to hers belonged to the man she had come here to meet.

It was time to unmask the impostor who had taken his place.

Devon could not remember a time when he’d been as aroused by this sort of game. She was panting softly, gasping for breath as if she had never been kissed before. Now that he thought about it, there was an awkwardness in the way she moved against him that broke through his dark haze of desire. Or was she moving away from him?

He closed his eyes and summoned all his control. He’d heard that the widow liked sex hard, fast, and uninhibited. As a matter of personal preference, Devon enjoyed extended hours of nuance and foreplay; he was a tease who excelled at making his mate moan and quiver before completion. Naturally, he could adapt to please. He could play it Lily’s way if that excited her.

Except that the woman quivering in his arms was not Lily Cranleigh, and he knew it.

Her scent. Her voice. He recognized her, and he didn’t. Her genuine but passionate response to him did not in any way remind him of the sophisticated bed partner he had sought. Yet she had invited him here. Had she been afraid to sign the invitation with her own name? Had she feared her note might fall into the wrong hands? Or that he might not be amenable to a tryst if he knew her identity beforehand?

It didn’t really matter. She was trembling deliciously in his arms. She had desired him enough to risk this rendezvous, and he knew how to handle the rest.

“Let’s do away with our masks, shall we?” he murmured. “As a matter of fact, let’s do away with the dress you’re wearing.”

“It’s you,” she said in a strangled voice.

“Of course it’s me,” he murmured.

Jocelyn did not need to ask his name. Mask or no mask, she knew.

Who in attendance at the house party was devious enough to lure her to the tower using a respectable gentleman’s name? Who but a master of immorality and subtle persuasion would not only have dared, but succeeded?

“Devon Boscastle.” She stared up into his beguiling face as he wrenched off his hood and removed his mask. His beautiful mouth quirked into a grin.

“Jocelyn.” He added insult to injury by breaking into laughter. “It is you.”

“Of course it’s me,” she said, straightening indignantly. “As if you hadn’t lured me here.”

“This is a pleasant shock,” he said, and he meant it. “I had no idea you desired me, or that you were such a naughty girl at heart.”

“I don’t,” she said quickly. “I’m not.”

Devon studied her in bemusement, not certain whether he should continue their game or run for his life. Now that he’d gotten a taste of what he had blithely refused in the past, he wanted the pleasure of her, although not the inevitable repercussions that came with seducing a young lady of her inexperience. He’d thought she hadn’t taken his offer earlier in the evening at all seriously. If he’d known, well, he would have insisted they meet in a better place.

But the look on her face warned him that she hadn’t expected their tryst to go this far. As surprisingly desirable as he found her, he wasn’t sure he appreciated being summoned to the tower under false pretenses himself. Of course, she could talk him into going further if she really tried. He wasn’t a man to hold a grudge against a lady, especially one as tempting as she was.

Her voice broke into his reverie. “How could you be so arrogant and underhanded as to lure me here under false pretenses?”

He lifted his brow in surprise. “For what purpose would I lure you?”

“Don’t make me say it, Devon. It’s too embarrassing.” She rubbed her forearms briskly. “I mean, a lady could hardly admit such thoughts aloud, and your actions have spoken quite clearly what I find impossible to describe.”

He snorted. “But a lady can lure and be lured to the tower for a tryst?”

“Then you admit it,” she said in triumph.

“I admit nothing of the sort. And do stop shivering in that disconcerting manner. If I were going to eat you up, I would have done so by now.”

“I’m not shivering because I’m afraid of you,” she retorted, lowering her hands. “It happens to be as cold as a crypt up here.”

“Why are you here, anyway?” he asked, his voice sharp with reproach.

“Not for the purposes you intended, I assure you.”

He looked at her for several moments, then started to laugh. “I thought you invited me to meet you.”

She widened her eyes. “One of us has clearly come uncorked. Did you, or did you not, attempt to debauch me only a minute ago?”

“All right,” he admitted easily. “I attempted to seduce you. May I point out, in my own defense, that you did not exactly wage the Battle of Armageddon to stop me?”

She opened her mouth to object, but all that emerged was a rather incoherent croak. She hadn’t put up a fight. She would be a ninnyhammer to protest her participation after the fact.

“Well, I didn’t know it was you,” she said finally, and that, at least, was the irrefutable truth.

He shrugged, then proceeded to further confound her by stating, “I didn’t know it was you, either.”

“Let me assure you that I have never placed myself in such distressing circumstances before.”

He gave her an infuriating smile. “Then what did you want?”

“What I wanted—what I want,” she said, backing awkwardly to the door, “is to pretend that this never happened.”

“I think that’s a good idea.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“You’re welcome.”

“And good-bye. Again.”

“Wait.” He blew out a sigh and placed his large hand over hers before she could open the door. “Allow me.”

“Allow you to what?” she asked suspiciously.

“To make certain it’s safe for you to go.”

“It certainly isn’t safe for me to stay here with you,” she said, moving out of his way. “It—”

“Hush a moment. I hear something.”

She averted her face. What he most likely heard was the irregular thumping of her heart. What a devious man he was. What an unabashed blackguard. She crossed her arms tightly across her unhooked bodice as he made a pretense of pressing his ear to the oaken door. Henceforth, even the air he breathed must be regarded with suspicion.

“Dammit,” he muttered.

She began the complicated business of re-hooking the back of her gown, no small feat in the dark with neither a maid nor mirror to guide her hands.

To think she had been lured here in the hope of a proper marriage proposal. To think she had let him—No, that did not bear thinking about.

Adam would understandably regard this dalliance in deceit with horror should he learn of it. He might even take it upon himself to challenge Devon to a duel. If Jocelyn did not do away with him first.

A possibility that was tempting her more by the moment.

The object of her homicidal musings straightened abruptly, his voice edged with a contagious disquietude. “I hear someone coming up the stairs.”

“Well, bolt the door again,” she said urgently.

And just as urgently he replied, “There isn’t a bolt, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

She backed away from him in panic. “How could I have noticed? I was being held up by a highwayman. ‘Tie me up or—’”

“Damnation,” he muttered, his voice deep and unsettling.

“Don’t stand there swearing,” she whispered. “Do something helpful. Hide.”

He flung her a frown of annoyance. “What a brilliant strategy. Do you have any suggestions as to where?”

“There has to be a cupboard, or a wardrobe in here.” Her gaze settled on a low bulky trunk against the wall. “That’s a chest over there. Come on.”

They moved forward as one and bent simultaneously to pry open the brass-hinged lid, staring down dubiously into a space that would not have contained Devon’s head and shoulders, let alone his lanky frame.

“Perhaps if you curled up into a little ball like a hedgehog,” she said, biting her lip. Of course, he’d be decapitated and dismembered in the process, but that was not her concern.

He dropped the lid in disgust. “Even if I could fit, you’d have to explain what you were doing alone in the tower. Did you tell anyone you were meeting me?”

Her voice rose. So, unfortunately, did the sound of approaching footsteps.

“How could I tell anyone I was meeting you when I did not know it myself? I was deceived into this tryst.”

“That makes two of us, doesn’t it?”

“What if it’s Adam?” she asked, staring at the door in dread.

“Adam might be preferable to certain other parties that come to mind,” he retorted.

“Oh, forgive me. Perhaps it’s only Lily, the other woman you meant to seduce tonight. Did you invite her here, too?”

“I never invited anyone,” he said curtly. “And we’ll be damned lucky if it’s either of them.”

She swallowed. Her panic seemed to be escalating while he grew calmer, or perhaps he had already resigned himself to whatever would come. Perhaps to him this was an everyday occurrence.

“A footman, do you think?” she whispered. “Lord Fernshaw’s footmen patrol the hallways at all hours during a party. I don’t think any of his staff would dare interrupt a…whatever this is. Do you?”

He did not answer her. He was, in fact, preparing his defense against the inevitability of whatever unprecedented misfortune might come through the door. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but his truest instincts, the deep-seated ones that had saved his backside more than once during battle, forewarned him that there were far more demonic forces at work than dutiful footmen.

“Please, Devon,” Jocelyn said, seemingly sensing disaster, too. “Do something. I cannot be discovered in your company.”

“I don’t particularly wish to be discovered in yours.”

“It takes two to tryst, you know.”

“Just remember you said that.”

“I’m not liable to forget anything about this night.”

He strode past her to the window; the tall canted panes had been too slender to permit an escape even during Jacobean days, and they weren’t about to widen now. He banged his fist on one of the leaded seams, but the glass did not shatter.

He turned and stared at her.

No matter how desirable she had proved to be a few minutes ago, this was the woman who would most likely deliver his coup de grâce, and some would say it was a belated and fitting stroke of fate.

Her. Her. Of all the women to end up with. For what purpose would she have played this trick on him? Had it been four years in the making? He’d flirted with her earlier, expressed his interest in her as a woman. Had she sent him the note to meet her but been afraid to sign her name?

If he’d known she’d wanted to see him alone, he wouldn’t have refused, but he would have made sure it was in a place of his choosing.

Except she denied she’d wanted to meet him at all. And suddenly he wondered if her father had contrived to bring this about. Revenge. Entrapment.

“Here,” he said roughly, and reached her in two swift strides to make haste of restoring the hooks she had not been able to reach at her back. He felt her tremble in reaction to his touch and swore inwardly. No matter the outcome of this situation, she as a woman would come out the worst.

She raised her face to his. “I can’t be caught with you.”

“It’s too late,” he said more dispassionately than he meant to, stepping in front of her. “You should have thought of that before you invited me to meet you here.” He should have thought of it, for that matter. But then no one would care if he and Lily were caught in the act.

“I did not—”

The door opened. It wasn’t a footman. It was far worse. Jocelyn’s brother appeared before them, a candle in hand. He glanced from his sister’s grave countenance to Devon, who strove to present himself as…as an innocent bystander?

He grimaced inwardly. As if such a stance were remotely possible, or even true. Whether Devon cared to admit it or not, he had known that those had not been Lily’s overlarge, over-scented breasts he’d kissed with unforgivable ardor during what had suddenly begun to feel like a lifetime ago.

Another life. His past life. Well, there was nothing to be done for it.

“This,” Jason announced when it seemed he had found the voice to underscore his look of shock, “is even worse than what I had imagined.”

“Isn’t it, though?” Devon asked.

Jason shook his head in bewilderment. “I had deceived myself into believing that even you were more principled than this, Devon. As for you, Jocelyn. I can only say that I have never felt such shame.”

“Who told you where to find me?” she asked in a clipped voice.

“Never mind that. It’s not something I wish to discuss with either of you.”

“Why the bloody hell not?” Devon demanded. “I insist that you at least enlighten me, as I seem to be in the dark.”

“You’re not in a position to be insisting on anything,” Jason said with disdain, then apparently reconsidered and reached into his vest pocket to produce, with dramatic flourish, the folded paper that bore a suspicious resemblance to the one Devon had received earlier in the evening.

“Voilà,” Jason said in a tight voice.

“Voilà what?” Devon asked in annoyance.

“You wrote this invitation to your rendezvous, didn’t you? I discovered it on my sister’s dressing table.”

“I didn’t write anything,” Devon replied, his voice unrepentant. “I was the one invited here, if the truth be told.”

Jason stole a glance at his sister. “Jocelyn, perhaps you could explain this disturbing situation.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” She hazarded an indignant look in Devon’s direction.

He would have laughed had he not had a sense of how this would end. He knew how it must look. The only thing obvious, unfortunately, was Jocelyn’s vaguely tousled and all-too-tempting appearance.

And Devon’s cloak. Lord love him, she was standing in the middle of it, and any attempt to retrieve it on his part would only serve to justify Jason’s concerns—as justifiable as those concerns were. Even if Devon had not invited her to meet him, he’d have been perfectly willing to continue their encounter had they not been interrupted. She’d made him absolutely wild, out of his senses.

“I was misled into coming here,” she said. She sounded so believable that Devon was grudgingly forced to concede that they had most likely both been deceived.

“It appears the two of us were misled,” he said darkly.

She gave a huff of breath.

“All I know,” she continued, “is that I was given to believe I was meeting Adam in the tower.”

Devon rubbed his face. God, he’d been seducing her, and she’d thought he was Chiswick?

Jason acknowledged this statement with a cynical shrug. “Except that Adam is not here. He is, in fact, at this very distressing moment leading a search for you throughout the castle.”

“And all I know,” Devon interjected, feeling more compelled by the minute to defend himself, “was that I was led to believe I was meeting Mrs. Cranleigh.”

“Who also is not present,” Jason murmured, his brow creased in speculation. “Be that as it may, however, it does not explain why Jocelyn is standing upon your cloak, Boscastle. The male mind leaps to a rather unsavory conclusion.”

There ensued a stretch of bleak silence that might have extended even longer had not a commotion arisen from behind the partially opened door.

Voices resounded from the tower stairs, voices babbling in concern, in excitement. A veritable Tower of Babel, Devon thought, and futilely wished for a large goblet of wine, preferably laced with some swift but gentle-acting poison, and a bench to collapse upon so that he could meet his demise in comfort.

But the Fates, whose benevolence Devon had taken for granted until this night, seemed to have withdrawn their favor, for one masculine voice predominated. Devon did not immediately identify it, although Jocelyn and her brother appeared to respond all too clearly. Their faces reflected a mutual horror that brought to his mind those friends who, during the war, had survived death and sworn that at the crucial moment, various scenes from their lives had passed before their eyes like the acts of a play.

Indeed, as the door was pushed fully open, Devon thought the tableau bore all the markings of a Shakespearean tragedy. Or comedy. Or both.

Sir Gideon Lydbury approached his daughter in utter silence. He was a handsome man, silver-haired, his trim body betraying little effects of his age. He did not raise his voice in anger. He did not curse, which Devon might have mistaken as an encouraging sign had he not sensed otherwise.

“I might have expected to find you involved, Boscastle.”

Devon unflinchingly returned his stare. “Then I wish you had warned me in advance. I had no premonition of this myself.”

“It was a misunderstanding,” Jocelyn said. “We did not meet—”

Sir Gideon turned, his hand upraised to strike her, and something broke inside Devon. Discipline was one thing, and his own sire had certainly never spared Devon’s back the rod. But to hit a woman in rage, well, it made him want to hit someone himself.

Unfortunately, that someone happened to be Jocelyn’s father, who most likely thought his action merited. Suddenly it seemed irrelevant to Devon how he or Jocelyn had become ensnared in this situation. He might waver back and forth over believing her claim of complete innocence. Perhaps she was pulling a prank because—He couldn’t think of a strong enough reason she would play this game unless she sought revenge for a past insult.

But a calculated vengeance of this nature after so many years seemed not only implausible but more underhanded than he could fairly attribute to her. Even if she had willfully befooled him, she was still a member of the weaker sex, and his natural instincts to defend her overwhelmed his less worthy proclivities.

“Don’t touch her.” He blocked the older man’s hand with his right arm and raised his left to shield Jocelyn’s face from the impending blow.

Not that she appreciated the gesture. She dealt his arm a good shove off to the side and swung around him to confront her father, although the quiver in her voice made him doubt that this was the first time she’d had to defend herself against abuse. Her brother, he noticed, did nothing to protect her.

“Would you punish me before others?” she asked, a question that prompted Devon to wonder how far her father’s reputation for corporal punishment extended beyond disciplining soldiers. He waited for her to ask him to intervene.

Sir Gideon slowly lowered his hand, ignoring her to glare at Devon. “I interpret your action in thwarting me as not only an admission of guilt, but as one of accepting responsibility.”

The strange glow of triumph in his eyes refreshed Devon’s earlier suspicion that Gideon had set this trap. But…no, it still did not make sense. This whole plot reeked of a more personal reprisal.

He lifted his head and answered with austere resignation. “It was my fault. I deceived her into thinking there was to be a treasure hunt in the tower.”

Jocelyn stared at him as if he’d taken leave of his senses. And he probably had. “A treasure hunt?”

“Kindly do not interrupt me, darling,” Devon said without looking at her again. “I will not shirk whatever responsibility befalls me.”

Sir Gideon nodded. “Then I will make the arrangements for your wedding.”