by Janet Dailey
“Yes, I—”
Boone never gave her an opportunity to complete her sentence as he turned his hard gaze on Helen. “How long have they been gone?”
“Perhaps a half to three-quarters of an hour. Wouldn’t you say, Grizwold?” She looked to the butler for confirmation.
“About that, yes ma’am.”
“Where would they have gone?” Boone pressed for more information.
“I expect Sebastian would have probably taken her riding over the countryside.” Helen buttered a slice of toast and lifted a curious glance to him. “Why? Were you thinking of joining them?” She instantly followed that question with another. “Do you ride? Of course you do,” she said, shaking her head in self-reproach. “For a minute I had forgotten you have a ranch in Texas. I’m surprised Sebastian didn’t ask you to join them.”
“I’m not,” Boone countered in a flat, hard voice.
“That oversight is easily rectified,” Helen assured him, a pleasant smile curving her lips. “If you like, I can take you riding.”
“Do you think we could find Laura and your brother?” he challenged.
Helen paused a moment to consider the matter. “Springtime rather limits the routes he can take. Farmers take a dim view of riders galloping across the crop fields,” she explained. “I should say it’s likely we would come across them somewhere.”
“Good.” Boone removed the napkin from his lap and laid it on the table and pushed his chair back. “Let’s go, then.”
Helen glanced at the butler. “Grizwold, will you phone the stables and have two horses saddled for us while I go up and change into my riding clothes?”
“Right away, ma’am.” He directed a half-bow in her direction and left the room.
“It shouldn’t take me more than a few minutes to change. By then the horses should be saddled,” she told Boone. “Shall we meet in the front hall?”
“Fine,” he agreed, his impatience showing at even this slight delay.
The angle of the sun’s rays created a diamond sparkle on the river’s surface. Something rustled the underbrush on the opposite bank. Laura’s gray hunter snorted and stepped lightly, eyeing the area with suspicion. But the twittering of a bird in the branches of a nearby tree seemed to offer assurance that there was no danger lurking in the deep shadows.
Just ahead of them the riverbank dipped down to the water’s edge, forming a natural ford. Sebastian glanced back at Laura. “We’ll stop here and give the horses a drink.”
“All right.”
When they reached the flattened area, Sebastian was first out of the saddle. He held the gray’s bridle while Laura dismounted. Side by side, they led the horses to the water and stood to one side while the animals lowered their noses to the water.
“This is a restful spot, isn’t it?” Sebastian let his gaze wander over the area before sliding it to her.
“It is,” Laura agreed. “Beautiful and serene.”
“It’s always been a favorite place of mine. I used to come here often when I was a boy, just to get away and be by myself, especially when Charlie and Helen teamed up to razz me.”
“Who’s Charlie?” Laura asked, although she was fairly certain she knew the answer.
“My older brother,” Sebastian replied. “He was killed in a plane crash this past winter, along with his wife Sarah and their three sons.”
Their thirst satisfied, the horses lifted their heads, droplets of water falling from their muzzles. Sebastian led his gelding to some grass. Immediately its head went down and it started to graze.
Laura joined them with her mount. “Three sons, that’s what you meant when you said something about not expecting to inherit the title, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Sadness tinged the smiling crook of his mouth. “Charlie had one more than the requisite heir and spare. It’s still hard to walk into the house and not find it full of their voices.”
“I imagine it is,” Laura agreed, not without sympathy.
“And in England,” Sebastian continued, “the tradition of primogeniture is still observed. Both the estate and the title passed to me.”
“What did you do before you became the earl of Crawford?” she asked, suddenly curious.
“In theory, I was a solicitor.”
“In theory?” Laura repeated, amused by his choice of words.
“I never had any great passion for the profession of law. Therefore, I only dabbled in it when I had nothing better to do,” he admitted without apology.
The frankness of his answer surprised a laugh from her. “It sounds as though you were a dilettante.”
“I expect I was. The modest income I received from a trust fund my parents set up for me meant that I wasn’t obliged to work.”
“That’s the second time you’ve used the past tense,” Laura observed.
“Yes, well, responsibility has away of forcing one to grow up, doesn’t it?” Sebastian countered, smiling dryly. “And you, what will you do when your tour of Europe is over?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
His smile widened into something lazy and sexy. “I have the feeling we are two of a kind.”
So did she, which made it that much more difficult to condemn him. Laura started to turn away, but his hand checked her movement. He tucked a finger under her chin and turned her face toward him.
“Is something wrong?” His eyes made a thorough study of hers. “At times it can be difficult to tell what you are thinking.”
Laura was deliberately uncommunicative in her answer. “Tara would tell you it’s a wise woman who keeps a man guessing.”
He smiled. “I expect she is an expert at it, too.”
“You’re probably right.” She almost laughed again. It made her wonder. “Have you always had this knack for making people laugh?”
“I don’t know. I’ve only tried it with you.”
“With me? Why?” Laura asked, puzzled by his answer.
He moved fractionally closer, one hand slipping to her waist and the other tucking a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. “Mostly because much of the time you seem too serious, too self-contained. I think I like to reassure myself that you are human and not some beautiful goddess walking among us mere mortals.”
The light touch of his hand, like his nearness, only made her want more, as if it might somehow ease the hurt she felt. “I’m no goddess.”
“Enchantress, then. Or siren.”
“How about vamp?” Laura suggested with an upward tilt of her head.
Sebastian responded with a small shake of his head, his eyes narrowing in disagreement. “Too crass. That is something no one could ever accuse you of being.”
“Thanks for the compliment.”
“Don’t you know the truth doesn’t count as a compliment?” he murmured, lowering his head to rub his mouth over her cheek in a nuzzling fashion that had her heart skipping beats.
She closed her eyes, conscious of both the pleasure and the pain she felt. As much as she wanted to surrender to his embrace, Laura had a greater need to confront him with what she knew.
Without any preliminary, she said, “Tara thinks you may have designs on my money.”
Sebastian never hesitated. “At the moment I have designs on your virtue,” he said and proceeded to nibble on her neck, igniting little shivers of excitement through her body.
A part of her wanted to pretend she hadn’t caught his failure to deny her accusation, but Laura couldn’t do that. “You also want my money, don’t you?”
After a slight pause, Sebatian lifted his head and met her gaze. “The truth?” he asked.
“That would be a change,” Laura replied, her throat aching.
“I was attracted to you the moment we met. Believe me, it had nothing to do with your bank balance, considering I was completely unaware that you had one.”
She believed him, as far as he went. “But you did find out.”
“I did,” Sebastian admitted. “And it seemed a bit
like gilding the lily, as they say.”
Laura was suddenly and inexplicably furious. She shoved his hands away and made a spinning turn. “Don’t touch me.” Her low voice vibrated with the heat of her anger.
But Sebastian paid no attention to the warning in either her voice or her words as he caught hold of her and pulled her back around. Laura lashed out immediately, swinging the flat of her palm at his face. Sebastian captured her wrist before it could reach its target.
“You said you wanted the truth,” he reminded her, something like anger glittering his own eyes.
“I didn’t expect you to be so disgustingly cavalier about it.” Laura made one twisting attempt to free her wrist, then ceased any struggle, pride keeping her rigid in nonviolent resistance.
“What did you expect?” Sebastian challenged, the hard light in his eyes changing to something softer, more delving in its study of her. “Did you think I would pretend that none of what you said was true? That I would insist I had no interest at all in your money? You’re much too intelligent to have believed that. Still you set this trap.”
“I set no trap for you,” she denied with firmness.
“I don’t know what else you would call it,” Sebastian countered, his expression smoothing with a new certainty. “And I suspect you did it hoping to catch me in a lie. It would have made it easier to despise me, wouldn’t it?”
“I got what I wanted,” Laura insisted, icy-hot in her regard of him. “An admission from you that you were after my money.”
“That isn’t all I’m after. It never was all.” He lowered her wrist and bent it behind her, forcing her against his body. Laura remained stiff and unyielding, shutting her mind to the warm heat radiating from him. “Don’t you know you are the answer to any man’s prayer? And when I found out you were wealthy, too, I thought you were the answer to my prayer. That after the pain and grief of these last months, the fates were finally going to smile on me.”
“Next, I suppose, you’ll be claiming you’re in love with me.” Her expression was full of scorn, but there was a big, empty ache in her chest.
“I don’t know what love is. Do you?” The look in his eyes was serious enough that it gave her a moment’s doubt. “I only know that I can’t seem to be around you without wanting to touch you and hold you, and feel the heat of your body against mine.”
“That’s lust.” Laura refused to attach any importance to it.
“Maybe, but it’s something I would feel whether you had money or not.” When he released her wrist, his hands moved up her arms in a rubbing caress that kept her close to him without force. “You feel it, too.”
“A skilled lover knows how to evoke a response in a woman.”
“Is that how you reason away what you’re feeling?” Sebastian countered.
Laura had a glimpse of something tender and slightly mocking in his look before his mouth came down and claimed her lips in a kiss that was warmly persuasive. If only she weren’t hurting so much, if only she could hold on to that righteous anger, she might have been able to hold on to her shield of indifference. But Sebastian had deflected too much of her anger, planted too many seeds of doubt, and she hurt too much. At the moment, more than anything else, Laura wanted to forget—and his arms promised that.
The moment she moved against him in response, the flames leaped and need took hold. It pushed, turning Laura into the aggressor, craving the salty taste of his skin and aching to feel his muscled flesh beneath her hands.
Clothes became an irritating barrier that were quickly discarded. When he sank to the ground beside her, her hands reached to pull his hard, male body to her. Sebastian was slow to react to their pull.
Laura saw he was about to say something and ordered tightly, “Don’t talk. Not now.”
It was action she wanted, not words. And he gave it to her, his hands and lips seemingly intent on memorizing every inch of her, pushing her to the fever-pitch of need. Then came that exquisite moment when he entered her and two bodies moved as one, hips thrusting, pressure building. Release came in a series of straining shudders that left them both trembling and limp.
For a wordless second they lay on the ground, still partially tangled together. Laura felt the slight chill of the morning air against her bare skin. With its touch came the coldness of reason. She rolled away from Sebastian and reached for her clothes.
“Where do you get the strength to move?” he wondered huskily. “You’ve stolen all of mine.”
“Don’t talk,” Laura said again, and went about putting on her clothes.
“What do you mean?” He sat upright, his gaze boring into her.
“Exactly what I said.” She tucked her shirt inside the waistband of her breeches and zipped them up.
“We have to talk now.”
She didn’t have to look to know he was frowning. “No, we don’t.” Laura pulled on one boot and reached for the other. “Everything’s been said.”
“Laura . . .”
She felt the brush of his hand on her arm and quickly stood up, made a half-turn to look down on him. “I can’t trust your words any more than I can trust my feelings.” She had never allowed emotions to rule her, and she wasn’t about to start now.
“You aren’t making any sense—” Sebastian began.
“Then let me say it more clearly.” Laura was relieved to find her voice was steady and calm. “That was good-bye.”
She saw the disbelief that clouded his face. At the same instant, her finely tuned senses caught the drum of muffled hoofbeats. She turned.
“Dammit, Laura, you—”
“I think you’d better get dressed,” she cut in. “It looks like Helen and Boone are riding this way.”
While Sebastian muttered a few choice words under his breath and grabbed for his clothes, Laura set about fixing her mussed hair, removing the confining band and bow, finger-combing it into smoothness, and wrapping it once more at her nape with the band.
As Laura refastened her bow in place, Sebastian was struggling with his last boot. He managed to stamp his foot into it mere seconds before Helen and Boone rode up. Greeting them with a cheery wave, Laura walked forward to meet them.
“Marvelous morning for a ride, isn’t it?” Her breezy tone had Sebastian clamping his mouth shut in irritation, convinced that nothing ever rattled that woman. She either had nerves of steel or no feelings at all. He didn’t believe the latter, so he chose the former.
“We’ve been looking for you,” Boone stated, and Sebastian felt the rake of the man’s gaze as he moved to Laura’s side.
Helen was quick to explain, “Mr. Frohme told us that he thought you’d ridden this way.”
Laura reacted to neither comment as she set her hands on her hips and surveyed Boone with amusement. “That English saddle just isn’t your style at all, Boone. I’ve never seen anyone look more out of place on it than you do. You really should stick with western tack.”
“If they had any, I wouldn’t be riding this flat thing.” He kicked free of the iron stirrups and jumped to the ground, his attention still divided between the two. “Where have you been?”
“Galloping madly across fields, jumping walls and hedgerows,” she replied, seemingly oblivious to his probing question. “It’s lucky you found us when you did. We were just getting ready to mount up and ride on after stopping to give the horses a drink. Now we can all ride together. Come on. You can give me a leg up.”
Sebastian had a clear view of the blatantly provocative look she tossed at Boone before turning away. It cut through him like a knife. If he hadn’t just held her in his arms, he would have called her a heartless bitch. He suspected the truth was simply that she was a damned good actress who had total control of her emotions. And judging from the combative light in Boone’s eyes when he rode up, Sebastian suspected that if Laura had adopted any other air than one of carefree unconcern, he and Boone would be trading punches about now. Instead, Boone walked right past him, following Laura to the horses.
When he started to turn to retrieve his own horse, Helen caught his eye and signaled him to check his cheek. Reaching up, he rubbed his fingers over the area. They came away with a telltale smudge of coral-red lipstick on them. He fired a wary glance at Boone, wondering how the smear had escaped his notice.
Laura collected the gray’s reins, conscious of Boone directly behind her. She turned the horse around, confident that Boone would catch hold of the hunter’s bridle. When he did, she automatically checked to make sure the cinch hadn’t loosened.
“I didn’t expect you to go riding alone with him.” Boone’s voice was low and heavy with disapproval.
“Why ever not?” Laura countered in a perfectly reasonable tone, then cast a knowing glance his way. “And if you’re wondering whether Tara passed on your daddy’s message, she did.”
“Then why does he have lipstick on his cheek?” Boone challenged.
“I had to tell him good-bye, didn’t I?” She gave him a twinkling look of mock innocence. “After all, I couldn’t blame him for trying. That would be childish. Don’t you agree?”
“I don’t have your tolerance for fortune hunters.” And Boone didn’t pretend otherwise.
“I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you. I’m not.” She stepped into his cupped hand and he boosted her into the saddle.
Privately Laura couldn’t have been happier that Boone had shown up when he did. It had spared her further needless conversation with Sebastian. Her mind was made up. Nothing he might have said would have changed it.
On the ride back to Crawford Hall, Laura deliberately paired up with Boone. With her usual skill she kept the conversation focused on unimportant topics. That wasn’t difficult, considering none of the others seemed inclined to talk. By the time the manor house loomed before them, she was beginning to feel the strain of maintaining the facade that she was untouched by all that had happened. Laura welcomed the chance to escape to the privacy of her room even for a few minutes.
But it wasn’t to be.
She had barely set foot inside the front door when Tara’s voice summoned her from a nearby room. “Laura, is that you? Your brother’s on the phone. He wants to talk to you.”