Chapter Five
This was a dream from which Lydia never wanted to wake. It was as real as her vision the night before. The fantasies she’d entertained throughout the day had come to life as she’d drifted off to sleep. Brian’s hard frame stretched on top of her, his lips dragging seductively across her own. His tongue slid into her mouth tangling and teasing until—bold in sleep—she tilted her chin, opening her mouth to allow him full access. His hands, work hardened and rough, ran down her bare arms erasing the chill of the bathwater from her skin. A trail of kisses dragged across her jaw and down her neck, her fingers slipped from his shoulders to lace through the wavy thickness of his dark hair, holding the intoxicating heat of his lips to her. He moved down her body pressing his lips into the hollow at the base of her throat as his rough fingers graced the flesh just above her blanket cover. A moan escaped her as the corner of the blanket lifted exposing her breasts to the air; Brian’s warm palm closed around one as his mouth descended, taking the tip into his mouth—
Lydia bucked then froze as stone cold shock brought her to a full state of wakefulness. Her eyes flew open, her hands fell limp to her sides, and she didn’t know what to do, or think. How had this come to pass? She had never lain this way with a man, and even as she could come to want this with him the moment was far from… right.
Brian snatched away from her as though burned. He spun a harried circle, scrubbing both hands through his hair. He turned back to her, eyes aglow with a disconcerting desire, and raked a hot gaze the length of her. Lydia scrambled to cover herself, feeling utterly exposed.
Without a word he strode across the room, snatched her freshly washed shift from the chair and tossed it into her lap. “Put it on,” he commanded gruffly. A caged animal, Brian’s eyes darted frantically about the room, looking anywhere but her as she slid into the thin garment. Finally his gaze came to rest on the door. He was going to flee.
She couldn’t take it. Lydia wanted… needed answers. Was he rejecting her? Moreover why had he kissed her again? The cool I’d thought we were about to die quip would hardly pass muster this time.
“Brian, wait, please don’t go.”
“Why the hell not?”
“We need to talk about this.” Recovering a measure of dignity she positioned herself primly on the edge of the bed.
His gaze sliced in her direction. He actually looked as though he might be ill. “God forgive me, Lydia, I should never have kissed you. It’ll not happen again, you can rest assured.”
Hurt, she cringed back onto the bed. “But I wanted you to kiss me,” she blurted, instantly regretting the words.
Brian grunted, rolling his head back on his shoulders as though in appeal of a higher power. “Why, Lydia? Why would you want such a thing?”
She swallowed nervously, searching for the right words. Dare she admit he was the reason she’d run away? That their one magical evening had sparked such burning desire that she could settle for no less in a husband than what she’d seen in his eyes? Love existed… love was powerful and real, and Lydia wanted a piece of that joy in her life. “Brian, I—I don’t know what to say.” His gaze leveled, fixing her with a glare that was not quite broken but akin to it. Clear and green, his eyes held no innocence, as though he had seen too much and was simply waiting for fate to hand him the next of life’s disappointments. Her heart could break for him.
“Imagine that,” he scoffed. “Is this fun fer you? Traipsing across the countryside, practicing your wiles on the stable hand?”
“What?” she breathed, curling her fingers in the robe at her throat. “I—I would never… Brian, how could you say such a thing?”
“Answer my question.” Each word was perfectly enunciated, his eyes narrowing dangerously. “Ye toyed with me four years ago, and I will know if ye’re toyin’ with me now. Is this a game to you?”
Lydia straightened. “Four years ago? You actually remember our night four years ago?”
“Oh, Aye, lass, I remember. How could a man forget a shameless flirt such as yerself? I recall very well how ye smiled and winked and danced like a wanton in me arms only to find ye were promised to another. Was it always yer practice to perform for yer father’s soldiers? Is it still? Is this affair nothing more than a game to you?”
“A game?” She stood, back ramrod straight, reverting back to years of training even as tears pricked her eyes. How dare he insinuate she was a silly girl making light of their situation and throwing herself at him as a common harlot? “Being abducted and dragged halfway across England by murderers is not my idea of fun and games. It is you, sir, treating our situation as a farce. And it is you, Brian Donnelly, who kissed me. Twice. Now, I will ask you why? And do not tell me ‘it seemed the thing to do at the time.’”
In an instant he was across the room, eyes hot with anger. “Oh, and did ye not kiss me back? I distinctly recall havin’ a bit of encouragement.” His hand caught her upper arm in a wrenching vice. “I know well how ye gentle bred ladies flaunt yer wares, lettin’ us lowborn fools know what we cannot have. Good for a roll in the hay from time to time. Is that what ye’re after? A quick toss? Would that be yer reason fer wantin’ me to kiss you?”
Crack.
Lydia’s handmade sharp contact with the side of his cheek. “How dare you speak to me that way?” A quick toss indeed! The only man she had any intention of “tossing”—as he’d so aptly described—with was the man she loved who loved her in return. A man who would share his life with her, be her equal, complete her… The type of man brave enough to forsake all and run away to Scotland with his one and only love. Was she little more than a romantic? No. She was an optimist. Could Brian become that dream man? Perhaps…
“Forgive me, my lady.” He backed mockingly toward the door, shattering the illusion.
“Fine, leave,” she spat. “But you still haven’t answered my question. Why did you kiss me?”
“To say I’ve personally debauched the Viscountess of Northbridge ‘twould make one hell of a drinkin’ yarn. Hell, the way things are goin’ I could even claim the next in line to inherit is my bastard.”
Lydia blanched at the vulgar words. Anguished tears swam before her eyes as she searched his hardened face. “Well, you’ve just ruined all such chances.”
His hand fell to the doorknob, his damnably handsome visage totally unreadable. “So it would seem.”
The door slammed and the tears dribbled down her cheeks. So he believed her nothing more than a spoiled rotten child and a conquest to crow about. The realization hurt. It more than hurt, it was gut wrenching. The tower of London could not have provided a more excruciating torture device. Acutely Lydia felt the very life squeezing from her. She glared at the door, willing the last moments to be sucked into oblivion, to have never occurred.
“You are pathetic, Lydia.” She flopped dejectedly onto the bed, cursing the little piece of her heart that fancied herself in love with Brian. “That—that bastard isn’t worth crying over.” Her nose began to run, she used the edge of her sleeve to wipe it away, not terribly ladylike to be sure, but none of her most recent behavior had been either. How many would be viscountess’ contemplated running away on their wedding day, or allowed themselves’ to be seduced by the fantasy of an Irish rogue.
A vision of her whimsical knight floated through her mind. Brian Donnelly may very well be an Irish rogue, but he was not the knight of her dreams. The knight of her dreams would never take advantage of her, or weave outlandish tales of her being compromised and rushed off to the Gretna Green.
Heavily she sighed, curling into a ball beneath the quilt. The dream man she’d concocted so many years ago hardly fit the Brian Donnelly she now knew. Lydia sobbed long into the night, all the while berating herself for the weakness. “He isn’t worth it.” The words didn’t lessen the pain, but chucking a pot at his face might… Just where had he gone?
Hours later a dull thud pulled Lydia from the dregs of sleep. “Bloody chair.” The curse pierced her head
, clogged from hours of crying. Slowly she rose on one elbow, prying one gritty eye open and blinking against the gloomy shadows masking the room. Across the room Brian stooped, continuing to swear under his breath, and clutching his left knee.
“Are you all right?” she murmured, brain too fogged to remember being hurt or angry.
“Fine,” he barked testily. “Whacked me knee on that damned chair.” His speech was suspiciously slurred.
“Ugh. Are you drunk?” Disgust fairly dripped from her tone.
“Aye.” He stumbled to the bed the sweet smell of whiskey swirling around him. “And a good long while it’s been since I’ve been properly sotted.” The toe of his boot caught the edge of the bed, and he sailed forward, landing directly on top of her.
“Oh!”
He flashed a sloppy, almost comically, crooked smile. “Thanks fer breakin’ me fall, lass. Yer a fair sight softer than the floor, probably the mattress too.” His face fell to the curve of her neck. The touch of his velvet lips on the sensitive flesh of her throat sent her pulse to a run. “Mmm… ye smell so good, love.”
Lydia’s throat ran dry. I smell good? One of Brian’s hands slid up her arm, lacing through her fingers as he trailed a path of feather light kisses across her jaw. She trembled when he reached her mouth.
“If you’d be so kind as to hand me that pillow, lass,” he murmured against her lips.
“What?”
Abruptly he pulled away from her all but falling off the bed. “I’ll be beddin’ down here in the corner.”
Testily she tossed the pillow into his face; inebriated as he was he caught it. “Why is it, Mr. Donnelly, that you are willing to sleep on the floor tonight when I could not have paid you a chest of gold to do so last night?”
“Because tonight, me lovely, I can’t promise not to ravish ye whilst ye sleep.” He chucked the pillow against the wall and collapsed in a heap on top of it.
Her mouth flopped open. There at least was an honest answer.
“Good night.”
She rolled her eyes, pulling the quilt to her chin. “And to you, sir.”
A good night was not forthcoming. Certainly not after his bizarre reappearance. Lydia tossed and turned, replaying their argument, picturing his drunken entrance, and contemplating the one thought nagging her brain… If Brian wanted nothing more than to say he’d bedded a viscountess, why admit to such instead of continuing to seduce her? He must know his effect on her. She turned to little more than a glop of jelly, trembling from the inside out if Brian so much as speared her with his eye. She feared her heart forever being on her sleeve or at the very least in her blush around him. It was as though he wanted to push her away, wanted to make her hate him. And that intrigued her all the more.
Her mind was spinning again. Analyzing and overanalyzing even the minutest turn of events. Olivia was right, it was a wonder her head did not explode.
Perhaps reciting the Greek alphabet would bore her overactive mind to distraction. Alpha, beta, gamma, delta… Oh, blast! It wasn’t working.
She rolled to the other side and back again, letting her gaze rest on Brian. A plan took shape in her mind. For a few days Brian Donnelly was all hers. Surely she could learn something of his true motivations and character…Whether or not he wanted her. Of one thing she was already convinced, Brian was not the rogue he tried to portray.
* * *
Brian woke in a dour mood, flat on his back, to a wretchedly brittle tapping battering the remnants of his whiskey soaked brain. Surely his left temple would explode. He groaned, what was that bloody racket, and pried open his right eye. The sun pierced his cluttered skull a split second before Lydia appeared in the swirling haze of his visual field, the very vixen responsible for his current state, and worse… he was looking at two of her.
He blinked, now three Lydias stood before him.
He blinked again, this time with both eyes open, and managed to focus on the lone woman standing before him.
“Lovely, you’re awake,” she said in an entirely too chipper voice and flashed a sunny smile.
Why for the love of God was she smiling? The chit should hate him after last night.
“Now we can be on our way.” She flipped a freshly plaited braid over her shoulder, turned, and tapped away.
He rose on an elbow. “Could ye stop pacin’ for half a second?” It was her damned shoes making the earsplitting racket.
“I wouldn’t be pacing if you would kindly get a move on.”
“Perhaps ye could lend me a mite of yer abounding energy.”
“We have a great deal of distance to cover,” she continued as though he’d not spoken. “Not to mention planning to accomplish. Did you have a next location in mind?”
Brian sat and pinched the bridge of his nose, willing the swishing nausea to subside. Why had he thought a good bout of drinking would remedy any of his current quandaries? The mounting attraction to Lydia was every bit as strong as it had been last night, and judging by her bright façade this fine morning his attempts to push her away had failed miserably as well.
“Brian?”
“Aye?”
“I asked where we’re going?”
“Sharpsburg,” he bit out, dragging to his feet. “Oh, Christ.” He gripped his head.
“Isn’t Sharpsburg the wrong direction?”
“Not entirely,” he mumbled, “it’s still to the south, and I know a man there who may be able to help us.”
“Excellent.” She clasped her hands and turned to the door. “I’ll give you a moment to freshen up and then we’ll be on our way.”
Brian’s gaze trailed after her as she left the room. The lass was a puzzle. When the door clicked shut he shook his head, instantly regretting the motion.
How much had he drunk last night? Too much apparently. Though not enough to have blacked out the scene after he’d returned to their room. He remembered all too vividly Lydia’s wan tear streaked face, and the disgust in her eyes when he’d stumbled into the chamber reeking of Irish whiskey—fine Irish Whiskey at that. He’d behaved as a total ass and felt damnably guilty, but she needed to hate him. The sooner she stopped looking at him with those huge bedroom eyes the better.
Fresh water, a clean towel, and a faded, yet also clean, shirt waited for him on the bedside stand. Compliments of Lydia and Harvey no doubt. Gratefully he doffed the filthy shirt and quickly scrubbed. Feeling somewhat revived, Brian pulled the fresh shirt over his shoulders, ran a hand over his bristle chin—in dire need of a shave—and headed down the stairs to join Lydia for their goodbyes.
“Harvey.” Brian extended a hand. “I cannot thank ye enough for the hospitality. If Lydia and I can ever repay the favor…” He let the sentence hang, suppressing a twinge of guilt lying to his old friend.
Harvey took the proffered hand, smiling jovially. “It was no trouble at all, Brian. We were thrilled to have the company. You and your wife,” he threw a wink to Lydia, “are welcome any time.’
“Thank you for that. Anna,” Brian turned, “it was lovely to finally meet you. For two long years Harvey did nothin’ but sing yer praises and now I can see that he is a lucky man indeed.”
Anna blushed prettily. “Thank you, Brian. It was wonderful to meet you as well.”
Brian smiled tightly at Lydia who’d already said her goodbyes. “Are ye ready to be goin’, love.” The throbbing behind his temples was near unbearable. It would be a cold day in hell before he let a woman wreak this havoc on his mind and senses again.
By midmorning Brian was ready to bind, gag and blindfold Lydia himself.
For the last three hours she’d been prattling on about this and that, asking nonsensical questions or commenting on the scenery. By the time she’d aptly named the third subspecies of fern he wanted nothing more than to stuff a wad of cotton in her mouth, or at the very least in each of his ears.
“Is it a regular habit of yours to study botany then?”
“Heavens no.” She smiled with a dismissive
wave of the hand. “I’m just fond of reading.”
“And you read up on such topics as the fern and plant life indigenous to northern England?”
She lifted her hem to step delicately over a puddle, and shrugged. “It is a habit of mine to read up on any topic I come across. One never knows what might come up in polite conversation and I should hate to be the one sitting dumbly by with nothing to add on the subject.”
“Lydia, I cannot imagine you with nothin’ to say.”
Her clear brown eyes flashed with good humor. “I will pretend not to have heard that. Although I admit to having a tendency to talk a bit more than my share, not a terribly ladylike trait I’m afraid. Though I’ll have you know I rarely speak out of turn. Olivia forever accuses me of beginning to speak halfway through a thought.” She cocked her head to the side in a most adorable fashion, Brian actually found himself stifling a smile, the chit could be quite entertaining.
“I suppose she may have a small point,” she continued. “Father always said my mind spins faster than a compass on a bed of iron.” She spent the next twenty minutes demonstrating just such a trait, flitting from one topic to the next to the next without any discernible common thread.
“How is it you know my father?” Lydia shifted topic again. “He obviously thinks well of you to have hired you to train his horses”.
Brian cleared his throat, a little surprised by the turn of conversation. “I had the privilege of serving under Sir William’s command in France. He’s a good man. Even sponsored my commission.”
“Really?” Lydia looked sufficiently surprised by the revelation.
“Yes, apparently I showed promise and the makings of a career soldier.” Brian had been more than happy to accept the commission though he’d never viewed the army as more than a means to an end. “I guess we’ll never know. I was wounded a few months before Waterloo and discharged from his majesties service at which point yer father was good enough to offer me a job.”
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