The Untamed Bride Plus Black Cobra 02-03 and Special Excerpt

by Stephanie Laurens

  “Gently bred ladies aren’t supposed to sleep with strangers, either.”

  That shut him up. Head high, she led the way on and around to the pastures where the dairy herd grazed.

  While she walked among the animals, checking their condition, noting which calves were showing most promise, he stood to one side, watched.

  “I didn’t see a dairy among the outbuildings.”

  “It’s a separate building.” She waved to the north. “It’s on the other side of that hill.”

  “All part of your estate?”

  When she nodded, he asked, “How many people does the estate employ?” “Outside the house, fifty-three.”

  Logan knew that was a significant number—fifty-three outside employees would translate to forty or more families dependent on the estate. Not a small number. “That must, make the estate the biggest employer in this region, if not on all of Guernsey.”

  “Both.” She looked up, smiled pointedly. “Hence my comment about Queen Elizabeth.”

  He inclined his head. She saw herself as responsible for the welfare of a large number of people, and in fact she was. Logan didn’t know why, but he understood that—the concept of duty.

  Letting his eye rove over the cows, placid and large, he said, “The cows and cattle around Glenluce are different breeds—Ayrshire for dairy, Black Galloway and Belted Galloway for beef.”

  “I’ve seen Ayrshires, and the Blacks. Are the Belted much different?”

  “Other than the white band, not that I ever heard.”

  Eventually they trudged back to the house. It was the smells that stayed with him the longest, that teased his memory the most. He’d been familiar with the scents of donkey, goat, and cow, but … his memories suggested much drier, dustier versions, but that made no sense, not if those memories came from Scotland.

  He felt Linnet’s gaze on his face, glanced up and met it.

  She searched his eyes, then looked toward the house. “At least you’ve had some fresh air.”

  Luncheon was being served as they walked in. Logan spent the meal chatting with the men, mostly about land and farming.

  When the meal ended and the other men rose and left, Linnet cocked a brow at him. “You’re not a farmer.”

  Although she’d been talking with the children, she’d lent an ear to his conversations with the men.

  He grimaced. “I know only the general things one knows from growing up in the country—the rhythm of the seasons, the weather. But I don’t feel any connection to farming itself, the mechanisms, the details.”

  “Your hands aren’t the hands of a farmer.” Linnet pushed, back her chair and rose. “I’m going to go out riding.” She met his gaze as he got to his feet. “Given the distance you walked this morning, you should probably rest.”

  One black brow arched. “On your bed?”

  She ignored the suggestion in his eyes. “Riding might jar your head, and it will stress the wound in your side. It’s healing nicely—no need to tempt fate.”

  He held her gaze, the midnight blue of his eyes pronounced as a frown formed in the dark depths. “I want to ride.” He shook his head slightly. “Don’t argue—I’m fairly sure I ride. A lot.”

  Not a little exasperated, she held his gaze, searched his eyes … read his determination and the underlying need to remember. “All right.” She blew out a breath. “But first you have to let me rebandage your chest.”

  Logan suffered through the rebandaging—anything to get on a horse. The more he thought of riding, the more he wondered that he hadn’t thought of it before.

  He felt as eager as a child anticipating a treat when, finally, he strode beside Linnet down the long central aisle of the stable.

  “We’ve plenty of hacks—we all ride. You can—”

  “This one.” Logan halted before the door to a large stall containing a massive gray stallion.

  Linnet backtracked to halt beside him. “That’s Storm. My father bought him as a colt, but never got to ride him. We use him mostly for breeding.”

  “But he’s been broken to the saddle.” Logan unlatched the stall door, pushed it open.

  “Yes, but he’s not been ridden much. He’s so damned strong, even Vincent has to wrestle with him.” Linnet frowned as Logan walked straight to the big stallion’s head, placed a hand on the horse’s long nose, then reached up to scratch between his ears.

  Logan flung her a glance. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m damned strong, too.”

  Not a point she could argue. Resisting the urge to waste her breath lecturing him, trying to get him to choose a safer mount, she shook her head and stepped back. “The saddles are through here.”

  Vincent was busy saddling her roan mare, Gypsy. Before she could stop him, Logan selected bridle and saddle and carried them back to Storm’s stall.

  She leaned on the stall door and watched as he readied the big horse—who gave every sign of cooperating, almost certainly eager to run—and gave thanks she’d insisted on bandaging Logan’s chest again. Yet his movements as he settled the bridle, then hefted the saddle to the gray’s broad back, were practised and economical; he’d clearly performed the task countless times.

  Vincent came up, leading Gypsy. He raised his brows when he saw Storm saddled. “That’ll be interesting.”

  “Indeed.” She hoped it wouldn’t prove too interesting. Logan getting thrown wouldn’t help at all.

  But as he led Storm out of the stall and into the yard, and she followed with Gypsy, she sensed in him nothing but supreme confidence. Then he planted his boot in the stirrup, swung up to Storm’s back, gathered the reins as the big stallion shifted under his weight—and even she ceased to doubt.

  He grinned at her. Grinned like a boy.

  Blowing an errant strand of hair from her face, she climbed the mounting block and clambered into her sidesaddle. She preferred to wear breeches and ride astride, but increasingly no longer did. She missed the freedom. Leading the way out of the yard, she was conscious of a spurt of envy.

  Storm and his rider easily kept pace as she headed out along the track. Storm tried a number of his usual tricks, but each time was immediately brought into line; encountering an invincible hand on his reins, he quickly desisted and settled to the steady pace.

  She glanced at Logan, found him riding easily. “We’ll be able to gallop once we turn into the fields.”

  Expectation lit his face. “Lead on.”

  She did, through the soft light of the winter afternoon, with pewter clouds scudding across the gray sky. Following her usual circuit around the estate’s perimeter, checking the fences and gates, they galloped several times, cantered for most of the rest.

  He grew more and more silent, more clearly absorbed with his memories.

  When, with the light fading around them, they clattered into the stable yard, and Vincent and Young Henry came running to take the horses, he halted Storm and, for the first time in over an hour, met her gaze. “I was in the cavalry.”

  She nodded, then wriggled and slid down from her saddle. He dismounted, handed over Storm’s reins, then fell in beside her as she walked to the house.

  When she glanced at him, arched a brow, he frowned. “It’s not like with the dirk—this time it’s coming in bits and pieces, lots of snippets. Like bits of a jigsaw that I have to arrange to see the whole picture.”

  She looked ahead at the house. “Just let it come. And if you can’t make sense of one piece now, set it aside for later, when you’ll have more pieces to work with.”

  He grunted, and followed her into the house.

  When, washed and in a fresh gown, she came down to dinner, she found him in the parlor, standing before the sideboard where they’d left his dirk, the saber, and the wooden cylinder. He had the saber in his hand, was experimentally wielding it. He looked up, met her eyes. “This is mine.”

  She merely smiled, and with her head directed him into the dining room.

  He remained quiet and withdrawn duri
ng dinner, stirring himself only to apologize to Gilly for not hearing her question. The others understood he was wrestling with his memory and largely left him to it.

  But at the end of the meal, when they all rose to repair to the parlor, he halted behind his chair, blinked.

  She paused beside him, laid a hand on his arm. “What is it?”

  He looked at her, refocused on her face. “The mess—I remember. I used to be in the officers’ mess.”

  “You’re a cavalry officer.” She didn’t make it a question; the guise fitted him all too well.

  Slowly, he nodded. “In the Guards—I’m not sure what regiment.”

  She patted his arm. “Come and sit by the fire, and tell us what you can.”

  Somewhat to her surprise, he fell in with that plan. He sat in the armchair to one side of the hearth, the one opposite hers, with the children sprawled on the floor between them.

  Logan looked at the eager, innocently inquiring faces looking up at him. “I’m a cavalry officer in the Guards.” Or was, yet he felt the occupation was still his. “I don’t know what my current rank is, but I was a captain during the Peninsula Wars.”

  “Did you fight at Waterloo?” Will asked.

  He nodded. He could remember that terrible day, still hear the screams of men and horses, the obliterating roar of cannon. “I can’t remember all the details yet.” He felt sure he eventually would. “We were, at one point, caught up in the defense of Hougomont, but otherwise … it was a very … messy day. Most major battles like that are.”

  “Were you in Spain?” Brandon’s eyes were huge.

  Logan nodded. “Both early on—before the retreat from Corunna—and later, when we returned.”

  Linnet stirred. “My father captained one of the ships that helped with the evacuation at Corunna.”

  Logan glanced at her. “It took a lot of ships to get the army—what was left of it, at any rate—away.” Without prompting, he drew them a word sketch of what it had been like—the panic and confusion, the horses that had had to be left behind.

  Recalling and retelling it embedded the memory more firmly in his mind—back into the slot where it belonged. Encouraged, he told them of subsequent battles, after they’d returned to hold Portugal, then fight their way across Spain—Talavera, Cuidad Rodrigo, Badajos, Salamanca, Vittoria, the crossing of the Pyrenees, the battle outside Toulouse. “We returned home after that, but then went back for Waterloo.”

  He frowned, then shifted as Muriel handed him a cup of tea. Thanking her, he sat back and, grateful, let Linnet, who had noticed his sudden halt, distract the children.

  Once the children had gone upstairs, and Muriel and Buttons had followed Edgar’s and John’s lead and left, too, Linnet arched a brow at him.

  He grimaced. “I don’t know if it’s simply that Waterloo was a hellish nightmare—that the day was disjointed, with us being sent first here, then there—but …” He drew in a breath, let it out in a frustrated sigh. “I can’t see the faces. I know I fought alongside men I knew—who I knew well, comrades for years—yet I can’t see their faces, not clearly. And I can’t remember any names.”

  Linnet studied him for a moment, then rose. “As you’ve just proved, your memory is returning. The details may be hazy and incomplete, but with time they’ll come clear.”

  When he didn’t respond, just frowned at the floor, she inwardly sighed. “I’m going to do my rounds. I’ll be back in a moment.”

  She headed for the dining room.

  When she returned from checking the windows and doors on the ground floor, he was sitting where she’d left him, but was now turning the wooden cylinder over and over in his hands.

  He glanced up, then returned to studying the cylinder. “I’ve run into another black wall. What the devil does this thing mean? What have I been doing since Waterloo? And with whom? For whom am I carrying this”—he waved it—”and what does it contain? Or is it just mine, for storing valuable papers?”

  He was like a dog worrying a bone. And the intensity driving him was starting to worry her.

  “Nagging at things rarely helps.”

  When he sent her a black look, she laughed. “Yes, I know, easier said than done, but it’s time to go upstairs. After all our riding, you’ll need your rest.” Or at least distraction.

  Grudgingly, he rose, carried the cylinder back to the sideboard, then followed her from the room.

  At the top of the stairs, she paused, through the shadows met his eyes. “I’m going up to check on the children. I’ll join you shortly.”

  He nodded. As she climbed the next flight of stairs, he walked slowly toward her room.

  Logan stood by the window looking out on the wintry dark. A gap between two of the encirling trees offered a glimpse of moon-silvered sea rippling beneath an obsidian sky.

  The more he remembered, the more he recalled of himself, of his past, the better he sensed what manner of man he was. Which, here and now, left him in a quandary. He was an honorable man—tried to live his life by that overriding precept—so was sleeping with his hostess, a beautiful, gently bred female with no effective protector—taking advantage of her, as most would deem it—the action of an honorable man?

  To the man he now knew himself to be, the answer was a clear-cut no.

  Last night … he didn’t know what he’d been thinking. In truth, he hadn’t been thinking; he’d responded to the challenge, the intrigue, the necessity of learning whether the night before had been dream or reality. But in satisfying his curiosity, he’d started something else—something he didn’t understand—for Linnet wasn’t just any woman, not to anyone, but most especially not to him.

  The door opened. He turned. He hadn’t bothered to light the lamp.

  The soft glow of the candle Linnet carried preceded her into the room. She entered, looked around and saw him, turned to set the candlestick on the tallboy and close the door. Then she walked toward him, the skirts of the fine, green woollen gown she’d donned for the evening swaying enticingly about her long legs. The fabric clung lovingly to the sleek curves of breast and hip, reminding him of how those firm curves felt undulating beneath him.

  Fisting one hand, he pushed the tantalizing memory aside. She’d made up her mind to be unattainable and, bastard-born, he had his own road to follow—wherever it might lead. There was no benefit to either of them in allowing whatever it was that had flared between them to deepen, to evolve.

  He knew that, recognized and acknowledged that, knew that simply ending the budding liaison here and now was the honorable thing to do, yet …

  She halted, close, too close to pretend that they hadn’t been—weren’t—lovers. Despite the nearness, she was tall enough to meet his gaze easily. She studied his eyes, then said, “I’ve a proposition for you.”

  He arched his brows. Felt immediately wary, but whether of her, himself, or what might be coming he couldn’t have said.

  Her lips curved. “I don’t believe it will hurt.” She paused, then went on, “I want you to educate me in the ways of the flesh. In every erotic, sinful pleasure.”

  Lustful anticipation slammed through him.

  Equally instinctive, the honorable part of him held firm. He tightened his jaw, tightened his hold on his baser impulses. “It might, perhaps, be wiser if we didn’t further indulge.”

  Linnet’s brows flew high. So he could spend all night obsessing about what he couldn’t remember? “Hmm … no. That won’t do. It occurs to me that you are presently without coin or other material means to repay my hospitality.”

  His lips firmed. “I’ll help you with your donkeys. And the goats.”

  She laughed, her eyes never leaving his. “Not enough—not nearly enough.”

  “Throw in the cows—and I’m a dab hand with horses.”

  “Now you’re getting desperate—and, if you think about, it, just a touch insulting.” She shifted nearer, held his gaze unrelentingly. “Stop arguing.”

  His eyes narrowed on hers.r />
  Holding his gaze, she lowered one hand and boldly closed it about the solid rod of his erection.

  He hissed in a breath, closed his eyes.

  “Tell me,” she purred, “why is it you don’t want to fall in with my plan?”

  She knew the answer: Because he was the sort of man the last days had shown him to be, and he would therefore feel compelled to retreat to a position of conventional honor. She’d seen that coming and, discerning no benefit to either of them in his taking that tack, had devised a way around it by making his falling in with her plan an equally mandated act. He would want to repay her; she’d shown him the way.

  His lips grimly set, he opened his eyes, looked into hers. “Do you really want that? To be taken, possessed, your body used in ways you’ve never even imagined?” His voice lowered. “Do you truly want to put yourself in my hands, in such a way, to that extent?”

  Primitive threat underscored his tone, smoldered in the midnight embers of his eyes, and sent an evocative shiver down her spine. Sadly for him, that had the opposite effect to what he’d intended.

  She thrived on challenges, the riskier, the more exciting, the more tantalizing the better. Smile deepening, she tipped up her face, and closed what little distance remained between them. “Yes. Take me.” Her eyes on his, she categorically stated, “However you want, however you wish—take me now.”

  Logan’s lips were on hers, his tongue plundering her mouth, his hands fisted in her hair before he’d thought. And then … he couldn’t.

  Think.

  All he could hear were the words of her taunting order. Take me now.

  Indeed he would.

  However you want, however you wish …

  As he held her face steady and ravaged her mouth, he remembered he was supposed to teach her, to repay her … by opening her eyes to all that could be within the realm of sensual pleasure.

  She’d tied his honor in knots, so not even that could excuse him denying her.

  So yes, he would do as she commanded. But how?

  As per her sultry order, he consulted his fantasies, swiftly rejecting this one, that—those he couldn’t envision her in. Couldn’t imagine placing her in; she might have agreed to every erotic and sinful way, but she was a relative innocent with no real idea of what that encompassed.