by Joan Vincent
“I’ll take the ones going that way. You and Thornley catch those,” Geary shouted, pointing at two men scudding in the wake of the first pair.
Lucian was about to shout a warning when a man loomed out of the gloom. Before he could react an oar slammed into his midsection. The man raced away as Lucian doubled over and staggered back.
Gasping for air, his sabre still in hand, Lucian clutched his stomach. A moment later he stumbled after the fellow. He gained speed as the pain receded.
At the bottom of the track Sir Brandon looked to the right but found neither sign nor sound of Captain Geary. He smiled and walked to the right, his head cocked for the smallest noise. The faint thud of booted feet on the cobblestone between the melange of houses built along the quay drifted to him. Merristorm, he thought. A wolfish grin curved his lips. “You’ve the luck of the devil but you’ll be mine soon enough.”
Chapter Eighteen
Lucian trudged up the one hundred and ninety-nine steps to St. Mary’s Church. At the top he slumped down on the top step and started to reach for the flask usually found inside his jacket. Halfway there he stayed his hand and slowly lowered it.
The moment of triumph dissolved in a harsh laugh. His sobriety had not been tested. There was no bottle of spirits to be had. Ruth, he imagined, had probably removed it while he was unconscious on the journey to Whitby.
Sore and exhausted from his fruitless search for the men who had attacked Geary, Lucian tiredly got to his feet. To his great relief the bay gelding stood drowsing in the graveyard. Alongside his mount stood Thornley’s.
What had happened to Sir Brandon, Lucian didn’t know. Had he imagined the threat in the other man’s eyes? It seemed preposterous that he would wish him ill.
Neither does my being in Whitby make sense, Lucian thought. He pulled himself into the saddle wincing at the protest of sore muscles and nudged the gelding toward Church Street.
The ruins caught Lucian’s eye as he rode past. The sight of the two remaining towers and the top ledge caused him to involuntarily tighten his hands on the reins. The gelding obediently halted. Lucian stared at the moonlit ledge. It was very like the inner courtyard walk at Halstrom Keep.
Ruth had asked him to open his mind. The request had festered relentlessly and gnawed at his certainty. Lucian’s gut clenched.
Open your heart and mind to the truth of what happened.
He looked back at the ledge. Sweat beaded on his brow. Like Atlas’ eternal labour Lucian had struggled for years to escape the horrific scene always to be crushed by it. Even now the urge to avoid thinking about it, to escape any memory of it gripped him.
But the certainty that Ruth would not ask him anything which would harm him steadied Lucian. Before his nerve weakened he closed his eyes and began to strip away the shields he had welded about that ghastly scene.
To his amazement wild terror did not inundate Lucian; did not threaten suffocation. In its place, like a rush of cleansing water, rose a deep sadness. His long implacable conviction about Jasmine’s death wavered and weakened. Lucian struggled to recall the scene and yet see it with a more dispassionate eye. He trembled with the effort and grabbed hold the thought of Ruth as his anchor.
Then once again he was in the courtyard. Jasmine pushed away from his father. Lucian’s heart stuttered.
She pushed away? His father did not push her?
Doubts, questions never before permitted shimmered. The stew of hard-hearted certainty and the constant numbness of drink fluctuated, ebbed toward confusion.
Lucian threw back his head, his mouth open wide. Only at the last moment did he stifle an agonized cry. It came to him that he had faced his nightmare with a clear head and had not been cleaved in twain by the terrible sabre of guilt. Lucian licked his lips as he lowered his head. The tumble and jumble of questions eased at a new sensation.
So strange was the lightness about his heart that he pressed a hand to it. Relief, Lucian thought in wonder but recognized it was fear-tinged even in its dissimilarity of his earlier dread.
Ruth.
He hadn’t suffered the nightmare since he had met Ruth. She had freed him. She was in danger. She too could still be lost. An urge seized Lucian to ride hell bent for the St. Cedds’ vicarage, to take Ruth up before him, and ride until the hounds of hell could not catch them.
Lucian jabbed his heels into the gelding’s flanks. Its startled leap forward and the rush of cold air as it galloped towards the vicarage cooled Lucian’s fevered thoughts. His hardened light dragoon’s brain took over and cleaved off at the roots the wild urge to escape with Ruth.
Even if Ruth loved me, she would never leave her family to the mercy of strangers.
Lucian tried to swallow the lump that leapt to his throat so fiercely that tears threatened.
Even if Ruth loved me.
In the next instant he saw himself as she must. Cold gripped his heart. But how can she love one such as I? That she could not flowed toward mounting certainty. It dealt him such a blow he shuddered, nearly lost his grip on the reins. Instinct alone enabled him to keep his seat.
Shaken to the core, Lucian slowed the gelding to a walk. It was, he realized, much like the moment he realized Jasmine was dead, but this was somehow worse.
Worse because Ruth could still be harmed?
Damme Geary for drawing me away this eve. Bloody hell. Damme me for going to meet him, Lucian silently groaned. An ominous sense that he had missed or forgotten something jittered along his nerves. Have I met Geary in the past? Is he a danger to Ruth?
Lucian’s jaws clenched with bone-crushing force. He again sent his mount leaping forward.
You’re seeing enemies everywhere you turn, Lucian scoffed. Thornley and Geary? Is my mind clouded by too many years of too much port and brandy?
But Lucian knew he had seen amused contempt in Geary’s gaze. It said only fools become so disguised with drink that they couldn’t remember what they did or where they were and why.
Never again, Lucian swore, never again will that happen.
* * *
Lucian stood in the vicarage’s kitchen and listened to the silence of the house. This is too much like being called to battle only to find the enemy vanished.
Thundering into the overgrown yard he had vaulted from the saddle, leapt up the stairs. When Lucian has thrown open the front door he only found an ordinary quiet and the soft glow of lantern light from the kitchen.
Common sense returned as he stabled the gelding for the night. Chagrin teased at Lucian.
He sighed, thought to go upstairs to bed, and decided against it. Instead Merristorm drew out a chair and sat at the table. He stifled a yawn then cupped his forehead.
Still afraid to sleep? his demon sneered. Afraid of a nightmare? A different nightmare?
Propping his elbow on the table Lucian set his chin on the back of one hand. He shut his eyes and saw the image of Ruth, her hand outstretched as she teetered on the brink of the cliff.
Go to bed. She is safe.
The need to see Ruth, to touch her stirred and flared, flame to tinder. The lust still surprised him. It too, Ruth had brought back. He shook his head.
Nothing has changed. I’m the same man I was this morn. Still the same man after I grabbed Ruth’s hand and pulled her to safety.
Even as he mused on that, Thornley’s accusation that it looked like Lucian meant to harm her leapt to the fore.
Could it have looked like I meant to push Ruth off the cliff? His rational mind said yes. But accepting that idea widened the fissure that now existed in the solid granite of his belief about what had happened that awful day at Halstrom Keep.
Why didn’t you ask your father what happened? Came the question whispered in Sampson’s voice.
Lucian lowered his head, clasped it with his hands. You can’t change the past. Stop thinking about it, he willed. He turned his head toward the cabinet. There sat the bottle of sherry beside the low burning lamp.
Drink me. Forget Ruth. S
he cannot be your Hecate.
Lucian stared at his hands. Hardly a tremble but that caused by fear for her. Would the sherry drown the fear?
“You know better than that,” Lucian muttered and lurched upright.
The sherry again captured his gaze. It beckoned, tempted.
One step and one only Lucian took before he remembered his vow of never again. A seemingly unanswerable plague of questions tore at him. He turned, stalked to the back door, and stepped into the cold night. The frosty nip in the air relieved with its distraction. Exhaustion overwhelmed him. Suddenly it was too much effort to even stand. Without realizing it Lucian sank down on the step.
The heartache of the past and present, for what could never be grew more severe with each breath. The weight of it bowed Lucian’s until his forehead rested on his knees.
* * *
Ruth stood poised on the edge of the cliff. She reached toward Lucian with desperate urgency and watched him hesitate. The ground began to crumble and slither away from beneath her foot. Lucian thrust his hand at her.
Blinking awake, Ruth wrapped her arms about her to try and still her violent trembling. She stared at her father and slowly it came. Whitby. St. Cedds. Lucian.
This afternoon her father had wondered off and nearly been lost. The vileness of that fear surged again. It was familiar to her but now a new fear mingled with it. This afternoon she had almost fallen from a cliff.
Closing her eyes Ruth saw the dream. Rather she saw the moment in the dream when she realized Lucian hesitated. Why was that worse than falling from a cliff? He had saved her. The violent pounding of his heart as he crushed her to him matched her own.
The dream shimmered. Lucian’s dark eyes blazed with passion. It called hers to life. Ruth sucked in her breath. Just the thought of Lucian Merristorm did that. Just as suddenly she was cold to the bone.
Lucian had hesitated. Had that moment been real or was it just the dream? Just a nightmare?
Ruth heard Sampson’s breath catch and shudder into a snore. He pushed the coverlet off his chest and then lay still. The snore snapped Ruth’s gaze back to him. She shivered again, but this time against the pervading chill of the chamber. She noticed that her woollen shawl had slipped from her shoulders.
Sitting upright Ruth drew the shawl up and wrapped it about her arms. She leaned forward and drew the coverlet back to her father’s chin and caressed his cheek. Tears brimmed.
Foolish gel, Ruth scolded. The candle had almost burnt out. Careless waste of a candle, she told herself trying to keep the thought of Lucian at bay. She rose with the stiffness brought on by uneasy sleep in a hard chair.
You should have thanked Lucian, niggled that part of her that was the prim vicar’s daughter.
A sob silently caught in her throat. He is not heart whole. He cannot come to me willingly with his whole self to give. He hesitates.
But he desires you. You desire him, insisted the voice.
Ruth strode to the door but halted when she reached it. I have Father and Marietta. And Jemmy, Ruth realized. Lucian will not take the boy when he leaves.
When he leaves.
The phrase echoed over and over in her mind. With each repetition the chill about her heart deepened.
It is true. You know it is true, Ruth forced the thought even as she hoped to deny it. Just like Rob.
But this time it would be much worse. Ruth knew now that her heart had not truly been involved there. After Lucian’s kisses, from his touch that fired a need that threatened all her resolves, she knew.
With father and Marietta he will never offer marriage. Besides you cannot wed a drunkard. That is what he is, she thought with ruthless honesty. The cause lay too deep, his trust too thin. Only pain lay in wishing to wed Lucian.
You love him, a tiny voice cried feebly.
Desire. Lust, Ruth thought harshly. Neither are love.
The deadly intent in Lucian’s eyes when he had attacked Thornley returned with all the frightening force of that moment.
Neither lust nor love could succeed against the darkness in Lucian.
Ruth opened the door and walked toward her chamber. Marriage brought ordinary hardships that required quiet bravery and faith. Brave Lucian was. Faith he had not, not even in himself. She sighed. Who had destroyed it?
What destroyed his faith? blazed through Ruth. Without considering the consequences she turned and half ran to Lucian’s chamber. The door stood open. She gazed at the neatly made bed, so at odds with the volatile Lucian.
Dread slowly seeped over her as the candle’s flame fluttered out. Was he even now gone?
Ruth rejected that thought out of hand. Was he in Whitby? Drinking? Was he below? Foxed? Denial formed on her lips but uncertainty froze it. Unable to bear it, Ruth turned and slipped silently down the stairs.
The soft glow of a lamp in the kitchen drew Ruth to it. The draft brushed her ankles as she set the burnt out candle on the counter. She saw the open back door. Before Ruth reached it she saw a solid hulk dark against the night.
Lucian.
An aura of intense grief radiated from him. Her cares slipped away as Ruth’s heart keened in answer. Denial of her love was impossible in face of this. Ruth opened her heart. She accepted the piercing pain that was as much a part of love as joy, like the rose with its thorns.
Slipping through the open door Ruth sat beside Lucian. She slipped her arm across his back, shawl in hand to offer warmth, and then leaned her head against his arm and tightened her hold. She willed him ease of mind and heart.
Before the whisper of her steps Lucian knew Ruth stood behind him. Her scent brought the usual inundation of longing, but so fierce it rocked him. He stiffened at her wordless embrace but the temptation was too great. He lowered his guard and accepted her solace. To his great surprise the darkness of his soul eased.
In the peace of that miracle Lucian savoured the press of Ruth’s arm across his back, her hand on his side, her head on his shoulder. In minute increments he eased his arm around her waist and leaned his forehead against Ruth’s.
Serenity stole into a corner of Lucian’s heart. What was this wonder? If only— Lucian stiffened at the impossible thought, pulled away.
Ruth raised her head.
They gazed at each other. The faint glow from the kitchen cast their faces in shadow but they required no light. Inexorably closer their hearts drew them. Their lips feathered, deepened with incredulity, mesmerized. Lucian and Ruth drew back and stared at the other in wonder.
When Ruth raised a hand to Lucian’s cheek, the sensual glide of her palm across his bristled skin proved flint to desire.
They clung to each other and kissed with wild abandon, cast adrift on a raging sea. Lips meshed, tongues twined, hands sought frantic purchase as they gulped the searing wine of passion.
Lucian sucked in his breath when Ruth splayed her hands across his chest. He leaned into them and cupped the soft mound of her breast. Caressing the already peaked nub he shuddered at her tremor of delight.
Ruth arched into his hand. Lucian thought he must surely shatter. With pounding urgency he fumbled at the buttons on the back of her gown. As the third slipped free and Ruth worked at those on his shirt a creak inside the kitchen pierced Lucian’s dazed mind. At the second odd sound the hair on the nap of his neck rose and a chill nipped at the heat in his veins.
Someone was in the kitchen.
Ruth. He could not let anyone find Ruth like this. Protect Ruth beat the mantra in his veins. Lust twisted, coalesced into an overwhelming need to see Ruth safe. Painfully wrenching control over desire, Lucian reluctantly freed Ruth’s lips and pressed her head into the hollow of his shoulder to keep her from the sight of the intruder.
Listening keenly Lucian heard only the pounding of their hearts and their breathlessness. Was no one there? Continuing silence answered there was not.
He damned whatever had set off his instinct for danger. Damned it and then knew it was best. Ruth deserved so much more than this
moment. He wanted more for them than a wild dance she would surely come to regret. His will steeled against his desire, Lucian slowly forced himself to loosen his hold and draw back.
“What is wrong?”
The warm brush of Ruth’s breath tested Lucian’s mettle, but he somehow kept his grip on sanity. Thank God he hadn’t drunk the sherry. If he had, Ruth would be stripped and writhing beneath him on the kitchen floor. If we had even made it into the kitchen.
A virtuous vicar’s daughter, his demon chimed.
Lucian cursed. But then an idea flashed before him like a bright light. Breath whooshed out of his lungs. How simple the solution. He grasped Ruth’s upper arms. “We will wed,” he blurted.
The words jarred Ruth but also thrilled her. She clutched his collar with one hand, pushed back against his chest with the other. Her breath lodged in her throat. “Why?”
“’Tis the best answer,” Lucian said.
The words rang petulant as if she were a recalcitrant child who could not understand. She stared at him in shock.
“It solves everything,” he continued.
Ruth found she could not draw a deep breath. A cold strangling strand began to creep about her heart.
Lucian brushed a kiss across her lips. Finding them cool and lifeless he stared at her. “Surely you see how simple that would make everything,” he insisted. “There would no longer be a problem with your father or your safety. None even with your reputation,” Lucian explained. “Will not your life be easier if we wed?”
“You think I will wed you for . . .” Ruth searched and found, “convenience?” When he said nothing she hugged her hurt and blurted, “My father is not a problem.”
Angry that he had handled this badly Lucian snapped, “Don’t be a child.”
“Is gratitude what you want? If so, saving my life was enough to earn it.”
“Ruth—”
She surged upright and tugged fiercely at the shawl now caught behind his back.
“Ruth,” Lucian said in disbelief as he also got to his feet.
“No. ” Ruth wasn’t certain what she denied. She had to escape before that part of her that longed for the comfort of his arms won this battle. She pulled the shawl tightly around her and brushed past him.