She’d have to guess. She plucked the bonnet off the table and put it on, tying the ribbons beneath her chin as best she could with Beezle still wrapped around her neck. She gave him a quick pat, picked up the paper, and with one last look at the tower room, her home for the last fifteen years, she began to read the incantation:
Oh, glorious night that hides the day,
Listen to what I have to say.
No witches brew with eye of newt,
Just behold this traveling suit.
I’ve donned it not because of snow
But since I have someplace to go.
‘Tis off to Surrey with winged-foot speed,
So please hear my call, please pay heed.
When the clock strikes the hour,
The church bell will ring
Although ‘tis not a time to sing.
Instead please send me out the door,
And then for good measure, ring the bell more!
Chapter Three
Alec never knew what hit him. One minute he was walking back to his carriage from the thick woods that bordered the road, and the next, he was flat on his back, staring up at the white mist of fog, an armful of something—someone—on top of him. He tried to shove whoever it was off his chest. Whoever squealed. A female squeal if he’d ever heard one. Alec held an armful of woman … and he sincerely hoped she was not Letitia Hornsby.
The woman sat up with an exuberant bounce, driving what was left of his wind right out of him. He sat up, too, so he could breathe. She slid into his lap, her hands gripping his shoulders.
“Oh, my goodness!”
Alec inhaled a few breaths of damp, foggy air and turned toward her, expelling a relieved breath when he saw that it was not Letitia Hornsby after all, but a pert little brunette with wide green eyes and dark slashing brows. She had rosy cheeks, a determined chin, and a full mouth with a small but intriguing mole just above her upper lip. She was the most striking female Alec had seen in years, but at that moment, her attractive face wore an expression not unlike that of someone who had just been thrown from a runaway horse.
“Where am I?”
“On the Duke of Belmore.”
“Belmore? ‘Bell more’! Oh, my—” She whipped her gloved hand to her mouth and looked left, then right, studying her surroundings, before she mumbled, “It must have been ‘chimes.’“
“What?”
“Uh . . . nothing.”
Alec shifted his weight slightly.
Her hands tightened on his shoulders, and she stared at him, her face barely inches away from his. Their breath frosted in the cold air. Neither moved. For a brief instant, time itself seemed to vibrate around them. He stiffened in reaction, drawing a deep breath.
She smelled of spring—clean, with a whiff of some kind of flower. He noticed that her waist was remarkably small. His fingertips met when his hands encircled it. He looked down to see his thumbs bare inches from her softly curving breasts. He glanced up and met her gaze. Her eyes were green, true, deep green. There was little of the world in those eyes, no practiced look, no sexual awareness, just an innocence that Alec would have wagered had been lost by every Englishwoman over the age of twelve.
Breaking their stare, she glanced at her hands, which still clutched his shoulders. “You are a duke?” At his nod, she flushed and released him. “Beg pardon, Your Grace.”
“From our positions I would say grace had nothing to do with it”
“Oh, my—”
“Goodness,” Alec finished for her. She didn’t say a thing. Instead, she cocked her head slightly and watched him with a new expression on her face.
How odd, he thought. He was sure he had seen that particular expression before, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember where. It made him uneasy. Dampness from the moist dirt seeped into his breeches, a wet reminder of where he was. “The ground’s cold,” he said shortly, his face expressionless.
“Oh, my—”
Goodness, Alec mentally finished for her and watched as she scrambled out of his lap and sat on the ground. He stood and extended his gloved hand to help her up. Just as he pulled her to her feet, she cried out, and her ankle gave way. He caught her around the waist before she fell. “You are injured?”
She scowled at her foot, then looked up at him and nodded, continuing to stare. He dismissed her look as one of reverence for his title. “Where’s your carriage?”
“What carriage?”
“You don’t have a carriage?”
She shook her head, then looked around her, as if she had misplaced something and her hand nervously stroked the white ermine trim on her collar.
“Are you alone?”
She nodded.
“How did you get here?”
“I’m not sure. Where am I?”
“The North Road.”
“Is that near Surrey?”
“No. Surrey is over a hundred miles south.” The look on her face said it all. “I take it you’re lost.”
“I believe so.”
“How did you get here?”
She didn’t say a thing, just stared up at him, her expression dazed. Assuming the pain in her ankle had made her wits go walking, Alec took matters into his own hands. “How did you get here?”
“Here?”
“Aye. Here.”
She blinked up at him.
“Never mind,” he said on a sigh. “You can tell me later.” In one swift motion he swung her into his arms. He heard her breath catch in her throat, and as he moved toward the carriage, she wrapped her arms around his neck and slowly leaned her head on his shoulder. The warm tickle of her sigh fluttered against his skin. He cast her a cool glance, but saw that her eyes were closed. He used the moment to take in her features once again. Her dark lashes, thick and brown as sparrow feathers, rested sweetly against her skin. And what skin—clear, fresh, virginal. Pearlescent innocence. He stopped in mid-step, wondering where the devil that thought had come from. He shook himself, feeling as if he had only just awakened. He took a deep breath and moved forward, attributing his reaction to an excess of strong wine and a lack of sleep.
The woods thinned at the roadway where his carriage stood waiting. He strode through forest ferns damp with foggy mist and saw Downe leaning against the carriage door, a silver brandy flask raised to his lips. Seymour was nowhere in sight. One of the footmen moved away from the carriage and hurried toward Alec, as if to take the girl. Alec shook his head and nodded toward the carriage. “Open the door, Henson. The lady’s injured her ankle.”
“Demme, if it ain’t her!” Seymour’s voice sounded from his left. He could hear Downe choking on a swallow of liquor.
Alec leaned into the carriage and set the girl inside, then turned to a goggle-eyed Seymour and gave him a look meant to chill him into silence. It worked, and he stepped into the carriage, settling next to the chit. Downe followed and sat opposite her. Alec glanced at him. The earl assessed the girl and apparently liked what he saw, because he gave her his best I’m-a-rake smile. Alec glanced at the viscount, who eyed her with a look one might use when confronted with the angel Gabriel. Neither reaction set well with him.
He turned to the footman who folded the steps back into the coach and said, “Stop at the next inn.” Within seconds, the coach lurched forward into the fog. He reached around the girl and turned up the coach lamp, then leaned back and watched her.
Her lips moved, but no sound came out.
“This is the one,” Seymour whispered. “Trust me. I can feel it in my bones.” He nervously looked from the girl back to Alec, then back to the girl. “You are her.”
She looked at Seymour, then at Downe, then back to Alec, and with each look, panic rose in her eyes. Sitting stiff with fear, she didn’t answer; instead she stared at her hands. He wondered briefly if she was praying, and the thought touched some obscure concern he’d have wagered a thousand pounds didn’t exist within him.
The girl was frightened witless. Alec sought to c
alm her. “Don’t worry— she squeezed her eyes closed and muttered something—“my dear, we—”
She snapped her fingers.
There was a frantic shout. The carriage slammed to a halt. Alec pressed his boot against the opposite seat to brace himself and then grabbed her to keep her from flying into Downe. She opened her eyes, looking stunned and horrified, and bit her lower lip.
He released her, thinking he might have held her too hard. “Are you in pain?”
“No.” Her voice cracked, and she immediately stared at her hands with a dismayed expression. Again, she closed her eyes and whispered something.
The poor thing really was praying. He glanced up at his friends to gauge their reaction and heard her fingers snap a second time.
A loud crack pierced the air, followed by another shout and a vibrating thud. It sounded as if the heavens had just fallen to earth.
He wrenched open the door and called out to his men. “What’s the trouble?”
Henson ran over, a stunned expression on his face. “Appears half the forest is in the road, Your Grace. Strangest tiling I’ve ever seen . . . trees falling like wounded soldiers.” He reached up and scratched his head. “And there’s no wind, Your Grace.”
“Watch for highwaymen.” Alec opened a small compartment near his seat and removed a pistol.
“There’s not a soul about, Your Grace. The outrider checked.” Henson gestured toward the forest with his own pistol.
Alec handed weapons to Downe and Seymour, told them to stay with the girl, then left the carriage, armed. He surveyed the surrounding forest and saw nothing but trees mired in an eerie fog. He stood there for a silent moment, listening for movement. There was nothing. He walked to where the coachman surveyed the wood-piled road and another footman steadied the nervous horses.
At least fifteen alder trees lay like fallen columns across the roadway, and yet not a suspicious sound or movement came from the woods that lined the road.
“Oh, my goodness!”
Alec was fast learning to hate that phrase.
“Oh, no! I meant ‘alter,’ not ‘alder’!”
Slowly, he turned around to see the girl hanging out of the carriage and staring at the trees across the roadway, an appalled expression on her face. She cast him a quick look, appeared to gulp, and disappeared inside in less time than it took to breathe. A moment later, Downe and Seymour stepped down from the carriage and stood beside him assessing the problem.
“There are fifteen of them,” the viscount announced.
“That’s what I admire about you, Seymour. You’ve an uncanny ability to state the obvious,” the earl said.
“When have you ever seen fifteen trees in the road? It’s not something one sees regularly.” The viscount walked over to the first fallen tree, then looked up. “Not a lick of wind.”
Downe examined the closest stump. “Hasn’t been cut. Looks like it just fell over.”
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Seymour said, his gaze darting left, then right, as if he expected the rest of the forest to collapse.
“Here it comes again.” Downe said, resting a booted foot on the splintered stump. “Seymour’s gloom-and-doom speech. To what do you attribute this? Fairies? Trolls? Ghosts? Witches?”
A gasp of horror sounded from behind them, and all three men turned. The girl peered out from the carriage, her color pale.
“Now look what you’ve done, Downe. You’ve scared the bloody hell out of Belmore’s future wife!”
Seymour rushed toward her.
“Did he just call that chit what I think he called her?” Alec stared at Seymour’s retreating back.
“You heard him. He believes all that balderdash. Here, have some of the Little Emperor’s finest. Dulls the cold and makes Seymour tolerable.” He held out his brandy flask. “If you drink enough of the stuff, he might even start making sense.”
“The Seymours aren’t known for their sense and sensibility.”
Downe gave a snort of sardonic laughter and pressed the brandy into Alec’s hand. Alec looked at the flask speculatively, then returned his gaze to the carriage where Seymour was just opening the door.
Alec strode over to the carriage, stepping in front of Seymour. “I’ll take care of her.” His voice brooked no argument. Seymour looked at him, glanced back at the girl, then smiled knowingly, which earned him a cool glare that spoke volumes.
Seymour quickly stepped away from the carriage.
Alec leaned inside and saw that the girl had no color, so he assumed either her ankle pained her severely or she was as easily spooked as an untrained filly. “Does it hurt?”
She gave him a blank stare. “What?”
“Your ankle,” he explained with patience he was far from feeling.
She looked at her foot. “Oh . . . yes, my ankle.”
Alec took that for an affirmative, although she seemed to be thinking about something else altogether. He reached into the gun compartment and took out a small glass. He filled it with Downe’s brandy and handed it to the girl. “Here, miss . . . ” Alec stopped himself and frowned. “Or is it madam?”
“It’s miss.”
“Who?”
“Me?”
Alec took a long breath. “What’s your name?”
“Joyous Fiona MacQuarrie,” she said, not looking at him, but giving her skirt a little shake before she settled back against the seat.
He nodded. “Scottish. That explains it.”
She looked at him then. He placed the glass in her hand. “Take this. Sip it. It will keep you warm while we clear the road. I suspect it might take a while.” When she hesitated, he ordered, “Drink.”
She quickly lifted the glass to her full lips and took a sip, then made a face and wrinkled her nose.
“Trust me. You’ll feel better.”
She took a deep breath, apparently to prepare herself for the upcoming ordeal, then sipped again, screwed up her face, and gulped as if she’d swallowed the sins of the entire ton. It was a few minutes before she stopped coughing and looked up at him again, her eyes tearing, but the moment they met his gaze they grew misty with that same odd yet familiar expression.
He still couldn’t place the look, but he knew one thing for certain: it made him bloody uncomfortable. He closed the carriage door and walked back to the fallen trees with Seymour trailing him like an overanxious beagle.
“She must be the one,” Seymour said in a rush. “It’s fate. I know it.”
Alec stopped and turned to his friend. “Do you truly believe I would take a complete stranger and make her the Duchess of Belmore?”
“Of course he wouldn’t,” Downe said, joining the two men in time to hear Seymour’s comment. “After all, he hasn’t yet researched her background. Have you, Belmore? She might not be duchess material. When have you known Belmore here to do anything without first planning every single detail?”
Alec’s back went ramrod straight.
“This trip to Belmore’s hunting lodge was not planned” Seymour shot back, his expression triumphant.
“Are you two finished? We have business more pressing than goading each other or trying to goad me into one of your rows.”
“Never works anyway,” Seymour muttered.
Alec gave them his best ducal glare—the one that usually stone-silenced anyone within an immediate range and could send a servant into double time. He glanced at the flask, still clutched in his hand, and was tempted to take a drink, a very human reaction considering the day’s events. But the Duke of Belmore prided himself on not giving in to human reactions. He handed Downe the flask and turned to his servants— two footmen, an outrider, and his coachman— who were valiantly trying to move the first of the fallen trees. With the wood green and wet, the trees weighed enough to need special handling. He shrugged out of his coat and tossed it near Downe’s feet. Seymour followed suit while Downe, whose injured arm rendered him unable to help, stood nearby making snide comments about fate and destiny and
the predictability of the Duke of Belmore.
Half an hour later, having had enough of Downe’s wry tongue, Seymour suggested that he and Alec ram a tree trunk into the earl’s blasted big mouth.
Alec didn’t answer. In his mind, he kept seeing Juliet’s letter, which had contained the same unflattering word that Downe had unknowingly just used: predictable.
For twenty-eight years, Alec had thought his behavior unquestionably suitable and logical for a man of his consequence. Life wasn’t simple for the English aristocracy, and the higher the title the greater the responsibility. At least that was what Alec had been raised to believe. It had been pounded into his head over and over that ducal duty came first. Belmore traditions, the revered family name, the example he set by his actions—those were the things that mattered.
He took command but rarely lost his temper. He’d learned at a very young age that a Belmore Duke did not show emotion. A duke needn’t shout andthereforedidn’t. In his life there was no room for folly, which was fine with him; his behavior was ruled by custom, logic, social standing, and traditions that were generations old. Life had been that way for his ancestors, and now it was the same for him, and that was a matter of supreme pride with him.
But predictable? Boring? Those were not traits he relished, any more than he relished the humiliation of losing Juliet. He glanced at his coat, lying on a stump near the earl. In his coat pocket was the special license he had requested from his man of business, with a careful preparation that did his reputation justice. Marriage by special license held more than only its aristocratic allure. His wedding was to have been a quiet ceremony with two witnesses. That had appealed to him because such ceremonies were private and expedient. The frivolity of a huge wedding was something he would not embrace.
Yet now the license served only as a reminder that he had been jilted. A wave of icy humiliation ran through him. His mind flashed with an uneasy curiosity about what Juliet’s mere soldier had to offer compared to him. In her letter, she had said she wanted love. Love. He’d seen what love could do. He’d seen men shoot each other in the name of love. He’d seen perfectly sane, reasonable people crumble like week-old bread for the sake of that one elusive emotion that he was sure was either fantasy or folly.
With This Kiss: A First-In Series Romance Collection Page 4