Indiscreet Part 25

"Oh, pooh," Anthony dismissed her fears. "Don't be such a worrywart, Milla. Nothing is going to happen to me."

"Don't be so sure," Benedict told him. "I don't want you going into it with that sort of att.i.tude or you'll get us all killed. This man is dangerous, and we shall have to be on our toes."

"Yes, sir."

Benedict turned to Camilla. "But one thing you don't know about me, my dear-I am a dangerous man, also. Rest a.s.sured that I will watch out for Anthony."

"Oh!" Camilla let out a groan of frustration. "You think that you are invincible."

"Not entirely." He smiled. "But I have gotten through some tight spots before. I know how to take care of myself-and my men. I've always brought them through."

Camilla would have liked to protest, but she knew that it was pointless. Once men made up their minds about something, especially something dangerous and foolhardy, there was no changing them.

"Then I suppose that I shall simply have to go along with you,'' she said calmly.

"What?" The word chorused from all three men, but only Woollery looked surprised.

"Absolutely not," Benedict p.r.o.nounced, his brows rus.h.i.+ng together sternly. "I forbid it."

"You what?" Camilla's voice was dangerously silky.

Anthony groaned, knowing that those words were like a red flag waved in front of his cousin. Quickly he jumped in, "Be reasonable, Milla. You can't go. You would be recognized in an instant. No one would think you were a man."

"I'm not much smaller than Jem Crowder," Camilla protested.

"Maybe not, but you are shaped rather differently,"

Camilla's color rose a little at her cousin's blunt words, but she said stoutly, "Nonsense. In rough workman's clothes, you won't be able to see my shape."

"There is your walk," Benedict pointed out, seeing the wisdom of Anthony's course. "The way you move, even the tilt of your head, is distinctly feminine. And don't tell me you can heft a keg of brandy like a man."

"That's right." Anthony nodded emphatically. "As soon as you tried to lift a heavy object, your masquerade would be over. Then the rest of us would be doomed, too."

Camilla did not like to give in, but she could see the wisdom of the men's words. She decided to try a different tack. "But how are the rest of you going to pa.s.s as smugglers? Don't you think they will notice if Anthony shows up with an extra man or two?"

Anthony nodded regretfully. "She's right about that. I don't know how you can pull this off."

Benedict looked thoughtful. "What if... some of the regular smugglers were taken ill and couldn't go- right on the very night of the run? Wouldn't the group need extra men-and quickly?"

"I suppose so."

"You know who the smugglers are, don't you? At least some of them?"

"Yes."

"Is there a single family that contributes several of the men?"

Anthony nodded. "The Matsons. There are three of them. Two brothers and one brother's son. They all live together in one house. But how are you going to make sure they're sick?"

"There are herbs that will do the trick. Aren't there, my dear?" Benedict looked toward Camilla.

She grimaced sourly. "I wouldn't know. I am not in the habit of trying to poison people."

"It won't seriously injure them," Benedict argued. "We'll slip it in their food at noon, and it will make them sick at their stomachs for a while, long enough for the smugglers to realize that they will be short-handed. When you hear this-" he nodded toward Anthony "-then you can tell them that there's a gardener or groom or some such at the Park whom you know would love to earn a little extra money, no questions asked."

Anthony nodded. "I can do that."

"You are all mad," Camilla said flatly. "You will wind up getting killed."

"Do you have some other suggestion?" Benedict challenged her quietly. "Another way that we could trap the man who is betraying this country to our enemy? Or perhaps you think we should allow him to continue to do so?"

"No, of course not." Camilla gazed back at him, a trifle sulkily. He had her neatly trapped. She could not, of course, sanction letting the traitor work at will, but neither could she think of another way to capture him. "I am simply saying that it is dangerous."

"My dear girl...a little danger is the spice of life."

"Yes, and I have known from the beginning how much you like spice," Camilla retorted bitterly.

Both Woollery and Anthony looked at her oddly. Only Benedict could guess the reason for her bad humor, and he could say nothing to soothe her in front of the others. He cursed his bad luck. This was not the way he had meant for her to find out about his true ident.i.ty. He could see now how wrongheadedly he had handled the whole thing. He should have realized that Camilla would not be mixed up in treason, or even in the smuggling-not even to help out her cousin. He should have revealed to her who he was and what he was seeking. Then he would have had her help the whole time. She would have come to him and told him all about their mysterious patient. Everything would have been easier-and she wouldn't be in such a snit now, either.

"Well," Camilla went on coolly, "I have other things to do. I shall leave you gentlemen to make your plans for your expedition."

She turned and strode out of the room.

"Camilla! Wait!" Benedict started to follow her, but Anthony laid a restraining hand on his arm.

"I would let her be alone for a while if I were you," Anthony told him. "She'll just take your head off if you try to talk to her now. I know. I've tried it often enough." He gave a rueful smile. "She's angry because she can't go with us on the smuggling run. But she will come around, you'll see. She's always been a right 'un. And she won't tell anyone about it, either."

"No, I am sure she will not," Benedict agreed, looking after her in indecision. He suspected that Anthony was right, and if he did try to talk to her now, it would only lead to a furious argument. They both might very well say things they did not mean, and he would end up in a worse position than he was in now. He sighed. "You are right. I will talk to her later." In their bedroom, where he could soften her with kisses and caresses.

Camilla stormed off the island and across the path to the beach, ignoring the water that lapped only inches from her feet. Such angry emotions churned within her that she felt almost physically sick. Lord Rawdon, indeed! She did not pause to examine her emotions. She only knew that she felt utterly betrayed and bereft. Her life was ruined, and it was Benedict who was the cause.

When she reached the house, she did not go into the breakfast room. She was feeling too ill. Instead, she went up to her bedroom and rang for her maid. It was there that Benedict found her, directing the activities of two footmen and the maid, when he came in an hour later.

He stopped and looked at the cot, set up in one corner of the room, on which the maid was busily tucking in sheets. The footmen, standing at either end of the cot, busily avoided his eyes. Benedict looked from the group over to Camilla, who folded her arms across her chest and gazed back at him coolly. He turned back to the servants.

"Out." His clipped voice and the peremptory jerk of his head were enough to send the three servants scurrying out of the room. The maid prudently closed the door behind her.

"What is this?" Benedict nodded toward the makes.h.i.+ft bed.

"That is a cot. Surely you have seen them before. I imagine in the army that you even slept on one."

"Stop playing the fool. You know what I mean. What is it doing here?"

"I should think that would be obvious. As for playing the fool, I am afraid I can be nothing else. After all, isn't that why you chose me for this charade?"

"If you will remember," Benedict said through clenched teeth, "it was you who chose me, not the other way around." He realized that over the past few days he had forgotten how utterly maddening the girl was.

"Of course. I suppose that makes this all my fault, then."

"It is no one's fault." He struggled for a reasonable tone, though he was not even sure any longer what they were talking about. "It just happened, and we need to make the best of it"

"That is what I am doing. We have been trying to think of a way this whole time to get you a bed to sleep in, and now I have. You will remember we even talked about our having a spat and your sleeping on a cot in the dressing room. Well, it's been long enough now. A fight would be quite believable-and not at all difficult for us to pretend, don't you think? So I had the men bring down a cot from the attic. I tried it in the dressing room, but it seemed terribly cramped and dark. I thought this was a better place."

Benedict moved closer, his eyes fierce. "Stop it! You know d.a.m.n good and well I need no place to sleep. My place is in your bed."

Camilla met his eyes and replied flatly, "No. It is not."

"d.a.m.nation, Camilla, stop acting this way!"

"What way? Like someone whom you have deceived? Someone you have lied to and tricked? Like a woman whom you seduced and betrayed?"

"I didn't!" He flushed. "Well, I mean, yes, I suppose I did seduce you. I should have waited. I would have, if I had been stronger. But, dammit, Camilla, I'm only flesh and blood. There was only so much I could stand. Being so close to you all the time, seeing you, smelling you, sleeping ten feet away from you- it drove me insane."

There was such raw need in his voice that it raised an answering heat in Camilla's abdomen. She turned away, fl.u.s.tered. "All right, I will admit it," she said in a m.u.f.fled voice. "You did play the gentleman most of the time, and I was just as much to blame as you yesterday. But-" she whirled around, eyes flas.h.i.+ng, her voice breaking on her words "-why did you lie to me?"

"I didn't lie to you."

"You never told me the truth!"

"My G.o.d, Camilla, what did you expect me to do? I was looking for a traitor. I came here, not knowing anyone, only knowing that this is where it happened. I couldn't tell anyone what I was really doing."

"I knew nothing about you," Camilla pointed out. "But I trusted you enough to take you into my home, to introduce you to my family as my fiance. I even let you in here, in my bedroom, trusting that you would not take advantage of that"

"That is another matter entirely. I am not talking about personal trust. If I was wrong, it was my country that would suffer."

"You believed that I could be a traitor?" Camilla's voice was like ice.

"No, of course not. I never thought that you were the person I was looking for."

"Only because I am a woman, and you don't think a woman capable of carrying it off."

"No! That is not why. I was certain that you were not capable of betraying your country. But I couldn't risk your telling anyone the truth about me. I couldn't risk it getting back to him."

"So it was just that you thought me incapable of keeping a secret. I see."

"Are you trying to tell me that you would not have told Anthony? You certainly told him quickly enough that we were not really married."

"For heaven's sake, he already knew that. He knew that the story I had told Grandpapa was a sham. And he isn't as gullible as Aunt Lydia. He would not believe that I had actually met and married a man at the same time that Aunt Lydia was telling everyone I had. Or perhaps you thought Anthony was the traitor?"

"He could have been. I did not think it was Anthony, but it was too important a thing to let my personal feelings interfere. Do you think I enjoyed deceiving you? Or lying to your grandfather? Or any of the other things I had to do?"

"You mean things like charming your way into my bed? Was that part of your scheme? Perhaps a way of ensuring my loyalty to you, in case I discovered who you really were? Well, let me tell you, Lord Rawdon, that it did not work."

Benedict flinched as if she had struck him, and bright spots of color stained his cheeks. "Dammit all to b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l! G.o.d knows I am not fool enough to think that you would be more loyal to me than to your cousin-or to a stranger you find feverish and bleeding among the ruins. You certainly held their secrets from me well enough! And I can promise you that there was no calculation in my making love to you. There was never the least thing in it except blind, unreasoning l.u.s.t!"

Camilla paled. For a long moment, there was nothing but silence in the room. Then she said, her voice a trifle shaky, "Thank you for explaining your motives to me. I suppose I should be grateful that even though there was no higher feeling involved in your lovemaking, at least there was no thought or planning, either."

Benedict groaned. "I did not mean it that way. My G.o.d, do you think that I would marry you if l.u.s.t was all that moved me?"

Camilla stared at him. "Marry? What are you talking about? No one said anything about marriage."

"I did. Did you not notice that I told young Woollery that you were Lady Rawdon?"

"Yes, but I-I could not understand why you had done it. You cannot marry me. I mean-the scandal!" It came to Camilla in a blinding flash exactly why she was so furious about Benedict's deception. She had fallen in love with him and, deep down, she had been nursing the dream that they would actually marry, despite the resulting scandal. With an ordinary man, it might have been possible, but not a n.o.bleman. Certainly she would have been horrified if Anthony considered tying himself to a woman whose name was as besmirched as hers would be once their pretense of marriage was known. "Your family would never allow it."

"My family has nothing to say about it. I am the only one who decides whether I marry or not"

"But you cannot have a wife whose name is tainted, as mine will surely be when all this comes out."

"Your name will not be tainted. That is the whole point of what I am saying. If you and I are married in truth, mere is no scandal."

"Oh." Camilla looked at him. "It won't work. My entire family thinks that your name is La.s.siter and that I am already your wife. Now, suddenly, you say you are Lord Rawdon, and we will get married? They will still know that you and I slept in this room together without benefit of marriage for days, weeks, before we were married. If you think that Aunt Beryl won't talk about it, then you are sadly mistaken. And Cousin Bertram! No wonder he thought you were familiar-looking. No doubt he has seen you about London. It will be a wonderful bit of gossip for him, and mere is nothing Bertram likes better. No, it's impossible."

"It is not. I know a clergyman who will marry us and keep absolutely quiet about it. I saved his son's life in battle. He will never dispute it if I tell everyone we were married two or three weeks ago. I don't believe anyone will go so far as to check a country parish's records to see if the dates are right."

"But what about your name? Everyone will suspect something havey-cavey when Aunt Beryl tells them that we said you were Mr. La.s.siter!"

Benedict smiled smugly. "Not after we have explained to your family that I was pretending not to be myself because I was hunting a traitor. When this is all over, Jermyn and I shall explain to them how it was all for country and king. I married you secretly, and we came here with this story about who I was because we could not let the traitor suspect my real ident.i.ty or he would know why I was here. I promise you, by the time Jermyn is through talking, your aunt Beryl will be convinced that she helped capture an enemy and that she knew all along who I really was but kept quiet in order to save England. So you see? Your family won't go spreading it around, or if they do, they will tell it as we told it to them, with our being married the whole time."

Camilla turned away. Benedict was offering her exactly what she wanted, yet she felt only cold. He wanted to marry her for the wrong reasons. There were no words of love on his lips, only reason and propriety. He did not love her, but he had felt an overwhelming l.u.s.t for her, and because he had allowed his l.u.s.t to overcome his good sense, now, as a gentleman, he was bound to marry her. As soon as the lieutenant, who knew him as Lord Rawdon, arrived on the scene, he had realized that he must marry her in order to avert a scandal. "I see."

She walked to the window and stared out sightlessly. She had never imagined that anything could hurt so much. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she swallowed hard.

"No."

Benedict stared. "I beg your pardon?"

"I said 'No.' I will not marry you."

"What?" Benedict's insides turned to ice. In all his planning, it had not occurred to him that Camilla might refuse to marry him. He had thought that her pa.s.sionate response had told him all he needed to know about her feelings, just as his lovemaking had expressed his love for her. "Are you this angry about my deception?"

"It is not a question of anger." Camilla was proud of the way she managed to keep her voice level, despite her anguish. "I told you when we first met that I intended never to marry."

Benedict exploded. "The devil! This is no time for some silly bluestocking idea! For G.o.d's sake, Camilla, think of your family. Think of your own future! Don't you realize what this scandal will do to all of you? You are absolutely right about the gossip being all over London as soon as your cousin and aunt return. Even if your aunt has the brains to realize how her gossip will affect her own daughters' futures, I don't believe she will be able to keep from telling the choicest tidbits to her close friends. Once that is done, everyone in the ton will know. Your reputation will be ruined."

"Then I will live in seclusion the rest of my life. I shall retire to the Park. I can live without the social rounds, and country life will suit me well enough."

"I am glad to hear that you like the country life, because I prefer it, too, and as soon as I am no longer needed in London, I intend to spend most of my time on my estate. As my wife, you shall be there, too."

Camilla whirled around, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng. Benedict was so infuriating that it made her forget her own pain and regret for the moment. "I will not! Are you deficient in understanding?"

"No. Apparently I have far better understanding than you do. But surely even you will be able to grasp this. You will marry me. It is the only course for you, and I don't care whether you wish it or not. You will marry me."

With those words, he swung around and threw open the door with a crash, then stormed out of the room. Camilla let out a shriek of frustration and ran after him to slam the door shut Well, she thought, as she turned and ran across the room to fling herself onto her bed, at least no one in the house would have any trouble believing that the newlyweds had had a fight Then she burst into tears.