For Your Arms Only by Linden, Caroline (best ebook reader for ubuntu .TXT) 📕

eyes had grown large and round during his outburst. She stared at him, white-faced, for what seemed an eternity. “Oh,” she murmured. “I see.”

Did she? He gave a bleak smile. “I wanted you to know.”

Those wide golden eyes didn’t waver. “Why?”

“Because…” He shook his head and looked away. “I did.”

She was quiet. He couldn’t be surprised if she turned and walked—or ran—away. “And that—that’s why you were sent to find my father? You said your talents were well-suited to it, and I always wondered what you meant.”

Alec let out his breath in surprise. “Yes. Hastings asked my employer, and he sent me.”

She blinked a few times in quick succession, and swallowed, fixing his attention on the slim column of her throat. “Then…The Home Office is interested in my father’s whereabouts? Why?”

“I don’t know.” He had a few suspicions, but that was all. Alec couldn’t bring himself to share those suspicions, biased as they no doubt were by his years of living among liars and cheats and every other stripe of villain. The most likely excuse for Turner’s disappearance was still misadventure or abandonment. If any of his suspicions proved correct, he wouldn’t hesitate to tell her, but in the absence of proof…he didn’t see the necessity.

Her shoulders sagged. “I wonder if we’ll ever know what happened to him. Or much else about him, really. It seems so much of my perception has been wrong.”

“I have not given up,” he said. “Not yet.”

She looked at him as a tremulous smile curved her lips. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Your confidence gives me comfort.”

Alec knew what she meant. In the days after Waterloo, only James Peterbury had known he was alive and had believed him innocent. Having one defender, just one, had mattered a great deal, even if Peterbury had had to proceed painfully slowly and with such caution it seemed nothing would ever improve. For months Alec had lived a grim, dark existence, with Peterbury’s steadfast support one of the few rays of light. And now Cressida Turner was standing beside him, trusting him, comforted by his presence and looking up at him with glowing eyes. It was strange for Alec to think himself a comfort to anyone, but the feeling it inspired inside him was not pride or unease, but a fearsome swell of satisfaction that he could comfort her.

He extended one hand and she grasped it at once, still wearing that shaky little smile. He took a step toward her. “You are welcome to stay,” he said. “When your sister goes. If you wish to stay.”

Her lips parted. The pulse in her throat was a flutter of motion. She looked at him, half yearning, half uncertain.

“I would like you to stay,” he added. She ran the tip of her tongue over her lower lip, his undoing. He took the last step, until there was nothing more separating them. Her head fell back and she swayed toward him in invitation. Alec lowered his head until his lips almost brushed hers. “Stay,” he breathed. What would he do if she left? “Please.”

“Yes,” she whispered, and he kissed her.

Cressida hardly dared breathe as his lips met hers. Every muscle she had felt stiff and taut as she tried not to shiver apart into a thousand pieces while he kissed her, gently, reverently. He still held her hand lightly in his, the only other contact between them, but something far stronger than that held her in place. It wasn’t certainty; Cressida had no idea what lay ahead. She might be galloping headlong toward another broken heart, even more shattering than the last. But as his lips moved on hers, she could only think of Papa’s dearest maxim, usually reserved for cards but strangely applicable to her mood today:

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Chapter 21

July 1815

Forest of the Soignes, Belgium

It took Alec a few days to recover from the setback his trip into Brussels had cost him. James Peterbury hired a cart to drive him back to the farm, and left with a promise to come back as soon as he learned anything. He seemed to be reserving judgment, at least for the moment, and was still willing to help. It was small comfort, but better than none.

Alec’s wound had reopened, and Widow Gustave shook her head over him, muttering unintelligibly as she wrapped him up tighter than before. He was sure the widow was ready for him to heal and be gone as much as he was ready to go, but there was nowhere for him to go now. Instead of being on his way back to England, or even lodged in Brussels to recuperate, he couldn’t leave the forest for fear of being recognized by the wrong person—namely, anyone but Peterbury. He had little to do except ruminate on the shocking news that he was considered a traitor to England. All James had mentioned in the way of proof was some papers, allegedly found in Alec’s baggage after the battle. Either it was all a terrible mistake and would be sorted out as soon as someone read the papers and realized they were not his, or someone had put them in his things with this intent. His thoughts ran dark and murderous as he contemplated who must have planted them there, and why. It was the only explanation he could see, and it would be easy enough to do in the chaos after the battle.

He knew he was known as a bit of a hell-raiser in the Dragoons, with a certain fearlessness in battle that endeared him to his men and generally impressed his superiors. But the army had its own hierarchy, and no shortage of vanity or short tempers. The path to advancement was paved with the good opinion of commanding officers; a note of praise in the dispatches was invaluable. And even then a man could not be promoted until an opening appeared in