How a Lady Weds a Rogue fc-3

by Katharine Ashe

  “Rather be at present.” The words were barely a whisper.

  Diantha’s heart beat so hard she could hear it in the silence. “No doubt.” She crossed to him, every nerve in her body ridiculously aware that she was alone in a gentleman’s bedchamber with him. “I have brought tea and Mrs. Polley’s biscuits.”

  His eyes opened, reflecting the firelight’s golden heat. “Leave.”

  “No.”

  His hands darted out and his fingers bit into her shoulders. He dragged her close. The planes of his face as he looked down at her were harsh, his eyes glittering with fever and the ravenous intent of the predator.

  “Please.” The sound came from so deep in his chest she barely understood the word.

  She struggled for breath, squaring her shoulders in his hold. “Why did you make me hide the pistol when you were planning to starve yourself to death anyway?”

  “You”—his voice grated—“are”—each word was forced—“a difficult girl.”

  “I am not a girl, and I am trying to help. But you must allow me.”

  For an instant something she recognized flickered in his eyes. Then, as though it cost him great effort, he released her. With deliberate steps he crossed the chamber and took up the teapot. It clinked against the cup, steam twining in the cold air.

  “Take care. It will still be quite h—” Her warning died upon her tongue. He swallowed the scalding tea, then poured another cup and drank it as well.

  “The biscuits too,” she said.

  “Go.” He spoke with his back to her.

  “No.”

  “While I still allow you to.”

  “I thought the remedies we purchased at the herbalist’s shop were intended to—”

  “They require time to take effect.”

  Her gaze darted to the brown bottle on the writing table. “You haven’t taken the laudanum yet, have you?”

  His head bowed. “Makes a man insensible.”

  “I should think insensibility and life preferable to sharp senses and death.”

  “Six of one . . .” His fingertips pressed onto the surface of the dressing table, white with strain, and she realized he was holding himself up thus. She had the most powerful urge to go to him, wrap her arms about him and let him use her as a crutch.

  “Wyn,” she whispered, “I think you should sit down before you topple over.”

  “Not . . . in the . . . presence of a—”

  “Don’t be silly. Oh!”

  He wavered. She flew toward him and threw her arms around him as she’d imagined, dreamed, but not quickly enough and she was not strong enough. He went to his knees, and she with him.

  “You are the foolish one,” she uttered against his shoulder, damp fabric against her cheek covering hard muscle. His body shook. He burned. “Quite a foolish man, Mr. Yale.”

  His trembling hand clutched hers against his chest. She pressed her mouth to his shoulder, her fingers crushed within his grasp, her body wedged against his, and kissed him. Her lips brushed fine linen and his suffering became part of her.

  “You will probably not remember this,” she whispered, and kissed his shoulder again. “That is a consolation.” She could not stop herself. Need she had never imagined beset her, need to be with him, to touch him and fill her senses with him.

  And then she did stop, because it was not about what she needed now. He needed her. She did not have weeks for this delay, or even days now. But she would give him her days and weeks if necessary.

  “You know,” she said, resting her cheek against his broad back, the quick, shallow beat of his heart beneath her hand, “you mustn’t die, or even continue in this state for much longer.”

  “I will remember this, Diantha.” His words were not strong to the ear, but she felt them vibrate through his body, and hers. “I remember everything.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. “Not everything,” she whispered.

  “Not everything.”

  “There is a cow desperately needing to be milked. And I don’t know what to do about it. So you must get well quickly and solve that little problem so she won’t grow sick and die. You see? Now you have two lives for which you are responsible.”

  She lifted his arm and it was remarkably heavy, but he must have aided her because she got her shoulder beneath his.

  “Come now. We will take you to that chair. It is closer than the bed.”

  “Slept on the ground before. Number of times.”

  “You have?”

  “Not so bad.”

  “Still, I’ve an inkling you haven’t actually been sleeping at all since we came here. So if you’re not to sleep now, you may as well not sleep in a chair rather than on the floor.”

  Somehow they got him to the chair. It was large, comfortably stuffed leather. He closed his eyes and in another moment seemed to sleep. She watched him, the slight rise of his chest with each shallow breath, the sunken hollows and stark bones of his beautiful cheeks, and felt a tickle of shame that even now staring at him made her warm where she should not be.

  “You needn’t hover.”

  She jumped, then twisted her fingers together. “I’m afraid you will slide out of that chair and injure yourself.”

  “Shan’t break.” The words were a breath between clicking teeth. “Not made of glass.”

  Rather, steel. Fired steel. Foundry hot. She glanced at the bed and her cheeks warmed now. It was maidenly idiocy for a woman nursing an ill man. But she’d never looked at a gentleman’s bed before.

  There was no sign of a blanket through the bed curtains.

  “Foolish man,” she muttered. She went to the bedchamber she shared with Mrs. Polley, collected blankets, and returned to him.

  “Thought you’d gone.”

  “To fetch this.” She draped the coverlet over him. It sagged at one side onto the floor. But shock no longer propelled her actions, and she was—belatedly—shy of touching him, even to tuck it around him. “Now you must eat.”

  “But do feel free to go at any time,” he added in the unexceptionable tone he had used with her a hundred times, albeit a bit unsteady, and she suspected this nonchalance cost him.

  “You are wonderfully droll, sir. But I shan’t be deterred so easily.” She poured another cup, took up several biscuits, and wrapped his hands around both. That operation left her entirely without breath, so she retreated to the writing desk and sat on the wooden chair there. “Now, eat. And drink. And I will read this book while I wait to be certain you don’t feed those to Ramses.” She took up the volume. “Blaise Pascal and the Curiously Unsubstantiated Axioms of Euclidean Geometry. Well, Mr. Yale, you have succeeded in astounding me anew. Unless of course this was Ramses’ choice.”

  “Have we reverted to Mr. Yale and Miss Lucas, then?”

  Her pulse tripped. His eyes were closed, the empty cup on his upturned palm resting on his knee.

  “No.” She set down the book, uncorked the bottle of laudanum and went to him. She poured a spoonful of the syrup into the cup then put it once again against his palm.

  His hand came around hers. “Diantha, thank you.”

  “You can thank me,” she whispered, “after you don’t die.”

  The slightest smile tilted up his mouth at one side, but his flesh still burned.

  “Drink it.” She whispered to disguise the tremble in her throat.

  His eyes were dark, seeking as they scanned her face, and vulnerable in a manner she could not have anticipated of this man. Then trusting. Trusting her.

  He did as she bid. She drew away and set down the empty cup on the tea tray. She stared at the pretty porcelain painted with lavender flowers and tiny green vines and rimmed in silver. A lady’s porcelain. The lady in whose house they were now living like a troop of genteel Gypsies. Lost in the wilds of Wales and no one the wiser for it.

  Her fortnight would end in three days. Papa would send the carriage to Brennon Manor to collect her, but it would not find her there. She was no closer to
Bristol and Calais than she had been a sennight ago.

  She cared about this problem, very much. Two peculiar weeks on the road with a man she did not entirely understand, having an adventure she could never have imagined, had not dulled her desire to see her mother. Now she wanted that reunion even more than before. She needed to see her. To ask her. She needed to know.

  But the desperation simmering in her had nothing to do with hurrying back to the road, instead all to do with this man she did not truly know but who at times felt as though she had known her whole life.

  He finally seemed to sleep. She set about straightening the chamber, although in truth he’d barely lived in it. His coat, boots, and neck cloth were arranged neatly upon the coat horse. A shallow dish containing a bushy white brush, a bar of soap, and a remarkably lethal-looking blade were certainly his shaving gear and gave her a little frisson of nerves—as much because she had never before seen a man’s personal items and it seemed very daring to see his now, as because he clearly didn’t need the pistol if he wished to do himself or anybody else damage.

  Dragging her gaze away, she neatened the packets of herbs atop the writing desk, sticking her nose into them one at a time to sniff. The Cayenne pepper made her eyes well up and she sneezed, but Wyn did not flinch.

  She pulled the Holland cover off a side table, and another from a framed painting on the wall. It showed a black-haired lady settled atop a gray horse. But her eyes, which matched her mount’s coat, were somber—too somber for Diantha, and she covered the image again. Finally she steeled herself, went to the bed and drew back the curtain fully. A stack of folded linens sat at the foot of the mattress. With her heart beating fast she made up the bed.

  Finished tidying, she went to her knees on the dusty floor. For the first time in four years she folded her hands and bent her head.

  “Allow me this,” she whispered, the remnants of the pepper filling her eyes with tears again. “I pray you, allow me to do something with my life that matters.”

  Chapter 16

  Fellow Subjects of Britain,

  Due to Unanticipated Circumstances my agent in Shropshire is once again detained in pursuing his Falcon Club quarry. In short, I begin to despair of this particular quest.

  No—I shan’t cease seeking justice! Yes—I shall hound the members of this wasteful club until they are all discovered!

  But, as I have fretfully awaited my agent’s communications, I have learned a valuable lesson: subterfuge is not my bailiwick. I would rather approach a man directly, accuse him of wrongdoing justifiably and without recourse to secrecy, and hear him defend himself with mine own ears than sit like an Eastern despot upon his throne who waits for his henchmen to perform Despicable Deeds in his name. My methods must remain pristine so that my victory is too.

  I have not recalled my agent from the countryside; his troubles are sufficiently noisome to inhibit his progress without my intervention. But when he is again mobile I will inform him of my desire to quit this project. For now. For when this Falcon Club member returns to London, I will confront him and he will be obliged to answer to you, the People of Britain, for his criminal excess.

  —Lady Justice

  My dearest lady,

  I breathe a sigh of profound relief. Quit your pursuit of my fellow club member, indeed. But know this: I am already in London. I entreat you, pursue me instead. If you should find me, I promise you a most satisfying Interrogation.

  In eager anticipation,

  Peregrine

  Secretary, The Falcon Club

  Chapter 17

  Wyn did not recover that night, nor the following night, nor the day after that. Diantha’s fortnight came to a quiet close as she rolled dough in the fading light of evening for yet another batch of Mrs. Polley’s ingenious oat biscuits. She glanced at Owen pumping away at the old butter churn they’d found in the chicken shed. Somehow he had managed to milk the cow, lugging in a bucket of milk that tasted like sheer heaven. Her mouth watered anticipating butter. She thought of Glenhaven Hall and Cook’s seed biscuits and roast goose with drippings and lemonade and pork jelly and crumbly cheese with crisp apples and shepherd’s pie, and then, of course, the man abovestairs.

  “The tarts I could make with a dozen apples, if I had them,” Mrs. Polley mumbled as though reading her mind.

  “There’s apples, ma’am.” Owen’s narrow shoulders leaned into his work. “In the grove a ways past the stile.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say that before, boy?”

  Diantha could nearly taste them. “Tomorrow I will see what I can collect.”

  The following morning she had excellent reason to escape the house and seek out the grove. Entering the kitchen for breakfast she discovered Wyn and Mrs. Polley at the table and her heart flew into her throat. Without a coat, in shirt and waistcoat, breeches and boots, he looked better. No fever darkened his cheeks, and the glimmer in his eyes as he turned to her was familiar.

  “You are better!”

  “To a degree.”

  She expected him to smile. He did not. He stood up.

  She thrust out a palm to stay him. “No! You’ve been so ill. You mustn’t stand merely because I have entered the room.”

  “In fact I must.” He offered her a modest bow. “But I also happen to be leaving.”

  Already? “Oh.”

  Silence filled the kitchen. Mrs. Polley muttered beneath her breath and took up the dishes.

  Diantha fought to recover her tongue. “To where?”

  He paused, then said, “To the drawing room.”

  It was too awkward. Nothing had ever been awkward between them before, not even those moments outside the inn in Knighton. Then he had been determined to do the right thing by her. Now he seemed cautious.

  “Well, then.” She moved toward the table and around him as though passing him by so closely did not cause every one of her joints to turn to jelly. “I’m very glad you are feeling well enough to be up and about. We have worried.” She flicked a glance at him. “And, naturally, we are anxious to be on our way.”

  Mrs. Polley harrumphed.

  “We shall be soon.” A peculiar note in his voice turned her around.

  “Not too soon,” she said hastily. “Not until you are ready.” Her heart beat ridiculously fast.

  “Thank you.” He left.

  She stared at the door. After a minute she could no longer bear the discomfort in her belly and the disapproving silence of her companion.

  She set off along the canal toward the stile, carrying only a bucket and her confused thoughts. Her shoes sank deep into the sodden moss along the bank. The abbey was not so different from Glenhaven Hall where she busied herself with small tasks and spent the days with her young sister and servants. Her stepfather was a recluse, his scholarly books claiming most of his attention. When it came to his children, he cared most for his true daughters, Serena and Viola and little Faith. As a stepdaughter, Diantha had long understood that. But the people of Glen Village were always kind, and her weekly visits to Savege Park when Alex and Serena were in residence were happy occasions.

  London would be different, she knew. There were museums and historical sites and shops in the hundreds. There would also be grand ladies like those she had sometimes encountered at Savege Park, but in much greater number. Grand, elegant, proper ladies. Slender, with porcelain complexions. Beautiful, like his friend Lady Constance Read.

  What he must think of her, in her wrinkled frock and soggy slippers, her hair a mess of unkempt curls and her manners a mess of overfamiliarity. No wonder he wished to keep her at a distance.

  She released a long breath, looking up from her toes to see the grove just ahead. Heaps upon heaps of apples lay on the ground, some still hanging on branches, red and green and thoroughly neglected and bursting to be picked. She plucked one off a low branch.

  Firm, sweet, juicy. Heaven. She ate another, leaning back against a lichen-mottled old trunk and watching the clouds parting above.


  Perhaps her stepfather would not banish her to Devon forever after all. Perhaps she would go to town as planned, and Serena would dress her up like a lady, and she would attend balls and use the dance steps she’d barely had occasion to practice in Devon. The only occasion she really remembered was when she had danced with a handsome Welshman on the terrace at Savege Park.

  She wandered through the grove, searching out the choicest apples. When the bucket was three quarters full she hefted the handle over her elbow, picked an apple to eat during the walk, and started out of the grove. And she saw the man.

  Her heartbeat stalled. With broad strides he approached from across the slope toward the road above.

  Then her heart simply halted.

  As before at the mill, Mr. Eads looked enormous. She was too far away to see his face, but she knew him well enough by his size and shape.

  The pistol! She must get to Wyn—tell him—warn him. Flinging down the bucket, she ran. But the stile was distant. She lost a slipper and her foot sank into the soft earth. Her lungs pounded, damp skirts tangled about her calves. She threw back a glance. He was running too and had closed the distance between them by half.

  She flew, pressing away terror, her footfalls silent on the moss. She threw herself upon the stile, scrabbled for a handhold, then a foothold, and another, dragging her damp garments up, up. Another step—

  He grabbed her cloak. She yanked back, hands slippery on the rock, and flailed. She fell. He caught her, banding both arms about her and hauling her against his massive chest. It was hopeless, but she fought, grunting and pounding his arms with her fists until he trapped them too.

  “Yer a mettle lass.” He sounded unperturbed. “But A’m no wishing ta harm ye, so ye can cease yer struggling nou.”

  “I shall cease struggling when you unhand me!” She kicked back against his calf and he grunted. His arms were rock. But instead of releasing her, with one big shake he turned her to face him.

  “Nou will ye cease struggling?” He looked down at her with a face entirely devoid of menace. His features were strong and good, remarkably attractive really if one liked bulky men that tossed one around like a doll, which Diantha did not. At least not the bulky part. She definitely preferred lean muscle. And Wyn had not precisely tossed her around, rather seized her with purpose. She dearly hoped Mr. Eads’s purpose was not similar to Wyn’s when he’d held her this close.