Parsifal searched the room and found a washbowl on a stand. Quickly, he brought it to her and held it for her while she used it,
“I ... I am dreadfully sorry, Parsifal,” Annabella said as he put the bowl back on the washstand, and poured her a cup of water from a pitcher nearby. He rummaged about in a chest of drawers and gave her a handkerchief he found. She rinsed her mouth and drank the water, then took the handkerchief, pressing it briefly to her lips. “I only feel ill when I am frightened, and I was very frightened.”
“It is nothing, love,” he said and held her close with his good arm. “You were very brave. I could not have escaped Stratton without you.”
Annabella gazed at him, her eyes so filled with warm sweetness and love that he held his breath. “No, no, it is you who are brave, Parsifal. You are braver than any man I know, and so good and kind! I was so foolish thinking that you were not dashing and were quite ordinary, for you are not, not at all!”
He shook his head. “You were mistaken, Bella. If you were talking of Geoffrey, I would—”
“Oh, Geoffrey!” Annabella said scornfully. “He is useless and arrogant. Besides, he would never have held the washbowl for me as you did, and I think that is a much more useful attribute in a husband than being bold and impulsive.”
Parsifal laughed and shook his head. A low groan from the duke took Parsifal’s attention.
“Will you bring the bedsheets, Bella?” he asked. “I think we need to tie him up so he will not escape before Lord Laughton comes here—if Geoffrey has gone for him.”
She did so, and Parsifal tied the duke’s neckcloth over his mouth, for they agreed that neither one of them felt disposed to speak with the man if he should want conversation. He did not wake, however.
A frown creased Annabella’s forehead, and she gazed at Parsifal earnestly. “I was wondering—and I think I should know, since we are to be wed, are we not?—when the duke wanted to know if you were pure or impure, and if you had—”
A sudden commotion made him look to the door. “I think that must be Lord Laughton,” Parsifal said hastily. “Yes, yes, I believe I hear Geoffrey’s voice as well.”
The door burst open and a crowd of people—Lord Laughton, Geoffrey, and a number of frightened servants tumbled into the room. Lord Laughton took out his spectacles and peered at the duke, and then at Parsifal.
“What’s this, Parsifal? I understand from your brother that the duke has absconded with Miss Smith here?” he asked.
“Yes, he did,” Parsifal said.
“He—the duke—confessed to killing Sir Quentin as well,” Annabella interjected. “And he shot Par—Mr. Wentworth in the arm.” She beckoned to one of the servants gawking in the doorway. “I want you to fetch the doctor quickly.”
Geoffrey took out his quizzing glass and leveled it at the duke, who was now awake and glaring at him. “Well, it looks as if you have dealt with the situation quite tidily, brother.” He nodded approvingly. “A good flush hit, seems to me.”
“Thank you,” Parsifal said dryly. He looked at Lord Laughton. “You will find Peters, his groom, tied up in the stable. I am sure he will testify against His Grace, the duke.”
Lord Laughton nodded and turned to Stratton, pulling him to his feet. Geoffrey turned from them and eyed his brother sardonically.
“Well, little brother, what an adventure you have had! I never would have thought it.”
“No?” Parsifal caught Annabella’s eye, and she smiled at him. He wished he could leave ... but the doctor had been called, and he supposed he should stay until he arrived. And yet, his arm was not seriously injured; he was certain the bullet had gone through his arm instead of being lodged there.
“You have surprised me lately,” Geoffrey continued. “Indeed, I begin to think there are things about you I did not know.”
A sudden impatience seized Parsifal, and he stepped forward and took Annabella’s hand.
“Where are you going?” Geoffrey asked.
“Out,” Parsifal said, pulling Annabella toward the door. He glanced back at Geoffrey and noticed the smirk on his brother’s face.
“Well, well. The ‘gentil, perfit knight’ has slain the dragon. I suppose you are going to-”
“Ride off with the princess over my saddlebow,” Parsifal said. “Yes.”
His brother grinned and waved a dismissing hand at them. “Go, then, little ones. My blessings to you, for what it is worth, and do try to stay out of trouble.” His grin turned wicked. “Not that I think either of you know enough to get into any more trouble than you already have.”
“I think you talk too much, Geoffrey,” Parsifal said. “Do go back to London for a while.”
Geoffrey laughed. “Oh, I will, I will! And I promise to bring you back a wedding present, too.”
“You don’t know how pleased I am to hear it,” Parsifal said dryly. He pushed Annabella out the door and closed it.
“But Parsifal—your arm!” she cried. “I sent for the doctor—”
“Hush,” he said, then kissed her. She sighed and moved against him.
He pulled away and gazed at her, smiling. “My love, I wish to get you home as quickly as possible, so we can tell your mother that we are to be wed soon. I do not think I can wait much longer, you know.”
Annabella pushed back the lock of hair that had fallen upon his forehead, and her smile was full of wanting. “Must we wait?” she said, blushing.
“Yes.” He kissed her again. “You see, it is because I am a ‘gentil, perfit knight’ and must carry you off across my saddlebow first.”
Annabella laughed and kissed him once again.
Epilogue
A soft feathery touch roused Annabella from her sleep, causing her to shiver, for it trailed from her shoulder to around her breast and then to her stomach. She opened her eyes and saw Parsifal reclining next to her, watching her, a smile on his lips. She lifted her hand and traced the line of light and shadow that the morning sun cast upon his face and body. She loved the way he looked, and loved to move her hands upon him, across the hard planes of his chest and his broad shoulders.
“Did you rest well, Mrs. Wentworth ?” he asked and kissed her before she could answer, pressing her into the bed beneath them.
“Yes,” she gasped as his lips followed the trail his fingers had made down her body.
He made love to her, with attention to every detail, as he had done last night, the night of their wedding, and brought her to a pleasurable crisis before he moved within her and sighed his own pleasure. He lay upon her heavily for a moment, then moved to the side again, kissing her and touching her breasts as if reluctant to release her.
“Your skin is soft,” he whispered, his voice full of wonder. “I have never felt anything so soft or so beautiful.” He moved his hand to her cheek, then combed his fingers through her hair. “And I thought this would be harsh to the touch, but it’s heavy and as fine as silk.”
Annabella blushed and glanced at him hesitantly. “But surely the other women ...”
Parsifal looked at her quizzically. “Other women?”
“The other women you have ... have done this with ... surely, they were the same.” She hesitated. “I have been wondering, ever since the duke asked you whether you had ... had ...”
“I have never done this with any woman but you.” His fingers brushed over her breasts, then down her belly and up, slowly, to her neck. She shivered again.
“Of course you have,” she managed to say. “Otherwise you would not know how to... to make me feel so wonderful.”
“Do I do that?” He smiled, pleased. He had hoped she would like it, but Geoffrey had told him that some women did not. “But I have not made love to any other woman before you. I would not lie to you about that, you know.”
“Then how did you know?” Annabella sat up and gazed at him, clearly puzzled. “Do men just know these things?”
Parsifal laughed. “No. It was Geoffrey’s little wedding present to me.”
“No, not precisely.” He pushed his hand underneath the pillows, searching. “Ah, here it is.” He pulled out a small book.
“What is it?” Annabella reached for it, but he held it away from her.
“I don’t know if I want to show you.” Parsifal looked at her in a considering manner.
“What a tease you are! Let me see it, please!” She moved quickly and snatched it from him. Her eyes grew round as she opened it and flipped through the pages. “Oh, heavens! I never thought...” She gazed at him, slightly alarmed. “Are we ... are we going to do this?”
Parsifal glanced at the page. He took the book from her hands and tossed it to the foot of the bed, then pushed her down to the pillows, kissing her. He gathered her to him and rolled onto his back.
“Yes,” he said. “I committed all of it to memory.”
“All... all of it?” Annabella breathed and closed her eyes as he moved her over him and upon him. “Oh ... oh, my!”
He loved her again, lifting himself into her and moving her with his hands until she caught the motion and moved as she wished. He kissed her breasts and kissed the moans from her mouth until he felt the pulse within her, then closed his eyes and pushed deep until his own heart burst with the shattering heat and love he felt for her.
His breath slowed, and he became conscious of the slight weight of his wife upon him as he put his arms around her. He hugged her close, then gently stroked her back, soothing the last bit of trembling from her body.
“Ah, how I love you, Bella,” he murmured in her ear. “I cannot believe even now that you wished to marry me.”
She sighed and rubbed her cheek against his chest, then rose up a little and looked at him. “You are a wonderful man, my love, and I only wish you could know it.”
“It is enough for me that you believe so,” Parsifal said. “But I fear you will be disappointed someday.”
Annabella let out a sigh and pushed herself reluctantly away from him. “Oh, what a silly man you are! I have had enough of dashing adventure and heroics for a lifetime and would much rather spend my time with you in quieter pursuits.”
Parsifal put on a chagrined look. “I am afraid we were not very quiet this morning or last night for that matter. Does this mean you would much rather not—”
Annabella threw a pillow at him. “It means that at this moment, I wish for my breakfast.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Parsifal said meekly and grinned at her.
He rose from the bed, the sheet draped modestly around his middle, but Annabella sighed nevertheless, seeing how his body moved with such grace and strength. She hugged her knees and watched him until he went through the connecting door to his own room, then rose and rang for her maid so that she could dress and go down for breakfast.
Parsifal smiled and took her hand in his when she left her room, then they descended together. Annabella gazed at the rooms and halls they passed through and thought of the gardens outside that Parsifal so loved. As they came to the Long Gallery, her steps slowed and she looked at him.
“Will you regret leaving your home and your gardens for the Dower House, Parsifal?”
They stepped into the gallery, and Parsifal looked around the room. “A little. I have loved this house and the land for as long as I remember. But it is not as if we would be far away from it—only an hour’s walk. Then, too, I have not felt the same about the gardens after I found Sir Quentin dead there. I will be content to build more gardens at our own house.”
“But what will Geoffrey do without your help on the estate?”
Parsifal sighed. “I will still help him until he knows what must be done. I should never have taken so much upon myself, and it did him little good when I did.” He smiled and kissed her. “He has shown me a little of his world, and it’s only right that I show him a little of mine.”
As they went through the Long Gallery, Parsifal saw that the portrait of the thirteenth earl had been placed in a position of prominence. He heard a gasp behind him, and he turned to see Annabella staring at the portrait.
“What is it, Bella?”
“It is you.”
He laughed. “No, love, I only posed for it in the costume I found for the masquerade ball.”
She shivered. “Sometimes I think perhaps ghosts are real ... it is at once very much like you, but not. I remember what you were like as the Cavalier, and here it is again in the portrait.” She gazed at him for a long moment. “And it is you as you are now.”
Parsifal stared at the portrait, at the costume and the assured way the earl rested one hand on his hip, the other on the pommel of his sword. He frowned briefly, feeling that something was missing, and remembered the ring he had found in the costume’s lining.
“Do you still have the ring I gave you in the wood, the one that you had on your necklace?”
Annabella smiled and pulled the ring on the chain from beneath her bodice. “Here it is.”
Parsifal held the ring in his hand and gazed at it. He wished he had worn it when he had been painted—it would have been appropriate somehow.
An errant beam of sunlight streamed through the thick curtains in the gallery and struck the ring so that it glistened and shone in the dimness of the room. The ring sparkled only a few times; it was an ordinary band and somewhat dull from wear and age. But now it sparkled as if it were encrusted with diamonds and as if it had a source of light of its own.
Then the brilliance died, and the dimness returned.
“Oh!” cried Annabella.
Parsifal looked down at his hand and at her outstretched one. There was nothing there but the chain. He looked up and met Annabella’s eyes. He looked about him—it had not fallen to the floor, for he would have heard it if it had. He glanced up at the portrait, then drew in a sharp breath.
There, on the middle finger of the right hand of the thirteenth earl was a ring, plain and somewhat dull from age, where there had been no ring before.
He looked at Annabella; she, too, had been staring at the portrait. She turned to him, wonder and astonishment clear in her eyes.
“I suppose ... I suppose it was the ring, all along,” he whispered.
Annabella stared at him for a long moment, then shook her head and smiled.
“Oh, no, my love, I think not.”
He looked at her, his brows raised in question.
“Perhaps it was, at first, but later... no. I ask you: Did you have the ring when you came to my rescue that day?”
“Why ... no, I did not.”
“Or when you kept the cart from rolling into the villagers?”
“No.”
She went to him and touched his face tenderly before she kissed him. “Ghost or no ghost, Cavalier or not, it was you who came to my rescue all those times, and you who acted in a most heroic manner. I think if it had not been in you from the start, nothing would have made you do it.” She gave him another kiss. “You are far too modest, Parsifal. I will remind you of it until you remember.”
Parsifal grinned and took her into his arms. “I will become as insufferable as Geoffrey if you do.”
“Then I will nag until you become my own Parsifal again.”
Parsifal brought her closer and kissed her deeply. They parted after a while, and he laughed. “My love, I think we need to go down to our breakfast. Kisses are not enough for me these days, I’ll need some sustenance if we are to do more than kiss.”
Annabella grinned and took his hand, and when they left the gallery, she closed the door behind them.
The room was silent now, and dust motes floated through another beam of sunlight that strayed across the Long Gallery. It shone upon the portrait, and the sun’s rising rays struck the ring upon the thirteenth earl’s hand. It made it glisten once more, lig
hting the portrait until it seemed to glow.
A sigh like a faint breeze echoed through the room, then it was silent and dim once more.
Copyright © 1996 by Karen Eriksen Harbaugh
Originally published by Signet Regency (ISBN 0451190203)
Electronically published in 2013 by Belgrave House/Regency
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Table of Contents
THE RELUCTANT CAVALIER
Karen Harbaugh
Chapter I
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
Karen Harbaugh Page 23