Riley's Sleeping Beauty

by Sherryl Woods

  Abby gasped and regarded him in dismay.

  “Surely not,” the cook said, clearly aghast, though it was impossible to tell if her reaction was to the Earl of Wilton’s choice or her own treatment of the lady in question.

  “It is true,” the earl confirmed. “Though she has a most unorthodox way of demonstrating her devotion. No doubt she sought to surprise me by turning up here tonight, when I had thought her safely at home with her family.”

  “I thought you’d be far from here by now, my lord,” Abby grumbled, not liking his put-upon tone one bit. The man had the gallantry of a pig. As for claiming that they were already wed, she would make him pay for such a lie.

  He grinned. “Then it is just your luck that I am not, or you would be sleeping with the horses.”

  “Perhaps that would be an improvement,” she drawled.

  The innkeeper regarded the two of them worriedly. “You will be needing a more spacious room, then?”

  The earl shook his head. “My present accommodations will do quite well for my lady and me.”

  “Are you mad?” Abby whispered. “I cannot stay in a room with you.”

  He smiled indulgently. “And where else would a loving wife stay?”

  “My lord!”

  “You would do well to remember that,” he warned, half dragging, half carrying her up the stairs, while Abby bit back any number of curses.

  Inside the room he bolted the door and stood regarding her with a look she found quite disconcerting. He appeared to be enjoying the position in which they found themselves.

  “Are you laughing, my lord?” she asked suspiciously.

  “I am trying not to,” he said, sounding rather noble.

  “You find this amusing?”

  “I find it...intriguing. Could you not bear to wait another month for our wedding night, my lady?”

  “I did not come here to bed you, my lord,” she snapped. “I came to help you catch a crook.”

  “Did you not trust me to handle it well?”

  There was a lethal undercurrent to his voice that warned her to speak cautiously. “It wasn’t precisely that, my lord.”

  “What then?”

  “I was hoping to be of some help. I wanted you to see how much better things would go if we did them together.”

  His gaze shifted toward the very large bed. “There are some things I am sure we will accomplish quite well together, my lady.”

  Abby watched him worriedly. “My lord, that is impossible.”

  “No, I assure you it is not.”

  “We are not wed,” she reminded him. She was beginning to feel most anxious. She had counted on him being a gentleman, but that glint in his eye had a devilishly wicked cast to it.

  “Those downstairs think otherwise,” he reminded her. “And it will soon be the truth of it. We could simply speed along the process.”

  He stole closer. There was no place for Abby to go, except onto that soft bed, and she refused to do that. Once she’d tumbled onto that mattress, she knew for a certainty that all would be lost. She stood her ground.

  “You would never disgrace a lady,” she said firmly, though she was far less convinced of this than she might have been an hour or two earlier.

  “If we cheat the date of our wedding by a week or two, who would be the wiser?” he said, his fingers trailing along her jaw, his gaze locked with hers. “You are the first to say how daring you are, is that not so?”

  So that was it, she thought miserably. He intended to take her at her word. How could she tell him that she was not that daring—when it came to climbing into bed with him—without losing ground all around? She drew herself up.

  “I think before I take such a risk, my lord, you must prove yourself to me,” she said haughtily.

  “Oh, I intend to acquit myself quite impressively,” he taunted.

  “Not that,” she said impatiently. “First, you must show me that you intend to treat me as an equal, that you respect and care for me.”

  He regarded her with infuriating amusement. “And how am I to do that?”

  Abby spotted a chair in the corner of the room and made a dash for it. Once seated as regally as any queen on a throne, she declared, “By first ordering that ill-tempered cook to prepare a feast for me. I am quite famished.”

  An indulgent gleam lit his eyes. He leaned out the door and told his footman to fetch a meal for the two of them.

  “Done,” he informed Abby a moment later. “What more?”

  “Now you shall tell me everything you know about this crook you seek. Is it the bookkeeper?” She leaned forward. “Or perhaps a conspiracy at the docks to take your cargo?”

  “I see you have given this some thought, my lady,” he said, his expression once again amused.

  Abby frowned at him, but plunged on with determination. “A great deal, as a matter of fact. I have been hampered, however, by not knowing all of the facts. So, my lord, which is it? The bookkeeper or thugs on the waterfront? Have I hit upon the problem?”

  He grinned and leaned in quite close, until his breath fanned her cheek. “Not quite, my lady. Though I am impressed with your powers of deduction.”

  “If not the bookkeeper or hooligans, who then?”

  “Pirates,” he said softly. “Quite a vicious band of them, in fact.”

  Abby’s blood pounded through her veins. “Pirates,” she repeated breathlessly. “Oh, my lord, it is even more exciting than I dared to think.”

  “We shall see if you feel the same after coming face-to-face with them, my lady,” he said in a way that made her pulse run wild.

  She knew he was saying such things just to disconcert her, but Abby was having none of it. Pirates, indeed! She could hardly wait.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The monitors at Abby’s bedside suddenly went crazy. Riley took one frantic look at the erratic blips on the screen and raced to the door, yelling for help.

  Nurses, technicians and the doctor on call responded within seconds, pushing him out of the way, insisting this time that Riley wait outside. He obeyed for a moment, maybe longer, then slowly crept back inside the room, his heart thundering as he watched the activity from just inside the door.

  He couldn’t recall a time when he’d felt so helpless, so frightened, not even when an armed terrorist had him trapped in a twisting, dead-end alley in the Middle East. He’d known then that his own skills had been equal to those of his enemy’s. Now he was dependent on this doctor and his team to save Abby. He didn’t like relying on others to do what he should be doing—keeping Abby safe.

  The frenzied activity seemed to go on forever, but eventually the noise and commotion stopped and the doctor turned with a smile.

  “No problem,” he told Riley as if he’d merely been checking her pulse. “Her heartbeat went a little loco there for a minute. She must have been having a most exciting dream.”

  “A dream?” Riley repeated, willing his own pulse to slow down. “That was all caused by a dream?”

  “A nightmare, perhaps. The monitor is very sensitive. I see no evidence that it was anything more than a temporary thing, something like the little burst of adrenaline when a person finds himself in danger.”

  The doctor, whose gray hair and calm manner tended to be reassuring, gestured to the monitors. “See for yourself. Everything is quite normal now. Talk to her. I think it will soothe her.”

  After the room had been cleared, Riley drew in a deep, calming breath and returned to Abby’s bedside. He realized as he reached for her hand that his own hands were shaking.

  “Abigail Dennison, you just took ten years off my life,” he accused in something less than the soothing tone the doctor had ordered. “What on earth were you dreaming about? I think it’s about time you woke up and told me straight out what’s been going on in that head of yours. And I’m not just talking about a few minutes ago, either. I want to know what you were thinking when you made this trip.”

  He waited, as if for her answer,
then went on more quietly. “Were you hoping I’d finally wake up and realize how much I care about you? Is that why you left your engagement ring at home, hoping that by the time this trip ended a different ring would be on your finger?”

  Riley sighed. “I wish I could give you what you want, Abby. I really do. You deserve so much. You deserve to be happy. It’s like your mother said the other day. You’ve been giving to all of us, your family, me, everyone, for so long now. It’s time you got what you wanted.”

  He studied her face for some clue as to what that might be. “You have to tell me if it’s Martin you still want. I’ll hog-tie him and drag him down here if necessary, if you believe he’s the right man for you. I have to admit, though, I can’t see it. He’s a...well, never mind. My opinion isn’t the one that counts here.”

  He smiled at her. “I suppose it’s pretty arrogant of me to assume I know what you’re looking for in a man. I just feel like I’ve known you longer and better than anyone. Maybe even better than your own family does, since you used to tell me all your deepest, darkest secrets. Up until the past week or so I would have said I could read your mind, but you’ve done quite a few things lately that have me questioning that. You’ve changed. I’m not quite sure I can keep up with all the changes.”

  He reached over and gently brushed a curling strand of black hair away from her pale cheek. “If it is over for you and old Martin, does that have anything to do with me? Is that why you pleaded to come to Mexico on this trip? Was it just to get away from the pressure of doing what you think is right? Or was it more?”

  Her silence left him to draw his own conclusions. “A part of me wants you to say that I’m the man you love,” he admitted, accepting the truth for the first time. Maybe he’d always wanted Abby to say those words to him.

  He couldn’t lie to her, though, and make promises he couldn’t keep. “A part of me is terrified that I might be responsible for breaking up a relationship that would have been good for you.”

  He practically choked on the nobly spoken words. The last thing he wanted was to send Abby racing back to old Martin’s arms, but the truth was she might be better off with the attorney and the stable life he could give her than she would be with a dedicated wanderer who didn’t know the first thing about commitment. He tried to explain that to her.

  “I’m a bad bet, Abby. I’ve been on my own so long, answering only to my own desires, going wherever my whims take me and doing it all solo.”

  He drew in a deep breath, then went doggedly on with the rest even though he knew it was unflattering. He doubted it would come as much of a surprise to her. She knew the best and worst about him. She always had. “I’m not certain I can change or even if I want to change,” he admitted. “Maybe it sounds selfish, but this life suits me.”

  There, he’d said it. He had been totally, completely honest with her. He smiled ruefully. “But then you suit me, too. I never realized just how much until the few days we spent together on what you insisted on calling our quest.” He laughed. “As if I were a knight or something. I’m far from that, Abby. I’m just a man, just your average, run-of-the-mill guy who happened to pick an unusual career.”

  He tried to explain how he felt about the life he’d chosen. “I’ve always loved the challenge, the risks, the danger, but you added some things I hadn’t even realized I was missing. You added the passion and the laughter. Whatever happens between us, I will never forget that. It will be my greatest treasure. So, you see, Abby, maybe I’ve already found what I was searching for my whole life without even recognizing it.”

  He was surprised to find that a tear was tracking down his cheek. He couldn’t recall the last time he had cried, the last time he had acknowledged pain of any kind, but most especially the sort of emotional hurting he was experiencing now. He ached with a yearning he had sworn he would never allow himself to feel again. He had promised himself that there would be no more close ties to bind him, no more beloved friends to lose.

  He had not counted on Abby weaving her spell around his tired heart, only to threaten to leave him behind as so many others already had by dying too soon. If he could draw her back through sheer force of will, then that was what he would do. He would not lose her. The time might come when he would have to give her up, but he would not lose her like this.

  “Come on, sweetheart,” he coaxed. “You’ve been sleeping entirely too long now. I think you’re just hiding out, because you don’t want to hear what I have to say about this fool stunt you pulled, but it’s time to wake up and face the music. You know perfectly well that running off was a crazy thing to do, no matter how provoked you were.”

  Abby moved restlessly, almost as if the accusation had her squirming.

  “It’s true,” he said, pressing his point. “Just look at the trouble you managed to get yourself into.”

  * * *

  “Come on, sweetheart.... Wake up and face the music.... Just look at the trouble you managed to get yourself into.”

  Abigail heard the words as if from a great distance, but the arrogant demand with its edge of impatience irritated her. Face the music? What did that mean? And what was this trouble she was being blamed for? She’d merely wanted to have one incredible adventure, to share a few moments of high drama with a man she had been planning to marry.

  She had the sense, though, that Riley—or was it this Earl of Wilton?—was angry with her. And there was no doubt at all that he was deliberately taunting her. As soon as her head felt a little better, she would tell him exactly how she felt about that. Maybe she would even ignore this throbbing in her head and tell him now, while her temper was still riled.

  She opened her eyes and dared a peek. To her dismay, her world suddenly seemed to spin wildly, landing her in yet another unfamiliar place. This clearly wasn’t Arizona or Mexico or even the pleasant English countryside, she decided with a strange sense of weary acceptance as she stared at a distant shoreline dotted with palm trees and a few ramshackle buildings. What the devil had she gone and gotten herself into now? Perhaps this was the trouble to which Riley had referred.

  In fact, if her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her, she was not only on board a ship, but she was about to be set upon by a band of pirates. She shook her head to clear it, then looked again. Definitely pirates.

  Now where the dickens had they come from? she wondered. Her head throbbed unmercifully. It was difficult to think clearly with that constant pounding going on. Where was she this time? Surely not the Arizona desert. She had a vague recollection of longing desperately for adventure, maybe even trying to make her own, but pirates? They most definitely had not been part of any scheme she could recall.

  Or were they? She racked her brain, searching for a memory of some reference to such devils of the high seas. It seemed the Earl of Wilton had said something about pirates, but surely he had only been teasing her. Surely he wouldn’t have tossed her aboard one of his ships and allowed it to be beset by pirates just to teach her a lesson. If that wasn’t it, though, then how could she account for her present circumstances?

  Maybe she’d been mistaken, she decided hopefully. Perhaps it had been an illusion. Or another one of those peculiar nightmares. Her head did seem to be throbbing quite intensely, worse by the minute, in fact. Perhaps that was the cause of this odd vision she’d had. She blinked and cautiously glanced around again, only to let out a little moan of dismay at what she saw. It was far more disastrous than she’d thought.

  These were definitely pirates, with ragged clothes, swaggering walks and a lascivious gleam in their eyes that made her tremble with fear. Above her a Jolly Roger flew from a ship’s mast. She tested the floor beneath her feet and discovered old wood planking, not the plush carpet she was used to or even the stone floors of that place called Briarcliff. Worse, the deck appeared to be rocking, sending waves of nausea chasing through her. Clearly, she was no sailor. Of all the adventures she might have chosen, this was most definitely the wrong one.

  A
bigail wasn’t sure which was more troublesome, the terrible queasiness or the sense of having fallen into yet another time warp. How in heaven’s name had she gotten from Phoenix—or Regency England where she’d grown somewhat comfortable, for that matter—to the middle of the high seas in yet another era? No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t seem to come up with an answer to that one. She refused to believe that the Earl of Wilton had deliberately gotten her into this fix, then left her to fend for herself. As vexed as he’d been with her, surely he was a gentleman at heart.

  Then again, she had told him most emphatically that she could stand on her own two feet. Perhaps he’d decided to test her. She really would have to have a most serious talk with him before they were wed, if this was the way he intended to treat her.

  She sighed and abandoned her attempt to figure out why she was here. It hardly seemed relevant now. Perhaps it would come to her later when her head cleared, hopefully before these raucous men decided to act on those wicked glints she’d detected in their eyes. She did have to wonder where the devil the overly protective Riley or the impetuous Earl of Wilton were, when she had finally landed in the middle of a true adventure. The presence of one or the other of them would have been comforting, even if unnecessary, she amended.

  But instead of her bold childhood friend or the dashing, if somewhat impatient Earl of Wilton, she had only this band of dirty pirates, led by a man who did not exactly inspire confidence in a lady. Gesturing to the others to stay back, the leader advanced on her slowly, his manner threatening enough without even taking into account the imposing sword he carried or the knife strapped to his leg.

  Trying to tame her thundering pulse, Abby studied him intently. His red-striped shirt was torn, quite possibly from being stretched across an incredibly broad chest. His breeches were molded to muscular thighs. Her gaze lifted at last to his face. That was a mistake. She couldn’t seem to take her eyes off the ugly scar slashing his cheek. She had the oddest sense of having seen it before and under equally dire circumstances.