Before the Fire Read online

  Kane supposed she was behaving silly, as her husband was merely being polite—that much she could tell from the overly formal manner in which he behaved toward her—yet she didn’t care for the woman’s fawning at all. Something about that female all but screamed “trouble”.

  “Ah, Lady Blackmore,” a smooth as Vegas silk voice crooned out. “I believe this dance has been claimed by me.”

  Kane mentally sighed, tired of dancing altogether. She pasted on a smile of welcome and turned to greet the stranger standing behind her. She cocked her head up to regard him and found herself staring into the face of an angel.

  By Jupiter’s moons, he was handsome.

  Chapter 22

  “I have missed you, my lord. Pray when will you next call upon me, hm?”

  George mentally rolled his eyes to the back of his head, so vexed he was with this inane conversation Charlotte refused to let go of. “Madam, I have told you repeatedly that I cannot and will not know another woman’s bed. I am wed now.” He inclined his head solemnly. “And happily so.”

  Charlotte let out a shrill ring of mocking laughter. “Ah George, forever the gentleman.” She shook her head, feigning to care for his presumed naïveté. “I see you are not yet ready to come to terms with the obvious.”

  “The obvious?”

  Charlotte smiled up to him sweetly, gazing into the two greenest eyes she’d ever seen. He was all virile man, the earl. In bed and out of it. “It’s alright, my love. I shall wait until you come to your senses.”

  George sighed. Lord, but would this cursed dance never end? “I don’t gather your meaning, madam.”

  Charlotte shook her head daintily, looking to all and sundry as a woman who regretted what it was she had to tell him. “My lord, when will you come to accept the way of the nobility? I accepted it long ago.” Her pouty lips curled wryly. “’Tis true I became wealthy from accepting it.”

  “Oh? And what way is that?”

  She sighed, as if exasperated. “George, husbands and wives of the ton are not faithful to their spouses. Certainly you discovered as much during your marriage to Lady Nina? I daresay—”

  George shook Charlotte by the arms before he thought better of it. “You will not speak that name to me again. Do you understand?” he gritted out.

  Suddenly frightened, his former mistress backed down. “I…I’m sorry, my lord. Truly I am.” She batted her eyelashes and implored him beseechingly with her worshipful gaze. “I just worry for you, George. I couldn’t bear it were your heart smashed to pieces yet again.”

  Neither could he. Luckily, he could trust Kane where he couldn’t trust Nina.

  George relaxed his grip on Charlotte’s arms without missing a step of the dance. He inclined his head politely down to her. “Madam, you are a lovely and kind woman. I thank you for having a care for me.” He eyed her sadly, feeling terrible that he must hurt her, but knowing he hadn’t much of a choice in the matter. “But I love my wife. I could never betray her.”

  Charlotte drew herself up to her full five feet nine inches and released an anguished breath. She had lost him well and good. She inclined her head in acquiescence. “I accept your decision, my lord. I pray she is worth it.”

  “She is.”

  Seething with fury over the earl’s thoughtlessly muttered pronouncement, she tried to think of some words to best him with, and hopefully to hurt him with as much as he’d managed to hurt her. The couple dancing not ten feet from them gave her new inspiration. She bit her lip.

  Smiling brightly up to George, Charlotte played the role of the graciously jilted superbly. “I’m glad. You’re a stalwart paragon, my lord. Not every man could be so certain in your situation.”

  George’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “And what, pray tell, do you mean by that?”

  Feigning innocence, the paramour of half the gentlemen in the ton batted her lashes toward the left of them. “Certainly you noticed who is partnering your wife, my lord?” She waited with bated breath to witness his reaction. She wasn’t disappointed.

  The earl went stock-still as he watched Viscount Freemont, the heir apparent of the Earl of Trent, lead his wife about the dance floor. He couldn’t believe it. Stunned didn’t even begin to describe his raging emotions. Wasn’t the rake satisfied with the last conquest he’d made? Did he have to chase after this wife as well?

  Across the ballroom, Kane was growing quickly intolerant of her company. To think she had thought this humanoid male carried the visage of an angel! The devil and a few of his sons were more like it. And if the lecher moved his hands any closer to her breasts, he would soon become acquainted with the deadly body arts.

  “Truly you are the most exquisite woman I have ever laid eyes on, milady.” The devil batted his lashes and smiled sweetly down to her.

  Kane frowned. It was obvious that this man was quite used to having his way with the “gentler sex”, as eighteenth century males often referred to their female counterparts. Though this devil didn’t possess the animalistic attraction her husband did, he was fine of face and form in a classical, elegant sort of way. He was what George would have called foppish. Too bad for this Lord Freemont character, there wasn’t a gentle bone in her body. Nor did she care for “elegant” as a term to describe a potential mating partner.

  Not that she would even consider lying with any man but George. She had made her commitment. Besides, after bedding her husband, no other man stood a chance with her. He was her heaven and her earth, her dreams and her reality. She smiled just thinking of him.

  Viscount Freemont took her smile as a sign that she was warming to him. “’Tis fortunate I am to have been here to witness such an exquisite smile,” he murmured.

  Kane frowned again. If he used the word “exquisite” one more time, she’d throw him a jack knife punch. Everything with this man was “exquisite”. The food, the wine, the dancing. He’d even used the word to characterize the liveried servants’ finery. She wasn’t sure why this man’s presence bothered her so, but it did. Something about him was alarming.

  Especially his eyes.

  Golden brown, like the setting sun shining through a forest glen, yet without a hint of warmth in their mysterious pools. His eyes could be called many things—calculating, assessing, intelligent. They could never be called warm. A shiver trickled down her spine.

  Lord Freemont felt her subtle movement. He smiled to himself, thinking he was that much closer to snaring his prey.

  The music stopped, signaling an end to the dance. He felt like cursing, for it meant he’d have to relinquish her—for now.

  Kane breathed a sigh of relief, elated that this torture was at its close. “I thank you for the dance, my lord. It was most, uh, entertaining.”

  “Please, call me James.”

  She nodded, but said nothing.

  “Until the next time, my lady…” Viscount Freemont drew her hand up to his lips and placed a kiss on her upturned palm. He never broke eye contact with her. Releasing her after an improperly drawn out moment, he smiled his cat’s grin before strolling away.

  Kane discarded all thoughts of the Earl of Trent’s son the moment he left her side. She turned around to locate her husband, only to find him looming over her. She looked up at him and smiled warmly, faltering only after she took in his expression.

  He was furious.

  Over what, she hadn’t a clue.

  * * * * *

  George grimaced as he listened to the reverberating sound of his wife’s bedchamber door slamming shut. She was furious with him. Not that he could blame her. He had all but accused her of planning an assignation with Viscount Freemont.

  The earl raked punishing fingers through his hair, trying to sort out this sorry state of affairs. What it all came down to in the end was that he must accept the fact that his Kane was not Nina. Indeed, his beloved had said as much before storming out of their bedchamber.

  And she was right.

  Oh aye, he knew in his heart that Kane was not
deceitful. Even his instincts had surmised as much long ago. Unfortunately, his addled brain wasn’t always so quick to agree. It wanted to see betrayal and disloyalty where his baser faculties did not.

  I am not Nina.

  Kane had looked him in the eyes and stated that sentence so quietly, yet so forcefully. Her steadfast gaze had told him where she stood—she wanted him nowhere near her until he quit behaving like an untrusting tyrant and starting acting like “her George”. She had told him not to bother coming to her until he could look her in the eye and tell him what she needed to hear.

  I am not Nina.

  He unloosed his neckcloth, agitated and restless. It was time to let this madness go. But how?

  You want my trust, yet offer none in return.

  Not altogether true, but he could certainly understand why she’d said as much. Lud, but she had every right to think that was the way of it. In actuality, however, he did trust her. It was only those few green-seeing moments in which he felt a man maddened with jealousy that he lost his powers of reason altogether and allowed the betrayals of the past to affect the happiness and trust of the present. Unfortunately, the green monster would come in between he and Kane forever if he didn’t make amends and correct the ignoble treachery that had earlier manifested itself in his brain.

  George undid the ties of his breeches, then slipped them off past his hips. He finished undressing, all the time thinking on what he could do to set the situation with his wife to rights.

  I am not Nina.

  Naked, George sat down on his bed and took a pensive breath. He looked at the empty mattress looming behind him and felt his heart plummet to the ground with its symbolism. For perhaps fifteen minutes he sat there, allowing his emotions to get the better of him. And then for the first time in nine years, he let himself think back on his first wife.

  He relived the anguish of knowing that Nina had shared her bed with others, and often. He allowed himself to experience the sorrow and betrayal he had harbored upon finding her naked, lifeless body bludgeoned to death by a lover. He permitted himself to feel all the feelings he’d denied himself those nine long years ago. And in the end, George came to two irreversible conclusions.

  The first—it was time to let Nina go. In an immature way he had loved her once and because of that love he owed it to her to let her disloyalty die its death. Fate had seen to it that she’d paid the ultimate price for her faithlessness. Indeed, it was a higher price than he ever would have extracted.

  He knew upon marrying Nina that she had loved another before him. Mayhap she hadn’t been able to let that love go. Such an all-consuming love had been foreign to George until Kane had ensnared his heart. If Nina had felt for this man the way George felt for Kane, then he could even understand his first wife’s betrayal. There was no power in heaven, earth, or hell that could keep him from Kane’s side.

  Aye, it was time to let go of Nina. It was time to let the dead rest in peace. And it was past time to bury all the raging, bitter emotions he’d experienced from her disloyalty of him.

  He’d been given a second chance. God had sent him his Kane.

  George glanced back toward the empty bed and instantly remembered the second decision he’d arrived at—he would never, ever, sleep without his wife beside him.

  He rose to his feet and walked stealthily toward the door that connected the bedchambers of the lord and lady of the estate. He opened the door quietly, not knocking lest she was asleep.

  George’s heart pulsed at the sight that greeted him. Kane was sitting on her bed as naked as was he, but she wasn’t sleeping. She was very awake. And she was crying.

  You made her cry, you brute.

  Kane’s head shot up upon realizing she was no longer alone. Tear-filled blue eyes met repentant green ones as wife and husband gazed at each other. George held out his hand, lovingly wiped the remaining moisture from her cheeks, then repeated the words she had prayed to the goddesses she would hear. “You are not Nina.”

  Quiet, yet powerful. The very sentence she craved. The only words that could make this night of anguish and heartbreak better. She looked deep into her husband’s eyes and smiled up to him.

  George released a worried breath, knowing all would be well. He didn’t deserve her forgiveness, but as always, she was giving it nonetheless.

  Kane held out her arms to her husband, letting him know it was alright to come to her. George wasted no time. He scooped her up and enveloped her in the cradle of his arms, vowing to himself that he would never be the cause of so much hurt again.

  He held tight to his wife and carried her into their bedchamber. He fell with her onto the bed and entered her body in one swift thrust. He made love to her and with her, possessive and needful, knowing it was alright to be vulnerable with this one miraculous woman who had been fashioned as if made for him.

  The walls of protection his heart had erected so long ago were no longer necessary. The fortress of his mind that had resisted penetration was now wide open, naked and vulnerable.

  But it was alright. Because he was home.

  Chapter 23

  “Hiiiiiyaaaa!”

  Kane rolled to the ground, somersaulting forward to sideswipe the kick Viscount Blake had made toward her face. She regained her footing and grinned at him while simultaneously signaling it was time to call a halt to the spar. “You’re getting better. Isn’t he Mother Julia?”

  “Heavens yes!” the dowager countess confirmed. “And after only a deuce of lessons.”

  Chester shrugged, his telltale pride given away by the chest that puffed out of its own accord. “I can’t take all the credit. You’re a wonderful teacher, Kane.”

  Kane smiled. “Unfortunately, I can’t take all the credit for that either. The data injectable did most of the work.”

  Chester scratched his chin as he regarded her. “Bloody useful, that invention. Still can’t say I understand how it works, but work it does.”

  “Indeed,” Lady Julia seconded as she aired herself with her fan.

  Kane had to grin. The disparity between the dowager’s warrior garb and the delicacy of the lace fan she was flicking about her face was vastly amusing. It was like watching a medieval knight in one of George’s paintings in the grand hall sew a tapestry before the hearth while still sporting his chain mail.

  “Let us move on with our lessons,” Chester implored. “I’ve a mind to see my two favorite ladies to lunch when we’ve finished.” He shook his head. “But I’ve that game of dice with Blackmore tonight to prepare for, so time is precious.”

  Kane’s eyes squinted in confusion. “How does one prepare for a game of chance?”

  Lady Julia rolled her eyes. “You can’t. That, however, has never stopped Chester from trying.” She hit him in the stomach with her fan where his malta offered no protection. “He treats dicing like a battle.”

  “Now see here,” the viscount grumbled, “your son does as well. I need to be prepared.”

  Kane waved her hand through the air, ending the argument at once. “Let us begin then.” She nodded to the dowager and then to the viscount. “Attack me.”

  “Both of us?” they screeched in unison.

  “Yes. Most thugs hit in groups of two or more. You need to learn how to protect yourself.”

  The older couple nodded, then assumed their fighting positions. Grinning, they attacked.

  * * * * *

  George and Alex strolled through the Blackmores’ London gardens looking for the countess and dowager countess for different reasons. George wanted to steal a kiss from his wife. The very same wife he’d been living in heaven with this past week since they had made up after that ridiculous fight about Lord Freemont.

  Alex, on the other hand, wanted to find out when Melea was due to arrive. He knew the time was upon them and he was much looking forward to the eventuality. Indeed, he’d been semi-erect for days just thinking about it.

  Alex also needed to speak with his uncle, but had no clue as to his wher
eabouts. Both yesterday morning and this morning, Viscount Blake had disappeared for hours at a time, his servants having no notion where he’d gone. Like as not, the dowager countess would know. Chester was always nipping at her dainty heels.

  “There,” George pointed, his voice lowered to a whisper. “Mother and Kane generally spar over there.”

  The marquess nodded, quietly following at the earl’s side off the weathered trail. “I hope Lady Julia knows Blake’s whereabouts. I daresay the old fox—”

  “God in heaven,” George muttered. “I can tell you Blake’s whereabouts. He is assailing my wife.”

  For the second time in a little over a sennight, the Earl of Blackmore and the Marquess of Asherby watched with mouths agape as Lady Kane Blackmore made short work of her “attackers”.

  Stunned, they then watched Viscount Blake let loose a “hiiiyaaa!” that would chill most villains to the bone as he sailed through the air and back flipped toward Kane’s person.

  “What the devil does he have up his arse?” Alex mumbled.

  George shook his head in disbelief, so ludicrous it was to see a man of fifty and eight with a bright red piece of garment wedged up the cheeks of his bum. He was dressed as the women were in catsuits of black and sported the same red groin plate that was called a malta. The only difference was Blake wore no breast plate.

  “Where the devil did he learn that flipping thing?” Alex asked incredulously.

  “I’ve no notion.” George shrugged. “My gentle wife, presumably.”

  George cleared his throat dramatically, drawing attention to him and Alex. The sparring halted immediately.

  “George!” Kane beamed her beautiful smile his way, running towards him and throwing herself into his arms for a kiss. He obliged her, of course. Husbandly duty and all. “Hello, my sweet.” He lowered his head and kissed her soundly on the lips, audience or no.