Jenny put one hand to her forehead and exhaled.
“This may come as a surprise to you, Jenny, but I am an adult. I do understand how complex and dangerous this situation is. I could not have possibly missed the fact that you feel an obligation to Harcroft—and that I am the one responsible for the obligation in the first place. I am not telling you that I wish to make a training exercise of this matter. I am saying this situation is more delicate than you can possibly imagine, and if you keep poking about, you are the one who will blunder.” His hands were shaking.
Jenny’s eyes widened at that outburst and she leaned back, folding her arms over her chest.
“And when I say trust me,” Ned continued, “I do not mean that you should don a blindfold and repose your unthinking faith in a foolish youth. When in the last few years have I exaggerated? When have I made you a promise and not kept it? When have I broken faith with you?”
“You haven’t.” Her voice was hoarse. “I’m sorry, Ned. I thought only to save you from the trouble and heartache of this affair. It’s only because I care for you.”
“You can take that sentiment and stuff it. This time, Jenny, I’m going to save you. And you are going to sit quietly and let me do it.” As he spoke, Ned leaned over the table, until he was glaring into her eyes.
Jenny lurched back.
He was already regretting the harshness of his tone. Jenny cared for him, as a sister for a brother—literally—but all that sisterly concern left him feeling uselessly swaddled about, covered in cotton wool. She’d already spent too much time caring for him.
Jenny’s eyes dropped from his in similar regret. “I suppose,” she said weakly, “I should like to see Rosa again. It has been more than a week, and we both miss her.”
Ned let out a breath.
“Very well, Ned. Save me.” She rolled her eyes as she said the words, as if to indicate precisely how much weight she put on them. “But if you muck this up because you were too proud to ask for help when you needed it, I shall smack you.”
A wave of relief washed over him. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You won’t need to.” He gave her an assured smile. “Prepare to be saved.”
Chapter Eleven
“I HAVE SOMETHING TO TELL YOU.”
Kate looked up from her contemplation of the tree-lined horizon through the sitting room window and turned to the doorway. Her hands clenched around the useless pillow she had been pretending to embroider. Ned stood there, nonchalantly leaning against the doorframe. He smiled at her, carefree.
So she was to be told about what had been decided in the meeting, after all. She hadn’t been sure whether she was glad to have been left out, or wounded that she was seen as so useless. She was not sure whether her husband’s presence intensified the feeling of isolation that had enveloped her or alleviated it. But that smile he gave her—that bright smile—seemed to cut through the depressing blue of her thoughts.
Silly impulse, that. Just looking at him tugged at her heart, made her remember how inadequate everything was between them. She looked away and out the window again. Just this morning, she’d traversed the path she saw in front of her, looking for her husband. Now, with the autumn sunset dipping toward the horizon, painting brown fields gold, she wanted no reminder of what she’d learned.
His care for her was a perfunctory thing, a matter of duty. And no matter what else transpired she was alone. Now more than ever.
Behind her, he let out a small sigh. “Gareth and Jenny will be off in half an hour. Harcroft will be leaving for Chelsea in the morning.”
She turned around and looked at him in surprise. “How did that come about?”
Ned stepped into the room and shut the door behind him. “I suggested it.”
“And how, precisely, did you go about suggesting it?” Kate felt her hands trembling. More important, why? And why had he come to her with such news? “Has someone found Louisa?”
“No, Kate.” His voice sounded patient. “Actually, I promised I would search for her here myself. I’m familiar with the area. I promised to send regular reports with my findings.”
Even worse. She’d have to avoid him assiduously, and mislead him. Lying to Harcroft seemed a kind of a civic virtue. To her husband, however, it was another matter.
“And will you?”
“I’ll look until she’s found.” His voice was mild. “But is there anything you wish to say to me on the matter?”
Nothing. She could say nothing.
He came to stand beside her. The red rays of the sunset painted his face in warm tones.
“If there is anything you wish to tell me in confidence, you have my word it would go no further.”
His word? She wanted to trust him. She did. But…
“That would be the same word you gave me at our wedding ceremony?” She spoke primarily to remind herself. Because she was a fool to even consider speaking to him. A true fool to want to believe she could trust him. She heard his intake of breath. “You’re furious now, because I’m questioning you.”
“Furious?” His voice sounded amused. “Not particularly.” He touched the back of the sofa near her shoulder, his hand falling so close to her she could have kissed it. She looked up into his eyes and found nothing there but trusting brown. No anger. No fury. “I don’t think I really understood how much I hurt you until we spoke this afternoon.”
Kate couldn’t bear to look in his eyes any longer. His words were too close to her dreams, too close to her own wants. She was like to put an unfortunate complexion on them, and she had nobody but herself to hurt. She’d learned, all too well, that her marriage was a practical thing, something to suffer through and survive. Anger she could manage. But kindness led to hope, and hope would break her down.
“Is that what you see when you look at me, then? You see a frightened, wounded creature, one to whom you must speak softly?”
He didn’t say anything in response. Instead, he walked round the sofa and looked at her straight on. And now that he was in front of her, she could not look away. If she bowed her head, he would understand that she was afraid. That even now he could shatter her. And so she looked back. He reached down and took her arm and gently pulled her to her feet. He did not relinquish her hand, though, when she stood.
He was far taller than she, and as close as he stood, she suddenly felt small. She should never have even mentioned her fear. She could see the knowledge reflected in his eyes. She could feel it in the strong grasp of his fingers about her wrist. And now that she’d let slip that unfortunate truth, what else would she admit? That standing this close to him, she could smell the strong, masculine scent of his soap? That some unfortunate part of her longed to lean against him, to open herself once again to the heated touch of his hands on her bare skin?
Perhaps she would say that the primary thing that held her back was the fear that once again, he would be the one to walk away.
She pulled her hand in his grasp. But his hand was as steadfast and gentle as a velvet manacle.
“You must see me as the most pitiful, ineffectual, cringing little rabbit.” She pulled again.
In response, he set his hand on her shoulder and turned her to the right. “Look straight ahead,” he suggested. “I think I may be seeing you for the first time.”
Kate looked across the room. The fire burned low. The cavernous maw of the fireplace was framed by a simple mantel. Above that hung a looking glass.
She could see their reflections in that expanse of silvered glass—Ned, tall and strong, vitality wafting off him. In the mirror it seemed as if he were barely touching her—his hand on her wrist, his arm lightly overlaying her shoulder. Two simple points of contact. The mirror could not show how his touch seared her skin.
She shuddered. Looking at the two of them framed in the mirror seemed even more intimate than their wedding night had been. She could feel the warmth of his body behind her. She could imagine him taking one step in, enfolding her in those strong arms of his. She
could feel the warmth of his breath against the back of her neck. And yet there was nothing anonymous about his touch, because she could not escape his eyes in the looking glass.
They sparkled with deceptive friendliness.
“No,” he said, giving her shoulder a squeeze. “Don’t look at me. Look at yourself.”
Her hair was so light it was almost colorless. Her skin seemed wan; her dress fitted to her form, bound and corseted and drawn in on itself, as if she were so insubstantial that she needed whalebone to prop her up. She looked like a dainty, breakable lady.
“I’ve seen you before,” Ned said quietly. “But I think it’s high time I look again.” His hand came up; she could see it in the reflection, before the callus of his thumb swept alongside her face. “First, there’s the line of your jaw. A perfect curve, held high. It’s one triumphant, resolute sweep. This line—” his finger traced it back again, and the hairs on Kate’s arm stood up “—this line says you are a woman who will brook no nonsense. I believe I have discovered that before.”
Kate swallowed. In the mirror her neck contracted.
His hand slid down that smooth expanse of skin.
“Then there are your shoulders.” His thumb spread along her collarbone. “I have never seen them bowed by fear or drawn together in weariness. You carry your shoulders high, and no matter the weight that is set upon them, you do not falter.” His voice dropped.
As he spoke, his hand traveled down her spine. She could feel the heat of him through the layers of muslin and whalebone as that hand traversed the curve of her back. When he reached her waist, he slid his hand around her front to grasp her own. His fingers entwined with hers, briefly; then he turned her hand palm up, in his.
“I’ve heard,” he said dryly, “that fortune-tellers can see your future in the palm of your hand. What do you suppose I see in yours?”
Her hand was dwarfed by his, her fingers seeming wan next to his. The color of his hands made her think of long days aboard ship, of adventurous treks with strange beasts cavorting nearby and strong men with sharp cutlasses. She could feel the heat of him, as if all the sun absorbed in that golden brown skin were emanating from him now.
Next to him…
“I look small,” she said. And fragile. The kind of woman to be set to side, for fear that she would shatter. That was all anyone had even seen in her.
“I think you look delicate,” he corrected. “Delicate and indomitable, all at once. I see no tremor in your hands, Kate, no fear, no smallness of character.”
“But I—”
“And when I look into your eyes,” he said, “I think you are as implacable as an archangel.”
He closed his hand around hers; her fingers curled into a loose fist, cradled in his. “Your feelings,” he said, “are your own. And if you hold them tight to your chest, nobody need ever see beneath the surface.”
As he spoke, he leaned into her. His words brushed her skin in little puffs of breath.
“Nobody need see a thing. But I want to,” he breathed.
She turned her head to look up into his eyes. And that, assuredly, was a mistake, because if her stomach had been in knots before, the knot clenched into a tangle of Gordian proportions when she looked in his face. She could not have unraveled herself from his gaze, and when she tried—when she glanced away—her eyes alighted upon his lips. Strong and smooth, powerful and gentle.
It left her with the most curious fluttering feeling in her belly. Not that he was going to kiss her—but that he had already done so. Her lips already burned with the impression that his words had left on her. Her skin flamed with the possibility of his nearness. And no matter how practical she told herself to be, rational thought fled before his words.
When Kate parted her lips and stood on her tiptoes, turning in his embrace, it seemed she was merely bringing the words he had spoken to their physical conclusion.
She kissed him, not because she wanted to bring him to his knees, but because he had lifted her off hers. She tasted him, and he tasted of salt and man and the power that the right woman could wield in the right place. And he kissed her back, giving no quarter.
He pulled away. “No, Kate,” he said quietly. “I don’t want to intimidate you. I don’t want you to fear me. I want to look at you and finally see what I’ve been missing these long years. You’re a damned Valkyrie.”
He turned her back to the mirror. Kate felt almost on the edge of tears.
She didn’t want this—didn’t want her secret dreams to come true, didn’t want to hope again. But it was too late. She was already yearning for this. She was already yearning for him.
“It’s not quite true. I am afraid,” she stated baldly. “If I were a Valkyrie, I would not be. I wouldn’t feel a thing.”
“In the stories,” he said, his voice a dark rasp against her skin, “the heroine always slays the dragon and lops off his head. The villagers rejoice and build a bonfire, and darkness never again falls on the land.”
She could feel his hands at her side, warm and powerful. “But those,” Ned continued, “are only fairy stories. In reality…”
He smiled at her in the mirror, a lopsided smile. There was something faintly wicked about that expression, as if he were about to impart to her a great secret, one that had been closely guarded by a centuries-old society. She swayed unwittingly against him.
“In reality,” he whispered, “the dragons never die, and the big sword-wielding buffoons in unwieldy armor cannot slay them. Real heroes tame their dragons. Your fear, my—” He cut himself off, and that sad half smile burst into an incandescent grin. If she had not been awake to the flitting expressions that passed his face, she wouldn’t have noticed the suddenness of the change.
“Your what?” she prompted.
“I went to China to slay dragons. Instead, I tamed them.”
“I thought you went to China to examine the Blakely holdings in the East India Company, to see if the rumors you had heard were true.”
He shrugged, and in that instant she remembered what he’d said. Your feelings are yours. And what were his feelings in all of this?
“Does it matter why I went?” he asked. And he must have intended the question rhetorically, because before she could answer, he continued. “I can’t change the past. All I can do, Kate, is try to make up for it. And that means that if you still flinch from me—if the memory of the pain I’ve caused you is still too strong—I won’t get angry. You deserve my patience.”
“And where will you be?” Kate’s voice shook. “All this time, while you’re waiting in patience for me to trust you. Where will you be?”
“Where will I be?” She could feel his breath whispered against her. “I’ll be right where I should have been this whole time. When you think your castle walls will fall, I will shore them up. When you are afraid you cannot stand, I will hold you upright. I ought never have left. And when you understand that you need do nothing but lean…”
His hands clasped her waist, strong and gentle, holding her up without restraining her. She might have leaned back then.
She didn’t.
“When you lean,” he whispered into her ear, “this time, I will catch you.”
Oh, she was as dangerously vulnerable as ever, and as like to fall against him.
And that she believed him, that she believed he would be there to catch her, believed that this time he wouldn’t leave her…that, perhaps, was the greatest danger of all.
THAT, NED DECIDED AFTER KATE LEFT, had been idiotic.
It hadn’t been idiotic to look at her. It hadn’t been stupid to pledge himself to her. And the kiss had been all kinds of clever, even if it had been her idea to begin with.
No, the foolishness had been when he’d forgotten himself so far as to let that admission slide off his tongue.
Your fear, my—
He’d cut himself off, not out of intelligence, but for want of an adequate word. He’d been saved by his lack of vocabulary, not any sense of
propriety or self-preservation. Her fear, his… What was it, then, that dark thing that belonged to him? He thought of it more as that moment, sun striking metal, with him feeling bereft of every other option. He carried it with him even now. Not anything she needed to know about.
Foolishness might have done. Stupidity, as well. But neither of those words captured the height and breadth of the beast that Ned had tamed. And neither conveyed the sheer darkness that resided in him. It was foolish. It was stupid. But then, he’d learned that if he held the leash on his own reactions tightly, they could do him no harm. It was his own private madness, his own hidden dragon. Kate had single-handedly stymied the Earl of Harcroft. She would never trust Ned if she knew the extent of the beast he’d kept hidden from her. She had no idea how useless he had once been. But he would prove to every one of them that it didn’t matter any longer.
But so long as he remained in control, nobody else would ever need to learn about it.
Chapter Twelve
IT WAS AN ODD LITTLE EVENING, Kate thought after her maid had undressed her and left her to her own bed.
With Lord and Lady Blakely departed, Berkswift seemed even emptier than it had when Kate had the manor to herself. Perhaps it was because Kate was the only lady in residence, and she had spent the remainder of the evening in isolation. Perhaps she felt alone because she knew that for one night longer, Harcroft was still in her home, and he had spent the last hours before retiring browbeating Ned with the details of his irrelevant search.
Perhaps it was because Kate could still feel her husband’s hands about her waist, his fingers hot against the base of her spine. Perhaps it was because, even through the soft wool of her dressing gown, she could feel the heat of his breath on her neck.
This time, he had said, I will catch you.
No mere gentlemanly politeness, that; she’d heard the ring of truth as he spoke, the hoarse acceptance in the timbre of his voice. It had been real, every last scrap of it.
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