Ahead, the river gleamed blue-black as it slid below the bridge. But beyond, there was little cover. Instead, he turned onto West Gate beneath the city’s walls, ducked back into Preston. Letting the huddle of alleys and lanes shield them from the lurking presence of the watcher.
Gwenyth never faltered, but held steady beside him, only her rushed breathing an indication of the pace. Winded, he slid into a narrow crooked street, dank with smells from the river and quayside refuse. A tall brick wall edged one side, the boundary of a church’s garden or cloisters. “Does he still follow?”
She gripped her side, her breathing loud. “Nothing. He’s gone.”
He couldn’t decide whether he was relieved or not. He’d rather meet his enemy face-on, not worry about the shadow behind him, never knowing who prepared the dagger for his back. And if they tracked him to Bodliam? What then? He’d thought he put his past life behind him. But did it follow him still?
“I want you safe. Head to the cathedral. I’ll go on to the inn alone and summon the coach. I’ll pick you up there.”
“Who hunts you? Why?” Her tone held no fear, only concern.
“I don’t know. But I haven’t lived the life of a saint.” He took her by the arms, knowing he shouldn’t. Not after their conversation. But he needed the feel of her beneath his hands. Her steadying presence to calm the wild exhilaration thundering through him with each beat of his heart. That same kicking thrill he got with every dark crossing of the Channel. “Trust me. I’ll meet you at the cathedral in an hour.”
She nodded. “Go. I’ll be there.”
He began to turn away, but that same reckless streak made him pause. What the hell? He turned back, grabbed her up and against him, her body pressed along his, the gold flecks in her gray eyes burning into his brain. He kissed her. Savagely, ruthlessly. He wouldn’t allow her to pull away, but held her tight, his tongue flicking out to plunder the heat of her mouth, the soft, swollen warmth of her lips. She fought it for a second only before he knew he’d won. Then yielding, she melted pliant against him, her own arms winding around his neck.
He backed her against the brick wall, his hand skimming the curve of her body, finding and pulling free the ribbons at her bodice. Beneath her gown, her flesh scalded. And his own body throbbed with a brutal need.
She came to her senses first. “Rafe,” she gasped. “No. Not here.”
He lifted his head. Eyes, dazed and glassy with lust. “I’d say I’m sorry. But I’m not. I’d have taken you against this wall if you hadn’t stopped me.”
“And I’d have let you.” She pushed him away to secure her gown. Straighten her seams. Every movement putting space between them. “But though some might call me wicked for taking you to my bed, I’ll not act the common slag in a public street.”
She smoothed a hand over her hair with a tsk for its disorder. Then pulled out the remaining pins. It hung free until she swept it up into a loose knot and secured it. But for one moment, she looked like the woman he’d claimed beneath a Beltane moon. The woman who’d bewitched him into considering a life beyond payback.
“Go. I’ll wait for you,” she repeated.
It sounded like a promise. Or mayhap he only heard what he wanted to hear.
He wouldn’t ask. It was better that way.
Chapter 10
The trip from Cornwall took three days—three long days during which Rafe convinced himself the deal he’d struck was a horrible mistake. With each mile that passed, the confident, capable woman he’d known in Kerrow grew warier. Shyer. Now she sat quiet and watchful as they crossed the county line into Hampshire. After almost losing control in Exeter, he’d kept his distance. Not pushing his attentions on her. Not letting her see how she affected him. It had been difficult. Bloody hell that didn’t begin to cover it. His body was taut as a wrung mast. But sooner or later, it would happen. It had to. She wanted her child. He wanted his bride. They’d have to come to an understanding before too long.
He watched her from beneath hooded eyes. The long, velvet lashes, the slender arch of her throat, the ripe curve of her breasts. He wanted to understand her all night if he could.
The coach fell into shadow. Ancient, towering trees bent over the vehicle as the road curved and dipped toward a river crossing. Her eyes followed the enormous trunks to the canopy of new green above them.
“What is this place?” she asked, animation coloring her words.
Rafe shook off his fancies. Gave a smile of pride. “We’re entering the New Forest. It runs from the Avon almost to Southampton Water. They hunted boar and deer in the days of the Conqueror. Bodliam marches close to the forest’s southeastern border.”
Her gaze never faltered from the window as the forest enclosed them, but where before, her disregard seemed a weapon to exclude him, now it was simply wordless astonishment at her surroundings.
The trees thinned, and she sat back, delight brightening her smile. “’Tis a good place. I can feel it. You were right to come back here.” She rested her head against the glass, closing her eyes as she lifted her face to the warmth of the late morning sun.
“Are you all right?”
She nodded, though she kept her eyes closed. “Mmmm, I’m a wee bit tired, and the rocking of this coach makes me feel as if I’m back in the cradle.”
“You’re not having second thoughts?”
Gwenyth opened her eyes to regard Rafe with an easy look that comforted his growing worries. “I’ve had second, third and fourth thoughts.” She relaxed back into the seat with a sigh. “Sitting still for so long has caught me up, and now I sleep to make up for the years I’ve spent running from cottage to castle tending to those who need it.”
Gwenyth’s unmatched nursing skills and the kind and giving spirit in which she dispensed them amazed Rafe. He’d seen for himself the reliance the villagers of Kerrow placed upon her slender shoulders. For one so young, she carried the burdens with a quiet grace and a passionate commitment few older could match.
“I’m surprised you left them, even for such a purpose as…as a child.” He stumbled over the words, still slightly unnerved about what she asked of him.
“I didn’t leave them untended. There’s a proper doctor in Trewan close by, though he’s forgotten much of his craft at the bottom of a bottle. And there’s Polly Landry. She’s a clever hand with a birthing and has skill enough to do until my return. I went where my heart told me to go.”
The dark woods closed in around them again, and Gwenyth’s face fell into shadow. Rafe couldn’t see what expression it held as she spoke those final words.
“Your heart told you to come with me?” he asked softly. Then, before she could respond, he laughed. “And here I thought it was my masculine charms and my skillful hands.”
Gwenyth shook her head as if she knew what he did to turn away the seriousness of his question. “We have a bargain,” was all she said. “I’ll stick to it if you will.”
Rafe drew in a deep breath as a shaft of sun speared the coach. She went from shadow to brightest light, her hair a silver-blond halo crowning the elegantly carved features of her face.
Rafe’s chest constricted with a sharp twinge, but this time it wasn’t his damaged rib that caused him such pain. He leaned across the coach, his self-discipline in tatters. Impulsively, he pressed a kiss upon her. Instead of retreating as he expected, her soft lips parted as he slid his tongue between them, tasting her, his heat rising as she answered his invitation with the slide of her own tongue. His hand cradled her side, his finger rubbing delicious circles across the curve of her breast. The thin muslin left little to his imagination. He felt every nervous tremble passing through Gwenyth’s body as he caressed her.
“Sir!” The coachman’s call and a sharp rap upon the glass startled them apart.
They settled back into their seats, Gwenyth’s flushed face and sparkling eyes, he knew, matched his own. Rafe pulled down the window.
“We’ve just passed through Upper Yewford, sir,” the
man shouted from his box. “Bodliam should be no more than three miles on!”
Rafe shifted upon his seat as he set his jaw and crossed his arms in front of him. His heart still pounded from their brief encounter, and he ached with more than regret for the coachman’s interruption.
Gwenyth offered him a mischievous grin. “Your last chance to back out. They’ll be having one look at me and be thinking you’ve taken leave of your senses.”
He answered her with a wry twist of his mouth as he began to wonder if he’d done just that.
The house appeared from out of the trees as if someone drew back a curtain. First Gwenyth caught just a glimpse of golden-brown stone and the curve of a domed roof. But as the coach rounded the final bend, she gasped her amazement at the vision before her. Neither the brooding castle of Kessel Roscarrock perched upon its cliff top, nor the mellow elegance of Lord Madoc’s Rosevear prepared her for Bodliam’s magnificence. The house sat at the farthest edge of a long gravel avenue canopied by tall, stately oaks. An imposing double stair rose to a portico supported by enormous decorated stone columns while three stories of long windows winked in the gleam of afternoon sun.
Gwenyth clenched her hands in her lap and snuck a glance at Captain Fleming. Gone were the clothes of smuggler black. In their place, he wore a coat of dark blue and buckskin breeches tucked into gleaming top boots. She suffered another twinge of regret at his fashionable new haircut. There was no doubt he was still as devilishly handsome, but she already missed the wild spill of dark hair across his shoulders. All that remained of the dangerous sea-rover was the gold earring. It was a hint of everything he had been through during his years away.
In the days since Exeter, she’d hardened herself to his touch. Repeated the phrase he’s just a man at least a thousand times. Talked herself to a place where Rafe Fleming was a means to an end. She’d suffer him and be gone. She risked another quick glance his way. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy him while it lasted.
“Do you like the house?”
Gwenyth heard the eagerness behind his casual question. Her eyes shifted back to Bodliam’s imposing presence. “’Tis a thing of beauty. And if Jago could see me now, what would he be saying.”
Just before the avenue widened at the final approach, the road branched. To the left, it curved past neat rows of blossoming peach trees before looping back toward a long block of elegant stables. To the right, the shaded drive arced around to a group of outbuildings, all of them half again as big as her cottage.
The coach continued on, drawing up at the base of the stairs. Before the coachman had even pulled the team to a stop, Rafe threw open the door and jumped out. Looking up at the façade of the quiet house, he drew in a deep breath. Despite his appearance of bored acceptance, she knew he was as nervous as she. Drawing down the steps, he put a hand out. She grasped his fingers lightly and stepped down. The gravel crunching beneath her feet and the whuffle of the winded horses loud in the still morning. The coachman snapped the reins, and the coach drew around the house, leaving them alone.
Gwenyth unconsciously smoothed her hands down her skirts. “Are they expecting us?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know why they should. I never wrote them I was coming. Hell, I’m not certain they know I’m alive.”
Gwenyth flashed him a look. Anger, frustration and pity warring within her. His own eyes snapped with dogged determination, almost as if he dared her to say something. She’d told him back in Kerrow he’d find his place within these walls—within this world. Could she say any different now that they were faced with it? She squared her shoulders. “Come then. If the inside is anything like the out, I’m of a mind to be seeing it.”
She took his arm. Meeting his gaze, she sensed the pull of him, the quivering at the corners of her vision that could drag her into his soul with the speed of a hawk’s stoop. Dropping her eyes to stare at the gold stud in his ear, she willed the power to settle back within her. But though she looked away, she felt Rafe’s gaze still fastened on her.
“I felt your presence that time—like a slow-fuse lit and running down every nerve,” he said.
Gwenyth caught her breath. This was new. Some saw snatches of dream-like visions, some saw only their own startled reflections caught in her eyes, most came away with a throbbing head that left them sick and dizzy. But never had another sensed her power’s presence from such a quick glance and never in such a potent way. She would do well to remember that.
“I’m not master of my Sight, though most be thinking it so. It moves through me, but it has its own will,” she gave a short bark of laughter, “sometimes working at odds with me. Perhaps it seeks something it wants.”
Rafe placed a finger under her chin, tilting her face to his. “Or perhaps it’s already found it.”
His touch shivered through her. She jerked out of reach, pursing her lips and flashing him an angry glance. “I said I’ll keep to my bargain, but you must keep to yours. My body and my heart need not be in harmony to quicken with child. And you’ve said you search for a grand lady to make you a grand wife. I’ve not one high-bred bone in the whole of my body. Remember that.”
Rafe’s eyes darkened. His body tensed. “Gwenyth—”
The door at the top of the stairs was thrown open just then, and a dark-haired young woman appeared. Out of breath and in some disarray, with a lace shawl tossed about her shoulders, cheeks flushed with emotion, she raced down the stairs, glancing over her shoulder as if she might be pursued. She never noticed Gwenyth or Rafe until she ran headlong into them. Her wild eyes darting from face to face, she shrieked and collapsed, Rafe catching her just before she hit the ground.
An older woman appeared at the top of the stairs. “Cecily Anne Fleming, get back here this instant!”
Chapter 11
Rafe clutched his younger sister, his heart beating wildly. What the hell was happening? When last he’d seen Cecily she was a baby-faced three-year-old. She must be close to sixteen now, and a damned sight heavier.
Gwenyth dropped to her knees beside Rafe, putting her hand to the woman’s cheek. “She’s swooned only. Help me get her in—”
“Unhand her, young man! Put her down immediately!”
Rafe’s mother hurried down the steps. Honoria Fleming hardly seemed changed from the woman he’d known over a decade ago, a bit thinner, fair hair grayer, but her tongue remained just as waspish as he remembered. “I said take your filthy hands off her.”
Glancing down upon his sister, he caught Cecily peeking up at him. She winked, before closing her eyes and wilting even more across his arms. What game was she playing, and why?
Gwenyth rose and stepped forward to meet the wrath of the Dowager Viscountess Brampton. “The child has fainted, ma’am. The captain is seeking only to keep her from injury. Please send for some water and mayhap some smelling salts.”
As always Gwenyth’s calm confidence settled the situation. His mother’s charge faltered. She pulled up in front of them, staring from Gwenyth to Rafe and down to Cecily’s wilted form.
“Cec! Cecily, open your eyes. I know you can hear me,” Rafe ordered.
His sister’s eyes flew open at his sharp words. “How do you know my name?” Obviously forgetting her theatrics, she sat up, frowning in confusion.
This was not exactly how he meant to make his homecoming, but events had spun out of his control. Better to ride the situation than fight the currents swirling around him. He straightened, his eyes finding Gwenyth’s. She gave him a quick smile of encouragement.
His mother’s lips thinned into an angry line as she cocked one painted eyebrow in question. “Who are you to speak to my daughter in such a forward way? I’ll have your name and then—”
He stood up. “It’s me, Mother. I’ve come home.”
She looked down her long, sharp nose at him, her pale blue eyes narrowing with suspicion. But her voice was a breathy whisper. “Ranulf? Is it you? Truly?”
Rafe cringed at the hated name, but
nodded. “Aye, it’s me.”
His mother slowly shook her head, the effect of his words like a slap upon the cheek. She colored, and her face softened. She put out a trembling hand, laying it upon his cheek. “Dear God, my boy. We thought you were dead years ago. I’d given up hope.”
Cecily’s head swung from Honoria to Rafe and then snuck a glance at Gwenyth who stood quietly behind the group. “If you’re my brother, then who is she?”
Honoria sniffed, casting a baleful look upon her daughter. “Get up out of the dirt, Cecily, and return to your rooms. Be happy your scandalous behavior hasn’t sent me to my grave before this. Else I’d not have lived to see my son again.”
“But—” Cecily argued.
His mother pointed one long bony finger toward the house. “Go, girl. My weak heart cannot take any more of your whining.”
Cecily picked herself up off the gravel and, harrumphing, marched back up the steps. She turned back at the door. “Welcome home, Ranulf. Welcome to Bodliam—whoever you are.” Then she slipped inside.
“May we come in?” Rafe asked.
Honoria had been staring at him as if she’d seen a ghost, but his words startled her out of her shock. She threw her arms around him, knocking the air from his lungs with her embrace. “You wonderful, dreadful boy! I don’t know whether to kiss you or give you a dressing-down for what you’ve done by letting us think the worst. And then asking me if you can come in as if I would send you away after twelve years of questions.” She dragged him toward the steps. “Come in. Edmund and Sophia are at luncheon. You’ve seen Cecily, that ridiculous child. Derek is in London as usual, but he’s due back by the week’s end. Oh, he’ll be thrilled to see you again. My heavens, I can’t believe this. It’s like a dream.”
Rafe never knew the weight of his exile until it began to lift away. His mother’s delight like a balm easing years of uncertainty.
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