She tried not to conjure images of his muscular frame in only shirtsleeves and trousers, but it was impossible not to. A chair creaked as he sat down to tug off his boots. He’d worn short ones, which she assumed were easier to remove without a valet.
She heard him splash water into the basin. She’d scrubbed the cracked china clean and had left him half the water. She hoped it was enough. Did gentlemen shave in the evenings? Probably not when sleeping alone. But tonight?
He didn’t spend long behind the screen, so presumably, he hadn’t attempted shaving in the dark. She held her breath as she heard his unshod feet treading the creaking floorboards. To her puzzlement, after flinging more coal on the grate, he crossed to the door and seemed to be knocking about with the fire poker.
She peered over her shoulder. “What are you doing?” she had to ask.
He’d propped their table against the door and jammed one end of the poker into the door opening beneath the bar. The table supported the other end. “The door crack here is wide enough for a blade to slide through. I don’t want anyone lifting the bar from the other side. The poker prevents them from reaching the bar.”
“Oh, I’d never have thought of that.”
“Precisely.” He turned off the lamp and started rooting about in the dirty blankets and sheets she’d thrown to the floor. The maid hadn’t offered to remove them, and Celeste feared the servant fully intended to put them back on the bed in the morning.
“What are you doing now?” she whispered.
“I’m not testing my willpower,” he said gruffly.
Celeste had to study this before translating, then felt a lamentable thrill at this acknowledgment that he was as stirred by base desire as she was. Still, she could not let him suffer for her insistence on sharing this journey. “Then test mine. You cannot sleep on that cold floor. I’ve put pillows down the middle and given you your own blankets.”
She could feel his towering physique looming over the bed. Rather than quiver in fear, she daringly turned over to look up at him. She could just make out his broad outline in the dark, but she realized her error. He was not as small as she, and the bed was very narrow.
He seemed to still be wearing shirt and breeches as he lifted the covers. “Thank you, I think. I am not accustomed to sharing any bed, except briefly, under circumstances I will not describe to a lady. I do not know what a lady expects.”
She could well imagine what he didn’t describe. She was thankful he came to bed smelling only of ale and not of the cheap perfume of the women in the tavern. “I don’t want it to be awkward between us, if that’s still possible. I’ve never had a gentleman friend, and you’ve made me feel at ease.”
He grunted as he tried to fit his broad body into the narrow space. “I do not cultivate lady friends,” he said with a hint of exasperation. “There is no purpose in it. Ladies expect marriage, and I cannot even offer them a home. Beyond that, I grew up in a male household. I have no idea what ladies expect of me.”
His heavy weight bent the mattress and Celeste savored the nearness of his solidity. She felt sheltered enough to consider what he was telling her rather than feeling afraid. “You grew up with no ladies about at all my lord?”
“None respectable,” he admitted. “And I think you could drop the title under these circumstances.”
“Erran?” She tried the intimacy of it and liked it. “And I am Celeste, please. I have too few people to call me so these days. Your mother died young?”
“My mother died before I had any memory of her. My grandfather had all sons, legitimate and otherwise, as did my father, and there was quite a collection of boys at Iveston when I was in the nursery. You’ve met my Uncle Pascoe, he’s only about six years older than I am, so he and other uncles and cousins were still at home, many of them young bachelors. At some point, my father gave up on hiring nannies and nursemaids and hired tutors. The upstairs maids gradually departed. It became a family joke that any woman looking for employment at Iveston was hoping to better herself by becoming a mistress. Aside for brief visits from ex-fiancées, Aster is the first lady in decades who dared descend on our household and stay.”
“My word,” Celeste murmured. “It’s a wonder you didn’t all turn out like beasts in the field. You must have had good tutors.”
“They pointed our studies in the direction of our interests to keep us tame. Dunc had the estate, of course, and our father kept him busy. Theo always had his head in books and was good at mathematics and was dreamer enough to study the stars. That kept him occupied, and so forth. We didn’t know anything different.”
“And you?” she asked. “How did they tame you?”
“I was the youngest.” His voice conveyed a verbal shrug. “I just followed the others around. I liked taking things apart, but tutors couldn’t help me put them together again. As the baby, I couldn’t fight boys bigger than I was, so I learned to argue instead of punch. You need to be getting some sleep. Tomorrow is likely to be a miserable, long day.”
There were so very many things she’d like to ask . . . . But she feared the questions would only stir this longing their kiss had set aflame. “Thank you for not hating me,” she whispered. “Good night.”
He reached across the pillows and found her hand. “I have no earthly reason to hate you. I just cannot be what you need.”
She clasped his rough hand and felt a melting away of so many fears . . . that alone should have made her fearful. But she didn’t push him away. “I don’t need a man to take care of me,” she whispered back. “But I need a friend.”
He squeezed her hand but released it quickly.
He’d already made himself clear—he wasn’t the marrying sort and he didn’t have lady friends. She’d have to cast aside any hope of more kisses—that way lay certain disaster.
***
With no good means of appeasing his arousal, Erran barely slept and woke in the same state. Rather than shock his lady friend, he grabbed his coat and boots and slipped out to wash in cold water at the pump.
She wanted to be friends! No wonder men and women shared little more than beds. He glared at his whiskered face in the bent metal mirror and attempted to scrape off the worst of his stubble. Men were furry, lust-crazed beasts. Women were . . . obviously oblivious to beasts.
They saw pretty coats and shiny boots and heard flattery and dreamed romantical notions. Ladies needed a basic education in the Care and Feeding of Men and Other Animals. That would discourage them from owning man or beast.
He ordered breakfast sent up for the lady but ate his downstairs. When he thought he’d given her enough time, he rapped on the door before entering. At her call, he stepped inside to help carry out their trunks.
She was still brushing out her hair—her waist-length, shimmering waterfall of mahogany tresses. Erran nearly swallowed his eloquent tongue.
She glanced guiltily up at him. “I didn’t braid it properly last night and now I’m a mess and we’ll be meeting the Malcolm ladies today and I thought—”
Impatiently, he crossed the room and grabbed the brush. “The ladies will be so busy talking that they won’t notice if you walked in upside-down.” He buried his crude hands in smooth silk and was as aroused as he’d been before he’d doused himself in cold water. Gritting his teeth, forcing himself not to hold tight and tip her head back so he could kiss her again, he stroked out the last of the knots. He began braiding, when all he wanted was to feel all that glorious silk falling across his naked chest as he crushed his mouth against her lush lips.
“What are you doing?” She tried to take away the brush, obviously not following the path of his lust. “I can’t go in braids.”
“We will be riding sorry nags in rotten weather for miles. Braids are the only thing that will hold. How many of them do you want?” He sounded grouchy but couldn’t help it while fighting the need to stroke her slender throat and drag her into his arms.
She grabbed a hank of thick tresses and began separating out
strands. “Whatever it takes,” she said in frustration. “I’ll just pin it all together and secure it with ribbons. I should just chop it all off.”
“Don’t you dare!” he roared in horror, torturing himself by running his fingers through the softness to start a smaller braid. “I’ve never seen hair so rich and thick. It doesn’t even curl about in wisps but lies just where you put it. It’s enchanting.” And he knew he was fully insane to say any such thing, except he was appalled at the thought of all that beauty falling on a barber’s floor.
“It is a nuisance without a maid. If you can wear mufflers instead of starched linen when traveling, then I should have better ways of managing. I am sorry to delay the start of our journey.” She began another braid.
Apparently she’d noticed that he wasn’t wearing a starched collar this morning. How much else did she notice? That she’d been observing him as he observed her stirred him almost as much as their kiss last night. Almost.
He’d never been kissed with such gentleness and genuine passion in his life, and he was starved for more. Maybe he should have kissed more ladies and fewer maids. Whores never kissed at all. He hadn’t thought ladies would either.
“If I had known the difficulty, I would not have allowed you to come,” he said curtly, to distract himself. “But I wasn’t thinking of hair at the time.” He had been thinking of exactly what had happened last night. And what he wanted to do tonight.
“Neither was I,” she admitted. “I’ve always had Nana or Sylvia to help me. I had the maid at the inn yesterday, but I didn’t want to ask here.”
“I’ve made note of the condition of this place to tell Duncan when we return.” He finished off the braid and reluctantly let her pin and tuck the ends into a chignon.
He couldn’t prevent visions of how all that glorious dark silk would look hanging over bare breasts. He wasn’t even certain a bruising ride would cure what ailed him—not that the nags the inn provided would manage more than a trot. They’d sent the post boy away in favor of a cart and horses that might better traverse the muddy lane through the woods ahead.
Celeste tied a cap over her hair and let him help her into the cloak. Even buried in layers of wool and fur, she had the power to arouse him just by her subtle scent. Erran heaved a trunk to his shoulder, put a hand to her back, and escorted her out to their waiting mares.
It was too early for most of the vagrants to be hanging about. Erran loaded the trunks into the small pony cart he’d hired for their baggage, making certain his pistol and sword were visible to discourage any brigands who fancied the lady’s cloak. Celeste’s cloak. He wanted to savor the intimacy of her name and knew he was in deep trouble.
She handed a coin to the boy holding the horses’ reins. “I would appreciate it if you would tell your friends that I do not have any more coins,” she said in that throaty tone that could make grown men weep. “But if we travel safely, the marquess will reward those willing to do an honest day’s work. I can see you’re a hard worker, and I shall tell him that once we see him again.”
On the surface, this was pure silliness, Erran knew. No thief would care about an honest day’s work. But she was weaving spells again, convincing the boy that it would be dangerous to follow them and beneficial to leave them alone. Erran hoped the message reached those who needed to hear it. He glanced at the few loungers by the door. They’d heard.
The pony cart driver merely looked stoic. Dunc had recommended him, so Erran had some hope the baggage would ultimately arrive at Wystan.
“Perhaps we ought to experiment sometime to see who is seduced into behaving and who responds to the threat of weapons,” Erran said dryly as he lifted her into the saddle.
“The power here is different,” she said, revealing her bewilderment. “It’s more . . . feminine . . . somehow than the house in town. I think experimentation requires controlled circumstances, correct?”
He snorted his disbelief. “Correct, if one understands what needs to be controlled. Power that cannot be measured or seen or heard is not a tangible control.”
More loudly, so anyone listening could hear, he added, “My pistol fires five shots. You do not need to worry, my dear. Thieves have no chance against it.”
He could not interpret the look she shot him as he helped her into the side saddle, then mounted his own nag, and led the way into the forest around Wystan.
Once they were far enough down the road, she rode close enough to ask, “Do you really have such a horrible gun?”
“I do. It was mostly a matter of balancing the percussion level and gunpowder amounts so it wouldn’t blow up.”
“Can you not patent such an invention as you said you might the sewing mechanism?” she asked in curiosity.
Erran glared ahead. He’d had this argument before. “I could. I won’t. Can you imagine what these roads would be like if every thief had a weapon like that?”
He waited for her to jump on him as his brothers had, saying honest men could better protect their homes, soldiers could win wars, and the world would be a safer place.
Celeste didn’t say anything. She frowned and worked his argument through that frightening female mind of hers.
“You have given up the chance for great wealth in order to keep more people from dying,” she said in what sounded like honest wonder, and not her magic vocalization. “A gun like that would be a killing machine in the wrong hands, and it would mostly be the wrong hands that it would fall into—people who like killing and think human life can be wasted.”
Erran wanted to hug her. He wanted to more than hug her, but fortunately, they were on horseback. “Thank you,” he said in relief. “I know it is only a matter of time before someone else does what I have done, but I’d rather not be known as the father of modern murder.”
She turned those intriguing light blue eyes up to him in wonder. “It would be easy to love a man as wise as you.”
Twenty-one
Celeste knew she had erred by mentioning love, but she had not been able to help herself. He had invented a gun that could kill five people at once—and he refused to sell it! Lord Erran’s mind was a fascinating place she would like to explore more. But they rode along in silence after that. She debated all the other things she could have said, but how else did one express such admiration?
It didn’t help that this damp forest in the midst of a glorious autumn felt more like spring. She could feel the earth’s burgeoning fecundity here. Or perhaps she was just remembering his kiss and how it had felt sleeping beside him last night. She seemed compelled to do stupid things around this brilliant, honorable, annoying man.
They kept their horses to the pace of the baggage cart. Lord Erran . . . Erran . . . rode back and forth, keeping an eye on their surroundings but not leaving her out of his sight, as she feared he might do. As he probably wanted to do, she admitted. He looked dashing in his tall hat and caped redingote, every inch the nobleman. Just watching him was cause for excitement.
Fortunately, that was all the excitement they encountered. They rode into the village about noon. Enchanted by the neat cottages, nodding Michaelmas daisies, and a few late roses, Celeste exclaimed in pleasure. “I thought this would be a dismal place! It is lovely. Your family should visit more often!”
Erran rode up beside her, pointing out a cottage almost inundated in rose canes and surrounded by aromatic herbs. “That’s my great-granny’s home, the Malcolm who was a cousin of your ancestor. I don’t know who is living there these days. This was all owned by Malcolms once, according to family legend, until they made the mistake of marrying into the Ives family.”
“The mistake?” she asked in amusement. “From rural anonymity to marriage to nobility is a mistake?”
He shrugged. “I don’t pay much attention to the stories. But after the fifth Earl of Ives and Wystan married my great-grandmother, she gave birth to my grandfather, who became the first Marquess of Ashford. There are those in the family who claimed he had magical talents as stron
g as his mother’s, and that was the reason he was so successful. You can ask the ladies when we reach the tower.”
Magical talents. Celeste was wary of talking about magic. Native magic was often associated with evil intent, and her own might be used that way. She’d rather just call it talent. She didn’t know if she dared ask anyone anything so personal as to what kind of talents they possessed.
“Why do you call it the tower?” she asked, skipping over the question his reply had opened.
“It was once a medieval fortress, but we’ve only maintained the original hall—which was quite a large tower for the time. The bailey walls have crumbled and been carried off to build the village. Once upon a time, this must have been a bustling little town that supported a busy fort of knights and courtiers and their households, but that’s all gone now. There is not much here now that we have no need to guard against Scots barbarians.”
The road wound through more woods, along a stream, and into a meadow surrounding a hill topped by an enormous stone structure. At first glimpse of a real medieval castle—or its remains—Celeste halted her horse and sat back to study it.
“It is very tall,” she said in awe. Several rows of windows indicated a number of floors topped by crenellations and a guard tower.
“The better to see the enemy. I was told my great-grandfather enjoyed astronomy, like Theo, and he set up his telescopes on that top floor. I suppose in earlier times, height was the best way of studying the stars as well as the countryside. If it hadn’t been for Duncan’s injury and all the women staying here, Theo might have settled up here with Aster. We’re a little over a day’s ride from her home.”
“If all the Malcolm ladies are as nice as Lady Aster, I shall enjoy this visit.” She pressed her mount into a walk again.
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