Richard hated pulling his boots on without socks. Would hate more walking in them. It was a fit punishment for what he’d done.
He decided the best action would be to take his signal from Grace. If she wanted to discuss what happened between them, he would—although he hadn’t a clue what to say. After all, he’d been alone all his life. He didn’t express himself freely to others. It wasn’t his nature.
His biggest fear was that he should say something first.
Grace was putting out the fire when he returned, kicking wet dirt and leaves over the smoldering flame. “Your breakfast is on that stick.” She nodded to a stick staked into the ground.
“Thank you.” He picked up the stick. “You look well this morning.”
“I am.”
His appetite left. There was an undercurrent in her curt “I am.”
And he didn’t know where to go next with it.
“Are you ready to go?” she asked. She had yet to look at him. “I don’t know how far we’ll have to walk to reach a cottage or perhaps even a village.”
She was so capable. She made him feel like a damn eunuch.
“Grace, about last night—”
“Last night was nothing, Mr. Lynsted. We do what we must to survive. Are you going to eat your rabbit or shall we start walking?”
She didn’t wait for a response but started up the hill toward the road.
Richard watched her a moment, annoyed by her brisk authority. His memory might be a bit hazy because he was almost frozen to the core last night, but he recalled her being a willing participant. Had she not kissed his shoulder? His neck?
She’d disappeared from view, not once looking back. She behaved as she had when first they’d met. High-handed, distant, cold.
Richard tossed the rabbit aside and started up the hill after her.
He caught up with her on the road. His earlier discomfort and shyness had evaporated. He was boiling angry and surprisingly hurt. “Out with it,” he ordered as he fell into step beside her.
“Out with what?” she asked, her eyes on the road ahead of them.
Richard used his longer stride to block her path. “I want to talk to you about last night.”
She smiled, the expression cynical. “That’s unnecessary. There’s nothing to say.”
“There damn well is.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, sounding bored. “Congratulations, you’ve won the wager on bedding me.”
Grace would have walked around him, but he wasn’t letting her go on that note. He took hold of her. “Why are you being this way?”
She frowned at his hand on her person. Last night he’d had his hands on her hips, her waists, her breasts…
He’d not remove his hand now.
Her lips compressed in resentment. She stared at some point on his wool greatcoat. If she thought he’d back down at her silence, she was wrong.
The doubts he’d nursed evaporated. “I don’t like you this way. You act hurt.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. For the first time that morning, she looked at him. “I’m not.”
“I’d rather you let me freeze to death, than shut me out. That’s what you are doing, isn’t it?”
“Don’t we have other concerns to worry over—such as Dawson hunting us down or having to walk our way to Inverness? This isn’t important.”
She didn’t think she was important.
Richard had never thought himself astute, but he heard what she didn’t say. He felt it. It would be far more simple to let her go, to keep the distance between them.
But that wasn’t what he wanted.
Words he never thought he’d express came to his lips. “I know what it means to always protect yourself. To think no one cares. Or that you don’t matter. But you do matter, Grace. Perhaps, a week ago I would have been a ‘prig.’” He deliberately used the word she’d hurled at him. “I might have judged you, judged myself. I don’t. Do you understand?”
She considered him, her blue eyes solemn—and he knew he hadn’t said the right thing. It wasn’t enough. He knew that as clearly as if she’d spoken.
“I understand,” she answered. “I—” She stopped, as if thinking better of what she might have said, drew a deep breath, and then released it, her gaze drifting toward the rushing river beyond the trees lining the road.
“Grace?”
She smiled, the expression forced. “I’m not angry.”
“Then what is it?”
Another deep breath. A shrug. Then a confession, but not on the subject he wanted. “I worry about my father. And us. I don’t want matters to change between us. No awkwardness. I did what I must.”
“Yes,” he agreed. She was evading his concerns. She didn’t want to talk about the night before, and who was he to force her?
He released his hold. She nodded, her gaze slipping away from his and the wall once again rising between them.
She started walking and he followed. He could have told her that what had happened last night had meant something to him…but that would have called for trust, and he wasn’t ready for that. Apparently no more than she was.
Besides, the only woman he’d been with was her. For all he knew, everyone felt this used after a night like the one they’d had.
She didn’t owe him anything, so there it was.
“Do you believe Dawson will come looking for us?” she asked.
Richard appreciated a new direction for his thoughts. “I believe he’ll go to my uncle. My one hope is my father will learn of this and ask questions.”
Her silence reminded him that she thought his father was guilty.
“My father is not involved,” he said.
“You don’t want him to be.”
“I don’t…any more than you want to believe your father capable of a crime.” Tired of defending his father, he took the conversation toward a new tack. “Tell me, what will you do once you clear your father’s name?”
The smile that came to her lips was genuine. The tightness left her shoulders. “I don’t know. I used to dream of going to my cousin’s house and announcing to everyone they’d been wrong about Father. My uncle is an earl. Lord Cairn.”
Richard had not heard of him.
“When I was girl, they would invite my mother and me to their manor but you could hear them whispering about us. We were the charity cases. My uncle’s money kept food on our table and a roof over our heads.” She walked a few paces more and then added, “Mother was very envious.”
“And you were not? I would be,” Richard stated.
“I was too grateful to be envious,” Grace said. “My cousin Jenny and her brothers had the best books. There were pictures in every one of them. Their governess would read to me. She said the others wouldn’t listen to her but I always listened. My uncle always made certain I was included in whatever ball or rout or festivity they held.”
“That was generous of him.”
“It was. And he’d see that I had Jenny’s cast-offs. Mother hated that I wore them, but I wasn’t so proud.” Her smiled faded. “When I’ve proven my father’s innocence, I’m going to see my uncle. I’m going to thank him for what he did for me. I know he doesn’t believe I appreciated it. I fear he’s become sorely disappointed in me.”
“If your father was falsely accused, and my uncle’s actions make it appear that is true, then your family will understand.”
“Do you think?” The cynicism returned to her face, this time in her eyes. “Will all the loose ends be tied up neatly? You are the last person I would have thought a romantic.”
Her criticism stung. “If tying up the loose ends isn’t what you want, then why go through this?”
“Because I want to go home.” Her voice ached with longing. She glanced at him, suddenly shy. “Do I surprise you? I don’t belong in London. I miss my Highlands and Inverness where I know every street and the name of every family who live there. It’s taken me time, but I now know I should not have left. It’s the only
place I’ve felt safe.”
“But you could always have gone home.”
“I wasn’t strong enough,” she said cryptically. “I am now.” Her words were more than a statement. They were a resolution. “You are starting to hobble,” she observed, changing the direction of the conversation.
Even though he was curious to learn more about her past, Richard knew she was done. “By the end of today, I may be willing to kill for a pair of wool socks.”
She laughed, the earlier tension between them slowly evaporating. “I imagine you might. We’ll see what we can find.”
“Find?” he repeated.
“One never knows what will crop up on the road. I’ve lived this life before. We’ll barter or do whatever to find you socks.”
“Do you think we might also find a razor?” he wondered, running a hand over his jaw. “Or am I pressing my luck?”
“We can try. You are already starting to look very roguish.”
“Roguish?” he questioned, secretly hoping for a compliment, anything that would indicate she was as attracted to him as he was her.
“Yes,” she said. “Another day’s growth and we can pass you off as a highwayman.”
The comparison pleased Richard. “From prig to highwayman. I sense I’m making progress.”
“Aye, you are. But we’ll have to find a dark steed for you. One that will make all the women swoon at the sight of you riding down the road upon it—what is it? What do you see?”
“I think there is a bridge up ahead. There, to the right. Can you see it?” He didn’t wait for her answer but took her hand. “Come along.”
She had to skip to keep up with him.
He’d been right. There was a bridge across the river and on the other side a good-sized village that included a mill on one side of the road and a small Norman church on the other.
“Come,” he ordered, not letting go of the hand he had taken.
Three dogs barked an angry warning as they crossed the bridge. They were hounds of dubious parentage and they stood on the other side of the river, warning at a distance.
As Richard approached them, he held out his hand. The barking stopped but they didn’t take a sniff. Instead, they kept their distance, escorting Richard and Grace as they entered the village.
There wasn’t any activity on the street. Save for the turning mill wheel, all seemed very quiet.
“What do you think?” Grace wondered.
“I’m not certain yet,” Richard answered.
“Perhaps we don’t want to linger here.”
“Perhaps…but first, let’s find someone and ask where we are,” he said.
There was no one in the mill house.
Richard started up the street toward the church, Grace trailing a step behind him. The cottages were freshly whitewashed with clean thatched roofs. One house had a lamb bleating in the walled front garden. Some chickens ran across the road in front of them. The dogs did not give chase.
At last, they saw inhabitants. A group of eight men and women huddled by the back of an oxen cart parked close to the church door. They looked up at the sound of Richard and Grace’s approach.
Three more men stepped out of cottage doorways. They were dressed in homespun and had the air of good, solid yeomen.
Grace stopped. “Something is not right here,” she whispered, pulling her hand from his. “The expressions on those people’s faces are too solemn.”
“The Scots are never over friendly,” he said, sensing nothing of her concern now that they had finally seen inhabitants.
She reached for his arm. “Please, I don’t feel good about this. There is something in the air here. Let’s leave now.”
Richard looked to the people standing by the cart. The dogs had trotted over to them. All seemed normal, albeit a bit quiet. Perhaps that was because of the March wind and the heavy clouds hanging in the sky.
“We can’t walk to Inverness,” he said. “We need help and this is the best we have for right now. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”
Grace shook her head, glancing around her. “We are strangers here and you are English. Sometimes it is best to keep moving.”
“Why should you be worried I’m English?”
“Scotland is a long way from London, Mr. Lynsted. And there are many places where we Scots nurse grudges against the English. Let’s move on.”
“We will, once I discover where we are. Stand behind me if you have doubts.”
She stepped into his shadow immediately.
The villagers were watching them now. Richard felt he had to speak. They would have looked like suspicious characters if he didn’t. Besides, they were standing in front of a church.
“Hello,” he said in greeting as he walked closer.
No one answered back, and that’s when he noticed a man’s legs hanging out of the back of the cart. He recognized his father and uncle’s livery.
Richard moved toward those legs, almost certain of what he’d find. He hadn’t gone more than a few steps when his hunch was proven correct in the form of Herbert’s bloated, drowned body.
Sadness weighed down upon him. He’d known the valet the majority of his life. He wondered what inducement his uncle had dangled in front of the once loyal servant to make him willingly attempt to murder Grace—and what he could do to make his uncle pay for the crime.
“I know that man,” he said to the group. He would claim Herbert’s body and see that he was sent back to London and his family for a decent burial.
“You do now, do you?” a gray-haired, grim-faced man demanded with the air of a leader. A clergyman came out of the church. He was dressed in black from head to toe and had a long beard.
“I do,” Richard answered.
“And I’m thinking we know you, too,” the grim-faced man said. “We have a description of you.”
“Of me?” Richard shook his head. “Why would you have a description of me?”
“Because a fellow you tried to kill, Dawson, the one that escaped, gave it to us,” the yeoman said. “Told us you had already murdered one man by throwing him in the river. This here is his body, isn’t it? We fished it out for you. And sure enough, you know him. Besides, there isn’t many lads who have the size and looks of you. Or who appear as if they’ve been roughed up a bit.”
“Dawson lied,” Richard answered, conscious that the three yeomen blocked his escape in the opposite direction and the men around the oxen cart had fanned out. “I didn’t kill Herbert. He fell into the river on his own.”
“We’ll let the magistrate decide that,” the grim-faced man answered. “Take him, lads.”
Before Richard could move, he was jumped on all sides.
Chapter Twelve
Richard’s first concern was to protect Grace.
With a roar of fury, he shoved his attackers away. They came back with fists. He doubled his own and gave better than he received. First one man went down and then another.
The moment he could, he turned to Grace—except she was gone. Vanished.
He had assumed she was following him, that she stood behind him. She wasn’t there, but a host of villagers had appeared from those silent, closed cottages and were coming to join the fight.
Richard knew his best option was to run. No one here was listening to reason. Grace had warned him. She had been right. Again.
However, before he could take flight, he was hit against the side of his head with something heavy and hard. There was a burst of light, and then his world went black.
Richard’s eyes didn’t want to open. When he finally did raise his lids, the world was still black, the air dry. He could not see even his hand in front of his face. He drifted off to sleep.
When he woke the second time, the morning sun blazed right in his face. He raised a hand to block the light, surprised to realize he was lying on the floor. A dirt floor.
Memories of seeing Herbert’s body in the cart and being jumped by the villagers came back to him—and he
knew wherever he was, it was not where he wanted to be.
Rolling over, he took stock of his surroundings. He was on the floor of an eight-by-eight-foot room with thick stone walls. The smell of onions, potatoes, and cured meats lingered in the air. The hooks in the ceiling rafter beneath a thatched roof confirmed his suspicion he was in a larder. The door was of heavy wood planks with a small arched window at eye level.
Of course, there was nothing in here now. Not even a stick.
His stomach grumbled with hunger. It had obviously been hours since he’d tossed aside the rabbit Grace had caught and cooked.
Now he was happy she’d left him. His hope was that she’d managed to escape. In fact, she’d been wise to leave him. So far, he’d botched everything.
Carefully, Richard came to his feet. He still wore his boots. That was a good sign, but the bars over the small window in the door quickly sobered any optimism.
He walked over to them and peered out. The church wasn’t far from his cell. He could see the mill wheel turning and villagers going about their morning business—
“So you are up, eh?” A man’s grizzled face blocked his view. “Didn’t think with that hard head of yours you’d be asleep so long. Must have hit you harder than I’d thought. Slept the night through.”
Richard didn’t answer. He worried about Grace, silently praying she was safe.
“Nothing to say, eh? Well, you’ll be talking once you meet Douglas. He’s gone for the magistrate. We decided not to wait for that man from London. We’ll hang you on the morrow,” he concluded gleefully.
“Hungry,” Richard said, the word little more than a croak. He was going to need to eat if he wanted the strength to face his accusers. Actually, he wasn’t that distressed they were fetching the magistrate. He had no doubt he could convince the man of his innocence.
After all, Richard was a lawyer.
The magistrate was a heavyset man with thick jowls and a tuft of yellow hair on top of his head and above each ear.
Court had been set up in the church’s vestibule. The villagers had all crammed into the small space so they could see and hear everything. Richard surmised he had inadvertently supplied them with more excitement than they usually experienced in any decade of their quiet lives.
The Marriage Ring Page 13