Recklessly Yours

by Allison Chase

  Across from him, Holly raised her tankard but didn’t drink. “How long have you known? That I was after the colt, I mean.”

  “I didn’t know for certain until I saw you on the road. Before that, I kept telling myself my suspicions had spiraled out of control.”

  “And yet you moved the colt this morning.”

  He laughed softly as he lifted his own tankard. “There was something else that gave you away, actually, or at least heightened my reservations. Last night, you knew it was Ivy coming down the corridor to the library.”

  “Stupid of me, that slip.” Spots of color brightened her cheeks, and for a moment she looked as she had after he’d kissed her on the road. It made him want to kiss her again. The temptation pulsed through him until heat suffused his own face, making him glad he hadn’t requested a private room . . . and rather sorry, too.

  He swallowed a deep draft of his ale. “And you? When did you know?”

  “Victoria suspected all along and said you seemed the most obvious suspect. But until you walked the colt out onto the road earlier, I held on to the notion of your innocence.”

  “This must all come as a grave disappointment, then.” He’d tried to sound lighthearted and unconcerned, but he hadn’t quite managed it.

  Her fingertip traced the grain of the wooden tabletop. “It does present a difficulty.”

  “You are free to turn around in the morning and return to Masterfield Park. I won’t try to stop you.”

  She looked genuinely puzzled. “Why not? For all you know I’ll go straight to the queen.”

  He didn’t think she would. “My other alternative is to abduct you,” he said. “Shall I add kidnapper to horse thief?”

  Her brows knit, she leaned over the table toward him, her elbows propped on the trestle boards, her tankard suspended between her two hands. “Why would you do such a brazen thing as steal from the queen? How could you hope to get away with it?”

  “There are times when getting away with it becomes a secondary consideration.”

  “Secondary to your future? To your family’s future? What if you should be charged with treason?”

  “Then I’ll be stripped of my title and Bryce inherits.”

  “How can you be so indifferent?” She slammed the tankard down, splattering ale over the brim. She sank back against her chair and regarded him with a silent plea for a rational explanation.

  He looked down into his ale, then back up at her. “Some things are more important than titles, and more important than one man’s future.”

  “Such as what?” She held out the palm of her hand. “What can be more important? And don’t tell me the answer is in Devonshire.”

  The innkeeper returned to place trenchers of steaming mutton stew in front of them. “Anything else, milord?”

  “Have you checked on that room as I asked?”

  “Aye. We’ve one left for the night.”

  “Good. Thank you.”

  The man tugged his forelock and sauntered away.

  Holly simmered at Colin, her lips pinched, her nostrils flaring.

  He pretended not to notice—he needed not to notice the sparks shooting at him from across the table, and the silent innuendo that gripped his loins and refused to let go. He picked up his fork and sampled a bite of his stew. “Not bad. Try some.”

  She went on staring, her gaze seething with questions while the notion of sharing a room with her, a bed with her, rendered his throat so dry it was all he could do to swallow chopped mutton and carrots.

  “You never answered my question,” she said, surprising him. He thought she’d have taken him to task for the single room he had secured for the night.

  “You said not to tell you that the answer lies in Devonshire.” He shrugged. “So I will say nothing.”

  She seized her fork as if intending to wield it like a weapon, but stabbed at her stew and not him. “I don’t understand you. You stole something your father rightfully gifted to the queen, yet you refuse to offer any reasonable defense.”

  “My father did not—” He broke off as nearby patrons darted glances in his direction. His voice and his temper had both scampered out of his control, and that was something he didn’t dare allow. There was too much yet to be accomplished, and too many people depending on him, for him to waver in his cool determination.

  Besides, Holly Sutherland didn’t deserve to bear the brunt of his anger, however much he sometimes needed to vent it. In a softer voice, he said, “My father did not rightfully gift the queen with anything. The colt was not his to give.”

  “He owns your family’s estates outright, and everything on them, doesn’t he?”

  He reached for her hand, trapping it beneath his own. “He doesn’t own the colt. No one does. Not even me.”

  Her skin burned like fire beneath his palm; her fingers trembled like trapped butterflies. He should have released her but he held on tighter, desperate for the slightest glimmer of understanding in her beautiful eyes, for even the most fractional lightening of the burden he’d carried since discovering the colt missing from the Devonshire herds.

  But he saw only apprehension blazing in the brilliant green beneath her lashes, and he realized that he could offer explanation after explanation, and she still wouldn’t understand. She couldn’t, not until she walked the fields and saw the herd with her own eyes.

  He eased the grip that had become tighter than he intended, and started to move his hand away. She stopped him, reaching out with her other hand and laying it on top of his. “Please promise me you’re telling the truth. I want to understand, and I need to know you aren’t lying. That this isn’t all some bizarre trickery intended to cheat the queen and humiliate me.”

  All at once he saw her not as a reckless girl playing at spy work, or as an inconvenience to his already complicated venture, but as a woman with much to lose and wishing fervently to do the right thing. And he saw himself, during all these months of knowing her, and most especially in these recent days, fighting the infinite temptation she posed, struggling in vain, defeated from the first.

  “I swear to you,” he said, losing himself all over again in her vivid eyes and her sweet, springtime beauty, “if you can trust me a little while longer, you won’t be disappointed. But you might be sorry.”

  “How could I be made sorry by the truth?”

  “Because you’ll become my accomplice. You won’t intend to. Even now, you might be as strong in your resolve as ever to send the queen an accurate report and return the colt to her. But in the end, if you come with me and see all I have to show you, you won’t do that. You’ll join me in treason.”

  Her entire body jolted in alarm, then stilled. “How can you be so certain of me?”

  I couldn’t love you this much if it were otherwise. Aloud he said, “The way you reacted to the colt tells me all I need to know about you.” Unlinking their hands, he brought hers briefly to his lips. Then he released her and gestured at their trenchers. “Eat up, and then get some sleep. I’ll be by early in the morning for you.”

  The alarm reclaimed her features. “You’re leaving me here alone?”

  “Of course I am. You didn’t expect that we’d share the only bed left, did you?”

  She blushed violent scarlet and darted a glance at their nearest neighbors. “I expected no such thing. I assumed you’d be a gentleman and sleep on the floor.”

  The urge to toss his head back and laugh nearly overwhelmed him. How long did she think he’d have lasted on the floor, with her occupying the bed right beside him, her lovely body heating the mattress, her voluptuous curves barely concealed beneath some wispy linen shift, her sweet and spicy scent beckoning to him all night long?

  “You didn’t think I’d leave the colt unattended all night in these stables, where any highwayman might ride off with him?”

  “Oh . . . I hadn’t thought of that. Where will you go?”

  “There is a farm not far from here. I’ve lodged there before while trans
porting horses from one estate to another. The farmer is an honest man and I trust him. He’ll be glad to accept my coin and have his boy watch the colt while I catch a few hours’ rest.”

  She leaned forward, all eagerness. “I could come—”

  “You are staying here. When I leave, everyone will see me leave, and they will see you retire upstairs alone. This way, should anyone recognize you tonight or any other night, they’ll have no reason to cast stains on your reputation.”

  “A horse thief with honor.” Her affectionate smile sent him to his feet before he changed his mind and dispensed with honor altogether. The thought stole the strength from his legs, and he gripped the back of his chair to steady himself.

  “I’ll see you early,” he said, and exited the inn.

  Chapter 18

  True to his word, he came for her even before the sun peeked over the horizon. Speaking little beyond what was necessary as they broke their fast and prepared to leave the inn, Colin looked tired and tense and ragged, as ragged as Holly felt after hours of lying awake and thinking of nothing but him. Him and his strange colt and the circumstances that drew her farther from her duty to Victoria and, as he had said, into treason.

  To take her mind off her misgivings, as they set off on the road, she asked him about the horse he so obviously valued above all the others—not the colt, but his own mount, Cordelier.

  “You told me you considered him a ‘young man’s folly,’ that he had presented a challenge to you. What did you mean?”

  He remained silent for a long moment, so long she doubted he would answer her at all. Then he gathered a breath and raised his eyebrows. “My father wanted to sell him years ago. At the time, I didn’t care who technically owned him. I’d carefully bred him, handpicked his sire and dame.”

  “Harvest Moon and Pilgrim’s Delight,” she interjected, remembering what he had told her during her tour of the stables.

  “Just so. But my arguments meant nothing to my father and he insisted the horse be sold.”

  “Perhaps he didn’t understand just how much Cordelier meant to you.”

  He smirked. “Oh, he understood. But you see, my family isn’t like yours, Holly, or hadn’t you noticed the difference?”

  “I’d noticed,” she said, gazing down at Maribelle’s mane.

  “So, as flatly as Father refused to let me keep Cordelier,” he continued in a matter-of-fact tone, “I just as flatly bid him adieu, packed my bags, and returned to Cambridge. I swore I was through with the turf. Through with the whole damn business of racing.”

  “Did you mean it?”

  “I most certainly did. Racing is a useless, self-serving endeavor that feeds no one, teaches nothing, and leads nowhere but to greed and pride. I decided my future lay entirely in the laboratory, where I might develop ways of improving agriculture and strengthening the crops and herds that do feed people.” He laughed. “I even told my father I wanted neither the title nor the entail. To hell with them, I said. I wouldn’t accept them.”

  Holly gasped and whisked a hand to her mouth. “What did he do?”

  Colin’s hand strayed to his jaw. “He hit me. A right hook to the chin.”

  “Good lord!”

  “Split the skin. Can you see the scar?” Turning toward her, he raised his chin and pointed to the raised scar tissue. Then he shrugged. “After which I picked myself up off the floor tiles, strode up to my room, and packed my bags.”

  The ache in her heart prompted her to reach across the space separating them and press her hand to his shoulder. “I’m so sorry. Although something tells me you weren’t quite so ready to forsake the rest of your family.”

  Turning, he bent his head and pressed a kiss to the backs of her fingers. “I honestly don’t know what I would have done. About a month later, I received an invitation to return home, signed and sealed by Thaddeus himself. I let six weeks pass before I accepted, and when I arrived at Masterfield Park, I found Cordelier waiting right where I’d left him. Isn’t that so, boy? You were happy to see me, weren’t you? Or was it the sugar cubes in my pocket that made me such a welcome sight?”

  “Why do you think your father changed his mind?”

  “He had little choice. The truth was that he needed my knowledge, and more important, my instincts when it came to horses; he still does, because Father has none of his own.”

  Each day, they continued westward, riding hard until the evening shadows brought dangers to the road. Holly sensed that if Colin had been alone he would have pushed farther, perhaps reaching Devonshire in three days instead of four. For her sake he sought shelter. For her sake he delayed. But he spoke little, as if his lips were manacled by the brackets lying on either side of them, so that she didn’t know if he begrudged her slowing him down or if he accepted the pace as a matter of course.

  As proficient a rider as she was, and despite Maribelle’s steady footing, Holly had never ridden so far in her life, and her body ached from the many hours in the saddle. Her shoulders and back, hips and thighs . . . all endured the punishment of each bumpy mile. It wasn’t until halfway through the third day that her muscles suddenly relaxed and became limber, and she stopped estimating the remaining distance in terms of her discomfort.

  Instead she measured the miles in terms of what she would discover in the end, and whether the close of their journey would mark the end of being close to Colin. She might no longer spend the days at his side, but she doubted that would stop her from spending the nights dreaming of him.

  “How do you know her?” he asked that afternoon, just minutes after he’d informed her that they would soon stop for the night.

  “Know who?”

  “The queen, goose. Why are you spying for her?”

  “Oh. I wondered when you would ask that question.”

  “And now I have.”

  She didn’t marvel, really, that he had waited so long. Asking questions meant inviting questions, ones he obviously wasn’t prepared to answer until they reached Briarview. That he could no longer contain his curiosity made her grin at him from across the space separating their mounts. “I have known Victoria nearly all my life, since before anyone guessed she would one day wear the crown. You see, my father was an officer under her father’s command during the wars—”

  She broke off, wondering about the truth of the story Uncle Edward had told her. In the past year, she and her sisters had discovered possible family ties to France, which could negate all they had once believed about themselves. With a shake of her head, she continued with the only truth she knew. “Victoria and her mother used to visit us at my uncle’s estate, and on the day she told us she would one day be the queen of England, my sisters and I vowed we would always be her friends . . . secretly, if need be . . . always ready to serve her.”

  “My God . . .” He paled.

  “I see I’ve shocked you. That does even the score somewhat.”

  He smiled grimly. “I’ll see your horse thief and raise you one secret friend of the queen?”

  “Something like that. Or three secret friends, so far. Remember when Ivy came to Cambridge dressed in trousers?”

  His eyebrow rose in an arc of astonishment. “You mean she wasn’t merely seeking a higher education?”

  Holly flashed him a look of confirmation.

  “It’s damned dangerous, what Her Majesty asks of you.”

  “Are you saying I’m in danger now?” She tilted her chin in challenge.

  He scowled. “No, but the queen doesn’t know that. Ivy might have been killed last autumn.”

  “The queen doesn’t know that either,” Holly said firmly. “And she never will.”

  As they skirted the foothills of the Cotswolds, the countryside grew wilder and more rolling, the terrain rockier. “There is still plenty of light,” she said, “and I’m not the least bit tired. We needn’t stop if you’d rather press on. Colin, are you listening to me?”

  He clearly wasn’t. Ramrod straight in his saddle, he pricked hi
s ears even as Cordelier did and held up a hand to silence her. He peered over his left shoulder, and then his right, and listened for another several moments, his brows knit in concentration.

  A chill of foreboding swept Holly’s shoulders, but she heard and saw nothing that shouldn’t have been there in the miles and miles around them. Only birds and livestock and farmers with their plows. Only the half-stunted trees and clouds scudding overhead. She grew impatient, and then exasperated.

  Finally, he dropped his hand to his thigh and relaxed. With a cluck he started the horses walking again.

  The road before them dipped and entered the cool shade of a pine forest on either side, the branches reaching across to mesh like clasped fingers overheard. Holly welcomed the shadows. She loosened her collar and was tempted to drag her hunt cap off her head and free her hair to the cooling breeze. The nights and mornings might be temperate enough, but the days grew hot as the sun neared its zenith. Here beneath the trees she tipped her head back and let her eyes fall closed as Colin guided their direction and kept their pace.

  A resounding crack broke the stillness. Holly’s eyes sprang open as a tree limb split and came crashing down, spewing wood chips into the road. The horses jolted, their stride breaking. Maribelle’s legs seemed to tangle as she pivoted, nearly tossing Holly from the saddle. Colin’s voice echoed, sharp in her ears.

  “Get down!”

  Another blast rang out, and something whizzed past her face. Sulfur drifted in the air. The horses whinnied; the colt shrieked in fear. Maribelle reared up on her hind legs, then dropped down and kicked her back legs out behind her. Holly tumbled headlong, her arms flailing, her legs caught in her twisting skirts. Sky and clouds and treetops spun in her vision. She was falling . . . falling . . . and then her hip struck the packed dirt road with a sickening oomph.

  She had no time to blink away the pain. Colin’s hands closed around her shoulders and hauled her to her feet. Within waves of panic an instant of clarity sent her hand lashing out. Her fingers closed around the reticule she’d hung from her saddle. She tugged the bag free just as Colin shoved her to the side of the road and dived with her into the trees.