Briar Rose

by Kimberly Cates

  She laughed this time. A soft, wounded sound, full of understanding. "You didn't want me to feel hurt."

  Redmayne arched his eyebrows, attempting to hide his alarm. "My dear, you give me far too much credit. I intend to make a base retreat the instant I can arrange it."

  She stretched up on tiptoe, kissing his cheek ever so gently before the eyes of every soldier in Galway. "That won't change the fact that you were here," she whispered. Then, as if she understood his discomfort, she sought to ease it with the humor that had always been his refuge.

  "Perhaps if you leave quickly enough you won't notice the mess I've already made of my gown, or the fact that even though May and Sylvie drove every hairpin on the west coast of Ireland straight into my scalp, my hair is threatening to tumble down at any moment. I fear I am hopeless, Captain, despite all your efforts to turn me into an acceptable fiancee for an officer of your stature."

  He'd heard numerous women angle for compliments, seeking his praise to shore up their vanity or in an effort to use their beauty and feminine wiles to place him under their power. But Rhiannon spoke with wry humor and guilelessness. She was disappointed that she was so different from the brittle beauties whirling about the room in the waltz. It touched him in a way he didn't want to be touched, made him angry at a world that had such limited understanding of the word "beauty."

  "Damnation, Rhiannon, don't you know?" he snarled. "You're five times more beautiful than any other woman in this room."

  Her eyes widened, as much from his words as from the savagery in his tone. Disbelief made her draw her hand away from his. Curse it if he didn't feel bereft.

  "Lion, don't. You don't have to say things that aren't true. The least we can do is not lie to each other."

  "May God split this infernal ceiling and strike me with lightning if it isn't true. In fact, that's a dashed good notion. One way to end the ball."

  He'd wanted to please her. Instead, her eyes filled with tears. "You've made your appearance. No one can fault you now. Go ahead and leave."

  She started to turn away, offering him the perfect chance to escape.

  Why the devil was he charging after her? His fingers closed around the fragile column of her arm. "Wait."

  She spun around, and what he saw in her eyes thrilled him, terrified him. A thousand girlish dreams his grandfather had dashed into ruins. Hurt and disappointment, so honestly displayed he could feel it to his very bones. Sweet Christ, you couldn't hurt that way unless you cared for someone. Deeply. The knowledge humbled him as he stared down at her, trying desperately to memorize the look in her eyes so he could recall it when she was gone and he was alone again.

  "What is it?" she asked, a fine tremor in her voice. "I have to go take Jemmy some punch."

  "Carver will have to wait. I haven't had my dance."

  She stared at him a moment, then tipped up her chin with stubborn pride. "I fear I don't feel much like dancing."

  Redmayne gritted his teeth. After all he'd been through in this night from hell, the woman was going to dance or be damned. "Consider it a direct order, then."

  As if by command of the fairies Rhiannon believed in, the string quartet began the strains of a waltz. To test his resolve, no doubt. He'd always detested the waltz, a dance that forced virtual strangers to come too close, intruding in spaces he preferred no one enter. But it was too late to retreat now.

  Rhiannon gazed up at him, still uncertain. He couldn't resist reaching out, touching her cheek. "Please, Rhiannon, dance with me."

  "I'll probably tread on your boots, and my heel keeps catching in my train. I—"

  He astonished himself by laying his fingertips on her lips to stop the stream of words. Then, giving her no more chance to protest, he gathered her in his arms and guided her onto the floor.

  He'd partnered women tutored by the finest dancing masters in Europe, every move they made a study in perfection, but never had he felt such astonishing pleasure as he did now. There was something about the way Rhiannon's hand clung trustingly to his, her teeth catching the dewy swell of her lower lip whenever she missed a count. She felt so warm where his arm cradled her waist, the sweet rose fragrance of her hair filling his senses. She was smudged and tousled and undeniably flawed as she struggled to remember the steps of the dance she'd all but forgotten. And yet Redmayne wondered if he'd ever known any moment as perfect as this.

  She stumbled. To shield her from judgmental eyes, Redmayne gathered her closer against him—so close that she would be able to feel every shift of his muscles, his movements, the rhythms and sways, dips and turns.

  She gazed up at him in surprise.

  "Melt into me, sweetheart. Just close your eyes."

  He whispered through the errant curls even now caressing his chin. "Trust me."

  Such simple words. People were forever tossing them out as if they were meaningless. Words Lionel Redmayne had never spoken before. Because with trust came responsibility, a bonding he'd always resisted. Rhiannon gave him what he'd asked of her with such generosity of spirit that his throat tightened. He could feel her body, stiff with nervousness, softening, relaxing in his arms, could feel Rhiannon surrendering herself to him with an utter faith that humbled him.

  And in that moment, it was as if some of Rhiannon's fairy magic had swept them both away from the crowded room and the staring eyes. The mechanics of the dance vanished, the precision with which he'd always marked rhythm and step, until it seemed as if they dipped and swirled on a cloud of Rhiannon's dreams.

  The green of her gown, spring soft, matched the hue of her eyes, that miraculous color of new beginnings, new life. The delicate rose of her lips parted, glistening, tasting of redemption. Her throat, white and pure and graceful as the stem of a lily, disappeared into the delicate ridge of collarbone, the generous swell of creamy breasts. Breasts he was burning to cup in his palms, not with the selfish fire of lust but with reverence, in supplication, to drink in some of her goodness after being parched and lost for so long.

  He glanced down into her eyes, and what he saw there made him catch his breath. Could she see into his most secret thoughts? Reflected there, beneath thick curls of lashes, was breathless longing, her fingers trembling in the clasp of his hand. But could his Gypsy angel have any idea what she was inviting, or how unworthy he was, even to take her innocent hand in a dance, let alone take even more?

  He clenched his jaw at the memory of that sun-struck day beside the caravan, her fingers unfastening the buttons at the hollow of her throat, her cheeks peony pink, so shy, so brave as she asked him to make love to her.

  What would have happened if he'd cast caution to the wind? If he'd laid Rhiannon down upon a bed of flower-spangled moss and stripped away all that lay between them—clothing and secrets, fear and doubt? If he'd drunk in her sweetness, would she have had the power to alter him? In some ways, hadn't she already?

  But nothing could change reality. The only way he could hold Rhiannon would be if this waltz lasted forever. And already the notes were fading. The ballroom spun back into focus, the cacophony of chatter too loud, the music too harsh, the lights too garish. He'd always known far more about nightmares than dreams. But as he reluctantly loosened his grasp about Rhiannon's waist, he realized for the first time the fatal flaw that marred all dreams: eventually you had to wake up.

  The quartet sent forth a ripple of lively notes—the introduction to a rollicking country dance. But that seemed almost a sacrilege after the closeness they'd just shared. He took Rhiannon's hand and led her off the floor, waving away several young soldiers who headed toward him, doubtless intending to engage him in conversation. They were intelligent enough to make a detour to the punch bowl instead.

  "Barton," Redmayne called out at the last moment. "Jem Carver desires a glass of ratafia, if you would be so kind as to get it for him."

  Rhiannon stared in amazement, but she was no more astonished than Redmayne himself was. Yet, truth to tell, he had purely selfish motives. For the time bei
ng, he didn't want to surrender his lady or have her worrying about any other man—even a mere thirsty lad she'd befriended.

  Drawing her hand through the crook of his arm, he led her through the maze of well-wishers, grinning officers, ladies stammering out compliments: "Never have I seen anything like it! Such graceful dancing!"

  He managed to pass them off with clipped comments, steering Rhiannon toward the French doors, swung wide along the portico to let in the sweet, cool breezes. But before he was able to make his escape, two rather portly figures blocked his path: Whitting and his wife, the guests of honor.

  "Forgive me, sir," Whitting's sweet-faced lady dared to say, smiling up at him. "But never have I ever seen anything that gave me more pleasure than watching the two of you waltz. It put me in mind of the first time my Archie asked me to dance. So handsome he was in his fine uniform. I feared he'd catch afire from my papa's glaring. But once Archie took me in his arms, I knew nothing would ever be the same again. It was that way with you, wasn't it, sweeting?"

  Redmayne groped for something to say, to distract the woman, shield Rhiannon, but as usual, his gypsy angel surprised him. She looked full in his eyes and nodded, her smile wreathed with such ineffable sweetness it stole his breath away.

  "You will take good care of her, won't you, Captain Redmayne?" Mrs. Whitting's eyes glowed with dreams decades old, tattered and worn in places, buffeted by life's harsher edges. Redmayne knew Rhiannon would only think them all the more beautiful because of it. "A woman's dreams are so precious, so rare."

  Could there be any treasure rarer than the one he'd found on that bloodstained Irish hill? Yet how could he possibly answer? He couldn't be guardian to anyone else's dreams. He had none of his own.

  Rhiannon's voice broke the crushing silence. "Thank you so much for the kind things you've said, Mrs. Whitting. The captain and I wish you and your husband many more years of joy together."

  "That we'll have, my dear. The army life can be hard on a woman, especially at first. Wandering about, never knowing where you'll be sent next, or even if you will be able to follow your husband where they've ordered him to go. Loneliness, when he's far away, and you live from one letter to the next. And always the dread of war. And yet in the end you'll find none of the hardships matter as long as you have each other." She leaned over to kiss her Archie's wind-burned cheek. "I'll be wishing for you the same happiness we've found. I've no doubt you'll have it. There's a heaven full of love in your eyes, child."

  A heaven full of love... the words lanced through Redmayne, a truth indescribably painful. For even Rhiannon's vast store of love could never be enough, since he had nothing to offer in return.

  With a bow, he turned and guided her out the door, grateful for the veil of darkness broken only by circles of light hovering about two torcheres. He avoided their glow, as if they'd been placed there by some sorceress, their magic the kind he dreaded most of all. The ability to shine through all his defenses, reveal to Rhiannon all the ugliness inside him. He'd rather suffer any torture than see that heartbreak in her eyes.

  So why the devil had he brought her here alone? Why hadn't he offered her a crisp bow and left, as he'd planned to do from the beginning? Why had he been fool enough to dance with her? To hold her so close he could feel her heartbeat against his chest?

  Because she made him feel alive for the first time in a very long time, almost as if he were a fallen angel she'd stumbled upon and blessed with her forgiveness. He might know, even if she did not, that the gates of heaven would still be barred to him, that he would wander, an exile, for eternity. But none of that mattered, as long as he could always remember the tenderness, the welcome that had shone for him in her eyes.

  And yet he must never be so cruel as to let her know how deeply she'd touched him. For then she'd suffer, too, when he had to wander off alone, even if she had all the glories of heaven around her.

  "This is lovely, isn't it?" she asked so softly he scarce heard it.

  He looked down at her, glad she'd interrupted his thoughts. "The party? The dancing? You must have missed it very much."

  "Oh, it was all beautiful and, well, exciting, since it's been so long. But that wasn't what I meant." She sighed, leaning against the stone balustrade, the gentle breeze tugging at her curls. "Sometimes things get so—so busy with so many people about. I just... It's lovely to be alone for a little while, just the two of us. We haven't had much time to talk of late."

  He sucked in a breath, scrambling for excuses.

  "It's all right. I know." She cut him off. Was it possible that she did know? All the excuses he'd made? His desperate bids to avoid her? Could he have done anything designed to hurt a woman like Rhiannon more?

  Regardless, he should just let it go, change the subject and pretend that he hadn't caught her meaning. It was the wisest course. The most logical one.

  Instead, he turned his gaze into the distance, where the darkness lay thick and still. "Forgive me, Rhiannon. I am used to being alone," he said, his fingers tightening on the rough stone.

  "I know." Sorrow touched her voice. "It must be difficult, being commander over so many men. You must feel so isolated sometimes, making all the decisions."

  "I was alone long before I joined the army, my dear. I can never recall any other way for as long as I can remember."

  "But your family.... you must have had someone—"

  "My parents and sister died in a fire when I was five. My grandfather became my guardian."

  "No wonder you were lonely. You were taken from a home that was bustling with your mama and papa and sister. Your grandfather's house would have been far quieter, the household of a lone old man. But I'm certain he tried to make provisions for you, brought neighboring boys to play. Or the servants' children must have been about."

  "No. Grandfather abhorred distractions."

  "Distractions?"

  "Anything that kept me from concentrating on my lessons. Other children, playthings, even books read just for pleasure. He claimed they were a waste of precious time."

  "But—but that is absurd! A boy needs someone to laugh with, play at knights and dragons. Surely he couldn't have—"

  "I'm afraid he was adamant. You see, my intellect was a thing of endless fascination for him. The chance to shape it offered an irresistible challenge to the old man. I was to be his masterpiece."

  "You make it sound so cold. But he wanted to teach you, to share all he had learned. Perhaps he saw that as the greatest gift he could bestow. Maybe it was his way of showing you that he loved you very much in his own way."

  No. There had been no love involved, no sharing. Merely the cold calculations as to how much information he could cram into a boy's head before it burst. A chilling experiment to forge a human mind into the most subtle and lethal of weapons to be wielded at Paxton Redmayne's command.

  Redmayne started to speak, then stopped himself. Had he lost his wits sometime during that waltz? He'd only wanted to explain to her that he was accustomed to being alone. That it was no flaw in her that drove him away. He hadn't meant to start babbling about things he'd never spoken of before to another soul.

  "Do you see your grandfather often?" Rhiannon asked after a long moment.

  "No. Grandfather had a great dislike for surprises. When I grew up, I... surprised him." Redmayne's mouth curved in a grim smile.

  "How?"

  "I did not choose the future he had planned for me."

  "Not so unusual a sin! Boys and fathers have battled over such differences of opinion since the beginning of time!" She leaped to champion the mutinous youth that he had been. Redmayne explored the odd sensation—someone ready to fight in his defense. It was strange and yet soul-warming, bittersweet after all these years. What might it have meant to him an eternity ago, before he'd ridden away from Rawmarsh, his grandfather's estate, alone? His smile softened as she continued. "After a good deal of stubbornness and great shows of suffering, the two sides usually take a deep breath and mend the rif
t."

  "Perhaps. Or they attempt to forget the other ever existed."

  How cold had the words sounded? She looked as if they'd hurt her. "Oh, Lion! That's tragic. Stubborn, clinging to pride, when a simple word of forgiveness would likely unsnarl everything."

  "Isn't that just like you, Rhiannon? Certain that with a wave of your hand the ugliest wound should be healed. Some things aren't destined to heal. Other things shouldn't be."

  "I don't believe that," she asserted, her chin tipping up. He wished he could kiss her. Turn her mouth up to his and drown in the taste of her, driving back the unsettling thoughts of the life he thought he'd buried long ago. He wished he could believe in Rhiannon's world, where even broken things were cherished, where everyone was worthy of love and needed only to reach out for it. But he'd learned different lessons at his grandfather's knee, lessons he would never forget.

  "Lion, perhaps you should try to heal the breach. Your grandfather must be very old. One day you'll awaken and it will be too late. I couldn't bear the thought of you carrying that burden of regret."

  Redmayne peered down at her, aching. When had he fallen prey to this desperate need to protect her, shield her? He who had never turned away from ugliness or attempted to evade the truth? Rhiannon, so utterly honest. What would she think if he told her how he'd spent his last night in Rawmarsh? Gripping his fencing foil through the night, imagining his grandfather's eyes widening in surprise, his blood staining the bright blade?

  Shouldn't a blood price have been paid, not for the destruction of Lionel's own childhood but rather for the life of the only man who had dared show Lionel a world beyond that brittle cage his grandfather had built around him? Antonio Tidei, the Italian sword master who had taught Lionel for years every secret of the blade. He'd regaled a lonely boy with countless tales of battles fought and won, of a world of adventure far from the tomblike halls of Rawmarsh. Then Tidei had made a fatal error.

  He'd dared to suggest that Lionel would make a fine soldier, thereby opening the door to Lionel's prison—and fastening the lid on his own tomb. His was not the quick, merciful death due a man of such incomparable grace and courage. No. The slow, torturous death, not of his body but of something far more valuable to Antonio Tidei: his honor.