Rogue in My Arms: The Runaway Brides

by Celeste Bradley

  Really, there wasn’t any fit reply other than a curled lip.

  Gaffin tilted his head. “Well, there’s time for you to think it over. So . . .”

  He nodded to Manx, who flung Pru into the cellar with a violent twist to her collar.

  With a cry, Pru flew into the blackness with no way to know how far she would fall.

  Evan shivered, though the night wasn’t all that cold. The abbey ruin was eerie enough in the dark, when the white granite arches shimmered in the faint starlight like ghostly gateways. When the storm clouds blew in and filled the night with the rolling promise of thunder and rain, Evan found himself shutting his eyes against the view of the arches towering over them like a giant, reaching bone-white fingers to the earth.

  Maybe the farmhouse had been a better idea after all.

  Melody wasn’t frightened in the slightest. She snuggled into Evan’s side and whispered a constant story into Gordy Ann’s alleged ear.

  Evan was glad she was too little to think of things like giant bony hands. For a moment he wished he was.

  No. He had to be strong, the way Pru was always strong. Pru hadn’t been much older than he was now when they’d had to run away from the Trotters. He only remembered Pru’s fear, Pru’s command to run, Pru’s assurance that life outside their world was better than life inside it would be from then on.

  He’d believed her then and he believed her now. Pru always told him the truth.

  So when she’d pushed him out of the window and run back downstairs to be with old Lambert, Evan had been shocked to his core.

  Pru never chose anyone over him, not even herself!

  Evan thought about what he’d seen the night before. He’d been sleeping before the fire and he’d rolled over and blinked sleepily, surprised to see Pru and Mr. Lambert standing in front of the window.

  Hugging.

  Well, Mr. Lambert was hugging Pru. Pru was mostly just standing there, only she was standing really close to Mr. Lambert and not slapping him or anything like she did when the lads at the theater tried to hug her.

  Evan had just about decided that he didn’t mind old Lambert too much. He was a decent bloke who looked after Hector real well. Hector liked him more than anyone. Hector’s opinion mattered to Evan.

  And Melody’s, although she was just a baby and thought everyone was her new best friend. Still, Melody thought her uncle Colin had hung the moon and the stars, too.

  Even Pomme had liked old Lambert in the end, and Pomme had set out to punish him but good. Still, the thought that Pru might like old Lambert better than she liked him, Evan, made Evan feel kind of hot in his middle.

  What if Pru left? What if she went off with Lambert and Melody and Hector and left him behind?

  She wouldn’t, that’s what. She just wouldn’t.

  It had been an awfully long hug.

  Melody snuggled closer into his side and smiled up at him, Gordy Ann’s story all finished.

  “I like this game,” she said. “I play this game at Brown’s.”

  “What game?”

  “Hiding. I’m good at hiding,” she chattered brightly, raising her little voice over the growing noise of the storm outside. “I can be quiet and hide and no one can find me except for Billy-wick. He’s really smart.” She leaned her head on his shoulder. “You’re smart, too. I bet you could find me.”

  “Not hard,” Evan said brusquely. “All I’d have to do is listen.”

  “Oh, no, I’m quiet as quiet can be. And then sometimes I fall asleep and then everyone is cross with me and says they were worried. I don’t know why. I like naps.”

  “Couldn’t talk you into one now, could I?”

  “No. I’m not sleepy.”

  “Yeah. Me either.”

  The little shelter was little more than a stone box. It was like a shed added on the outside of the original abbey wall, too short and squat to fall into rubble like the rest. The roof was slate and mostly whole, though cracked. He and Melody had made a sort of bed in the most sheltered corner out of leaves and straw that had accumulated on the floor. It was dry and dusty and crackled when they moved, but they were dry and even a bit snug. When lightning began to flash, it showed through the cracks in the slates and through the low, square door.

  Even stalwart Melody started loudly every time the flashes came. When the thunder began to roll in earnest, Evan felt her begin to shiver.

  “Don’t be scared, Mellie. It’s just like fireworks over the quay, like on Prinny’s birthday.”

  “Fireworks?”

  She’d been in London on Prinny’s last birthday. She’d never seen how the entire city stood on the rooftops to see the display hanging in the air over the Brighton Pavilion.

  “It’s like a show, where they send fire up into the sky and it explodes, and little stars sprinkle down. It bangs and it pops and the bigger the bang, the more stars you get—all silver and gold and glittery, falling like rain.”

  “I like stars,” she said, entranced. “I like gold and glittery.”

  “Well, that’s what we got here. We got our own fireworks show, just for us.”

  Lightning flashed then, blinding and fierce, a double, crackling light, followed a second later by heavy thunder. Evan whooped and clapped his hands. “That was a good one! Wasn’t that a good one, Mellie?”

  Melody, wide-eyed and nearly in tears from the startling crack, clapped her little hands weakly.

  “That’s not the way,” Evan said. “Come on!”

  He stood them both up and brushed off the straw, then towed her to sit just inside the doorway, with a perfect view of the sky and the windswept fields outside.

  “Now get ready, ’cause we’re gonna get a right good show now!”

  Melody chewed on her lip, but held her clap-ready hands up and watched the sky. When the next blinding flash came, Evan whooped and danced and clapped approval at the sky. Melody giggled uncertainly at his antics, but by the next flash she was on her feet, ready to hop up and down.

  “That was a good one, Evan! Wasn’t that a good one?”

  Evan grinned down at her. “That was a right smart one, Mellie.” She wasn’t scared anymore.

  And now that he thought about it, neither was he.

  CHAPTER 28

  Pru managed not to tumble down the narrow steps by an agility gained over years of dodging rough hands. Still, she scrambled down as quickly as possible to reach Colin.

  He sprawled limp and lifeless on the earthen floor of the cellar, a still body in the rectangle of light coming from the door at the top of the steps.

  Then the door slammed, shutting out the light and leaving Pru to find her way to Colin by feel and memory. She touched a firm body part, covered in cloth. His calf. Fumbling her way up his body, she found his head. A quick, light examination revealed no obvious bumps or bruises.

  He stirred beneath her touch, then pushed himself up on his hands and knees. “I can’t see.”

  She let out a breath of relief. “We’re in the cellar.”

  “I hear rain.” His words were beginning to slur.

  “Yes,” she told him soothingly. “That’s the storm outside.”

  A hand, cold and gritty with dirt, came to rest on her arm, then slid down to her hand. “Pru?”

  “Yes, yes, it is I.”

  He grunted a dissent. “No, you’re posh Pru. Where’s my Pru?”

  She laughed damply. “Right here, guv.”

  He drew her down and whispered urgently, if a little blurrily. “Pru, there’s bandits!”

  “I know, guv.” She smoothed a hand over his brow. “How do you feel?”

  “I’m floating. Or maybe sinking. It feels beautiful. I don’t like it.”

  “Good. Remember that.” She stood, tugging at his arm. “Can you stand?”

  He tried to move upright, but only got as far as his knees. “Pru?”

  “Yes?”

  “Say ‘yes, guv.’ ”

  She gasped a laugh. “Yes, guv.”
r />   “There’s bandits, Pru.”

  “I know, guv.”

  “I’m going to lie down now.” He slithered out of her grasp to fall bonelessly to the floor.

  She supposed it was as good a spot as any. The ground was dry and dusty and cold, but at least it wasn’t damp.

  Leaving him there for the moment, she began a blind, fumbling search of the cellar. Following the walls by touch, she made the circuit in a depressingly short amount of time. The space was tiny, hardly more than a closet, most of which was taken up by bushels of potatoes and parsnips.

  No outer door. No window.

  No way out.

  Her path led her back to Colin. Dusting her hands off, she knelt beside him.

  “Roll over, then, guv.” If he lay on his back at least he wouldn’t breathe in the soil. He rolled obediently, but he did not let go of her arm so she rolled down with him, landing on his chest, face-to-face.

  She felt his breath gust on her face, the sickly-sweet smell of the opium still scenting it.

  “I can feel your breasts,” he said conversationally. “You have magnif’cent breasts.”

  “Er . . . thank you.”

  “ ‘Thank you, guv.’ I love it when you call me ‘guv.’ ” He hummed weirdly to himself for a moment. “Call me ‘guv.’ ”

  “Yes, guv.” Should she try to keep him awake or should she let him sleep it off? She had the notion that if he went to sleep he might never wake up, so she shook his shoulder hard. “Wake up, Colin. Wake up, guv!”

  His arms came about her, pulling her down close to him. “Mm.” He nuzzled her neck. “You smell so good. Always smell so good.”

  She put her hands on his chest and tried to push herself away. His hold did not give. In fact, it tightened, pressing her body into him, face-to-face, toe-to-toe. She felt a flush of heat run through her. Lust. How inappropriate.

  Then again, it was one way to keep warm. And, perhaps, to keep him from falling asleep.

  Oh, well done! Excusing lust with such rational argument. Bravo!

  Yes, I thought it was rather good.

  The dark was playing tricks on her. She’d never feared it. In fact, she rather liked the way darkness hid her, set her free from prying eyes and relieved her need to keep her mask on.

  Now, that sense of freedom combined with the danger they were in to stimulate her imagination. Colin swinging a great hammer, sweating in the sunshine. Colin behind the stage wagon, all hot hands and hotter mouth, sucking her nipples, slipping his finger into her. Colin, beneath her right now, holding her hard to his granite chest, his breath hot on her cheek and ear.

  Unable to stop herself, she wriggled her body on his.

  “Mm.” He spread his warm hands over her back. “Breasts.”

  She kissed him. His lips were warm and a little slack, though after a moment, he did his best to join in. She raised her head, gusting a sigh. “Not your best work, guv.”

  “Your mouth . . .”

  Encouraged, she shook him. “Yes? What about my mouth?”

  “Beau . . . ful mouth.”

  She smiled, flattered.

  “I could do things . . . with that mouth . . .”

  Her brow furrowed. Was that still flattering?

  “Pru?”

  “Yes?” She smiled. “Yes, guv?”

  “I hear rain.”

  Pru sighed. “Yes, guv. We’re in the middle of a storm.”

  A storm there was no apparent way of getting out of.

  Colin floated. Rain fell all about him but he could not feel it. Pru appeared before him as a wavering vision. She raised her arms and tipped her head back, surrendering herself to the torrent. Wild, buffeting drops hit her in such a cascade that she could scarcely draw breath between them. The thrilling power of it made her gasp with laughter.

  Then, in a flash of lightning, he saw her clearly. He felt the cold slap of rain, smelled the electric edge of the storm. Pru stood in the open, face tilted up into the torrent, arms wide, looking for all the world like a pagan sacrifice to the tempest.

  He rushed toward her, his feet slithering in the instant mud. He couldn’t reach her. She didn’t respond to him at all, but only lifted her hands to her hair, shaking it out long and dark down her back.

  “Pru!”

  She straightened at last, turning to watch as he ran toward her. At last his feet took purchase on the ground. When he caught her shoulders in his hands, she smiled.

  It was a wild, free, half-mad smile that stopped him in his tracks. It transformed her plain sharpness into fairy delicacy, making her large gray eyes gleam silver like portals to another world. For an instant he felt as though he’d inadvertently captured a creature from a story in his hands.

  “Isn’t it wonderful?” she cried. She placed a cold, wet hand upon each side of his jaw. “Can you feel the power?”

  For an instant, he felt what she felt. He felt the whipping of the trees and believed that they were about to shake free their roots and dance away. He felt the wind and the sideways pelting of the rain and felt that if he flung his arms wide he could fly away upon it.

  Then he felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise up and he heard a strange sizzling sound that screeched primal alarms in his mind. Without thought he wrapped his arms about Pru and flung them both to one side of the road, rolling down into the rushing rivulet of rainwater at the bottom of the ditch, just as a deafening crack ripped open the world.

  Then, he lay upon her. Dazed and blinking, he realized that her arms were about him, her fingers digging into the back of his coat. She opened her hands and smoothed them down over him slowly.

  The throbbing in his hearing eased and he became aware of a soft rasping sound in his ear. Hot breath warmed the side of his face. He lay upon her, one knee between hers. He could feel the heat of her center on his thigh. Where had her skirts gone? Rucked up between them, he supposed without much concern.

  Half of him was cold, very cold, but the other half, the front of him, basked in the heat of her, letting her warmth sink right through their soaked clothing as if it wasn’t there at all.

  And then, in the manner of dreams, it wasn’t. It was wet, slippery skin on skin. She was a soaked nymph on silken sheets, undulating beneath him, opening her thighs wider, thrusting her pelvis up into his.

  Her breasts were in his hands, in his mouth, ripe and heavy. Her nipples went hard with desire as he sucked them, moving back and forth, tasting each.

  Wet hands twined through his hair, tugging his head close as she writhed beneath him. He moved down, leaving her breasts with the promise to return soon. He kissed her taut, wet belly and drank the rain from her navel. Then he parted the silken lips of her with his tongue.

  She went mad as he teased and tasted, her body bucking and trembling as she gasped his name.

  “Colin . . . Colin, I want you now. Please . . . please!”

  He moved above her, gazing down at his beautiful, wet, slippery nymph. Water fell from his hair and dripped down her face, pebbling her panting lips with dew.

  He drank it as he plunged within her, from chill to heat, from wet to wetter. She screamed his name and wrapped her thighs about his hips, her hands still tangled in his hair.

  She was hot and tight and perfect. Every touch, every taste, every panting, begging word drove him higher until he spent himself in her, in his delicious, succulent Pru.

  He smiled in his drugged sleep, lost in the sweet impossible dream of the woman he loved.

  Pru lay pressed to Colin’s body in the dark, chill cellar. It had been hours since he’d spoken or responded to her at all, but she could hear his heart beating strongly against her ear. She was forced to satisfy herself with that.

  This left her nothing to do in the dark but worry and run Gaffin’s words through her mind.

  Colin had baldly told the bandit that he meant to wed Chantal. Of course, he might have been trying some sort of trickery. Unfortunately, she could not think of what.

  No, she
might as well face it. He had the ring. As soon as Chantal was within arm’s reach, he truly intended to propose.

  Rising up on one elbow, Pru indulged herself in a single, halfhearted punch to his shoulder. Cad.

  Only he wasn’t a cad. He really wasn’t.

  He simply wanted Chantal more than he wanted her. Shallow, petty Chantal! Gorgeous, exquisite Chantal.

  What was she to do about that, for pity’s sake?

  Her wayward imagination now began to paint images of Colin, sweating and perfect, with Chantal.

  Sighing deeply, she tucked herself back into Colin’s warm side and wrapped her arms about him.

  Bloody Chantal.

  Chantal, with her eyes bright and her cheeks perfectly pink, describing her latest lover in regrettable detail. Chantal, lounging on her chaise, snarling about some imagined slight from another actor.

  Chantal, drooping at her dressing table, going on about how she was overworked and underappreciated and how it would serve everyone right if she simply walked away.

  Rousing slightly, Pru tried to focus her weary mind on that last memory. It had been just before Chantal had disappeared. What had she said?

  Sleep took her, even as she managed to pull the memory from her mind, mingling it into a dream, a dream where Chantal told her she was going to swim away from them all. Swimming in the water . . . in the pool of water . . .

  Evan sat on the floor of the shelter with Melody on his lap, the leaves and straw gathered around them for warmth. Melody apparently only feared the storm when she couldn’t watch it firsthand. Unfortunately, it still raged too loudly and powerfully for either one of them to get any sleep.

  Evan blinked wearily at the slashing rain outside, then shrugged one shoulder against a chill drip that landed inside his collar and ran down his back. Both of them were a bit wet and Melody was developing a proper sniffle by now.

  Then, between one lightning flash and the next, a sight appeared on the crest of the hill that shocked Evan into full wakefulness.

  A giant. A giant on a giant white horse. Blimey!