Seduction

“War is never fair.” He turned a cold gray gaze on Julianne.

He had disapproved of her politics for several years now, and he had made himself very clear when France had declared war on them. She smiled, hesitantly.

“You are home. We weren’t expecting you.”

“Obviously. I have galloped the entire distance from Greystone, Julianne.” There was warning in his tone. Lucas had a fierce temper, when aroused. She saw he was very angry now.

She stiffened. “I take it you are looking for me?” What was this about? “Is there an emergency?” Her heart felt as if it had stopped. “Is it Momma? Or has Jack been caught?!”

“Momma is fine. So is Jack. I wish a private word and it cannot wait.”

Tom’s face fell. “Will you dine with me another time, Julianne?”

“Of course,” Julianne assured him. Tom bowed at Lucas, who did not move. When Tom was gone, she faced her brother, absolutely perplexed. “Are you angry with me?”

“I could not believe it when Billy told me you had gone into town to attend a meeting. I instantly knew what he meant,” he said, referring to the boy who came daily to help with the horses. “We have already discussed this, several times—and recently, since the King’s May Proclamation!”

She crossed her arms. “Yes, we have discussed our difference of opinions. And you know that you have no right to force your Tory views upon me.”

He colored, aware that she meant to insult him. “I hardly wish to change how you think,” he exclaimed. “But I intend to protect you from yourself. My God! The May Proclamation explicitly prohibits seditious meetings, Julianne. It was one thing to engage in such activity prior to the proclamation, but you cannot continue to do so now.”

In a way, he was right, she thought, and it had been childish to call him a Tory. “Why must you assume that our meeting was seditious?”

“Because I know you!” he exploded. “Crusading for the rights of every common man is a wonderful cause, Julianne, but we are at war, and you are supporting the government we are at war with. That is sedition—and it could even be construed as treason.” His gray eyes flashed. “Thank God we are in St. Just, where no one really gives a damn about our affairs, outside the customs agents!”

She trembled, thinking of that horrid dispute with the milliner. “We meet to discuss the events of the war and the events in France, and to espouse the views of Thomas Paine. That is all.” But she was well aware that, if the government ever wanted to bother with their small club, they would all be accused of sedition. Of course, Whitehall did not even know of their existence.

“You write to that damned club in Paris—and don’t deny it. Amelia told me.”

Julianne could not believe her sister had betrayed her trust.

“I took her into my confidence!”

“She wants to protect you from yourself, as well! You must stop attending these meetings. You must also stop all correspondence with that damned Jacobin club in France. This war is a very serious and dangerous business, Julianne. Men are dying every day—and not just on the battlefields of Flanders and the Rhine. They are dying in the streets of Paris and in the vineyards of the countryside!” His gaze on fire, he controlled his tone. “I have heard talk in London. Sedition will not be tolerated for much longer, not while our men are dying on the Continent, not while our friends are fleeing France in droves.”

“They are your friends, not mine.” And the moment she spoke, she couldn’t believe what she had said.

He flushed. “You would never turn away any human being in need, not even a French aristocrat.”

He was right. She drew herself even straighter. “I am sorry, Lucas, but you cannot order me about the way Jack does his sailors.”

“Oh, yes, I can. You are my sister. You are twenty-one years old. You are under my roof and in my care. I am the head of this family. You will do as I say—for once in your excessively independent life.”

She was uncertain. Should she continue on and simply—openly—defy him? What could he possibly do? He would never disown her and force her from Greystone.

“Are you thinking of defying me?” He was in disbelief. “After all I have done for you—all that I have promised to do for you?”

She flushed. Any other guardian would have forced her into wedlock by now. Lucas was hardly a romantic, but he seemed to want her to find a suitor she could be genuinely fond of. He had once told her that he couldn’t imagine her shackled to some conventional old squire, who thought political discourse insane babble. Instead, he wanted her matched with someone who would appreciate her outspoken opinions and unusual character, not disparage her for them.

“I can hardly change my principles,” she finally said. “Even if you are a wonderful brother—the most wonderful brother imaginable!”

“Do not try to flatter me now! I am not asking you to change your principles. I am asking you to be discreet, to act with caution and common sense. I am asking you to desist from these radical associations, while we are at war.”

She had a moral obligation to obey her older brother, yet she did not know if she was capable of doing as he had just asked. “You are putting me in a terrible position,” she said.

“Good,” he snapped. Then, “This is not why I have galloped my poor gelding across the entire parish to find you. We have a guest at Greystone.”

All thoughts of radical meetings vanished. Under normal circumstances, she would be alarmed at the news of an unexpected guest. They hadn’t been expecting Lucas, much less a guest. They had a single bottle of wine in the house. The guest room was unmade. The parlor had not been dusted. Neither had the front hall. Their cupboards were not full enough to support a dinner party. But Luke’s expression was so dire now that she did not think she need worry about cleaning the house or filling the pantry. “Lucas?”

“Jack brought him home a few hours ago.” He was grim. He turned to take up his horse’s reins. His back to her, he said, “I don’t know who he is. I am guessing that he must be a smuggler. In any case, I need you at home. Jack is already gone to get a surgeon. We must try to make the poor fellow comfortable, because he is at death’s door.”

GREYSTONE LOOMED AHEAD. It was a two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old manor house, cast in pale stone, with high sloping slate roofs. Set atop rugged, near-white, treeless cliffs, against barren, colorless moors, surrounded only by a gray, bleak sky, it seemed stark and desolate.

Sennen Cove was below. Its wild tales of the adventures, mishaps and victories of smugglers, customs agents and revenue men were partly myth and partly history. For generations, the Greystone family had actively smuggled with the best of them. As deliberately, the family had looked the other way as the cove was laden with illegal cases of whiskey, tobacco and teas by their friends and neighbors, feigning ignorance of any illegal activity. There were evenings when the customs agent stationed at Penzance would dine in the manor with his wife and daughters, drinking some of the best French wine to be had, sharing the latest gossip with their hosts, as if the best of friends; on other evenings, beacon fires blazed, warning the smugglers below that the authorities were on the way. Jack’s ship would be at anchor, and the cove would explode with action as casks and cases were rushed into hiding in caves in the cliffs and Jack and his men fled the scene, the armed British authorities rushing down from the cliffs on foot, firing upon anyone who had been left behind.

Julianne had witnessed it all from the time she was a small child. No one in the parish thought smuggling a crime—it was a way of life.

Her legs ached terribly. So did her back. She rarely rode astride anymore, much less sidesaddle—her only option in her muslin dress. Keeping her balance at a brisk pace on the hired hack had been no easy task. Lucas had cast many concerned glances her way, and he had offered to pause for a moment so she could rest several times. Afraid that Amelia would linger with their neighbors and that the dying stranger was in the manor alone, she had refused.

The first thing she saw as she and Lucas trotted up the manor’s crushed-shell drive was the pair of carriage horses turned out behind the stone stables, which were set back from the house. Amelia was already home.

They hurriedly dismounted. Lucas took her reins. “I’ll take care of the horses.” He smiled at her. “You will be sore tomorrow.”

They were no longer arguing. “I am sore now.”

He led the pair of geldings away.

Julianne lifted her pale skirts and rushed up the manor’s two front steps. The house was a simple rectangle, longer than it was tall or wide, with three floors. The topmost floor contained attics and, once upon a time, living quarters for the servants they no longer had. The front hall remained in its original form. It was a large room, once used for dining and entertaining. The floors were dark gray stone, the walls a lighter version of the same stone. Two ancestral portraits and a pair of ancient swords decorated the walls; at one end of the hall there was a massive fireplace and two stately burgundy chairs. The ceilings were timbered.

Julianne rushed through the hall, past a small, quaint parlor with mostly modern furnishings; a small, dark library; and the dining room. She started up the narrow stairs.

Amelia was coming down. She held wet rags and a pitcher. Both women faltered as they saw one another. “Is he all right?” Julianne cried immediately.

Amelia was as petite as Julianne was tall. Her dark blond hair was pulled severely back, and her expression was characteristically serious, but her face lit up with relief now. “Thank the lord you are home! You know that Jack dropped off a dying man?” She was disbelieving.

“That is just like Jack!” Julianne snapped. Of course, by now, Jack was gone. “Lucas told me. He is outside with the horses. What can I do?”

Amelia turned abruptly and led the way up the stairs, her small body tight with tension. She marched quickly down the hall, which was dark, the wall sconces unlit, family portraits dating back two hundred years lining the corridor. Lucas had taken over the master suite long ago and Jack had his own bedchamber, but she and Amelia shared a room. Neither one cared, as the room was used only for sleeping. But the single guest chamber that remained had been left mostly untouched. Guests were rare at Greystone.

Glancing grimly at Julianne, she paused before the open door of the guest bedroom. “Doctor Eakins just left.”

The guest room looked out over the rocky beaches of the cove and the Atlantic Ocean. The sun was setting, filling the small chamber with light. The room contained a small bed, a table and two chairs, a bureau and an armoire. Julianne faltered, her gaze going to the man on the bed.

Her heart lurched oddly.

The dying man was shirtless, a sheet loosely draped to his hips. She didn’t mean to stare, but stretched out as he was, little was left to the imagination—the man was very big and very dark, a mass of sculpted muscle. She stared for one moment longer, hardly accustomed to the sight of a bare-chested man, much less one with such a powerful physique.

“He was on his abdomen a moment ago. He must have turned over when I left,” Amelia said sharply. “He was shot at close range in the back. Doctor Eakins said he has lost a great deal of blood. He is in pain.”