Grainne gasped and stopped short. Emer nearly ran into her.
“I apologize for the deception,” William said. “It was regrettable, but necessary to my scheme. I came to Ireland to escape an… arrangement… that my father had entered me into. I returned because of my father’s ill health, and found while I was there that the arrangement was not agreeable to the other party, as well. So we reached an honorable ending to the… arrangement, and I was free to return.”
Mr. Spencer squared his jaw. “For what reason are you returning?” He looked pointedly at the two horses cropping at his lawn.
“To request the hand of your daughter in marriage.”
Grainne made a little hop of excitement, causing the floorboards to squeak in protest. Spencer turned quickly and saw her standing there. He took in the breeches and blouse, long forbidden, and the pink in her cheeks. “I see you are amiable to this plan, daughter,” he said without pleasure.
“I am, Father,” Grainne replied, trying to keep her tone steady. “I should prefer it over every other arrangement.”
Spencer frowned. “And yet I refused Archer’s hand before, and my reasons for doing so have not changed. Have you forgotten that, lad?” He turned back to William, and seemed to puff himself up a little, as if trying to block William’s path to Grainne. “And I can see by the way you appear here with two horses that are not yours, ready to ride away with my daughter in men’s clothing, as I have forbidden her to appear in public, that you are still not steady nor fit enough to take her in hand and moderate her wild behavior. At this moment, sir, you are no better than a horse thief yourself, had you thought of that at all?”
Grainne was horrified. What her father said was true. William was standing before them with Bald Nick and Gretna, horses that didn’t belong to her or William or even her father, but to Lord Kilreilly. How could he have been so foolish? Her heart began sinking to the vicinity of her boots. Her father was in such a quiet, simmering rage, she would count them all fortunate if he only sent William away on foot, and did not send for the magistrate.
Although she wondered if an Irish country magistrate would dare arrest an English peer.
Why wasn’t his newly landed status making any sort of a dent in her father’s armor, anyway?
“I am not satisfied with the fact that you have proven yourself a master of deceit in my own home,” Spencer was adding.
“Regrettable, as I have stated before,” William admitted. “But at least you cannot name me a horse-thief. I have the bills of sale for these two animals in my saddlebag. I supped with Lord Kilreilly tonight, and purchased Bald Nick and Gretna from him before I took my leave.” He smiled at Grainne. “Two horses so masterfully trained, I could not help but have them for my stables in England.”
Spencer was red in the face. He clenched his fists and then unclenched them, stretching his fingers at his side, and then he took a deep breath. “Archer — Archwood, Tivington, whatever your name is…”
Grainne and William waited breathlessly.
“I must sleep on this.”
Grainne felt utterly deflated.
“You can be sure I will not allow my daughter to go riding away with you if you are not decently married. I wonder that you could even imagine such a thing. Return those horses to the stables and then come back here. Mrs. Kinney will prepare the guest room. And you, Grainne —” he turned to face her, and his expression was forbidding. “You shall not stir from your room until breakfast, is that understood? And then I wish to see everyone at the breakfast table so that we can discuss what I have decided.”
Grainne nodded obediently. She watched William do the same and turn from the door, taking all the air from the room with him when he left. Her body was tingling with disappointment; she had been so excited to go galloping down the road with him, and then to stop for a rest in some quiet copse, to slip into the shadows and feel his hands on her once again, taste his kiss and know that he was really and truly hers…
Instead it was back up to bed, back under the covers, as if nothing had ever happened.
Emer tugged at her. “Come on, miss, let’s go get you changed back out of those riding clothes.” She went with the maid, feeling listless and shaky after all the excitement, but there was nothing for it.
***
William cursed all the way back to the stable. His grand romantic gesture, reduced to this! Yessiring to a protective father! What must Grainne think of him? He should have swept her off her feet, flung her into the saddle, and galloped away, Spencer’s outrage be damned.
But, a reasonable voice in his head cautioned, that would be the most dishonorable thing to do to her. And after all the trouble you have gone to, returning to make peace with your father, and to end the affair with Violetta with honor, why would you run away with a young lady, ruining what shreds of a reputation she had left, and creating an irreparable rift with her father?
The reasonable voice, he thought, sounded an awful lot like Peregrin’s.
After untacking the horses and putting them back in their boxes with a new portion of hay, he went walking back through the moonlight to the Spencer house, trying to work through all of his options. The old earl had already put his blessing on the marriage, hardly questioning the rather distant connections that Grainne had to anyone in the peerage. Kilreilly was a surprisingly modern fellow, for a spry old seventy-year-old; he seemed to think that her genteel upbringing and the cousin who was an earl were probably all that London would require in a countess of Tivington, and although William had to question his definition of the term “genteel,” one could not fault Grainne’s information or diction, so that was certainly a fair point.
But if Spencer didn’t see it like his master did, there could be trouble. William was going to have to take her from the house against his will; perhaps he should just take her up to the Big House and wait for a special license there, under the protection of the earl.
Mrs. Kinney opened the door to him with a tight smile that did not reach her eyes. “Mr. Archwood,” she ground out, voice taut. “Your room is ready. Will you require refreshment?”
He had a flask in his pocket. “That will not be necessary, thank you.”
The house was just a rectangle, nothing fancy or ornate, and as he walked along the upstairs hallway to the guest room he was able to distinguish, from the location of the windows outside, which door must be Grainne’s. He stepped lightly on the floorboards, watching where Mrs. Kinney’s heavy tread fell, trying to determine where the squeaky spots were.
He didn’t think he could get through the night knowing that she was just down the hall. And he had a feeling she was in the same boat.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Grainne had pulled the sheet off of her bed and wound herself up in it, cocooned in her fireside chair while she watched the flames leap in the hearth. She had stoked the fire as soon as she came back up to her room; she had left the window open, and the cold night winds had made themselves at home.
Besides, she could not sleep again, not knowing that William was just down the hall.
She had heard his steps following Mrs. Kinney’s, the housekeeper walking as heavily as a horse, as always. He was much lighter behind her. She thought he might be able to sneak down the hallway undetected, if he chose to.
Or she could do it.
She sat up in her chair, thinking about whether or not she dared. She knew where the squeaky floorboards were, she knew she could creep down to him without being caught… assuming no one came to check on her. She sat back again. Her father had forbidden her to leave the room. She was so close to being able to marry William, so close to escaping every evil in her life and attaining the one true thing that she wanted. Should she jeopardize that by creeping around the house and risking being caught in the one thing she had been warned not to do?
But oh, to know he was so close… she slipped her hands down, inside her sheets, to touch her tingling body. She was trembling all over at the thought of hi
m, and nowhere so strongly as the warm place between her thighs…
Her door opened.
She froze.
William slipped through the tiny opening and shut the door silently. He took her in at a glance and then smiled, a slow sensuous grin unfolding across his lovely face. She felt something inside of her twist and purr with excitement.
He crept to her in stocking feet, kneeling beside her chair. “My lovely lady, I would take your hands, but I think they are already occupied,” he intoned, with the slightest hint of mockery. She could barely stop herself from bursting into embarrassed laughter.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she whispered, extricating her hands from the winding sheets with some difficulty.
In answer, he took her hands in his and kissed each fingertip. She sighed, warmth flooding her body, and shifted herself so that the sheets began to fall from her and she was revealed in only a sheer little gown. William ceased his kissing and raised his eyebrows. “That is not the maidenly nightrail I remember,” he admitted. “This is altogether more wanton than I would have suspected you of. Is that lace? My, my.”
“I ordered it from a Dublin seamstress,” Grainne explained. “I was ordering wedding things and decided to add in a few garments just for me.”
“Are you sure this wasn’t for me?” he asked, and she smiled in answer.
“Come down here by the fire with me,” William requested, giving her hand a tug, and she flung all of the sheets onto the carpet so that they would have a soft place to lie. She slipped down onto his lap and his lips found hers in a hot, teasing kiss.
“I have been thinking of nothing but you this fortnight past,” he told her between kisses. “Your lips,” he kissed her gently, “and your eyes,” he kissed her below each half-closed eye, “and your hair,” he planted a kiss on top of her head, amongst the lusciously curling coppery locks, “just you, and you, and you,” and he went back to her sweet mouth for more.
It seemed a lifetime later that Grainne heard footsteps walking down the hallway. “Stop,” she whispered, putting her hand to his, which was wandering down the front of her nightgown and playing wicked games with her breasts. He froze, listening as well.
The footsteps stopped outside her door, and she saw the brass handle of the door wiggle slightly. But William had locked it. The footsteps continued, back to her father’s room. William turned to her. “Will he suspect?”
She shook her head. “He must have seen the light of the fire and known I was awake. But the door only locks from the inside, so he would know that I was in here.”
“Will he check the guest room for me?”
“I cannot imagine him opening the guest room door. And your fire is out?” William nodded. “I am certain he did not look. And now he has gone back to bed.” Grainne stretched like a cat and smiled. “I am all yours, my love.”
William sighed and dipped his mouth to hers again, cupping her breasts through the filmy fabric of her nightdress. Its lace trimming tickled at his fingers and he pulled it down again, letting her breasts pop free of the cloth, and with a groan he lowered his lips to their pinkness, feeling her shudder as his tongue played with them, so hard and so soft at the same time.
Grainne was lost, swimming in a sea of sensations. William’s fingers and lips and tongue seemed to be everywhere, and she was kissing him back as ardently as she could, although her limbs were weak and her state of mind somewhat less than lucid. This was love, she thought. All the contentment, and none of the fear. She loved William as she had never thought for a moment about Len.
He was her true match. And he had gone back to England and made certain all of his commitments there were honorably dissolved before he came back for her — he would never betray her as Len would have done.
She sat up suddenly.
William was nearly knocked backwards into the fire. “Grainne, what on earth —”
She shook her head. “I am sorry, my love. But… we must stop this tonight.”
He tried a wheedling smile. “Maidenly nerves, my dear?”
“I am betrothed to Edward Maxwell, William. That must be broken before we can go any further.” She sighed. “You made it clear that running away was not the answer, when you agreed with my father to put the horses away tonight. And you were right. Neither of us would feel right about running away like thieves in the night.”
William nodded. “But what if he does not agree to our marriage?”
“He will agree,” Grainne said certainly. “Just waking up to find us here, behaving like reasonable adults, will be a pleasant enough surprise for him. He is certain we cannot be trusted — let us prove to him otherwise.”
“You’re saying I should go back to my room.”
She sighed and pulled the sheet back around her. “After you kiss me good-night.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Emer buttoned up Grainne in her most modest gown, a plain dark green with a collar so high it nearly touched her throat. The color gave her shadows beneath her eyes and took all the flush from her skin. “I look like a ghost who hasn’t slept well,” Grainne said disapprovingly, gazing into the mirror. “This is no way to greet my future husband for breakfast.”
“But it’s perfect for dissuading your lawful betrothed,” Emer said matter-of-factly, fussing with a hair pin. Emer was already replacing her broken dreams of Dublin with far loftier expectations of London.
“What! Is Maxwell here already?”
“Bustling about the parlor like a man possessed. He’s in no hurry to give you up.”
Grainne put her face in her hands. “Devil take that man! He shall appeal to father’s sense of honor and all will be lost. I shall have to run away after all.”
Emer shook her head. “You’re not thinking clearly, miss. Your father has spoiled you rotten for all these years… do you think a month or two in his bad graces is going to change a lifetime of granting you every wish or whim you ever had? Go downstairs and stand next to Maxwell looking like a dog’s dinner, and he’ll be so heart-broken when he thinks of the joy Archer brings to your face that he’ll have you married from the parlor before noon.”
“Archwood… and oh Emer, do you think that will work? I can’t help but look like a dog’s dinner when I’m next to that man, so it won’t be a difficult role to play.”
“I’m certain of it. Go downstairs and look tragic.”
***
Maxwell was, indeed, striding around the little parlor with more energy than William had ever seen in the man. His mutton-chops were trembling alarmingly on his long red jowls, and his watery eyes were positively snapping with anger.
“Do you think you can just stroll in here with some tale of being an earl’s son and upset all the plans and wishes of a neighborhood? Miss Spencer is one of our own! Mr. Spencer and I have been planning this marriage for some time, and let me tell you, sir, everyone in the county is celebrating our betrothal! I received a congratulatory message from Lord Kilreilly himself. The earl, if you please! How do you like that, sir?”
“I was with the earl last night. Lord Kilreilly sends his compliments, and bids you consider seeking a wife in Dublin, Mr. Maxwell,” William said pleasantly. “But he will be attending Miss Spencer’s and mine marriage as an honored guest, or so he told me last night, when I was discussing my intent to declare for her.”
“Is that so?” Mr. Spencer broke in, his tone surprised. Clearly he had not realized that his master was so deeply invested in the matter of his daughter’s marriage.
“Indeed,” William confirmed with a little incline of the head. “Lord Kilreilly and my friend Mr. Peregrin Fawkes — you know, the next Marquess of Dewsbury, of course — are very well acquainted. Mr. Fawkes enjoys the hunting here, and Kilreilly finds him a gentleman of uncommon wit — and intelligence. Any friend of Mr. Fawkes, I believe he said.”
Spencer mulled this over. Maxwell turned a violent shade of vermillion. “All of you lords with your titles and your land and y
our fortunes, thinking that you can run the lives of ordinary people! I have land and income too, you know! And my aunt was married to a baron!”
“A baron,” William repeated. “How lucky for her.”
Maxwell looked as though he was about to have an apoplexy. “You vile —”
“I am sure Mr. Archwood did not mean to be condescending,” Grainne said gently, entering the room. “He has not had much sleep of late, traveling back and forth between England and Ireland. Isn’t that right, sir?” She came up beside him and held out her hand. William took her fingers in his and placed his lips gently on her skin, his eyes never leaving hers. Her skin burned where he touched her, and she shivered with want.
He was so beautiful and noble, and he was hers. She gazed up at his blue eyes, and felt the very atmosphere of the room change to something crackling and mysterious.
Her father felt it too. And Mr. Maxwell. And Emer and Mrs. Kinney, peeping through the cracked door of the parlor.
Everyone stood very still and watched the two lovers in the room.
And then Maxwell shook his head. “Let me not stand in the way of what Lord Kilreilly has put together,” he snapped nastily. “I’ll ask for my hat. I’ll take your leave and do not invite me to the wedding.”
Mr. Spencer just nodded absently. He was thinking of his own late wife, and the way the air had smoldered between them when they met.
And Emer and Mrs. Kinney just smiled as they went to fetch Mr. Maxwell’s hat and coat. Of course Mr. Spencer could deny his daughter nothing. He had loved her mother too dearly for that.
***
“It was kind of the earl to offer the use of the Big House for the wedding, but I think I liked this much better.”
Miss Spencer Rides Astride (Heroines on Horseback) Page 16