Heart's Ransom

by Sara Reinke

  * * *

  After supper, Rafe went and stood outside in the shadow-draped courtyard at the inn. It was a mild evening, comfortable and cool, and he enjoyed the refreshing press of the breeze against him as it fluttered through the thin linen of his shirt. He had written a long letter to Claudio before stepping out of the room. He had described all of Felipe’s recent accomplishments, and praised the boy for how readily and quickly he was learning his trade. He had wondered then―as he did now, while looking skyward and admiring the pale glow of the swollen, gibbous moon―if Lucio had ever harbored such fond thoughts toward him as he had written to Evarado.

  Like Evarado, Lucio had been a man of closely guarded emotions. On his deathbed, he had called Rafe a good boy, and now, in retrospect, Rafe could remember plenty of occasions in which Lucio had been kind to him, nearly fatherly in fashion. As a youth, Rafe had always been too filled with insecurity and self-doubt to see what seemed apparent to him now―that, like Evarado, Lucio had loved him; that he, too, had been proud of Rafe.

  “Rafe?”

  Felipe’s hesitant voice startled him from distant thoughts and pleasant recollections, and he turned to find the boy in the doorway to their room, silhouetted at the threshold by the dim, golden lamplight from within.

  “I thought you were sleeping, lad,” Rafe said with a smile. “I am sorry. I did not wake you, did I?”

  “No, sir,” the boy said, shaking his head, and as Rafe drew near, he could see that Felipe was wide-eyed, his expression apprehensive and somewhat afraid.

  “What is it, Felipe?” Rafe asked, concerned.

  Felipe glanced over his shoulder, into the room. “There is someone at the door, sir,” he said quietly. “Someone asking for you. A woman.”

  The villagers knew better than to disturb him at the inn unless it was some matter of extreme urgency. Rafe never failed to make himself available to them during the daytime, but barring emergencies, had insisted on maintaining this modicum of privacy. For the most part, his wishes were observed.

  “Who?” Rafe asked, slipping past Felipe and crossing the room to the main door. He wondered if it was Carla; if her boy had suffered some sort of reaction to the herbal remedy he had prescribed. “Did she say what she wanted?”

  “She said she was looking for el mago bendito,” Felipe said, drawing Rafe to an abrupt halt, his left hand extended, outstretched for the door knob. “A blessed magician, sir. A miracle worker, she said.”

  Rafe had never told Felipe that his own teacher, Lucio, had once been called this. It was a title never extended by the people of Fatima, whose gratefulness for healing intervention had been more practical than mystic. No one would have known to look for Rafe in Fatima by that name. No one, he thought. Except…

  “She speaks funny, sir,” Felipe said. “Her Spanish is muy malto―very bad, like my Portuguese. Like she has only just learned it.”

  Rafe felt the hairs along the back of his neck stir all at once against the point where he had caught his shoulder-length locks back in a haphazard tail. It cannot be.

  “I think she is English,” Felipe said.

  It cannot be! Rafe thought, and he could not breathe. He opened the door and staggered against the doorframe, his eyes flown wide. “Kitty!” he gasped.

  She smiled at him, her auburn hair piled loosely atop her head, spilling about her face in wayward ringlets. She was dressed in a floral-print dress trimmed in lace, the sort a woman wore a corset beneath to cinch her waist to tantalizingly miniscule proportions, and thrust her breasts together and upward in equally provocative fashion. She held a man’s walking stick in her hands, and as she directed her sea-green eyes at the sound of his voice, however feeble it had been in the utterance, he watched blush bloom lightly in her cheeks.

  “I see you decided to climb out the window after all,” she said, and it took him a moment to realize what she meant―the story of her own youth, and how she had overcome her fear of blindness by sneaking out of her father’s manor house alone. She had stripped him of his breath, his senses, and his casual recollect of his own bloody name.

  “I…yes,” he said, looking down momentarily at his crippled hand. “Yes, I suppose I did. Someone rather wise once reminded me to have courage, and not let my injuries make me bitter or angry.”

  The color in her cheeks blossomed all the more deeply, and her smile widened. “I am glad for that,” she said. “As I have need of a physician tonight.”

  He shook his head once, struggling to force coherence back into his brain. “How…?” he asked, finding his voice. “How did you find me?”

  “You told me once that you would come here, if you had half a head of sense,” she replied. “You said you would give the ships to Claudio and move to Fatima. It took me awhile to arrange for correspondence with Claudio in Mallorca to find out for sure. I have never held much confidence in which half of sense your head possessed.”

  He blinked at her, and the lovely measure of her smile widened mischievously.

  “But I…you…” he stammered helplessly. “I promised your father…”

  “There was never any agreement as to whether or not I could write to Claudio, or if he, in turn, could write to me,” Kitty said, hoisting her chin somewhat defiantly. “You and my father need to learn how to negotiate more thoroughly.”

  After another moment spent with him simply sputtering, she laughed. “Are you going to invite me inside?”

  He blinked, shaking his head again. “What? Yes. Yes, of course.” He sidestepped to allow her access. “Please come in.”

  She walked past him, leaving a delicate fragrance of lavender trailing in her wake. It nearly stripped the strength from his legs; he closed his eyes, inhaling the sweet scent deeply.

  He watched her tap the walking stick back and forth in front of her to guide her passage into the unfamiliar room. He glanced toward Felipe, who sat on his bed, watching Kitty―or more specifically, the wondrous swell of her bosom straining against the confines of her dress. When the boy met his gaze momentarily, Rafe cut his eyes at the still-open door in mute directive: Get hence.

  The boy grinned broadly and scampered to his feet, fully understanding the unspoken message. He darted past Kitty, mumbling farewells to her in Spanish, and then ducked outside. Rafe closed the door behind him, and then closed the distance between himself and Kitty. Already, his groin was stoked with urgent heat; already, he could feel himself hardening beneath his breeches. He caught her waist and turned her about, pressing her back against the wall. He immediately kissed her, delving his tongue deeply into her mouth, and letting his uninjured hand fall firmly against her breast.

  “I love you, Rafe,” Kitty moaned softly, twining her fingers in his hair, pulling him fiercely against her. She gasped, leaning her head back as he kissed her throat, her ear, his hand moving in sweeping, heavy circles against her breast. “I love you,” she said again.

  Madre de Dios, I could never tire of hearing that, he thought, and he smiled, lifting his head to look up at her. “I love you, too,” he whispered.

  He kissed her again, meaning to take her in his arms and pull her onto the bed with him. He wanted to shove her skirts aside and take her suddenly, sweetly, and then it occurred to him that this was impossible; no matter how wondrous or vivid it seemed, it could not be real. Surely he was dreaming―some marvelous yet cruel invention of his mind. There was no way Kitty could be in Fatima; no way in the bloody wide world her father would have let her out of his sight long enough.

  Her father! At the thought of John Ransom, Rafe’s blood ran frigid, his throat constricting, his pallor abruptly draining. He had promised John―given his sworn oath―that he would never see Kitty again; never contact her, never draw near to her. He had told John that Kitty’s virtues remained intact, that he had never violated her, but whether or not John had believed him, Rafe did not know. Whatever his assurances, they had not been convincing enough to keep John from forcing that promise from Rafe; on some level, he mu
st have suspected the truth, whether he had wanted to admit it or not.

  “Kitty,” Rafe whispered, stricken. If this was real, and she was there, then John Ransom would be fast upon her heels―and this time, Rafe doubted he would show any mercy, much less benefit of the doubt, when he shoved his pistol against Rafe’s head. “Kitty, how did you get here? Where is your father?”

  “He is here, at the inn,” Kitty replied, and Rafe choked for breath, feeling as though she had just punted him in the groin. “We have taken a room of our own, and he would like you to join us for supper. Felipe, too, of course.”

  Rafe did not speak; he could not. He gasped for breath, his eyes flown wide, and Kitty laughed. “Did you think I bloody well walked here all by myself from England, Rafe?” she asked, grinning broadly. “I am blind, in case you have not noticed. There would have been quite the feat.”

  She laughed again at his shock, and pressed her hand against his face. “It is alright,” she said, smiling, leaning forward to kiss him. “I have had many occasions to speak with my father at both some length and in depth these past months, and while he may not like it, I have brought him around to my way of thinking.”

  “Your way…?” Rafe asked.

  “I love you, Rafe Serrano Beltran,” Kitty said, her smile softening, growing tender. Her eyes filled with tears, glistening in the lamplight. “I want to be with you―for the rest of my days, wherever you are, whatever you choose to do. I want to be with you.”

  He blinked at her, moved. “Kitty,” he said, reaching up and caressing her face.

  “Tell me you want that, too,” she breathed. “Please say that you do, Rafe, or…or else I have just made the greatest fool of myself, and will likely never live long enough to even begin to make amends by―”

  “I want that, too,” he said, pressing his mouth against hers in a sudden kiss that cut her voice abruptly short. “I want that, too,” he said again, laughing against her mouth. “I want that, too―Madre de Dios, Kitty, I want that more than anything.”

  Her fingers tangled in his hair again, clutching him near, and again, he felt himself stirring, his arousal mounting with sudden, straining insistence. She felt it, too, and moved her hands to touch his waist, to pull him against her. “Kitty,” he murmured, as she continued to kiss him, tugging against him.

  She pulled him in stumbling tow until they staggered against the side of the bed, and then she sat against the mattress. She hooked her hands against the waistband of his breeches and pulled him down toward her. “Kitty, wait,” he said, even as he settled against her, as the frame of her skirt creaked and groaned beneath his weight and her legs parted beneath her skirts to envelop her thighs. “Wait,” he said again as she caught his face between her hands and pulled him near, kissing him fiercely. “We cannot…not now…your father…”

  “He will wait,” Kitty whispered. She reached between them, jerking at her skirts to pull them up. “I told you―I have need for a physician tonight.”

  Rafe arched his brow as her hands moved busily to the waistcord of his breeches, loosening them from about his hips. “Have you now?” he whispered. He shifted his weight, letting her shove his pants down. He felt the warm strength of her thighs pressing against him, drawing him near, and as he lowered himself against her, sliding into her warmth, Kitty moaned softly, clutching at him, whimpering his name.

  It was all of the reply he would ever need.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  “Definitely an author to watch.” That's how Romantic Times Book Reviews magazine describes Sara Reinke. New York Times bestselling author Karen Robards calls Reinke “a new paranormal star” and Love Romances and More hails her as “a fresh new voice to a genre that has grown stale.” Find out more about Reinke and her available titles at www.sarareinke.com