Timeless Passion: 10 Historical Romances To Savor

Home > Other > Timeless Passion: 10 Historical Romances To Savor > Page 72
Timeless Passion: 10 Historical Romances To Savor Page 72

by Rue Allyn

“Yes!” Michael cried. He sailed through the village, yelling like a young hooligan, to the astonishment of various villagers quietly going about their business. They hardly expected to see “his lordship, poor man” whizzing along in his red car, with a girl at his side on this fine April Saturday.

  Katie gasped as Michael wheeled the car around and pulled into the forecourt at the Dog and Whistle. The pub was thronging with people.

  “Brakes!” he demanded, and she stabbed at them sharply.

  The roadster squealed to a halt, and Michael beeped the horn in a very high-handed fashion.

  “Come out, Mr. Roebuck, and take our orders!”

  Katie slapped Michael’s arm, playfully. “Don’t order him around as if you owned the place.

  “But I do. Own the place, that is.”

  “You’re kidding. The Dog and Whistle?”

  “That’s right. He pays rent on it, most of the time.”

  The landlord appeared at the door and Michael called out for the best bitter and a glass of lemonade. There was no question of going inside with the wheelchair abandoned on the drive back at Farrenden Manor.

  “I suppose these are your urgent supplies?” Katie asked.

  “They are.”

  Michael smiled at her, eyes twinkling. He sipped his beer with a look of triumph on his face.

  Chapter Nine

  Sunday morning Katie heard Michael’s bell jangle twice while she was hurrying to prepare a breakfast tray. She popped a fresh napkin beside his butter knife, lifted the tray, and hurried down the corridor in the direction of his room.

  He was sitting up on his four-poster bed, wearing only his pajama trousers. His feet were bare. Even his feet were long, slim and elegant. He was reading something, studying the pages with interest.

  Katie found the sight of his bare arms rather distracting, too — they were curved and well-muscled from transferring himself in and out of the chair all the time.

  “Come and look at this,” he said eagerly.

  “What about your breakfast, sir?”

  To her dismay, Michael dismissed the breakfast tray with a wave of his hand. Katie moved a few things to make room on his dressing table and noticed for the first time a photograph of Michael with a young woman. A posed photo, but a happy one, taken to mark a special occasion. Michael was looking very dashing in his uniform and the young lady at his side was a radiant blonde with a perfect coiffure and a wide, triumphant smile.

  “Who’s this?” Katie asked and picked it up.

  Michael’s face showed barely a flicker of emotion. “Oh, that’s Connie. Ancient history. Stick it in my sock drawer if you like. I want you to take a look at this!”

  “What happened to her, sir, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “She ditched me, Katie. After my accident. I don’t want to talk about it. Least said, soonest mended.”

  Oh yes, Katie knew all about not talking about the past.

  She left the photograph and came over to stand beside the bed. Michael held out a pamphlet he’d been reading about back injuries that claimed that with regular exercise, a man could relearn the art of walking after a serious injury.

  “Fascinating, isn’t it?”

  Katie gave him a weak smile. “Perhaps it’s aimed at people convalescing from less drastic injuries than your own.”

  He ignored her completely. “I think it’s advice worth taking. I’ve got crutches — they’re in the wardrobe.”

  “You’ve got crutches, sir?” She was surprised, for though his upper body was strong and powerful, his legs looked much too frail to manage on a pair of crutches. “Did the hospital give them to you?”

  “No. I ordered them myself. Dr. Larchwood from the village authorized it.”

  “Did Dr. Larchwood think it was safe for you to use them?”

  “He wasn’t wildly optimistic. Doctors never are, especially stuck-in-the-mud, pedestrian, village doctors like him. But I wanted them, and he agreed that it would be a good idea to have them for when the time was right. I’d like to try them out.”

  “Do you want me to ask Dr. Larchwood to come and see you? Just to make sure that the time is right?”

  “No. Of course not. I’ll be the judge of that. Today I feel like I could do it. Open the wardrobe door and get the crutches.”

  She sighed and went over to the enormous piece of furniture made of polished walnut, with a pair of doors that looked like the entrance to a barn. She opened the right hand door and moved some of his clothes aside looking for the crutches, breathing in the slightly masculine scent that lingered among his garments. The crutches were standing at the back, along with Michael’s cricket pads and an old tennis racket.

  He heaved himself across the bed and moved his legs across with his hands, arranging them so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed. Through the thin fabric of his trousers, his legs looked like giraffe legs, long and spindly, and Katie felt sure they couldn’t possibly support him. But she forced herself to remain silent.

  “Hand me my crutches. I need to know the worst.”

  “Not today!” she blurted out. “It’s too soon, sir. I could put these in a safe place, and you could try another day.” Not today. Don’t let him try today. She didn’t want to see him fail.

  “Do as I ask.”

  Reluctantly she placed a crutch on either side of him, and he struggled to position them under his arms. He made a feeble attempt to hoist himself up, but he was nervous and wary.

  “Please,” he said, looking up at her with vulnerable, blue eyes. “Can you help me?”

  “Of course,” she said. She’d never had such a terrible sense of foreboding. She took away one of the crutches, ducked under his arm, and prepared to take the weight of his whole body.

  “Ready?” he said.

  “Ready,” she answered. “One, two, three!”

  He gave a cry of pain as they rose unsteadily to their feet. Katie struggled to keep him upright.

  She glanced up and gave him a desperate smile of encouragement. Beads of sweat were forming on his forehead. His face was as white as the bed sheets.

  He clutched her shoulder with the tightness of desperation. “It’s nice to stand beside you,” he said, but his face showed terrible strain.

  She knew exactly the moment when he gave up the impossible struggle. His legs crumpled up awkwardly beneath him, the useless crutch splayed out across the bedroom floor, and they both crashed to the floor. Katie was flung against the edge of the bed, and Michael cried out in pain and frustration.

  She thought her heart would break in two at that sound.

  Katie’s wrist was sore and she had ruined her stockings. Michael flung away the wooden crutch in anger and frustration, hearing it crash against the dressing table legs. His head went down in despair.

  “Michael, don’t!” She didn’t think she could bear to see him cry. She moved nearer, and tried to touch his arm.

  She wanted to touch the nape of his neck where his honey colored hair had been cut short. She wanted to do something, anything, before he let vent to his grief. Determined to console him, Katie impulsively tilted his face to hers, and kissed him hard. Her mouth locked onto his with a desperate, crazy yearning not to see him vanquished. Her hands cupped his face as she continued to press her mouth on his, ignoring any signs of surprise.

  She felt a ripple of movement and a response — a passionate, masculine response. She felt the pressure of his lips on hers, and his tongue searching and finding hers. His kiss was wild and desperate, and it was everything she’d secretly imagined. She gave a soft moan and let a powerful wave of sensation wash over her.

  He seemed encouraged by that sound and he kissed her again and again, one kiss melting into another. Soon she realized that his arms were around her, and his fingers were tangled in her hair.

  “Katie,” he said, and opened his blue eyes to look at her. His face was a portrait of astonished rapture.

  Consumed with regret and embarrassment, Katie pu
t her hands up to her face. “Forgive me, sir, forgive me!”

  “It’s all right,” he said, and his blue eyes spoke of a new understanding between them.

  “It isn’t! It was a dreadful liberty I took. Please sir, I only meant to take your mind off what happened.”

  “You did,” he said, and he smiled at her. He put a finger to his own mouth, just where her lips had been, and then he reached out and touched her lips with his fingertips. He seemed to be in a state of dazed amazement.

  “I didn’t stop to think,” Katie said, in a scared whisper. “I only did it so you wouldn’t be so sad!”

  “It’s all right, Katie. Really. You meant to be kind — and it was extraordinary.” He struggled to reposition himself, dragging at his useless legs with his left hand. “Help me up, now, my love. I should like to get up off the floor.”

  “Of course, of course!” She flustered around him, getting him onto the edge of the bed. The “my love” slip filled her with guilt.

  “You must be cold, sir,” she said to cover her flailing emotions. She could hardly look him in the eye, but she found his pajama top and began doing the buttons up for him, as if he was one of the children. He placed a hand over hers.

  “It was a good kiss,” he said, and gave her a direct, penetrating look. “We’ll share another one some time, won’t we?”

  She couldn’t answer him. He looked so hopeful, just as he had desperately hoped for a full recovery, and she felt like such a fraud. She would have to tell him that it was all a terrible mistake. She pulled her hand away from his and stood up.

  “Please, sir. You must ask Mrs. Jessop to come back and help you. I’ll apologize to her myself if you want. Or you could hire a proper nurse. I’m so sorry!”

  Michael almost laughed at her. “Katie. I don’t want a bloody nurse, and I don’t want Jessop. I want you.”

  Katie shook her head, baffled by her own emotions, confused by the strength of her feelings for him. “Things were bad enough before, sir, when it was all inside me. Now it’s a thousand times worse.”

  Then she turned and fled from the room.

  Chapter Ten

  Michael tackled his paperwork with renewed energy. Normally the thought of several hours of farm administration would have filled him with gloom, but today, he felt as if he had a spring in his step — or at least in his fountain pen.

  He paid half a dozen overdue bills, writing out large checks as if he were a great philanthropist. He canceled his subscription to the tennis club and made his apologies to the Young Farmers Association, all without the usual surge of anger and resentment that accompanied thinking about people who were fit and well and didn’t have to spend their lives sitting down.

  She’s delightful, he thought. Very pretty, and very sweet — but oh so emotional. Her kiss stirred sensations he had only dreamed of feeling again. He leaned back in his chair and for the first time since the accident, he thought about the future and making plans for the farm — that is, when he could stop himself from daydreaming about that amazing kiss.

  He was just writing an apology to the coal man for the delay in settling his account when he heard her footsteps on the path outside his window. He’d know the sound of her light, determined step anywhere. He looked up and was stunned to see her suitcase in hand.

  Michael didn’t need to think. Quick as a flash, he wheeled the chair around and headed back through his own rooms to the ramp that led to the front garden. His hands worked the wheels of the chair faster than ever, but by the time he arrived at the front of the house, Katie was already walking down the drive, heading purposefully toward the gates.

  “Katie!”

  Her reddish brown curls blew back in the wind, and she seemed to falter, but she pretended not to hear him. He noticed that in her haste to get out of his house, she hadn’t even put on her hat, though she was usually very correct about that sort of thing.

  “Katie!”

  He worked the wheels faster, thanking God that he hadn’t been able to get new gravel for the drive. He could get the chair scudding along at a fast clip in the dirt, and the drive’s downward slope helped tremendously. He must look ridiculous in hot pursuit of a pretty girl in a bloody wheelchair, but his fear of losing her was greater than his pride.

  “Katie! Katie! Stop and turn around this minute!” Michael shouted. He had felt happy this morning, in a way he had never expected to feel happy again. Happy, on a day when he had resigned himself to the bloody chair. Happy, because of this little Irish wench. This extraordinary girl who provoked him and challenged him and made him feel alive again. He wasn’t about to let her slip through his fingers.

  “There isn’t a train for two hours at least,” he lied. He was encouraged to see that slowed Katie a little.

  She was nearly at the gatehouse when he caught up with her. He was rather out of breath from working the wheels so hard, and the chair was spattered with mud.

  “Oh, sir,” she sighed, turning to face him, with a look of hurt resignation in her eyes.

  “What’s all this?” he demanded, gesturing imperiously at the offending brown suitcase.

  She glanced down at it, and looked guilty. “It’s better that I leave.”

  “Better for whom?” he said. “Me? The children? Jessop, maybe? She’s probably the only one who won’t be sorry to see the back of you, Irish troublemaker that you are.”

  Katie clenched her teeth and didn’t reply.

  “Where on earth will you go?”

  “I can’t bear it now,” she said. “I can’t keep working for you with all of this inside my head, and my heart.”

  “Your heart?” he said, and he looked up at her with a hint of a smile. “Surely, you’re not afraid you might fall in love with me?”

  She flashed him a sudden guilty look while a scarlet blush flamed on her cheeks. “I’ll not let that happen to me again.”

  He grinned. His money and his looks had often given him the confidence to be candid. It amused him to see the effect his startling remarks had on people, and it had often paid off. She had as good as admitted it!

  He was triumphant, but he spoke gently to her. “Katie, look at me.”

  She did so, reluctantly.

  “Do you have any idea what it means to me,” he said, “that you could even imagine yourself in love with me as I am now?”

  “No,” she said, simply. “But I can surely imagine how it will all end, sir.”

  She surprised him. He had spent a pleasant morning trying to consider where it might lead. Apparently her thoughts were not quite along the same lines, for she was close to tears, he realized.

  “I must go,” she said.

  “Katie,” he said softly, and tried to take her hand. She shied away, but he could see her softening, regretting, weakening in her resolve to leave him. The suitcase fell from her hand and toppled over flat in the driveway. She let it lie where it fell, and stood there brushing away the tears from her eyes with her other hand.

  “You can’t leave the children, can you?” Michael said, trying to give her an honorable reason to stay.

  She shook her head. “It would be irresponsible.”

  “It would,” he said, fervently.

  Just then, the heavens opened. The big, heavy raindrops that had been threatening all morning fell on the drive, on the suitcase, on Michael and on the polished wooden arms of the chair.

  Yet Katie didn’t even seem to notice that it was raining. “But all this between us makes it impossible.”

  For a moment, it looked as if she were about to pick up the bloody suitcase and take to the road again. So Michael forced himself to lie. “It was only a kiss, Katie. It was nothing. We can pretend it didn’t happen, if you like,” he said. He was pleased that his voice sounded reasonable, rational even.

  “Can we?” she said.

  “Yes,” he said, with easy confidence, hoping she’d believe him. “Good heavens, Katie, do you think I haven’t kissed the help before?”

&nb
sp; He hadn’t, as it happened. There had been plenty of spoiled, rich girls at tennis parties, of course, and horsy young women from good county families, and then his fiancée, Connie. He’d never been remotely interested in a servant until he saw Katie, but this was not the moment to take her into his confidence.

  She scowled at him, but he remained calm, biding his time as his clothes soaked to his skin in the downpour.

  “Katie, the war makes us behave a little oddly at times. You and I have been thrown together, and it’s awkward. But the war will be over soon and you’ll go off and meet some chap and … ”

  “Don’t! I don’t like thinking of the future.”

  “Then think about today. Think about your duty here, your war work.” God, Michael thought to himself, he was beginning to sound just like Marjory Mallory.

  Katie glanced at him, with a guilty, sheepish look. “I suppose it would be wrong to walk out and leave the children to get used to someone new,” she said at last.

  Michael smiled. “Yes. Now, pick up that suitcase, before it goes soggy. I bet it’s one of those awful cardboard ones, isn’t it?”

  “Probably,” she said. “I’ve never given it a thought.”

  “Most inferior,” he replied.

  Then he cursed himself for being tactless with her yet again. Fine sets of leather suitcases were undoubtedly beyond Katie Rafferty’s experience. “Let’s talk it all over back at the house.” Darling. He would have liked to have added that word but it was more pragmatic not to. He must ease her in gently, like a nervous young mare. “I’ll carry the suitcase, if you like.”

  She laid it across his knees to keep his hands free to wheel the chair. He shook it and almost laughed.

  “It’s a bit light, Katie. Were you in such a hurry to escape me that you forgot to pack?”

  “Maybe,” she admitted.

  • • •

  The house felt chilly to the two of them in their wet clothes, and he asked Katie to strike a match and light the fire that was laid in the grate. She knew well how to coax a fire into life, breathing on it to help the kindling take, then holding a sheet of newspaper over the grate to draw the flames. After a few moments, the fire began to take a hold and give out the first signs of warmth.

 

‹ Prev