“Well . . .” Abruptly, she glared. “I don’t know!”
Unwisely, he grinned.
She slapped him across the chest. “Don’t laugh! I’ve never felt so at sea in my life!”
His grin turned wry. “Why?” Catching her hand, he headed for the bed, towing her, unresisting, behind him.
“I don’t know. Well . . . yes, I do. It’s you.”
Reaching the bed, he turned and sat, pulling her to stand between his thighs. “What about me?”
She frowned at him; holding her gaze, his expression mild and questioning, he set his fingers to the buttons of her carriage dress.
After a long moment, she grimaced. “No—that’s not it either.”
Frowning absently, she reached for the pin securing his cravat, slipped it free, then slid it into the lapel of his coat. “I’m not sure what it is—just something unsettling—something not quite in its right place.” Frowning still, she flicked the ends of his cravat undone, then fell to untwisting the folds.
Richard held his tongue and let her tug his cravat free, then obediently shrugged out of his coat and waistcoat before helping her from her dress. Sitting again, he drew her to him; trapping her between his knees, he started unpicking the laces of her petticoat.
She was still frowning.
“Did my reception surprise you?”
She looked up. He pushed her petticoats down.
“Yes.” She met his gaze squarely. “I don’t understand it.” One hand in his, she stepped from the pile of her skirts. “It was as if you were”—she gestured—“someone they’d been waiting for.”
Closing his hands about her waist, Richard drew her back, locking her between his thighs. “That’s how they see me, I think.”
“But . . . why?”
For one minute, he kept his gaze on the tiny buttons of her chemise as he slipped them from their moorings. Then he lifted his gaze and met her eyes. “Because I think they fear for you—and thus, indirectly, for themselves. I showed you the letters. I imagine, if you asked, you would discover many of your household have their own suspicions of your neighbors and the threat they pose to the vale.”
Looking down, he separated the two halves of her chemise, now open to her waist, and drew the sleeves down. She shivered as the cool air touched her flesh, but lowered her arms and slid them free.
Raising his head, he trapped her gaze. “They see me as a protector—for you, the vale, and them.”
Her frown wavered, then she grimaced. “I suppose that’s what the consort is supposed to be.”
“Indeed.” Richard closed his hands over her bare breasts and felt her tremble, heard her indrawn breath. Her lids drifted low; he brushed his thumbs over her nipples, and she shuddered.
“The Lady chose me for you, remember.” Drawing her closer, he kissed her, then whispered against her lips: “She chose me to be the one to wed you, bed you and get you with child. Chose me to defend and protect you. That’s how your people see me—as the one The Lady sent for you.”
“Hmmm.” Her hands rising to his shoulders, Catriona leaned into the next kiss.
A minute later, he pulled back and urged her on to the bed, divesting himself of his clothes as she slipped between the sheets. Then he joined her, moving immediately over her, spreading her thighs wide and settling between. He fitted himself to her, then, settling heavily upon her, framed her face with both hands and kissed her deeply—as he pressed into her.
He slid fully home, then stopped and lifted his head, breaking their kiss. “I told you I won’t undermine your authority.” He pressed deeper still, then lowered his head. “Just trust me—it’ll all settle into place.” In the instant before his lips reclaimed hers, he whispered: “Just like this has.”
She couldn’t argue with that; as she instinctively eased beneath him, supple and soft as he rode her slowly, deeply, Catriona relaxed, and did as he asked, and put her trust in him.
It wasn’t, of course, how she’d imagined things would be. She’d thought to be the assured one, the one to do the reassuring, secure in her position as she eased him into his new role. Instead, the shoe seemed to be on the other foot, with him sliding effortlessly into a role she hadn’t known was waiting for him—and having to reassure her of her own.
But here, in their bed, she didn’t need reassurance. He’d taught her well, taught her all she needed to know to love him. So she clung to him and gave to him, uncaring of how the future might unfurl.
The future was the province of The Lady; the night—this night—was for them.
* * *
Later, much later, in the depths of the night, Richard lay on his back and studied his sleeping wife. His exhausted, sated wife—who had exhausted and sated him. The minutes ticked by as he studied her face, the flawless ivory skin, the wild mane of fire-gold hair.
She was a witch who had bewitched him; he would walk through fire for her, sell his soul and more for her.
And if she couldn’t understand that, it didn’t really matter, because he couldn’t understand it, either.
Sliding deeper into the bed, he gathered her into his arms and felt her warmth sink to his bones. Felt her turn to him in her sleep and curl into his arms.
As his body relaxed, and he drifted into dreams, it occurred to him that few men such as he—strong enough, powerful enough to act as her protector—would agree to wed a witch and then give her free rein.
He had.
He didn’t like to think why.
It was almost as if it had been preordained—that The Lady had indeed chosen him for her.
Chapter 11
Richard woke the next morning as he had the past two—at dawn, reaching for his wife.
This morning, all he found was cold sheets.
“What . . . ?” Lifting his lids, and his head, he confirmed that the bed beside him was indeed empty. Stifling a curse, he half sat and scanned the room.
There was no sign of Catriona.
Cursing freely, he flung back the covers and stalked to the window. Opening the pane, he pushed back the shutters. Dawn was a glimmer on the distant horizon. Abruptly shutting the window on the morning’s chill, he turned back into the room. Scowling ferociously.
“Where the devil has she gone?”
Determined to get an answer, he hauled on buckskin breeches and boots, a warm shirt and a hacking jacket. Tying a kerchief about his throat, his greatcoat over one arm, he strode out of the room.
The front hall and the dining hall were empty; no one was about. Not even a scullery maid clearing the ashes from the huge fireplace in the kitchen. It took him three tries to find the right corridor leading to the back door; finally there, he needed both hands to haul open the heavy oak door—Catriona certainly hadn’t gone that way.
Richard paused on the threshold and looked across the cobbled yard, joined to the front courtyard by a wide drive circling the main house. The sun was just rising, streaking light across the world, striking fire from ice crystals dotted like diamonds over the snow. It was cold and chill, but clear, the air invigorating, his breath condensing in gentle puffs before his face. The stables stood directly opposite, on the other side of the yard, a conglomeration of buildings in stone and wood. The manor house itself was of dark grey stone, with steep gables edging the slate roofs and three turrets growing out of the angles of the walls. Irregularly shaped, the main building was large, but surprisingly unified—not the hodge-podge the outbuildings appeared to be.
Everything, however, was neat and tidy, everything in its place.
Except his wife.
Gritting his teeth, Richard shrugged on his greatcoat, then tugged the back door shut. He couldn’t see any reason why Catriona would have gone riding, but if he didn’t find her soon, he might do the same.
His short tour yesterday with her as his guide had been confined to the reception rooms and gallery, the library, billiard room—a welcome surprise—and her estate office. Punctuated by introductions to a constant stream
of staff who had found occasion to pop up in their path, he hadn’t seen all that much.
As he strode across the cobbles, the clack of his boot-heels echoed weakly, thrown back by the stone. In the center of the yard, he halted—arrested by sheer beauty. The yard was large; from this position, he had an unimpeded view of the fields leading up to the head of the vale. Directly ahead of him, rising majestically into the sky, stood Merrick, the vale embraced within its foothills. Slowly, he pivoted, until he faced the house; on either side of its bulk, he could see the fields beyond, white-flecked ground stretching away beyond the brown of the park.
The manor was sited on a rise roughly at the center of the vale. To one side, the river that bisected the vale curved about the base of the rise; even under the snow and ice, Richard could hear it murmuring. Between the house and the river lay carefully tended gardens, stone paths wending between what he assumed would be beds of herbs and healing plants. It wasn’t hard, in his mind’s eye, to see it without snow, to see green instead of brown, to imagine the richness that in summer would be there. Even now, dormant, hibernating under winter’s blanket, the sense of vibrant life was strong.
To a Cynster, it was a breathtaking scene. All the land he could see was—if not, in his mind, his—then under his protection.
Drawing in a deep breath, feeling the cold singing through his veins, Richard slowly swung around and resumed his trek to the stables. In the distance, he saw dots ambling across the snowy fields—cattle drifting in and out of crude shelters. He frowned, then reached for the latch of the stable door.
It opened noiselessly—it hadn’t, in fact, been fully latched. His frown deepening, Richard drew the door wide. He was about to step through, when hoofbeats came pounding up the slope beyond the stables.
The next instant, a rough-coated chestnut mare swung around the corner and into the yard, Catriona in the saddle. She saw him instantly. Her cheeks were flushed, her wayward curls dancing—her bright eyes grew wary the instant they met his.
“What’s the matter?” Drawing rein a few feet away, she asked the question breathlessly.
Richard fought down an urge to roar. “I was looking for you.” The words were clipped and steely. “Where the devil have you been?”
“Praying, of course.”
Taking in her heavy cloak and the thick leggings she wore beneath her skirts, rucked up as she was riding astride, he caught her mount’s bridle as she kicked free of the stirrups. “You pray outside? In this weather?”
“In all weathers.” Lifting one leg over the chestnut’s neck, she prepared to slide down—stifling a curse, he reached up and lifted her to the ground.
And held her before him, trapped between his hands. “Where?”
Her gaze locked on his, she hesitated, then tilted her chin. “There’s a circle at the head of the vale.”
“A circle?”
Whisking free of his grasp, she nodded and caught the mare’s reins.
Suppressing a curse, he reached out and tugged them from her, then gestured for her to precede him. She did—nose in the air, hips swaying provocatively.
For her sake, Richard prayed there were no convenient piles of hay lying loose about the stable. Teeth gritted, he followed her into the warm dark. “Do you go to pray often? Disappear like this, before dawn?” Before he’d woken?
“At least once every week—sometimes more often. But not every day.”
Richard gave thanks for small mercies. Her Lady obviously had some understanding of the needs of mortal men. Securing the mare in the stall Cartriona had led him to, he turned to find her tugging the girths free. Then she reached for the saddle.
“Here—let me.” He grasped the saddle and lifted it from her and set it atop the stall wall. Turning back, he found her with a currying brush in her hand—he took that, too. And fell to brushing the mare’s thick coat.
By the light of a sharp green glare.
“I’m perfectly capable of caring for my own horse.”
“I daresay. You might not, however, care for the alternative to letting me care for your horse in this instance.”
Wariness muted her glare. “Alternative?”
Richard kept his eyes on the mare’s hairy hide. “As there’s no loose straw about, it’ll have to be the wall.” Without looking, he gestured with his head. “The corner by the trough might be wise—you could balance with one foot on the edge.”
She actually looked—the expression on her face nearly had him throwing the brush aside.
“Then again”—he gripped the brush tightly and put all his pent-up energy into every stroke—“this mangy beast looks like she bites—which doesn’t bear thinking of.”
Drawing herself up to her full, less-than-adequate height, she stalked around the mare so she could glare at him directly, with the horse a safe bolster between them.
“Why are you so . . .”—she gestured wildly—“whatever it is you are?”
Lips compressed, Richard flicked her a hard stare and brushed on.
Catriona folded her arms and tilted her chin. “Because I went to pray and didn’t ask your permission?”
She waited; gradually, the violence behind his brushing abated. His face like stone, he glanced at her over the mare’s back. “Not permission—but I need to know where you are, where you go. I can hardly protect you if I don’t know where you are.”
“I don’t need protection while praying—no one in the vale would dare go into the circle. It’s hallowed ground.”
“Do people from outside the vale know that?”
“I’m as safe within the circle as an archbishop in his cathedral.”
“Thomas à Becket was slain before the altar at Canterbury.”
She hesitated, then shrugged. And tipped her nose in the air. “That was different.”
With a frustrated growl, Richard tossed the currying brush aside, stepped around the mare—and trapped her against the stall wall. Eyes wide, locked on his, all fiery blue, Catriona heroically denied a crazed impulse to glance at the nearby trough.
“Just tell me where you’re going in future. Don’t disappear.”
Lips thinning, she gave him back glare for glare. “If I wake you in the morning to tell you where I’m going, I won’t get there.”
His eyes bored into hers while she inwardly dared him to deny it.
Instead, after a fraught moment, he nodded curtly and drew back. “Tell me your plans the night before.”
With that, he grasped her elbow and steered her, much less gently than was his wont, out of the stall. Forced to pace quickly by his side, Catriona stared up at him, struggling to make out his features in the stable’s dim light.
“Very well,” she agreed, as they reached the stable door. “But I don’t need any protection while at the circle.”
They stepped into the yard; the morning light found his face—illuminating a grim mask. “I’ll think about it.”
He continued to march her across the cobbles, heading for the house. The tension gripping him, shimmering about her, was beyond Catriona’s comprehension.
“What is the matter with you?” Reaching the back doorstep, she swung to face him. “I’ve agreed to tell you where I go—so what’s this?” With one finger, she prodded one bicep—locked and as hard as iron.
His chest swelled. “That,” he said, his voice very low, issuing through clenched teeth, “is because I’m hungry.”
“Well, breakfast should nearly be ready—”
“Wrong appetite.”
She blinked—and looked into his eyes. And saw the truth simmering. “Great heavens! But . . .” She frowned at him. “You can’t be. What about last night?”
“That was last night. Because you disappeared, I missed my morning snack.”
“Morning . . . ?” She felt her features blank, heard her incredulity ring in her weak: “Every morning?”
He grinned—a distinctly feral expression. “Let’s just say that for the foreseeable future, it would help. Bu
t for now”—hauling open the door, he waved her inside—“why don’t we see if I can be distracted with breakfast? Unless, of course, you’re in favor of snacking throughout the day?”
For one instant, Catriona simply stared at him, then she glared and tossed her head—and ignored the shivery tendrils of excitement slithering down her spine. “Breakfast,” she declared, and swept into the house.
His features like stone, Richard followed her in.
They breakfasted together; in passing pikelets and jam, sharing toast, pouring coffee, the tension between them eased. They were the first to take their seats of those who sat at the main table. Mrs. Broom was fussing, overseeing the serving of the trays; McArdle hobbled in late. Algaria, arriving relatively early, took a seat at the far end and kept her black thoughts to herself.
Sitting back in the carved chair that was now his, Richard idly sipped coffee and watched to see how his wife started her day. Algaria’s continued disapproval surprised him; he hoped she’d eventually get over it and accept their marriage, not for his sake, but Catriona’s. He saw the hopeful glance Catriona threw the woman and sensed her sigh when it wasn’t returned. If he’d thought it would help, he would have spoken to Algaria, but her defensiveness where he was concerned remained marked.
“Have there been any replies to those letters I sent about the grain?”
Catriona’s question drew Richard’s attention; it was addressed to McArdle.
“Hmm . . . yes, actually, I believe there were.” McArdle frowned. “One or two, at least.”
“Well, I’ll see those first, then we really must make some headway on the plans for next season’s plantings.”
“Ahh . . . Jem’s not brought in his figures yet. Nor’s Melchett.”
“They haven’t?” Catriona stared at McArdle. “But we need them to make any sense of it.”
McArdle raised brows and shoulders in a comprehensive shrug. “You know how it is—they don’t understand what you want, so they hope you’ll forget—and so they forget.”
Heaving an exasperated sigh, Catriona stood. “I’ll see to that later then. But if you’ve finished, we may as well get started.”
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