Connie Brockway - Rose Hunters 02 by My Pleasure

Author:My Pleasure
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-11-25T23:59:54+00:00

“My! I hadn’t realized you took your pledge to my family quite so seriously.” She tried a light laugh, only it wasn’t light. It was breathless.

Oh, this has nothing to do with my pledge,he thought, holding her gaze. Her eyes flickered as if she’d read his mind. His mouth curved in a slight smile. “What is it you want to know?”

“Why has the marquis waited so long to produce those marriage documents?”

“Because they didn’t exist before five years ago,” he answered without hesitation. “I would not allow them to be put before the public as truth until”—he paused thoughtfully—“five days ago.” If the world got wind of his grandfather’s forgeries, there would be a scandal of unprecedented size, and not only would Ram be a nameless bastard again, but his salle would be destroyed. He risked much in telling her this. But he had never been in love before. If revealing his secrets could entice her into trusting him with hers, it would be well worth it. He disliked whatever it was she felt she needed to do that sent her abroad, masked and now armed with a sword, into the night.

Her eyes remained calm. She’d suspected. “But why now?”

“The reason has its roots buried in the past,” he answered. “Do you recall the other men who came with me to your townhouse and pledged to aid your family?”

She nodded.

“Colonel MacNeill, of course, and another, Andrew Ross. Did you ever knowwhy we were in that French dungeon?”

“A little,” she said. “Kate revealed to me some of what her husband told her. You had been sent to France to set up a network of informants, the center being the place Napoleon would least expect it—at his wife’s home, at Malmaison.”

“Yes,” Ram said, fingering the gold rose pin nestled in his white cravat. “Josephine adores roses; she is obsessed with them. As the wife of the rising power in France, kings and queens, deposed princes, and would-be potentates send her gifts of rose plants, all the most exotic varieties. But none have ever been as exotic as a rose that grew in a small Scottish abbey, a gift from a crusader to the abbot who’d cared for his family during the Black Death.”

“The yellow rose,” she said.

“Aye.” His faint Scottish burr deepened. “The yellow rose. We brought her that rose, and offered her our expertise as rose hunters to scour France and Europe for new varieties for her gardens. With her written endorsement, we could have gone anywhere unchallenged.” His gaze, drifting through a sea of memories, sharpened. “It was a good plan,” he said. “But someone betrayed us before we could even begin to implement it. We were caught and sent to LeMons castle’s dungeons.”

Her gaze remained fixed on his face, the light blue color of her eyes deeper in the moonlight, her blonde hair bleached nearly white.

“Suffice it to say, the French failed to treat us with the respect a Scotsman might expect from their former allies.” He smiled wryly, but then his smile faded.

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