The Return of the Prodigal

Praise for Kasey Michaels

A Reckless Beauty “A Reckless Beauty [is] a cannon shot. Drama by the boatload, danger around every corner, and heartwrenching emotion await readers.” —A Romance Review

A Most Unsuitable Groom “From the first page to the last this continuation of the Beckets of Romney Marsh saga is a well-crafted novel. Emotional intensity, simmering sexual tension, characters you care about and political intrigue – plus touches of humour and a poignant love story – all come together in this hugely entertaining keeper.” —Romantic Times BOOKreviews

The Dangerous Debutante “Her characters shine as she brings in fascinating details of the era, engaging plot twists and plenty of sensuality.” —Romantic Times BOOKreviews

Shall We Dance? “Brimming with historical details and characters ranging from royalty to spies, greedy servants to a jealous woman, this tale is told with panache and wit.” —Romantic Times BOOKreviews

The Butler Did It “Michaels’ ingenious sense of humour reaches new heights as she brings marvellous characters and a too-funny-for-words story to life. (…) What fun, what pleasure, what a read!” —Romantic Times BOOKreviews

“I didn’t think you were coming,” he said quietly, returning her look.

“I said I would. I don’t lie, Rian Becket.”

“I didn’t remember.”

“Do you remember this?” Lisette asked, as she untied the satin ribbons at the throat of her dressing gown and then shrugged back her shoulders, sending the dressing gown sliding to the floor, revealing her sheer white night rail.

Rian sat up higher against the pillows, smiled.

“Vaguely.”

“You try to be amusing? And this?” she continued, slowly walking towards him as her fingers worked the small front buttons of the gown. She stopped, smiled, eased one wide strap from her shoulder, then the other. She looked straight into his eyes, and allowed the night rail to join the dressing gown on the floor.

“Oh, yes. I believe I remember now. A white witch or an angel. I’m never quite sure.”

“Does it matter which I am, Rian, witch or angel? As long as I am here, yes?”

USA TODAY bestselling author Kasey Michaels is the author of more than ninety books. She has earned three starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, and has been awarded the RITA® Award from Romance Writers of America, the Romantic Times Career Achievement Award, the Waldenbooks and BookRak awards, and several other commendations for her writing excellence in both contemporary and historical novels. There are more than eight million copies of her books in print around the world. Kasey resides in Pennsylvania with her family, where she is always at work on her next book.

The Return of the Prodigal

Kasey Michaels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Karen Solem, who makes it all happen.

With love.

CHAPTER ONE

HE SAT IN THE GARDEN because that’s where Lisette had put him, and Rian Becket had already learned that arguing with the strong-willed, determined Lisette was as equally productive as attempting to joust with the moon. And as fruitless as wishing his left arm back.

Strange, though, how he seemed to simply do whatever Lisette wanted him to do, almost without question.

Perhaps it was because she reminded him somewhat of his sister Fanny. That same sort of tall, lithe body. That same shimmer of blond hair, although Lisette’s was devoid of curl, more of a silky curtain that fell past her shoulders than the unruly mass Fanny was forever cursing. More sunlight to Fanny’s moonlight.

And most definitely that same unshakable belief that they were completely in charge of him.

Fanny had always believed herself his keeper, had always attempted to order him about, nag at him. Lisette was her equal, if not even more unwavering in her belief that she had been put on this earth to tell him what to do, and he had been placed on that same earth to obey her.

That might be the reason.

That, or the fact that he truthfully couldn’t muster much interest in where he sat, what he ate, or even where, precisely, he was. He was existing, floating above the everyday, and the feeling was rather pleasant. He could almost hear Fanny crooning to him, as she would to any of the horses that might be upset in a storm, or whatever, “Nothing to fear, now is there. Nothing to see, nothing to worry such a fine brave soldier like you.”

Yes, he thought, chuckling at his sudden insight—simply not caring, that also might be the reason.

Rian closed his eyes against the late afternoon sun that would soon drop behind the high stone walls of the French manor house, amused at his own amusement. Wasn’t that strange?

He was a lucky man, lucky to be alive. That’s what Lisette told him, had harangued him with during the long weeks and months of what she insisted upon calling his recovery.

Recovery? His wounds may have healed at last; the sword swipe to his midsection, the leg bone shattered by rifle shot, whatever in hell had happened to his head that kept him from remembering anything beyond the first few hours of the battle Lisette told him was now known simply as Waterloo.

But unless Lisette knew of a way for him to regrow most of his forearm and all of his hand below his elbow, he was not recovered. He was far from whole, far from alive.

“And again, alas, far from caring,” he muttered, believing his mind was now running in a circle, repeating itself, but still not entirely unhappy as he looked up at the blue sky. After all, the sun did still shine, the sky remained blue. “Green grass, pretty pink flowers…pretty Lisette.”

Yes, pretty Lisette. Her accent was French, although her English was rather adorably precise. Odd in a servant girl, but Lisette had told him that her father had been English, a teacher, and her mother French. Both of them had died, one within months of the other, and Lisette had been forced into service, having no other way to earn her bread and cheese.

Her employer had been a childhood friend of her mother’s, a minor French aristocrat who had somehow survived the Terror and even flourished, his sympathies all with England and the French monarchy, although only inwardly. Outwardly, he had been a loyal supporter of whatever faction in power in Paris at the moment demanded of the citizenry. He’d been imprisoned twice, Lisette had told Rian, once years ago by Robespierre himself, once again by Bonaparte, but he had always found a way to survive.

Rian remembered all of this through the dint of repetition, as Lisette had told him, and told him again, and again, until he was finally able to remember every word. Such a sad story. Such a pretty girl.

He would be eager to meet this clever man, if he cared. Which he probably didn’t. Besides, that would mean the two of them would have to indulge in polite conversation, and that prospect was too fatiguing to contemplate.

He knew that the man had found him among the prisoners some escaping French had taken with them, hoped to use to trade for their own freedom if the chasing English caught up with them. He’d rescued Rian, brought him to this place, and left him in Lisette’s care as he traveled south, to Paris, to watch Napoleon Bonaparte be expelled from France one last time.

Surely that was all he needed to know.

There had been other English soldiers brought here to safety, Lisette had told him, although he had never seen them. Two, she’d said, who had recovered and then been returned to troops passing by on their way to march triumphantly into Paris. Two others who had died of their wounds.

He was the only one still remaining at the manor house, the château, whatever this place was called, and strangely reluctant to be deemed well enough to leave.

Did Lisette have anything to do with that reluctance? No. Impossible.

Well, now, he was doing his share of thinking today, wasn’t he? He wasn’t sure if this was something to celebrate. It was much easier, drifting.

But, as long as his brain seemed to be waking up, he might as well think about Lisette. Much better to think of her, than to push down an almost overwhelming need to scratch the itch on the back of the left hand that was no longer a part of him.

Was it pity he saw in her eyes when she came to his bed? Never revulsion, bless her, but then, she was at heart a simple girl, attempting to unravel a complex man.

“Or a very thick man,” Rian said, smiling slightly, feeling ashamed of himself once more. Perhaps this was good. At least shame was an emotion. Perhaps he was beginning to wake up from the months’ long slumber he’d allowed himself, indulging his pain, both the physical, and the pain that he felt only in his heart.

Damn! It was about time!

He looked down at the leather-bound journal Lisette had found for him a few weeks ago. He’d written only three lines today. What a lazy creature he was, or else he’d become sick of his own maudlin scribblings.

Once he’d written of a brave adventurer, a man of spirit and daring traveling the world, slaying dragons, dazzling all the beautiful women. Even Fanny, who thought she knew everything about him, had never known of the journals he kept hidden beneath a floorboard in his rooms, of the poetry, the supposed epic he had been writing for years. His brothers had jokingly called him a poet, but they also had never known how right they were.

They had also called him a dreamer, and he did once have dreams. Lofty. Soaring. Full of ideals and promise. He would go to war, he would have grand adventures, and then he would write about them. He would become famous, like Lord Byron. He would go to London, be fêted, even honored by the Prince Regent.

Oh, what ambitious dreams he’d had!

Now? Now, when he forced himself to write, he wrote of silly things; the shapes he saw in the clouds, the many names he could give the color of Lisette’s hair, the beauty of peas, floating in a sea of gravy. Insane things. Or else he’d write of stormy nights, lonely walks through tangled forests, demons and dangers behind every tree. Despair, hanging like low clouds over every horizon.

Mindless rambles, or melodramatic drivel. That’s all he could muster. All because he’d lost his arm? Was that something to be maudlin about? Probably…

What had he written today?

Alone in a world of strangers; unfit, unknown, no longer whole;

Does the world go on without him?

Lovely ladies, where are your smiles and sweet simpers now?

Dear God, how pathetic! Pathetic, self-pitying nonsense. A waste of ink and paper.

He crumpled the page in his hand and tried to rip it from the journal. But that was an exercise that took two hands, and the journal only slipped from the arm of the chair and went flying across the grass.

“Damn!”

“There is a problem? And what bee has flown in to your bonnet today, Mistress Becket?”

Rian closed his eyes, gritting his teeth. “Go away, Lisette. I’ve been working on a way to choke you using only one hand. I may soon perfect it.”

“Not the silly clown today, I see, but the dour-faced malcontent, threatening mayhem. I tremble in my shoes, truly.” Lisette bent down to pick up the journal, smoothing out the rumpled page and reading it before she closed the thing and slipped it into her pocket. “Where have all the ladies’ smiles gone now? Yes, I can see why the ladies would have smiled at you, Rian. When you’re asleep, I can see it, for then both the too-silly smiles and the scowls disappear, and the hopeful poet emerges. I should like to see the poet awake. But for now, my impatient patient, it’s once again time for your medicine.”

“Hang my medicine,” Rian said, getting to his feet, tucking what was left of his forearm into the buttoned front of his jacket. “I don’t want to shock you with such a revelation, but I’m as whole as I’m going to get, Lisette.”

“So you say. For months, throughout the hot summer, I despaired of you, for so many wounded turn putrid and die in the summer. And for these past weeks I’ve waited for the questions. But they never come, do they? ‘Where am I, Lisette? Who has taken me in? Why has this person done so? What is his name? When will I be strong enough to return to my own home? Who won the battle, Lisette?’”

Rian turned to her at that last question. “We took the day, Lisette. I know that, at least.”

“And how do you know that? I told you the name of the battle in which you were wounded, but I have a great memory for all that we’ve spoken of, you and I, and we have never really spoken of the battle. You never told me what you did there, or even asked who won the day.”

God, she could drive a man to distraction. Pushing at him, always pushing, pushing.

He frowned, trying to remember how he knew they’d won the battle. But thinking too deeply was beyond him, and caring to think was a nebulous thing, something he felt he should be able to master, but a desire that always seemed somehow just beyond his grasp for more than a few moments. “I don’t know. But we won that day, just as we won the war. You told me we won the war, so it stands to reason we won such an important battle.”

“So many thoughts strung together. Very good, Rian. I had begun to think that feat beyond you. But are you correct? Or I have lied about everything, and you could be a prisoner of war, Rian Becket. Perhaps we have cared for you, plumped you up like a Christmas goose, in order to ransom you back to your family. War has made France desperately poor, and we needs must find money any way we can. Your uniform bespoke of the officer, and officers are often beloved sons of rich families,” Lisette pointed out, holding out the small silver tray on which sat a tumbler filled with a liquid that smelled of cloves but, he knew, tasted of filthy socks. “Perhaps I am in fact your gaoler.”

“No, not my gaoler. Just my tormentor, always trying to confuse me.”

“No, Rian Becket. Not confuse. Wake you up. Make you angry. Make you do something.”

“There’s nothing I want to do, Lisette, except perhaps to kiss you. It’s the most pleasant way I can think of to shut you up.” Rian looked at her, looked at the tumbler, and said, “And I don’t want that, thank you. I’ve had enough of your potions.”

“Oh, please, Rian, not this same argument again. The draught is necessary. Do you want the fever to return?”

“You could drive a man to another sort of drink, you know.” He hadn’t drunk the medicine yesterday. She’d left it with him and gone to answer a summons from one of the other maids, and he’d poured it into the ground. But today she was standing here, staring at him, and he saw no escape. He looked at the tumbler again, and then grabbed it up and tossed the vile liquid to the back of his throat, so he wouldn’t have to taste it. “There? Have I pleased my gaoler now?”

“What a good little soldier.”

Rian felt an unexpected stab of what had to be homesickness. “What did you say?”

“Excuse me? What did I say about what, Rian Becket?”

“Never mind. You just reminded me of someone for a moment.”

“And who would this be? A lady love?”

Rian smiled, shook his head. “A female, yes, but no, not a lady love. A pest.”

“Ah, then we will dispense with your memory of her.” Lisette took the empty glass from him and placed it and the tray on the grass. “Walk with me, Rian. We won’t have many more days this warm and pretty. It’s already October.”

“Don’t you have other duties?” he asked her, his mind still half on Fanny, on the last time he’d seen her. At the Duchess of Richmond’s ball? Yes, she’d looked so young and beautiful, and so very frightened as the Call to Arms rang throughout the city. But Brede would have ordered both her and his sister out of Brussels, to somewhere safe. He shouldn’t worry about her. Besides, Fanny always landed on her feet.

“I do have other duties, yes, but they’ll still be patiently waiting for me when I turn to them. Come now, exercise that leg with a stroll around the gardens. You must be stiff from sitting and pouting for so long.”

He shoved thoughts of his sister to the back of his brain, where they rested comfortably, as he really didn’t wish to be bothered with anything even resembling serious thought. As Lisette said, the day was beautiful. Too beautiful for deep thoughts. “You’re attempting to goad me into getting better, aren’t you? You’ve grown tired of being my faithful nurse.”

“Weary unto death, yes. And is it working? My goading?” she asked, smiling, her clear blue eyes twinkling mischievously as she slipped her arm through his.

“I’m not dead, so I suppose so.”

They walked in silence for a good ten minutes before Rian felt himself beginning to flag, his thigh aching, and they sat down side-by-side on a stone bench in the shade.

“So you’ll ask me no questions?”

“Questions?” He blinked several times, attempting to marshal his thoughts. Did he have questions? Of course he did. Something about this house? The man who owned this house? Was that it? Damn, he really should care more. Shouldn’t he? “No. No questions. Yes. One question. Will you come to me again tonight?”

“If you want me, yes,” Lisette said, boldly sliding her hand onto his sore thigh, the warmth of her palm bringing him a strange comfort. “I feel safe when I’m with you, Rian Becket.”

“Safe? Of course you’re safe. I’m weak as a kitten, and couldn’t possibly harm you. And what is there to fear here, Lisette? Flowers, trees, birdsong. Good food and soft beds—you in my bed. We could be in Heaven, Lisette, in Eden. I float through days and weeks of Paradise.”

Or I’m in Limbo, he added silently, fighting the comfortable fog that seemed to roll stealthily into his mind every afternoon, eventually sending him back to his bed. He’d been better, yesterday. Better today. But perhaps he’d done too much, been thinking too much? Oh, look, a butterfly….

“My employer,” Lisette told him quietly, lowering her gaze to her shoe tops. “He returns in less than a week. I know he was a friend to my parents, and I thank him for his kindness in taking me into this place during a time of war, hiding me. I am, after all, considered to be English. But lately he…he looks at me. He says things. That there is no need for me to insist on being a servant, earning my own keep. He suggests…things. I will leave here before he returns this time, and I wish you gone by then as well. The others have gone, and yet you’re still here. My…my employer may have grown weary of being your benefactor, Rian Becket, and when I am gone there will be no one to care for you. If he shows you the door, where will you go, what will you do?”

Rian turned on the bench, looking at Lisette just as she quickly wiped a single tear from her cheek. The rapid turn made his head spin, and he fought to refocus his eyes and his thoughts. He hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d told Lisette he was weak as a kitten, and still obviously unable to spend a full day out of his bed. A walk in the gardens had sapped all of his strength, all of his will. “I’m trying to understand what you’re saying. Tell…tell me more about this man.”

Lisette shook her head, let the curtain of silky sunlight hide her face as she looked down at the hands now demurely clasped in her lap. “What else is there to know?”

“His name, I suppose, for starters. How strange. Why have I never asked?” Rian placed his hand over hers, feeling the ice in her fingertips. Damn. He needed to concentrate, but he could feel himself becoming more detached from their conversation. As if nothing mattered, nothing in this world. Not him, not Lisette. Nothing but this pleasant sense of floating above all cares, all worries.

She pushed her hair behind her ear as she turned to look him full in the eyes. “He is the Comte Neuveville Beltane. Or at least he became the Comte once his family died in the Terror. The title, it comes and it goes, depending on who reigns in Paris. For now, it is back. That’s what he says.”

Rian scrubbed at his face, hard, to wake himself, rouse himself. “What he says, Lisette?”

Once again, Lisette averted her face. “Maman would joke about it, but she wouldn’t smile. She said the Comte came into his title the only way he knew how. Then my papa would warn her to be quiet, that necks had been chopped for less. I don’t know, Rian. That was three years ago, perhaps four now. Time is lost here.” She sighed, shrugged her shoulders in a purely Gallic way. “I am lost here, so I will go, before the Comte returns. I have made plans. I only wish I had somewhere to go. And I worry about leaving you here, with only the slovenly fools in the kitchens to care for you.”

Rian slipped his arm around her shoulders, pulled her close against his chest. “Lisette, you’re trembling. You’re really afraid, aren’t you?”

She pushed herself free of him and got to her feet, her cheeks pale. “I am not afraid! I refuse to be afraid. But I must be sensible. I am no longer a little girl. I am nearly twenty years of age now, and the Comte is a man. Men expect rewards for their generosity. I’m not foolish, I know what he means when he says I do not need to be a servant. But if I give my body, it will be my choice, not my only option.”

Rian felt humbled. “You…you have given your body to me, Lisette.”

“Because I am a fool, yes. Because you are so sad. Because I wanted to wake you, make you want life. But I can’t stay here any longer, Rian Becket. Not even for you.”

“I wouldn’t ask that of you,” he told her, wearily getting to his feet. “It’s so easy to stay here, Lisette. But you’re right. It’s time for me to go, too. I’ve played the languishing miss much too long as it is. I should go home, much as I don’t want to go there.”

“But why wouldn’t you want to rush to them, Rian? You have pen and paper, yet you refuse to write to them. I could have written to them for you. All I would have needed was to know how to address the letter, yes? You are very selfish, Rian Becket. Your family has to believe you dead, lost to them. Their pain must be terrible. How they would rejoice to see you again.”

“Yes, I know. I’ve always planned to go home, in time. And they’ll welcome me. And they’ll pity me. Oh, they’ll try to hide it, but I’ll see it in their eyes. I’m not yet ready to see that, Lisette. I need more time, time to grow stronger.”

“Merde. Never have I heard such nonsense.”

Rian chuckled low in his throat. “Merde, Lisette? And where did you learn such a word? Surely not from your teacher father, or your good mother.”

He watched as her hands drew up into tight fists, and then relaxed as a smile widened her generous mouth. “I live with the other servants. I have heard the word said, and much more. At least I am not a puling infant, hiding, bemoaning the terrible things the fates have done to me. I survive, Rian. You merely exist.”

His head had begun to ache. First the floating, and then the headache. Go home? He wasn’t ready for that, not yet. “Ah, and there is the Lisette I know. Always scolding, always pushing. Do you long to hit me? Beat some sense into me?”

“No. I want you to live, Rian Becket. I fought hard to keep you alive, and now I want you to live. The Comte? I think he only keeps what he believes he can use. That is why I made sure to send away the other soldiers when you English marched through the area. He will be angry to learn that, I’m sure. I would have sent you, if you would not have died to leave your bed. But now you must go, Rian. We must both go. I, because I know what the Comte wants from me. You, because I do not know what he wants from you. Do you understand now?”