by Julia London
“I wasn’t speaking to you!”
“Then to whom where you speaking? Your horse?”
“Yes! My horse!” he snapped. “I was remarking to my horse that you are uncommonly mulish.”
“Argh!” she cried, incensed.
The prince raised his brows, daring her to disagree.
Greer snapped her gaze to the path ahead of them. “I prefer we not speak at all. Ever.”
“That would suit me exceedingly well,” he agreed, and spurred his horse just ahead as another loud clap of thunder exploded over them.
The trail they were riding was steep, and they crested a ridge as the storm seemed to intensify. Below them, Greer could see the huge castle that was Llanmair. By leaving the road, he had taken a more direct route home, she realized.
He kept on, looking back often to assure himself she was there, as if she had any choice with such a stubborn little mare. Greer turned away and looked to the west, into the valley. And in the valley, not but a few miles from Llanmair, was a grand white mansion.
She scarcely had time to see it before a bolt of lightning struck a tree not twenty yards from her. The mare made a sound unlike anything Greer had ever heard from a horse and reared, clawing the sky in fear. Greer grappled for the pommel, but the leather was wet, and she couldn’t hold on. She tumbled off the side of the horse, landing hard, the wind knocked from her lungs.
She tried to roll over, to get up, but could not seem to move. In the next moment, the prince was leaning over her, scooping her up in his arms and then diving with her, tumbling just as a horrifying cracking sound rent the air. Greer twisted about and saw that a tree had fallen exactly where she’d been lying.
She gasped and clung to the prince, her heart beating erratically as she realized how close she had come to death. It had all happened so fast! How had he known? But he had her, one arm around her waist, holding her with her back pressed against his chest, one large hand on the crown of her head. The wind had picked up as the storm moved over them, bending trees and kicking up leaves into their faces.
“Are you hurt?” he shouted above the roar of the storm.
“No…I—perhaps my ankle,” she said uncertainly.
He moved instantly, letting go her waist, and felt her legs through her cloak and gown, then her arms.
“The horse!” Greer cried, realizing the mare was nowhere. “She’s gone!”
“She’ll find her way home,” he said, and picked her up, carrying her to his horse and depositing her just ahead of the pommel before swinging up behind her. He swept his hat off his head and put it on her—the thing fell down to her brows, but she was grateful for it. The prince anchored her once more with his arm around her waist, pulling her into the safety of his broad chest.
As he spurred his horse forward, Greer realized with an incredulous gulp that the ogre had just saved her life. He could have left her and no one ever would have known—but he’d saved her.
She twisted in his arms, pushed the hat back, and looked at him, almost expecting to see someone else. An angel, perhaps.
It was no angel behind her. He looked down, frowning. “What?”
“You saved me,” she said. “You saved my life!”
He instantly looked away, turning his head slightly. “I saved my horse,” he said. “You happened to be in the way.”
By the saints, he was undoubtedly the most discourteous man she had ever encountered! She could hardly wait to tell Ava and Phoebe all about him—assuming she ever saw them again—but if she did, she would tell them all the horrible things he’d said about her character, the medieval accommodations in his little kingdom, and his locking her up, for God’s sake! And now, treating her as if she were a horrible bother, when he had kept her here against her will!
Really, she was so incensed that she began to imagine she would write a book about her perils: My Journey to Wales, by Greer Fairchild. The Perils of Pursuing an Inheritance.
She had written the entire first chapter in her head by the time they rode through the back gates of Llanmair.
Fortunately, the prince did not attempt to help her down, but allowed a footman to do it. She returned his hat, and as she pushed wet hair from her eyes, he took it and said, with all the finesse and warmth of a rock, “You will dine with me this evening.”
She glared at him. “Thank you, but no.”
He nodded curtly and strode into the castle so fast and hard that his cloak billowed out behind him.
Shivering from the cold and her close brush with death, Greer hoped she had not just been so foolish as to refuse any supper at all—she was absolutely faint with hunger.
Ten
R hodrick strode through the foyer, tossing his gloves and hat at a footman before bounding up the stairs, taking them two at a time with the dogs on his heels. When he reached his study, he slammed the door behind him, walked to the hearth, and stood there, his hands on his hips, his aching knee forgotten as he glared into the flames.
He absently clenched his hand and then slowly unclenched it, stretching the fingers long and wide. Miss Greer Vaughan Fairchild, if that was truly her name, was the most exasperatingly stubborn, willful woman he’d ever met. He’d be very glad when she was gone—she had brought enough trouble into his life as it was without adding insolence and ingratitude to the list.
As he mentally reviewed that annoying incident in the forest, he could only seem to see her blue eyes and the dark circles under them. He would have lost his temper altogether if she hadn’t looked so worn down. And it certainly didn’t help matters that she smelled quite as nice as she did, like lilacs in bloom, or how her body had felt so exquisitely soft beneath his. It had taken an uncommon strength to prevent his arousal.
Intolerable.
He thrust his hand in his pocket and withdrew her handkerchief and looked at the delicate embroidery. Such regard for her fair looks and feminine ways was absurd and ill-advised, to say the least. But he couldn’t seem to help himself, to stop thinking of her…or imagining her in various stages of undress, or posed in various acts of lovemaking.
As a result, he was glad she hated him so. Let her eat in her suite and never come out for all he cared. He hardly needed the aggravation.
Rhodrick stuffed the handkerchief in his pocket, stalked to his desk, and sat heavily. He stared out at the storm for a time, his mind’s eye filled with how close she’d come to serious injury, if not death, when the lightning had splintered that tree. Only by the grace of God did it sway in the wind long enough for him to dismount and grab her up before it fell.
He thought about her long black hair blowing wildly about her shoulders, the soiled hem of her cloak—her ruined shoes and her garments, soaked completely through so that he could see the curving outline of her body.
It was a while before Rhodrick could shake such images from his thoughts and force himself to concentrate on some correspondence. But he did concede one small thing to Miss Fairchild: he instructed Ifan to prepare a suite of rooms on the west side of the castle. He had no idea what a woman’s sensitivities might require in a set of rooms—one would think a bed, a basin, and a fireplace were sufficient—but he thought the suite that had once been his late wife’s would be the closest thing to pleasing a woman that Llanmair might possess.
The rooms likewise had the advantage of being agreeably situated on the other side of the castle, far away from the master suite and study.
That night he dined alone. The two footmen who always attended him stood silently by the sideboard, moving stealthily to remove a course and replace it with the next. Rhodrick had dined in this manner for the last ten years, and he’d never once given thought to his surroundings or his solitude. Yet tonight he couldn’t help but look about the dining room and wonder how a woman might find it. It seemed perfectly fine to him, but as he had been told that his castle was “unaccommodating,” he was mildly curious.
Perhaps the room was a bit austere, as there was nothing on the walls save a lar
ge painting of a hunt scene. And the color of the walls—he wasn’t quite certain of it, but thought them brown.
He would ask Meg Awbrey. She would tell him truthfully what needed to be done.
As he sat contemplating the décor of his dining room, a most extraordinary thing happened—he heard the faint strains of music. Rhodrick stilled, uncertain what he was hearing at first, until the melancholy chords, beautifully played, registered. Hayden, perhaps? No, Handel—he’d heard this particular piece in London several years ago. And now it was bringing a touch of civility to his home, a beautiful sound, richly melodic, calming and tranquil.
Intent on the music, he picked up his brandy and stood, oblivious to the footman who hurried to pull back his chair, and quit the room without a word.
As he neared the music room, he noticed the door was ajar and slowed his step, moving carefully, so as not to disturb her. As he reached the door, she stopped playing, and he froze, thinking she’d heard him, expecting her to retreat. But a scant moment later, the chords of a lugubrious song, masterfully played, rose up and filled the hall.
Through the sliver of the open door, he could see her back. She had pinned up her hair, twisting it in a way that defied description. The gown she wore—green or gray—fit so tightly across her back that he could see her small shoulder blades moving elegantly as she played, as well as the graceful curve of her arms as her hands performed their dance on the keys of the pianoforte. She swayed forward with the crescendo, then slowly sank back again with the diminuendo.
Rhodrick was quite moved by it. Music had always spoken to him, but this went far beyond that. This transported him. He closed his eyes and let the music swell around him. He stood in the middle of the corridor where the candlelight flickered in the constant draft, his snifter held carelessly between his fingers, his weight cocked on one hip and off his bad knee, the music filling a hole in him he had not known existed.
It had been years since he’d heard anything that remotely sounded like life in his home, and he’d not even realized that he relished it as much as he did until this moment.
But then the music suddenly stopped.
Rhodrick reluctantly opened his eyes and started.
Miss Fairchild had twisted on the bench at the pianoforte and was staring at him wide-eyed through the sliver of the open door, as if she had seen the devil’s shadow.
He felt a fool—how she had sensed him, he had no idea, but it had caught him quite unawares and made him feel uncharacteristically vulnerable. He was walking before he realized it, trying to disguise a limp that had worsened with the cold rain.
Greer braced herself against the pianoforte, closed her eyes, and drew a deep, steadying breath. She waited until she could no longer hear his uneven gait in the corridor before she relaxed and removed her hands from the keyboard.
Her mind whirled around the improbable. Had she imagined it? Had she imagined the warmth that had come over her like a draft of heat from the hearth, in a room where the hearth was cold? Something had made her turn around and see him.
Whatever it was had startled her, and she had abruptly jerked around to see him standing there, his head tossed back and his eyes closed, seemingly lost in the music she was playing. The wave of empathy that had filled her at the sight of him had alarmed her. She’d gaped at him, wondering how long he’d been standing there, mystified by how she could possibly feel anything for a man like him.
Yet to see how her music moved him also moved something in her, nudging her a bit, casting a weak shadow of doubt across her thoughts.
What nonsense! Such sentiment was absurd—all beasts were soothed by music and he was certainly no exception. Perhaps…but this beast had also saved her life today.
Such strange thoughts were disturbing, and Greer was much relieved when, a few moments later, Mrs. Bowen appeared in the doorway jangling the keys she wore at her waist. “We’ve readied a suite for you, Miss Fairchild.”
“Thank you,” Greer said gratefully, and followed Mrs. Bowen in the opposite direction the prince had gone.
The path to her new suite of rooms was rather long. It seemed to Greer that they’d wound around to the farthest reaches of the castle so that she might serve out her imprisonment away from all human contact.
But when Mrs. Bowen opened the door, she was pleasantly surprised. The furniture looked old and out of fashion, but it was of excellent quality. The furnishings were a little bare, but it was easily the most comfortable room she’d seen in the entire castle.
They entered through a sitting room that boasted two overstuffed chintz-covered armchairs that matched a settee, a small dining or writing table, and a pair of upholstered footstools.
The walls were painted a sunny yellow, although the paint had begun to fade, leaving squares of brighter yellow where paintings had once hung. Greer followed Mrs. Bowen through the sitting room into a smaller but similarly appointed dressing room, then into the bedchamber. She was ridiculously pleased with the accommodations.
The bedchamber was built in a turret, but was warmed with bright green and gold floor coverings that matched the bed’s canopy and coverlets. A fire crackled at the hearth and two small windows had been trimmed with gold velvet draperies, which gave the illusion of sunshine.
“You’ll find your toilette in the dressing room,” Mrs. Bowen said over her shoulder. “And there is a bath. Just use the bellpull when you are of a mind.” She glanced appraisingly around the room, then at Greer. “Does the suite meet with your satisfaction?”
Greer smiled for the first time in days. “Very much indeed. Whose rooms are these, if I may inquire?”
“They were the late mistress’s rooms.”
She assumed Mrs. Bowen meant the prince’s mother until she clarified, “The late princess.”
She could not have surprised Greer more—she had not once thought of the prince as married, and in fact she could not picture him married. “How long?” she asked, perhaps a bit too forcefully, since Mrs. Bowen looked at her with some surprise. “How…how long has it been since she occupied this suite?”
“Oh, it’s been many years,” Mrs. Bowen said reassuringly. “No one has used the suite since it happened. And the room was thoroughly cleaned afterward. Mrs. Jernigan—she’s a healer in these parts—made a potion that we put around the bed to drive the spirits away.”
“Spirits?” Greer asked.
“A precaution many of the Welsh like to take,” Mrs. Bowen said with a motherly smile.
She said it so matter-of-factly, as if the spirits were real and as if Greer knew what had happened here. But she didn’t know, and she was afraid to even imagine how the princess might have died. Poisoned? Hanged? Stabbed to death in her sleep?
She meant to ask, but a strong gust of wind rattled the shutters and sent a draft through the bedchamber that startled both women. “The weather has taken quite a turn,” Mrs. Bowen said, and hurried to close the drapes. Greer hugged her arms tightly to her as she glanced around the room, seeing it through different eyes now, trying to imagine the woman who would marry such a dark man and then meet her ultimate demise here.
The initial charm of the suite faded with the suspicions that began to mushroom in Greer’s head. By the time she retired, she fell into a restless sleep and dreamed the prince was trying to kill her. When dawn broke, Greer was a mass of frayed nerves.
She felt all at sixes and sevens, uncertain as to what to do now, unsettled by her conflicting thoughts about the prince and this place. Her situation was becoming much more complex than she ever could have imagined.
She wished desperately that Ava and Phoebe were within reach. How she needed their counsel and their strength just now!
Lulu’s arrival eased her somewhat, for when she was bustling about with a cheery countenance, things didn’t seem quite so peculiar.
Greer tried to smile from her seat at the vanity. “It seems I shall be at Llanmair for a time with little to keep me occupied, Lulu.”
“
Oh! His lordship has the finest library in all of Wales. He’s quite well known for his support of law and literature. Perhaps you might find something there.”
Greer looked at Lulu’s reflection in the mirror. “The prince?” she asked, incredulous. “He is known to support the law and literature?”
“Oh yes, miss. He’s got a fine collection of literature. And he’s a judge. He’s high in demand, for he’s earned a reputation for being very fair.”
A judge? Fair? What fairy tale was this? All right, then, she would take Lulu’s advice. She would like to see what literature the ogre read, and moreover, she had to accept that she would be at Llanmair for a time, apparently, but she could not accept that she’d be confined to these rooms every day of every week that it would take for her letter to reach London. She would not spend her days dreaming of being murdered and jumping at every strange noise—and there were quite a lot of them.
Perhaps, she thought, as she mulled over her options, if she were to explore the castle and become familiar with the dark corners and strange twisting corridors from which eerie groans arose, she would not feel quite as uncomfortable as she did now. And as she was not yet chained in the dungeon, she refused to be held like a sheep in her pen.
In a moment of decisiveness, Greer strode out of her suite, determined to make the best of a wretched situation.
She wound her way around through hallway after hallway, through peculiar twists and turns, past artwork, austere furnishings, and gold-plated consoles, and over thick carpets that seemed ancient but luxuriant. She had no idea how she did it, but she managed to end up in the foyer, where two footmen, under Ifan’s watchful eye, were busily lowering the massive candelabra to light them.
Greer paused to watch them. Ifan looked at her curiously. “Do you require anything, miss?” he asked.
“No, thank you.” She smiled. “That looks quite hard,” she said, nodding to the candelabra. “It must be very heavy.”
The two footmen glanced curiously at Ifan. “No,” Ifan said, clasping his hands behind his back. “It is lowered by a pulley. It is no trouble.” He added a bow, as if he expected her to continue on her way.