His Duchess at Eventide

by Wendy Lacapra

  Now, he was shocked.

  Shocked and ashamed. He’d never considered such things could happen. Not here. In his own country.

  Then again, how many would lift up their voice in defense of those who had broken the law? Most would shrug and look away.

  Unless they, too, had been brought low.

  Demeaned. Forgotten. A mistake, a lapse in judgment—even a lead ball mis-fired—did not negate a person’s humanity. Life—all life—was sacred.

  “My jailor,” he spoke quietly, as if a whisper could lessen the blow, “was a she.”

  Penelope glanced up, confusion in her gaze.

  “Certain physical responses can happen”—he waited until the tremor in his voice had passed—“without a man willing them to happen.”

  Her eyes widened. She bit her lip and looked away.

  Unanchored, he trembled.

  “I said you would not wish to know.” And now it was too late.

  “You misunderstand.” Her eyes flashed with tears of her own. “I’m angry for you. I turned away because...” Her brows drew together. “I was thinking—fearing, really—is what happened to you—is that why it’s too late for you and your love?”

  Lord have mercy. “Yes.”

  She bent down to look into his eyes. “I cannot imagine what you went through—”

  Thank God.

  “I cannot know how you feel. But you—you cannot let that evil person rob you. You should go to your love. You should not leave her”—her voice broke—“waiting.”

  His mind struggled to form words.

  “It’s awful, I tell you,” she said. “The waiting, I mean. The desperate hope—”

  His heart beat became labored, as if he were climbing a dangerous cliff. “I betrayed my vows.”

  “But you aren’t at fault!”

  A tear snaked over his cheek, dropped from his chin onto the shirt she’d made. “Aren’t I?”

  “No!” She grasped his cheeks again. “Go to her. Please go. If there were even a chance my husband—” She stopped speaking abruptly. She released him. “You should go to her,” she repeated, as if convincing herself. “You will, won’t you?”

  He swallowed through a bone-dry throat. “I haven’t decided.”

  “You must! You must...even if, when you leave, Thaddeus and I...” She shook her head again. “Well, I don’t want you to go. You realize that, don’t you? But I can’t keep you. Because even if I truly want you to be, you aren’t—” Her voice dropped. “Are you?”

  Tears welled in her eyes.

  “Pen.”

  He pulled her down onto his lap. He brushed her hair from her face.

  “Look at me, Pen.”

  She lifted her eyes. Her lashes webbed with wet.

  Sentiments welled up inside him—sentiments he could not name. The cottage shrunk again, very small. Too small.

  Suffocating, in fact.

  He’d be strangled if he remained indoors.

  “I need to go,” he said.

  “Now?” she exclaimed.

  “Yes, now. I need to go to the sea.”

  Irrational. But by the sea, he’d be able to breathe.

  Unlike here.

  With his tears, Penelope’s tears, the fire, and Pen’s desperate wishing that he was who he really was. His terror would shrink against the vast horizon, the churning waves.

  “Ride with me?” he asked.

  “Pardon?” She hiccupped again.

  “Ride with me. Under the moon. Come with me to the seaside. It’s a different world out there. A new world. Can’t you ride?”

  She held his gaze for a long, solemn moment. “I can. Mostly, I prefer to walk.”

  “But why? You used to—” He cleared his throat. “You seem like a woman who would enjoy a gallop in the moonlight.”

  “I don’t have a horse.”

  “I do.”

  Her eyes dropped to his arm.

  “I assure you,” he continued, “I can manage.”

  “Yourself, certainly, but two? With your injury?”

  “Yes.” Damn his injury.

  He lifted them both to standing. He held out his hand.

  Everything depended on her answer.

  He wanted her to place her hand in his.

  He wanted her to give him her trust—the same as he had given her his.

  And—by God—he wanted so much more.

  She placed her fingers into his and stared down at their joined hands with a riveted, peculiar expression.

  “Let’s go,” he said, pulling her to the door.

  He helped her up first, and then swung up onto the saddle. Tentatively, she placed her arms around his waist, careful to avoid his wound. But her hold tightened as soon as they started to move.

  They made their way slowly through the wood to the field, while his horse became accustomed to two, and he became accustomed Penelope’s warmth against at his back.

  She held him like she had those last few miles of their mad dash to Gretna Green, when they’d had to abandon the stolen carriage and the four of them—Chev, Pen, Ash and Hurtheven—had ridden through the darkness on three horses as his father’s men searched the inn.

  As soon as they reached the field, Chev urged his horse to gallop.

  Pen yipped involuntarily and buried her face into his neck.

  His spirit soared. And that was before she started to laugh.

  Her startled laugh rang out like crystal bells—free, full-bodied, whole.

  Her laugh rent him straight down his center and sewed him back up with a new kind of hope. He’d forgotten the sweetness of feminine joy. The rare beauty of a woman’s bliss.

  The moon shined down. An effervescent moon. Bubbling all around like champagne, dissolving what was past.

  Chapter Thirteen

  PENELOPE’S CHEEK CHAFFED against the coat she’d made for her husband.

  Her husband.

  She was glad of the darkness. Glad of the wind.

  The first hid her tears, the last dried them. The steady rhythm of the horse’s hooves drummed out her fears. She resolved to hold Cheverley close, leaving questions for another time.

  For now, she would seize sensation.

  They flew over the field. Each time Chev’s horse jumped she made a sound of unfettered joy. Each time, Chev answered with a low-bellied laugh.

  His laugh. Sweet mercy, his laugh.

  His laugh had always run though her like a spring—fresh and deep and cleansing. Her fingers bit into his ribs, wanting to clutch him so close, she’d never lose him again.

  But such ownership was impossible. Hearts were but borrowed things, never belonging fully to anyone but the one in whom they were born.

  She wiped her cheeks against his coat.

  They’d spent so many nights apart, had matured living vastly different lives. But hadn’t there always been a vast difference between them?

  Could they face adult fears with adult wounds and without the trusting openness of youth?

  The world could wound in so many ways. Every human heart held emptiness and light, just as sure as the heavens held blank spaces and stars.

  She dried her eyes as they approached an outcropping of stone that marked the beginning of the cliffs that spilled to the sea. If any tears remained, he would know she knew he was Cheverley, that she was now certain.

  As it was, she wasn’t sure she could keep the knowledge from her face.

  But he hadn’t told her. Not yet. And Chev never did anything on a whim. Every decision was calculated. Every choice carefully parsed.

  If he’d come home in disguise, he must have good reason.

  He slowed the horse. She leaned back, allowing him to dismount, marveling at his ease. His injury had changed him, yes, but his new body had found a rhythm all his own. She had no doubt she’d fail to notice, in time.

  Time. Years. Oh, heavens. They would have years ahead of them. Years of nights, of moonlit rides, but years. Together.

  She mov
ed to dismount on her own.

  “Now, please,” he chided. “Don’t you trust me?”

  She did. Enough to continue with this ruse. For now.

  “Place your right arm around my neck, and your left on my shoulder.

  She did. He scooped up her legs with his left arm and held her up with the crook of his right. If she hadn’t held him tightly, she might have rolled from his grasp, but together, they managed a reasonably steady dismount.

  She let her arms slide from his neck, but she kept her hand against the top of his shoulder.

  “You can move to the other side.”

  His uninjured side.

  “There’s no need. I’m—I am—” She placed a shaking hand over her mouth, unable to say the word fine.

  “Oh—oh,” he soothed. “Did I frighten you? I am sorry. I should not have gone so fast.”

  She shook her head. “The ride was beautiful. It’s just that... It’s just that I feel—

  He grinned. “Free?”

  The opposite of free, actually. Was there a word for happily bound? She felt, if he remained by her side, she could surmount any obstacle. Conquer any foe.

  It was happening again. Because of Chev, she could see doors of possibility where before there had been only walls.

  But, would history repeat?

  Would those doors shutter and leave her alone?

  He spoke soothing things to his horse, as led them all to a sheltered area within the rocks. He secured his horse’s reins.

  “Come,” he said to Pen. “Let us find a place where we can be out of the wind.”

  As they rambled around the rocks, he frequently stopped to give her his hand. He chose a place for them to sit between two large outcroppings, where they had a partial view of the horizon.

  How had she not known him at once?

  And now that she was certain, how could she keep from taking him into her arms and covering him in grateful kisses from head to toe?

  “Tell me, Captain,” she said. “Of all the places you’ve traveled, what do you think of Ithwick?”

  His teeth flashed in the moonlight. “What proper Englishmen doesn’t love a good ruin?”

  “You are jesting,” she said.

  “Only in part. You must admit history’s shadows run long in these parts. The standing stones alone have been there for thousands of years.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. And still they retained their magic.

  “What did you think of this place when you first came?” he turned around her question.

  Always a specialty of his.

  “I was not welcomed,” she replied. “Not at first.”

  “But what did you feel? Of the landscape?”

  “Ah,” she breathed. “Stark beauty. The moors, and rocks, and woods have settled into my soul and will never depart.”

  “This is home, then?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “I never want to go anywhere else. I will wait for my husband to return.”

  “And what if he returns—as I have?”

  “Dressed like a beggar?”

  “You know that is not what I meant.” He rested the elbow of his injured arm on one knee.

  “Captain,” she said, almost scolding. “I miss his heart. I miss the warmth of his body beside me in bed. I miss the way my heart lifted when he smiled.”

  She turned away. She could do this no longer.

  “Penelope,” he said softly.

  He moved behind her, so she was sitting between his legs. She leaned back against his chest and turned her face upward toward his.

  Stars sparkled around the shadow he made in the night, just they had on that first night in the alley behind the public assembly rooms.

  Then, like now, she fancied he could be hers.

  But that was the danger, wasn’t it?

  Even now, even after the terrible complexity of the wounds he’d revealed, even knowing he had not yet told her the truth, she would turn over her heart to him and accept him without reservation.

  Once again, she’d pluck out his shiny pieces, and set them into a constellation of her own making, forgetting the terrifying power of the vast places between the stars, the emptiness that frightened.

  But not enough to stop her desire.

  “I don’t want to talk of the past, or the future. I just want...” She paused.

  The power of their first night together mingled with the power of now.

  “What, Penelope? What do you want?”

  She unfastened her outer cloak and pushed it off her shoulders. “I want you.”

  ~~~

  He shouldn’t comply. Before he walked through the door she held open, he should be sure she knew who he was.

  She reached up and curled her finger around the back of his neck.

  “You said you could not deny me.”

  “No.” He concentrated on the small circles she drew. “I said I would not deny you.” One indicated helplessness. The other, choice. “If I acquiesce to your wishes, I will do so, not because I must, but because...”

  “Because?”

  He dropped his voice, “I wish to hear you laugh.”

  “Make me happy, then,” she said. “Kiss me.”

  Again, he could not breathe, even in the sea-scented air. Penelope, the moonlight, the desire that simmered low—they vined around his heart and squeezed.

  “Would you like me to kiss you?”

  “Would I have led you here if I did not?”

  When he’d held Pen in the shadow of the standing stones, she’d been confused by her reaction to “the captain.”

  Pen did not show an ounce of confusion, now.

  He’d wager his last sixpence Pen knew who he was, though his secret wafted between them thin as candle smoke.

  “I’m waiting,” she said. “You cannot know how much I hate waiting.”

  With a rueful smile, he bent his head, brushed his lips against hers. A prickling sensation shot from his lips to his groin.

  “Soft,” she said. “Like a whisper.”

  “Like a secret.” He feathered his lips along her cheek to her ear, marking her sweet face as his.

  “Secrets must be whispered, mustn’t they?” she asked. “Held sacred. Treated with the utmost care.”

  Care, like she’d taken with his new shirt and coat.

  Care, like she’d taken with his son.

  Care, like the way her fingers soothed the back of his neck in a firm, gyrating dance.

  “And,” she finished, “secrets must only be shared with those you treasure.”

  His head remained giddy, but dread pooled his stomach.

  “Just kisses,” he said—more to himself than to Pen.

  “Just kisses,” she replied. “And anything else you wish.”

  He froze. “Pen, I—I cannot.”

  She adjusted her legs, turning within his embrace until they faced one another.

  “What can you do?” she asked.

  His mind went blank. Then, flashes of yellow fire—flames that followed her fingers as they threaded through his hair. He couldn’t bed his wife—he did not wish to even try. Not here.

  Not yet.

  Not until the truth between them had been acknowledged. Not until he was fully prepared to return home.

  She tilted her face toward his in trust. “I will take whatever you can give me.”

  The other night, when he’d held her close, her name had kept him breathing.

  Tonight, could her breath become his guide?

  He claimed her mouth in a deeper kiss—releasing fears as if he were bailing water, trusting her breath to keep them both afloat.

  “I can give you pleasure,” he said.

  Her chest rose and fell as he trailed his lips down her proffered neck.

  He loosened the left side of her bodice; the right, he freed with his teeth. Nibbling soft kisses against the side of her throat, he slid his hand beneath the fabric and cupped her breast.

  She whimpered as he ran his thumb
over her nipple.

  A stab of desire sliced through to his stomach. Sweet torture—she sighed into his ear—his cock filled, draining his head of blood, his lungs of air.

  He stilled, cradling her gently between his thighs, riding the rise and fall of her breath, listening for soft sounds, her desire packed within her breath’s ebb and flow.

  “Captain.”

  Her whisper turned to groan as he draped her across his thighs.

  “Open for me.” He moved his lips to her breast. “Please.”

  She inched her skirt up around her thighs, though one arm remained around his back, holding on, fingers digging into his shoulder.

  He reached beneath her skirts. Even before he reached the cleft between her legs, he met with heat. Her pale legs fell apart artlessly.

  More memories slipped into place—like the clicking of an opening lock.

  All the times they’d come together in intimate union, she’d never cared how she looked. Pen poured her all into sensation—both her own as well as his.

  When she made love, when she danced, she was unaffected joy meeting complete, immodest surrender.

  That had been why she’d entranced him from the first. Why he’d wanted to rescue her, protect her, keep her. But he hadn’t.

  And now she was rescuing him.

  She writhed against his fingers, joining with him in search for her pleasure. Then, she found it—untapped and unable to be contained.

  Fever broke in her breath, in her trembling limbs, in the sound of bliss that pillowed his ears.

  He clasped her close, keeping his lips pressed to her temple as he rocked her back to this time.

  He’d done it. He’d given his wife pleasure.

  He hadn’t thought of his terrors, his injury, of anything else but Pen. He had remained anchored by her breath.

  He blinked until the evening cold tingled in the dampness between his lashes.

  He could have done anything in that moment, even leap from the cliffs and flown.

  And the final, hidden memory slipped into place.

  Limitless possibility—this was how Penelope had always made him feel.

  ~~~

  Shameless.

  She nearly chuckled.

  She hadn’t a hint of shame.

  She’d exposed herself to the captain, let the him shatter her into tiny pieces, let him hear her unfettered cries. Let him? She’d practically begged him. And she hadn’t told him she knew.