by Gina Black
He was beginning to count how many, when his thoughts were disturbed by footsteps hastening down the hall. A man’s voice burst into the peacefulness of the room.
“Nicky! Where ha’ ye been?”
Nicholas’s head whipped around as Henry advanced toward their table. The man’s usually neat appearance was gone. His shirt was dirty, his eyes bloodshot, and a white cloth wrapped from the top of his head to his jaw made him look quite mad.
“Where have ye been?” Henry repeated. “It’s worried to death, I’ve been, waiting for ye here. Back before morning, ye said.” He swallowed, his large Adam’s apple bobbing. “And when the horse came back without ye…. I’d heard ye were shot…thought ye were dead…” His voice trailed off as he looked at Katherine. “Who—?”
“Henry,” Nicholas cut him off, alarmed the man might give it all away before he had a chance to warn him. “I did not wish to wake you, and my sister here—“ he made a meaningful glance and nodded at Katherine.
He ignored the looks of astonishment on both Henry’s and Katherine’s faces and continued. “My sister and I needed to break our fast after our long journey, so I decided we should eat now and announce our presence to you after.”
A commotion on the table diverted their attention. Montford clenched a piece of herring in her teeth. Growling, the kitten slowly backed to the table edge, hair straight up on an arched back.
Nicholas chuckled.
Katherine smiled. “Aright puss.” She picked up the feline, avoiding four sets of sharp claws, and placed Montford at her feet on the wooden floor.
“Would you like to join us for a bite too?” Nicholas invited Henry.
“I thank ye, no.” He rubbed one side of his bound jaw gently. “’Tis me tooth again. I cannot chew. ’Tis also making me a bit peevish.”
“I had not noticed,” Nicholas said drolly, picking up a bit of cheese with the tip of his knife and popping it into his mouth.
Katherine spoke to Henry. “Have you tried clove for your tooth?”
Henry shook his head and grimaced. “It’s brandy I’ve been trying mostly, and a very strange decoction the landlord’s daughter gave me.” His mouth formed a crooked smile. “It made me tongue blister, it did, but it didn’t help me tooth, except that me tongue hurt so bad I forgot about the tooth awhile.”
Nicholas pulled a hunk of bread from the loaf. “You are well enough to travel?”
Henry pulled the ragged cloth from his head. “Aye,” he nodded. “Where to now?”
“We are to London,” Katherine told him.
Nicholas gave her a censuring frown. “Do not say it so loud, lass. Do you want the whole of Dorsetshire to know where we’re headed?”
Katherine looked down at her lap.
At once Nicholas felt contrite. “In truth,” he said more gently. “We need to be gone quick. We’ll eat, I shall settle my account with the landlord, and we’ll be back on the road.” He turned to Henry. “We’ve brought a groom with us—a boy, and some sorry horse-flesh. The boy can help you in the stables.” He sent the man a glance that said I’ll explain all later.
Henry nodded and left the room.
“More riding so soon?” Katherine sighed, disappointment written across her face.
“We cannot stop here, lass. They would find us before supper. We need to stay well ahead of them.”
“Do you think they come after us,” she swallowed, “even now?”
“No.” He smiled. “My guess is they are just discovering your absence, and within the next few hours will be on the road in pursuit. Still, ’tis best we get on our way soon.”
She nodded; her mouth drew into a tight line.
“Cheer up, lass. I will not let them get you.” Nicholas took a bite of the crusty bread. “Now it is time to eat. ’Twill be a long day on the road, and we won’t stop again before nightfall.”
At the thought of getting back on a horse, Katherine’s muscles groaned. Nicholas’s arms had been comfortable, but she had not slept well. Still, they had made much better progress than had they been on foot.
As the room filled with villagers stopping in for their morning draught before moving on, Katherine made an effort to eat. Each time someone walked in, she sank as far into the solid oak bench as possible, but no one looked at her.
Nicholas, on the other hand, drew the eye. Though not exactly handsome, his presence was commanding. The streak of white running through his otherwise ebony hair was a striking bit of audacity. Thank goodness, they would be looking for her and not him. As if to prove this, a loud voice cut through the general buzz of conversation.
“Nicky!” A robust serving-maid headed in their direction with two large tankards grasped in one hand, her face all smiles. “’Tis glad I am t’see ye returned in one piece,” she exclaimed. “When yer horse came back w’out ye, ’twas thought ye’d come to some harm.”
“Molly,” Nicholas brought his hand about her waist and pulled her to him, planting a kiss on an ample breast that threatened to burst from her tight bodice. “Surely I missed you, my girl.”
“Away w’ ye, now,” said Molly, batting at his hand.
Katherine pursed her lips. Heat rushed to her cheeks. She glanced around the room, but no one seemed to notice. Yet, in such proximity, she could not avoid it. Keeping her eyes averted from Nicholas and the maid, she swallowed, and pushed her mug away.
“Pray excuse me,” she mumbled and rose.
Nicholas put a staying hand upon her arm. He shook his head, his eyes urging her back into her seat. Katherine shrugged him off, but sat down anyway.
“Not now, Molly, you can see my sister does not approve.”
Molly eyed Katherine and clucked her tongue. “Is she a Puritan, or one of them Quakers?”
He shook his head. “Nay, she is a widow.”
Molly extricated herself from Nicholas’s embrace and smoothed her skirt with her hands. Then she reached over and gave Katherine’s shoulder a pat. “Sorry I am to hear of it. I miss me Harry, I do. It’s been almost two years and I still grieve for the scamp.” She sighed, and then her smile returned as she turned to yell at a couple of farmers who had been calling her, “Comin’, comin’, cannot ye see I’m busy?” She guffawed before bouncing off to serve them.
Katherine looked at the table, avoiding Nicholas’s gaze.
“You disapprove?” he asked.
“’Tis of no matter whether I approve or not,” she answered. “But ’tis not seemly, nor prudent to draw attention in a public place.”
“Such behavior is common in a place like this.”
Katherine sniffed. “That may be so. I would not know.”
Nicholas reached across the table and took her hand, cradling it between his two larger ones. He drew slow circles on her palm with a finger, sending strange feelings through her. She tried to pull her hand away but he did not release it. Finally, she looked at him.
“I am a man,” he said simply.
Katherine let out a shuddering sigh and nodded.
He loosened his hold.
She snatched her hand back into her lap just as Henry approached the table, carrying a steaming mug. Clothing straightened, he looked almost presentable.
Nicholas took the cup and brought it not to his mouth, but to his nose, and inhaled deeply.
The delicious scent wrapped around Katherine, exotic and earthy. “It smells wondrous. What is it?” She sniffed the air. “Is that what you do with it?”
Nicholas laughed. “Nay. I drink it,” and he proved this by taking a big gulp. He held the mug out to her. “Coffee.”
She brought it to her lips and sipped. He watched as her eyes widened, then her mouth pulled into a grimace. “Why, ’tis bitter.” She looked at him reproachfully and put the cup on the table.
Nicholas smiled, taking the mug back up. “Only at first.” He took another big drink. “Later ’tis pleasing. Very pleasing.” Just like lovemaking, he thought, and then shook his head.
Why did his mi
nd stray to carnal pleasures when he was with her, this drab Puritan? Too bad there was no time to slake his lust with Molly. He drained the last of the stimulating brew and turned to Henry, who had fallen into conversation at one of the tables nearby. “Are we ready then?”
CHAPTER FIVE
“WHO ARE your new friends, Nicky?” Henry kept his voice down and inclined his head toward the other end of the yard where Jeremy readied three fresh mounts. Katherine stood to the side, holding her cat.
“She isn’t my sister, that’s for certain.” Nicholas chuckled.
“I know that. Your sister is in France.”
“Listen,” Nicholas’s voice took on a conspiratorial tone. “She is heiress to Ashfield.”
Henry’s eyes grew large.
“And, she is to marry Dickon Finch.”
“No!”
Nicholas nodded.
Henry rubbed his jaw. “Then what is she doing with you?”
“She doesn’t know who I am, or that I have a connection to Ashfield. Thinks I’m a Nicholas Eddington, got that idea while I was ill,”—and then at Henry’s expression—“nothing to worry about, just a bullet to the arm. I’m quite recovered, I assure you.” To prove this he raised his arm, waved it back and forth, up and down. “See?” he said smiling, even though showing it didn’t hurt at all made it hurt quite a bit.
“She does not want to marry Dickon. Who would blame her? She thinks I’m helping her run off to London—which I am, in a way.” He winked. “She knows I’m the Raven.”
“Are you sure you’re alright Nicky? Maybe that bullet addled yer brains?” Henry shook his head. “What can you possibly be doing with her? And who is the boy?”
“He came long to make sure I do her no harm.”
“Mayhap a good thing.” Henry frowned. “I know this is asking a lot of ye, but have ye made any sort of a plan?”
Nicholas looked across the yard at Katherine and Jeremy, in quiet conversation. She smiled up at Jeremy in a way he found most annoying.
What were his plans for the lass? It had seemed so simple back at the cottage: through her, he would wreak his revenge. But how, exactly? Would it be possible to hurt her father and Finch without hurting her, and still fulfill the promise he made to his father?
He kicked at a rock with the toe of his boot. “Not exactly,” he admitted. “But by keeping her with me, I at least foil the plans of Finch and her father to unite their properties.”
“That old friend of yours was here t’other day, the day after you disappeared, looking for the Raven. I fear he might have recognized me. It has been many years, of course—“
“And you haven’t changed a bit, have you my friend.” Nicholas teased, remembering a younger and wider Henry, as he had been when they left Ashfield. The man’s hair, then brown, had long since turned gray.
“We must travel where we are not known. Until I am certain what game I play, I don’t wish Katherine to discover who I am. Mayhap we should take the Salisbury road. What do you think?”
Henry furled his brow. “I do not recall the country lanes at all well, Nicky. But since we had best get going, any road should do as long as we aim in the right direction.”
* * *
Gerald Welles watched through the tall mullioned window as the elegant Finch coach wound its way up the drive. His empty belly clenched. This would not go well; he knew it.
Nothing had gone as it should since he’d awakened this morning to discover his household at a standstill. There had been no satisfactory explanation, except that Katherine was not there to make it go.
He’d not been alarmed, at least not at first. After all, she was generally a sensible girl who did not disobey or turn up missing. Still, it was too easy to remember how she’d resisted him about Finch. Wilfred had often warned him about sparing the rod, and Gerald was beginning to think his father might have been right. Perhaps what the girl needed was a good beating.
Something he would attend to as soon as she came back.
While he’d waited for his breakfast, he’d set the servants to look for her. Instead of Katherine, they’d found a note: a list of tasks underway and what still needed doing. Gerald wondered if that might be her way of saying good-bye. This became more likely when Lucy discovered Katherine’s little cat was gone. Then news came from the stables that Jeremy and two mounts were absent as well.
That was bad.
Very bad.
So bad, Gerald lost his appetite and left his breakfast uneaten. The anxiety of what to tell his father set his knees knocking. And now, drat it all, Finch was arriving early.
Outside the window, the coach came to a stop. The coachman hopped down from his perch and helped Finch out of the cab. Gerald hurried to the antechamber, preferring to meet Finch in the smaller room.
At the sound of Finch’s imperious steps clicking across the stone floor, Gerald’s stomach twisted into a hard knot and his mind went blank. He tried to compose himself before the other man barreled into the small room, the Ashfield butler in tow.
“Is my bride ready for our espousals?” asked Finch, without even the courtesy of a greeting. He dismissed the servant as if this were his house already.
“She’s gone,” Gerald blurted out, not meaning to say that at all.
“Gone?” Finch squeaked. He cleared his throat. “What do you mean she is gone? Where did she go?”
“Not far, not far. I-I am sure she will return soon. A touch of the megrims is all, I think. The gentle sex…” Gerald tried to smile but failed. He had to protect Katherine, not that she would appreciate it. The chit didn’t know what was best for her; women rarely did. He’d secured a very advantageous match for her, and she was ruining it all.
“She knew we were to say our espousals today.” Finch’s eyes narrowed. “Has she gone off to the woods again? I do not approve. ’Tis dangerous.” He cracked his knuckles.
Gerald flinched with each pop. “I shall send word when she is back,” he said, trying to gain control of the exchange. “I will lock her up. You have my word on it.”
“You should have locked her up before. She is a disobedient daughter, which is not to your credit.” Finch waved a finger at him. “I will not have a disobedient wife to discredit me.” He grasped the hilt of his dress sword, pulled the blade out halfway, and then shoved it back inside its scabbard. “She will not be disobedient long.” He turned and left without so much as a good-bye.
Gerald sank onto the stone seat. With the two best horses gone, he’d have to send Horace and Stephen on the remaining mounts. They’d find them.
They had to.
* * *
Once clear of the village, the four riders passed hills dotted with small farmhouses and sheep, picturesque under a crystal-blue sky. A bucolic and peaceful scene that did not match Nicholas’s irritated mood.
Feeling thus as a younger man, he’d have picked a fight, calling out the biggest, brawniest opponent he could find and emerging a bloody, yet usually triumphant, mess. At twenty-eight he was too old for that. And who would he fight anyway? Jeremy? He let out a derisive snort.
Katherine made a disapproving shrug.
It all came from lack of sexual activity. He could think of no other reason that she should fill his thoughts. Instead of watching the landscape as they traveled past, or thinking of what to do next, Katherine appeared in his mind’s eye. Not as she sat, stiff before him on the horse, but a different Katherine, a winsome, responsive, full-blooded woman.
This other Katherine did not wear her hair bound under an ugly white cap, but wore it flowing free. Long and silken, he could imagine it spilling across his pillow. Her mouth, instead of drawn in a tight line, was soft, yielding, and full of erotic promise. Her eyes, instead of sad and wary, were beckoning, warm, and hungry. For him.
A dream Katherine to be sure. He cursed silently and shifted in the saddle to ease the tightness in his breeches.
Katherine’s Puritan upbringing did not bode well for bed sport. He’d he
ard that Puritans regarded bedding with the same dry religious conviction as they did everything else. Likely for Katherine, fornication would be a cold perfunctory joining purely for the begetting of children. No doubt she would be as wooden in bed as she sat before him now.
And a virgin, too. Although some men preferred them innocent, that chaste state was not at all to his taste. He preferred a seasoned woman, one who could match his level of passion and delight in sex play.
Nicholas grimaced and shifted in the saddle again. Taking a deep breath, he acknowledged that traveling with Katherine presented complications he had not foreseen.
He raised his arm in a signal to stop. “We can rest now,” he said, and at Katherine’s pleased smile, he added, “but only for a moment.” Although he’d been aching for her to smile, perversely, he now wished to crush it.
He dismounted, and then helped her down, putting her away from him with haste.
Montford sprang from her arms and darted off into a thicket.
“I will not wait for you to find your cat,” Nicholas warned.
“My kitten will come when I call,” she said, her voice a trifle haughty.
It had better, he thought, turning away.
After Nicholas and the other men went off, Katherine found a group of bushes to seek her ease.
“Montford,” she whispered when she was done. Then louder, “Where’d you go, puss? Will you make me a liar?” A rustling in the far undergrowth caught her attention. In a flash of grey fur, Montford dashed across the clearing and scampered up a stately old oak. Shading her eyes against the late afternoon sun, Katherine spied her kitten several branches up and well out of reach.
“Montford,” she pleaded. “Nicholas said he would not wait, and I think he’s a man of his word. At least I’ve been hoping so.”
That didn’t budge the cat, except, perhaps, to send Montford higher up into the branches. The kitten’s movement dislodged several leaves and an acorn, which hit Katherine squarely on the forehead. She let out a yelp and jumped back at the sudden pain.