Although she had been rather uncommunicative so far, Rakecombe had felt he was at last getting somewhere until that question. Just the name on her lips caused his throat to dry and blood to chill.
“Gwen?” he stalled.
“Gwen,” she repeated.
“She was my sister. She died.”Don’t ask, his heart rapped out.Please don’t ask.
“How did she die?”
“I do not wish to discuss the matter,” he replied, using the tone that petrified worldly matrons and made young cubs wet themselves.
“But I do,” Aideen said, “because I have a feeling she taints everything you do, everything you say.”
Glaring at the rust coverlet, he considered leaving, but a supple hand swept his face, pushed that bloody curl back and then slipped down his neck.
He’d never told anyone – not properly. His mother had been given the barest of details to spare her the pain, and his leader at that time had received a report devoid of emotion. Kelmarsh knew the most but the words had been garbled out with anger and pain.
“I can’t…” But he couldn’t leave either because fingers delicately caressed his nape and he craved more.
“Join me in bed, Alexander,” she whispered, and he knew. He knew he’d reveal all if she continued to whisper in his ear, that beautiful Irish lilt soothing his soul.
She brought him vexation and worry and barbed words, but she also brought peace and contentment and gentleness. Such a dichotomy. He had to protect it, treasure it.
Throwing his banyan to the floor, he clambered into bed as she shifted over to make room, but he didn’t want that, and pulling her back to the centre, he laid his head on her breast – so soft but with a heart thundering his presence like cannon fire.
A sigh reverberated through her and then those fingers returned, brushing his hair, nails lightly scratching.
“Mother said Gwen was daring from the moment she was born. Always getting into scrapes, crawling where she shouldn’t and generally twisting everyone around her plump little fingers. She was utterly spoiled by us all.”
“What was the difference in age?” she asked, now stroking his shoulder blades.
“Four years but we were close. We went rambling in the woods, fishing. I treated her as a brother, which maybe was a mistake.”
“No regrets, Alex. If she enjoyed it, then it was her nature. It all sounds idyllic and I wish I’d had siblings.”
“Your father has never remarried?” He played with the black velvet ribbon of her bodice.
“No. I thought he loved my mother too much to remarry, but now I believe it to have been a jealous love. He buried any feelings with her, including those for me, his own daughter. Da would make another wife miserable as sin.”
From the little Mr Beckford had told him, Aideen’s father was a loud-mouthed bully. A daughter might have wilted under such treatment, but his Aideen had grown strong and fearless.
“So, then what happened?” she whispered.
“Whilst in the final year of Oxford, an elder peer approached me. After the French revolt, they required men from the aristocracy to assist. Intelligence work is not normally undertaken by dukes, you realise, but there were whisperings of revolution and treason here within thehaut ton, especially with the King’s supposed lunacy, so they asked certain people to…”
“Spy?”
“Yes, in a word. I… I wanted to warn those closest to me, to let them know I was undertaking potentially dangerous work. Father was pleased as he’d always worried I would fall foul of the Rakecombe gambling trait and he thought it would keep me from trouble. Mother was anxious, as all mothers are, and Gwen…” He swallowed. He should have known. But he’d been so deuced young and naive.
“Hmm?” Fingers stroked his forehead, encouraging and sensitive.
“Gwen was excited. She considered it a thrilling adventure. Of secret codes and misty nights. She’d badger me night and day about missions, and I’d try to instil a note of caution but… She always liked to be the boldest and the fiercest and it became worse after Father died. She was the one to ride the largest horse in the stable, the one to rescue the weak pup from the tormenting lads, and I loved that bravery, that verve for life.”
“I think I would have liked her,” Aideen said quietly.
“There was a mission that winter, involving a group of revolutionists. Information came about a meeting in a Seven Dials tavern, and I inveigled myself an invite. Fairly standard job. Keep my mouth shut, eyes open and ears flapping.”
He closed his lids, remembered his jaunty pride. “She pestered me that morning. Beaming and prodding for details, so I thought what the hell and told her about the mission, about the meeting. Where was the harm? She would never encounter these men or repeat my words. In retrospect, maybe I enjoyed playing the hero, swaggering in youthful pride.”
