He blew out a breath. “Well, that was the point of my campaign. Good to know it was successful.”

Her brows rose, haughty again. “You had a campaign?”

He grinned. “From the moment I decided I had to persuade you to have me as your consort. The virgin queen’s consort. That was the position I wanted, but before I declared myself-before I told you of my birth and formally offered for your hand-I wanted to show you what manner of man I was so, when it came to this moment, you would know me so well that my birth wouldn’t matter.”

Reaching out, he caught a lock of her hair, flaming like fire and glinting like gold in the flickering firelight. “I wanted to show you at least enough for you to get some idea of what I’d made myself into. I started life as the bastard son of the Earl of Kirkcowan. He acknowledged me from the first, sent me to school, to Hexham, then later bought me my commission in the Guards. Beyond that, however, I have nothing from him-I have no estate, no house. No home.”

He lifted his gaze to her eyes. “I fought for years in the Peninsula campaigns. Made friends like Del, Gareth, and Rafe, and later James, and the Cynsters. Then we five went to India. With the other four, aside from our pay as officers, we learned about trade, went into various ventures, and ended as nabobs. I’m wealthy, well able to afford a wife and family. Yet as I set sail for England, I knew I had no one-no family and no home-to come back to.

“Then I was washed up on Guernsey, and saved by an angel. And I found a family, and a home-one I wanted to be a part of. One I wanted to join.” Raising his hands, he gently framed her face, looked into her eyes. “I never intended to ask you to leave-just to let me stay. To let me be your virgin queen’s consort. To live by your side and protect you and yours. I don’t even care if you’d rather we didn’t formally marry-if you feel that would make things difficult for you in the community, on Guernsey, with the shipping company. I don’t really care how-I just want to live the rest of my life with you.” His lips twitched. “I’ll even herd your donkeys.”

Her face didn’t just light up; her features glowed with transcendent joy. She laughed, an exuberant, glorious sound, then flung her arms about his shoulders and kissed him.

A kiss that lengthened, lingered, that unexpectedly didn’t lead to a frenzy of urgent need but slid smoothly, seamlessly, into a long exchange of hopes and wishes, of shared wants and needs.

Of love.

It was she who bore him back onto the rug. He let her, smiled and helped her divest him of his clothes, then she flung away her towel and rose up and took him in, and loved him.

He held her, supported her, marveled at the way the firelight gilded her curves, shadowed her hollows. Marveled that he was there, that she was with him, that they were alive and free and able to grasp this, the future they both wanted.

Passion was there, but it no longer possessed the giddy, urgent need of a newfound, newly birthed emotion. What bound them now had grown, matured into a river that was infinitely deeper, infinitely slower, and infinitely more powerful.

The desire it fed still caught them, its ultimate need still wracked them, but now, fingers linked, gazes locked, when ecstasy shattered them and flung them into the void, they were aware to their souls of their deep and abiding union.

The togetherness. The closeness.

The reality that linked two hearts and forged a unified soul.

Later, after, when she’d collapsed upon him, her hair a warm veil spread over them both as they lay boneless and gloried, waiting for their breathing to even, their pounding hearts to slow, he shifted his head and pressed a kiss to her temple.

Murmured, “I never understood my parents before-now I think I do.”

“Hmm.” She shifted her head, dropped a kiss on his chest. “Tell.”

“They fell in love quite young. They wanted to marry-my mother was a Gordon, her birth as good as my father’s. But then my grandfather, the old earl, died, and my father inherited the title, and learned that the earldom was deep in debt. He suddenly had the responsibility for the welfare of countless people, including his younger siblings. He had to marry for money-there was no other way.” He was silent for a moment, then went on, “When I was younger, I couldn’t understand that-couldn’t grasp how responsibility could force someone to give up something they truly wanted. Now, of course, I do.”

Held safe and warm within his arms, Linnet smiled. “Your middle name could be Responsibility. I daresay you get it from him.”

He humphed, then continued, “He tried to break with my mother, but she wouldn’t have it. She loved him, knew he loved her, and for her, that was enough-she didn’t care where she lived, that she would never be his wife, his countess. But she held his heart, and he held hers, and that, for her, was all. You’ve heard the phrase ‘counting the world well lost for love’-she lived it. Her family disowned her, cut her off completely, but I swear that to her deathbed she refused to care. If that was the price to be able to love my father, she paid it and gladly. She never looked back. My father bought her a house in Glenluce, and he visited often. I have no idea what his wife, his other family, thought-they never intruded, he saw to that. My mother and I never wanted for anything.”

“Except you didn’t have a father,” Linnet murmured.

“Yes, and no. In retrospect I can see that he was as good a father as circumstances allowed him to be. He spent what time he could with me-he didn’t try to pretend it was normal or even the way it should be, but he did what he could. He didn’t interfere when my uncle, one of my mother’s brothers, decided to break with the family line. Edward eventually came to live with us in Glenluce. He was a scholar and a gentleman, and he loved sailing. He was independently wealthy by then, so could thumb his nose at the family-he was something of a black sheep, too. He filled in what my father could not-he taught me to sail, and so much more.”

Moving his head, Logan brushed his lips to Linnet’s hair. “My mother died shortly after I finished at Hexham-a fever. Later, my father sat down with Edward and me and asked me what I wanted to do with my life. Edward and I had already discussed the army, so I asked for a commission in the Guards. My father agreed. I think he was… bothered that he couldn’t do more for me, but that was all I wanted, and although the earldom’s coffers had recovered somewhat, he was still not wealthy.

“I lost touch through the Peninusla campaigns. When I returned to London, I learned he’d died, and by then Edward had died, too.” He tightened his arms around Linnet. “So, you see, I no longer have any family to return to. But I want a family-I want to build one with you. Children…”

When he let the word trail away, a quiet question, she smiled and nipped his chest. “Yes, please. Lots.”

He shifted so he could look down into her face. “I thought maybe you’d decided your wards were enough.”

“No-they were my compensation.” She held his gaze. “I’ll still have wards, of course. I’ll keep the ones I already have, and, I warn you, more will come with the years. And they’ll still be like children in many ways to me, but they won’t be, can’t be, my own.”

She looked into his eyes, and felt reality-the reality of their joint future-burgeon, grow, and swell with color. “I just never thought I’d have a husband to make children with me.”

Reaching up, she traced a finger down his cheek, along his jaw. Arched a brow. “So you’ll come and live at Mon Coeur?”

“You won’t be able to keep me away.” His lips curved. “As long as you and the others will have me.”

“Oh, we’ll have you.” She spread the fingers of one hand and swept them across the width of his chest. “I’m sure we can find ways to put these broad shoulders and all these lovely muscles to good use.”

He laughed, caught her hand, shifted beneath her.

She slid to the side and sat up, pushed onto her knees. She gave him her hand, tugged him up as she said, “We’ll start with what we already have at Mon Coeur, and add to it. Build on it.”

Sitting up, he caught her other hand, with his eyes on hers raised first one hand, then the other, to his lips. “Marry me, and we’ll make it ours-make it something more.”

Her hands clasping his, she looked into his eyes, smiled mistily. “Yes.”

He held her gaze. Softly stated, “You make me whole, complete, in a way I never imagined could be.”

Her heart lifted, soared. “You do the same for me.”

Alex sat in an armchair in the drawing room of the small manor house outside Needham Market that M’wallah and Creighton had found and commandeered. The family had, apparently, decamped for Christmas, leaving the house shut up, the furniture swathed in holland covers.

M’wallah and his helpers had been busy. The holland covers were all gone, and with evening closing in, a fire crackled cheerily in the grate.

Alex stared into the flames. The past already lay behind, done and gone if not yet buried. Ahead lay one last throw of the dice. The question was, did Alex need to play?

There were alternatives. Even if the last letter reached the puppetmaster, even if he, whoever he was, showed it to Shrewton, there was nothing to say that Shrewton, typical old tyrant that he was, would realize the part Alex had played. If Shrewton didn’t point his stubby digit at Alex… the way lay open to take all that was left of the cult and retreat to India, there to continue to amass wealth and power, albeit in more subtle and secretive vein.

Or, if not that, there was no reason not to stay in England, to take all the money that was left and fade into the background once more.

Alex’s lip curled. The thought of retreating once again into obscurity, becoming a nonentity, wasn’t to be borne.

No. The only true question was whether to make a bid for the fourth and final letter, or to let it-along with the associated risk of tangling more deeply with the unknown puppetmaster and his minions-slide past.

Yet that decision, too, hinged on whether Shrewton could be counted on to mentally dismiss Alex as he always had, and not think to link Alex with Roderick and Daniel in any meaningful way.

The odds, when it came to it, weren’t reassuring. Shrewton was a vindictive bastard who had just been dealt a major personal wound; he would be seeking to lay blame at someone’s door, to lash out.

So… no going back. No slipping away into the shadows, not yet.

At least with the cult’s reins in Alex’s hands alone, there was no need to pander to anyone else’s ego, and matters would proceed with greater efficiency, and commensurately greater succcess.

Despite the hurdles, the unavoidable sacrifices, three of the four letters had been destroyed. Seizing the last would eliminate any possible threat, leaving the way open to return to India and the rule of terror that delighted and satisfied on so many levels.

Alex’s lips curved. Decision made.

Stretching out one arm, Alex lifted a small brass bell and rang it. A second later, M’wallah appeared. A tall, lanky man of indeterminate age, with a walnut-colored face and long gray beard, he’d been Alex’s houseman for the last three years and had proved his devotion in every conceivable way.

“Fetch Saleem,” Alex ordered. “I wish to go through our preparations for welcoming Carstairs.”

M’wallah bowed low and disappeared without a word, reappearing minutes later with the captain of Alex’s guard. Saleem was a tall Pathan, and a frighteningly vicious man; he lived to inspire fear and terror-in Alex’s view, he thrived on those emotions, needed them like a drug.

Addicts were sometimes useful, especially when the addiction was coupled with rigid control.

Alex waved the pair to footstools arranged for the purpose of holding court, waited until they’d sat, waited a dramatic moment more, then commenced, “I have determined that Carstairs-unlike the three who have gone before-will not be allowed to escape our vengeance. And in that, the other three passing safely through will work to our advantage. They will expect the captain to do the same… but he will not.”

With icy composure, Alex regarded M’wallah and Saleem. “He will not because, this time, it will be I who will marshal our troops and lead them in the field. I intend to play an active role in apprehending and torturing the captain.”

Both men nodded, murmured, “This is wise.”

Alex smiled coldly. “Indeed. So let us revisit what we have already put in place, and decide what more we need to do to ensure the good captain does not slip through our net.”

With rigid attention to detail, they reviewed the dispositions of cult members, confirming the numbers amassed on shore nearby, in specific locations Alex had earlier decreed, and, most importantly, confirming the number of vessels already commandeered and actively patroling the waters off the east coast.