by Liz Tyner
‘I would not shoot you in the back.’ Her gaze darted to the ground.
With the horses around them, they were almost imprisoned against each other.
She continued, ‘When I caught up with you, I thought I might take your hat off.’
‘You’ve no idea how a bullet can go astray.’
She kept her tone even. ‘I merely wished to converse with you in a way you could not ignore.’
‘I cannot ignore your voice. It’s like trying to ignore a needle sticking into my eye. You are jabbing me. Over and over.’
‘Sir, you would desert me in the woods.’ She leaned into him and he felt her form push against him. He knew she was being aggressive, but his body didn’t understand. It didn’t even realise she smelled of horse and grated his nerves. His insides near purred at the closeness of her and kept urging him to forget all unkind words and speak very softly and tenderly to her. His hand called to touch her cheek and his knees wanted to bend and beg her forgiveness.
‘Shoot me now.’ He raised his hands.
He remembered the warmth of her as he’d tried to put the trousers on her. The swirl of her clothing around him as she dressed. He recalled the feel of being in her bedchamber. The innocence of her gentle breaths while she slept.
The women at the tavern hadn’t caused desire to simmer in him. This woman did. He frowned. That part of him had been buried so long. It had died along with Mary. Why had it chosen now to return? And around this annoying princess who’d been so sheltered she had no real grasp of anything?
She’d felt softer than any flower petal. And her skin—he didn’t have to even touch it to know what it would feel like in his hands.
She didn’t realise his attention to her words had been lost. She continued speaking and he felt with each word her body drawing closer to his, and he forced his feet to stay still and his arms to remain at his sides. And one other annoying part of him which he had thought had died needed to return to wherever it had been because it kept choosing the wrong moments to resurrect itself.
His damn traitorous body was listening to every move she made with rapt attention. It was no more sensible than she was.
He’d had experienced women trying to entice him to share their beds, but this chirping little bedlamite was making him wonder what it would be like to hold her against him and kiss her softly on to the ground. Would she be shocked, or would she purr and pull him closer?
He’d never tried to seduce any woman. With Mary, they’d been so young and things had progressed comfortably and easily. He’d been tracking dirt on to the floor to irritate her and the next thing he knew he’d been climbing into her window at night.
He’d never courted. He’d just bedded and wedded.
‘I think,’ she spoke, her voice even more shrill than before, ‘I will defend my honour. I will find your pistol and call you out. We can dispense with seconds and we will duel here in the darkness.’
‘And you have never held a pistol before tonight? You must be the most absurd woman in the world. And the world is full of absurd women.’
‘Could you shoot me?’ she asked, her voice timid.
‘Not at this moment—’ he heard his voice rise ‘—but that could change.’
‘Well, then why would now not be the best time for me to duel with you?’ she asked, eyes wide in question and lips firm in confidence. She moved again, little more than a twist towards him.
That twist could have aroused any part of his body it touched. No, he had no desire to shoot her.
‘Witch,’ he spat out.
Her head turned back to the ground and she searched as if her life depended on it. He hunted with her, his eyes staring at the ruts and his jaw clenched. He couldn’t let her test the trigger on the gun. She’d likely blow herself up.
For some reason, he didn’t trust she only meant to get his attention. He feared she would miss and kill the horse and he’d be stranded and, while he did like to walk, he didn’t wish to walk all the way back to his room.
He looked to the ground, hoping to see the pistol. Kicking the mud and grass and dirt this way and that, he searched.
He heard her sharp intake of breath and she bent quickly, reaching to the ground.
His legs shortened the distance between them in a flash, but she jerked the gun away.
Brandt’s arm curled around her waist, pulling her against him so he could reach the weapon, and his fingers locked over hers. He controlled the gun.
But he felt the rise and fall of her breaths and his own almost stopped.
His face fell against her cap, and lower, so he could feel the side of her face as she struggled. He had overdressed her. The clothing was much too coarse, too thick. But he could feel enough. He was caught in the moment.
He realised she stopped her struggle.
‘What are you doing?’ she gasped.
He didn’t answer, appreciating her stillness.
*
‘You are sniffing my skin.’ She wondered if she might have the tiniest bit of the elixir and he had noticed. She didn’t know whether to let a large puff of air out, or slow her breathing, or just wait and decide later.
The cave of his arms closed around her and she relaxed back into the wall of his body. A small twist and they fit together so comfortably.
He touched his mouth to her ear.
Her ear. His moist breath heated her skin and her body awakened at every place they connected. This was not what she had retained him for. She turned her efforts to pushing at his hands. ‘If you use your tongue—’
She gasped.
‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’
He released her.
She brushed at her face, as if removing his touch, but she wasn’t even close to the right area.
*
He didn’t mind. He could still feel her with his whole body. Still feel the warmth she had given him. Ah, the warmth. He’d felt nothing like her skin since before his life had turned to hell. He had not known the feeling could ever again exist for him.
He gave her a courtly bow. ‘My pardon, Miss Shrew.’
‘Nigel, if you please,’ she hissed.
He put the weapon back into his waistband, hoping the cool metal would work as a threat to remind his body its silence was expected. How she had got the gun so far from the road he had no idea.
He wanted to take her from the path and make a bed in the leaves and hold her near. Just close enough to feel her in his arms. To fall asleep holding her and wake with his arm around her, snuggling her against him.
He shook his head, changing his thoughts, concentrating on the situation at hand.
‘Follow—’ Then he thought of her behind him. ‘Beside me and I will get you to a safe place.’
He got back on his horse and heard her struggle on to Apple. Neither spoke. Only the muffled clops of hooves proved their existence.
*
The night air swirled around Katherine. An owl hooted in the distance, the end of his second call a tapering off with more of a purring sound. Apple moved along as if the night was no different than any other, her steps interspersing with the whisper of the wind moving through the leaves. When they passed by a stream, frogs serenaded the night.
Brandt had felt like a wall of life surrounding her. The melancholy that had lived inside her so many years that she wasn’t even aware of sadness had faded. It had faded the moment he’d taken her from her bed. The world seemed to be holding out its hand and giving her a chance to live again.
She’d always known her mother would not want her wallowing in sadness, but somehow it had lingered inside her. Augustine always waited and then oozed venom into her world. Always. And then he belittled and berated her, and she knew, always, that if she showed emotion or anger he would pick at her harder and longer, and she could not bear that on top of losing her mother.
Being with Gussie had melted away some of it, but only the edges.
Night-time without her mother had been difficult
at first, the grief taking over every moment except when she would sit with Gussie before bedtime and Gussie would bounce on the bed or whisper the words hide and peek. Then Katherine would leave the room and return for an elaborate search of the entire room, ending with a magnificent discovery of a giggling little girl hiding in the middle of the bed under the covers. Or a cover pulled from the bed and mounded in the corner with a little girl peering out from under it.
The sadness had consumed Katherine so much at first that she’d not really noticed Fillmore moving more and more into their household. Then, during the last year, Augustine had stopped letting her stay with Gussie in the evening and insisted she sit with them. In only a few nights, Katherine had read her fate in Fillmore’s eyes when Augustine mentioned it was time she wed.
The smirk on Augustine’s lips had twisted into Katherine’s stomach, leaving her struggling to keep the horror from showing in her eyes.
His laughter alerted her that she’d not succeeded.
That had been the moment her grief had faded enough so she could see the danger in front of her and she’d known, without hesitation or doubt or wavering of anything within her, she had to get out of the house by any means possible if she’d not wanted to be taken by Fillmore. She’d not known if she’d had the courage, but then little Gussie had hugged her neck that night, and whispered one word. Love.
‘I can hardly believe I’m leaving,’ she said.
Brandt grunted.
She glanced at him, and he stared forward.
‘Mrs Caudle warned me to watch my step around Fillmore at first and I didn’t know what she meant,’ she continued. ‘One day, I found her crying. I thought she grieved over my mother. But she confessed she’d been wanting to leave because she hated the household so much. Augustine kept picking at us so, but only the thought of leaving Gussie kept her there.’
Mrs Caudle agreed to stay with Gussie, if Katherine could find them a house to hide in. Gussie could speak their names, though, and they knew they’d have to go far enough and give her time to learn to call them grandmother and mama, and teach her to answer to something else. A family. That’s what Gussie needed and Katherine wanted more than anything else in the world.
‘When Gussie was born, I thought her a present for me. I had to wait a bit for her to be old enough to sit and then play. Mama was so sick. And she liked Gussie and me to be in the room with her. I held Gussie’s hands when she learned to walk.’
Brand grunted louder this time. ‘Can you not be silent?’
She let out a huff. ‘Watching over my sister was the most special thing that ever happened to me.’
‘I know what it is like to watch a baby grow.’ The words hit the air with the force of spikes being hammered into the ground. ‘I was married.’
She paused. ‘I am sorry.’
‘Silence is a music all of its own. Play it.’
‘Well…’ She held her back straight and opened her mouth to speak again. But then she thought of the sadness of losing her mother. And Brandt knew what it was like to watch a baby grow.
She thought of how she would feel if she couldn’t return to Gussie. She’d gambled on Augustine being so upset with her being gone that he’d ignore Gussie a little longer. Mrs Caudle had promised to take Gussie if Augustine started talking about the madhouse again. But that would be a true kidnapping and a true risk of Mrs Caudle’s life.
Katherine stared at the road in front of her. She had to get the funds and get them hidden. If Augustine ever realised that little Gussie was more than just a stick of furniture that he could toss out, he’d use her against Katherine.
She bit the inside of her lip and twisted the reins in her fingers.
Brandt had moved ahead and she noticed the outline of his shoulders in the darkness. She didn’t speak again and the night closed in around her. She let Apple fall back.
A skylark warbled in the distance and then Brandt interrupted her thoughts by saying, ‘We’re there.’
*
Brandt saw the bend leading them to the house. He’d not expected it so soon. Too soon.
He swung to the ground and saw his home. In the darkness, the timbers stared at him. The size overwhelmed him. The memories made his heart pound and his mouth dry.
The kidnapping had been a mistake. His life had been a mistake. All of it. He couldn’t move.
He realised she was touching his arm and she had been speaking to him.
‘Is it boarded up?’
‘It’s been abandoned for years,’ he answered.
The sound of distant thunder emphasised the expanse of darkness.
She led her horse up the road. He made himself follow, each footstep harder than breathing under water.
‘How will we get in?’ she asked, her voice a cautious whisper.
Brandt had never before seen the structure as sombre, but now it emitted blackness and death.
‘The carriage house,’ he said simply. He had thought he would be able to enter the house and stay—not in the rooms he and Mary had shared, but at least in the servants’ quarters. That he would let Miss Wilder live in the rooms above and bring the house to life again. She could bring the little girl and the governess and have a family around her. She could live the life Mary had expected.
He’d lived a churning lifetime since he had seen his home and the last time he’d stood on this property he’d been married and had a child. He could almost hear his son Nathan’s laughter. And see Mary’s hands reaching to cuddle the boy. His fingertips remembered the feel of her belly as she grew bigger with his daughter, a child who never got to breathe a first breath.
The breezes ruffling the air taunted him with the family he’d lost. The love he’d had and the love which would have followed had they lived. He’d thought he would have been able to face this. Time healed nothing.
The pleasant memories had faded and turned into ugly reminders of what should have been.
He thrust his hand into his hair, pushing it back from his eyes. He was a coward and he knew it, but no one could be strong who’d suffered his losses.
The road was overgrown with vetch and thistle. A sapling grew between the ruts. Weeds never looked so lush to his eyes. He embraced the overgrowth. Let the land take the house. Let the lying promise of a haven crumble into dust.
A hand pressed his arm.
‘Brandt,’ she whispered. ‘You’re… Your breathing is…’
‘I’m winded from the ride.’ He moved from her touch, knowing she could hear the lie of his words.
Turning away, he heard her footsteps behind him as he walked around the house. The boards over the windows pleased him even more than the weeds. No one should see inside or be able to touch anything left behind. That world had been sacred.
He knew he could pull the boards from the door and have a roof over their heads.
He refused. Not in Mary’s house. He couldn’t go to the door. Not and keep breathing.
Walking to the carriage house in back, he led them away from the rooms where his family had lived.
The thunder mocked him, but he ignored the sound and guided Hercules to a stall. His partner in crime followed, strangely silent. From the corner of his eye, he saw her trying to take in as much of the surroundings as she could.
‘I don’t have a good feeling about this house.’ She spoke in a whisper, and her hand brushed his arm.
Lightning rolled across the sky.
Brandt spoke, ‘Neither do I.’
Chapter Ten
The carriage house, hidden in the back, didn’t have paned windows as the main house did, but wooden shutters and a planked door. It would have to do. He could keep her there. Later, after he put his thoughts away, he could take her to his mother’s home.
His mother could claim that she was a daughter of a long-lost friend. Perhaps taken in as a housekeeper. They’d work up some yarn to hide her. His mother could always put a shine on a piece of family tarnish.
A pang hit him in that hi
s mother always claimed her home to be overflowing with family and servants, but she always managed to find room.
Then he took a look at the structure and turned his face away. No. That wouldn’t be fair to his mother or to Miss Wilder. He’d open up the blasted house no matter how much time it took him to swallow down the memories clogging his throat.
She deserved a home if she was going to take care of the child and the governess. And if Katherine Wilder was anything like most women he knew, every sad sort with a tale would find a home with her, including every one-eyed cat and every dog with a woebegone wail.
‘We cannot stay here.’ She stopped, turning to grasp her pommel and jab her foot into the stirrup. ‘Surely someone owns the grounds. We’ll be found.’
He pulled himself from his memories and watched her struggling to get back on the horse.
She looked over her shoulder. ‘Give me a shoulder up. I’m a bit stiff.’
He wasn’t putting a finger on her. Especially the part of her she had pointed in his direction. ‘We’ve nowhere else and this will do. Besides, we need sleep and shelter. It’s about to rain again. I’m certain of it.’
She turned back to Apple, grabbed the pommel and gave a jump, but slid back to the ground. She kept her foot in the stirrup and put her head against the saddle. ‘Give me a hand. I’m too weak from the riding to get astride again and she refuses to kneel.’
‘Apple has enough sense to want her sleep.’
After her foot slid from the stirrup she looked at him. ‘Brandt, I don’t believe in ghosts, but I don’t wish to find out I’m wrong.’
He took her reins and stepped back. ‘This is the place you’ll be staying.’
‘I saw your face. You feel an unpleasantness about this as strongly as I do.’ She pointed to the house. ‘Just because it is abandoned doesn’t mean it’s safe for us.’
‘True.’ He turned his back to her. ‘Nowhere’s safe.’ He led Apple and Hercules behind the house, securing them for the night. She followed.