“Captain,” the first mate called in a panicked voice.
Lance flinched at the shout of alarm. It seemed as though a hundred fingers surveyed his body, and someone turned him over.
He blinked his eyes, traveling to another time and place, and found himself in his childhood room at Sandgate Manor, the Raynesford ancestral pile. Once again, the man was a boy. A single candle sat on a bedside table, and thick quilts were tucked to his chin.
A physician explained his condition to his aunt and uncle, the Marquess and Marchioness of Raynesford, who had cared for him since his father had passed.
He trained his ear as the marquess detailed how a schoolmaster spied Lance and Thomas running away from class. In the minutes it took the teacher to trail them, Thomas was dead, drowned in the icy pond. The schoolmaster pulled Lance, barely alive, from the frigid water and carried him back to school.
He shivered.
Thomas was dead.
Lance moaned and twisted beneath the mountain of bedcovers. The physician ushered his guardians into the hall so as not to disturb him. He fought sleep; afraid if he surrendered he might never wake, and was still lucid when the door to his bedchamber creaked.
A little girl entered the room and tiptoed to his bed. In the soft light from the candle, he recognized her face, could trace it from memory if required. He had known her since she was born and harbored a wicked crush on her for as long as he could remember.
Through half-open eyes, he gazed on her graceful form as she placed one of her wooden miniatures, a brightly painted green turtle, on the bedside table. She collected the quaint figurines, treasured them. He was surprised she would part with one of her gems.
She glanced over her shoulder and appeared to be checking to make sure no one was there, before leaning forward and setting her mouth to his in an unutterably tender, inexpressibly sweet token of affection.
It was his first kiss.
“Get well, Lance.” She pressed her palm, cool against his fevered skin, to his cheek. “You’re my hero.”
After that, he had slept.
Unspeakable pain rudely returned him to the present day.
“Easy, lads!”
The concern in Scottie’s words came to him through a fog.
As Lance slipped beneath the comforting blanket of unconsciousness, a name passed his lips. A bare whisper, it was lost in the blustery gale of the storm, and no one heard. But he said it just the same.
“Cara.”
Table of Contents
Enter the Brethren
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
EPILOGUE
Excerpt from My Lady, The Spy
Excerpt from The Most Unlikely Lady
Excerpt from One Knight Stand