How to Wed a Warrior

by Christy English

  “But we’d like to walk along the sea,” Robbie answered.

  “The sun will be up for hours yet. Come back and court later. The horses will be asleep soon after their dinner. You must come and see them now!”

  Laughing in spite of herself, feeling her sorrow lifting as all darkness did in the light of Mary Elizabeth’s smile, Pru looked back to Robbie who raised his hands in surrender. A warm understanding passed between them, and Pru felt the heat of it shoot straight to her heart. She felt sudden joy at the possibility that the duchess might be right—perhaps he felt more for her than lust and a touch of respect. As hopeless as her future might be, there was still a part of her that wished for a future with him.

  Pru pushed the thought away as she stumbled down the hill after Mary Elizabeth, Robbie following behind. But the hint of joy stayed with her, dancing along the edge of her mind like a hope-filled sprite. It made her lighthearted and a little giddy, and she laughed again for no reason at all.

  Mary Elizabeth brought them into a rather large and imposing stable, utterly untroubled by the majesty of it. Pru had an uneasy moment when she wondered if they should be there at all, but her concern was quickly swept away in Mary Elizabeth’s pure joy.

  Knowing horses, Mary Elizabeth stopped moving so quickly as soon as she’d entered the stable. She also lowered her voice to a soothing register, and Pru was taken aback by how deep the girl’s voice could be when she was calm. It was almost sultry.

  “This is Sampson,” Mary Elizabeth said. “He is my particular friend.”

  The great beast glared at Pru, and she stepped back, only to come up against Robbie. He drew her farther away, blocking her body with his own, as if the great stallion might spring over his stable door and accost her.

  “Mary, ye’d best step back from there. He’s a great brute who might take your hand off.”

  Mary Elizabeth did not spare a glance for her overly cautious brother, but extended her hand to the stallion. Pru saw then that she had a dried apple in her fingertips.

  “Nonsense, Robbie. Sampson is too much of a gentleman to attack a lady. All warriors are.”

  Robbie snorted at that, but Pru could feel the tension along his arm, coiled and ready to snatch Mary Elizabeth back if the horse moved too quickly toward her. Pru wondered if even Robbie could get her away fast enough when the strange groom from earlier that afternoon appeared at his side.

  “Sampson won’t bite a lady,” was all he said.

  His voice sounded very refined for a stable lad, but Pru was not one to question the education the duchess offered her employees. She kept her eyes on Mary Elizabeth and the hulking beast in front of her. Mary Elizabeth ignored them all, caressing Sampson’s nose. The horse leaned closer to her, snuffling around for another apple. The huge creature seemed to welcome the girl’s touch, but Pru was sure his pleasure could turn to annoyance just as quickly.

  “Mary Elizabeth, perhaps we had better go back to the house and dress for dinner.”

  She kept her voice even and calm, trying hard not to reveal her own fear. The animal would hear it, and so would Mary Elizabeth, and it might very well upset them both.

  “Ah, well. If the duchess rings the dinner bell, I suppose we can’t keep her waiting.” Mary Elizabeth gave the horse one last caress. When she stepped back and away from him, he stamped and snorted loudly, as if protesting the loss of his prize. “I’ll be back tomorrow, you great bully. Mind your manners while I’m away. No biting the grooms, you hear?”

  She stared the horse down, and he shifted on his feet, as if being called to task by a schoolmarm. Pru could not be certain, but Sampson seemed a bit chagrined.

  “Do not bite this one here, is that clear?”

  She pointed to the oddly dressed groom, who was watching Mary Elizabeth a little too closely for Pru’s comfort. Clearly Robbie felt the same, for he stepped between his sister and the servant and offered his arm. “Come away from here, Mary. That’s an expensive beast, and you’ve deviled him long enough.”

  Mary Elizabeth took her brother’s arm, and he gave Pru his other one. He nodded to the groom, but the man saw the threat in his eyes, and had the sense to take two steps back. Pru felt an odd thrill at the danger lurking in Robbie’s gaze. She wished, for one mad, addlepated moment, that they were alone so that she might kiss him.

  “Watch out for him, Harry,” Mary Elizabeth called over her shoulder as Robbie propelled both women out of the stables. “He’s a bit sweeter, but he’s got a mind of his own.”

  “God’s teeth, girl, stop talking to the servants as if you’ve known them all your life. We’re farther north, that’s true, but we’re still among the English.”

  Mary Elizabeth spoke blithely, watching the clouds as they moved across the sky before them. “Don’t mind Harry—he’s harmless, if a bit simple.”

  “I do mind him,” Robbie said, his voice hard as stone. “And you’ll mind me. Stay away from stable lads, or I’ll tan your hide.”

  Mary Elizabeth did not look defiant but miserable when she answered, “All right, Robbie. Don’t go acting like Ian on me.”

  Robbie patted her hand. Pru heard his voice soften. The warm light in his eyes made her think of what a good father he would one day make. “Now don’t go comparing me to Ian. Ian would’ve run the lad through and asked questions later.”

  Mary Elizabeth smiled a little at that, and all was well again between the siblings. “True enough. Ian’s never had the sense God gave a turnip.”

  Robbie laughed out loud at that, and the sound was so infectious that though she had never met Ian, and likely never would, Pru laughed with him.

  Twenty-two

  Robbie got Mary Elizabeth back in the house and managed to keep her there the rest of the evening. He had hoped to take Prudence out for a walk along the shore cliff at dusk, but he was afraid to leave Mary Elizabeth alone for fear of the mischief she might get up to. She had always been one to dawdle with the servants as if they were family, but he’d thought that Alexander had broken her of that when they came south. It seemed the closer they got to home, the more Mary Elizabeth went back to her old childhood ways.

  Robbie was proud of her for being a sweet, unspoiled girl who treated all members of the clan like the family they were. But here among the English, she could not behave as if the people around them wished her well. Because God alone knew what even the servants were thinking, much less the young men.

  Robbie sat at the duchess’s breakfast table alone, thought of the dance coming in two days’ time, and cringed. He had been a young man himself not long ago. He knew what the young men who came to Mary Elizabeth’s dance would be thinking.

  Where was Ian when you needed him? The colossal eldest Waters brother could put the fear of God and the devil into any boy five miles near. Robbie wondered if he might imitate his brother enough to keep the young Englishmen in line. They were no longer in the safe, fop-infested ballrooms of London, but in the wild north.

  Well, as wild as England ever got.

  Robbie ate his third bannock with a dollop of honey and cream and wondered where on God’s green earth Mary Elizabeth had gotten to. She always ate a hearty breakfast, and had never been one to stay abed.

  And where, on that note, was Prudence? Though she was a lady and delicate, she did like her food.

  He felt a moment of dark foreboding and rose slowly to his feet, his bannock forgotten. One girl might be innocently missing, but not both. If both were gone, they were up to mischief.

  Robbie did not leave through the door to the corridor but stepped out onto the terrace. He set out for the stables at a fast clip; with luck, he would get there before either or both of them fell under a horse’s hooves.

  He thanked God for his moment of the second sight, for Prudence, when he found her, was dressed in breeches, standing on a riding block, and about to mount a horse twice as tall
as she was.

  “My God, Pru, get away from there!”

  The beast shied at the sound of his voice, but he did not care. Mary Elizabeth caught the gelding’s bridle, and that’s when he noticed that his sister was dressed in men’s clothes as well. God have mercy on his soul.

  “Pru! Mary Elizabeth! For the love of God, you’re not decent!”

  Robbie heard that he sounded less like a man and more like a shrew, but the sight of Pru’s curved buttocks and thighs in tight breeches had undone his reason. He cleared his throat, and tried again. “Prudence Whittaker, come down from there before I take you down.”

  She did not shy away from him as the horse had done. Instead, Prudence smiled down on him as if she knew him, inside and out, and found him immensely funny. “You’ll take me down, will you? That’s something I think I’d like to see.”

  Robbie reminded himself that not only were the duchess’s servants lurking about, getting an earful and an eyeful, but that his sister also stood just five feet away, watching him. It took that reminder, and every deep breath he could muster, along with thoughts of how cold the water was in the loch back home, to make him stand down. He had never wanted a woman so much in his life. He had to get her to dress for him in breeches, once he had managed to get her alone and his ring on her finger. As it was, he cleared his throat and tried again.

  “Mrs. Whittaker, I ask you kindly to step down from there and put on a decent dress.”

  Prudence smiled at him, her eyes gleaming with mischief and something more, something that made his hands itch to touch her. “I think I’ll go riding first, Robbie, as Mary Elizabeth and I intended. You might come along, if you like.”

  Mary Elizabeth brought the horse back and Pru mounted it, as gracefully and easily as if she had ridden like a man all her life. With the gelding under her control, Pru turned the horse toward the stable door. As Robbie watched, Mary Elizabeth vaulted into the saddle on her own horse and rode away.

  Robbie reminded himself to keep a civil tongue in his head and said, “God’s teeth!”

  “If you’d like to ride, you’d best get mounted.” Pru winked at him then, and turned her gelding to follow Mary Elizabeth.

  Robbie stood staring after her, the cock stand in his breeches making it almost impossible to climb on a horse. That was when he saw the odd stable boy step out from a stall, a large roan saddled for him. “If you mean to catch them, you’d best be off.”

  “Aye.” Robbie ground his teeth and mounted. The roan was steady under him, a mercy he was thankful for. “I’m obliged,” he said to the Englishman who still stood watching him, his rumpled clothes different from the ones he had worn the day before—an oddity in a stable servant.

  “It has been my pleasure. Your family is rather colorful.”

  Robbie smiled at the thought of Pru being included in his family by a stranger. “Aye,” he said. “That they are.”

  He touched his heel to the horse’s flank, and went after them.

  * * *

  Pru could not remember the last time she had felt so free.

  She knew she was being childish, baiting Robert Waters. He was her employer, for heaven’s sake. He was a friend. But there was something about wearing breeches again for the first time in ten years that made her remember what it was like to be a girl, someone with no fears or cares in the world—someone daring. Pru discovered that she liked it.

  She and her brother had raced over the moors as children. Lynwood Manor was tucked away on the heath in Yorkshire, far from any prim or proper drawing room, far from any London ballroom. They had ridden together every day in summer when they were young, and when Albert had first gone to sea, Pru had kept riding, in remembrance of him.

  She took a hedge, letting her gelding leap without hesitation, and heard Mary Elizabeth cheer her on. They stopped finally at the foot of the cliff that led up to the lookout over the sea. Pru was winded, as was her horse, but she was tempted to climb up there and have a look when Robert Waters appeared at her side, shaking with fury.

  “Prudence Whittaker, what are you thinking, riding like a madwoman in an unknown place?”

  For one happy moment, Pru didn’t recognize the name he called her, but then she remembered her deception and her elaborate lies. She remembered that Robert did not know her real name. She pushed away the hint of guilt she felt, wondering how angry he would be if she ever worked up the nerve to tell him.

  “The horse knows the ground,” Pru answered, knowing she was being inane.

  Mary Elizabeth laughed behind her hand, dismounting and tying her horse to a nearby tree. It was a small tree, stunted by wind, but it held on to the foot of the rocky cliff as tenaciously as the Waterses grasped at life. Why was Robert so angry with her? As she looked into the blue of his eyes, she began to wonder. Could he possibly care for her as she did for him? Perhaps more than a little?

  “I’m going for a walk up the cliff. Try to mind your manners, Robbie.” Mary Elizabeth turned and left, not caring that her brother did not answer.

  They were alone then, save for the horses. Robert tugged her down from her gelding and into his arms. Pru shifted, trying to pull away from him, trying to find her footing, but he would not let her go.

  “You are a damned fool to ride over unknown ground like a banshee.”

  His voice was lowered and quiet, but for some reason, he sounded angrier than he had when he was shouting. He was not going to be easily jollied out of this rage. She had never seen him truly angry before, not even when they had fought for their lives on the wharf in London.

  “I will not have you falling off a horse and cracking your head open for a whim. You’ve not ridden the whole time you’ve been with us, and I warrant you have not ridden in months, if not years. Am I right?”

  Pru tried to look away, but he took her chin in his hand so that she could not. “I have not,” she conceded. “But, Robert, I have no interest in cracking my head open, either.”

  He did not smile as she thought he might, but took her hand in his and placed it on his chest, over his heart. It was beating fast—much faster than their ride had warranted. Even if he had taken the same jump she had, his pulse should not have been pounding.

  She looked into his eyes. Behind his anger was true fear. She felt terrible then, not just for lying, but for making this man chase after her as if she were a wild woman, as if she were Mary Elizabeth. She was supposed to be a civilizing influence, but so far, she had done little but follow where her wild charge led.

  “I’m sorry, Robbie,” she said. “I didn’t think. I just leaped. I used to be like that, a long time ago.”

  Her false glasses slipped down her nose, and he drew them off her. She tried to take them back, but he put them into his coat pocket, his grip tightening on her as he pulled her closer.

  “No,” he said. “Let me look at you without your glasses. I deserve a boon for almost losing my life chasing after you.”

  Pru almost told him not to be a fool, that it was no gift to look on her face unencumbered, but the reverence in his eyes silenced her before she could draw breath to speak. He did not smile to soften the moment, and she felt as if she were drowning. She had never had a man look at her like that before, not even John when he’d proposed. Pru wanted to run away from the look in his eyes. That kind of devotion called for an equal measure of devotion from her, and she was not free to love him. And she never would be.

  Pru used a move her brother had taught her to break Robert’s hold easily, slipping from his grasp without striking him. Robert stared at her then, the look on his face changing to one of shocked amusement.

  “Slippery little thing, aren’t you? But you’ve nowhere to go, for I’ve got your glasses.”

  “I can live without them,” Pru said, forcing a lightness into her tone that she did not feel.

  “Can you, now? And here I was, thinking
you as blind as a bat.”

  She opened her mouth to ask for them back when he tugged her into his arms in one deft, quick movement, trapping her against the trunk of the wizened little tree. He held her close, but not too tight. She could have broken away if she tried, which she supposed was what he intended. But this time, when that light came into his face, she stayed.

  “You’re a beautiful woman, Prudence Whittaker.”

  Her false name on his lips was like the sound of a gong in a distant room, the lie reminding her of who she was, and of how many lies there were between them, all spun like a spider’s web. She pushed aside her guilt and pain, leaning close to him. She pressed herself against his body so that she could feel his hard contours. She wanted to forget the lies and the pain of her past, and simply feel.

  She wanted to forget the look on his face, and the responsibility it placed on her. She would hurt him, as he would hurt her. She had not foreseen that, nor had she intended it. Had she known, she never would have walked this path of flirtation with him. Had she been more aware of his feelings, she would have hidden her own. But now, in his arms, she found that she didn’t want to hide, or to lie.

  She kissed him, just as she had the first time, her lips soft on his. He did not move but to follow her lead, and she ran her tongue over his bottom lip and nipped at it until he opened his mouth and let her in.

  Pru drank him down like a draught of whisky in the hand of a drunken man; she savored him as if he were a cream pastry, and she was starving. Robert Waters tasted of sunlight and of honey, and his warmth surrounded her and took her in even as she fell against him, breathing in the scent of his clothes, and the scent of his skin beneath that.

  He was warmth and fire together, safety and heat and joy all in one taste of his lips, in the touch of his tongue on hers. She felt herself slipping deeper under his spell. She was a fool to have touched him again—a fool, and a wanton woman, and a disgrace to her family name, had she had the courage to own it. But she did not care.