A Reckless Encounter

by Rosemary Rogers

  “Maybe. But there’s something about this entire affair that doesn’t quite fit. Celia’s had the map since arriving three months ago. Why wait this long to go after it?”

  “Didn’t you say they were robbed by footpads a few weeks ago? Maybe this wasn’t the first time they’d tried.”

  “Maybe.” He rubbed his thumb across his jaw. “And maybe it wasn’t Carlisle’s men who attacked her. It occurred to me that it’s not what she knows, but rather what they think she knows that’s put her in danger.”

  Tyler nodded agreement.

  Damn Mowry, Colter thought after he parted company with Tyler. He had interfered again. There would be hell to pay for that later, and there would be hell to pay if the Runners caught up with them while he was still with Celia. He should have taken her to Katherine, but he hadn’t wanted to leave Celia in the city where she was vulnerable.

  Celia. Green-eyed little minx, the only woman who had ever managed to hold his attention even when she wasn’t with him. It was the damnedest thing. He dreamed of her at times, of her soft, drawling voice, the curve of her mouth when she smiled, and those eyes…She infuriated him, yet he couldn’t get enough of her, of the smell and taste of her, even of her sharp tongue.

  Christ, he’d let her get close to him. It was damned inconvenient. It affected his judgment, when he should keep his head clear and his goal primary. Celia St. Clair was an unexpected complication, a danger. He thought of her as he’d seen her earlier, eyes wide and staring at him with trust. It was her trust that affected him, her certainty that he would keep her safe.

  Not once on the arduous journey had she complained, done more than sag wearily. There was courage in her that he hadn’t suspected, and a fortitude that he’d never thought she had. It was startling. How had he ever put her in the same class as the other women he’d known who accomplished flirts and basically very shallow, intent only upon the moment and their pleasure. There was so much more to Celia.

  She was strong, firm to the point of stubbornness and surrender wasn’t in her nature. He wished he knew what secret she was keeping from him. It was obvious there was something she wasn’t telling him. It had nothing to do with the conspiracy, though. He was sure of that.

  Events were moving at a fast pace now, and the prospect of a bloody revolt was more than just possible. It was a certainty. How would he keep her safe when he wasn’t sure where the true danger to her lay?

  He swore softly and a passing stableboy gave him a wide berth, as if afraid to get too close.

  Colter smiled grimly, not blaming him. If Colter looked like he felt at the moment, he must look pretty savage. But Christ, what was he going to do with Celia? Taking her to Harmony Hill was dangerous. Options were few; too far or too obvious. If Tyler was right and Mowry was behind the attempt to abduct her, few places were safe for her right now. Mowry had very disagreeable methods of interrogation.

  Rain hissed, pattering atop the stable roof in a drumming rhythm. Music from a fiddle drifted from the inn’s common room when the door opened, and Colter’s eyes narrowed into glittering blue slits. She wouldn’t like it, but he knew where to hide Celia.

  Unfortunately Celia resisted the efforts to keep her safe, struggling against him when Colter dragged her from a nice warm bed in the inn and out into the cold rain. Wrapped in a heavy wool cape over the yellow taffeta, she protested sleepily, “We can wait until daylight, can’t we? I don’t want to leave now!”

  “Christ, keep your voice down, Celia.” His harsh voice grated next to her ear, and she shivered at the anger in it. He was so brusque, indifferent, his hands on her impersonal, as if he were tending a horse instead of the woman he’d taken to his bed.

  Ignoring her futile resistance, he put her atop a horse instead of in a closed gig, and she grabbed at the saddle to keep her balance. She rode astride like a man, dispensing with any semblance of grace as her skirts bunched up around her knees, but he paid no attention to her efforts as he led their mounts from the dark stableyard and into the night.

  It was so cold, the January winds bitter and biting, smelling of rain and mud. She clung to her mount as it stayed close to Colter’s larger animal, its hooves a pounding drum against the rutted road. Rain slashed into her face at times even though she ducked her head and pulled the hood to the cape as low as possible. Tremors racked her body and misery made her silent, not that he would have paused to listen to her protests or questions.

  How had he changed so suddenly from playful lover to this hard-eyed stranger? It was frightening.

  When fuzzy gray daylight came at last, it seemed they’d already been riding forever. Every bone in her body ached with fatigue, and Celia reeled in the saddle by the time Colter finally halted late in the day. They were beneath a rocky overhang, with winter-dead creepers brown traceries against rock walls, leafless trees clacking bare branches with a sound like the rattle of old bones. A soughing wind curled around wooded slopes, caught at the hem of her dress and fluttered her hood. She shivered, muscles protesting the involuntary reaction.

  At least the rain couldn’t reach them here. She made no sound when Colter pulled her from her horse and led her into what turned out to be a shallow cave hollowed into rock. It smelled dank, and as if it had been used before.

  He propped her against the rock wall, where gray light seeped inside. Working with silent efficiency, he rubbed down their horses, fed them grain from a burlap sack, then set about making a fire near the front of the cave. It was necessarily small, the damp wood obviously left behind by former occupants stacked on the pitted floor to one side.

  Still crouched on his heels, he pivoted slightly to look at her when a tidy blaze spit sparks toward the low ceiling. “It’s smoking too badly to use long. Come get warm before I put it out.”

  Wordlessly she hunched near the fire, spread her hands out to heat them at the licking flames. In the hellish light cast by burning branches, his face was set in stark relief.

  “Take off the cape and I’ll dry it for you,” he said. When she didn’t move—couldn’t move for the shivering—he rose and came to her, untied it at the neck and slid it from her shoulders to hold it near the fire. She couldn’t help but notice that he didn’t seem cold at all, but was impervious to the wet clothes and icy winds.

  His black hair was wet enough to drip down his collar, but he ignored it, as he disregarded his own drenched coat, now spread over a rock to dry out.

  When she could speak, she asked, “Are we staying here all night?”

  He glanced up at her through the smoke. “It seems the driest place for now.”

  “I never thought England could be such a wilderness. It seemed so small and…and civilized.”

  “A gratifying surprise for you, no doubt, to discover that we have our own share of uncivilized citizens. What we lack in size, we more than make up for in mettle. Ask any Frenchman.”

  She shivered. Yellow taffeta clung to her legs in sodden folds. She looked away from him. “Do we have any food?”

  “Beef and bread. A limited menu, but preferable to rocks or thistles.”

  When her cape was nearly dry, he spread it over the same rock that held his coat and rummaged in a sack for food, producing cold meat, cheese and hard bread.

  They ate silently as the fire died down and dwindled to only glowing embers, leaving the cave in shadow and cold. Near the entrance, the horses settled, heads lowered, legs braced for sleep. The smell of smoke was faint now, acrid, and left a haze in the damp air.

  Celia heard Colter rise, saw his vague shadow move again to the gear he’d removed from their mounts. Then he came to her and reached down.

  “We might as well get some sleep for a few hours. It smells like snow, and we need to press on soon.”

  A few hours? Dismayed, she let him lift her to her feet and guide her to the rear of the hollow, where he spread out wool blankets on a rocky shelf. When she stretched out on the lumpy pallet, he lay beside her, ignoring her suddenly stiff body and tense mu
scles as he pulled her back against his chest so that they fit snugly together.

  “It’ll be warmer this way, princess,” he said softly, his warm breath against her neck making her shiver. His arms held her tight and close, and shortly the heat began to penetrate despite her reservations.

  Outside the wind was constant, a keening sound like strange moans. Inside, the smell of horses, old smoke and dampness permeated everything. She closed her eyes when Colter’s hand spread across her abdomen, and a peculiar knot loosened inside, an odd quiver that seemed to ease through her entire body so that the trembling was not from cold, but from reaction.

  He must have sensed it, for he began to stroke her with light circular motions, fingers splayed upward to cup her breast in his palm. She recognized the pattern, the steps as of a dance in his caresses, and knew when he would move his hand next. She turned into him as he urged her to her back with a gentle nudge upon her shoulder.

  Yes, this was becoming so familiar, the same sweet, wild sensation of his hands on her bare flesh, the thunder of blood through her veins in response to his mouth on her lips, eyes and breasts. As if in a dream, she became aware that they were both undressed again and he was between her thighs, fitting to her as if made just for that very purpose. Perhaps he was. Perhaps this was what life was all about, the coming together of a man and a woman this way, in mutual desire and need, the communion without speech but with touch.

  And then it was difficult to think coherently. All she could do was feel. Nothing else mattered, not the cold or the isolation, nothing but the intense passion that flared between them.

  Despite the cold in the cave, or maybe because of it, she clung to him with an almost desperate intensity, not wanting to think about where they were going or why, wanting only to feel him inside her again, his hard male body so vital and strong. It was all that could take away memories that were too painful to bear at times, this forgetfulness he summoned with his mouth and hands, the plane where she could float as free as a bird on waves of oblivion.

  “Hold me, Celia,” he muttered against her mouth, and she wrapped her arms around him as he pounded into her with a fierce, driving rhythm that took her beyond the cave and beyond even herself.

  It was difficult to breathe, to think, to even hear, and she knew she must be mistaken when she heard him say, just as he went still and deep inside her, “God, I hate to leave you.…”

  When they slept at last, he held her in his arms so that she was almost a part of him, joined together as one.

  Colter woke first, when it was still dark outside and there was nothing to see but shades of black. He nudged her awake, and when she moaned a protest, he pulled her to a sitting position.

  “It’s nearly daylight. We’ve slept too long. Come on, princess.”

  Still grumbling protests, she let him help her dress, but frowned when he held out a pair of trousers.

  “What are those?”

  He gave them an impatient shake. “Put them on, Celia. I don’t have time to argue. That dress is almost in rags, and you need to worry more about warmth than appearances. These are compliments of a stable lad. Put them on so we can go.”

  They were much too large, and he belted them around her waist to hold them up, stuffing a voluminous shirt into the waist so that she resembled a rather portly lad wearing his father’s clothes.

  Despite feeling ridiculous, Celia was admittedly warmer in the trousers than the taffeta gown, and had no regrets when Colter wadded it up and stuffed it into a bag they took with them.

  The blackness of night slowly lightened to gray as they rode, and she hoped Colter knew where he was going since it seemed to be little more than faint tracks that led through wood and then into marsh. Traces of light snow powdered the ground as the sun rose higher, dull light barely penetrating the clouds that seamed sky and earth together in an unending anonymous horizon.

  It smelled of the sea here; terns rode air currents, and the marshy ground gradually changed to harder chalk. Was he taking her to Harmony Hill? It seemed far too obvious.

  Hunched against the cold, Celia rode numbly now, and when she saw through the trees faint welcoming lights, she sagged with relief.

  But it was no house they approached, only some kind of camp, with wheeled houses shouldering beneath the shelter of spiny leaved yews. Smoke rose from a central fire, flames cheery in the gathering dusk.

  She stiffened when she recognized the man who came out to greet them, and shot Colter an accusing glance.

  The gypsy, Santiago, grinned widely, speaking in the dialect that was only partly Spanish, and beckoned them down from their mounts. Celia would have refused, for she saw beyond the fire the gypsy girl Marita staring at her with a strange expression, but Colter lifted her down to stand her beside him, his arm draped in casual possession across her shoulders as if to proclaim that Celia belonged to him.

  It was only partly gratifying, and with sudden dread, she knew what he intended. He meant to leave her here with these people who spoke a foreign language, to abandon her.

  “No,” she said when Colter turned to pull her into one of the brightly painted wagons. “I know what you’re going to do and I refuse! Do you hear me? I won’t stay here with these people. It doesn’t matter what you say.”

  One of the gypsy men laughed, his teeth a white flash in the gloom, but she ignored him and glared at Colter, a mixture of anger and fear making her heart thump madly. They drew the attention of others in the camp, but she refused to retreat, shaking her head and avoiding his reaching hand.

  Colter moved swiftly, like a striking snake, to grab her by the arm, fingers steely even through the thick folds of the wool cape.

  “Jesus, it’s too damn cold to stand out here and argue, Celia, so just cooperate for the moment while I try to work out something else.”

  “I won’t stay here,” she repeated. “You have to think of another plan, Colter, you must.”

  “Get into the wagon and we’ll talk.” He pulled her up the four steep steps, then inside, and left her with a promise to come right back. “I’ll talk to Santiago. Stay here where it’s warm and I’ll be back in a moment.”

  But when he returned, she found to her dismay that the something else he had worked out was not at all agreeable.

  “Please,” she hissed. “Reconsider! If you leave me here, any hope I ever had of salvaging some of my reputation will be ruined. Isn’t it bad enough that you dragged me from the theater, then to a…a house of prostitution? Now you intend to leave me with gypsies and God only knows when I’ll see you again. Take me back to London. I’d rather take my chances there!”

  They were alone in the cramped quarters of the wagon, a wheeled hut that held a bed, tiny table and storage in drawers built under the bed and along the walls. Windows wore gaily colored curtains, and personal items indicated the owner was a man.

  “Be quiet,” Colter said with a scowl, “and don’t insult Santiago’s hospitality. No one will think to look for you here. Christ, Celia, I can’t keep you safe in London when I’m not even certain who attacked you. I thought I knew, but I was wrong.”

  She stared at him, distress making her voice quaver slightly. “How long would I have to stay here?”

  One corner of his mouth tucked into a grimace. “Just long enough for me to take care of what I have to do.”

  “That could be weeks!”

  “A lifetime if you’re in danger. Look, Celia, I don’t claim that you’ll be happy here, but it won’t be as bad as you think. Santiago will look after you. He’s fiercely loyal to me, and has agreed to keep you out of harm’s way.”

  “I seem to recall his daughter putting me in harm’s way,” she snapped, and when he only looked amused, she added acidly, “But, of course, if you think putting me on a horse that could have very well killed me is keeping me safe, who am I to argue?”

  “You’re reacting with emotion instead of logic. Marita took you at your word when you said you could ride.”

  �
�A horse that wasn’t even trained!”

  “But you did it.” He gave her an odd look, half admiring. “If you hadn’t ridden into gunfire, nothing would have happened.”

  It was obvious he wouldn’t listen. She pressed her lips tightly together.

  “I’m leaving early in the morning, Celia. You’ll stay here,” he said shortly, “and I want your word you’ll not try to leave until I come back for you.”

  “I have no intention of promising any such thing!” It wasn’t just the fact that he was leaving her behind that was distressing, it was the uncertainty of it, the fear and the knowledge that someone—a complete stranger—wanted to hurt her. How could she ever feel safe again? And, how did she keep from telling him that she felt safe only with him, that if he left her behind she would be afraid?

  His hand shot out to grasp her by the wrist, and he held her tightly, his face angry. “Bloody hell, this is no game we’re playing. Men attacked you. If given the chance, they may do so again. Is that what you want to risk?”

  “No, of course not.” Her lower lip trembled slightly before she could stop it. She didn’t try to pull away from him but remained still, watching his face as she said softly, “I’d rather risk danger with you if I must risk it at all.”

  His gaze flickered, but he didn’t look away. “I can’t do what I have to do if I’m worried about you, Celia. If I know you’re safe I can do what must be done. It’s quicker this way, believe me.”

  She did believe him. Even if he hadn’t told her everything, he hadn’t really lied to her. She was the only one who had been dishonest, and when the time was right, she’d tell him everything, about her mother and his father and the reason she’d come to England. She’d tell him all, sparing no details.

  It was burdensome living a lie. These past three months had put her on edge far too often. The risk of being found out, and the necessity of hiding the truth had taken a toll. And there was the guilt over being dishonest with people who cared about her. It was time she stopped it, time she told Jacqueline, and time she told Colter.