* * *
Either it was the foulest storm Kate could remember or her anxiety made it seem so. Her fashionable cloak seemed to absorb every drop of rain that fell. She grasped the pommel in one hand, shivering in silence until the horse carried them between the dark wooded hills. “I told you not to come,” Colin said. He unbuttoned his black wool coat and drew her tight against his chest and thighs. She reveled in his warmth. His strength. She found a haven in the hard contours of his body. She rested her arm upon his. His chin brushed the back of her head. Or had he kissed her? For once she wouldn’t object.
“If anyone can find him, it’s you,” she said, uncertain he could hear her through the rain and hoofbeats cutting heavily through the muddy undergrowth.
“Why do you say that?”
His gloved hand gripped her tighter as the horse took a curving path. Guard yourself, Kate thought.
“You understand horses. You ran away yourself. I just thought—”
You swore you would never tell. Although, she did wonder whether it would make a difference if she did. Would he search harder knowing Brian was his son?
He called up to Lovitt, who had taken a narrow path into the hills. “Are there any quagmires near?”
“I’m not sure, sir. The smugglers’ bridge is where the gypsies were last encamped. It washes out in a good rain.”
“Why would he do this?” Kate said, staring into the dense tangle of trees.
“Because he’s a rebel who hasn’t learned that he can’t have everything he wants when he wants it.”
“What if we’re going the wrong way? What if he got lost or one of those village boys took him? No one would hear him in the rain.”
“He’ll be all right,” Colin said. “With any luck this will make him think twice about running away in the future. Hang on. We’re on an incline.”
She felt herself slide against his arm. “Would it have turned you into a cautious boy?”
“Am I a cautious man?”
* * *
From the fast-flowing river below the hill a cry rose above the rushing water. “Down here!” the servants shouted.
“There beside the bridge, sir, miss!” Lovitt called in relief, jumping off his horse. “I see something moving about.”
“Shall we dismount here?” Kate turned to ask, her dress, her hair saturated, heavy with rain.
“Yes, slide off carefully. Wait. Hold my—”
She didn’t wait. She appeared too eager to see Brian for herself. She started to slip the instant her feet met the ground, mud gushing around her ankles.
“Your hand, Kate!”
He reached down, missed her by a moment. He felt the mare lose her footing, then regain it as he dismounted to lighten her back. Kate wasn’t as fortunate. She dropped into a slow slide through mud and loose stones until a birch tree stopped her descent. She pulled herself up before Colin could help her.
“I’m fine,” she said quickly, a sight if ever he’d seen one.
He guided his horse to a steady ledge and tethered her loosely to a branch. “I knew I shouldn’t have brought you,” he said, stepping down sideways to grasp Kate by the forearm before she took another step.
The yapping dogs and Lovitt’s cry of relief brought tears to her eyes. “They’re down here, sir! Both of ’em under the bridge! Looking very graciously alive, may God be thanked.”
Kate flung herself into Colin’s arms; he couldn’t decide whether she looked more like an orphan in that preposterous cloak or a creature that had clawed through the bowels of the earth to attach herself to the first mortal man she met.
“Dear, dear me, Miss Walcott,” he chided softly. “I do so wish to take advantage of you.”
She sniffed, lifting her head. “What did you say?”
“You have a talent for dispelling the dark moods that often besiege me. When you cling to me like this, I quite forget myself. It’s an effort to remember why I returned to England.” He stared down into her face. “Do not let go of my hand until I say so.”
She nodded. She even managed to remain upright as Colin ascended the hill into the tufts of cattails that grew along the embankment. Brian looked up at Colin with unflinching acceptance. For an instant Colin was thrown back into the past, to a memory of catching his younger brother Sebastien in a misdeed. He released Kate’s arm.
“Are you hurt?” he demanded of the boy.
Brian shook his head. “No, sir. I was trying to come back home, but the bridge looked unsturdy, and then she slipped in the mud and wouldn’t get up.”
“Where did you intend to go before you changed your mind?”
“I thought I could trade her to the gypsies for a proper horse.”
“Did you?” Colin wondered how many times he’d ever done anything this stupid and potentially tragic when he was younger. He knew what his father would have done for punishment. “What were you going to barter with? Your mother’s stolen jewelry?”
“No, sir.” A note of hurt pride crept into Brian’s voice. “I meant to ask for a loan.”
Colin grunted. “Well, someone needs to lend you some common sense. Get out of the way.”
Lovitt had already waded into the water. “She’s petrified, sir, but she isn’t acting as if she’s in pain.”
Colin glanced back briefly as Brian ran into Kate’s arms. Seeing the pair of them console each other softened his anger. “Brian, take your governess and stand with her under the trees with my horse.”
The boy was safe. So, it appeared, was the terrified pony, which had to be unsaddled and pulled from the stream in a sling of straps and ropes by the coachman and the two stable boys. At first the animal resisted in panic, sinking deeper in the rising stream with her front legs tucked beneath her belly. Colin kept talking to her until she calmed. The instant the men lifted her from the mud churning over the flooded bed, she clambered to solid ground.
Lovitt sloshed up after her and crouched. “Her knees are sound. It looks like she’s bruised an ankle and will be in bad temper for some time. Other than that, I can’t see any injuries.”
Colin ran his hand through his hair. “Then take her and Brian home.”
Lovitt hung his head. “Sir, this is my fault. I’ve been a damn fool.”
“I don’t disagree.”
“I’ve done more damage than anyone knows,” he muttered.
“Crime and punishment will have to wait until tomorrow. We’ll all be washed away if the storm worsens.”
He trudged up through the mud to Kate and Brian, who lifted his head from Kate’s shoulder as if her comfort made him look childish. “Kate, you will return with me. No one can ride that pony with her bruised ankle.”
“Sir,” Brian said, his voice breaking in misery, “I didn’t mean to hurt her. It was a stupid act. You were right. I don’t deserve a horse.”
Colin placed his hand on Brian’s arm. “You aren’t the only boy in the world who thinks he knows better than everyone else. Did you break any bones?”
Brian swallowed. “No, sir.”
“Then go home with the other men and don’t let your mother see you until you’ve washed and changed.”
Chapter 21
Kate knew that Colin was guiding the horse along a different path than the one they had followed to the bridge. The woods grew denser on this questionable detour, and the interlocked branches provided some shelter from the driving rain.
“Why aren’t we following the others home?” she asked through her chattering teeth.
“There is a hunting lodge a quarter mile from the estate. I thought we could talk in private in front of a fire.”
“I ought to be home with the children. And how do you know about the lodge?”
“I stayed there for a week watching the house before I thought it an opportune time to announce myself.”
She shuddered, burying her hands in the folds of his coat. “Talk? About what? You certainly picked an eventful night to do so. Why can’t we wait to talk until the mor
ning? I need to see that Brian is—”
“The storm is worsening by the moment. I would like to rest my horse. She slipped back there on the hill, and I’m afraid she is favoring her right leg. I guarantee that Brian will recover from this incident faster than either of us. Are you afraid to be alone with me?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I am chilled to the bone, although I’d prefer to change my clothes and sit in front of a fire at home than to take refuge in that lodge.”
“What is wrong with the lodge?”
“It’s where Mrs. Lawson and Mr. Earling became lovers. They often went there to indulge their passion for each other without fear of the children interrupting them.”
His lips curled. “We can only hope that the rain has washed their sins away.”
So that they could commit their own? she wondered.
The lodge had last been used for a small hunting party when Mason had invited a few friends for the weekend. Georgette had been one of those guests, and it was during this affair that he had suggested their current arrangement. For once Kate had not disapproved. Georgette’s bank accounts had dwindled to almost nothing. Her household could not survive the winter without funds.
While Colin tended to his horse in the small adjoining stable, Kate moved through the musty hall. At least she didn’t hear any mice scurrying to hide. She walked toward the pitch-black fireplace. She detected the acrid scent of a recent fire, mildew, and burnt food.
“Go upstairs and take off your clothes,” Colin said behind her.
She spun around in astonishment. “This is your opening to conversation, ‘Go upstairs and take off your clothes’? What a master of subtlety you are. You’re worse than the wheelwright’s sons, who bang their hammers on the forge whenever a woman passes by.”
He grinned. “Georgette kept a small wardrobe upstairs, didn’t she?”
She stared at him. “I feel warmer now.”
“So do I,” he said as his gaze traveled over her. “But not warm enough to ride through the rain quite yet.”
“I’ve never met a man who has made as many heroic gestures as you, and in such a short time. I have also never felt as cold and miserable in my life.”
“Then stop arguing with me and find something dry to wear.”
* * *
He tried several times to light a small fire while Kate rummaged upstairs through the selection of gowns Georgette had left in the closet. Once, twice, a flame leapt to life only to die in the damp, cobwebbed wood that had been ruined from rain dripping down the chimney. He had stripped down to his birthday suit before he realized that he would either have to wait naked for his own clothes to dry or put on Mason’s trousers.
He couldn’t do it. It was demeaning. It was like asking Mason to give him a cuddle. He’d rather stride about in the nude than degrade himself by putting on that murderer’s clothes. He would have to cover himself with one of the blankets he had noticed on the corner chair.
Kate, unfortunately, misread his reasoning and gasped when she returned to the hall to find him standing bare-arsed before the hearth, the blanket he’d been about to use grasped in his fist.
“Good heavens, man! Where is your modesty?”
“What modesty?”
“It’s a good thing for you that it’s dark in here, or I might never have recovered from your display of—of everything.”
“I wanted to give you a fire.”
“Well, you gave me a shock.”
She put one hand over her eyes. The other held an unfastened gown to her shoulders. “I was going to ask you to hook the back of this dress, but in view of your natural state, I think I’ll just go back upstairs and lock the door until daylight.”
“Kate, don’t. I’ll put my clothes back on.”
“I knew this would be a mistake.”
“Please. I feel unmanned, if you must know the truth.”
She peeked at him through her fingers. “From an impartial glance, you don’t look it.”
“I can’t wear Mason’s trousers. They’ll be too tight in the balls for one thing, and—” He glanced around. “Where the hell did I put my clothes?”
“For the love of all that is holy, Sir Colin, I swear this has been a diabolical strategy on your part to lure me to a lonely spot and render me helpless by the removal of our clothing.”
He let several moments elapse before he answered her accusation. “Do you really believe that I am that devious?”
She lowered her hand from her face. “Yes. Absolutely, and I should have known better.”
He knotted the blanket around his hips and picked up another that had slipped off the chair. “Are you accusing me of provoking Brian to run away with that poor animal and staging a dramatic rescue in the rain?”
“Did you?”
“By damn, I’ve been accused of many sins in my life, but none of this magnitude. Yes, you’ve caught me out. What a production that was. You can’t believe how much effort it took to have people hurling buckets of water from the rooftops and the trees as we passed beneath.”
“Yes or no?” she asked, turning the instant he brushed toward her to find his shirt.
He let the second blanket drop to the floor so that he could place his hands on her bare shoulders. “That would make me the most devious man on earth, and you the most desirable woman, which I am afraid you are—” He lowered his head to hers. “Yes, I wanted you alone. I crave you like a wild animal chained inside a cave craves freedom. You’re the only woman who can release me.” He dragged his mouth down her neck. “Or is it you that needs to be set free?”
“Animal,” she whispered with a resigned smile, and he realized that she hadn’t made any attempt to move. “So there was nothing that had to be said between us in private?”
“No. Yes.” He placed one hand on the small of her back. “Sometimes you look so lonely that I know it would be easy to slip past your guard. I wanted to bring you out of the cold. I wanted a chance to make you warm.”
* * *
She was frozen on the surface but felt molten beneath her skin, rivulets of blood unthawing in her veins, emotions seething, seeking a vent, escape from a pond so overcoated with ice that one could skate upon her in midsummer without fear she would crack. Suspended. Half-alive. Her needs submerged. She shrank from his touch, afraid of what would happen when he exposed her to his warmth. He kissed the corners of her mouth, his hand rising to her shoulder, where she grasped the gown to conceal the scars another man had left upon her body. How grateful she was for the darkness.
“Come upstairs,” he coaxed her.
She felt a flicker of panic. “I won’t lie on that bed. I don’t know how many people have used it, and for what purpose.”
“Then lie with me in front of the—on the floor. The carpet at least is dry.”
He led her forward. To her disbelief she let him draw her down beside him. “Are you warmer now?” he whispered, rubbing his hand down her arm.
She nodded. His strong fingers sent shocks of heat through her skin. She refused to lower the gown still draped over her shoulders, even though it provided a negligible defense in a situation like this. If he had pursued revenge for thirteen years, would he allow a flimsy barrier of old silk to stop his pursuit of pleasure? Could she summon the resolve to deny him?
He leaned over her. She stared up in fascination at his strongly sculpted face and shoulders. Darkness became him. But then, he had nothing to hide. “I could make you warmer,” he whispered, his eyes inviting her to play.
His hand slipped from her elbow, descending indecently to slip beneath the gown to the smooth skin of her belly. Her muscles tightened in suspense. She inhaled to calm the rapid pounding of her heart. His fingers stroked in slow persuasion over her wet curls, parting the swollen lips of her sex for his exploration. She could not see properly, but she could feel. Oh, how she wanted to know, to experience just once the passion he offered. Her blood sang in readiness. But for what? How far did he intend to take her? He
tempted her with so little effort on his part; he touched her where she was still innocent and throbbed for a merciful relief.
She lifted her head. “What are you doing?”
He glanced up at her in undisguised arousal. “Pleasuring you. Am I the first to have the privilege?”
She couldn’t answer. She wasn’t ashamed to admit she was a virgin, but the impulses she felt bewildered her. Why did she bask in his sweet humiliation?
“Answer me,” he said, inserting only the tip of his finger inside her. “Are you a virgin?”
He waited, allowing her to understand, accept his invitation, submit to his sexual power. He could wait a century, she thought. He could seduce her body, demand she respond. But he couldn’t break the bonds of shame that she carried every moment of her existence.
“I am,” she said. “And I would like to give myself to the man I will marry.”
He bent his head to her neck, his voice heavy with desire. “I envy the man who takes your virtue and shares your bed. I envy the man who marries you.”
She quivered. His mouth abraded her throat, her neck, the tops of her breasts. His tongue circled the outline of her nipples through her gown. With each caress her craving for him grew. Her hips moved helplessly against his hand. She needed him to fill the hollow ache she felt inside. She couldn’t control the moisture that gathered between her thighs and dampened his hand. She was so embarrassed by her body’s response to his petting that she reached down blindly to make sure the gown covered her scars. Inadvertently she touched the hard bulge beneath the blanket. His body jerked in reaction or she might have stroked the shape of him once more.
“Do that again, and we’ll both be in trouble,” he said softly, his instincts sharp. “You like what I’m doing, don’t you?”
She moaned, silently begging him to break the tension that was mounting inside her by the moment.
“Is there a man you plan to marry?” he asked, his thumb stroking the sensitive knot above her cleft. She went tight in every muscle, suspended in a deep pulse of impending pleasure.
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