His admiral, newly wed and the brightest star in the Royal Navy, for whom Colin would gladly have laid down his life.
Something welled up in his throat, and he suddenly couldn’t speak.
A hand touched his arm. A voice stirred the hair near his ear, seemed to come from far away. “Colin, are you well?”
He heard the wind rising, growing stronger—
“Colin?”
Rain, beginning to pelt the decks, sporadically at first and then with the tattoo of a thousand drums, so deafening he couldn’t hear himself think. He took shelter beneath the poop deck, growing increasingly uneasy as he waited for his admiral to return but no, the admiral was still aboard the frigate Cricket with Captain Young, and could not know of the sudden fear and foreboding welling up in the heart of his flag-captain: Do hurry, Sir Graham. It’s running a high sea and I don’t like this at all—
Was it that, with an unsteady, still-healing leg that would not support him, he no longer felt invincible? Had the weakness laid bare for all to see by the rogue wave that had swept the crutches out from under him, and humiliated him in front of his officers and men, robbed him of the steady confidence that had always been such a part of him? It was just a storm, one of many, nothing to be worried about. . . .
And then, through the howl of the wind and rain, he’d heard it—great booms of thunder as waves broke against distant, submerged rocks.
They had, in the darkness, come up against a lee shore.
It was every sailor’s nightmare.
Chaos, shouted orders, all hands on deck as the mighty flagship had begun the desperate process of saving herself. And even now, Colin knew that he could have saved her. There had been room to wear the massive warship, to find sea room. Room for Triton, yes.
But not for Cricket, much farther in their lee, so much closer to the rocks—and doomed.
He had run, limping, to the shrouds, the rain pummeling his face and the wind shrieking like a legion of demons around him. Rain had streaked the lens of his night glass as he’d trained it on the helpless Cricket and saw there, a sight he would never forget: Sir Graham coming up on Cricket’s decks . . . Sir Graham, who would die if Colin didn’t do something . . . Sir Graham, who immediately saw their predicament and rapidly signaled him to save Triton, and to leave Cricket to her fate. . . .
Colin had disobeyed that order.
New commands, directly opposed to those he had just given, a suicide mission if it failed. Beneath him Triton laboring and straining . . . the horror if every man aboard as they watched Cricket, floundering helplessly, moving closer and closer to the breakers, driven toward certain death by the violence of wind and current; again he heard the shouts of her terrified crew, again he saw his admiral bravely clinging to shrouds that lay nearly vertical beneath the onslaught of the storm, determined to meet his death with courage and dignity . . . and again, he made the decision that had cost him his career and in the end, the lives of so many—
Someone was shaking his shoulder. Blinking, Colin opened his eyes and stared at the woman for a long, uncomprehending moment.
Ariadne.
Her face was pure white in the darkness.
“I was calling you for the past minute . . . Colin?”
A sudden, violent chill seized him, and he put his face in his hands and his elbows on his knees and sat there, unmoving. His face was slick with sweat, cold, clammy, as though coated in sea spray.
Dear God.
“Ariadne, it is time to tell you something you must know—”
At that moment Maxwell’s giant black boarhounds, roaring with fury, came charging out of the darkness and hit the massive iron gates with such force that they clanged with the force of the great beasts’ impact. Marc ran to meet their challenge, snarling at them through the gates while Bow dove beneath Colin’s legs.
The shouts of a guard pierced the night. “Who goes there?”
The boarhounds’ snarling was drowning out all sound. Defeatedly, Colin made a dismissive motion with his hand. “Go ahead, answer him, Ariadne.”
“But you were going to tell me something—”
“Later.”
“But Colin—”
“I repeat, who’s there?” shouted the guard, and the hounds renewed their crazed snarling until little Bow was howling in terror.
The veterinarian turned away, his jaw hard in the moonlight, his eyes dark with pain. It was obvious he would not speak further to her of love, marriage, or whatever his shameful secret was, tonight.
If ever.
“Damn you,” Ariadne swore beneath her breath, and leaving him sitting in the chaise, stormed back to Shareb-er-rehh. She grabbed the reins, swung herself up into the saddle and drove her heels into the stallion’s sides. He snorted and balked, shying at a shadow that slanted across the road, then moving skittishly forward as though he had no wish to go near those tall, ominous gates.
Behind her, came the slow plodding of Thunder’s hoofbeats as Colin sent him following after Shareb.
And there was the guard, holding a musket in one hand and straining to hold two snarling, snapping boarhounds in the other as he peered through the thick iron bars.
“I repeat, who goes there?” he bellowed.
Bravely, Ariadne urged the stallion forward.
“Lady Ariadne St. Aubyn,” she announced haughtily. And then, aware of the veterinarian behind her, she spat, “Lord Maxwell’s betrothed. Now do open the gate. His Lordship is expecting me.”
# # #
“Pay to the order of . . . Colin Lord . . . the sum of twelve . . . thousand . . . pounds.”
“Really, my lord, I was the one who offered the sum to Dr. Lord,” Ariadne snapped, as the earl waited for the ink to dry on the cheque while regarding her with a tolerant, sardonic lift of one brow. “I can pay my own debts, thank you.”
“Ah, dearest,” came the silky reply, “you are to be my wife. What is mine is yours, and what is yours, mine. If I want to pay your escort here for safely bringing you home to me, then that is my business, is it not?”
“You don’t understand,” she said, her face flushed and hot. “We—”
“Nonsense, my dear.” Maxwell leaned back in his chair. It galled him to part with such a large sum of money, but once he was married to the beautiful heiress he would never have financial problems again. No more debts, no more threats on his life, no more fear of debtor’s prison. But oh, to think that foolish, stupid, unthinking Ariadne had sacrificed her reputation in favor of getting the horse to him . . . but then, he had to admit, the horse was worth far more than her reputation, anyhow.
And no one would ever have to know how she had got here.
No one would know.
Five feet away from her, the lout who had brought her here sat stiffly on the edge of his chair and regarded him in a way that was downright unnerving. A veterinarian, he had called himself. He was quiet and unassuming, but there was nothing benign about his lean, powerful frame, and the eyes that coolly took his measure shone with intelligence and perception. They made the earl uncomfortable, those eyes. Not just their unusual color. But the steady, watchful way they looked at him. Through him. As though the man knew those things that no one—except Maxwell himself—knew.
Ariadne, he could deal with. Colin Lord might pose a bigger problem.
The name struck him then. Colin Lord. He’d heard it before . . . sometime, someplace. But where?
No matter. It would be only a matter of time before he placed it.
But he had a bigger problem than just Colin Lord. He had not failed to notice the way Ariadne had angled her body toward the veterinarian’s, nor how he had pulled his chair possessively close to hers.
The slut.
Maxwell rose to his feet, consciously aware of his own height, and the image of power and sinister strength he conveyed.
The veterinarian rose to his feet, too. He reached out to take the check that Maxwell thrust toward him, and it was then that the earl saw the
ring on the other man’s finger.
Not just any ring, but one with an anchor on it.
In that moment, he knew precisely who Colin Lord was.
# # #
As Colin accepted the check, Ariadne felt as though someone had slammed a fist into her stomach and then left her to die. The blood drained from her face, and her fingers went cold. She started to get up but every limb in her body had frozen, and she fell back into the chair, staring at Colin in shock and betrayal while the flames crackled and popped in the hearth.
“I am in your debt, Mr. Lord, for safely conveying my lovely Ariadne to me,” she heard Maxwell saying, and the casual, cultured tone of his voice finally invaded her shock. Feeling flooded back into her, and she managed to rise to her feet.
“H-he’s a . . . doctor,” she heard herself say.
“Yes, of course,” Maxwell murmured dismissively, and his eyes flickered over the veterinarian, giving away nothing. “Would you care to see the fabulous Black Patrick before you take your leave, Mr. Lord? The syndicate that owns him has stabled him here, in the hopes of breeding some of my fine mares to him. Surely you have heard of this wonderful horse? He is unbeaten, the fastest steed to hit an English turf since Eclipse.” The earl reached out and cupped Ariadne’s elbow, drawing her away from Colin. “Come, my dear—”
Colin had had enough. “I have something to say to the lady before you draw her away.”
“Mr. Lord, she is my betrothed. Anything you have to say to her can be said in front of me.”
“As you wish, then.”
Maxwell stared at him with malice. Colin returned the look unflinchingly, then stepped toward Ariadne. The cheque lay like a diseased thing between his thumb and forefinger, making him want to shudder with disgust. Still holding Maxwell’s gaze, he tore it neatly in half, balled the two halves in his fist, and tossed them into the fire.
Maxwell raised both brows.
Ariadne gaped, her eyes huge in her suddenly white face.
And Colin moved toward her, trying not to limp, and took her cold hand firmly in his own. It was not the way he had intended to propose, it was not even appropriate in manner, circumstance, or style—but desperate situations call for desperate measures, and he had no choice in the matter.
“Lady Ariadne—what I tried to say earlier—will you marry me?”
Her mouth opened and for one terrible moment he thought she was going to refuse him. She glanced at Maxwell, standing calmly beside the fire, his one eye as black as Hades, the other chilling in its opacity. She gave the tiniest of nods—and then threw herself into Colin’s arms, her body shaking with relief.
She clung to him, and Colin looked up to see Maxwell staring at him with monstrous fury.
“I should call you out for this, Mr. Lord.”
The fire crackled in the hearth. Snap. Fizz. A thump of a falling log, and then a shower of falling sparks.
Colin drew Ariadne beside him. “Pistols or swords?” he asked, mildly.
“Oh, I shouldn’t think it would matter to you, Captain. I daresay you’re quite skilled with both, are you not?”
Captain? Confused, Ariadne stared at the two men. What on earth was Maxwell talking about? Then she realized just what was happening, and horror swept through her.
“I will not have the two of you fighting like little boys over me!” she cried, stepping between them and glaring at them both in turn. “Colin, I give you my answer: yes. Maxwell, I give you my explanation: Dr. Lord and I have fallen in love. I cannot marry you when my heart belongs to another.”
She saw fury darkening the earl’s face, a faint quivering about his aristocratic nostrils. He stared at her—then turned his back and walked toward the fire, there to stand silently.
Ariadne’s heart was too soft to tolerate the fact that she had just injured another so severely. She stared up at the back of Maxwell’s dark, handsome head, the fringe of perfectly styled hair just touching his collar, the broad span of his shoulders beneath his coat. Maxwell was a proud man. She had just cut him deeply—and unforgivably. The least she could do was offer an explanation to this man she was supposed to have married.
Embarrassed, and feeling small and mean, she turned to Colin and took his hands in her own.
“Will you allow me a few moments to explain our situation to Maxwell . . . in private?” she asked, silently pleading for him to understand.
She saw the uncertainty and distrust in his perceptive eyes, the hesitation etched in his features.
“Please, Colin?” She squeezed his fingers. “Just a moment?”
The earl remained standing at the fire, his back turned toward them and the burned, blackened bits that had been the cheque curling at his feet.
Colin pursed his lips and she could see the inner battle he was waging. He gave Ariadne a long, searching glance, and reached up to touch her cheek—then, without another word, he nodded and walked toward the door.
Her hands clammy, she anxiously watched him close the door behind him. And then she turned and found herself staring into the cold eyes of Clive, Lord Maxwell.
CHAPTER 21
A mere hour and a half after Maxwell’s boarhounds had flung themselves at the big iron gates, another traveler appeared there, tired, hungry—and desperate.
Tristan, the new Lord Weybourne.
Splattered with mud, his fine clothes rumpled and dusty, the young earl sat astride his mare while the gatekeeper, holding the two growling dogs, opened the gate. Thank God for the darkness that hid his shaking hands, the sure pallor of his face. Carefully, he schooled his features into an expression of impatience and boredom, though his heart was thundering in his chest and his hands were sweating.
“My sister, the Lady Ariadne,” he began, glancing down at the fresh hoofprints that cut the road up beneath him. “I have reason to believe that she is here.”
“Yes, her ladyship arrived tonight,” the gatekeeper said, straining to hold the boarhounds’ collars and letting his gaze rake flatly over Tristan. “In fact, she is probably with my lord right now, as we speak.”
Tristan shuddered. “I must see her. Immediately.”
“Of course. Right this way, my lord,” the gatekeeper murmured, managing to raise his flat, hard voice over the vicious barking and growling of the boarhounds. He eyed Tristan coolly. “His lordship is . . . expecting you.”
Cold sweat broke out on Tristan’s brow. He felt the customary prickle of fear threading its way up his spine at thought of confronting Maxwell, and his arms and hands went suddenly numb. Think of Ariadne. He urged the mare forward, and she shot nervously past the open gate.
He sent her into a gallop and flying down the long drive. Far ahead in the distance he saw the great stone manor house, black and foreboding against the night sky, its windows blazing with light.
Terror swept through him and he leaned low over the mare’s neck, urging her faster and faster.
Ariadne was in there.
Dear God, don’t let me be too late.
# # #
“Really, my dear . . . you never fail to shock and surprise me.”
Ariadne swallowed hard, suddenly, inexplicably, afraid. She gazed up into Maxwell’s saturnine face, but she could read nothing there; the pain she had seen earlier was gone, replaced with a look of bored indifference, and only the tightness of his words and the way his hand clenched and unclenched the poker belied the sense of betrayal and rage he must surely feel.
Still holding the poker, he began a slow, studied walk, back and forth before the great marble hearth. The fire’s light glowed eerily against his hair, the harsh planes of his face, the eyes that suddenly seemed bottomless and empty. The butler came in, was ushered back toward the door by the earl, who muttered something under his breath; then Maxwell turned and regarded Ariadne.
“You are throwing away your father’s dream, you know, with your insistence upon marrying this—this rabble,” he said, noncommittally, with a glance at the door through which the butler h
ad gone. “You are one of the wealthiest women in England. Do you think that a lowly animal doctor would really want you for your looks?”
That stung. “I should hope my looks are at least equal to my financial status, my lord,” she replied coolly. “And as for my inheritance, I think it’s obvious that Doctor Lord has no interest whatsoever in my money.”
“Oh, yes, I’m sure he does not. Perhaps it is your horse that he wants then, eh?”
“Really, sir, I am trying to explain my feelings as a sane and rational adult. Please do not make this any more difficult for me than it already is.”
He glanced at her, his eyes raking disapprovingly over her mud-splattered clothes, her ungloved hands, her loose and tangled hair. She felt suddenly unclean and barbaric.
“Difficult,” he murmured, softly. “Here I have been worried sick about you while the whole countryside has been up in arms trying to hunt you down. You show up here looking like you just crawled out of a pasture, proclaim your love for another man, and do not expect me to be upset?”
“I had no intention of falling in love with Colin Lord. I sought him out because I needed an escort and someone to look after Shareb-er-rehh’s welfare. . . .”
“And?”
“Well . . . things just rather—happened, I guess.” She felt her face flaming red, and the way Maxwell was looking at her made her feel suddenly foolish and ridiculous.
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